Enterprise A2019.13 Release Notes

Release date: 15 June 2020

Review the new features, supported packages, changed features, fixed features, and known limitations in the Enterprise A2019.13 release. There are no security fixes in this release.

A2019.13 Build 4701 is available for Cloud customers, and Build 4705 is available for On-Premises customers. Community Edition remains on A2019.12 and will be upgraded to A2019.14 upon availability.

Enterprise A2019

To verify which Bot Agent version is compatible with this release, see Compatibility with release builds.

New features
Migration from Enterprise 11 and Enterprise 10 to Enterprise A2019 (currently available only to those in the Migration Early Adopter Program)

Migration to Enterprise A2019 is currently only available to select customers through our Migration Early Adopter Program. If you are interested in learning more about this program or a timeline for when migration will be available to all customers, contact your Automation Anywhere representative.

  • The Insert work item command, workload management queues, and device pools are now migrated to Enterprise A2019.
  • Schedules are migrated when you copy Enterprise 10 data to Enterprise A2019 or update Enterprise 11 data to Enterprise A2019. You then have to remap some dependencies to enable the migrated schedules.

    Enable schedules after migration

  • Additional support is provided for packages and variables.

    Package mapping for migration | Variable mapping for migration

Record tasks with a device display setting of 125% or 150%

You can now record tasks using Universal Recorder in Java, Microsoft Active Accessibility, and Microsoft UI automation applications on a computer that has a device display setting configured at 125% or 150%, in addition to the existing setting of 100%.

Export bots without enabling SMTP in Bot Lifecycle Management

When you export a bot, you can now download the exported package even when SMTP is not enabled. The link to download the exported package is available in the ACTIVITY > Historical page.

Export bots

Export and import files using Bot Lifecycle Management APIs

Use the Bot Lifecycle Management export and import APIs to move bots from one environment to another based on your organization's automation requirements.

You can export bots with dependent files and command packages from the public workspace of one Control Room and import them to a private workspace in another Control Room, and check them into a public workspace. To export and import bots, you must have the Export bots, Import bots, View and Manage packages, and Check in and Check out permissions to the necessary folders and have the Bot Creator license.

BLM API

Capture scroll action and table using AISense Recorder

You can now capture the scroll action in an application window and table control from a remote application when recording a task with AISense Recorder.

Record a task with AISense Recorder

Form builder enhancements for interactive forms

The form builder includes the following elements:

  • Select File: To enable file upload in the form.
  • Dropdown: To create a drop-down menu in the form.

Create a form

Extract text from a specific area in a window

Use the App Integration > Capture area action to extract text from within the captured area of a window and save it to a string variable.

App Integration package

Read string variable values from a text file

Use the String > Import string from text file action to read values from a text file and save them to a string variable.

String package

Automate in IBM-5555 terminals using the Terminal Emulator package

The TN5250E terminal type now supports the IBM-5555-C01 and D01 terminal models.

Terminal Emulator package

Specify events within email trigger

For email triggers, specify an event within the server type (Outlook, Email, or EWS server) to trigger a bot.

Add an email trigger

Use hot key for interface trigger

For interface triggers, you can select hot key as one of the conditions to trigger the bot

Add an interface trigger

Assign action in interactive forms package

The interactive forms package now includes an Assign action that you can use to assign values dynamically in the Dropdown element of a form.

Interactive forms package

Create a shortcut of a file or folder

Use the Folder > Create shortcut or File > Create shortcut action to create a shortcut in the specified destination file path. The shortcut is dependent on the source file or folder. If you make changes to the source file or folder, the changes will also apply to the shortcut.

File package | Folder package

New conditions in the If and Loop packages
  • Use the Data table > Data table is empty condition to execute actions based on whether the specified table contains values.
  • Use the Data table > Number of columns and Data table > Number of rows conditions to execute actions based on whether the number of columns or rows is Equal to, Greater than, or Less than the specified value.

If package | Loop package

Generate a random string of a user-specified number of characters and assign it to a string variable

Use the String > Random action to generate a string of uppercase and lowercase alphanumeric characters. You can specify the number of characters that the generated string consists of, with a maximum of 300 characters.

