General enhancements
This topic summarizes the general enhancements in TotalAgility 7.11.0.
Executing an RPA robot on a queue
TotalAgility supports calling long-running robots via a queue without continuously blocking a thread in TotalAgility Core Worker.
The new Execute asynchronously property added to the Configuration tab of the RPA activity when selected adds the robot execution request to the queue at runtime. The robot calls back to TotalAgility when it is completed and then TotalAgility can process the results and complete the activity.
You can also select the priority and how long the robot can remain in the queue.
Skins support the override of the classification group
You can create a skin and override the classification group used at both the process and activity level enabling each skin to customize the classification group used.
Find a node in a process
You can find a node easily within a process without scanning the entire process map by using the Find option on the Action toolbar of the process designer. You can search by the name, and node ID, and filter the list by the node type.
Evaluate a document set on job creation
The document set is evaluated when a job is created displaying job details such as name, comment, and status (Passed or Failed).
Support a document set in a precondition
The document set properties (Valid of Bool type and Count of Short type) are accessible when adding a precondition. You can now prevent activity from becoming pending for an invalid document set.
Comments on new version and packages
You can add comments each time you save or release an item such as process, case definition, case fragment, any of the rule types, skins, custom services, forms, extraction groups, and folders and provide details of the changes that have been done since the last version.
Two new options, Save with Comments and Release with Comments, are added to the Action Bar and File tab that help you to add comments against the version.
Similarly, you can add comments on the Comments property in the General tab each time you change a package definition.
These comments are then available in the new Comments column on the Versions option of the context menu and Version history on the File tab.
Manipulate repeating data
Use the new Data list activity available in the TotalAgility Designer to manipulate repeating data within a data object.
Variable display properties
The following new display properties are added to the variables in both the TotalAgility Designer and TotalAgility Apps.
-
Show Time: Not all use cases require a date and a time, such as a date of birth. Using this property, you can specify whether to show the time element for Date and Nullable date variables at runtime.
-
Label text: Use this property to define the label text for the following variable types.
In Quick Workflow and Quick RPA: Bool, Data object, Date, Decimal, Numeric, and String type variables.
In TotalAgility Designer: Bool, Data object, Date, Decimal, String, Nullable string, Byte, Double, Float, JSON expression, Long, Date, and Nullable date type variables.
Additional display properties for the data object fields
You can configure the additional display properties for the Text (Single line, Multi line, Drop down, Email, and Mandatory), Number (Min/Max value), and Date (Min/Max date) field types in the data models.
Return job ID for Create new job and Transfer activities
You can return the job ID of the created job by selecting a process or server variable on the created job list. You can use this job ID in the parent process.
Skip usable resource assignments in test scripts
You can skip the runtime usable resource assignment by selecting the Complete as system option when configuring the test data for manual activities. On executing the test data, the activity is completed by TotalAgility; otherwise, the activity is completed by the specified resource.
Badge to indicate unactioned notes
If any unactioned process notes are available, a badge appears on the Notes tab of the process.
Get attachments to a folder
If you use a Folder variable, the documents are added to the folder at runtime. If the folder is not available, it is first created and then the documents are added to it.
If a Folder variable is used for the target location, the mapped Complex or Dynamic complex variable holds the document IDs.
Form control takes precedence over the form control name
When a form control and a form variable have the same name, the form control name takes precedence over the form variable name in the actions and at runtime.
Allow Web Service and POST HTTP form action calls to be context-aware
When you configure an action such as the .Net method on an Activity form, the ContextHeader property is available for a form control.
This property is useful when calling the Capture SDK (CaptureDocumentService) using web service references from a custom DLL.
You can make API calls context-aware, by injecting the ContextHeader property into outgoing HTTP headers before making an API call.
Submit button
A new Submit button option is available in the General properties of a Button control. If you select this property, the actions associated with the specific button execute when you press the Enter key. See Properties of a Button control.
Auto-size label control
When you add a label to a percentage or fixed-width form (Desktop, Tablet, and Phone), by default, the width mode set for a form is the default width mode for the control.
This option is only available to the label control, but not to the label associated with the controls. For example, a label on a text box.
Retain table column cell alignment by using custom CSS
The alignment of text in a table column is retained when a custom CSS is applied to a Table control.
Additional button/command configuration for Capture control
You can now merge documents, split a document, and swap front and back pages using the new toolbar buttons available on the main toolbar for the Capture controls.
