2022.10.3

Release date: 27 October 2022

What's New

Windows is the new default project compatibility

We strive to always offer the latest and greatest technologies, and one of the steps we've taken in this direction in recent releases has been the introduction of the Windows and cross-platform project compatibilities based on .NET 6. We've worked on expanding the support for the new frameworks and on improving the development experience, so much so that with 2022.10 it is time to start saying goodbye to the Windows - Legacy compatibility based on .NET 4.6.1. Even though you can still create Windows-legacy projects, Windows is now the default compatibility for new projects, and we recommend that you start using the Windows and cross-platform options. The 2023.4 release will support editing existing Windows-legacy projects, but not the creation of new projects. You must now also select a project compatibility when creating projects in StudioX, where Windows-legacy used to be the only option.

To make the transition easier, StudioX now comes with a built-in conversion tool that enables you to easily convert any Windows - Legacy project to Windows. The conversion tool is available in both Studio and StudioX.

For more information, see Deprecation of the Windows-Legacy Compatibility.

Introducing Cross-platform projects

You can now select the cross-platform project type when creating a new project in StudioX. The default framework is Windows. By default, the following activities packages are available in cross-platform projects:

• System activities
• UIAutomation activities
• Microsoft Office 365 activities
• Google Workspace activities

For more information, see Designing Cross-platform Projects.

New design for activities

Activities have a new design and an improved user experience. We've introduced new controls, editors, and builders for the most common data types, making it easier to configure activities without writing expressions. All activity properties are now available in the activity cards in the workflow designer, and you no longer need to use the Properties panel to configure advanced properties. This experience is available in cross-platform projects and for some activities in projects with the Windows compatibility. For more information, see Designing Automations.

In addition, all activities have a redesigned header that also includes a button for quick access to the activity context menu, and the borders have different colors depending on the source package, with a thicker left border for better visibility.

Design-time triggers

StudioX now supports the addition of a manual, time-based, or event-based trigger to your projects, enabling you to configure when your automations will run at design time. A number of customizable trigger activities are available, and many more event-based triggers are on the way.

For more information, see Adding a trigger.

Design automations in Studio and Studio Web

With the introduction of Studio Web, you can now design automations on-the-go, from a web browser on any device. If you use Studio and Studio Web, your cross-platform projects are always kept in sync and you can develop on both. Find out how to switch between Studio and Studio Web.

Note: Studio Web is currently available in preview.

Quick tour on first run

A quick tour is now available when you first open a project in StudioX to get you familiarized with the various panels and the tools you can use to build an automation. Some of the highlights are:

• Essential panels and their functions.
• How to add an activity.
• How to configure an activity.
• How to run and publish a task.

Improvements

Data Manager updates

We’ve made some changes to the Data Manager in order to expand on some of the existing functionality. Some of the highlights are:

• You can now assign a scope to your variables, determining where they are available in your project.
• Variables and arguments can now be created in bulk.
• The Group by activity option enables you to group all your variables depending on their scope.
• The Sync with active scope button displays only the variables whose scope matches the sync you have in focus, for example a Use Excel File activity card.
• The filter functionality has been extended to all types of data available in the Data Manager.
• You can now view the connections used in your project.

Workflow Analyzer

You can now search rules by name and code using the new search box at the top of the Workflow Analyzer window. Filtering by scope and action has also improved with the addition of a new filter dropdown with support for multiple select next to the search box.

New rules

• ST-USG-032 (Required tags) - Enables organizations to define a list of required project tags.
• ST-USG-034 (Automation Hub URL) - Enables organizations to enforce linking each project to an Automation Hub idea.

Improved rules

ST-USG-014 (Package restrictions) now enables you to define a list of allowed packages, not just prohibited packages. The Allowed Packages box supports the * wildcard character, so for example you can enter UiPath.* to allow only packages published by UiPath.

Other Improvements

• Organizations can now use governance policies to control which feeds users can publish to and which templates feeds are enabled in Studio.
• The Studio MSI installer has been slimmed down by reducing the number of activities packages that are included in UiPathStudio.msi and thus available in the local feed. Only the following packages that are default dependencies for creating projects in Studio and StudioX, together with their dependencies are now included in the installer: Excel, Mail, System, UIAutomation, Testing, Presentations, ComplexScenarios, WebAPI, and Word. You can install other official packages from the Official feed or from Orchestrator feeds.
• The URL of the official feed for packages has changed to https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/uipath/Public.Feeds/_packaging/UiPath-Official/nuget/v3/index.json.

Excel Automation

New Activities

• Filter Pivot Table - Creates a filter in a pivot table based on the values in a single column and can also be used to clear existing filters.
• Get Cell Color - Retrieves the background color of a cell and saves it as a color variable.
• Invoke VBA - Invokes a macro from an external file containing VBA code and runs it against an Excel file.

Improvements

• The Read Range activity has been optimized to perform faster when working with formatted Excel files.

Common Activities

New Activities

The following activities are now available in StudioX in Cross-platform projects:

• Collection to Data Table - Converts a specified collection to a DataTable.
• Append Item to Collection - Appends one or more items at the end of the specified collection.
• Build Collection - Creates a collection of items that have the same type as the first specified element.
• Exists in Collection - Checks if the specified item exists in the specified collection.
• Filter Collection - Filters a collection based on the specified conditions.
• Merge Collections - Combines the elements of two collections in a new collection.
• Remove from Collection - Removes the specified item from the specified collection.
• Reset Timer - Resets the input timer provided as an argument.
• Resume Timer - Resumes the input timer provided as an argument.
• Start Timer - Creates a new timer or restarts an existing one received as an argument.
• Stop Timer - Stops the timer previously started using the Start Timer activity.
• Timeout Scope - Creates a scope with limited execution time. The activity throws a System.TimeoutException in case of a timeout.
• Manual Trigger - When triggered, this activity outputs job data.
• When New Item Added to Queue - Starts a job when a new item is added to the specified queue.

Improvements

• On Cross-platform projects, the Append Item to List activity has been replaced with the Append Item to Collection activity.

• The following activities have been updated with a new design and are now available in Cross-platform projects:

  • Deserialize JSON
  • Deserialize JSON Array
  • HTTP Request
  • Deserialize XML
  • Get XML Node Attributes
  • Get XML Nodes

Bug Fixes

• The For Each Row in Data Table activity card was not expanding properly when an activity was placed inside.
• StudioX allowed adding package icons with the ICO extension, which caused errors when publishing projects.
• The DateTime variable was not accepting the today value.
• StudioX was freezing when the Plus button was used to select an asset name in the Get Orchestrator Asset and Get Orchestrator Credential activities.
• Annotation text was not wrapping when the text was larger than the annotation window.
• Word documents were being saved even when the Save changes and Auto save properties were not selected in the Use Word File / World Application Scope activity.
• The Excel Process Scope activity was attempting to kill Excel processes on all users that had Excel processes running instead of just the current user when the Existing process action option was set to Force kill.