String package

Upgrading Enterprise A2019 enables pre-filling installation parameters

If you are upgrading from one Enterprise A2019 version to another, you have the option to pre-fill the installation parameters with existing installation content. Existing installation parameters include, for example, the installation path, HTTPS ports, database names, IP addresses, and TLS configuration. The username and password have to be manually entered.

Note that this is applicable only to a Windows-based installation.

Run Control Room installer | Installing Control Room on Linux

Supported packages
Package Version
Node Manager 7.1.5207
Application 2.0.0-20200515-071407
App Integration 1.0.0-20200515-071406
Analyze 2.2.2-20200515-101604
Boolean 2.0.0-20200515-071408
Bot Migration 2.4.0-20200604-174031
Browser 2.0.0-20200515-071410
Clipboard 2.0.0-20200515-071418
Comment 2.0.0-20200515-071418
CSV/TXT 2.0.0-20200515-071419
Database 2.0.0-20200515-071421
Data Table 2.0.0-20200515-071731
Datetime 2.0.0-20200515-071424
Delay 2.1.0-20200515-071425
Dictionary 2.0.0-20200418-005349
Run DLL 2.0.0-20200515-071713
Email 2.0.0-20200515-071427
Error handler 2.0.0-20200515-071432
Excel basic 2.0.0-20200515-071623
Excel advanced 4.0.0-20200604-173722
File 2.1.0-20200515-071434
File & folders 2.0.0-20200317-030352
Folder 2.1.0-20200515-071436
FTP / SFTP 2.0.0-20200515-071439
IF/ELSE 2.0.0-20200515-071441
Image Recognition 2.0.0-20200515-071454
Interactive forms 2.12.0-20200420-084203
IQ Bot 2.0.0-20191031-150538
JavaScript 2.0.0-20200515-071459
Simulate keystrokes 2.0.0-20200515-071502
Legacy Automation 2.0.0-20200515-133330

