Release Notes 

This is a major release and this section provides the details about the new and enhanced features and functionalities included in AssistEdge RPA 20.0 release.

Product Insights

Below are the details related to the build and the released AE RPA Modules:

 

Release Description
Release Title AssistEdge - RPA Release - 20.0
Release Components

This release includes the below mentioned AssistEdge components:

 

  • AssistEdge Robotic Process Automation (Alias – AE RPA) – A software that helps the Robots to do the repetitive and non-judgmental work without human intervention.
  • AssistEdge RPA Administrator (Alias- Admin Module) – A web-based application for RPA administrators to manage any configuration change.
  • AssistEdge Automation Studio – A tool for the automation process designer to configure the  required automation process workflow.
  • AssistEdge Control Tower – A web-based application to monitor the digital workforce and the processes in real-time.
  • AssistEdge Reporting – A web-based application to view the historical, live and forecast based reports for digital workforce, processes and Applications.
  • AssistEdge Enterprise Personal Assistant (Alias – AE EPA) – A tool that provides attended automation solution that is easy to build, deploy and centrally governed and monitored.

New Features and Enhancements

Below are the new features added in the release:

 

 

Below are the enhancements done in this release:

 

CoE Cockpit

AssistEdge CoE Cockpit is a platform designed to transform business processes through automation. It is a central hub for managing and governing automation lifecycle within the organization. Additionally, this platform helps user to:

  • Understand and prioritize the automation projects till it is live and create the required impact.
  • Navigate to the discovery tool to perform auto-assessment of the process.

 

Scale Plan

AssistEdge offers the capability to calculate the number of robots needed prior to setup with a few process related details. The feature is designed to optimize operational cost on Robots by pre-planning. Additionally, the feature allows to create plans per department or function to create a consolidated process list which can be downloaded and tracked.

 

Robot Resilience Snapshot

AssistEdge offers a feature that provides a quick insight into the performance and health of the processes associated with a robot. It allows the user to get insights on the retry success, execution success of the process and showcases the resilient activities which are used in the robot. Additionally, it allows you to be cautious about different transaction level failures and recurrences.

 

Green RPA 

AssistEdge offers a feature designed to maintain the sustainability of RPA programs. It tracks monthly shifts of individual parameters which lead to higher computer processing and infrastructure management, thus impacting the environment. The Green RPA - Green Quotient (GQ) is tracked at process, robot and machine level.

 

XtractEdge Integration

AssistEdge offers support for XtractEdge platform to perform AI or ML based Intelligent Document Processing(IDP). Data from complex, unstructured or scanned documents can now be extracted along with the confidence score for each field in the automations that can be used for further processing as per the business requirement.

 

Automated QA

AssistEdge offers OOB Automated Quality check for automation process. Automated QA capability of enables you to create the test cases on a developed automation process and execute them with a single click. With this capability you can do end to end process testing. Using process export-import feature, users will be able to view or export the process test execution report and move the test cases across environments along with the automation process. This feature helps in version to version migration for Sanity process Testing. Additionally, it helps user to validate the Automataion coverage for set of inputs.    

 

Group 365 Adapters

AssistEdge offers support for Microsoft Group 365 related operations. Automations such as create group, delete group, list group etc. are provided, after the authentication is established with all the office applications.

Calendar 365 Adapters

AssistEdge offers support for Microsoft Calendar 365 related operations. Automations such as create event, find  meeting timings, retrieve Calendar Id etc. are provided, after the authentication is established with all the office applications.

 

Credential Activity

AssistEdge offers support to add, retrieve, or remove credentials from the Windows Credentials Manager.

Cryptography Activity

AssistEdge offers support to encrypt, decrypt, or hash, any text or file based on the specified algorithms, key, and encoding standards.

MS Word Automation

AssistEdge offers support to replace text or image from a Word file, save the Word file in various formats, add hyperlink, image, or data table at specified positions in the document.

 

Rules Engine Functionality

AssistEdge offers support to create a repository of user defined business rules using the Decision Rules process type. They can be defined for the specific use cases as per the industry need. The business rules can be reused across multiple automation process workflows with the help of Decision Table activity. 

Decision Table

This activity enables the users to utilize the configured Decision Rule process type for performing the condition-based actions.

 

Execute ML Model

AssistEdge offers the Micro AI capability that empowers the users to easily execute simple ML models. This can be achieved using the Execute ML Model activity whereby providing basic details such as Python path, module path, methods, and input variables the pre-trained ML models can be executed using robots in local and remote machines. This feature has been designed to enhance productivity and reduce complexity, ensuring a seamless experience for the users.

 

Runtime Configuration in Control Tower

AssistEdge offers the capability to configure runtime settings using the RUNTIME CONFIGURATION available in Control Tower. Users such as the RPA administrators can configure settings related to Robot, Proctor, and Robot Agent specific to an automation project such as Data Masking, browser settings, authentication settings, and so on.

 

Module Configuration In Admin Module

Below are the different configurations that be done using the Module Configuration option:

Alerts

AssistEdge offers the capability to configure AssistEdge related alerts using Alert Configuration available in the Admin Module.

 

Infrastructure Health Monitoring

AssistEdge offers the capability that allows monitoring of infrastructure components and sending E-mail Notifications in case the components are not responsive or if they are in an unproductive state.

Automation Studio 

AssistEdge offers the capability to configure automation  project-related settings such as automation prerequisites, browser settings, Version Control System, enable Auto Save option, setup Auto Save interval, setup process reset time, Chrome and MS Edge web driver settings, Java and Python specific automation settings, patch notification settings and so on.

