UiPath Community 2022.10 Stable Release - Studio & StudioX

UiPath Community 2022.10 Stable Release - Studio & StudioX

This topic goes in-depth about the improvements in Studio & StudioX. To read about other products, please navigate to the main topic here.

Global Variables and Constants

Studio 2022.10 brings the ability to share data between workflows from the same project without having to pass them as arguments. We are introducing Global Variables and Constants that can be accessed in any workflow via GlobalVariables and GlobalConstants namespaces.

Enhanced activities design

All our activities have a fresh look with clean headers and color support. This applies to all projects regardless of the package version. So, it is enough to open a project in the latest Studio version to get the latest visual improvements.

The design is planned to be available in StudioX starting with 2022.8.

Rich metadata for libraries

We know that libraries are the best option for creating quick and easy activities with the building blocks provided by our community and UiPath. We received a lot of feedback and requests to allow more customizations like display name, icon, categories, and color. We are introducing a new design experience for cross-platform libraries starting from Project Panel and Activity Layout.

Declarative UI definition for cross-platform activities

Starting with this Studio version we are generating UI for cross-platform activities based on manifest file included in the package. This will bring faster activity development and standardization for the user experience. This also brings dedicated input controllers for the most popular input types.

Data Manager

The Data Manager is now available in Studio as your one-stop shop for managing all resources, from variables and arguments, to assets, queues, entities & processes (Orchestrator Resources). You can now use one panel to:

  • View & edit arguments & variables
  • Add new arguments, variables and namespaces
  • View & use orchestrator resources available to you
  • View & navigate to all activity cards

With the Data Manager, you don’t need to switch back & forth between multiple panels and you have all of them available in one place. If you don’t need to list certain resources, you can filter them out.

Assets, Queues, Entities and Processes can be used as before in the Resources panel as highlighted in the example below.

Keyboard shortcuts

You can now use the keyboard shortcuts to delete (Del), copy (Ctrl+C), or paste (Ctrl+V) variables and arguments.

Header

The options in the header have been reordered for better usability and we’ve added a few extra options.

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New option was placed at the beginning of the header. New Variable and New Argument will bring a pop-up window to create one variable or argument in StudioX while in Studio it will create it inline and you can edit it from there.

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To add multiple variables or arguments at the same time, you can use the Bulk create variables which can be found under the Variables context menu and New Arguments (Bulk) can be found under the Arguments context menu.

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Group by activity

When enabled, this will group all variables to their corresponding scope.
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Sync with an active scope

If I have a sync in focus (in my example below, a second Use Excel File 2 scope), only show the variables that can be used in that scope. So taking that example again, I should only have listed the variables in the Main as well as in the selected scope.
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Filtering

This has now been extended to all resources available in Data Manager. As before, changes are persisted when you close the project or StudioX.
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Sync projects to Studio Web

When you are developing cross-platform projects that are compatible with Studio Web you can push them to cloud directly and have the two IDEs in sync.

Legacy to Windows project migrator

With the introduction of the new compatibility frameworks Windows and cross-platform, we are improving the performance and future-proofing our platform. Even though the Windows-legacy framework is still supported, and you can use it to to create, maintain, or execute projects, we recommend the newer options. Starting with 22.8, we are bringing an integrated migrator that allows you to convert existing legacy projects to the recently introduced Windows compatibility, which is based on .NET 6 and brings compiled projects and 64-bit support.

Text editor

We are introducing the capability to edit text files directly in Studio. This includes syntax highlighting for popular filetypes like JSON and XML, and programming languages like C# and VB.

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Same sequence designer between Studio and StudioX

One major improvement in StudioX was the clean sequence design where unnecessary bodies and sequences were no longer shown. We are now bringing the same experience to the Studio profile.

First run experience – Quick tour

We would like to provide citizen developers new to StudioX with a first run experience to get them familiarized with how to build an automation and what tools they can use. This should also give them a consistent experience to get started with StudioX and a clear structure on how to ramp up.

The first time a citizen developer starts StudioX, they will be given a quick tour of the product to help them learn the different aspects of StudioX. Some of the highlights are:

  • essential panels and what they do
  • how to add an activity
  • how to configure an activity
  • how to run a task
  • how to publish a process

This experience will be available in StudioX for now and will be available in Studio starting with 22.10.

Marketplace templates (StudioX)

Starting with August, citizen developers will now have the option to start a project from a template from Marketplace. The content here is targeted at typical use cases for business users and if you would like to contribute with templates, you can create a listing on marketplace under the StudioX Product and the Template Category.

The option to have this feed available is governable in both Studio and StudioX.

Selecting project type (StudioX)

We have added an option to select the project type in StudioX to allow more advanced users to have some flexibility in terms of what they are choosing as a framework. This should allow citizen developers to start a Cross-platform project or use the older format of Windows Legacy. The default framework is Windows.

Workflow Analyzer improvements

We have added a search functionality within the Workflow Analyzer settings to help you identify a rule based on its name or its code:

Additionally, for the Package Restrictions rule (ST-USG-014), we have added an Allowed package option that will only permit packages listed there. The input field accepts wildcards (I.e. UiPath.*). This helps if you’re not entirely sure about the name of the package you would like to allow but more importantly if you would like to only allow UiPath packages. When both Allowed packages and Prohibited packages are used, we respect both.

Missing activities improvements

We know that there are times when you have a missing activity and it is difficult to understand why. This is why the designer panel will now show the name, the type, and the annotations of the activity that cannot be loaded on the canvas. Starting with this release if a scope is missing you will be able to view the inner activities.


Besides that, we are also exposing the property and argument values from the activities. You will be able to understand and even copy the values to other activities.

