Release Notes

Updates on Robocorp Code

• The logging from robocorp.tasks/robocorp.log is now integrated directly into VSCode (ROBO TASKS OUTPUT view).
• Note: Requires robocorp.tasks 2.1.2, robocorp.log 2.3.0 and Robocorp Code 1.7.0.
• Elements which have a location can now be clicked to open the related file directly inside of VSCode.
• The terminal view can now also show entries logged from robocorp.log debug|warn|info|critical and not just stdout/stderr.

Other noteworthy changes in Robocorp Code:

• Fixed issues in Run Task / Debug Task code lenses (launching robocorp.tasks):

• Robot environment properly used when robot is available.

• The input work item is properly selected when available.

• If multiple entry points in the same file were available the selected one will be run.

• If a robot.yaml has preRunScripts they'll be run prior to launching.

Noteworthy changes in robocorp.log:

• Added robocorp.log.debug (so, there's one more level available to log messages).

• It's possible to filter log levels by using setup_log(log_level='debug|info|warn|critical') (so that log levels filtered out won't even be added to the log.html).

• It's possible to also redirect to sys.stdout or sys.stderr the messages added with log.debug, log.info, log.warn and log.critical by using setup_log(output_log_level='debug|info|warn|critical') along with setup_log(output_stream={'debug': 'stderr'}) (note that the current default is just redirecting critical calls to stderr).

Today we are releasing Asset Storage for your bots! It’s a highly convenient way to persistently store data and configurations you might need when setting up or operating your attended or unattended automations.

The Asset Storage stores data on a workspace scope and can be used either via UI, API, or with Keywords directly from the Robots, and supports different data types, e.g., Text, JSON, and Files.

There are endless use cases in which the feature can be helpful; your imagination is the limit! Here are some examples we have heard from our users:

• Managing configuration data across automations in a centralized way instead of multiple environment variables in process steps (e.g. e-mail lists used by the robots)

• Sharing common input data across multiple processes (e.g. Excel sheet that multiple robots process different parts from)

• Storing user-facing reports that are updated by multiple processes (e.g. Excel sheet that is updated by multiple different processes)

• Storing process operational data that the work items are not suitable for due to their transactional nature

• Storing non-process items, like development guides, documentation, and company practices

• Storing LLM prompt templates to be used by the robots with large language models, allowing the iteration of prompts without deploying the bot

The Asset Storage is designed for non-sensitive data that needs to persist beyond a single process or assistant run, and the Vault should be used to store sensitive data like credentials instead.

How to use

Control Room UI: Asset Storage is enabled by default, and you can access it from the navigation by selecting "Assets" in the menu. In the Assets view, you can create new assets or modify the content of old assets.

API: Assets can be used with the workspace API; please see the available actions from the API documentation under "Asset Storage".

Keywords: To utilize Assets from robots, we have created simple-to-use keywords for convenient workflows. Please see the library documentation.

For the full description of the feature, please see the documentation page. As always, we at Robocorp would be most excited to hear your thoughts and feedback about the features, and if you have interesting use cases in mind, please share them with us!

Added System Toolbox to fix the most common system-level settings

Detection if the user is an administrator and hides features that cannot be used.

Submit Issue is now available:

• Submit Issue creates the report as Generate Report & sends that as attachment

• The report package will still be available for the user locally

Fixes to the Windows Desktop Worker setup:

• Fixed issues with User & Domain

• Added ability to test user credentials

Download Robocorp Setup Utility from our download site.

We're excited to announce our new automation framework for Python automations – simply called robocorp. The release brings the experience of developing Python automations on par with Robot Framework on our platform. The project templates in our VS Code extension have been updated to use the new framework and leverage its capabilities.

Check out our blog post for in-depth story about the new features, or view and read the summary below.

Features

• New @task Decorator: Any method decorated with @task becomes runnable, and can thus be scheduled or otherwise managed as a part of a Process or Assistant in Control Room.
• Visual and Autogenerated Logs: We've brought the loved logging features from Robot Framework to Python, all without you having to write a single line of code. Furthermore, you can now control the logging with ease, suspending logs for sections dealing with sensitive data in several different ways.
• New Robocorp Automation Libraries: While our rpaframework libraries are based on Python, we wanted to enhance the developer experience for those choosing to work on Python exclusively. The new robocorp automation libraries roll out focusing on common automation tasks (Excel, browser, APIs) and interacting with Robocorp Control Room (such as Vault, Asset Storage, Work Items).
• New Python Templates in VS Code and Portal: Easiest way to start using these new capabilities is through the new Python templates in VS Code. They are already available, for example have a look at Playwright Browser automation template.

👉 You can now manage your Windows Workers just by logging in as the server's admin and using Setup Utility.

Setup Utility lets you see which ones are busy, CPU loads, versions, jump to the correct Worker in Control Room, etc. Setup Utility also now handles the permission setting so that you can directly create Workers on user accounts without admin permissions.

