topic RE: Process Code Review in Product Forum

Process Code Review

MarcETIENNE — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 09:42:00 GMT

Hello all,

In my organization, and also in many others I guess, process need to be deeply checked before going into production environment.

To verify that process is correct, of course there is embeded validation tool in Process Studio, but we have additional rules that need to be verified, such as : Object naming conventions, Data Items usage, external Objects referencies, Work Queue integration, and more.

So the idea is to verify that the process comply with defined rules by checking bprelease file, either with code devlopement, or by using tools like Sonarqube.

Do you have experience doing this, or do you have any hints that could help?

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Marc ETIENNE
Tech consultant
Aubay
Europe/Paris
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RE: Process Code Review

John__Carter — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 10:45:00 GMT

Salut Marc - as you know, the validation tool is limited to checking for syntax errors and things like that; it can't check for bad ideas (yet!).

Really the best option is to create a strong procedure for QA during the delivery phases: at the pipeline stage (is this a good idea for automation, what are the benefits and risks etc); at the design stage (is this design efficient, secure and will it meet the agreed scope and requirements etc); at the build stage (has this been built according to best practice, does it reuse existing components etc); at the test stage (have we tested this thoroughly, have we covered all scenarios etc); and at the acceptance stage (does this automation meet the requirements agreed with the client). Even after implementation you should continue to monitor performance and give each process a 'healthcheck' from time to time.

If you haven't already done so, please take a look here https://portal.blueprism.com/rom/implementation/delivery-methodology

And maybe check out some basic tools such as this https://portal.blueprism.com/documents/build-review-checklist

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John Carter
Professional Services
Blue Prism
Europe/London
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RE: Process Code Review

MarcETIENNE — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 12:41:00 GMT

Hello John,

Thanks for you useful advices.
I agree there must be some strong process review and QA testing during all of the RPA process creation cycle, from inception to production delivery.

But more precisely, my objective here is to validate a process before it is loaded in QA environment, which is last environment before production. This stage is of course made by a Blue Prism expert, but some verifications can't be done manually, or are too much time consuming.

So I would like to have advices, about possibilities, limitations and best pratice for developping an automated tool that whould automatically check specific rules for a process, based on the analysis of a BP Release file.

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Marc ETIENNE
Tech consultant
Aubay
Europe/Paris
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RE: Process Code Review

IshanMahajan — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 13:49:00 GMT

I got what you meant to do and yes there is an option,

if you review the release file closely, it is all xml, you need to identify how the tool is validating the stages, how the object/process name appear in the release file, they all comes in defined tag/attributes. once you study that you can simply parse the xml, put up some string operations and get your code review done.

I tried it and it is possible.

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Ishan Mahajan
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RE: Process Code Review

Walter.Koller — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 09:07:00 GMT

Which tool for defining rules and parsing the XML you would recommend, or how was your approach?

Thanks

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Walter Koller
Solution Manager
Erste Group IT International GmbH
Europe/Vienna
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RE: Process Code Review

IshanMahajan — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 09:58:00 GMT

We used XML object provided by Blue Prism and multiple string operations, below is the approach you can use,

1. Get understanding of the xml code and identify what are things that can be validated.
2. find a pattern in the xml for these checkpoint.
3. utilize blueprism to extract that information from the release file and write resutls to an excel sheet.

for example - i wanted to check what types of exception thrown by the developer in a code, so if you analyse below xml,you will notice tthat exception type always appear in same tag, so you need to extract all 'Stage' tags and then apply string operations to reach till '<exception Type' keyword and you can identify all types of exception thrown by the code.

If you have a list of available types, you can validate the actual exception types with the expected exception types and show compliance % as well in result file.

<stage stageid="28019dc7-91aa-4e28-b23c8-2564e6d93422" name="Unable to login" type="Exception">
<subsheetid>6d304ddc-236f63-42e0-9624-652e3937f309</subsheetid>
<loginhibit onsuccess="true" />
<narrative>
</narrative>
<displayx>510</displayx>
<displayy>375</displayy>
<displaywidth>120</displaywidth>
<displayheight>30</displayheight>
<font family="Segoe UI" size="10" style="Regular" color="000000" />
<exception type="Can not Login Exception" detail=""Object : Summary_Page_Actions; Page : Get Line Item Details ; Timed Out Waiting For Line Item Details Page To Load"" />
</stage>

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Ishan Mahajan
Tech Lead
Wipro Technologies
Asia/Kolkata
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RE: Process Code Review

Walter.Koller — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 10:35:00 GMT

I see, thanks for the explanation.

