Improvement: Updated Geo-IP database for the GeoIp lookup action.
Improvement: Added options in server settings to set column visibility and position for the Web Message Store viewer.
Fix: Fixed meta tags on Wrap HTML action now use 'content' instead of 'name'.
Fix: Fixed issue with API message source option 'Disable The Public API For This Message Source' also disabled the local API.
Improvement: Added option to Office 365 message source to only sync new messages. Previously the sync would include changed messages also (eg: if a message was forwarded/replied to). This could cause the message to be processed again if it had been deleted from the Message Store.
Improvement: The web based message store viewer now allows you to view an email by clicking anywhere on the row instead of just the envelope icon.
Improvement: You can now disable specific Automations from showing in the web message store view. Automation properties tab: Include In Web Message Store Viewer option (default is on).
New: Added web-based Message Store viewer. Enabled on a per-solution basis. See: Web Message Store Viewer tab on Solution properties.
Improvement: Renamed the ChatGPT action to Ask AI. Since more AI providers are planned for upcoming updates.
Improvement: Added 'Extract And Save Unique Keywords For Messages Added In This Solution' option to Solution settings. If this option is enabled then ThinkAutomation will extract all unique words (from the body, subject from/to addresses) for each message added to the message store for all Message Sources in the solution. This will improve message store searching, but requires additional overhead when saving new messages. A new Keywords column has been added to the Message Store table.
Improvement: Increased the maximum message processor tasks to 24.
Improvement: Performance improvement for automation execution.
Fix: Fixed Full Text Search action to handle non alpha-numeric characters in search text.
Fix: Fixed issue with the Nuget package manager option on the Script editor showing an error when trying to add a package that has been downloaded more than 2.1 billion times.
Fix: Increased length of OpenAI API key text box to allow for longer API keys introduced by OpenAI.
Improvement: You can now return files to a Web Form message source response via the local API. Previously this only worked when using the public API. To return a file, simply set the Return value of the Automation to a local file path (or a %variable% to a file created previously in the Automation). The file will be rendered depending on its content-type.
Improvement: Added not completed Captcha message text to Web Form message source. Will display the message if a user does not complete the Captcha when used on a web form.
Fix: Fixed issue with HTTP Get action not returning Json text when the endpoint returned a non-standard content-type header (eg: application/vnd.oracle.resource+json;)
Improvement: Added Custom tab to Web Form message source. Allows custom HTML/JavaScript to be added, which will be rendered before the closing body tag.
Improvement: Added option to delete Sent Items older than specified days (specified on Solution properties).
Improvement: Added %DB_Null% built-in variable. Can be used on database update action parameters to specify a DB null value. Will replace to a blank string if used on any other actions.
New Added support for OptimaGPT. OptimaGPT is Parker Software's on-premises or private-cloud hosted generative AI server. This allows you to use the ChatGPT action with a private AI server - removing the need to send private data to OpenAI. See: OptimaGPT for more information.
New: Added Append To PDF Document action. Appends document files or any text to an existing PDF document.
New: Added new built-in variables %Msg_ViewUrl% and %Msg_ViewUrlLocal%. These provide public and local URLs for viewing the current message in a browser. The URL's contain a secure hash.
New: Added Search Message Store operation to the Message Store Operation action. This allows you to search the ThinkAutomation Message Store and return the search results as Json, Markdown, CSV or a HTML table. The results include a URL to view the full message.
New: Added Full Text Search action. This action can be used to update and search a built-in full text search database.
New: Added Convert CSV To Html action. Provides more control than the Set variable Convert CSV To HTML Table operation. Useful for returning data queries to web form results.
Fix: Fixed issue with Move Incoming Message action not working when using an Exchange Message Source.
Fix: Fixed issue with Create Document action not rendering document contents on newly created actions.
Fix: Message Store searches are now case-insensitive when using PostgreSQL as the message store type.
Improvement: Added GPT-4o-mini model to the available models list for the ChatGPT action.
Improvement: Added option in server settings to define available ChatGPT models. This allows you to use new OpenAI models without waiting for a ThinkAutomation update.
