Putting this on the forum to inform users of these problems. Issues are sorted by priority (from highest to lowest). We've used Blue Prism version 5.0.23, but we've not seen these issues solved in newer release notes.
1 - IBM iAccess Client doesn't work with Blue Prism.
IBM now uses iAccess Client as their emulator solution against mainframe. IBM's previous emulator: IBM PComm, which worked perfectly fine, is no longer supported.
We've looked through the documents on
https://portal.blueprism.com/customer-services/documents and found no guide for IBM iAccess Client.
On the documents page previously referenced, there's a guide 'How to configure IBM iAccess Client with OpenText HostExplorer'. This works great, but each license of OpenText HostExplorer costs $294.
2 - All EHLLAPI/HLLAPI options in the Application Modeller have severe issues
We've testet OpenText HostExplorer (EHHLAPI), Generic HLLAPI (Rocket BlueZone), Generic HLLAPI (Quick3270) and all of them had these severe problems:
- No support for foreign characters (for example ÆØÅ). When reading these characters from the mainframe Blue Prism stores them as '?'. We cannot use an emulator which doesn't support these characters as we need them to correctly read out names. We have been in contact with the emulator providers and we're not sure if the issue here lies on them or Blue Prism.
- To explain this issue here's an example: When spying the emulator for the first time in one session a grid appears on the active screen (Screen A). When spying another page (Screen B), the grid still appears on the previous screen (Screen A). The only way to remove the grid is to detach then attach (the little close text below the grid doesn't work).
IBM PComm (COM API), OpenText HostExplorer (COM API) the problems mentioned doesn't exist. We have not testet Rocket PASSPORT (COM API), but everything probably works for this emulator as well.
3 - Attach/Detach doesn't exist in EHLLAPI/HLLAPI emulators.
In the Blue Prism v5.0.24 attach/detach was added to OpenText HostExplorer/Hummingbird via the COM API:
'New actions (Launch Mainframe, Attach Mainframe, Detach Mainframe, Terminate Mainframe) are provided within a Navigate stage when working with Hummingbird emulators via the COM API.'
We're missing attach/detach on OpenText HostExplorer (EHHLAPI), Generic HLLAPI (Rocket BlueZone), Generic HLLAPI (Quick3270).
Attach/detach is crucial to make generic mainframe objects (for example login).
We've created a Blue Prism support ticket regarding the missing detach option: OpenText HostExplorer (EHLLAPI). Attach exists, but not detach.
When attaching from another object the following error occurs: 'The host presentation space is already being used by another system function'. That's why we need the detach action. Having several objects attach to a mainframe via. COM API seems to work fine.
4 - Blue Prism doesn't support any free emulators.
When IBM iAccess doesn't work, it would be great to attach to a free emulator option, for example:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/tn5250/.
We've been in contact with Blue Prism support and found no way to attach to it using 'Generic HLLAPI' in the application modeller.
-
The reason we need this fixed is that my current client have recently upgraded to Windows 10. They used IBM PComm before on Windows 7 and use IBM iAccess Client on Windows 10. Because of software policies, it's not possible to install unsupported software like IBM PComm on Windows 10. Since IBM iAccess Client doesn't work with Blue Prism, it seems like we have to buy OpenText HostExplorer licenses (and attach through COM API) if the problems above aren't solved.
Thank you.
