Version 11.3 Release Notes

New features, changed features, fixed features, security fixes, deprecated features, and known limitations introduced in Version 11.3 of Automation Anywhere components Control Room, Enterprise Client, and Bot Insight.

New features

Control Room new features
Feature Description
Support for Japanese RPA (Zendesk #89692, 76395) Version 11.3 has been tested and certified to work on Japanese Operating Systems, Language, Locale, and Regional Settings. With 11.3, the RPA users can:
  • Install Automation Anywhere Control Room and Client on a machine with the Japanese Operating System, Language, Locale, and Regional Settings.
  • Automate applications (Web and Desktop) with Japanese UI, text, and controls values (e.g. push-button with a Japanese name, combo-box items in Japanese text etc.)
  • Provide Japanese name to a bot, Workflow and Report in Enterprise Client.
  • Provide Japanese name to Bot Schedules, Automation Name and Description, Role Name and Description, User's First and Last Names, Workload Pools, and Queues.
  • Deploy a botwith a Japanese name onto Bot Runners.

    View the Japanese entities (names, description etc.) across all the pages in Control Room.
Enhanced Scheduler APIs AAE 11.3 provides even more APIs for Schedule Management. With these APIs, Customers can create their own custom dashboard to create and manage Schedules. The dashboard can be localized and customized as per the Customer's choice (language, display of fields etc.). This removes the dependency on the Control Room and enables access of RPA schedules across Third Party Applications and dashboards.
Support for Attended and Unattended Automation

With 11.3, there is a clear segregation of Attended and Unattended RPA within the product. Customers can configure X number of attended automation users and Y number of unattended automation users.

  • Attended Users: This is a new category of Automation Anywhere users which is introduced in the product. Users who are tagged as attended automation users can run the bots only on their own work-stations using the Enterprise Client. These users can also make use of local schedules and triggers for time/event based automation. Main usecase for Attended Users would be Front Office Automation, where a bot might require user input. bots cannot be deployed from Control Room to the machines of Attended Users.
  • Unattended Users: Unattended Users can perform all automation tasks that Attended Users can perform, such as manual run of bot. Additionally, Unattended Users can also be used for Control Room deployment, centralized scheduling and API based deployment. Unattended automation would primarily be for bots that do not require user input and can also work on unmanned Machines/VMs/VDIs/Cloud Infrastructure.
Note: A new license file is required to use this feature
Multi-forest Support (Zendesk #47892,66487,101239)

With 11.3, Automation Anywhere supports Active Directory multi-domain as well as multi-forest deployments. This ensures RPA Infrastructure can be spread across multiple Active Directory (AD) forests. For example, all Bot Creators and Bot Runners, across the AD forests in enterprise, can connect to a single Control Room configured in any of the forests. This significantly reduces deployment and management of separate RPA instances across the AD forests. This also enables rapid RPA scaling without making too many changes to IT Infrastructure.

Note: Two-way trust relationship should be configured for Active Directory forests.
Chat-Bot Integration

With the enhanced Work-Load APIs provided in AAE 11.3, a user can orchestrate an RPA system to link Chat-Bots to Automation Anywhere's Task Bots. Data can be sent from Chat-Bots so as to populate a Work-Load queue, which the Task Bots will process at regular customizable intervals; and the resulting output of the Task Bot can be sent over to the Chat-Bot for real-time consumption and display to the end-user.

This ensures that the end-users (who are chatting) get a real-time view and progress over their servicing requirements; thus, enabling fastest SLA adherence
Audit Log Time Filter

Control Room users can refine the Audit Log records using a pre-built time-based filter. Users can see the Audit Log records for a pre-set time duration example. last day/week/month/quarter. Users can also use a custom search criterion to find Audit Log records between any two given date and time ranges. Users can combine time filter with the table level filters available at the Audit Log page. For any given time-filter, count of records is also displayed.
Elasticsearch Support

11.3 Control Room uses Elasticsearch to store and retrieve Audit Log data. This enables users to quickly search desired Audit Log records across all table columns, perform free text search, use wild cards, include and exclude search phrases, and so on. Elasticsearch fetches results very fast despite Audit Log containing millions of the records. User can also configure the back up of Elasticsearch data on the Disaster Recovery (DR) environment.