The service-helper CLI tool is still there, and Setup Utility is using it, so the CLI support needed by IT departments using fleet management systems is going nowhere.

👉 The update path is to update your existing Workers to v6.31.1 using the service-helper so that Setup Utility can see them. After that, you can do everything in Setup Utility. You can find the documentation on Setup Utility in our docs

There is also support for Demo Worker, which is designed to replace the Robocorp Workforce Agent UI application. So if you need to demonstrate robot runs on your machine, this is the place for you.

This was one of the “this should be simple” features that turned out to be a bit bigger thing 😉, so big props to Kosmo & Matti from my team!

I'd also want to thank a few enterprise customers and their IT departments, but I do not know if I can ping their names, so I'll just give an anonymous thank you here. 🙏

👉 Need to control or scan every file your automations use in production?

👉 Want to save time / protect developers from environment building?

We now have a solution for setting up environment pre-building inside your company network so that all robot runs and developer tools can get environments much faster.

The setup enables you to build the environments on dedicated machines and, if needed, scan the results before passing them on to your users.

The client machines only download missing files to get the environment which means drastic speed improvements over time as the environments share many of the same files.

🚀 The documentation covers the feature and setup, but if there are any questions, do not hesitate to ping us.

Robot Templates coming via RCC and VS Code are now "renamed" a bit, and we have a simple landing page for templates to explain a bit more and have links to their Portal pages.

The highlight item is the new template Producer-Consumer Extended, which extends the Producer-Consumer template by showcasing a third step for reporting, examples for starting your own Python library, more extensive exception handling, etc.

The template list from RCC looks like this:

👉 Reminder that Robocorp Portal is full of open-source robots that can work as a jumping off point, so check it out.

Robocorp Assistant 2.0.11

This update contains:

• Now all the Error pages will show a "Submit issue" button; this will specially be helpful for users to submit an issue in case of linking errors
• RCC updated to version 14.6.0

Kind reminder that Assistant v1 will be deprecated end of June 2023, we will push the automatic update, at which point the end-users still using version 1 will get a prompt to upgrade.

Robocorp Setup Utility is a new application we have developed to simplify the setup process inside companies that are using SSO, have stricter network access, or want to avoid command-line setups 😉

What is the tool for?

• Quickly create and test a profile configuration for your SSO organization

• The tool also helps you through complex setups with network proxies etc.

• Import and switch between profiles

• Note: Our VS Code extension also supports profile imports and switching.

• Setup and run the Local Worker for testing purposes

• Setup Utility will replace the Workforce Agent UI application for the local testing use case

…and on the coming soon list are the Windows Desktop Worker Setups

Download the tool from: https://robocorp.com/download.

You can find guides and documentation on our docs site

Robocorp Assistant 2.0.8

This update contains:

• RCC updated to version 13.12.0 now supports the ROBOCORP_HOME env variable to be a path that contains special characters like diacritics
• Security updates for multiple 3rd party dependencies
• Fixes that should support better the complex network proxy setups

We also released Robocorp Assistant 1.9.3 that contains important security updates as part of the maintenance for v1. This is a kind reminder that Assistant v1 is marked for deprecation.

We will publish security updates to Assistant v1 until the end of April 2023. End of June 2023, we will push the automatic update, at which point the end-users still using version 1 will get a prompt to upgrade.

• Library RPA.Windows (rpaframework-windows 7.3.0; #912):
• Our Windows elements recorder (windows-recorder) supports path: strategy display when run with verbosity on. (-v flag)
• Keyword Print Tree now displays the path: strategy locator alongside printed controls and flattened-by-level returned elements.
• Keyword Set Value supports value validation customization through the validator parameter.

Check our visually detailed Portal example in order to learn more about element paths and how to use the recorder: this Portal example

RPA.Assistant (rpaframework-assistant) 2.2.0:

New features:

• Add Text Input now supports Robot Framework validation keywords
• Add Text Input now supports minimum and maximum rows to enable multiline inputs
• Improve how validation errors are displayed. They display beside the input field now, instead of bottom of the dialog.
• Fix checkbox values being strings "true" and "false" instead of booleans.

This update to Automation Studio is all about solving potential issues users might encounter. The system diagnostics dialogs have been re-designed, and should now better guide users through possible errors and their mitigations. This version also fixes various bugs reported by users who have been doing the first certification course.

Features

• Redesigned diagnostics dialogs with more clear UI, better documentation, and an option to automatically fix issues (where possible)
• Support for showing code comments (#) in visual mode

Updates

• Removed non-functional Safari option in browser preferences
• Selected workspace is now stored per project

Bugfixes

• Export project menu option would always fail
• Manually added code comments would sometimes be removed on project save
• Custom Python environment variables would sometimes prevent running Robots
• Inspector window sometimes out of bounds with multi-monitor setups
• User keywords would not update when return values were added

RPA.Assistant (rpaframework-assistant ) 2.1.2:

Bugfixes:

• Fix File picker sometimes causing AssertionError: Control must be added to the page first
• Fix Add Next Ui Button callback getting a normal dict instead of a DotDict.

