Using Hub 3.0

This section details the user functionality. What the user sees and has access to is determined by the role they have been assigned. Plugins are assigned to roles and then users are allocated a specific role, thereby inheriting the plugins. b

In this topic:

Dashboards

When first starting Hub the default display is a blank Hub dashboard – this is the same whether you are a Hub administrator or a standard Hub user.

The dashboard is a configurable page that provides a tailored view of your digital workforce and the activity it has completed. The user can also create multiple dashboards to represent different views presenting information to enable you to manage and control the workforce to maximize its capabilities.

Create a dashboard

  1. Click Create a New Dashboard from the action button.
  2. Enter a name and a description for the dashboard.

  3. Assign an image to make the dashboard easily recognizable. The image must be less than 30KB in size and no greater than 200 by 200 pixels.

  4. Click Save.

Existing dashboards can be deleted and edited from the action button.

Add widgets

Widgets are the dashboard components that allow you to analyze your digital workforce. Up to 20 widgets can be added to each dashboard. Widgets can be added multiple times and configured to look at different digital workers or items.

  1. Select the widget repository button to display a list of available widgets.

  2. To view more details about a widget, click its information button. Information about what is displayed when the widget is added to the dashboard and how it can be customized displays.

  3. Click the + button for a widgets to add it to the dashboard.
  4. Once you have added the widgets required, click the widget repository button to see your full dashboard again.

Configure widgets

Move widgets by dragging and dropping to the required position on the dashboard. Widgets can also be resized by grabbing the bottom right corner and dragging to fit to the size required.

Many of the widgets are customizable – select the settings cog for a widget to access the settings.

To remove a widget from a dashboard, select the cross for the required one.

Platform Management plugins

Digital Worker Settings

The Digital Worker Settings plugin allows you to customize the digital workforce applying more friendly names and avatars to your workers.

The action button allows you to choose between edit and retire. The retire feature allows you to remove the digital worker from the workforce, taking it offline so that, for example, maintenance can be performed.

The retire function should be used when you are performing maintenance updates on a digital worker. This plugin should only be allocated to trusted users. Allowing a user to take a digital worker away from your digital workforce could have a serious impact on your business.

If edit is chosen the user can customize the way that the digital worker is referred to by assigning a friendly name as an alias, setting a type, this is essential if it is to be recognized in other plugins, assigning the workers into categories, making them one of your favorite digital workers and assigning an avatar to make it easily recognizable.

Save will keep any changes whilst the cancel will leave the settings as they were.

License Manager

The License Manager plugin provides a simple user interface to upload and control your RPA license.

Simply choose the ‘Upload a new license’ button which opens a file explorer window for you to navigate and locate your license file that Blue Prism Cloud will have sent you. Once uploaded, a panel will appear showing you the details of your license.

Digital Workforce plugins

Utilization

In the utilization plugin you can display three graphs of information that are perfect for management reports.

Utilization Heatmap

Click on Add Utilization Heatmap Report, enter a date and select whether this is for that day (Daily), Weekly, Weekly Split or a Monthly view. Additional utilization heatmaps can be added with different parameters to produce the report for your manager.

Add Utilization Statistics

The add utilization statistics report allows you to do the same comparison reports for the digital workforce but detailing statistical usage information. In the production digital workforce this information is vital to help improve the efficiencies of your digital workers.

If certain automations can be delayed by running outside of peak periods, then that will approve the overall performance of your digital workforce. During peak periods the digital workers not only need to compete with each other for applications and services, but human workers also utilizing the systems and networks.

FTE Statistics

FTE statistics report, compares a digital worker against a Full Time Equivalent (FTE) human worker.

In a production digital workforce, the digital workers can be busy 24 hours a day showing how they can ‘out work’ the human worker. The human worker is expected to only work 09:00 to 17:00 per day, and then not weekends. This is then estimated as 6.5 productive hours per working day. Comparing this to the digital workers who can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week means that the digital workers comparison to a FTE is significantly different.