Note: When you migrate from earlier versions of Automation Anywhere Enterprise (For example, 10 SP2, 11.2) to Version 11.3.x, the Audit Logs will be migrated to Elasticsearch from SQL Database. The SQL Database will no longer be used to store Audit Logs.
Improved UX with Row level 'mouse-hover' actions Users have more flexibility now, in their interaction with individual items of Control Room tables. Users can now configure to keep the row level actions static or floating (display on mouse hover), in Control Room tables. If the actions are kept static, users can further choose to have those actions displayed on the left-hand side or right-hand side of table
Enterprise Client new features
Feature Description
Support for TLS 1.2 and SSL connection for Terminal Emulator (Zendesk #72468, 75968, 77578, 79052, 82382, 84628, 86684, 88362, 92034, 97962, 101094) With Enterprise Client Version 11.3, users can automate Mainframe terminals that operate only over SSL or TLS 1.2 Connection. 11.3 Terminal Emulator command also bring in Advanced Technology for terminal connection so as to support Japanese code-pages.
Japanese language support for mainframe automation in Terminal Emulator (Zendesk #74276) Introduced Japanese language support for 3270 and 5250 mainframe automation in the Terminal Emulator command.
Chrome 'Record and play' support for multiple-users on Terminal Server (Zendesk #53067, 77888, 79720, 96238, 103135) Multi-user 'Record and play' of applications over Chrome is now possible with Enterprise Client Version 11.3. This enables the users connected with the same Terminal Server to record applications over their instance of Chrome concurrently. This also enables a user to deploy a 'Chrome Automation Anywhere' bot from the Control Room over to Bot Runners sharing the same Terminal Server.
Enhanced extensibility using Abbyy OCR Enterprise Client now enables users to better configure image processing by Abbyy OCR engine. Abbyy uses same set of default parameters to extract images from screens of different applications. Different application images might need different parameters to deliver optimal OCR results. User is allowed to change default value of any of the parameters used and supported by Abbyy such as enable/disable table detection, configure resolution mode, and so on. This enhancement is available at all the places where OCR support is available viz. OCR command, MetaBot custom objects, and AISense.
Azure, Horizon VDI and Citrix XenApp Certification (Zendesk # 52223,54421) Enterprise Client Version 11.3 has been extensively tested on Azure Infrastructure, VMWare Horizon VDIs and Citrix XenApp has been provided with Enterprise Client Version 11.3.
Bot Insight new features
Feature Description
Center of Excellence (CoE) dashboard CoE Dashboard is now available with customizable metadata columns and additional business information to provide real-time ROI information.
Elasticsearch Adhoc Analysis Audit Trail dashboard enables easy search and is similar to a search engine like Google Search​. Allows for easy adhoc analysis and drill-down using text search.
Timestamp Data Formats Enhanced support for seven new timestamp formats in input data​. With this release a smarter engine is available requiring less work at Bot Creator end to pre-format the information.
Look and Feel Look and feel improvements have been made for the user interface to match the Automation Anywhere version 11 Control Room interface.

Changed features

There are no changed features listed for Bot Insight in this version.

Control Room changed features
Feature Description
Support for spaces in names for Active Directory user names (Zendesk # 98355) The application now allows you to include spaces in user names for a Control Room that is configured for Active Directory authentication.
Enterprise Client changed features
Feature Description
$Excel Cell Row$ variable always returns the row number of last affected cell in Excel Command When using the $Excel Cell Row$ variable in Set Cell or Go to Cell options of Excel command in a loop, the $Excel Cell Row$ variable always returns the row number of last affected cell and does not increment at every iteration of the command. This behavior is independent whether "Contains Header" is checked or unchecked in the Open Spreadsheet option of the Excel command.
Note: Existing customers if using $Excel Cell Row$ variable for incrementing the row might have to modify their bots by using a counter instead.