Improvement: Added Force Remote Path To option to FTP Upload action. This allows you to use a fixed or variable remote path even if it doesn't exist on the remote server. An option to create any missing path has been added.
Improvement: The Web Form message source - File upload input type now allows mime types to be specified in the file types. The value in the 'File Types' entry for the file upload field will be set to the accept value for the HTML form field. You can also also specify a blank value for the 'File Types' - this will allow files of any type to be submitted.
Improvement: The Web Form message source now has a Show Side Pane option. This allows custom text/HTML to be displayed on the left or right of the form.
Improvement: The Web Form message source now has a Do Not Hide Form After Confirmation option. If enabled, the web form will not be hidden on submit. This allows dynamic forms that can be resubmitted to view new results.
Improvement: The Save As PDF action now allows you to use raw HTML (or %variable% containing HTML text) when rendering. Previously this needed to be a filename or URL.
Improvement: The Search option in the Message Store viewer will now work with multiple search terms by using the + character. For example: sales+orders - would search for messages containing 'sales' AND 'orders'. If a search term itself should contain a + character then enclose it in double-quotes.
Fix: Fixed issue with Find feature in Studio not selecting the correct line on an Automation from the find results where multiple lines in the same Automation were found.
Fix: Fixed issue with FTP Upload/Download actions. If the port number is changed from the default, the port number reverted back to the default if the action was opened again and re-saved.
Fix: Fixed issue with Extract Field action not extracting negative numbers where the field type was set to Decimal.
Fix: Fixed issue with File Operations action (copy/rename) where the file name contained a '$' character.
Fix: Fixed issue with Twilio Call action not speaking text due to change in Twilio Webhook authentication.
Fix: Fixed issue with Database Pull message source removing trailing bracket from column names when column name ended with a ) character.
Improvement: Added Delete option for Cloud Storage action.
Improvement: Added GTP-4-Turbo and GPT-4o to the available models list for ChatGPT action.
Improvement: The Create Outlook MSG File action will now attempt to convert MIME to an Outlook MSG file using a 2nd conversion method when the MIME text is invalid.
Updated expired oauth login info for Microsoft Dynamics CRM actions.
Known Issue: When using scripts with the NuGet Package manager in the script editor - an error message will show when adding a package where the nuget package has been downloaded more than 4 billion times. This only affects a very small number of nuget packages. Note: If you want to use newtonsoft.json in your script you do not need to add a nuget package since this dll is already used by ThinkAutomation. Simply add a reference to it directly from the ThinkAutomation program files folder.
Fix: Fixed issue with Create Outlook MSG File action not working on some mime text.
Fix: Fixed Automation right-click popup menu showing wrong shortcut-key labels.
Fix: Fixed issue with web form & web chat file upload where the file name contained none-ascii characters.
Fix: Fixed issue with %variable% replacement inside Json, if value was empty Json array being incorrectly escaped.
Improvement: Added option to delete read messages when using the Azure Queue Message Source type.
Improvement: The Save As PDF action now supports rendering image files as PDF documents. The image is first embedded in HTML and the HTML is then converted to PDF.
Improvement: Improved the quick-access option when editing Automations. When editing an Automation, start typing an action name. Select an action from the popup based on the characters typed. Press enter to select.
Improvement: Updated MongoDB driver to latest. Now supports MongoDB version 7.
Improvement: For API Message Sources you can now explicitly disable the Public API endpoint for individual Message Sources. Any HTTP POST or GET to the public API endpoint will receive a 404 response.
New: Added Message Store Copy option to the Server Settings - Message Store tab. This allows you to make a copy of your current Message Store database.
New: Added %LastActionExecutionMs% built-in variable. Holds the number of milliseconds that the last action took to execute.
New: Added Current Utilization button to Logs tab in Studio. This shows the current ThinkAutomation Server CPU, Memory and Queue utilization.
Fix: Fixed issue with Deploy Solution option in Studio not deploying Library Automations.
Fix: Fixed issue with ChatGPT action showing 'could not parse Json' error when running ThinkAutomation on a computer with a region that uses comma as decimal separator.
