Automation Workspace v.33 release

Review what's new and changed, and the fixes and limitations in Automation Workspace for the v.33 release.

Bot Agent update

The following features and fixes require a Bot Agent update:
Type Details
New features Generative AI package updates for data logging.

1.9.0

Simplify the debugging of complex, multi-level automations.

Advanced debugging

Configuration for RDP-based deployment:
  • RDP logs file.
  • NamedPipe Client connections.

RDP-based deployment

Automation recording notification

Recording notification

Number sign ( # ) in credentials

Add number sign (#)

Changed features Automation recording details on the Historical page

Recording details

Fixes Check to ensure that the expired global cache embedded resource file is not deleted.

Expired global cache fix

Generic error message is now displayed for if the automation recording fails.

Error message for failed automation recording

What's new

Control Room, devices, and Bot Agent
Introducing capability to delete unused package versions (Service Cloud Case ID: 01921225, 01947723, 01947850, 01955753, 01970055, 01974608, 01971196)

We now provide you with an option to delete unused package versions from the Automation 360 On-Premises Control Room. Deleting package versions that are not used in any of the automations enhances the security and maintenance of your Control Room. Additionally, it saves storage costs and simplifies infrastructure, ensuring that only the necessary and up-to-date versions are retained.

Removing unused package versions | Delete unused package versions

New auto-download of pre-built templates
We have improved the process of providing pre-built templates. Pre-built templates are now automatically downloaded and do not require manual intervention of importing from the Bot Store. With this enhancement, developers can automatically receive a collection of pre-built templates in the Bot Store folder designed for common use cases from Automation Anywhere.
Note: The automatic download of templates is expected to start approximately after an hour of updating to Automation 360 v.33 or if you install Control Room with Automation 360 v.33 version.
Enhanced Automation templates
  • When creating automations ( Task Bots or Processes) from a template, you can now view the descriptions of the automation on the Create from template page or when you export and import templates or automations from one Control Room to another. This enhancement significantly enhances the developer experience, particularly when selecting templates to build automation, as it provides a concise understanding of the business context offered in a template.
  • On the Create from template > Task Bots window, the pre-built templates from Automation Anywhere now display the Automation Anywhere logo. This enhancement helps developers quickly locate the templates to build automations.
  • On the Automation page, you can now quickly filter and search template files by type (Task Bot template or Process template) in both Public and Private Workspace.
  • On the Bot editor or Process composer page, you can now see the file type (TaskBot, Process, API Task, TaskBot template, Process template) next to the automation or template name to easily identify an automation, process, or template you are working on.
Note: If the templates are already imported in the previous version (Automation 360 v.32) and you update to Automation 360 v.33, it will skip the update process and not show the Automation Anywhere icon and the template description. However, you can delete all the templates and re-import them manually to see the description and icon.

Ability to create process templates

To improve the process automation workflow and increase productivity, template and process creation has been enhanced. Process templates foster the process-first approach and enable rapid development of process automations.Pre-shipped automation templates provide a head start for building automations with best practices, reducing development time, and improving the automation quality. Pre-shipped templates will lead to increased adoption by Citizen developers and help customers scale automation across the organization
Advanced debugging (Service Cloud Case ID: 01798804, 01934630, 00770567, 01841968, 00475158, 01947636, 01958285, 01961645, 01971313, 02004039, 02108905)
Accelerate developer productivity by simplifying the debugging of complex, multi-level automations. Quickly move through and troubleshoot nested automations, use the call stack to track and navigate automation sequences, and adjust variables while executing automations to pinpoint and fix issues faster.
Note: This capability is available with Bot Agent (version 22.60.23 and later) and Task Bot package (version 2.8.0-20230530-152744 and later).

Debugging your automations

Schedule API Tasks

Create a schedule to run API Tasks at a specified date and time configured in the Control Room.

How to schedule API Tasks

Additional configuration options for RDP-based deployment (Service Cloud Case ID: 02083153, 02102505, 02115078, 02114308)
Use the following additional options to configure RDP-based deployments:

Bot Agent update required.

Add number sign ( # ) in credentials (Service Cloud Case ID: 02108672)

Device credentials such as username and password now support the use of the number sign ( # ) in Automation 360.

Bot Agent update required.

Supported special characters in usernames and passwords

Event notification for automation recordings

If the Bot execution recording is available, the status of all the automation recordings are now displayed as an event alert in the Notifications.

Bot Agent update required.