Fixed features

There are no fixed features listed for Bot Insight in this version.

Control Room fixed features
Zendesk ticket numbers Description
82601, 82615 Authentication API prompts error "Access Denied" in HTTPS Connection
96586, 97793, 101607 Task schedules disappear from Control Room
99491 Upon Control Room installation, the Licensing Service is starting by default in local system account and thereby impacts bot files (atmx files) migration
98940 Hibernate constraint error when migrating bots
98940 Even when 'Overwrite' option is selected for bot migration, it gives an error "A bot with the same name already exists"
98556 During migration, the duration shows 00:00:00 in certain scenarios
98279 In certain cases, the password is displayed in log files.
95079 The Control Room divulges information, such as the server's type in an error page
94287 Control Room does not show progress for queued tasks when the first task fails
90879 Even if PostgreSQL is installed on a separate server, the Control Room repair installation installs PostGre Service on local server as well
93363 The Control Room installer fails to connect with SQL with custom database port
81824, 91668, 93128 Passwords are stored in plain text post Control Room Installation.
94091 Audit entries are now logged successfully when you use Import bot files and Export bot files from the My bots page.
99409 When you export the details of a schedule using Export checked items to CSV from the Activity > Scheduled page, the data is now captured in the Schedule column of the CSV file. The Schedule column does not show "--".
Enterprise Client fixed features
Zendesk ticket numbers Description
95339, 99894, 100820, 101826, 102024, 103266, 103589 Intermittent errors while sending emails using the Send Mail Command.
93225 Unzip command generate a folder with garbled name in Japanese environment
89518 Microsoft Edge – Automation Anywhere plugin is disabled when Edge starts.
90009, 90014 Short-cut key shared between two features
83917, 86334, 98554, 102710, 82052, 83917, 96857 Terminal Emulator does not share session between the main and sub-tasks.
62053 Cannot initialize values in more than 100 rows in Array variable
95952 Terminal Emulator (TE) session now does not close when MetaBot-Run Logic is called. The TE session remains active until the Disconnect command is called.
104154

On enabling the organization's group policy, a system administrator is now able to run the Enterprise Client setup successfully.
103394 Automation for Java applications now work when used with Object Cloning command after you upgrade to a higher version.

Security fixes

There are no security fixes listed for this version.

Deprecated features

There are no deprecated features listed for this version.

Known limitations

Control Room known limitations

  • Filtering on the fields Status and Type do not work for the Control Room API that is used to fetch a list of devices. See Enterprise 11 bot execution orchestrator API
  • A user can repair an existing instance of Control Room only from Control Panel\Program and Features\Install or change a program option. It cannot be repaired using the Repair option provided in the installer executable.
  • Installer does not support installing a Certificate Authority Certificate (trust anchor) unless a secure database connection is selected. If you want to connect the Control Room to other services securely via TLS, such as LDAPS and secure SMTP you must manually import your CA certificate into the Control Room after the Windows installer but prior to completion of web-based configuration.
  • When the Automation Anywhere Control Room Caching services is restarted, the Automation Anywhere Control Room Service should also be restarted.
  • When Automation Anywhere Control Room Services are restarted (Or) when Control Room is installed for the first time, it will take time (~5 minutes) for the Control Room UI to be shown in the browser.
  • Packages exported via User Interface in Bot Lifecycle Management cannot be used by APIs (and vice versa).
  • There could be instances of multiple audit entries (for create locker, create queue scenarios).
  • It is critical that communication between the Control Room servers is sufficiently protected as it contains security sensitive information that is not encrypted. All network hosts, apart from Control Room servers, should be blocked from accessing the cluster communication ports listed in the Architecture and Implementation Guide .
  • Filtering and Sorting is available on select few columns of Control Room tables and not on all columns.
  • The following time-zones are not supported when scheduling bots:
    • EST
    • GMT+0
    • GMT-0
    • HST
    • MST
    • ROC
  • When installing Control Room on Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Edition, it might give an error "The installation of Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 appears to have failed. Do you want to continue the installation?". Click Yes on this dialog to continue the Control Room installation.
  • The Control Room dashboards might fail to load if 'Use Secure Connection' has been used on the PostGre SQL step (of Control Room Installation) and the PostGre server is not configured for secure connection.
  • If Control Room is installed on multiple nodes, and if one or more nodes are down, it might give an error "Failed to connect to Elasticsearch server". The user has to wait for approximately 20-30 seconds to login into Control Room.
  • If Control Rooms are installed on multiple nodes, and if cluster IPs are null, you might get duplicate audit entries "Elasticsearch backup cluster IPs are null".
  • If there are million+ records in the audit trail, and if you have a filter; then it might take time to navigate to the last page.
  • To search the exact phrase in audit trail, enclose that within double quotes. For example, "Mike-Finance-564"
  • If Automation Anywhere is taking up a backup of Elasticsearch for Control Rooms with cluster IP, the audit trial might display 'N/A' in Action type and View details.
  • When configuring PostGre Database (while installing Control Room), there should not be a space in the PostGre Database name
  • If you were previously using 11.x and now upgrading to 11.3, you need to perform clear cache operation in your browser before going live with 11.3 Control Room.
  • It might take up to three minutes for an audit entry to reflect for failed deployment of a task.
  • On the "In progress activity" page, the "Unknown" status might take some time to reflect while the associated device is disconnected and the Player is running.