Fix: Fixed issue with Create Outlook MSG File action causing error when creating MSG file from mime text containing non-ascii characters in attachment filenames.
New: Added Update Database Using CSV Or Json action. This action can update multiple rows in a database using CSV or Json data.
New: Added Ask ChatGPT To Respond To A Prompt With An Image option to the ChatGPT action. This allows you to specify an image URL or path and ask a question about it. The response is returned to a variable. You can use this to also perform OCR on images to extract text.
Change: Twitter Message Sources and the Send Tweet action now require your own Twitter Developer account. This is due to Twitter/X removing the free trier API access. Twitter Message Sources now require a paid developer account (Basic or Pro). You can enter your Twitter Developer API Key, Client ID & Client Secret in the ThinkAutomation Server settings - Integrations tab.
Improvement: Added 'Extract Json Path' operation Text Operation action.
Improvement: When editing SQL queries the 'View Schema' button will open a popup showing the Tables and Columns for the current database.
Improvement: The Lookup From Excel action now allows a password to be specified. You can also use the {last} marker on cell ranges to lookup a range of cells up to the last row, for example: 3:{last} will lookup all rows from row 3 to the last row, B2:F{last} will lookup the range starting from top right B2 to the last row, bottom left F. Ranges are returned as CSV text. The new Compress CSV option will remove any blank rows/columns from the CSV text.
Improvement: Improved Web Chat Message UI to better handle mobile devices (virtual keyboard is now hidden after message submit).
Improvement: Added additional color themes to the Web Chat Message Source type. Also added font-size selector (use 'Medium' for best results on mobile devices).
Improvement: Spreadsheet and Create Document actions now allow %variable% replacements in document properties.
New: Added Check SSL Certificate action. Checks the validity and expiry date for the SSL certificate used on any host/URL. This action can be used to monitor a web site SSL certificate and get notified if the certificate is invalid or about to expire.
Fix: Fixed issue with MongoDB Message Source type not reading new documents.
Fix: Fixed issue with Embedded Knowledge Store action, the Update operation did not clear the search cache (did not affect manual updates using the Embedded Knowledge Store Browser).
Fix: Fixed issue with Daily Summary report not clearing 'Last Error' column from the previous day.
Fix: Fixed issue with server setting changes not updating on failover server.
New: Added PostgreSQL to the available ThinkAutomation Message Store database types.
New: Added Convert PowerPoint Document action for converting PowerPoint files to PDF or various image formats.
Improvement: The Print action now supports printing PowerPoint files and attachments.
Improvement: The Convert PDF Document action now allows Width & Height to be specified for PDF to image conversion.
Improvement: The Convert PDF Document action, for PDF to TIFF conversion you can now enable the Multi-Frame option - where all pages are converted to multiple frames within the same image file. You can also set the Tiff Compression format.
Improvement: The Sign PDF Document action now has a Show Signature Box option. Allows you to digitally sign a PDF document without any visual signature box.
Improvement: Added Is A Number to condition operations.
Improvement: Added Numeric: Get Numeric Value to Set Variable operations (eg: If value was '$1000.00 per' - the variable would be set to '1000').
Improvement: The scrollbar thumb size now has a larger minimum size on the Automation editor (large Automations made it too small).
Improvement: The Solution name has been added to Message Source error notification messages.
Improvement: Added Flag Message As Failed On Outgoing Email Fail option to Automation properties. If enabled then any queued outgoing email sent from the Automation that fails to send (after any retries) will flag the processed message as failed. This Message Source will also be paused and a notification will show (if the Pause Message Source On Automation Errors option is enabled). See the main help (Automation Properties) for more information.
Improvement: Added Get Message Source Status operation to the Message Store Operation action. This allows you to check the status of any Message Source in the Solution and return the status to a variable. Returns 'Active', 'Disabled', 'Paused' or 'Missing'.
Improvement: Added global Find option to the Studio. Click the Find button on the Explorer toolbar. Enter a search term and press enter. This searches all property values and action setting values for all Message Sources and Automations within the current solution or all solutions. Double click a listed Message Source or Automation to open it.