It should also be noted that when creating your utilization reports you can choose a mixture of reports, combining heatmaps with statistical reports as required.

Design Studio plugins

Wireframer

The Wireframer plugin allows you to efficiently define business objects that can be used as part of an automation process.

The benefits of designing using this methodology is that it allows the developer to rapidly deploy business objects and actions that will form the structure of the business process being automated.

The simplicity in the plugin allows the definition of these business objects and actions, along with best practice techniques, to ensure that enterprise grade automations are always built.

For more information see Wireframer.

Process/Object Explorer

The Process/Object Explorer plugin details all the Processes and Objects in the current environment. Within Process/Object Explorer you can view the XML code, Delete, Retire or Expose the Process/Object. The action button controls the actions that can be attributed to the object or process.

Care should be taken when retiring or deleting these items. Objects can be used in multiple Processes, so deleting an Object when it is only in one Process may be fine, but it may break another Process if that utilizes the same Object.

The Expose option will expose the process/object as a web service. This allows the process/object to be interacted with through a web service call such as SOAP or WSDL web-based services. It enables a third party to invoke the process remotely, providing a mechanism for a third party to put work items into a work queue.

If a process/object is already exposed the context sensitive menu will change to “Conceal” to enable you to hide the process/object if required.

Remember use the settings to change the column layout to show the display you require. Then you can save the layout as one of your favorites.

Use the send report option to email a report to your mailbox.

Environment Data Items

Environment Data Items are defined variables that are used globally through the environment, whether it is in a production or a development environment. The environment data items can be managed within Hub, including creating, editing and deleting.

To explain the use of an environment data item, consider the following example. a data item is required to reference a filename and directory location, the filename and directory changes on a month by month basis to reflect the reporting period. Rather than the Automation Developer going in to change the automation each month or year, the Operator can control this through Hub by setting this as an environment data item and updating as required as an operational task.

Examples of environment data items could be any of the following:

  • A file path to a file used in an automation
  • A file/directory path to save information into
  • A URL for a browser-based application
  • Email addresses for who to send reports to
  • Global timeout values for an application so they can be amended easily

New environmental data items are added by selecting the Add new button.

Provide a Name and Description for the environment data item. It is important to Name the environment data item something so that it can be linked to the process or application it is related to.

Choose a specific data item format, this could be text, password, number, flag, data, datetime, time, timespan, or an image.

Set the value for the environment data item and then press save to store your settings. An example Environment Data Item is illustrated below.

The action button corresponding to the environment data item will allow you to edit the item or if required delete it.

Environment Locks

An Environment Lock is a lock to stop two digital workers accessing an item at the same time. Imagine a scenario where an automation requires to write into a text file for example. The last thing you want is two digital workers running a split second apart, writing different pieces of information and saving the file so that one either corrupts or overwrites what the other digital worker has just written.

The Environment Lock stops this. By locking the file, the other digital worker cannot access the file until it is unlocked which is when the first digital worker has finished processing the file.

An Environment Lock is set using an “Acquire Lock” action in an automation. This will stop two digital workers accessing the item the lock is applied to.

Should the system fail, for example a network or application failure. The lock would remain in place. The lock can be viewed in environment locks.

To remove the lock should a failure occur, go to Blue Prism into the System area. Then under Workflow you will find the Environment Locks, showing all the locks and their status. Select the lock you wish to remove, then press Remove Lock to remove the lock.

Automation Lifecycle Management plugins

Automation Lifecycle Management

The Blue Prism digital workers provide an unparalleled skill and capability set with further use cases being addressable with each new release. Whilst capability is important, Blue Prism have paid equal attention to the usability during the delivery cycle, ensuring enterprises are provided with guard rails to ensure best practices are met.

The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Intelligent Automation (IA) industry has a multitude of methodologies and operating models however these are contained in documents and training materials only.

With the development of Blue Prism’s Automation Lifecycle Management (ALM) capability within Hub, enterprises early on in their RPA/IA journey can benefit from application driven controls to ensure the key milestones of a successful delivery are met.

