Blue Prism Version Upgrade

[rokkam_saiteja]

Hi Team,

We’re planning to update our current Blue Prism version (6.10.5). Could you please recommend the best version compatible with Windows Server 2019 and 2022 for use on cloud PCs?

Additionally, what are the best practices we should follow before proceeding with the upgrade?

Thanks,

Sai Teja

[naveed_raza]

i think Blueprism 7.4 is stable version which supports Windows Server 2019 and 2022

[Michael_S]

Hi @rokkam_saiteja, 

There's a lot of formal resources available on making the upgrade from v6 to v7. We've pulled them together into our v6 End of Life resource page here: https://community.blueprism.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/v6_End_of_Life.

I recommend paying particular attention to the upgrade notices and regression testing sections.

I also strongly recommend this discussion, in which community members detail their advice for preparing to make the upgrade: https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Upgrading-from-6-10-5-to-7-4-Advice-and-Guidance/m-p/118248/highlight/true#M52660 

I'm sure others will be along to share their experiences and answer the compatibility questions too 🙂

[stepher]

Greetings, @rokkam_saiteja ,

Over this past year, we upgraded from version 6.10.2 to 7.3.2.  It was actually a two-year process, as we had a failed attempt to update to 7.1 in 2023.  So... I have thoughts.

First, our organization's general approach to upgrades is to wait for at least the first 'dot' update of an upgrade, in order to have a higher level of confidence in its stability.  I thought that BP had released v7.4.1, so I would have recommended that, but I cannot find any reference to is.  V7.4 has been out for a while, so you could take that into consideration.  As I said, we landed on v7.3.2.

As far as the Windows Server support, we are attempting to convert our Runtimes to WinServ22.  Our challenges have nothing to do with the software, the servers we have run like champs.  Our issue is internal change management and an overall direction to 'move to the cloud'.  It is what the cool kids are doing.

Which brings me to your question about cloud PCs.  As we converted to v7.3.2, we also were forced to move from on-prem Citrix machines to MS Azure machines (in the cloud).  The difference was staggering.  Literally.  Our Network folks swear that the Azure machines only had '3 milliseconds' of additional latency, compared to our previous machines, but our processes took markedly longer to complete, and some processes just came to a stop.  It is actually the reason we started the WinServ initiative.

The next point I would touch on is to consider your mix of web/browser automations.  There has been much discussion about the differences between 6.10.x and 7.x Chrome/Edge extensions.  I do not think this particular point can be understated.  Once you understand it, and have your 'fix' in hand, it is mostly good, but it is likely you are going to have to touch every browser-based object.

One last thing, which could be a non-issue if you absolutely follow best practices when it comes to building objects.  The 'detach' action got disabled somewhere between 6.10.2 and 7.3.2.  It was not deprecated; it just no longer functions.  Historically, we used the 'detach' before we did any 'attach' just to make sure we were connecting to the intended window/frame.  Our workaround was to break some of our objects into smaller pieces.  Was it a bad thing? Not really.  But it meant developing a new standard for our 'attach' pages, very little time, and then folding that into ALL of our objects, which was a lot of time.

I think that is enough for now.  I definitely recommend reading the threads that @Michael_S noted.  I give a lot of weight and credence to those folks.

Best of luck.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Red

[naveed_raza]

@stepher - thank you so much sharing this , next year we are going to upgrade to 7.4.x and off course it will take atleast 8 months of time to fully migrate and test all the automations.

Here in my team , we have around 50+ automations.

[david.l.morris]

Hi @stepher ,

Are you saying that Detach doesn't work in 7.3.2? I tested it just now in 7.5 and 7.4.1, and it works in both of those versions.

If they had purposefully disabled it, that would actually be a major issue, especially for anyone who uses the external application manager modes. Oddly it was suggested to me that it is "better" to not use embedded even though the external modes can't have two objects connected to the same application so they rely on being able to constantly attach and detach.

Can you give me some details I could use to test with? Things like the exact version (maybe it's 7.3.2) where you're finding that detach doesn't work as well as what target application(s), what application manager mode, etc.

I see you also referenced 7.4.1 and yeah it has been out for little while now. I've tested it a fair bit and we're currently attempting to upgrade to it. Like you, we've been taking years to upgrade, and we were slow largely due to the MV2/MV3 thing since we have a fairly heavy reliance on insert/invoke javascript. So we are actually still using 6.10.1 for production but are planning to be off of it within 2-4 months.

[stepher]

Greetings, @david.l.morris ,

That is what I said, but I should restate to 'this has been my experience.'  I opened this thread back in October (Blue Prism 7.3.2: 'Detach' Action Randomly Not Working (MS Edge and Chrome) ).  I read the Blue Prism response as a confirmation; but in rereading it now, I would probably not. 

That said, I also found this notation in the version 7.2 documentation (Blue Prism 7.2: April 2023.  It may exist elsewhere, but this was the first definitive statement I found.

For our builds, where this really showed up was in dealing with splash screens from within the target application.  We used to employ the 'Detach' to reset the focus from the primary frame to the pop-up window.  Our response has been to build much smaller objects to address the specific pop-up window.  When the 'pop-up' action is called, that object is not attached, so the Attach action works, and sets the focus appropriately.  Likewise, once the pop-up has been addressed, the primary-frame object is now no longer attached, so its Attach action also does what it expected.

I take Blue Prism's notation as confirmation that at some point it did not work...at all.  Then, in my 7.3.2 testing, it worked...sometimes.  And, for me, at least in this particular instance, 'sometimes' is only a shade better than not at all.  The biggest problem was that I could not figure out a way to force the detachment when it failed.  As to whether it works now (or not), I could not say, as we have completely excised the action from all of our Objects.

I am happy to try and answer any additional questions.  I am also willing to show an example of our current standard 'Attach' action, if that would help anyone.

Best of luck,

Red

[david.l.morris]

@stepher Thanks! What you've said makes sense. I'll leave it for now and keep it in the back of my mind as a possible intermittent issue that I can return to if we start seeing issues. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't some really obvious problem that we needed to report to Blue Prism. I figured it might have been only when combining certain application manager mode and multiple objects and specific BP versions etc.

Thanks for the reply!