New in Automise 2

Automise 2 builds on the stability, performance and reliability of Automise 1 by enhancing the user experience and adding over 140 new actions. The new actions include Active Directory management, Image Manipulation, PDF conversion, Stack and Queue actions, Windows Installer, NTFS Junction points and a whole lot more.

New actions

GUI Automation Actions

A set of five actions has been added to help automate applications that don't have a command line interface, COM interface, or other API.  The actions allow you to send keyboard input, mouse moves, mouse clicks, etc. to running applications.  The actions are also smart in the sense that they seek out and find windows and controls, rather than relying on x, y co-ordinates.

• Wait for Window or Control
• Perform Mouse Click
• Perform Mouse Move
• Send Keyboard Input
• Set Scrollbar Position

Active Directory Support

Ten new actions have been added for managing Windows Active Directory.  The new actions are:

• Active Directory Get Info
• Active Directory Add User(s) to Group
• Active Directory Remove User(s) from Group
• Active Directory Enumerate Group
• Active Directory Edit User Properties
• Active Directory Move Object(s)
• Active Directory Rename
• Active Directory Create User
• Active Directory Create Group
• Active Directory Create Object

System Restore points

A set of 8 actions have been added for managing Windows System Restore.  The new actions are:

• System Restore Enable
• System Restore Disable
• System Restore Create Restore Point
• System Restore perform Restore
• System Restore Get Last Restore Status
• System Restore Get Configuration
• System Restore Set Configuration
• System Restore List Restore Points

Defragment Disk

The defrag disk action will perform a defragment or analysis of a local volume.

WMI Defragment Disk

The WMI Defrag action can analyse and defragment volumes on network computers.

Chkdsk

Automise 2 adds three new actions to run either a local, remote, or to schedule a chkdsk.  Use chkdsk to scan a volume for errors and inconsistencies.

• Chkdsk - perform local scan, fix errors, and find bad sectors
• WMI Chkdsk - perform remote chkdsk (scan, fix, bad sector scan)
• WMI Schedule Chkdsk - schedule a chkdsk on a remote computer for the next reboot

Windows Event log

Now backing up, clearing and searching the Windows event log is possible with built in actions.

• Event Log Backup - backs up the event log to a file
• Event Log Clear - clears the selected event log
• Event Log Search - search for certain event types, by date, by source etc.

Recycle Bin

Two new actions allow emptying and querying the recycle bin:

• Empty Recycle Bin - includes logging each file deleted
• Is Recycle Bin Empty - can fail if recycle bin is not empty, and can get the list of files and total size taken by the files

Network Shares

Three new actions allow local and remote network share administration:

• Create Share - creates a new network share on the local machine or remote machine
• Remove Share
• Find Share - can find a share with particular properties, and various behaviour options if share is found or not

Activate Windows

The Activate Windows action will initiate Windows activation on the local machine or a remote machine.

Update Windows

The Update Windows action can list, optionally download and optionally install updates.  The Software or Driver category of updates can also be selected.

Hot Fixes

Two new actions allow for Windows Hot Fixes to be listed and checked for on the specified local or remote machine

• List Hot Fixes - can list hot fixes to file or variable
• Is Hot Fix Installed - queries for a particular hot fix

Printer Management

Automise 2 now allows managing printers and print jobs via two new actions:

• Manage Printer - allows pausing, resuming, printing a test page, setting as default printer, and renaming the specified printer on the local or remote machine
• Manage Print Jobs - allows pausing, resuming, changing priorities, and removing print jobs

Windows Installer

Automise now allows automated installing, uninstalling and reinstalling of MSI packages on the local or remote machine.