1.0.0-20200515-133334

List 2.0.0-20200515-071509
Log To File 2.0.0-20200515-071509
Loop 2.0.0-20200515-071511
Message Box 2.0.0-20200515-071511
Mouse 2.0.0-20200515-071517
Number 2.0.0-20200515-071522
OCR 2.1.0-20200516-083309
Microsoft 365 Excel 2.0.0-20200515-071608
Microsoft 365 Calendar 2.0.0-20200515-071414
Microsoft 365 OneDrive 2.0.0-20200515-071614
PDF 2.1.0-20200515-071618
PGP 2.1.0-20200515-071620
Ping 2.0.0-20200515-071621
Printer 2.0.0-20200515-071626
Play Sound 2.0.0-20200515-071622
Prompt 2.0.0-20200515-071627
Python Script 2.0.0-20200515-071628
Recorder 2.0.5-20200523-020302
REST Web Service 2.0.0-20200515-071712
SAP 2.1.0-20200515-071715
Screen 2.0.0-20200515-071718
SNMP 2.0.0-20200515-071720
SOAP Web Service 3.0.0-20200515-071723
String 3.0.0-20200515-071729
System 2.0.0-20200515-071729
Task 2.0.0-20200519-082744
Terminal Emulator 2.0.0-20200515-071735
Trigger Email 1.1.0-20200515-022805
VBScript 2.0.0-20200515-071737
Wait 3.0.0-20200515-071739
Window 2.0.0-20200515-071753
Workload 2.0.0-20200422-054201
XML 2.0.0-20200515-071743
Changed features
The Dictionary > Put action is now the Dictionary > Set value action. When you provide the key name, if the key does not already exist, this action creates a new key-value pair. In addition, you can now manually enter a value; previously, you had to select from a list of variables.
In the Excel advanced > Get worksheet as data table action, the Tick if the first row is the header option is now the Sheet contains header option. There is no change in functionality.
The File > Rename and Folder > Rename actions now accept the full file path in the New file name and New folder name fields. Previously, these fields only accepted the new file or folder name.
When you select a file from the desktop for the JavaScript, Python Script, or VBScript packages, it is no longer necessary to isolate that file in a separate folder. Previously, when you selected a file with the Open action, all the files in that folder were selected too.
The Database > Run stored procedure action now has a different interface that enables you to configure input parameter values and output parameter data types. This action is not backward-compatible because the user interface controls and input data type have changed. You must modify the Run stored procedure action fields in the bots that contain previous versions of this action.
The Cloud License feature is now enabled by default in the Control Room.
Fixed features
Service Cloud case ID Description
00492377, 00511639 Bots using the Image Recognition action can now recreate the recorded activity and run successfully.
00599586, 00600149, 00601142, 00599483 The Processing failure error encountered when using the Wait for condition action is now fixed. Bots using this action now run successfully.
00583248 During Work Item consumption, a running task is no longer canceled when the next bot is deployed.
00548456 The Workload Management v3 APIs are now successfully executed in Swagger and do not fail because of a case-sensitive issue.
00601083 For Cloud deployment, users can now successfully export bot files and download them without any errors.
00568664 The Git integration option is now displayed for admin users when they navigate to ADMINISTRATION > Settings in the Control Room.
-- The minimum length value of a form element cannot be 0. If you set the value as 0 in Character limit > Min field, the Make field required is disabled.
00571125 When you check in a non-bot file by itself, the file is now checked in without any error. Older files that exist in Build 4111 are also unlocked and checked in after upgrading to Build 4705.
-- The form preview feature is now consistent across the Internet Explorer and Google Chrome browsers.
-- A blank page is no longer displayed when you paste content into any of the existing form elements on the form builder.
-- A form that is linked to a bot through the Display action of interactive forms is now displayed in front of all other windows when the Always display form window in front option is selected.
-- When a user login failed due to a Global Catalog (GC) availability issue, the response only indicated a communication error. The process now checks for errors and exceptions in the GC and processes the authentication with appropriate messages, so users can take appropriate action.
00520394 The VBScript package actions now support Unicode characters.
00536881 When you delete a bot, any trigger that is associated with it is also deleted and is not listed in the Activity list page.
00506169 You can now use the interface trigger to run a bot without any errors in the Japanese operating system.
00537640, 00538369 When you check out a bot from the Control Room and add a trigger, you can now use Run with triggers to run this bot without any errors.
00531912 JavaScript package actions can now be used to parse the values in a list.
00475183 Double-byte characters returned unreadable ANSI characters in the bot Log To File text. This issue is now fixed and ANSI encoding takes the system default charset.
00475129 You can now use double-byte characters in a variable name.
00511675 The Excel advanced > Find action now searches for values in merged cells when the By rows search option is used.
00468103, 00475142 Bot names using Unicode characters, such as German umlaut, Japanese characters, and others, display correctly in the pop-up window at runtime.
00552701, 00558919 You can now select multiple actions from the Bot editor and drag them into a Step, Loop, or If action.
00507240 Fixed an issue where a running parent bot could not be stopped after it ran a child bot. Now you can stop a bot at any time.
00482810 VBScript actions can now run scripts that contain Unicode characters.
00472684, 00541922, 00551632,00534508, 00570602 The Email > Send action now supports a user-input port number for sending emails from an SMTP server, such as AWS Simple Email Service. Previously, the action only used port 25, even if the user entered a different port number.
00475230 Fixed an issue where the String > Replace action did not support an empty string in the Replace with field. You can now use the action to replace a specific string with an empty string.
00472665 When a child bot shows an error, the parent bot now handles the exception by running the Error Handler > Catch action. Previously, the parent bot was also showing an error, even when it contained Error handler actions.
00566476, 00560339 Fixed an issue where bots that contain the Capture action stopped working when running the action during deployment, or they could not be checked out after they were checked-in for editing.
00537139 A bot running the Capture action can now capture specific objects from a Google Chrome browser on a device running the Windows 10 operating system. In some cases, bots running the Capture action from Version A2019.11 On-Premises could only capture the entire browser window.
00421864 The Create a bot screen now displays properly in Internet Explorer. Previously, some display issues occurred where the screen was cut on the right side and the screen could not be moved.
00584341 Fixed an issue where some of the historical activity entries were incorrectly displayed. These entries are now displayed correctly when a user drills down for more information.
Known limitations
When you create a Dictionary/Table variable and use it in the name field of the PROPERTIES control, the bot does not deploy successfully. This issue occurs because Dictionary/Table variables are not supported for the name field in the PROPERTIES control. You can pull the name value into a String or Number variable before using it in the PROPEPTIES control, and then use that String or Number variable in it.
You can use Swagger to export bots but not to download exported bots. You have to use the REST Client to download exported bots.
When you run a bot, the runtime window is minimized after you preset the desktop.