Customization of the auto-complete search mechanism on validation
When you enter the text in a Capture text field or combo box, the search automatically displays the suggestions that meet the specific criteria.
Build Create new job and Activity forms for activities
You can build a Create new job or Activity forms for activities that use Data object variables so that the fields can be populated. The following items are added.
-
A copy of the data model
-
The Data object form variable referencing the same model
-
Controls and actions to get and update the data from the Data object
-
The associated display properties of the Data object fields are used when the fields are shown in Create new job or Activity forms.
It is not possible to regenerate the form; you must delete and build the form again so that the latest data model is always being used.
JavaScript action on federated security Logon form
A JavaScript action available on a Logon form generated using federated security dynamically creates buttons and panels based on the number of federated providers defined in TotalAgility at runtime. See JavaScript action.
Request automation of activity
When you build an Activity form for an ordinary activity or debug an Activity form, a new Request Automation Rule button is added to the form so that you can request automation of the activity. At runtime when you click the Request Automation Rule button on the Activity form, a pop-up window appears that displays the name of the process or case that the activity belongs to, the name of the activity, and the Details text box where you can enter the description of the automation.
Show form status
You can see the form status as Saved or Released, on the new Status column added to the Forms list page.
Scan profile update based on field values
You can use different scan profiles with the same Scan activity by using the new Select scan profile Capture client action that updates the Scan profile based on the field values in the Process tab of the Scan form at runtime.
Alternative extraction search: Customize column and window size
When configuring the Alternative extraction search action, a Display tab is available where you can define the size of the Alternative extraction search window and columns.
Exchange integration: Replace EWS APIs with MS Graph APIs
On upgrading from TotalAgility 7.9 or 7.10, when you select the "Switch to MS Graph" option, the "OAuth server for MS Graph" is displayed where you can manually select to switch over to MS Graph for any existing configurations that use EWS. If you select this option, the processing of email notifications works when you have scope permissions for MS Graph APIs. If the option is clear, MS Graph continues to work if EWS is supported. If you try to switch to MS Graph after EWS support fails, a warning message appears. At runtime, once the processing is completed, you cannot view the "Switch to MS Graph" and "Exchange web service URL" options in the TotalAgility Designer.
Testing and debugging
The following are the enhancements to process testing and debugging.
Upload an existing folder or document when debugging or testing
When debugging and testing a business rule or process, you can upload an existing folder or a document using the new Existing option.
Web service debugging
When you debug a process, on a completed Web service activity, the information such as node ID, status, type, automatic, performed on, performed by, and duration is displayed. The links to the URL, the headers that were passed to the service (including custom headers), the request body, and the response body (including HTTP code) are also available. For more information, see Retrieve or delete data in "Configure a RESTful service activity" in the TotalAgility Designer Help.
If you select "Suspend the job on error," the URL, request body, request headers, and response body information of that activity are not displayed during process debugging.
When you debug a form, from the stack trace, you can access the details of a completed Web service action by accessing the links to the URL of the service, Request header, Request body, and Response body on the Info tab.
Updating case states within fragments
You can update the state in the case definition as part of your case fragment testing or debugging.
When you create a test on a fragment or debug a fragment and update states via the toolbar, you can set the state for the case definition to be applied on the case definition job.
You can see the updated state in the case definition change state history.
Allow larger internal training sets for classification
Use the new Maximum Capture Project Size setting to allow storing larger training sets of Capture project data. By default, the maximum Capture Project size is 2 GB. You can configure this size in the Web.config file to allow the zipped training sets to exceed 2 GB, however, the zipped project folder is still restricted to 2 GB.
Use the new Long Database Transaction Timeout Interval setting to configure a longer transaction timeout to store larger project training sets. You can update this setting in Web.config and Agility.Server.StreamingService.exe.config.
You can also configure these settings on the Capture Storage tab of the Configuration utility.
Image size threshold for storing binary data
Use the new Configuration Utility setting, Capture Storage file size threshold in kilobytes, to set the Capture storage file size threshold in kilobytes.
Documents already rejected before opening in the Verification activity to be read-only
Documents that are already rejected before coming into the Verification activity are displayed as read-only. This does not apply to documents that are newly rejected in a Verification activity since they can be unrejected.
Reference logos in the generated PDF
The PDF merge operation is optimized to remove PDF resources that were duplicated during the PDF split operation when "Merge PDF page data" was used.
Extraction group checkout simplified
When using GIT, the restriction that all classification groups should be checked out to check out an extraction group is removed because the extraction group being used in a classification group can be from a different working folder.