RPA.Assistant (rpaframework-assistant ) 2.1.0:

New features:

• Add Set Title keyword. Can be used to set title of assistant when it is running.

• Add Open Row and Close Row keywords. Used to layout elements into rows.

• Add Open Column and Close Column keywords. Used to layout elements into columns.

• Add Open Navbar and Close Navbar keywords. Can be used to create an always visible top bar for a dialog.

• Add Open Stack and Close Stack keywords. Can be used to position elements manually.

• Add Open Container and Close Container keywords. Useful for styling or placing single elements.

• Add Add Flet Icon that enables adding any icons from Flet's large gallery of icons.

  • Compared to Add Icon, it is more complicated to use but supports a much larger amount of icons.

Bugfixes:

• Fix regression, Assistant flet app not closing properly when run from CLI and when close button is pressed.
• The library no longer silently misses adding to the result when an input name duplicate name is used, instead raises a ValueError.

The first certification course designed for Automation Studio is now available! This update brings in some missing keywords required for the course, and a bunch of small and medium-sized improvements to the developer experience, that should hopefully make finishing the course a breeze.

Features

• The first certification course for Automation Studio
• Libraries in sidebar for archives and PDFs

Updates

• Show all used RPA Framework libraries in palette, if import defined manually
• Show conditionals in tree as read-only, instead of editing raw conditional string
• Automatically open sidebar when adding new keywords or control structures
• Keyword argument inputs show default value and more user-friendly argument names
• Improved handling of non-boolean values in boolean arguments
• Automatically activate task if writing or copy-pasting code into empty file
• Links to Control Room and documentation follow profile, if defined
• Show artifact and log files if encountering an error during Robot run start

Bugfixes

• Editor would crash sometimes when items were deleted in visual mode
• Unable to write work item key that starts with previous key
• Show correct user keywords per suite, if project has multiple suites
• Reveal in file system button does nothing on Windows
• Empty icons for users with no profile image
• Double border for run view errors

RPA.Assistant v2.0.0

The new version of RPA.Assistant contains the following breaking changes:

• Run Dialog and Ask User parameter clear was removed, clearing is now mandatory

• (affects Python side users only): Location enum that run_dialog and ask_user accepts was changed from Location to WindowLocation to improve clarity.

• By default sliders now round to 1 decimal. Use round Argument to specify amount of decimals.

New features:

• Added location argument to Add Button keyword

• Added round argument to Add Slider keyword.

Fixes:

• Internal refactoring

• Update underlying UI library to Flet 0.2.2 -> 0.4.2, granting various bugfixes and improvements

• Now depends on rpaframework-core 10.4.1 due to Flet dependency incompatibilities with earlier versions

Robocorp Assistant 2.0.4

• Fix for supporting proxies with passwords that contain special characters

• Updates to internal dependencies for security updates

• Fix for the documentation URL

Reminder: Assistant v2 update had some behavior changes that we do not want to force the automatically update to version 2. Update to v2 by downloading the application from the downloads page and installing it. The update will not break the link to Control Room. We will publish security updates to Assistant v1 until the end of April 2023. End of June 2023, we will push the automatic update, at which point the end-users still using version 1 will get a prompt to upgrade. Please contact us via Slack or Forum if you have any questions.

This update of Automation Studio is mostly about under the hood changes. Project environments handling has been refactored, and from now on custom environments are built locally on the machine. In the following releases we will be introducing ways for managing custom libraries and dependencies in projects.

Features

• Build project environments that have unsupported dependencies
• Automatically clean stale environments when starting application

Updates

• Updated default environment to use latest RPA Framework
• Reduced disk space usage for environments
• Improved errors when opening projects
• Tasks and User Keywords no longer automatically titlecased
• Undo and Redo hidden in Flow view, added tooltips

Bugfixes

• Resource and Variables imports sometimes changed to Library imports
• Wrong vertical alignment for certain Variable and Locator icons

Robocorp Assistant 2.0.1

The new version of Robocorp Assistant simplifies the end-user experience.

The end-user no longer sees technical / developer options like 'Open Logs', 'Unlink', etc. as the technical features are now behind a Maintenance mode, which you can activate via user settings.

The bigger change in behavior is that the robot run output handling is now in complete control of the robot developer.

If your robot needs to store, for example, report files to the user's local folder, this needs to be done in the robot code, where Robot developers can choose the location or ask the user. Assistant application no longer copies robot outputs automatically to users local folders.

Files placed in the artifactsDir defined in robot.yaml work just like before and will be sent to the Control Room at the end of the run, so use these for debugging as you see fit.

Note: Due to the behavior change described above, the Assistant application will not automatically update to version 2.

Update to v2 by downloading the application from the downloads page and installing it. The update will not break the link to Control Room.

We will publish security updates to Assistant v1 until the end of April 2023. End of June 2023, we will push the automatic update, at which point the end-users still using version 1 will get a prompt to upgrade.

Please contact us via Slack or Forum if you have any questions.