Automation events

Repository partitioning

Repository partitioning in Automation 360 enables you to segregate large-sized public repository into multiple manageable repositories. By segmenting high-transaction folders into separate Git repositories, repository partitioning maintains quick and reliable check-ins, check-outs, exports, imports, and other operations, even as your repository size expands.

Understanding repository partitioning

ACC - Process automations widget

The ACC homepage now provides a new widget called the Process automations as part of the Operations section. Users with the required permission can view this widget on the ACC homepage to get the status of the various process automations.

Process automations

Custom announcements

As a Control Room administrator, you can now publish important information or critical updates to all the users, which appear as banner notifications on the Home page. You can configure the custom announcement settings to specify a title and detailed messages.

Configure custom announcements

Support for private key JWT for OAuth

This method of authentication ensures the service provider can validate the signature of the authorized client's request to obtain an access token.

OAuth support for Private Key JWT

Enhanced appearance of the selected repository (Service Cloud Case ID: 01975140)
The Automation page is enhanced with the following changes:
  • The workspace that is in use is highlighted.

    For example, if you are viewing the folders, automations, and other contents of the Private workspace, then this workspace will have a distinct highlight.

  • The Search within subfolders option is selected by default.

Working with automations

Packages, actions, and Bot editor
Generative AI package

The newly added Response format option in OpenAI: Chat AI and Microsoft Azure OpenAI actions within the Generative AI package allows you to instruct the model to return the response in JSON or text format.

OpenAI: Chat AI action | Azure OpenAI: Chat AI action

APIs and integrations
Connector Builder
With the Connector Builder tool, you can now:
  • Test the actions before publishing.
  • Upload files within the request body.
  • Save the connector with errors and can rework on them later.
  • Download and share a published connector.
Note: This feature requires an additional license. Contact your Automation Anywhere account representative for more information.

Test custom connector | Form data| View custom connectors | Download published custom connector

Set length cap for filter execution list API (/v3/activity/list API)

To avoid unbounded queries that could impact system availability, the maximum page length for the filter execution list API (/v3/activity/list) has been capped at 10,000. Previously, you could use the API to retrieve more than 10,000 entries at a time. The default page length is 200 if no value is specified.

Bot Execution Orchestrator API

The deprecated Authentication APIs: POST v1/authenticationand POST v1/authentication/token are discontinued and will stop working. To ensure uninterrupted access, update your applications to use the v2 versions of the Authentication APIs: POST v2/authenticationand POST v2/authentication/token.

Authentication API

The deprecated User Management APIsv1/usermanagement are discontinued and will stop working. To ensure uninterrupted access, update your applications to use the v2 versions of the User Management APIs v2/usermanagement.

User Management API

What's changed

Control Room, devices, and Bot Agent
Updates to the notification settings

Control Room administrators can now use the updates in the notification settings to customize the user notifications that includes email channel.

Manage notification channels

Status update to the Code Analysis results

The Code Analysis results column in the Automation window now contains an updated status called Critical.

Checking out code analysis results

Enhancement to the OpenSearch authentication password

The OpenSearch credential is now enhanced with additional requirements for generating an authentication password.

Add OpenSearch credentials

Update to the Run wizard

Starting from Automation 360 v.33 release, the Run wizard that is available on the Automation page is updated to provide all the options associated with running or scheduling a bot.

Run a bot

Failed or stopped bot status

The Failed or Stopped activities on the In progress activity page are now automatically moved to Activity > > Historical page.

Bot Agent update required.

Activities

Hashicorp vault's secrets engine path

To access the HashiCorp Vault APIs, the Control Room automatically appends the default Secrets engine path v1/secret/data to the vault URL.

Users can now configure a custom value for this path from Control Room from the External key vault settings page.

Cloud integration using HashiCorp Vault

Upper limit of the allowed IP addresses

You can now set a maximum of 200 allowed IP address entries from the Administration > Settings > Network settings page. Previously the limit was a maximum of 25.

Allowed IP addresses

Disable system-defined roles in the Control Room (Service Cloud Case ID: 01893618, 01956439)

This feature enables you to have more control to manage permissions granted to a role and thereby helping you to address security concerns.

System-created roles

CyberArk integration with Control Room using API gateway

You can connect Control Room with CyberArk (key vault) using API Gateway. This connection also supports the Client Credential Flow grant type from OAuth 2.0.

