Object name change - updating references

[AdamBrasic]

Hi there,  I work on a team that is scaling up rather quickly, and we are trying to get our object library in order so it is easy to navigate (and audit). We have many poorly named objects that were created when we were just standing up our automation team, but those objects are still referenced by dozens of processes in production. They are functionally solid, but, the names are a mess. If we change the names to our now set naming convention, we have to remediate all of the references within the processes that are dependent on them.  Apart from being time consuming, there is huge risk that we miss one, or we make an error in recording the proper inputs that the objects require from the process. My team has not found an easy or built in way to deal with changing object names. Does Blue Prism have this feature, or have any of you fine people encountered this problem before?

[John__Carter]

You can try the following hack. Rename your object Export a process as an XML file Open the XML in a text editor (with tools like Notepad++ you can auto-tidy/indent/linearize the XML to make it easier to look at) Search for the object references, eg 

[AndreaFrauchige]

I did the same at object Level. Changes the window class Attribute from Wildcard to Regex - by replacing all i was able to avoid having to Change each Action manually. Less risk, a lot faster.

[Charanjiv_Singh]

Hi John,

Do we have a DB Script that will perform this activity? As there are high chances that one can skip some line/text to be updated.

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Charanjiv Singh Janjua
Mr
Accenture
Asia/Kolkata
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[ewilson]

@Charanjiv_Singh,

I'd suggest opening a ticket with Blue Prism Support to see what they have. I imagine this has come up before and they may have a standard script to do it.

Cheers,
​

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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[John__Carter]

Hi Charanjiv - no I don't have a script I'm afraid. Even though the Export->Edit->Import hack is a little cumbersome, it does allow you a certain level of scope for making mistakes. If your changes corrupt the XML, then BP won't let you import the file. Or if you realise after successfully importing that you made a spelling mistake, then it's easy to recover (by re-exporting your old version and re-importing again). Once you are familiar with the XML structure BP uses then changing an object reference in a text editor is a few seconds of effort if you use 'replace all'.

By contrast, using a query to change the XML in the DB is far more risky, with a tougher (or potentially no) recovery if you make a mistake. And at worst, you may affect BP's overall ability to function, your Support agreement will be in doubt, and you'll be having to give an explanation to your boss. Basically it's just not the way BP has been designed (or tested) to work and I strongly recommend you don't try it.


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John Carter
Professional Services
Blue Prism
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[Charanjiv_Singh]

Hi John,

Thanks for your inputs. Yes, I am pretty much aware of the risk while updating via query and for all obvious reasons I will not try that in production as I have a sandbox environment for trying out such things.

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Charanjiv Singh Janjua
Mr
Accenture
Asia/Kolkata
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[Charanjiv_Singh]

@ewilson

You are right, I should reach out to BluePrism support and they would have some solution. Thanks.​

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Charanjiv Singh Janjua
Mr
Accenture
Asia/Kolkata
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