Hi
@til.minetThanks again for the feedback. There's a lot in your post, so I'll attempt to address the various items you've touched on in order.
Web API ManagementYou are correct, there is no easy way to copy action definitions between different Web API definitions. I believe there's an Idea open for this sort of flexibility on the core product Ideas page, but it would likely require a significant overhaul of the current Web API user interface. With that said, it is possible to copy functionality between different Web APIs in a round-about way. Basically you have to export the two Web APIs as .bprelease's. Then you can perform the changes in the actual XML. It's not ideal, but it does work.
Digital ExchangeRegarding your comment about damaging your sense of the DX, I think you're overlooking something important here. The Digital Exchange is not just a place to go and grab static, canned integrations. We want it to be a community of Blue Prism developers. What I mean by that is we want/need your input. If there are enhancements to an asset that you've made in your environment or that you just think make sense there's an Ideas page that you can find
here. I'd encourage you to submit ideas for any enhancements. If you've already built changes into a fork of an asset in your environment, you can attach that asset to your idea. After that, we can take it through our review process and, assuming no issues, post it as an update to the asset page (giving you full credit).
Alternatively, you can submit your own asset to the DX. We have partners and community developers that take core Blue Prism assets, extend/improve them, and then post submit them to the DX. As you may have noticed the vast majority of Blue Prism assets on the DX are released under the MIT license which allows anyone to create derivative work without needing approval from Blue Prism.
Graph API for OutlookAs you've pointed out, the Graph integration for Outlook is not perfect. We have discussed making the input for many of the actions a simple Text input value that you can use to pass in your own generated JSON body. That's actually what we've done with other Graph integrations. Our intent with the Outlook integration was to try and make it as accessible to non-developers as possible. In doing so, we've limited the power users like yourself. I think the ideal solution is to change from a Template body to a Custom Code body where we generate the body based on input. And then we can expose various input data items. That would be easier for non-developers while giving power users more flexibility. However, given the vast number of configurable options Microsoft makes available for the various endpoints this would be no small undertaking, so in the interim we will probably change some of those actions to accept just the JSON blob.
Utility - JSON and Outlook Fields To, CC, and BCCYou mentioned that the Graph utility does not accept a JSON array as the values for To, CC, or BCC. To clarify, Graph does accept a JSON array as input, just not the JSON array format that's output by the Utility - JSON VBO. Microsoft's own examples show the input for
toRecipients as an array of
emailAddress entries. Unfortunately, the way the JSON utility currently functions, it wraps any Collection in a top-level array, and it looks like embedded Collections (if you want to added additional addresses) also in an array. So we'll take a look at what we can do to address that.
I hope these responses help in some way.
Cheers,
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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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