ALM today provides the following functionality:

  • Process Documentation
  • Exception Tracking
  • Automation Design and Development
  • Process Sign-off and Approval

The ALM plugin provides a framework for business analysts to capture the process definition of the business process, delivering exception handling in a consistent manner and a review and sign-off structure.

For more information, see the Automation Lifecycle Manager.

Queue Management plugins

Queue Manager

Using the Queue Manager plugin, a user is able to manage the work queues within Blue Prism. A user can add new, edit existing, or delete queues using the Queue Manager plugin.

To add a new queue, select the Add New button. The first field is the Queue name you want to create.

Next is an optional field Category. The Category will allow you to filter on specific queues. You can create a new Category by typing a name in the field and it will be automatically created. If the Category you want to use already exists, select the dropdown arrow and start typing the Category name until the one you want appears and then select it.

You can set the status of the queue choosing between Running and Paused.

The Key Name field allows you to set a specific key name for the queue. The key name can be used to directly correlate to a column name in a collection stage. This way as items are processed through the collection the name will appear in the queue management area.

The Max Attempts is defaulted to 1 attempt, though this can be increased if you want an item in a queue to attempt to be processed multiple times.

Finally, if the queue is holding sensitive data you can select the Encrypt flag to encrypt the queue contents.

Save creates the queue with the parameters you set. Cancel, returns you back to the queue manager display.

The action button corresponding to the queues allow you to edit or delete them.

The edit option brings up the same form as the Add new queue form. Here you can adjust any parameters you have set.

The delete option will prompt you before actually deleting, checking that you do actually want to remove the queue. Note, the queue must be empty before it can be deleted.

The user can use the send report option to send a report to the logged on user’s mailbox of the queues in operation within Blue Prism.

Interact plugins

The Interact plugin is an optional service that require an additional license key to operate and forms part of the Interact service offering.

Forms

As a digital workforce expands the addressable use cases of an enterprise, there is a further need for digital workers and humans to collaborate in the end-to-end execution of a business process. In addition, innovative ways of assigning work to a digital workforce are required to provide flexibility on who can interact with the resource. Blue Prism Interact provides new and existing Blue Prism users with a collaboration interface for an end users interaction with their digital workforce within a business process. Initiate, verify, receive and authorize varied work related to your business processes. In addition, Blue Prism Interact reduces the skill criteria required by allowing users to create dynamic web interfaces either by using the no-code form designer or using a Blue Prism Visual Business Object (VBO) to create forms based on the business process requirements.

Blue Prism Cloud Interact functionality is split across two Blue Prism Cloud components; firstly, a developer utilizing Hub and the Forms plugin to create and publish Forms for an end user to utilize; secondly the end user interface where they can, by utilizing published Forms, interact with the digital workforce. A full user guide detailing the features and functionality of Interact is available as a separate download.

The Interact user guide will cover the administration aspects of Interact Forms, including how to assign a Form Role to a user and configuring a user to be an Interact Approver.

Cognitive plugins

Natural Language Understanding (NLU)

The Blue Prism Cloud Natural Language Understanding (NLU) plugin allows processes leveraging naturally formed language to be classified to an action referred to as an ‘intent’. NLU leverages natural language processing as part of its capability, meaning that information can be analyzed and context derived without the need for ‘hard-coded’ key word matching – furthermore, non-standard language can also be processed, overcoming spelling mistakes. NLU allows intents to be linked to processes or drive process decisions.

The use of NLU as part of a project is usually considered once the client or partner has deployed an initial set of processes. There are a number of areas to learn and interpret which make it a less likely component to be used in an initial phase. When processing unstructured data such as inbound emails or case records, qualification is key to set the appropriate expectation with the client – where the language to be processed is domain specific, the client Subject matter Expert (SME) involvement in the provision of training data sets and ongoing training is mandatory for a successful outcome.

A separate NLU user guide covers the configuration and set up of NLU.