Hello @TomCirone
I believe we have solved your original request with Automation Orchestrator (powered by Next Gen) and the recent additions of Dynamic Worker allocation with process chaining.
I appreciate this question was raised a long time ago. It is one of the multiple customer points of feedback which led us to deliver Automation Orchestrator (powered by Next Gen). Our latest enhancements include Automation Flows, Dynamic Worker allocation, Process Chaining, Digital Worker Groups, and Triggers, which provide flexibility, efficiency, and control over automation processes. These capabilities are available to our Blue Prism Enterprise customers with Automation Orchestrator (powered by Next Gen).
Our Automation Flows (which supersede schedules) allows you to create sequences of automations that can be executed in a specific order, and separately define multiple triggers, including Work Queue triggers and time-based triggers. We have clash detection built-in, so that if a digital worker is busy, the next session (process run) would be queued, ready for when a worker becomes available, giving you greater resilience and utilization.
Our Digital Worker Capability Groups (which supersede Resource Pools) enables customers to define and manage groups of digital workers with specific capabilities, ensuring that automations are executed by the most suitable workers.
- A digital worker group is a collection of digital workers with a shared set of capabilities, defined within an environment.
- Within an automation flow, when defining a step (task) that contains an RPA process run, you can choose a digital worker group to run the process instead of selecting an individual digital worker, and the next available online digital worker in the selected group then runs the process.
In addition, our Process Chaining capability enables customers to create sequences of automations that can be executed in a specific order, including login and logout steps.
- A Process Chain allows you to chain together multiple processes in a process run to leverage Login Agent to securely log in to an execution machine while also benefiting from dynamic digital worker allocation. You can create a chain of processes in a process run to dynamically select any appropriate digital worker from a group and ensure that it securely logs in to an execution machine using specific credentials, before then running the required RPA automation. Once the automation is complete, the machine can be cleaned up and logged out, ready for the next automation.
- Tip: Even if the first or second process in the chain fails, the third process will always run to ensure that the machine is correctly cleaned up, logged out, and returned to a state where it is available to be used again.
- For processes in a process chain, the digital worker is reserved by the Automation Orchestrator until the last process in the chain is complete, regardless of whether it was explicitly selected or was allocated from a digital worker group. This ensures that the same digital worker runs each process in the chain, and cannot be allocated to a different session when it completes one process and is waiting to start running the next one in the chain.
This allows for more efficient and streamlined automation workflows because a chain can be assigned to any worker within a customized capability group.
To learn more about Automation Orchestrator (powered by Next Gen) and how it can help your organization streamline and optimize your automation workflows, please visit our online documentation portal at https://docs.blueprism.com/en-US/bundle/next-generation/page/automation-orchestrator.htm.
Related ideas where I've shared the same update:
I am really excited to see the impact that these capabilities will have on our customers' automation initiatives and look forward to continuing to innovate and deliver value to our community.
Kind regards
Chris Strong
SS&C Blue Prism – Senior Product Manager (Next Gen RPA)