Fix: Fixed PowerShell action Max Wait timeout setting not taking effect (defaulted to 30 seconds regardless of what it was set to).
Improvement: You can now set Log Retention Maximum Days in the Server Settings - Message Store tab. This setting defines the maximum number of days that automation & message source logs are retained for. Previously logs where deleted after the highest Keep Messages For (Days) setting on all Solutions.
Improvement: Added Pause Message Source and Resume Message Source operations to Message Store Operation action. This allows you to pause and resume any Message Source in the same Solution from within an Automation.
Improvement: The process counts for Called Automations are now incremented (previously only the top-level Automation process count was incremented).
Improvement: The Send Email action now supports sending emails signed with a digital signature.
Improvement: Added Throw Error On HTTP Errors option to HTTP Post action, allowing you to disable Automation error on 400+ response status and just return the status to a variable (this optional was already available on the HTTP Get action).
Improvement: Added Max Wait Seconds to PowerShell action. This prevents scripts that do not properly handle timeouts from halting execution of the Automation.
Improvement: Added Export option to Message Store Viewer in the Studio. Exports the current view to a CSV file.
Improvement: Added Disable Auto Logout On Screen Lock option to Studio Preferences. Prevents the Studio from automatically logging out when the Windows screen is locked.
Improvement: The Embedded Knowledge Store Browser now allows you to import web pages from a URL. The HTML will be converted to Markdown before being added as an article.
Improvement: Added export/import option to Automation editor.
Improvement: Web Chat form message source types now allow File Upload. If enabled users can upload a file to send with the current chat message. The uploaded file will be added to the incoming message as an attachment.
Improvement: Web Form message source types now allow File input field types. A File input allows the user to select a file to upload. Uploaded files will be added to the incoming message as attachments.
Improvement: Added gpt-4 model to ChatGPT action available model list.
Improvement: Added Require Moderation to ChatGPT action, requires that the prompt sent to ChatGPT complies with OpenAI usage policies. This option should be enabled when creating public facing chat bots, email responders etc.
Improvement: Added Required option to Add Static Context option on ChatGPT action. See ChatGPT action help for more information.
Improvement: The Text Operation action now allows HTML tags with specified class or id names to be dropped when converting HTML to Plaintext, XML, Json or Markdown.
Improvement: The ChatGPT action with the Add Context -Lookup Context From Knowledge Store operation can now return the Top Article Title and Tag to variables. You can also now specify a Similarity Threshold percentage. Articles below the similarity threshold will not be included in the results.
Fix: Fixed issue with Send Email action when adding incoming attachments where attachment file names have no file extension (was not setting default content-type).
Fix: Fixed issue with ChatGPT action - you could not change the Conversation Id setting from the default.
Fix: Fixed issue with Run A Report action not saving credentials with report when a custom data source is added that requires database credentials.
New: Added Message Store Operation action. This action can be used to return a conversation. A conversation is a transcript of message store messages between two email addresses with the same subject. The list can be returned in Markdown, Json, CSV or HTML format. The Message Store Operation action can also be used to drop the current message (preventing it from being saved in the message store) and to drop a conversation.
Improvement: Added a tag entry to Knowledge Store articles. The tag can be any text. You can now return the top tag and top title to %variables% when you do a search.
Improvement: Added %Msg_Importance% and %Msg_ConversationId% built-in variables.
Improvement: The Return action now has option to not save the return value with the message in the message store.
Improvement: The Studio preferences now has an option to disable the confirmation message when deleting actions.
Improvement: Added App-Only access option for Office 365 logins. This allows for client-credentials login. See the Microsoft Logins section in the help file for more information.
Fix: Fixed issue with Extract Field action if extracting from Json and the Remove First x Characters option was used. The Helper Message highlight was in the wrong place. Did not effect extraction itself - only the highlighted data in the helper message.
Fix: Fixed issue with Studio Preferences configuring action toolbox items visibility not saving correctly.
Fix: Fixed issue with Studio Automation editor could not copy/paste actions using keyboard shortcuts.
Fix: Fixed issue with numeric comparisons on If conditions where a numeric value was very large (20+ digits) would occasionally give a wrong comparison result for close numeric values.
