UiPath 2021.8 Monthly Update

UiPath Product Release 2021.8

It's a hot summer here in the northern hemisphere; nonetheless the team has been hard at work on new features and capabilities for you coming as part of the 2021.10 release. This month we have the following to share.

UiPath Task Capture

Import Microsoft Visio diagram

Do you already have a process map created with MS Visio and want to continue documenting the process in Task Capture? Easily open MS Visio files in Task Capture instead of creating the diagram from scratch. Learn more about the compatibility of the elements.

Visio import feature

Leverage the updated recorder

We've changed the recorder component to improve the quality of selectors Task Capture generates for Studio output. It's already set up as a default recorder, so just capture your process, export it to Studio in XAML format, and see the results.

UiPath Task Mining to include Data Masking for Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

PII data masking is a crucial business best practice, with concerns exacerbated when using third-party cloud applications–something we take very seriously. Our customers are using Task Mining more than ever to discover potential automations by capturing and processing user desktop data and actions. We're excited that this month we will be launching a PII Data Masking feature that is preconfigured to detect and mask:

  • License ID, Social Security Numbers, and Passports Numbers

  • Bank Routing Numbers and Credit/Debit Card information

  • Contact Information such as Names, Phone Number, email Address, and Physical Address

Learn more about PII Data Masking inside Task Mining.

UiPath Insights dashboards now support custom variables from robot logs in the cloud

Insights ingest the data from pre-defined fields (see Insights data model) to fuel dashboard templates such as robots, processes, and queues. It's a great starting point for automation teams looking to track, measure and improve their robotic process automation (RPA) operations. Now you can leverage custom variables added by developers to robot logs. Configure custom variables extracted from robot logs to calculate specific KPIs or build more specialized dashboards. A common example could be building an invoice process-specific dashboard that tracks and reports on the cycle times or exception rate.

Learn more about how to use custom variables inside Insights in the cloud.

UiPath Document Understanding – new Taxonomy Manager

For Document Understanding, 2021.8 release is about introducing some new features to Taxonomy Manager (in preview). Taxonomy Manager is used as an initial step in setting up any Document Understanding workflow in Studio, and 2021.8 updates are intended to increase its usability and friendliness. Key features will allow users to:

  • Create, update, and delete multiple Document Types and corresponding Fields

  • Organize Document Types into Groups and Categories

  • Define Colors and Hot Keys for Fields for easier navigation through the content in Classification Station and Validation Station

New taxonomy manager

Learn more about these and other Taxonomy Manager capabilities.

UiPath IT Automation: Amazon Web Services (AWS) 2.0 identity and access management automation

As we continue our efforts to automate more IT infrastructure and cloud integration services, we are happy to release the Activity Pack for AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). Earlier we had focused on the automation of processes in virtual machines and storage management. With the new AWS 2.0 (IAM) Activity Pack, you can easily automate most of the processes involving AWS IAM groups, roles, users, policies, etc. Activities such as the creation of a new role, deletion or updating of users, managing Objects/Buckets and various other mundane tasks that are frequently carried out by IT Admins in AWS IAM can now be automated. Here's the list of documented AWS activities and the associated permissions. The AWS 2.0 IAM Activity Pack is available under the Manage Packages section in the Studio or can be readily downloaded and used in your automation. A similar Activity Pack for Microsoft Azure AD is already available.

AWS IAM marketplace activity

We’re simplifying the UiPath Studio experience and adding support for cross-platform projects

With the introduction of the Automation Developer user license, we are merging the Studio and Studio Pro profiles. Going forward, all advanced features will be supported in Studio, including test automation, mobile automation, and support for C#. The new simplified profile will also support previously created projects and is backward-compatible with Studio or Studio Pro robots. We now support cross platform projects in Studio with compiled processes based on .Net 5.0, which will make any cross-platform robots available to run in multiple environments. The activities compatible with cross platform projects are filtered in Package Manager and are compatible with several operating systems. For 2021.8, limited support is available for Linux.