Integrate Automation 360Control Room with CyberArk using API gateway

Name changes on the license page:
  • Enterprise Platform – Plus is now called Enterprise Platform
  • Automation Co-Pilot for Automators is now called Intelligent Automation - Automator AI - Base
  • Recommendations for Automators (Number of recommendations) is now called Automator AI Recommendations
  • Document Automation 360 Extraction is now called Document Automation

  • Document Automation Standard Forms is now called Standard Forms for Document Automation

  • Google Document AI is now called Google Document AI for Document Automation

Automation 360 licenses

Limit over consumption of API Tasks

There are rules enforced on over-consumption of API Tasks.

Automation 360 licenses and Automation 360 components by license and deployment

User delete alert notification

An authorized user can send an alert to the user with Manage my locker permission or a user with View and Manage roles permission when a user who is deleted is the owner of a credential or a locker.

Manage Control Room users

CyberArk vault's virtual directory path

It is mandatory to specify the key vault's virtual directory path. The default value of this field is /AIMWebService/api/Accounts. However, users can now configure a custom value for this path from Control Room from the External key vault settings page.

Cloud integration using CyberArk Password Vault

Enhancement to new user registration link

The user registration link provided in the user registration email is now set to expire after 24 hours to enhance the security of the registration process.

Create a user

Automation recording details

The Historical page is now updated to contain the details such as name, connected device and the runtime information of the selected automation recording.

Manage automation recording

Updates to Run with queue

The Run > Run with queue wizard is now updated to provide additional options for processing your work items.

Using the Run with queue

Client credentials flow

Client credentials flow is supported as the new grant type in OAuth connections.

OAuth client credentials flow

Seamlessly disable inactive users

You can automatically disable users who are inactive for a specified number of days so that you can optimize your user accounts efficiently.

Disable inactive users

Control Room API updated to v2 (Service Cloud Case ID: 02117970, 02127534)

After updating to this release, the Authentication API will be updated from v1 to v2. Therefore, ensure that you use the correct version of the Bot Scanner.

Bot Scanner for migration

Edit the scheduled activity name (Service Cloud Case ID: 02115665)

After you update to this release, you will be able to edit the name of the scheduled activity now along with other existing options.

Edit a scheduled activity

Fixes

You no longer encounter issues when you edit a bot in the Bot editor, the value saved in the Session name field, conditional actions, iterator-related conditions is no longer removed from the corresponding bot.

Previously, due to an issue, the values were not saved in the bot for conditional actions, iterator-related conditions, and dictionaries.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02145412,02148841

When you create a bot using packages such as Dictionary or Datetime and select Datetime to assign a value, the selected values are retained, and you can now save and run the bot without any issues.

Previously, when you tried to create a bot and selected Datetime to assign a value, an error was displayed, preventing you from saving and running the bot.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02143704

Fix for CVE-2024-6922, a medium-security vulnerability in the Control Room v.32 and earlier.

The blind Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability described in CVE-2024-6922 allows unauthenticated attackers to access the Control Room HTTPS service (port 443) or HTTP service (port 80) and trigger arbitrary web requests on the server. These requests could potentially target internal network services and systems that are not otherwise reachable. The fix is included in all released versions of v.33 regardless of previous release notes.

When you create a bot using Dictionary > Put action, you can now view and read the dictionary key values in debug mode.

Previously, when you created a bot using the Dictionary > Put action, defined a dictionary variable and key parameter with "/," and when you used Watched variables in debug mode to watch the values of the dictionary variable during bot execution, the values were not displayed correctly.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02103635

You no longer encounter any issues when you perform Bulk update operations for any package to update the bots to the default package version.
Previously, when you edited a bot in the Bot editor after the bulk package update to the default package version, some actions displayed an error due to missing input values. This issue was seen in multiple packages that have been fixed.
Note: The bulk update package is designed to function correctly. While it might occasionally encounter errors, it is not a consistent occurrence. In such cases, you can update the package version manually or make changes in the bot to resolve the issue.

Service Cloud Case ID: 01952411, 01998646, 02088302, 02085991, 02095325, 02101474, 02110626, 01990994, 01992484, 01984578, 01991720, 01983265, 01994192, 02048170, 02084881, 02113562, 02101748

When you create a bot, use a table variable with column type as Datetime and no values defined in the Datetime column, the bot no longer fails with an error on execution.
When the Run as user associated with a WLM automation is deleted, the corresponding work item that is deployed on the device is no longer stuck in Active state and the correct status of the queue execution is now displayed in the Activity > In progress page.
Any GIT push failures that occur are now captured correctly in the Audit logs with a valid failure message.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02102977

When you update to this release, the Automation Anywhere Control Room Monitoring Service now runs without any errors and points to the correct Java Development Kit (JDK) that is bundled with the Control Room.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02102465

If there is a trigger to start a bot and a user with Bot Runner license repeats the trigger event, the tasks are now queued and complete successfully without any error messages.

