Hub & Interact 5.2 now available

[robert.nicklin]

Hello again everyone! My name is Rob Nicklin and I'm Associate Director of Product here at SS&C Blue Prism. I'm delighted to be sharing an update on the latest release of Blue Prism Hub and Blue Prism Interact, both of which are now generally available. Hub and Interact 5.2 are focused on giving administrators of larger, more complex environments the controls they've been asking for - simplifying federated deployments, providing more flexible authentication options, and introducing robust data lifecycle controls for Interact. We've also taken the opportunity to upgrade the platform to .NET 10, putting us in a strong position ahead of the .NET 8 end of life this November.

Hub 5.2: Streamlined Data Segregation with Access Groups

Let's start with the new capabilities for Hub. Up until now, customers operating in highly federated environments that include multiple business units, regions, or operating companies have had to deploy separate Hub installations to keep each population's data and access cleanly segregated. This approach works, but introduces high infrastructure costs and ongoing operational overhead. With Hub 5.2 we're introducing Access Groups, which deliver that same data segregation within a single Hub installation. Hub administrators can now define groups of users and assign them to specific Blue Prism Enterprise environments and resources, creating the data separation and access controls that customers need without the duplicated infrastructure. 

We've also significantly extended what's possible on the authentication side. The first change is around the Blue Prism API: authenticated users can now send requests to the BP API via a third-party application through Authentication Server without relying on shared service account credentials. This was driven by customers are running strictly controlled environments, but want applications running outside that environment to be able to instruct digital workers through their existing API gateway with authentication handled by their corporate identity provider. This opens up use cases where it's possible to integrate with third-party applications like Slack or Teams, where the application can then invoke automations on a user's behalf. 

The second authentication enhancement is support for multiple external identity providers running concurrently. Authentication Server now supports multiple external SAML and OIDC providers at the same time, giving administrators much more flexibility in environments where different user populations authenticate through different identity systems. 

Hub and its plugins have also been upgraded to .NET 10, ahead of .NET 8 reaching end of life in November 2026. This keeps the platform on a fully supported framework, with all the security and performance benefits that come with the latest .NET release. 

Blue Prism Interact 5.2: Governance and Compliance

Turning to Interact 5.2, the headline addition this release is Interact Data Retention Management. Administrators can now configure retention policies on Interact forms to govern how long submissions and their associated files are stored, with an automated housekeeping routine that purges expired data efficiently and reliably. This gives customers the controls they need to meet GDPR and similar regulatory requirements without falling back on manual workarounds which often require direct interaction with the various product databases. Interact 5.2 also includes a number of additional functional and quality enhancements based on direct customer feedback. 

Next Steps

These are just a few highlights of the upcoming release, so I'd encourage everyone to read the full Hub 5.2 release notes and Interact 5.2 release notes for the full picture and to make sure nothing important is missed during your next upgrade planning cycle.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on these features and any other aspects of the release, as your feedback is invaluable in informing our future roadmap discussions.