• Windows Installer - Install (allows specifying properties and values)
• Windows Installer - Uninstall (by MSI file or application name)
• Windows Installer - Reinstall

Windows Installer (MSI)

A new set of actions have been added to manipulate MSI Packages.  The new actions are:

• MSI Update Properties - update properties inside an MSI
• MSI Merge - merge and update into the Base MSI
• MSI Transform - generate MSI transform files or apply transforms to existing MSI databases
• MSI Validation - perform an Internal Consistency Evaluation (ICE) on an MSI database
• MSI Generic - modify an existing MSI database file using standard SQL statement against the internal tables

System Information

Automise now includes a System Information action to retrieve information from the local or a remote machine.  The system information includes: Operating System, Hot Fixes, Installed Applications, Codecs, Processes, Services, Startup Programs, Environment Variables, Processor, BIOS, Memory, Plug and Play Devices, Network Adapters, Network Shares, Video Adapters, Displays, Disk Drives, Partitions and Printers.  The selected information can be output to a file or variable.

Backup

The new Backup action allows Automise to perform an automated system backup, with the ability to write the backup to disk or tape.  The action also the following backup types: Normal, Copy, Differencial, Incremental, and Daily.

Logical Drive Info

The new Get Logical Drive Information action allows retrieving of various information of a local drive: Free space, drive type, drive size, file system, and volume serial.

Get Available Drives

This new action retrieves the list of available drives on the selected machine.

Format Drive

Automise 2 now allows automated formatting of local (Format Drive action) or remote drives (WMI Format Drive).  The actions allow options such as the new label, the filesystem, quick formatting and if compression should be enabled.

Manipulate NTFS Junction points

A new set of eight actions allow management of NTFS junction points.  The new actions are:

• Mount Volume
• Get Mount Points Volume Names
• Remove Mount Point
• Get Mounted Volume Name
• Permanent Remove Mount Point
• Clean Old Mount Point Entries
• Disable Automatic Mounting
• Enable Automatic Mounting

Export Registry Key

The Export Registry Key action will export the selected key from the registry to a file.

Trace route

This action allows you to perform a trace route to help diagnose network problems.

Find Network Adapters

The Find Network Adapters action will search for network adapters on the selected machine and retrieve information like the MAC address and the Adapter Information.

Configure Network

The new Configure Network action allows automating the TCP/IP configuration (DHCP, IP Address, DNS settings, etc) of a network adapter on the local machine or a remote machine.

Configure IP Security

The Configure IP Security action allows automating the TCP/IP filtering configuration (TCP Ports, UDP Ports, and IP Protocols) on local and remote machines.

Name Server Lookup

The Name Server Lookup action enables you to automatically lookup an IP Address or Host name using the default DNS Server.

Windows Page file

Three new actions allow querying of the page file performace, properties and usage:

• Page File List Performance
• Page File List Properties
• Page File List Use

Choose One

A new interactive action has been added which allows asking the user to select a single option using radio buttons.

Windows Security

Three new actions have been added to maniuplate file and folder permissions and for changing ownership:

• Change File Permissions
• Change Folder Permissions
• Change Ownership

Generate Random Number

The new Generate Random Number action can automatically create a new pseudo random number as either an integer between a specified range or a Real number between 0 and 1.

Run Powershell script

A Run Powershell script action has been added for Automise 2 which allows running a powershell script (either from a file or script code).  The action allows passing in parameters and specifiying the output and input format.

New SQL Server Actions

Two new SQL Server actions have been added to allow restoring databases and to change the access mode of a database:

• SQL Server Restore Database
• SQL Server Set Access Mode

MSMQ

A set of seven actions has been added to Automise 2 to allow manipulation and interaction with Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ).  The new actions are:

• MSMQ Wait for Message
• MSMQ Send Message
• MSMQ Create Queue
• MSMQ Delete Queue
• MSMQ Clear Queue
• MSMQ Peek Message
• MSMQ Receive Message

Replace Variables action

The Replace Variables action allows you to replace all of the variable references (ie <i>%VariableName%</i>) in a file or variable contents with their current variable values.

Beyond Compare Script

The Run Beyond Compare Script action allows you to run a script in the Beyond Compare script language. Scripts can be run from files, or entered as text in the action.

Generate new GUID action

The Generate New GUID action allows you to generate a new GUID string and save it to a variable.

