topic RE: Excel - Extended - Missing? in Digital Exchange

Excel - Extended - Missing?

JennaSchnizlein — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 23:46:00 GMT

Hello all!

A couiple months ago, I stumbled onto the MS Excel VBO - Extended and it's been great, but recently, something has happened and they've all disappeared. Even when I try to reimport and overwrite what I currently have. Did I do something to mess it up? I did accidentally delete everything off my desktop recently, but I thought I restored it all.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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Jenna Schnizlein
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RE: Excel - Extended - Missing?

shashank.kumar280 — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 03:54:00 GMT

Hi Jenna,

Are you on BP 6.5 or earlier. If yes, you might be dealing with an issue where the stages of an Object or Process appear stacked on top of each other in Blue Prism Studio. There is an asset on DX to help you fix it https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/9648/solution/blue-prism-studio-display-fix. This is an open-source command line utility that will transform an exported release file from Blue Prism v6.6 (or later) for compatibility with older Blue Prism versions. Blue Prism v6.5 or earlier may not display the stages of a Process or Object properly in the Studio if that Process or Object was exported from v6.6 or later.

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Shashank Kumar
DX Integrations Partner Consultant
Blue Prism
Singapore
+6581326707
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RE: Excel - Extended - Missing?

JennaSchnizlein — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 12:36:00 GMT

Thank you! I am on 6.4. Does that stacking happening randomly? It was working perfectly up until today. I don't know when we will be upgrading to a newer version, so is there a work around for the current problem in my older version?

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Jenna Schnizlein
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RE: Excel - Extended - Missing?

AndreyKudinov — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 14:51:00 GMT

There is tools on DX that help solve this display issue, although it should not be giving you errors either way.
Also Excel Extended seems to be old version format on DX still.
Not sure which version you was using as it seems like a lot of people been doing their own extended versions, could be some other one.

Try downloading Excel extended from DX and reimporting:
https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/9648/solution/ms-excel-vbo---extended

You can also try reverting to an old version of yours by comparing with old change in revision history and doing export - import from compare window.

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Andrey Kudinov
Project Manager
MobileTelesystems PJSC
Europe/Moscow
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RE: Excel - Extended - Missing?

david.l.morris — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 15:44:00 GMT

Not sure if someone has specifically answered your question about how it happens. The only time this will happen is if you import a process or object into a version of Blue Prism lower than 6.6 where the source of that process or object was originally 6.6 or higher.

For example, let's say you build an object in 6.5, then export it. Then you import the object into 6.6. Then you decide to revert back to 6.5, so you export the same object from 6.6. The schema/syntax/structure of the XML is different in 6.6 including anything exported from 6.6. One of the differences is how the X and Y positions of stages is recorded. It is more efficient in 6.6 but isn't compatible to be read in version lower than 6.6. So, when you export from 6.6 and then import into 6.5, all of the stages get the same X and Y values assigned to them because Blue Prism doesn't know what to do for the positioning of the stages.

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Dave Morris
Cano Ai
Atlanta, GA
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RE: Excel - Extended - Missing?

JennaSchnizlein — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 17:38:00 GMT

Thanks for the information, that makes sense as an overall issue, but doesn't make sense in my situation. I've only been on 6.4. I used it fine for 2 months and then tried to export from Development to Production. Now it's "broken" in both places. Very confusing, unless I'm missing something. I am going to try to import the 2.2 version and see if that helps.

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Jenna Schnizlein
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RE: Excel - Extended - Missing?

david.l.morris — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 17:43:00 GMT

Someone would have needed to import into Dev to make that happen. Have you reviewed the save history to see when it changed?

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Dave Morris
Cano Ai
Atlanta, GA
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RE: Excel - Extended - Missing?

AndreyKudinov — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 17:55:00 GMT

Dave, notice error count in Jenna's screenshot. Importing between versions would never cause this. Stages would get clumped up, but they would still work as if nothing happened.
It seems like something went seriously wrong there - I'd check VBO change history to begin with. IMO the only situation you can get so many errors with minimal/non-intentional or zero changes is when either required dlls went missing or something happened to database.

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Andrey Kudinov
Project Manager
MobileTelesystems PJSC
Europe/Moscow
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RE: Excel - Extended - Missing?

david.l.morris — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 17:59:00 GMT

Oh yeah. I didn't notice the original screenshot. Agreed.

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Dave Morris
Cano Ai
Atlanta, GA
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RE: Excel - Extended - Missing?

JennaSchnizlein — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 13:17:00 GMT

Thanks guys! I downloaded and reimported v2.2 and that seems to be doing the trick, for now. Thanks for all the help! (fyi, I did only have version 2.0)

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Jenna Schnizlein
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RE: Excel - Extended - Missing?

JennaSchnizlein — Wed, 23 Dec 2020 16:52:00 GMT

Hey guys,

So it happened again! I reimported 2.2 and still they are collapsed on themselves. How do I prevent this? I tried to expand the ones I need and it ultimately fails completely at the CheckInstanceHandle stage. Is there a newer version other than 2.2 that I can try?

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Jenna Schnizlein
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RE: Excel - Extended - Missing?

ewilson — Wed, 23 Dec 2020 19:00:00 GMT

@Jenna Schnizlein here's a link to a utility you can download from the DX to address this. It's a command line utility that will clean up the XML.

https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/9648/solution/blue-prism-studio-display-fix

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Partner Integrations for Digital Exchange
Blue Prism
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