The OSS Disclosure report provided in the A2019 installer is outdated. Starting from this release, you can log in to Automation Anywhere Support site and download the updated report:

A-People Downloads page (Login required).

When you capture a table control from an application using the AISense Recorder, you cannot set text using the Set text option from the Actions list. You can set text in the table by capturing a cell from the table as a text box and then using the Set text option from the Actions list.
When upgrading from one Enterprise A2019 version to another, you have the option to pre-fill the installation parameters with existing installation content, but only if you used the default installation path C:\Program Files.
Note: This is applicable only to a Windows-based installation.
Based on the permission assigned by an administrator, users can only view the Public tab that lists the available forms and bots. However, users can edit an available form or bot by replacing View with Edit in the Control Room URL.
When you create a bot and link a form to it, the bot is included only when you check in the form; it is not available on form check-out.
When you click multiple icons (Copy, Cut, and Paste) at the top of the form builder or bot creator page, the tooltips overlap.
Issues in the form builder:
  • If you drag any form element into a specific position on the form builder, it always appears at the bottom of the available elements.
  • If you drag form elements around in the form builder screen in Internet Explorer, the mouse pointer flickers continuously.
  • For the Radio button element, you cannot set the default selection in Advance behaviors.
  • For the Checkbox element, changes made to the check box names in the Checkbox content field are not updated when you enable Advance behaviors > Make default selections.
When a bot runs Terminal Emulator package actions in an IBM-5555 terminal, the terminal window does not display double-byte characters, including Chinese and Japanese characters.
If you used the Universal Recorder to capture a menu item from a Microsoft Active Accessibility application on a computer that has a display scale setting configured to 100%, at runtime the bot does not click the correct menu item on a computer that has a display scale setting configured to 125% or 150%.
During GUID provisioning, License Sync is called internally after a successful installation. If the internal License Sync fails but the installation is successful, users can log in and continue to work.
When a task that consists of one or more subtasks is run, the In Progress entry for the task is placed into a historical report upon completion of the first subtask, not the entire governing task.
An error occurs if the parent bot contains actions for objects captured using the AISense Recorder and the child bot contains actions for objects captured using the Universal Recorder, or vice versa.

IQ Bot

The IQ Bot On-Premises version supports all the features and functionality available in IQ Bot Version 11.3.4.2.

Automation 360 IQ Bot feature comparison matrix

Review the compatibility of the IQ Bot On-Premises version with the corresponding Control Room On-Premises version.

Automation 360 IQ Bot version compatibility

The IQ Bot Cloud version is available for this release and supports all features and functionality available in IQ Bot Version 11.3.4.2. This version provides users with automatic provisioning for up to three environments such as Development, Test, and Production. Users can migrate learning instances between environments using APIs.

For the Custom Logic feature, there is an identified list of Python libraries and packages that are safe to use for IQ Bot Cloud. Use only these packages to ensure security for your cloud infrastructure, file systems, databases, and network resources.

New features
Migrate data to a unified database

IQ Bot On-Premises and Cloud

The Database Migration Assistant enables you to migrate data from IQ Bot Version 6.5 or later databases to a unified database in IQ Bot A2019.

Migrate earlier IQ Bot versions to Automation 360 IQ Bot On-Premises

Support for custom validation Python scripts

IQ Bot Cloud

You can use custom logic in Python to modify intermediate extracted data in IQ Bot.

Add custom logic in IQ Bot to improve extraction

Select an OCR engine when creating a learning instance

IQ Bot On-Premises and Cloud

You can select different OCR engines directly from the UI based on your requirements for data extraction from specific document types, when creating a new learning instance. You do not have to stop and restart IQ Bot services for implementing the engine change.

