UiPath Community 2022.4 Stable Release - Robot & Assistant

UiPath Community 2022.4 Stable Release - Robot & Assistant

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

Robot

Performance improvements

We worked hard in this release to improve the attended experience for our users who start processes from the UiPath Assistant. The processes made with .NET6 (Windows and cross-platform) now start with up to 50% faster than on previous version.

:information_source: Best practice: Remove all unused dependencies from your workflow to see those performance improvements. Any dependency that is not used will add some time to your workflow loading stage.

Support for Azure AD session authentication

Starting with 2022.4, UiPath Robot supports authenticating in a Windows session using Azure AD credentials (azuread/john.doe@example.com). This helps you run unattended automations in environments where you only have cloud Azure AD implementations.

Unattended authentication

From 2022.4 we support a new way of authenticating Robots to the Orchestrator. You can configure this feature from the Tenant > Settings in the Orchestrator. Here, you can choose between Hybrid mode or Client credentials, allowing unattended Robots to connect with both machine key and client credentials or client credentials only.


To use this functionality you will need to create a new Machine Template . After you are done configuring its fields, click Provision. The machine object is created and a confirmation windows is displayed with details about the machine, including the Client ID and Client secret.

:warning: You will need the client ID and client secret to connect the Robot to Orchestrator. The client secret is only visible once , right after its creation, so if you want to use the same secret multiple times, make sure to copy it and store it in a safe storage location. Consider using encryption or hashing to secure the storage.

After copying the client ID and the client secret you can use those in Assistant ,
image

Robot CLI

.\UiRobot.exe connect --url <orchestrator_url> --clientID <client_id> --clientSecret <client_secret>

or Robot Docker container.

docker run -e LICENSE_AGREEMENT=accept -e ORCHESTRATOR_URL="https://cloud.uipath.com/organization/tentant/orchestrator_" -e CLIENT_ID="$Client_ID" -e CLIENT_SECRET="$Client_secret" -tid registry.uipath.com/robot/runtime

RobotJS improvements

You can now get the input arguments schema and description of a process.
The description of the process can be accessed directly after downloading the process list as the description property of every process in the list: process_list[0].description.
To get the input arguments of a process, you need to download it first var installedProcess = await (process.install). Then, you can access the list of input arguments using the inputArgumentsSchema property of the installedProcess. The input argument list is a list of entities that have the following properties:

installedProcess.inputArgumentsSchema[0].name - string - the name of the input argument
installedProcess.inputArgumentsSchema[0].type - string - the .net type of the input argument
installedProcess.inputArgumentsSchema[0].isRequired - bool
installedProcess.inputArgumentsSchema[0].hasDefault - bool

Assistant

Assistant for macOS

We are very proud to announce that UiPath Assistant will also be available on macOS to enable employees to easily run and manage cross-platform automations from their personal digital assistant. The interface and functionality are like the one already used on Windows but have some specifics.

More details here: UiPath Assistant for macOS

In 22.4 we’ve added the UiPathRobot.js also for macOS. Furthermore, with this release you can benefit from using the Apps widget on macOS.

Depending on your environment, to install Assistant for macOS, please use one of the following dmg files:
Download for Intel macs
Download for Apple Silicon (e.g. M1)

Auto update for macOS

Starting with 2022.4 the auto update feature for macOS, that provides an easy way to deliver a version update to a large base of machines from a centralized location is available also for macOS. After you manually install 2022.4 you will get new updates automatically.

:information_source: If you are using Assistant for macOS 21.12 or 22.2 you need to manually update to 2022.4 and after that you will receive updates automatically.

Sorting in Marketplace widget

With this new release, in the Marketplace widget, you will be able to sort the list of ready-to-go automations by the following options: Recommended (Default), Alphabetical, Rating, Most Downloaded.

Note: If you are using Automation Ops to govern widgets, in order to use this new feature, you have to create a new Automation Ops policy using the 22.4 template and deploy it to the users.

UX improvements

In this new release, we adopted the Apollo design language and controls, so you will notice some changes in how Assistant looks. With these changes we want to enable a more consistent experience across all UiPath products.

History Tab

Starting with 2022.4 you will be able to check for each process if they had run and the status: “Ran successfully”, “Stopped”, “Error”. The History Tab will be available on the Process Details page and each instance of the process run can be expanded to view additional information.

Connections

We improved the experience for Connections by adding some changes in the UI and support for new capabilities of Integration Service.

Guided tour

In 2022.4 we added a quick tour to help showcase & navigate the users through Assistant. This tour will be prompted first time when you open Assistant and can be started also from Preferences. In the next releases we will bring other tours of different features of our product.

Search for Automation Hub Ideas

In 22.4, with the new version of Automation Store widget, the Assistant search functionality also returns related ideas that are part of Automation Hub, but not deployed in the Automation Store.


Note: If you are using Automation Ops to govern widgets, in order to use this new feature, you have to create a new Automation Ops policy using the 22.4 template and deploy it to the users.

1 Like

I believe I found a bug.
:bug:
I have this super simple workflow to demonstrate it:


There is one in Argument in Main.xaml in_Name that has Default value “Robert” as you see.
If I run this from Orchestrator like this (nothing set in Arguments):

– it correctly displays popup with the default value.

but if I run it in a same setup from the Assistant (nothing typed in the arguments):


– then the result is:
image

The default value is overwritten by empty string “”

So, is this a bug or a feature? :smiley: Should it work like that?

(And whilst you lovely guys from UiPath are here, can you please answer my other question? User cases for Non-production robot / testing robot - #2 by Roman_hruska )

Thanks

1 Like

Hi Roman,
Thank you for the post, indeed, this is an issue, but a known issue for us that may take a little bit of time to fix because of some technical limitations of package/robot/orchestrator communication.
I do not know how to answer your other license related question, as I do not have any legal license knowledge myself.

1 Like