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Walter Koller
Solution Manager
Erste Group IT International GmbH
Europe/Vienna
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RE: Process Code Review

MelissaSuarez_G — Wed, 03 Jul 2019 13:02:00 GMT

I agree with everything that you need to validate your process is already included in the XML files. We did just that in my organization.

We created a process that takes a file name as an input and it validates all of our best practices: naming conventions, exception details, hardcoded values... and even the color of the blocks. This doesn't eliminate the manual review completely, someone still has to validate that the logic of the automation makes sense.

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Melissa G.
America/New_York
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RE: Process Code Review

Vamshi_KrishnaD — Wed, 03 Jul 2019 13:40:00 GMT

can we get the document or design here

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VamshiKrihsna Dasa
System Architect
Fujitsu India Consulting Pvt. Ltd.
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RE: Process Code Review

david.garsi — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 14:43:00 GMT

Hello,

I must say that I'm interested too in getting the document or design.

Thanks in advance

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David GARSI
Technical Lead
Accenture
Europe/Paris
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RE: Process Code Review

ManjunathR — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 07:32:00 GMT

Hi Ishan,

Can you please let me know wat all validations that you were able implement by parsing the bprelease xml file.

Regards
Manjunath
RPA Technical Architect
Bangalore India

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Manjunath R
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RE: Process Code Review

Mukeshh_k — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 11:52:00 GMT

Hi Manjunath R Food for thoughts - lot of these validation depends on your development standards i.e. naming standards, nesting (blocks) stages, retries, If you have a colouring standards for blocks for input and outputs, etc.
Just for example the process Name, subpages & data Items (global Var) naming standards you can always validate those from the XML and check through Regex Match flag Y/N if that pass the naming standards you have set - start with a small process XML either process or Object - Just try spotting around what all you need to validate with the available info and if those are matching your development standards and write your reviews as flags in a predefined excel process review template.

Or if its object Validate if the defined exception message are being thrown as per standards to have an easy picking for support team whenever any object fails in prod - Something like : Object Name + Page Action Name + Error Message. Also whether the Action has information written in it to explain what exactly it does and is not left blank sort of etc. - these all can be validated and then needs to be fed as passed/failed in a excel template for Process/Object Review Checklist.

You would have to play around with the XML to get what you need as per your development standards, exactly how Ishan Mahajan did for checking the exceptions messages validation if those are set upto standards.

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Kindly up vote this as "Best Answer" if it adds value or resolves your query in anyway possible, happy to help.

Regards,

Mukesh Kumar - Senior Automation Developer

NHS England, United Kingdom, GB
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Re: Process Code Review

felix.gallenmueller — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 12:33:15 GMT

Hi all,

to verify Blue Prism "code", you can check the process or object XML files using XPath. A great example is given in the Digital Exchange with the DiGital DA: Blue Prism Digital Exchange

You can find some examples there how you can employ XPath to check the XML files. You can extend your checks even further by adding your own XPath rules. Those XPath rules can also be added to Sonarqube for example.

Re: Process Code Review

MichealCharron — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 14:19:03 GMT

I would also like to point out with some time and investigation, you can build a automated code reviewer that can catch issues that even the developer doesn't realize exist. We took the time to build a reviewer, in C#, that parses all the exported file types and places the information in object hierarchies (eg. File>Object>Page>Stage>Parameter). We then use LINQ to run through those hierarchies finding all the different issues that are not best practice or even pointing out code problems. We can go from percentage of stages with logging enabled (high level) down to developers leaving an unnecessary line feed in a parameter value (low level).

You can't catch everything but what you can helps out the developer as they are going along and the code reviewer so they can just concentrate on the overall flow of the process.

Re: Process Code Review

felix.gallenmueller — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 15:16:24 GMT

Great example, thank you for sharing! 🙂