Service Cloud Case ID: 01997123

The WLM automation priority that would vary intermittently is now retained even when the automation is paused or resumed.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02082170, 02098377

You can now configure the Control Room repository without any issues even when the repository file path does not contain the term Server Files.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02003396, 02102222

You can now highlight and copy the name of the variable in the Run action of the Task Bot package when the corresponding bot is in View mode.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02125390

When you use the Export filtered items option to export work items to a CSV file, the number of filtered items that appear in the interface now matches the number of items exported in the CSV file when the Created On date is different from the Updated On date option for the work items

Service Cloud Case ID: 02110291

Deleting activities from the alert table no longer causes any issues such as memory outage in the Control Room.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02108180

When you update the Datetime package to version 2.14.0 from a lower version, it now retains all variables that were added when building an automation using the version 2.10.3 or lower.
Bot Execution Orchestrator API - v3/activity/execution/{id} Endpoint Fix

The Bot Execution Orchestrator API endpoint v3/activity/execution/{id} now provides accurate progress and current line information for deployments utilizing child/task-bots. Previously, the API response did not accurately reflect the progress value and current line.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02098447

Authentication API - v2/authentication Endpoint Fix

The Authentication APIs now function without errors when multiple calls are made in parallel.

Service Cloud case ID: 02124633

You can now rerun bots from the Activity > Historical activity page. Previously, a user could not run bots from this page when the activity run now feature was enabled.

Users can now successfully create an OAuth connection from the Control Room Manage OAuth connections page. They can do this while integrating their applications using the REST Web Service package with OAuth 2.0 as the authentication method.

Previously, a "Test connection failed" error message was sometimes displayed.

Users can install, allocate, and deallocate a license without any interruption. Previously, some of these activities could not be performed and a generic serve exception error was displayed

Service Cloud case ID: 02119513, 02119599, 02119561, 02119576, 02119572, 02119570, 02119573, 02119586, 02119629, 02119632, 02119633, 02119644, 02119646, 02119645

Bot deployments in queue are cleared even when the user who added the executions to the queue is deleted from the Control Room. Previously, the bots were stuck in such a scenario

Service Cloud case ID: 02100420

Audit logs display the correct time zone for scheduled bots of event type "Run bot deployed. Previously, there was a time zone discrepancy.

Service Cloud case ID: 02094915

Users are now able to pause and stop an automation from the In-progress activity page. Previously, they had to stop the Work Load Management automation from the View automation page using the Queue details.

Service Cloud case ID: 02088588, 02097849

A user with authorized permission (Manage activity from user's folder and View Everyone's Activity) can now view Active bot runs from another bot creator user's private repository. Previously, non-admin users were not able to view other users private bot runs even with the View Everyone's Activity role permission.

Users now remain logged in to the Control Room even when multiple tabs are open. Logout occurs only when they explicitly log out or there is an idle timeout. Previously, when accessing the Control Room using multiple windows or tabs of the same web browser, the users were logged out intermittently from the Control Room with an error message.

Service Cloud case ID: 02105467, 02132764, 02133776, 02129262, 02134700, 02135467, 02129337, 02132757, 02126864, 02136090, 02130715, 02136027, 02130087, 02131535, 02136254, 02135346, 02136824, 02130392, 02138010, 02136496, 02135668, 02136618, 02139924, 02135238, 02130392, 02142153, 02143447, 02144137, 02139792, 02144287, 02139516, 02140009, 02145743, 02146663, 02146696, 02142038, 02148157, 02147560, 02146638, 02137790, 02145195, 02148305, 02142153, 02149031, 02142991,02150072.

Users can now successfully create an OAuth connection from the Control Room Manage OAuth connections page that requires Client Secret Post authentication method. Previously, if the service provider required this, a Test connection failed error message would be displayed.

While transferring the ownership of a WLM automation, the help text that is displayed at the top of the list now provides the details of the various access and permissions required by the new owner such as the bot name, queue name, run-as users and device pool names.
When code analysis is enabled on a folder and a bot with missing packages is imported into that folder, code analysis does not run for that bot. An error message is displayed indicating the missing packages. The errors in the bot must be fixed before running code analysis.

Previously, code analysis ran on the bot regardless of whether it contained missing package errors.

If the Assistant window is open and shows a violation of the code analysis policy, you can delete the actions causing this violation successfully.

Previously, an error occurred, and the action could not be deleted.