Please tell us what you think

Which features excite you the most and you are going to try right away? We want to hear what you think! Please use the image button below :slight_smile:

18 Likes

@alexandru

Hello Alexandru,

wow, so many improvements, thank you very much.

Best regards
Stefan

3 Likes

The post about 2022.8 included a screenshot of the Activity Properties which allowed the selection of options from a dropdown.

Has this feature been removed?


image

2 Likes

@Bernd.Baumgartner why not give data manager a chance :wink: It displays the constants and so much more , and it will replace the variables , arguments and namespaces pane in the near future

Regards,
Dragos.

3 Likes

Hi Dragos,
thank you for the quick reply.

You’re right. I should give the new features a chance!
I’ve deleted my post in order to have a look at the new version first and then to decide afterwards if I still miss some improvements.

Best regards
Bernd

2 Likes

@Mark.Edgeller indeed, we found a blocking issue that could not be fixed in time. We will have this back in 22.12 as we are already working on this.

4 Likes

How this works?

Cheers

2 Likes

@alexandru

Hello Alex,

These are some awesome changes, so far. :slight_smile:

I’ve been playing a bit with the globals and constants, and I noticed that the namespaces are imported automatically whenever a new workflow is created which is a good thing that we don’t have to consider adding it manually. Also they’re usable without referring to the module, which is another good thing for ease of use.

However, when it comes to editing a global/constant variable after its creation, I see that the “Edit” option is available but does nothing.

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So, in order to change its data type, for example, should we delete it and recreate it? Is this intended or it’s a bug?

Cheers.

2 Likes

Yes, globals can only be defined at creation. Changing name or type is not supported for this release as they are expensive operations and there was a chance of having unexpected results.

4 Likes

Even though the Windows-legacy framework is still supported, and you can use it to to create, maintain, or execute projects, we recommend the newer options.

Is there a date on the development roadmap by which you are planning to no longer support the Windows-legacy framework? The deprecation of Classic Folders came at me way too fast and left me scrambling for solutions. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice if all of my windows-legacy automations will at some point in the future stop working because they haven’t been upgraded.

2 Likes

Thank you very much for the improvements on missing activities!

2 Likes

Hi Team.

I have 2 Comments:

1. I am struggling with the change in StudioX after the windows legacy conversion of the “Move file” activity, and the upgrade to 2022.10. I am not sure which has caused the following issue. After installing the StudioX Upgrade, I let the Windows legacy update run. All seemed ok apart from the Move file activity which did not convert the From and To fields. A simple fix I thought, but I can no longer refer to the current file. I have the Move File activity sitting inside a For Each File in Folder activity. I noted I can use variables, so I have created variables for the new From and To. However, the use variable dialog is empty, even though I have a number of variables configured, as can be seen in the screenshot below. The Uipath Help documentation is still showing the old Studio X version of this dialog. Any pointers in resolving this issue would be appreciated.

2. The change in the move file activity seems to be a step away from your Robot on Every Desktop ethos. I have been extolling the virtues of the simple “point and click” with StudioX in getting this software into my organisation. But now my Business users can no longer “point and click” a move file activity and are forced to use Variables, Arguments, the advanced editor.

Kind regards

Murray

2 Likes

@kevinpscott we don’t have a plan to deprecate execution of legacy workflows. Considering we have a 3 years+ support policy for enterprise you can consider it will work for at least 3 years in the future.

5 Likes

@murray.trim can you please check what System package version are you using? I would recommend using 22.10.1 and try again.

1 Like

Hey there,
I just updated my Studio to 22.10.1 and after I opened a project I was greeted by a yellow prompt telling me that “Windows-legacy” will disappear soon. I’ve updated my project to “Windows” and I got some strange errors, one of them being:
image
Could you please tell me what is wrong in this instance? It worked before, now it doesn’t.
Also, why can’t I run my project? The workflow which throws out this error is not being used:

Edit: All my Move Files activites have been blanked out. And now I get this error:
image
pdfPage2.ToString is a string… what value am I supposed to use in that field?

Edit2: Fixed all of my issues by updating all the packages.

Thank you.

2 Likes

@alexandru Studio 2022.10 having some issue with login Uipath Assistance in previous versions if we click on Green mark it will open Uipath.cloud.com automatically, Now it is not opening and drag hover also not showing.

thanks
AB

2 Likes

@AlexGabriel97 What System Activities are you using? Can you try upgrading it to 22.10.1 or 22.4.5?

1 Like

Hey @murray.trim ,

Thank you for flagging this. To remediate the first issue with the current file, you will need to upgrade the System package to the latest version and will look similar to the previous design. For the issue with variables not visible in the plus sign, we’re currently working on remediating this and we’ll let you know once this is resolved.

As a workaround for now to use the available variables, you can use the Advanced Editor from the plus sign:
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Once you’re there, you can simply type in the variable name:

Our documentation is currently in the process of being updated, just wanted to double check what needs to be updated in this regard. Will follow up here once we have a fix for the issue with variables.

Our intention is still to make it as easy for business users to automate using point & clicks and we want to maintain the Robot on every Ethos. We appreciate all feedback so please let us know if there is something we can improve.

Many thanks,
Raluca

4 Likes

Do like the new 2022.10.1 interface -

Colors make it pleasant and add some user improvements - future suggestion - Allow for Activity/sequence header color coding by user. This will greatly enhance readability and focus areas.

One minor thing - when opening an existing workflow - I witness a couple of seconds (<2s) delay in painting the line connectors… especially for larger workflows - something that did not happen prior.

3 Likes

@alexandru Just double checked, I am using 22.10.1 (I missed the .1 when typing my comment sorry)

2 Likes