Chrome support from 10.6.1: 10.6.3 good enough? or jumping to 7.0?

[DominiqueTarel]

Hello,

My customer is dropping IE 11 for Chrome >=95.x.

BluePrism 10.6.1 is installed in production. I'm wondering which BluePrism version is best and less risky for Chrome migration.

Going to v7.0 is possible for my customer without extra cost.

From https://bpdocs.blueprism.com/bp-7-0/en-us/release-notes/rn-7.0.htm#Browser2 I read about "Blue Prism now uses a native messaging host application to communicate with each of the browser extensions (Chrome, Edge, and Firefox)."

It's not the case with 10.6.3? As far as Chrome is concerned, the best strategy for my customer would still be going to 7.0?

There is no new release of BluePrism v7 since the first one in May 2021. Does that mean that BluePrism 7.0 is very stable?

Thanks for the feedbacks!

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Dominique Tarel
Consultant
Europe/Paris
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[steven.boggs]

Hi Dominique,

Other Blue Prism administrators, Partners, and end-users experienced with implementing Chrome automation integration could perhaps chime in with their personal experience in using these two versions (v6.10.3 and v7.0) for this purpose, but from a Blue Prism Product standpoint I can advise the following:

There are a few Chrome/Edge/Firefox-specific issues outlined in our "What are the known issues in Blue Prism Version 6.10?" (see 'Browser automation issues' section) documentation that are addressed in the v6.10.3 patch release but are not slated be addressed in v7 until v7.0.1 (tentatively). If these would interfere with your customer's browser automation plans, we would suggest to upgrade to v6.10.3 to take advantage of them in the near-term until the first patch version of v7.x is released.

We would also suggest review of the Release Notes for the v6.10.3 patch release to see the fixes implemented in this version in comparison to the v7.0 Release Notes for additional information in this regard. In addition, there is also a "What are the known issues in Blue Prism Version 7.0?" article you can review to help make this decision. Also, as v6.10.3 is considered a "patch release", the effort required to upgrade from v6.10.1 may be considerably smaller (dependent on your customer's architecture, existing Processes/Objects, etc) than a full stack upgrade to v7.0.

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Steve Boggs
Senior Software Support Engineer
Blue Prism
Austin, TX
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[DominiqueTarel]

Thanks!
The link to known issues is interesting to read because I see some annoying bugs "Fixed in 6.10.3 patch release and will also be fixed in 7.0.1.".
So the point now is going to 6.10.3 or wait for 7.0.1.

I would like some explanations about  version 7.x: "Blue Prism now uses a native messaging host application to communicate with each of the browser extensions (Chrome, Edge, and Firefox)." Some other mecanisms are implemented in 6.10.x? What are the advantages of the 7.x mecanism?



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Dominique Tarel
Consultant
Europe/Paris
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[bruce.liu]

Hi Dominique,

Essentially, Native Messenging Host is essentially a new mechanism for Blue Prism extensions to communicate with modern browsers. The key difference you would notice coming from v6 is the absence of the browser port option (31924) under system settings, i.e. you do not get to choose if you opt in ephermeral port or fixed port, and all considerations associated with the port may not be applicable. 

6.10.3 is a good version to go for browser purpose and I would recommend you consider it if you cannot wait for 7.0.1. But for the long term, version 7 is the way for the future. Going for 7.0.1 will mean less adjustment down the line.

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Bruce Liu
Senior Product Consultant, Professional Services
Blue Prism
Australia/Sydney
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