Improvement: Further improvements to the Embedded Knowledge Store Browser. You can now drag and drop files & documents onto the Titles list to quickly import into the knowledge store. Outlook message files (*.msg) can now be imported.
Improvement: Added HTML To Markdown conversion option to Set Variable, Text Operation and HTTP Get actions.
Improvement: Added gpt-3.5-turbo-16k model to ChatGPT action model list. This model allows 4x larger context.
Improvement: Added Open Document (ODT) file support for the Create Document, Convert Document, & Convert Document To Text actions, and Embedded Knowledge Store import.
Improvement: General improvements and bug fixes for the new Embedded Knowledge Store Browser.
New: When creating a new Web Chat message source the Studio will now ask if you want to use the ChatGPT with Knowledge Store when creating the new Automation. The auto-created Automation will then be setup and ready to use.
New: Added Web Spider action. This action spiders a website for all URLs. The URLs are returned to a %variable% (one per line).You can then use the HTTP Get action as part of a For Each.. Line In loop to read all pages from a site. This is useful when building a Knowledge Store from an existing website.
New: Added Embedded Knowledge Store action. This action can be used to save knowledge base articles. You can then search the knowledge base and return the top x most relevant articles. This is especially useful when used with the ChatGPT action in order to provide context to a question. This enables you to create a chat bot that can answer specific company/product information based on a local knowledge base, or automate answers to emails, support requests etc.
New: Added Add Context To A Conversation option to the ChatGPT action. This enables you to add context text prior to asking ChatGPT for a response to a prompt. This enables ChatGPT to answer specific questions without training.
New: Use ChatGPT to generate C# or VB.NET scripts for the Script action. Describe what you want the script to do and let ChatGPT write the script code for you. Requires an OpenAI account and API key.
Fix: Fixed issue with ThinkAutomation Server not processing messages received via the public API during server down time. If you receive messages via the public API then any messages received whilst your local TA server is down should be cached for 48 hours and processed when your TA server comes back on line. This now works as expected. Only affected messages received via public API when your TA server was not running.
New: Added new Message Source type: Web Chat. This is similar to the Web Form message source type but each message/automation response is shown in a conversation-style UI. Can be used to create web chat bots, especially when the Automation uses the ChatGPT action. This allows bots to use ChatGPT and also access and return on-premises data depending on the message asked. See: Web Chat.
New: Added Create Chat Input Request action. An action that can be used with the new Web Chat message source. Used to create a set of buttons or form fields to send back to the chat. The user can click a button to send back a specific response.
New: Added JSON To XML operation to the Set Variable action.
New: Added Authentication and Friendly Path options to API Message Source type. Allows you to replace the API Path (/addmessage?taid=xxxxxxxx with your own path, eg: /mycompany/customers/add).
New: Added Friendly Path option to Web Form/Web Chat Message Source types.
New: Added ChatGPT action for sending a prompt to OpenAI ChatGPT and receiving a response.
New: Automation Live Debugging added. You can now debug an Automation from the Studio and step through actions to see current variable values.
Improvement: The File Operation action Copy operation now has an Overwrite setting and you can also specify a different destination file name.
Fix: Fixed issue with Database Lookup action where column assignments used column numbers instead of names.
Fix: Fixed issue with non-admin user not allowed to reprocess messages even when Allowed To Reprocess right enabled for the current user.
Fix: Fixed issue with On Error action not sending error email when Go To Label option used.
New: Added List Operation action. A generic action for creating, updating, sorting & searching lists of values. You can read a single list value or all values. Complete lists can be returned as text, Json array, markdown table, CSV or HTML list.
Fix: Fixed issue with Create Outlook MSG File action where the file name specified contained invalid filename characters.
Improvement: Automations will now show grouped by Automation Group Name when viewing in the Studio Explorer. Automation group names can be set on the Automation Properties tab.
Improvement: The Moving Incoming Message action now works with Exchange message sources (beta).
Improvement: The Lookup From A Database will now convert Blob data to a base64 string before its assigned to a %variable%. This enables you to read binary data and write it to a file using the File Operation action (see below).