PsTools Actions

The PsTools actions allow you to automate utilities from Sysinternals' PsTools suite of Windows administration utilities.  The new actions are:

• PsLogList (List event logs)
• PsInfo (View System Information)
• PsSuspend (Suspend/Resume Process)
• PsGetSID (Sercurity ID Info)
• PsFile (List/Close Remote Open Files)
• PsKill (Kill Process)
• PsList (List Processes)
• PsLoggedOn (Logged on users)
• PsShutdown (Shutdown computer)
• PsService (Service Manager)

Serviced Components Registration Tool [REGSVCS]

The .NET Serviced Components Registration Tool enables you to automate loading and registration of assemblies, and also the generation, registration, installation and configuration of .NET type libraries for COM+ Applications.

WGET Action (HTTP Get)

The WGet Download action enables you to download files from a remote site using http, https, or ftp protocols, as well as allowing retrieval through http proxies.

String and Path Manipulation actions

A new set of actions has been added to make it easy to add string manipulation type functions to your project.  The list of new actions are:

• String Trimming
• String Casing
• String Encryption
• String Quoting
• String Padding
• String Concatenation
• Path Manipulation
• String Reverse
• String SubString
• String Replace
• String Add Breaks

Stack & Queue actions

The Stack and Queue actions allow you to run up a list of items and then access them in either a first in, first out (Queue) or first in, last out (Stack) manner. Create a new Stack or Queue using the Define action, and then to add items, use the Push or Insert actions. To use the items in the list, either use the Pop action to access them one at a time, or use the Iterator to perform the same action on each item until the list is empty. [Blog entry on Stack and Queue actions]

The new actions are:

• Stack/Queue define
• Stack/Queue Log Items
• Stack/Queue Push Items
• Stack/Queue Pop
• Stack/Queue Peek
• Stack/Queue get Count
• Stack/Queue Insert Item
• Stack/Queue is Empty
• Stack/Queue Clear
• Stack/Queue Iterator

XML delete element/attribute

The XML Delete Element/Attribute action enables you to automate deletion of a single node or an attribute of a node inside an XML file. Specify an XPath to select the node and optionally specify the name of the attribute to delete.

New IIS6 actions

IIS Create Application Pool action - allows you to create new Application Pools on an IIS Server.

IIS Delete Application Pool action - enables you to remove existing application pools from an IIS server.

ADO Dataset Iterator 

The ADO Dataset Iterator action allows you to perform a group of actions for each row returned from a SQL query on a database using ADO.

PDF actions

A new set of actions has been added to perform various functions on PDF files.  The new actions are:

• PDF Merge Files - merges two PDF files into one
• Convert to PDF - converts RTF files to PDF
• PDF Insert Text - inserts html formatted text at a X,Y location in a PDF file
• Convert PDF - converts a PDF file to HTML, Excel, Bitmap, XHTML, Jpeg, EMF, RTF, Text or TIFF

Image manipulation action

The Image Manipulation action can be used for performing the following operations on image files:

• Rotating
• Flipping
• Mirroring
• Resizing
• Converting to another format

The types of files supported are: JPEG (*.jpg),Graphics Interchange Format (*.gif),Tagged Image File Format (*.tiff),Portable Network Graphics (*.png) and Bitmaps (*.bmp) [Blog entry on Image Manipulation Actions]

JPEG Lossless Transform Action

The Lossless JPEG Transform action is used to perform certain transform operations on JPEG files without any loss of information.  The types of transformations include: auto rotate based on EXIF information, flip, rotate and transpose.

Spell Checking

The Spell Check action allows you to check a text file for any spelling errors (ie. unknown words). You can check a single text file, all files in a FileSet or any text you enter including variables. There are many options for which words to ignore, ranging from specific words to using a custom dictionary.

Set Estimated run Progress

The Set Estimated Progress Total action allows you to override the total used for displaying the estimated progress of the current project while it's running.

Set Run Status Message

The Set run Status Message action allows you to add a custom message under the estimated progress on the run summary screen.

Prompt for Password

The Prompt for Password action enables you to ask the user for a Password during your run process. The Password is saved in a variable where it can be used in subsequent actions.

