With October came the rollout of our newest developer release to the Automation Success Platform: v.30. Hopefully, by now, you and your automation team have had a chance to see, test, and put into action some of the sleek updates and highly requested enhancements. But, in case you've been hunkered down with some of your own pressing developments, Automation Anywhere's resident guru, Micah Smith, ranked his top 5 updates from the .30 developer release. We're here to countdown those picks and share all the details on how valuable they can be to you!
#5 - New Homepage Widgets, aka: Updates to the Automation Command Center
The Automation Command Center is a quick-view dashboard with different views based on your role, meaning the widgets and operational automation details you'll see in your dashboard will be tailored to what's relevant to you! If you're a Developer, your dashboard will summarize information like device status, recent automations you've been working on, and a code analysis from our Code Quality Analyzer. On the other hand, if you're an Automation Leader, the dashboard will act as a roll-up of operational metrics such as licenses, device utilization, automation run hours, and recent successful and failed automations. To learn more about these views and the customization options you have, hit the docs portal for some additional details.
#4 - OAuth2 Support for the REST API Package
If you're unfamiliar, Open Authorization 2 (OAuth2) is a standard protocol that enables third-party applications to access users' data without exposing their credentials. Consider it a valet key for your digital accounts that grants OAuth2 a limited-use "key" to perform specific tasks. With OAuth2, you can ensure your processes are efficient and follow best practices for user authentication and data protection, eliminating the need for automators to have access to or storage for credentials. Once the connections are set up using encrypted tokens, any application-specific package or REST action can have access to this authentication, meaning you don't have to worry about how to map several different fields using credential vault values. You set up the connection once, and then you can select it from a list when building out new automations. Now that's textbook "easy peasy!" Find more details here on how to configure OAuth2.
#3 Gen AI Dedicated Command Package
As of today, this newly released package supports OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Google Vertex AI, Anthropic, and Amazon Bedrock. Moving forward, expect that any new generative AI providers that are supported will have their actions added to this package. In case you missed Micah's previous videos on the decoupling of packages from the core platform, we want to highlight that package updates can happen off release-cycle. So don't be surprised if you log in and discover new capabilities available to you. It's also worth mentioning that if a particular generative AI provider is not consistently returning the results you're looking for, we recommend you consider trying one of the other options we have listed here. In our own experience, we've used OpenAI for some things and Google Vertex AI for others. Not all LLMs are made equal, and exploring which ones give you the best, most consistent results is worth exploring! See more details here on how to set up and use the Gen AI Command Package.
#2 Automation Templates
This feature request came directly from our user community! If you haven't heard us preach the benefits of building automations with consistency, frankly, you've been living under a rock! Error handling, logging, log management, metrics, and even notifications should all be done the same way across every automation you build. Templates are the no-brainer way to accomplish that. To create a template, start by creating a task bot. Then, rather than clicking save, you'll notice a new dropdown selection in the top right corner that enables you to "Save as Template." Before you do this, however, ensure you've created your template task bot in a dedicated templates folder or common folder since you'll likely create more template variations down the road. Once you save your task bot as a template and check it into public, you can then create new task bots leveraging that template. A big win for time savings and development consistency! Bonus: Micah posted a template on our Automation Anywhere GitHub for you to try - view it here and give it a test run!
#1 Gen AI-Powered Document Automation
Micah saved the best for last first! This was another solution our community has been asking for, but was unfortunately out of the realm of possibility before generative AI. We're thrilled to report that you can say goodbye to the headache of unstructured documents that have eluded document automation solutions until now. Using our new generative AI-powered Document Automation, you can set up the field you want to capture within an unstructured document and define the question you want answered within the search query box (e.g. what’s the contract date?). The document will then be parsed, and the generative AI model will provide the answer. But that's not all regarding the new document automation benefits in the .30 release! Some additional features include support for out-of-the-box logistics and supply chain document formats such as bills of lading. A game changer for so many of our customers! Hit the link to learn more about combining the power of generative AI with Document Automation.
Honorable Mention
This is not technically part of the product release, but it’s a significant update Micah wanted to be sure to call out to our community. That is - the API Documentation on the docs portal has been completely overhauled and improved. We've made it much easier to understand and visualize than ever before. If you've expressed interest in digging into our Control Room API, this is the best way to start and understand exactly how the API works. You can peruse the API documentation to your heart’s content here.
Feedback Welcome
Did one of your favorite features make this list? If not, what would you rank as your top 5? We’d love to hear what features were most important to you! Drop us a line and let us know. Your feedback always helps inform how we move forward to provide the best solutions for our community.