Enterprise Personal Assistant

AssistEdge offers the capability for the users such as RPA administrator can configure settings related to the attended automation capability-Enterprise Personal Assistant (EPA such as browser settings, History Tracking Settings,  Process setting, Emulator based settings , EPA settings, notification settings and so on.

 

Compatibility with Azure SQL MI Database

AssistEdge offers support for the Azure  SQL Managed Instance with System Assigned Managed Identity. 

 

Enhanced Updating Reporting Manager

AssistEdge is enhanced to support updating reporting managers of multiple users through bulk upload.

 

Enhanced .NET Mode Automation

AssistEdge offers the capability to automate Windows applications which are built on the .Net Framework technology i.e., WPF, Winforms. Users can use predefined interactions on selected automation control or write the required code in C# language.
 

Excel 365 Adapters

AssistEdge offers support for Office 365 Excel related operations. Automations such as Add Workbook, add table, VLookup, etc. are provided, after the authentication is established with all the office applications.

 

FTP Activity

The FTP activity under Process Components has been enhanced to allow the user to create or remove directories and check if the file or directory exists.

JSON Activity

The JSON Activity under Process Components has been enhanced to extract list of objects from a complex JSON. This enhancement enables you to map the JSONPath output to Datatable columns.

Modern Authentication Support for Common Credential

AssistEdge offers the capability to store the authentication details for multiple profiles at a time in Control Tower.  

 
The Modern Authentication credentials are not applied to non-Modern Authentication profiles and vice-versa. The authentication credentials are applied to profiles that have applications of the same OAuth type.

Email Notification for Robot Status

AssistEdge offers the capability for Email notifications of Robot Status using Control Tower. It is applicable for Robots that are started using either the Custom Schedule or Default Schedule.

 

Create Multiple Robots

AssistEdge supports the capability to scale up Robots using functionality to create multiple Robots at once. Multiple Robots can:Be assigned to multiple users, schedules, and process profiles.
Be taken ownership at once with vaults like Default, CyberArk, Beyond Trust.
 


For the complete list of features and functionalities included in the Beta release, see Product Features.

 

FOSS and Third-Party Components

AssistEdge RPA uses certain Free Open Source Software which is the property of their respective owners and is licensed with their licenses. For usage of any third party software, users need to procure the licenses for the software applications if they want to use, automate, and abide by their terms of use.

 

The FOSS and Third Party Components details are also available on the EdgeVerve website - https://www.edgeverve.com/componentlist/assistedge/robotic-process-automation/.

 

Performance and Security Recommendations

Performance and Endurance Recommendations

See Hardware Recommendation while provisioning the infrastructure for deployments. This document has recommendations for different supported scenarios for Automation deployment.

Security Recommendations

Ensure that the AssistEdge Automation Secure Deployment Guideline document is adhered to while deploying the product. This ensures that the most relevant best practices for setting up the product are taken care of during installation and setup.

 

Known Issues and Limitations

Feature usage and limitations/ boundary conditions are available as part of Product Usage/Installation/other product documents. Below is the list of known open issues and limitations at the time of the RPA 19.1 release.

  • When applications are launched using multi-browser capability (Firefox & Chrome), then Enterprise Personal Bot launch time may increase. Adjust the sign-in timeout value accordingly to prevent timeout on application sign-in.
  • It is possible to create and deploy Multiple Sign in and Reset processes of the same application if one is done first in Studio and then through Process Recorder. It is recommended to use either of the options for Sign in and Reset automation and then edit the same in Studio as required. 
  • Session expiry is only available at the individual module level while Single logout is working fine across Admin, Control-Tower, Kibana modules.
  • While setting up a robot in profile with a sign-in application (which contains a secondary password), Control Tower does not display the field to enter the secondary password.
  • If any of the user profile gets unassigned and robot is released by the user, all the previously created schedules (default and custom) for the released robot are impacted. In order to assign and setup same robot again, user is required to retain the earlier assigned profile.
  • For all the limitations within the product, see Product Boundary.

 

More Resources

AssistEdge Community is a forum for AssistEdge users, if you want to ask any product related questions or help other members out, please join our community, the registration is free and easy. See AssistEdge Community page at https://forum.assistedgerpa.com/.

 

AssistEdge Academy  - Single destination for all AssistEdge Automation related learning needs. It offers an Ecosystem for learning and growth.

  • SELF LEARNING e-courses on RPA & AssistEdge products, APIs, adaptors, how-to-use & much more.
  • RESOLVE DOUBTS – Self-help content and training materials that can be used to learn about the product and solve problems quickly and independently.
  • ASSESS EXPERTISE - Skill assessment enabled through Certification programs.

Visit AssistEdge Academy at https://assistedgeacademy.onwingspan.com/.

  

Technical Support Resources

Technical support is available to customers who have purchased AssistEdge products with a valid license. The support details are listed below.

 

  1. The different support packages offered by AssistEdge are mentioned in the table below.

 

Support  Packages

Support Channel

Minor, Release, Patches, and Hot Fixes

Major Version Upgrades

Support

Silver

Ticketing system only

Included

Not Included

9x5 weekday business hrs.

Gold

Ticketing system only

Included

Included

24x5 weekdays & on-call support for P1 tickets

Platinum

Ticketing system, email, call

Included

Included

24x7 ticketing, email, on-call support for P1 tickets
  1. The contact details for support are: