SAP Process Automation “Agent 3” Now Available – The Gold Standard of Desktop Automation

After three years of research and development, the SAP Process Automation team is proud to announce the release of its Desktop Agent version 3. We like to call it “Agent 3.”

Agent 3 is the desktop tool in the Process Automation suite that allows you, the citizen developer, to automate any components running on your desktop.

It allows you, the business user, to click a button to perform hundreds of complex actions that could ordinarily take you many minutes or hours, and to avoid the tiresome errors and corrections that come from typing and clicking in different applications all day.

The Process Automation team has rewritten Agent 3 using modern development frameworks and leading-edge techniques to give you a fresher, more responsive, and agile tool that is faster, more accurate and more robust than its predecessors.

We have also taken a closer look at how the Agent is used and how it gets into users’ hands. Our team’s work in this area has been driven by the desire to get the Agent to you as seamlessly as possible.

Let’s look at what is really in Agent 3.

The Gold Standard

While Agent 3 was researched, developed, and rewritten over the last three years, it is based on code with almost 20 years of experience in the real world.

The front end is now based on the leading-edge Electron framework. You already know Electron from wildly popular tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack or Figma. Developers love Electron from the world’s top coding application: Microsoft Visual Studio Code.

Electron itself is based on two of the most widely used standards-based frameworks out there today: Chromium, for the user interface, and Node.js for file, desktop, and other back-end operations.

Built on Electron, Agent 3 rests on the number one open-source development platform available, with tens of thousands of developers contributing to its security, reliability, and evolution, and adds SAP’s unique ability to interact with your web and desktop applications to run automations with the highest possible performance.

Smart Update, Simplified Download, Fast Project Switching… and More

Agent 3’s new architecture enables light-speed development of modern new features that make your life easier.

The flagship innovation in Agent 3 is the Smart Update: a fully synchronized update system that keeps time with the SAP Process Automation cloud releases and makes sure you and your users always have the latest version of the Agent installed.

Agent 3: Getting a new version

Out of the box, Smart Update will keep you and your team on the latest Agent version. You can also switch to Managed Update mode where you have a point-and-click choice of which version to deploy in your organization, and which version to test before rolling it out. Our User Experience team interviewed hundreds of users to design a simple interface to let you manage your Agent deployment strategy.

Since the Agent update mechanism has been redesigned, it also allows you to download it directly from your SAP Process Automation cloud application – you no longer need to find your marketplace credentials and compare the long version numbers to find the correct package. There is one download link, and it is right in SPA, where you need it.

The Electron framework also enables a much more responsive UI (User Interface), built on web technologies, so you will notice much faster switching from project to project, theming, and developers get the benefit of moving quickly from design to test to runtime modes. All this with no more restarts – Agent 3 is always ready to go to run your Automations!

Agent 3: Ready to Run

Finally, being built on JavaScript technology means Agent 3 benefits from community research on testing and debugging tools and frameworks, and all our early adopters have praised the improvements in stability and robustness of the rewritten Agent.

The Future

Innovations such as Remote Desktop Protocol management on Windows Servers, as well as Dense Agent deployments and new cloud-suite connectors are coming to the exciting new Agent 3 platform.

You benefit already from installing Agent 3 today, but what it will offer you in the future is even more exciting!

When is it Available?

Agent 3 is generally available now, since September 20^th, to all SAP Process Automation Customers.

Trial customers can also get Agent 3 from this page starting today, October 6^th: https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/#cloud.

How to get it?

Agent 3 is a simple one-click download from your tenant. Go to your SAP Process Automation cloud, and on the Settings, Agent Update page, follow the big blue button to Go to Download Page.

Agent 3: Easy first download

This Download page will ensure that you have the absolute latest version of Agent 3 installed, and even better – once installed, it will download the latest updates from SAP by itself.

What is SAP’s strategy for Agent 3?

SAP plans to move all its automation execution to Agent 3 in the near future.

Of course, we are here to help all our clients during migration and will continue to support Agent 2 to keep your business running.

To benefit from the newest innovations and architectural updates, we encourage you to start testing your existing automations with Agent 3. Both versions: Agent 2 and Agent 3, will continue to live alongside each other while our customers proceed with their tests.

We hope you will love the improvements in the new Agent 3, and the whole SAP Process Automation development team is excited to hear your feedback and to see you using it to keep your business Running Better!

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