Blue Prism Manifest V3 Announcement - Need utility for Azure Hosted

[SaifulKhan]

We have downloaded the Manifest V3 Impact Assessment Utility and We followed the instructions mentioned in README file came with the package, downloaded and ran it, but were unable to retrieve any VBO’s(PFA Snip). Probably this could be as we are Azure hosted and the Utility only has 2 authentication Modes (Windows and SQL server)

Could you please let us know if Blue prism has an utility for Azure Hosted Environment (with Azure authentication modes) or related SQL scripts that we can run to extract the output for our VBO’s?

[SaifulKhan]

Yes, I ran both. Knowing 1st command is not applicable as we do not have Windows Authentication mode to our Azure SQL

Yes, I even though it won't be that difficult to attach to as its turning out to be. Tried without TCP as well did not work.

Do you know why are we querying ProcessXML in commands instead of just getting Processes and it related VBO's using Java Script.
We just have like 40 bots in Dev/Prod env, can we get direct SQL query that the tool is doing in the background?

[ewilson]

@Saif,

I'm not sure what you mean about getting processes and VBOs using JavaScript. We query for ProcessXML because that's the field in the database that contains the actual definition of each process/VBO that's defined in your Blue Prism environment, and those definitions are stored as XML. So, the utility pulls down the XML of the VBOs and then performs some logic to work through each VBO definition looking for VBOs that use Chrome or Edge as well as VBOs that make use of Insert JavaScript or Invoke JavaScript actions.

If you open a ticket with support, they can provide the SQL queries, but the queries alone will not provide you with the final list of impacted VBOs (if any exist in your environment) and dependent processes.

Cheers,
Eric

[SaifulKhan]

The user has DB_datareader role, does it require an elevated role to be able to fetch the information and write the output?

[ewilson]

@Saif,

The Mv3 utility only performs 3 queries against the database and all three are just SELECTs, so I believe DB_datareader​ should be sufficient.

Cheers,
Eric

[SaifulKhan]

Sure, thank you. 

One last question to conclude, if the BCP command line works , does it give us the impacted Processes and related VBO's as output or just ProcessXML and we need to manually figure out?

[ewilson]

@Saif,

The BCP commands return raw data. The first query returns the XML content of the VBOs in the system. The second and third query return CSV data ('|' delimited) related to process dependencies and VBO grouping.

Here's the general workflow of the Mv3 utility:

1. Get VBO definitions - using BCP
2. Get VBO group information - using BCP
3. Get dependency information - using BCP
4. Mv3 adds root element tag to VBO XML data file
5. Mv3 begins processing VBO XML data (one VBO at a time)
   1. Checks for Application Modeller entry in VBO definition.
      1. If it exists, checks for browser definition.
         1. If it exists, checks to see if it's Chrome or Edge
            1. If so, add to list of impacted VBOs
            2. If not, ignore
   2. Checks to see if there are specific Launch/Attach action definitions for each VBO (this could happen in cases where folks don't completely fill out their App Modeller definition, but instead handle browser startup and attach on their own.
      1. If it exists, checks for browser definition.
         1. If it exists, checks to see if it's Chrome or Edge
            1. If so, add to list of impacted VBOs
            2. If not, ignore
   3. Check for Invoke Javascript or Insert Javascript entries on Navigate stages within the VBO definition.
      1. If they exist, and the browser type is Chrome or Edge, add to list of impacted VBOs
6. Mv3 makes note of the group (aka folder) each impacted VBO belongs to.
7. Mv3 builds the list of processes and VBOs that depend on any impacted VBO.
8. Mv3 writes the two output files.

Cheers,
Eric

[ewilson]

@Saif,

I have one more variation of the BCP command that might work. Can you try the below command?

bcp "SELECT [processxml] FROM [dbo].[BPAProcess] WHERE ([ProcessType] = 'O' AND [AttributeID] <> 1);" queryout "BluePrism_VBOs.xml" -d <BP DATABASE NAME> -U <SQL SERVER USERNAME> -P <SQL SERVER PASSWORD> -w -S <AZURE VM INSTANCE> 

I've removed the database name from the query and added it as a direct parameter input to the BCP utility. I've seen a few Microsoft articles where this seems to help.

Cheers,
Eric

​

[RamónRequena_L1]

Another alternative, which may take a while depending on the size of ur object library, would be making a BP release of all ur VBOs (Invoke and Insert JS actions are only available at object level), open that BP Release Notepad++ and use the search function in order to find entries of Invoke/Insert JS. 

You could script a macro to iterate through the XML and retrieve every time the entry shows up and the corresponding object. Of course, do this as last resort/work around if you don't get the Utility to run properly after all the input from Chris.

[ewilson]

@Saif - Have you tried the most recent BCP command I posted?​

Ramon - Yes, that is an option. However, the utility performs a few extra steps to provide you information about the folder the VBO can found in as well a list of any other VBOs/processes that depend on it too. You can get all that information from working within the Interactive Client UI though. It just takes time.

Cheers,
Eric

[SaifulKhan]

Sorry for the delayed response Eric was in training last 2 days.

We have tested both MV3 1.9 utility and also the above command you provided with -d (database) as parameter. Still no luck
Blue prism mentioned for 1.9 they fixed for Azure DB but doesn't for us, with the same credentials I'm able to connect to SQL instance (as part of validation)



Our Authentication mode to connect to SQL instance