Improvement: Added Write Binary File From Base64 String operation to the File Operation action.
Improvement: If you connect to multiple ThinkAutomation server instances using the Studio you can now define saved connections in the Studio Preferences. This speeds up the login process when switching between servers.
Improvement: Windows 11 Dark Theme added to Studio.
New: Added option to use your own App Registration for Microsoft/Office 365 logins. You can now specify your own client id, client secret and tenant id for each Solution or globally. These will override the defaults for Office 365 logins. You must create your own App Registration in Azure.
New: Added Quick View to Automations view in the Studio. You can now click the > button in the Automation block to quickly view its actions without opening it. This view also shows the Message Source names and any other Automation names that call the Automation.
Fix: Fixed issue with HTTP Post action where custom querystring parameters are used.
Fix: Fixed issue with Extract Field action using the Repeating Block option which had a limit of 1000.
Fix: Fixed issue with Update A Database Using Extracted Fields action when used with Oracle. The auto-created SQL statements should not end with a semi-colon.
Fix: Fixed issue with Set Variable action with Reformat Json operation not working with Json arrays.
Improvement: Added Expires In (seconds) to Embedded Value Store action. Useful for caching values for fixed time periods.
Improvement: Added additional options to Date Operations action for converting to and from Unix timestamps.
Improvement: Added Header Image Style option to Web Form message source.
Improvement: Added HTML Entity Encode/Decode,Hex/Decimal conversion, Extract Last Word and Extract Name From Email Address options to Set Variable action.
Improvement: The Create Passcode action now has the option to use random word & numbers.
Improvement: Added Country Lookup action for finding country details from a name, country code or dial code.
Improvement: Added Test button to HTTP Post action.
Improvement: We are migrating to a new and improved support forum. Changed Submit Support Ticket option in the Studio to send support tickets to the forum. The new forum can be found at: https://helpdesk.parkersoftware.com
Improvement: The News Feed shown in the ThinkAutomation Studio now shows Knowledge Base articles created in the new support forum.
Improvement: Added Extract Using Text Range extract option to the Extract Field action. This allows free-form extraction of text using left,top,right,bottom character coordinates. This makes it easier to extract fixed position data from document type text (invoices, quotes etc).
Fix: Fixed issue with Send Message option for testing Automations not adding attachments when running the Studio on a remote PC.
Fix: Fixed issue with Extract Field action when extracting from Json using the Extract All Array Values To CSV option only extracted the first array item after processing the first message.
New: Added Extract Address Parts action for parsing and extracting address fields from postal addresses.
Improvement: You can now change the sort order of Message Sources & Automations in the daily summary report email.
Improvement: The HTTP Get action now allows repeating URL parameters. If a parameter is marked as 'Repeating' you can pass a comma separated list of items for the parameter value. The same URL parameter will be added for each value.
Improvement: The Download File action now allows custom query string parameters and custom headers to be specified separately and you can now increase the response timeout.
Improvement: Added Ends With to Select Case action.
Improvement: Added Create Extracted Fields From Text/Json option to automatically create multiple Extract Field actions from a given block of text or Json.
Improvement: Web Form message sources can now use a button group and radio button group in addition to a select list for the Must Be In List validation type.
Improvement: Added Rating input type for Web Forms.
Improvement: For Web Form message sources you can now set the visibility of individual input fields. The visibility can be conditional based on values entered on other fields and you can set the default visibility for each field. As a user moves through the form entering values the visibility of all other fields will be refreshed.
Improvement: Web Form message sources can now display the confirmation message (and return value) in a modal popup after the form is submitted (in addition to the existing option of replacing the form with the confirmation message and return value).
Fix: Fixed issue with GeoIP lookup not working on some IP addresses containing '10.'.
Fix: Fixed issue with Normalize Phone Number action not working correctly on some numbers that include multiple spaces.
Fix: Fixed issue with Database Actions using Guid parameter types. The Guid parameter value was not set correctly when assigned from a %variable%.
Fix: Fixed issue with Open Public Web Form link not updating after logging out of the Studio and then logging back on to a different ThinkAutomation server instance without closing the Studio first.
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