When a bot deployment was in progress, there would an event that intermittently caused the associated packages or consumed resources to be deleted. After you update to this release, there is a check to ensure that the expired global cache embedded resource file is not deleted by cache cleanup job when those resources are being used by the in-progress bot.

Bot Agent update required.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02086266

Note: This fix is not available as part of the standard installation. Contact your Automation Anywhere Customer Support for assistance on enabling this feature.

If a role is removed from OAuth connections, it is not automatically removed from a locker consumer role. Previously, If a locker was associated with a consumer role and an OAuth connection was created for that role, later removing the specific role from the OAuth connection also resulted in the consumer role being automatically removed from the locker.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02125518

After updating to this release, you can import bots successfully to any Control Room that is having repository as a Network-attached storage (NAS) drive without any issues.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02131238, 02137797

You can now update Automation 360 to v.33 release without any issues even if you are using the Microsoft SQL Server 2014.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02141056

If you have a multi-node deployment, after updating to this release, users will be able to access any of the active or available nodes without any issues as the unused Database connections are closed automatically.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02127105, 02139317

If the functionality to record automation execution is available and the automation recording fails due to any of the reasons, a generic error message is now displayed correctly.
Note: Ensure that you update the Bot Agent to an equivalent or later version that is available with Automation 360 v.33 release to view this update.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02130216

After you update to this release, the Packages tab is displayed correctly in the Compare versions page for the selected automation.
After updating to this release, the value that you had saved in the Session name field is no longer removed from the corresponding bots when you update the packages to the latest available version.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02141441, 02132782, 02140297

After you update to this release, when the .jar files are created by Newrelic in the Java TEMP folder, the older files are now cleared correctly.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02134059, 02139628, 02147867

When you update to this release, the http connection timeout is now set to 3 minutes that enables the Websocket to reconnect after a connection timeout. Therefore, Bot Agent devices that are connected to the Control Room are no longer disconnected intermittently due to Websocket connect issues

Service Cloud Case ID: 02132374, 02143561

Limitations

When you try to check-in a bot, an error message is displayed intermittently that is caused due to the stale index.lock file bot being deleted automatically.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02101840, 02108394,02116666,01984944, 02129953, 02100625, 02121038, 02120628, 02123571, 02117517, 02132458

When you create a bot using Loop, While, If, or If-else conditions and add another action after the conditional statement, the values added in the conditional statement are not retained.

Workaround: When you create a bot and use Loop, While, If, or If-else conditions, ensure you save the bot after you enter the values in the conditional statement and then add another action to the Bot editor

The delete unused package version feature does not include packages used by templates or processes. If a package version is only used in a template or a process file but not in a Taskbot or API bot, currently, there is no provision that the system prompts and prevents you from deleting unused package versions in such scenarios.

In the Control Room, pages where pagination drop-down component are displayed, you select items greater than 25, 50, 100, or so on and click the right arrow (→) to add your selection. If the number of items you select exceeds the number chosen in the pagination drop-down, the drop-down menu and page number will not be displayed.

For example, you navigated to the Update bot page to update bots to the default package version, selected 28 packages to move them to the right-side table, selected the table filter value as 25, and then navigated to the second page of the right-side table. You will see that the pagination drop-down and pagination number disappear.

Workaround: Remove the selected item(s) from the last page to see the Pagination drop-down and pagination number. In the above example, you chose 28 packages to add them to the right side and selected the table filter value as 25. Now, on the right side table, navigate to the second page with three selected items (packages), and remove the three selected items manually for the pagination drop-down and number to appear.

In the Notification Settings > Email channel option, any image file that you had selected in the Company logo (Optional) field is removed when you edit any other setting in the Email channeland save the changes.

For example, you had selected a file in the Company logo (Optional) field and the Secondary email language drop-down menu was set to None. Now when you use the Secondary email language drop-down menu to select French, the updated company logo is removed.

While creating an OAuth connection using PKCE, you cannot provide a Client secret.

Workaround: Create an OAuth connection without a Client secret. Edit your OAuth connection and add a Client secret.

The Control Room allows you to save the Administration > Settings > Inactive User Account Auto-Disable Configuration option even when a role is not selected.

Updates to the interface

Automation Workspace
When you Create a template from a process or Build an automation from a process template, the Process template label now displays next to the template title in the upper left corner:

Process template

See Create process templates

When selecting a custom or pre-built template, you can now click the Process tab to show process templates only. To preview a process and review its details as read-only in a new browser tab, you can click the Binoculars icon.

Pre-built process templates

See Process tab enhancement