New direct buy for UiPath Automation Cloud—coming to a browser near you

In the next few days, we will introduce a new way to buy select Automation Cloud for Enterprise offers directly from the Automation Cloud portal using a credit card. Starting with the United States (U.S.), and coming to most other markets over the next few months, UiPath direct buy lets you choose from three new pre-packaged starter plans purchase offers, right from within the Automation Cloud portal:

  • Automation developer

  • Unattended automation

  • Automation team

We designed these offers for:

  • Individual or small teams who are looking for an easy way to buy specific capabilities within their current Automation Cloud trial as the 60-day free trial ends.

  • Current community cloud customers who are seeking to upgrade to additional enterprise features such as UiPath support, multi-tenant or regional capabilities.

Commitment and billing are month-by-month, and the purchase is active immediately. Do you want to add features beyond those in the direct buy offers? Or do you need to configure UiPath for a larger team or enterprise? Easily contact our sales teams or a partner who will be pleased to help you. We’re excited to make direct buy a quick and easy experience for individuals and small teams who want a supported way to get going immediately with Automation Cloud.

Auto-update UiPath Robot, Studio, and Assistant from Orchestrator – now in public preview

We are excited to bring the auto-update client apps capability to the Orchestrator. A much-needed feature that will help save a lot of time for the IT Admins and RPA CoEs who regularly check and update the Robot, Studio and the Assistant that are deployed across the organization. You can now easily control version management of your Robot, Studio, and the Assistant and upgrade them more frequently to get the latest features and patches from the Orchestrator. That means faster updates for the users.

Machine policy orchestrator

Set the auto-update policy for users, user groups, and machines just by clicking a few buttons from Orchestrator. Get the flexibility to choose which version of the robots you want to continue with. Stay with a specific version for a much longer period without making any updates, if you prefer. And, in case your Orchestrator isn't available online, you can manually upload the installation packages. Once the auto-update policies are set, view the versions and the auto-update status of your robots while making sure they are compliant with the policies you set. If any of the machines is found noncompliant, you'll be able to see the reason and further investigate. The auto-update client apps from Orchestrator will be available for public preview starting next week.

Machine policy status orchestrator
Studio Machine Policy

And, to make the package, user and machine management easier, we're releasing new Orchestrator features:

  • Package requirements for Orchestrator objects: while a user creates or edits a process, he'll see all the required packages displayed and will know if any requirements are missing. They'll more easily determine whether the process will run successfully or will fail because of a missing Orchestrator object such as a queue or an asset.

    Orchestrator package requirements

  • Robot accounts: create a dedicated "service" (non-user) account or robot account that is only allowed to run unattended automations to avoid the creation of fake accounts.

  • Propagate machine assignments to subfolders: allows users to easily propagate machine assignments to all subfolders. When using many folders and subfolders to run unattended processes, it removes the complexity of having to assign the machines to each subfolder.

  • Unattended execution in Personal Workspaces: the Orchestrator tenant admin can now associate machine templates to all Personal Workspaces and thus enable citizen developers to execute unattended processes in their Personal Workspaces.

UiPath Studio and UiPath Marketplace integration

With the 2021.8 release, the Marketplace becomes even more integrated with the UiPath Platform. We’ve enabled a new integration between the Marketplace and Studio that allows RPA developers to access a variety of process templates they can leverage to kickstart their automation projects much easier. The templates that were previously available to Marketplace users are now accessible to all Studio users–you can find them in the Studio templates feed under the Marketplace tab. This integration offers a frictionless experience for developers to easily start the processes applicable to every department in an organization. Besides, there is no need to quit the Studio looking for a suitable template–which saves a lot of development time. Regardless of the projects your team is working on, their productivity will skyrocket thanks to the established structure, modularity, reusability, maintainability, and extensibility of the templates. Also, you can convert some of the templates that cover attended scenarios to out-of-the-box automations that your business users can run within UiPath Assistant. This way you can make the whole organization benefit from automation. Learn more about the integration between the Marketplace and Assistant in our 2021.6 monthly update.

Studio Marketplace

That’s it for this month. As always, we are looking forward to your feedback and thoughts on these capabilities. Lots more to come next month in our final preview ahead of the 2021.10 release which we will be featuring in the upcoming FORWARD IV event. We hope you can join us there. In the meantime, keep the feedback coming through the Insider program.

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param kahlon uipath blog
Param Kahlon

EIR, Canvas Ventures

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