Blue Prism 6.6: September 2019
Database: |
332 |
The release requires the Blue Prism database to be this version. |
Login Agent: |
6.6 |
The version of Login Agent that is provided with this release of Blue Prism has the same functionality as the version provided with Blue Prism 6.5. |
Chrome browser extension: |
2.1.0 |
Evaluated against Chrome version 84.0.4147.125. at the time of this release. For the latest compatibility information, see Browser extension compatibility. |
Firefox browser extension: |
6.6.0.15260 |
Evaluated against Firefox version 68. Version 67 is recommended for this release. For the latest compatibility information, see Browser extension compatibility. |
Data Gateways engine: |
1.1 |
Download the installer from the Blue Prism Portal – select Product > Extras. Updates to the Data Gateways engine are listed in Data Gateways Engine. |
Known issues
A list of any prominent issues with this release is maintained in the knowledge base – click here for more information.
Important notices
It is essential that the upgrade notices are reviewed before applying this release.
Release notes
This release has been verified as complying with the below standards by Veracode – an independent application security organization.
Static Code Analysis |
VL5. Veracode Score: 100/100. Further information |
PCI DSS |
PCI DSS Version 3.2 compliant in sections 6.1, 6.3.2, 6.5, 6.6, and 11.3.2 |
PCI PA-DSS |
PCI PA-DSS Version 3.2 Sections 5.1.4, 5.2, 7.1.1, 7.1.2, and 7.1.3. |
HIPAA |
Controls: 01.v, 02.e, 04.a, 06.d, 10.a, 10.b, 10.l, 10.m |
OWASP |
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SANS Top 25 |
|
CERT Secure Coding |
A compliance highlight summary report is available upon request via Product Support.
The following new features and enhancements are introduced in this version of Blue Prism.
Description of change |
Reference |
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Blue Prism can now be deployed and used on devices that enforce Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) compliant algorithms. A number of changes have been made to ensure that Blue Prism adheres to the required standards. The Blue Prism application server, interactive client, and runtime resources now check to see if the security policy to use FIPS compliant algorithms for encryption, hashing, and signing is enabled on the device and where it is enabled:
|
ep-169 |
The following updates have been made to the Data Gateways functionality:
An updated version of the Data Gateways user guide has been published to reflect the latest updates and changes. |
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A number of changes have been implemented to improve database management:
Objects and processes exported from version 6.6 cannot be used in previous versions of Blue Prism. |
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The Blue Prism license activation process has been updated for scenarios where users are prompted to activate the license key. |
us-5150 |
A change has been made to now include the relevant Post Completion Delay and Scheduled Sessions data when exporting or importing a release. The following conditions apply:
|
us-4097 |
A new status for schedules, Completed with Exceptions, has been introduced to highlight any schedule that has completed with one or more failed tasks. Such schedules are marked with a purple flag in the Recent Activities screen in Control Room. |
us-3050 |
Blue Prism is now compatible with web pages and applications presented in Firefox version 52. Blue Prism is compatible with Firefox versions 52 to 68, see Notices for details. |
us-4083 |
Support has been added for invasive automation techniques when working with 64-bit target applications. |
us-4770 |
The Show Next Holiday Dates check box has been added to the Public Holidays section of the System > Calendar screen. When the check box is selected for a calendar, the date of the next instance of each holiday is displayed. |
us-4015 |
A new AutomateC command is available that returns a list of sessions running on a resource. The /resourcestatus command can produce results for a specific resource or all the resources to which the specified user has access. A further variable can be used to return only those resources that started during a specified time period. Further information can be found in the in-product help. |
us-3369 |
It is no longer possible to create published dashboards with the same name as existing ones. During an upgrade to 6.6, published dashboards that have duplicate names are renamed with a numbered suffix. Data Gateways configurations that are set up to include published dashboard data must be manually assessed to ensure the required data is still being sent to the associated outputs. See the Upgrade Notices. |
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Creating and importing processes and objects is now audited at the server rather than at the client. |
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The Status column in Session Management can now be filtered to show sessions with a status of Stopping. As a Stopping status is included in the license count of concurrent sessions, this improves the visibility of how many sessions are in use. |
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Shortly after the launch of 6.6, a separate installer will be made available to download the new trial edition of Blue Prism. The trial edition will be available to download from the Blue Prism Digital Exchange (DX). |
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The following fixes and minor improvements are introduced with this version.
