01-02-24 11:18 AM
Hi,
We are thinking on how we can manage new versions of VBO available on DX.
One essential topic for us is how we get the information if and when a new version of VBO is available so we may incorporate new features and fixes asap and not when it already 'hurts' us in our development.
Since there is no newsletter distributed by mail the alternative that were offered is to subscribe to RSS, what I did some time ago.
One of our developer raised the need of having the most recent version of Utility Strings so I looked it up in DX.
There is no history of the VBO available in DX. At least previous release notes and dates would be nice to have. (Idea Details - SS&C Blue Prism Communityl)
The version number 10.0.0 made me suspicious because it seems most VBO have this version. I think this was the default version number when changing versioning scheme in DX. So I looked at the date and it says: last update 12/08/2023, quite recently, so version 10.0.0 might not be correct, I thought.
The description says the last update was on 2022-03-04 introducing Calculate Distance action.
I had a look at my RSS feeds and it seems I subscribed on 4th of January as this is the earliest date I could find. The related feed to Utility Strings was on 17th January saying there was an update adding Calculate Distance on 2022-03-04.
This is a bit confusing because I don't know if and what was added on 12th of August last year and where there was a RSS update feed on the 17th of January this year, while the last documented change was in 2022.
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Walter Koller
Solution Manager
Erste Digital / Erste Group Bank
Europe/Vienna
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01-02-24 11:59 AM
Hello! It is indeed a very valid point. In fact, this will greatly facilitate the queries of DX utilities.
01-02-24 01:26 PM
I agree and it is a very big point for improvement. Plz share the idea link and would be happy to upvote.
01-02-24 02:11 PM
Here is the link to the idea for change history in DX:
Idea Details - SS&C Blue Prism Community
01-02-24 04:26 PM
Hi Walter Koller,
Regarding version history for VBO. check below thread ,BP is already planning to implement version history, looks like there is no specific timeline regarding.
https://community.blueprism.com/discussion/outlook-graph-api-version-history
02-02-24 08:36 AM
Hello,
Thanks a lot for providing additional info and linking the two discussion together.
Although I am not sure what @ewilson answer means, to have release notes in general or to add a change history table to the release notes.
Having any change history would help and having this information in the release notes would for sure be beneficial to have this information when browsing our local files.
However, a history directly on the web page might help to understand why the last update date is one year after the last change date.
Cheers
02-02-24 12:33 PM
I agree it is always helpful having that info in the webpage, also I think best way is the combination of last changes in the web page and having release notes in the pdf might be best approach.
My understanding is instead of release notes in the webpage they keep all the release info in the pdf format to avoid any spacing issues in the web page
Below function it has release notes pdf file if you look in to Coll VBO in digital exchange the release info is present in the web page.
release notes in PDF format: https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/3439/solution/microsoft-office-365---outlook
release notes in web page: https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/3439/solution/utility---json
02-02-24 12:56 PM
Thanks for following up on this topic.
Yes I see in this format the change history will take a lot of time and eventually will destroy the nice page layout.
My image of the change history was more like a summary table:
01.02.2022 | initial upload v1.0 |
13.02.2022 | hotfix v1.1 |
05.06.2022 | new action v1.2 |
06.06.2022 | documentation update |
02.03.2023 | re-upload |
Also there could be a frame with scrollable content so the size will be fixed while the list can keep growing.
There might be only the most recent change or the most recent two changes so people can easily see when and why there was a change (or it was admin activity only).
Also the already existing
could be used to show some of these details and/or open a page with exhaustive change history without impacting the current page's layout. This could be also used to provide users access to files of previous versions, in case the most recent version may cause issues.
Of course those information should be collected and updated with least manual efforts.
I will add a link to this discussion in the proposed idea
04-02-24 03:33 PM
Hello,
Great idea, I believe it will make vbos queries much easier.
I upvoted the idea article.
Regards,