Dynamically set classification group by name in a process
In a classification group, the system automatically displays the GUID. Use this ID in a String variable (process or server) to dynamically set the classification group in a Capture process.
Numeric identifiers for the bar code types
When retrieving the bar code structure, instead of the names of bar code types, their numeric identifier values are displayed. For more information, see Numeric identifiers for the bar code types.
Audit type to track changes to retention settings
Any changes to the retention policy are tracked in the audit log entries.
Configurable interval for removing inactive machine names
A new configurable Inactive machine retention system setting is available only for TotalAgility on-premise.
If the Core Worker, Transformation, or Export services remain inactive beyond the inactive machine retention period, the corresponding entry is deleted from the Machines table in the database so that you can only view the machines that are active in your deployment.
System-level form cell padding defaults
You can set the default values for the cell padding on a form at the system level. These values are used when a new cell is added to a form.
You can update a cell padding value from the cell properties.
Support for OAuth 2.0 authentication in SMTP email server configuration
The new OAuth 2.0 option for Authentication is available in the Email server (SMTP) system setting.
You can now use a configured OAuth 2.0 server in TotalAgility if OAuth 2.0 authentication is selected. At runtime, the latest access token for the configured OAuth 2.0 server is used when sending an email to the configured SMTP email server.
Include training sets within a package
You can include the training sets when a package is created for a certain deployment.
Turn off include options by default
The Include items associated with processes and Include items associated with forms options are turned off by default in a package so that all the items within a solution are exported automatically and the associations are updated every time you open a package.
Skin associations within a package
When you add a process with an associated skin to the package, all the items associated with the skin are automatically added to the package. If you override a setting and select a new item such as an associated form, the package associations are updated accordingly.
Support for SharePoint Online
TotalAgility supports the SharePoint Online type for all SharePoint nodes and SharePoint Online events.
A new Process MS SharePoint Online Events system task periodically polls the configured SharePoint online servers to get the outstanding events processed by TotalAgility. This maintains a SharePoint state property for each server so that it gets only new events since the last time it was checked.
Import error for artifacts with the same name but a different ID
If a package includes an item (such as saved Capture control layout, regular expression, import connection, import source, job schedule, work allocation rule, event, target, alert, category (including items within the category), process, site, theme, navigation, note type, page rendition, reporting tag, checklist data, lookup, thread pool, and persona) having the same name but a different ID as an existing item on the target system, an error is displayed and the package is not imported.
Maximum size of the package
The size of the file that you import cannot exceed the set limit. By default, this limit is 2000 MB. You can change this limit by modifying the Package Content Max Size in MB setting on the Streaming tab of the Configuration Editor tool. While importing a file, if the size of the file is more than the set limit, an error appears, and the system restricts those files from being imported.
Import/Export of process or package with work queue automation rules
When you import/export a process that contains work queue automation rules (decision tables) or import/export a package that includes such a process, the rules are automatically imported/exported, However, the resources are not included in the import/export, but the configuration remains the same if the same resources with same IDs exist on the other system.
Warning on importing local assembly into a tenant
If a package that contains a process or form using a local assembly is imported into a tenant (on-premise multi-tenant or Azure), a warning is displayed on the import results screen indicating a local assembly has been imported.
Audit entry for a deleted query
Any deleted query is tracked in the audit log.
Work queue automation: System Query
You can create dashboards to show the effects of work queue automation on manual workloads.
In the System query, if "Completed work" is selected and "Completed by" is set as "Anyone" or "Assigned resource," an additional filter field, Work queue automation, is available. When selected, this field allows you to retrieve tasks completed by Work queue automation.
Currency code support for decimal columns
If the data type is Decimal, you can set the currency code to be displayed at runtime. For example, if you select US Dollar as currency, the $ (Dollar symbol) is displayed at runtime.
Literal strings in rules automatically support special characters
Literal strings in rules automatically support special characters such as \ and ". At runtime, the rules are updated to automatically prefix the literal strings with the @ symbol, but only when required. You can still use a prefix for the literal string with the @ symbol, such as @"abc\123" or by escaping the characters, such as "abc\\123".
Designer profile update
You can configure your profile in TotalAgility Designer and Quick RPA to use an avatar.
Logon page UI
The UI/UX of the logon page is standardized across TotalAgility (Designer, Workspace, Tenant Management System).
The header, title, label names, and button sizes are updated accordingly.