Description of change |
Reference |
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The dynamic action naming functionality, where stages are automatically named according to the selected action, no longer causes excessive memory usage on clients with large volumes of actions. |
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An issue where Blue Prism freezes when interacting with Internet Explorer when in User Interface Automation mode (UIA), either when attempting to highlight an element, or when used in a wait stage, has now been addressed. |
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The speed of processes running on a runtime resource that interact with User Interface Automation (UIA) elements has been improved. |
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When consuming web services exposed by the Blue Prism platform, Blue Prism now uses the Transport Layer Security (TLS) version determined by the operating system on which it is running rather. Previously, only version 1.2 could be used which could prevent compatibility with older applications. |
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When performing a database upgrade, if the user does not have View Server State permission, they are no longer presented with the options to migrate session log data. This is default functionality and an error message no longer displays if the user performing the upgrade does not have the required permission. |
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Blue Prism was unable to interact with Chrome or Firefox when processes launched a locally installed application followed by a browser-based application. This issue only occurred if a spy mode setting had been used prior to using the browser automation mode. This issue has now been resolved. |
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The following issues affecting the Resources panel of Control Room have been resolved:
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Schedule logs can now be successfully exported if the associated session data has been deleted. |
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The time taken to populate the version history for an object or process has been improved. |
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An issue that incorrectly prevented users from viewing errors in Process Studio has been resolved. This affected users if they did not have the Configuration Design Controls permission enabled on their user role. The issue only occurred in Blue Prism version 6.5 when the process validation check boxes on the Design Control screen in the audit settings were not selected. |
bg-3312 |
An issue in Process Studio where an exception handled in a sub-process would cause the process to stop, regardless of whether the Break on Exceptions option in the Debug menu was selected, has been addressed. |
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The following attributes can now be used to identify and automate browser-based application elements in the Application Modeler:
These attributes can be used with all spy modes except from User Interface Automation (UIA) mode. |
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To improve performance when opening a objects and processes in Studio, calls to the server are now suspended whilst validation is completed. |
bg-3286 |
An issue that intermittently produced an error when adding or removing work queue tags in quick succession, has been resolved. |
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Testing a .NET Remoting connection to a server that the client is already connected to, no longer causes a timeout. |
bg-3374 |
An intermittent issue where clicking Test Connection in the Connection Configuration window started a data monitor has been fixed. |
bg-3412 |
An issue that prevented certificates stored in LocalMachine/CurrentUser from being selected in a SOAP web service object has been addressed. As part of this fix, users are now informed if a selected certificate is not valid. |
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The date format used when querying session logs has been standardized to ensure such queries are correctly evaluated for all locales. |
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An issue that prevented schedule expiry dates from being saved has been addressed. |
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If dashboards fail to load when viewing the interactive client homepage, a message now displays to inform users that the dashboards are not currently available. |
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The validation for duplicate environment variable names is no longer case sensitive. Previously, entering a duplicate name containing characters in a different letter case resulted in an error. |
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Data Items which get their value from an environment variable now display the initial value within the Studio interface. It is no longer necessary to open the Data Item to view this value. |
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An issue that allowed objects and processes being edited by a user to be unlocked by a user who did not have the appropriate permissions has been resolved. |
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When renaming a duplicate page in a process, the new name is now displayed in the page properties box. |
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Changing the Type of a nested collection (Collection Properties > Fields) now correctly updates the collection's hierarchy when viewed in another stage. Previously, the changes to the hierarchy were not updated when viewed from other stages. |
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The View Process option is no longer available on the shortcut menu for Page Reference stages. |
bg-2565 |
Changing the Exposure setting of a Password Data Item from Environment to None now correctly removes the initial value. |
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A warning is now displayed when attempting to run the AutomateC.exe /createqueue command to create a queue that already exists. |
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An issue that produced an error when clicking in the Current Values window of a collection that had no rows defined has been addressed. The error only occurred if the related process had already modified the collection using the Collections > Add Row action. |
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Error handling has been improved on the database installer to ensure compatibility with all languages. |
bg-3083 |
The Today filter in the Created column in Queue Management now correctly displays only those items that were created on the current day. |
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The runtime error displayed when attempting to work a queue that is locked by another resource now displays the name of the queue and the resource by which it is locked. |
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The telnet command, availability, now returns a string rather than a number. |
bg-3372 |
Blue Prism licenses are no longer removed from sessions with a status of Stopping. Licenses are now only made available if the session has completely stopped ensuring that each session completes all necessary operations before the license is removed. |
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An issue that prevented the scheduler from running when using Blue Prism version 6.5 with Turkish regional locale settings has been addressed. This issue also affected schedules created using Blue Prism version 6.5 with Turkish regional locale settings. Any schedules that were created using Blue Prism version 6.5 on a Turkish operating system will need to be deleted and recreated after upgrading to this release. For more information, see Upgrade notices. |
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The time taken to launch an instance of Blue Prism running a high number of resources has been improved. |
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When starting a process on a runtime resource, the process name is now displayed on the Resource Log window. |
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A change has been implemented to ensure that, where a value is present in a credential's Additional Properties, this is indicated by string of dots in the Value field of the Credentials Details dialog. |
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Importing an unretired process into a database that already contains a retired version of that process no longer unretires the existing process. This applies if the process has been imported individually or as part of a release. |
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The Back button is no longer available when a release import is in progress. |
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Clicking the reset button in Object and Process Studio now refreshes the content of any web API definition referenced by the object or process, ensuring changes to those definitions are captured. |
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It is no longer possible to import a release via the command line when using the NHS edition of Blue Prism as Release Management functionality is not included with this license type. |
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The AutomateC.exe /genivbowrapper command has been updated to check that credentials have been supplied and if appropriate, prompt the user that credentials are required. |
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The following changes to Data Gateways engine are introduced with this version. The functionality is included in the Data Gateways engine version 1.1, available on the Blue Prism Portal – select Product > Extras.
Description of change |
Reference |
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When Data Gateways cannot connect to an HTTP, Splunk, or database endpoint, the data for the associated output is now stored temporarily in a local dedicated file in a non-human readable format. The data will be sent when the endpoint becomes available. This does not apply to File or custom configured output types. Two new output extension options bphttp and bpjdbc have been added to provide this new enhancement. While deployments that use the existing http and jdbc extensions will continue to work, reconfiguration is recommended in order to utilize the latest functionality. This can be done by either creating new Data Gateways configuration, or manually editing the existing configuration via advanced or custom configuration and replacing http with bphttp, and jdbc with bpjdbc. |
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The installers for the latest version of Login Agent, at the time that this Blue Prism release was made available, are provided in the Installers folder within the Blue Prism install location.
Login Agent sample processes and Visual Business Object updates
Object – Login Agent VBO
Description of change |
Reference |
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Improvements have been made to the Log Out action to ensure that resources are cleanly shut down without the need for user intervention. |
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A number of Visual Business Objects (VBOs) are provided in the Blue Prism release – new or updated VBOs are listed below. Changes within VBOs are only applied when a VBO is explicitly imported into the environment.
Any use of these VBOs should be re-verified following an import to ensure compatibility with any change of behavior.
Object – Environment Locking
Description of change |
Reference |
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The Preferred Token value is now retained when reattempting to acquire a lock using the Acquire Lock action. This value was previously overwritten after an initial failed attempt. |
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Object – Work Queues
Description of change |
Reference |
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Additional validation has been added to the following actions to ensure that the specified queue exists before attempting to perform the action:
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The value of the Status input in the Add to Queue action is now restricted to a maximum of 255 characters. |
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Object – MS Excel VBO
Description of change |
Reference |
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The Get Worksheet actions no longer use the clipboard when retrieving data from worksheets. This ensures that errors do not occur when using multiple resources on the same machine where simultaneous access to the clipboard might be required. This change affects the following actions:
This also addresses the following issue where unicode characters were not being successfully copied from Excel worksheets to data collections when using the GetWorkSheetAsCollection action. |
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An issue that caused returned incorrect data when using the GetWordsheetAsCollection action if the first character in a cell is a double quote. The correct data is now returned. |
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Object – MS Outlook Email VBO
Description of change |
Reference |
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The Save Attachments action has been updated so .msg attachments can be saved. |
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Object – Credentials VBO
Description of change |
Reference |
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The Generate Password action can now create passwords of more than 20 characters. |
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Utility– Collection Manipulation VBO
Description of change |
Reference |
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The default data type for the Value input of the Start stage in the Append Field (Number) action has been changed from Text to Number. The corresponding data item now also defaults to Number. |
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The Delete Column action now correctly sets the Success and Error Message Output parameters after the action has run. |
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Browser extension versions
The table below shows when each Blue Prism extension, compatible with this release was introduced. For details of the latest browser versions Blue Prism is tested against, see the Browser extension compatibility matrix.
Browser | Blue Prism extension versions |
---|---|
Chrome |
2.1.0 |
Firefox |
6.6.0 |