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We were delighted to be joined by the Blue Prism CoE for a Community AMA session on the topic of Benefits, Vizualization, and Reporting.
*Please note: this AMA took place back in March 2021, this is just a recap post.
This was our very first AMA we held on the Blue Prism Community, and we had lots of great engagement from both our Community users and the CoE team. We've now compiled the key questions and answers all in one place here - but if you want to read the original thread here's a link: [March 30] Ask Me Anything - Benefits, Visualizations and Reporting
Q.I have a question about the tiles on my dashboard. There is too little choice of tiles and data sources available, so I can't see the information I want to see on my dashboard. One of the tiles I want to use is - Are there any processes that have been "Pending" or "Warning" for more than a certain amount of time (e.g.1 hour)? Is there any way to make the tiles available that I want to use (e.g. by downloading them from DX)?
A. In the analytics space within Blue Prism you can customize your dashboard tiles and add new ones. You can also create customize tiles by creating SQL stored procedures that provides the data used by the tile. Please see below for useful links that explains how to navigate the Analytics space, use SQL Stored Procedures and how to set the right permissions to be able to do it.- Editing the dashboard tiles and creating custom data sources: Dashboard tiles (blueprism.com)
- Dashboard permissions: Analytics (blueprism.com)
- Guide to tiles: Guide to Blue Prism Tiles_0.pdf
- Video explaining dashboard and tiles: (Blue Prism) Part 43 : Working Session with Blue Prism DashBoards and Tiles (Detailed) - YouTube
Q. Related to reporting, what is Blue Prism's recommendation for a long term reporting solution of the work performed by the platform? Our organization has implemented a solution which is currently preventing us from performing the Database Maintenance suggested by support, to resolve ongoing performance issues. The organization's current reporting-source-of-truth is a copy of the production database, which is copied nightly and used from a secondary DB instance to feed BI tools. This is less than ideal for a number of reasons. What does Blue Prism suggest, for being able to represent the value delivered by work items, long term?
A. Blue Prism has several reporting options available to help you and your organisation represent the value delivered by work items, these include:
- Data Gateways - configuration within the System Manager allows users to push log data, including custom fields within processes to any external reporting system (information link: https://bpdocs.blueprism.com/bp-6-9/en-us/Guides/data-gateways/dg-introduction.htm?tocpath=Guides%7CData%20Gateways%7C_____0)
- Reporting processes - you are able to download out-of-the-box releases via the Portal or DX which can be configured to produce custom exception, performance and work queue reports (portal link: https://portal.blueprism.com/products/vbos/queue-reporting)
- Logging VBO - you can download a VBO release via the DX which enables users to configure case and process level logging. Users can include any fields required to create customized, real-time log files that can be consumed and visualised by any external reporting tool such as Splunk and Tableau (DX link: https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/3439/solution/utility---logging)
Q. Do you plan to prepare some web based reports which can be accessed by any user within an organization? Do you plan to give business users without access to Blue Prism thick client to define/design their own reports again through some web interface?
A. A web based control room and increased analytics in the native enterprise product is certainly in the minds of our product team, and on their roadmap. I've let them know about your question, so hopefully you can get a more detailed follow up as I can't speak for their roadmap timelines.
An immediate solution if you are servicing customers could be to suggest them to Blue Prism Cloud and their Hub offering, it does offer enhanced capabilities to the native product.
You could also look at data gateways or logging utilities if you wanted to use a third party software to achieve this; for example internally we been using Splunk since 6.4 to provide insights into business critical processes for our business users.
- @James McLintock
Q. Is there a plan to rollout support for different browsers like Chrome/Edge/Firefox in version 6.2. or earlier? I got to know that there were couple of bugs for internet explorer got fixed in v6.6 but not replicated to v6.2. With that we are facing lot of trouble in spying specially SalesForce. So wanted to confirm if critical bugs should be fixed in all version is a plan or not.
A. Browsers and Blue Prism is always at the forefront of many of our developers minds; both RPA developers and our product developers internally. In regards to rolling out backwards compatible support, that's one for our Product Managers who will be made aware of your questions.
My immediate question back would be though - why are you using the UI? We have an extensive suite of connectors for SalesForce on the DX - find them here. Internally, we use SalesForces and with the API and their query language we are yet to find something we couldn't automate utilizing it.
- @James McLintock
Q. How i can paste a Excel sheet in email body in Outlook?
A. Nice question, HTML and Blue Prism often don't play as expected.
Now, I can't see an issue with Luis Lopez work in the replied thread. I would ask as to why you can't just attach the excel or possibly convert to a standard HTML table as a workaround? The former seems logical, the latter annoying but a workaround none the less. If none of those work, then let me know.
- @James McLintock
Q. How can i incorporate image in email body with outlook? I'm attaching an image in the email, and using the image src in the html code, but it doesn't work.
A. As for inserting images, I've always found success with png's personally: attach the file as you've done and then reference with some HTML like the following "<br><img src="blueprism.png"/><br>".
- @James McLintock
Q. I want to show how many effect or impact our business by the Blue Prism processes to our board members. Please let me know what recommend type of a report or a dashboard in this case, and how to make this.
A. Blue Prism has several options available to help you produce reports and visualize the impact that Blue Prism processes are having on your organisation.
- Analytics Dashboards: An information dashboard is presented to each user within the analytics section of the platform (these can be personal or global). These dashboards are configurable with pre-built or customisable data sources which enables users to define and present graphical reports (information link:
https://bpdocs.blueprism.com/bp-6-10/en-us/dashboards-ui.htm?tocpath=Interface%7CAnalytics%7C_____0)
- Data Gateways - configuration within the System Manager allows users to push log data, including custom fields within processes to any external reporting system (information link: https://bpdocs.blueprism.com/bp-6-9/en-us/Guides/data-gateways/dg-introduction.htm?tocpath=Guides%7CData%20Gateways%7C_____0)
- Reporting processes - you are able to download out-of-the-box releases via the Portal or DX which can be configured to produce custom exception, performance and work queue reports (portal link: https://portal.blueprism.com/products/vbos/queue-reporting)
- Logging VBO - you can download a VBO release via the DX which enables users to configure case and process level logging. Users can include any fields required to create customized, real-time log files that can be consumed and visualised by any external reporting tool such as Splunk and Tableau (DX link: https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/3439/solution/utility---logging)
- @WillHughes
Q. What is the best way to visualize Blue Prism Data? We currently use Tableau to create Executive and Performance Dashboards - but would be nice to see if BP has an inherent capability and how can it be best used for extract maximum value and insights?
A: As mentioned above the primary native option is to utilize the analytics space within Blue Prism where you can customize your dashboard tiles and add new ones. Please see below for useful links that explains how to utilize it.
- Editing the dashboard tiles and creating custom data sources: Dashboard tiles (blueprism.com)
- Dashboard permissions: Analytics (blueprism.com)
Another options is using third party BI providers such as Tableau, Splunk or PowerBI with data gateways that allows users to push log data within processes to external reporting systems. Link for more information: https://bpdocs.blueprism.com/bp-6-9/en-us/Guides/data-gateways/dg-introduction.htm?tocpath=Guides%7CData%20Gateways%7C_____0
- @Synne Gustavson
Summary
It's clear that Benefits, Visualization, and Reporting are hot topics that have a lot of interest from our userbase. Hopefully the knowledge shared in this session will help you in your journey towards articulating the benefits Blue Prism brings to your organization over time.
Thank you all for the questions, and to our experts for taking time to provide detailed and well thought out answers on the Community.
If you have any further questions on the topic - please post on our Blue Prism Product community where community members will be ready to help you answer your queries.
Many thanks.
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