Data Exposure - Statistic

[GaryChan1]

Hi,  when I choose 'Statistic - Store the contents of this data item in the database for reporting purpose' in Data Item Exposure, how and where can I retrieve the data value from database?   Thanks.

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Gary Chan
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[John__Carter]

Hi Gary - that feature is a relic from BP v1 that should probably be retired, so please ignore it. I'll make a request for it to be retired - I suspect it's been left in for backwards compatibility but I'd be amazed if anyone is using it. The idea predates work queues and was intended as a way to persist data item values between sessions, almost like an updatable environment variable.

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John Carter
Professional Services
Blue Prism
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[GaryChan1]

Thx John~

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Gary Chan
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[krishna.kodimurali9]

Thanks John for the clarification, even i was confused around it often.

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MuraliKrishna
Senior Consultant - Automation Developer
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[John__Carter]

@Gary Chan and @krishna.kodimurali9 - after checking with the engineering team it seems by coincidence they were thinking about retiring this exposure type anyway. However the worry is that somebody somewhere is still using it, so it's always a tough call to remove functionality and probably why it's been left in since v1.
I also had a play to remind myself how it worked, and I was wrong to say statistics are persisted between sessions. It's just a means of recording the current value of a data item within the context of one session. The UI in System>Audit>Statistics is pretty much a display of the BPAStatistics table, and as such of very little practical use.

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John Carter
Professional Services
Blue Prism
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[JoshuaKingsley]

Hi @John Carter,

Thanks for your explanation. Do you think the feature can slightly be modified to make it useful now?

Currently, I don't think we have a feature to pass some information across different sessions of a process​; since Environmental variables cannot be modified during runtime & Session variables won't work across different sessions.

For example, if a Process is running on multiple machines and incase a notification to be sent to Business people, I want the bot to send email only once. If we run the process on 3 different machines, 3 same emails are being sent now. That is the case if we increase more machines.

Thanks

Joshua

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Joshua Kingsley
RPA Developer
Infosys
Asia/Kolkata
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[Rambo27]

Hey @JoshuaKingsley,

Regarding the example you want email to be sent once by BOT .
For example, if a Process is running on multiple machines and incase a notification to be sent to Business people, I want the bot to send email only once. If we run the process on 3 different machines, 3 same emails are being sent now. That is the case if we increase more machines.


For any transaction data , at every transaction notification has to be send it will be difficult to control it .But still you can use the concept of parent child queue to complete this one bot sending mail once all the transaction in child queue is done and it would run after once all child transaction is completed . 


I did have same issue to resolve so i used my summary reports had to be sent by one bot not at EOD. so I used (To get the Machine Name and User Name of the machine where your bot is running we can use the VBO Utility Environment. (VBO Utility-Environment) . As per my Environment variable which Bot is supposed to send the email is checked and only sent thru the bot which is specified else not be sent make log and done with process . 
This is summary report once we done with all execution we can do this at the end . 

But depends which logic you are checking.

Hope it helps

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Shikhar Mishra
RPA Lead
Infosys Pvt Ltd
Pune,India
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[John__Carter]

Hi Joshua - I can't see the functionality being updated to be honest, I think it's slated for retirement. However feel free to make your case here https://community.blueprism.com/participate/ideation-home

To add to Shikar's advice, there are options to avoid sending duplicate emails. One is to enable only one machine to send emails, and have the others add an item to a queue that will instruct the email machine to send a message. That design could be a SPOF though.

Another option would be to have all machines capable of emailing, but provide them with a way to detect that a duplicate notification has already been sent. You could probably achieve this with an environment lock (to ensure email handling is never done by more than one machine) and a record of sent emails (either the Sent Items folder of a shared account, or a BP work queue) to use as a look-up.

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John Carter
Professional Services
Blue Prism
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[KavinoFluir]

Hi Gary that feature is a relic from BP v1 that should probably be retired, so please ignore it.
I'll make a request for it to be retired  I suspect it's been left in for backwards compatibility but I'd be amazed if anyone is using it.
The idea predates work queues and was intended as a way to persist data item values between sessions, almost like an updatable environment variable.

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