Select an OCR engine

Enable or disable PDFBox option

IQ Bot On-Premises and Cloud

You can enable or disable the My PDF documents do not have images check box directly in the UI when creating a learning instance.

Disable PDFBox option

Changed feature
The draw box icon for document values is no longer available. However, you can still click and drag a box on the document to draw boxes for the labels along with the values.
Fixed features
Service Cloud case ID Description
-- A new REST API is now available that contains the IQ Bot validator URLs of all the available documents that are not locked by any users. A validator URL retrieved from the REST API can be used in any browser to navigate directly to that specific document.
00343034 You are now redirected to a specific document using the validator URL after a successful login.
00471068, 00339407 The draw box functionality for field labels now ensures that the selected value is treated as an entire word rather than distinct characters. You can now select multiple system identified regions (SIRs) or a specific part of a single SIR from a field label, which enables accurate data extraction.
-- The PDF Box feature now enables you to generate an SIR for a PDF file that contains content in multiple formats.
00481720 The Service account user password can now include special characters. The service account will not be locked and all the IQ Bot services will start successfully after an installation, irrespective of whether the password has special characters.
00510286, 00548393 When the Automation Anywhere Cognitive Application service restarts after installing IQ Bot Build 4705, the user login information is now captured without any duplication.

However, if you upgrade from any earlier version of IQ Bot to IQ Bot A2019.13 (Build 4705), you must deregister and register IQ Bot services.

00522978 When you now install IQ Bot, the user account is not locked even when the password has special characters, and all the IQ Bot services start without any issues.
00581425, 00581949, 00604394, 00602630 You can now register IQ Bot with child tenant using API, which enables you to view all the available domains and learning instances.
00575939, 00417631, 00423076 The .csv file is now displayed in the Output folder when you upload a document with a long filename (more than 60 characters) using IQ Bot Upload.
Known limitations
IQ Bot On-Premises

The OSS Disclosure report provided in the IQ Bot A2019 installer is outdated. Starting from this release, you can go to Automation Anywhere support site to download the updated report:

A-People Downloads page (Login required).

IQ Bot On-Premises and Cloud

Images on the Designer in IQ Bot appear distorted while scrolling in Internet Explorer.

IQ Bot On-Premises and Cloud

Installation errors are displayed for the Database Migration Assistant.

Workaround: Install the MsSqlCmdLnUtils utility and Microsoft OCDB Driver 17 for SQL Server before installing the Database Migration Assistant.

IQ Bot On-Premises and Cloud

Logs are not captured if the Database Migration Assistant installation fails.

IQ Bot Cloud

System suggestions are not updated when documents are validated by the user.

Workaround: Users must update the correction manually in the validator for IQ Bot Cloud if the system suggestions are not displayed.

IQ Bot Community Edition

The Create new learning instance page refreshes automatically, which causes the user to lose data from the General information fields.

(Service Cloud case ID: 00737991)

When you are creating a learning instance and training your document, IQ Bot system cannot extract data from tables with the same Header Name and Column Value.

Workaround: Try combining Header Name or Column Value with the adjacent column. Additionally, you can provide a Python postprocessing script to separate the values during extraction.

Bot Insight

New features
Compare mode widget filter

The Bot Insight compare mode introduces widget filters that you can apply to your existing dashboards. A new Filter option shows a Filter window with the Attributes, Numeric, and Time widgets.

Comparing dashboards

Hourly support for widgets

The Bot Insight widgets include an Hour interval option in the Group By field for Date type. The analytics for this widget groups your data by hourly intervals and displays the chart accordingly.

Using widgets

Changed features
Power BI connector

You can access the AABotInsightV3.mez data connector file from C:\Program Files\Automation Anywhere\Enterprise\Connectors\PowerBI and copy it to C:\Users\<your user>\Documents\PowerBI Desktop\Custom Connectors to deploy the Power BI connector.

Deploy Power BI connector

Bot Insight APIs
  • All of the parameters are now optional.
  • The botname parameter in the Get task log data API supports multiple bot names, separated with a comma.
  • There are no time period limitations now on the data retrieved.

Bot Insight API