DocsInteract Controller EER4 - April 2020
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Interact Controller |
EER4 |
The release requires Interact Controller to be this version. |
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Blue Prism |
6.4.3a |
The release is compatible with the specified version of Blue Prism version and above. |
This release note is for the Evolution Edition Release 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 releases of Blue Prism Cloud Interact (Interact) Controller.
Important notices
Ensure you have reviewed the upgrade notices for this release.
Release notes
Enhancements
This is the first formal release of the Interact Controller Object.
Blue Prism Cloud 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 Cloud Interact reduces the skill criteria required by allowing users to create dynamic web interfaces by using the no-code form designer.
To support the human/digital worker collaboration capabilities of Blue Prism Cloud Interact, an Object has been developed which automation developers can call from their processes. This Object enables developers to update fields in an Interact Form by allowing the changes made by the digital worker to be fed back via the Interact API.
Fixes and minor improvements
N/A – This is the first formal release of the Interact Controller Object.
Plugin updates
A number of plugins are provided in a Blue Prism Cloud release – new and/or updated plugins are listed below.
Updated plugins
As part of this release all existing plugins have been updated to support a new form structure that has been introduced. New plugins also support this new structure.
New plugins
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Plugin |
Description |
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Live Access |
Live Access allows operators to access their digital workforce from within Hub. Users can browse to Hub and from there launch Live Access to the required digital worker. There are two modes available:
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Upload |
The Upload Plugin function is Blue Prism Cloud’s start to open Hub to allow users to build and install their own plugins. |
Upgrade notices
Install the required Blue Prism artifacts for Interact Controller
To install the Object import the Utility - BPC - Interact Controller v0.04 release file into your version of Blue Prism. The release contains the following artefacts:
- Utility – BPC – Interact Controller
- Utility – HTTP
- Utility – JSON
- Utility – Strings
- Four environmental variables
Installation
Within the installation package there are two artefacts:
- This document
- A Blue Prism Release for BP version 6.4.3a.
To install the Object import the ‘bprelease’ file into your version of Blue Prism. The release contains the following artefacts:
- Utility – BPC – Interact Controller;
- Utility – HTTP;
- Utility – JSON;
- Utility – Strings; and
- Four Environmental Variables.
After the release has been installed see the configuration Section on how to configure and utilize the Object.
Configuration
The Interact Controller is a Business Object that has been produced by Blue Prism Cloud to simplify the interaction between Interact and Blue Prism Design Studio.
The Business Object utilizes Environmental Variables to control its operation, it requires a Collection as an input along with the submission ID (Request ID) to identify the Interact submission that it will be updating. There are no outputs from the Interact Controller though there is exception handling should an error occur during processing.
There are four Environmental Variables that need to be established to operate the Interact Controller, these are:
- EV-Interact-API-Key;
- EV-Interact-API-Username;
- EV-Interact-API-Password; and
- EV-Interact-API-URL.
The first three of these Environmental Variables are obtained when the API is set up within Interact.
The image below shows the API that has been established for our example process.
The same API can be used by multiple processes. Though it is recommended that a separate API is used for each digital worker to ease communication, rather than all digital workers talking to one interface.
The last Environmental Variable the ‘EV-Interact-API-URL’ is the URL used to access the Interact Web Server.
The Environmental Variables are set in the System area of Blue Prism as illustrated below.
Data Items are then set changing the exposure to the ‘Environment’ setting and selecting the appropriate Environment Variable from the dropdown.
Operation
The Interact Controller has three distinct sections detailed below but in summary are:
- Get Bearer Token Header
- Get Process Submission by Request ID
- Update Process Submission by Request ID
Bearer Token
The API connection is used to get bearer authentication from Interact. Bearer authentication is an HTTP authentication scheme that involves security tokens called bearer tokens. The name “bearer authentication” can be understood as “give access to the bearer of this token.” The Bearer Token is a cryptic string, usually generated by the server in response to a login request
This Bearer Token is then used as authorization to retrieve and update information in Interact.
The Bearer Token has a limited time span, which is 15 minutes. If the retrieval and update doesn’t complete within this period, a new Bearer Token will be required.
Get Process Submission by Request ID
This section of the business object uses the Bearer Token as authentication and the Request ID to retrieve from Interact the submission data and form structure. This is returned in a raw JSON format.
Update Process Submission by Request ID
The final part of the business object takes the raw JSON that has been retrieved, reformats it into an acceptable JSON, updates any values that have been changed using the ‘Replacements’ Collection that was created when the data was extracted from Excel and then posts the updated information back into Interact.
Configuring the Interact Controller
To utilize the Interact Controller in your automations. Add a new Action to your process and select from the drop down the ‘Controller’ from the ‘Utility – BPC – Interact Controller’.
The parameters that need to be configured are illustrated in the diagram below.
The ‘_requestId’ is the key parameter to link the update to the Interact submission ID.
The replacements collection is the list of items you want updating in the Interact Form. This is a collection that contains two fields, Name and Value.
The Name field is the name used within the Interact Form, the Value is the new value you intend to replace into the Interact Form.
For further information regarding Interact and the Interact Controller please see the Interact User Guide.
