Product Information
What’s New in SAP Build Process Automation: April 2023 Release
Dear community,
We know the importance of staying ahead and continuously improving your business process efficiency. That’s why we’re excited to announce the latest SAP Build Process Automation product updates in our April 2023 release.
Release Highlights:
Process Builder & Forms
- Add Subprocesses to a Process
- Hyperlinks, Table Dropdowns, and Responsive Rendering in Forms
- Searchable Value Help in Form Fields
- List of Users as Form Recipients
Process Orchestration & Automation
- Add List as Input to a Decision
- Add Complex Input/Output to Decisions
- Advanced Agent Monitoring via Alerts and CALM Integration
- Retry Unattended Automations
Process Visibility
US30 Datacenter Availability
US Central (IA) (CF-US30) is available as a new region running on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for use with enterprise accounts. The combination of GCP, Google Workspace, and Google Vertex AI activities offers an integrated solution for customers using Google’s services and infrastructure.
See also: SAP Build Process Automation is better with Google Document AI and Google Workspace
Process Builder & Forms
Add Subprocess to Process
You can now add subprocesses to your main processes in the process builder. With subprocesses, you can modularize your process automation projects, create and reuse a set of common process activities in a sub-flow, and leverage them in one or across multiple processes without duplicating efforts. Eligible subprocesses must be available in the same business process project. It also lets you add existing workflows created by developers in SAP Business Application Studio or workflows imported from Live Process Packages for your needs.
Subprocesses – Advanced Processing Input Mapping
Learn more from Thomas Volmering:
- Introducing Subprocesses as Referenced Subflows in SAP Build Process Automation
- Configuring Subprocesses in SAP Build Process Automation
Hyperlinks, Table Dropdowns, and Responsive Rendering in Forms
The recently released form tables have now been enhanced with the following:
- You can model a URL of type HTTPS, HTTP, or mailto in your form to link external sources statically through a fixed link or dynamically based on the process context. To build a URL based on the process context, you can use the expression editor of automations. You can also enter a link text to show instead of the URL, a label, and a description that displays when you hover over the question mark.
- You can add a dropdown in a table to help the process participant to fill in the forms more efficiently. You can define the dropdown entries manually or with an action from the library.
- Process participants can consume the form on different devices because it supports responsive rendering.
Hyperlink in Form Field Design Time
Table Dropdowns Design Time
Searchable Value Help in Form Fields
Last month we released the entry filtering feature within forms. It now includes an enhanced search capability to simplify data retrieval. How does it work? As a citizen developer, you would use search-enabled data sources to help process participants to find the correct entry for a form field quickly. The dropdown changes into a value help, and the corresponding Value Help icon is displayed. This makes the search process more robust and flexible, reducing the risk of errors and saving valuable time.
Note: An IT admin must add the $search action parameter to allow citizen developers to create search fields within forms connected to the data source.
Searchable Value Help, Design Time
Searchable Value Help in Form Fields Run Time
List of Users as Form Recipients
You can now assign process metadata and context fields to the recipient’s User field. Those can be lists of users or the user who started the process. Now, you can enter specific e-mail addresses of users or groups who should receive the task. Let’s say you need to configure a list of emails; for example, configure it as process input.
List of Users as Form Recipients Design Time
See also: Configure Start Trigger Form, Form, and Approval Form Settings.
Process Orchestration & Automation
Add List as Input to a Decision
When you add the Inputs/Output parameters of a decision, select List if the input parameter is a collection of a specific data type. This list input parameter is displayed under Vocabulary when configuring your conditions and results in the wizard.
See also: Create a Decision
Add Complex Input/Output to Decisions
If you have created an input/output parameter or a decision variable of complex type, this appears under Vocabulary as a nested attribute when configuring the conditions and results.
Add Complex Input/Output to Decisions
See also: Model a rule in a Decision Table
Advanced Agent Monitoring via Alerts and CALM Integration
You can now configure a notification whenever a new agent is connected for the first time. This lets you decide whether to add the agent to your landscape and closely monitor incoming agents. You can also configure a notification when agents are connected back after being disconnected for a certain period. This helps you to monitor unattended agents and prevent job expiration.
Agent Notifications Design Time
Integration to Cloud Application Lifecycle Management (CALM) has now been enhanced. You can now monitor your agents’ status easily, side by side, with other SAP solutions in one place.
These new capabilities help you maintain control and visibility over your agents, ensuring that it runs efficiently and effectively. You can be confident that you’ll receive timely notifications about your agents’ activities, enabling you to act where necessary.
Agents in Cloud Application Lifecycle Management (CALM)
Retry Unattended Automations
Suppose an automation job fails, expires, or is canceled; you can now retry it while keeping the same context and parameters as the failed job. This prevents multiple clicks from retrying jobs that failed due to external circumstances. This will keep the input values of the original job, being redistributed to any eligible agent for execution.
Retry Unattended Automations Run Time
Interested in more automation-focused release updates? Read more in detail about our automation enhancements this month in this blog post by ESHITA MAHAJAN.
Process Visibility
Completed/ canceled visibility scenario instances are archived after 6 months and kept archived for 2 years. The archived data can now be downloaded in .csv format from the monitor Visibility Scenarios tile to perform any further analysis of the data. Also, you can import an exported visibility scenario from the SAP Workflow Management into SAP Build Process Automation and customize it as needed.
Import a Visibility Scenario Design Time
🙌 Special thanks to my colleagues Astrid Herbst, Felix Freese, Thomas Volmering, Soufia Maherzi, ESHITA MAHAJAN., Pierre COL, and others who contribute to this blog post.
👩💻 Want to develop your skills with regard to our new features? See also SAP Build Process Automation – Learning Content April 2023 by Chaitanya Priya Puvvada
💻 Learn how to get started with SAP Build Process Automation for free via SAP BTP Free Tier.
Enjoyed the updates or have feedback? Press thumbs up and reach out to us in the comments!
This blog post only provides a high-level overview of the latest features and enhancements of SAP Build Process Automation. You can find more details on these features in your In-App What’s New or Help Portal What’s New Viewer. If you have any questions, you can comment below or post a question to our SAP Build Process Automation forum. And check out our SAP Road Map Explorer for more upcoming features and focus areas.