Enterprise Client known limitations

  • While uninstalling Enterprise Client, the user might come across a 'File in Use' page that displays process ID numbers instead of showing the open Automation Anywhere applications.
  • In certain operating systems having stringent security policies, while uninstalling Automation Anywhere 11 LTS Client, the "Automation.CredentialProvider.dll" (in the System32 folder) does not get removed by the uninstaller. In such cases, the dll must be manually deleted or by using a batch script.
  • If the Enterprise Client Version 11.3 remains offline (disconnected from the Control Room) for more than eight hours; the user must login again to the Enterprise Client Version 11.3 to renew the user session. This is in line with Industry Standard policies on token expiry.
  • Adobe Flex and Microsoft Silverlight are not supported in Windows 10 and MetaBots.
  • Adobe Flex is not supported in Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2016.
  • In certain scenarios, the Java plugin installation state might not be correctly reflected, even when Java plugin is installed.
  • Autologin in logoff case for Windows Server 2016 is inconsistent. We recommend use of 'Run Bot Runner session on Control Room' (RDP based deployment).
  • Object cloning is not supported for Oracle Forms.
  • Firefox browser is not supported in MetaBots.
  • For MetaBots recording, to record any web application, the application must be opened in Internet Explorer 8 and above in document mode.
  • Microsoft Edge automation is not supported in MetaBots.
  • When 10.x and 11.x Enterprise Clients are installed on the same machine, the 'Advanced Technology' option of Terminal Emulator will not work and its corresponding DLL will not be removed from the machine when Automation Anywhere is uninstalled.
  • If you want to trigger a bot when Office files (for example, .docx, .xlsm, etc.) are modified, use the 'When file is renamed' option of trigger. This is an inherent behavior of Microsoft Office.
  • The 'Advanced Technology' option of Terminal Emulator command will not support insecure Cipher Suites for SSL Connection, for example TLS_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA (0x09).

    Some of the more common SSL ciphers supported:

    TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA (0xc00a) TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA (0xc009) TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA (0xc014) TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA (0xc013) TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA (0x0035) TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA (0x002f) TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA (0x000a)

Bot Insight known limitations

  • After migration from Automation Anywhere 10 LTS to Automation Anywhere 11.3, dashboards that were marked as bookmarks do not show up in the bookmarks section of Bot Insight. Users will need to bookmark their favorite dashboards manually.
  • Sometimes the KPI widget does not show data specifically in the Internet Explorer browser. To make this work, go to Internet options > Advanced tab and click Reset Internet Explorer settings.