IIS FTP Administration actions

A new set of actions have been added to perform administration tasks on an IIS 6 FTP server.  The new actions are:

• Start IIS 6 FTP Service
• Stop IIS 6 FTP Service
• Restart IIS 6 FTP Service
• Start IIS 6 FTP Site
• Stop IIS 6 FTP Site
• Pause IIS 6 FTP Site
• Create IIS 6 FTP Directory
• Delete IIS 6 FTP Directory
• Create IIS 6 FTP Site
• Delete IIS 6 FTP Site

Enhanced actions

Timeouts for Execute Actions

Most actions that call an executable (including Execute Program) now allow the user to set a timeout (in minutes).  If the timeout is reached then the action will be failed.

Async Action Groups - Limit to at most N concurrent threads

When using Async Action Groups is can be desirable to limit the amount of concurrently executing child actions.

Run as for Execute Actions

Most actions that call an executable (including Execute Program) now allow the executable to be run under a different user account.

Action Colour

Each action can now be customised to show the text as a different colour in the Action List.  This can be useful to make certain actions stand out.

Auto Descriptions

Many more actions now have an autodescription.  Auto descriptions are when the action creates it's description based on the properties of the action, for example the FTP actions will include the FTP server in the description automatically.

Execute Program / Run DOS Command now have better exit code handling

Choosing the success or failure of an Execute Program action or Run DOS Command action is more flexible.  It allows the following comparisons of the exit code: equal to, not equal to, greater than, greater than or equal, less than, less than or equal.

WMI Run Process

Now allow process to be visible to logged in user's desktop

Prompt For Variables (Enhanced)

Adds the ability to have a radio button group

Comment actions

Now able to be renamed to "" without going back to "Comment"

Text Find / Replace Action

The Text Find action has been enhanced to provide Replace functionality.

Include Project Action

Include Project action can now share host variables and set variables at same time.

Burn CD and Create ISO

Fileset support has been added to the Burn CD and Create ISO actions

[Blog entry on actions now supporting FileSets]

Send Email

Now allows specifiying a text file to load addresses from (eg. recipients)

FTP Upload

FileSet support has been added to the FTP Upload action

[Blog entry on actions now supporting FileSets]

File Exists

Added FileSet & wildcard support to the File Exists action.

[Blog entry on actions now supporting FileSets]

PropertySet to Variable

Now allows padding of any properties when they are being output to a variable.

COM+ Delete

Now supports deleting components by wildcard.

New in the Automise IDE

Run history kept indefinitely

A summary of every run is now kept indefinitely in the log file.  This allows viewing of all historical runs for the particular project.  The details of the run history kept includes the log title, start time, end time, run status and run time.  By default only runs that include the detailed run log are displayed in the History table, but all runs can be displayed by unselecting the "Hide Deleted" option.

Keyboard Bindings

There are now two styles of keyboard bindings which can be chosen, Microsoft style or Borland style.  This effects various keystrokes such as running a run, viewing the property page, stepping over an action.

Comments for variables

Add comments against Project Variables and User Variables.  This can help you and your team document the various variables used.  A hint containing the comment is also displayed on the Project tab when hovering above a variable with a comment.

New Refactoring: Convert an Action Group to an Async Group and vise-versa

The new refactoring makes it easy to convert between a normal Action Group (which runs each action in sequence) and an Async Action Group (which runs all child actions in parallel)

Running scripts can now be terminated

If an action has a long running script in any of it's event handlers, these can now be terminated by the user if requested.

Icons to indicate if action has comment, script, and condition

There are now three columns to indicate other properties of actions in the Action Lists.  The comment icon indicates if the action has a comment, and displays the comment in a hint if the mouse if hovered over the comment icon.  The scripts icon indicates if the action has an event handler, and displays which events contain scripts if the mouse is hovered over the script icon.  The condition icon indicates if the action has an execute condition, and displays the condition code if the mouse is hovered over the condition icon.

Find and Replace

Find and Replace in the IDE now works fully with custom actions

Running Status User Message

A custom message can now be sent via script or using the Set run Status Message to the Running Screen.  This can be useful to display specific status information for the particular project eg. "Running Windows Updates", "Uploading files to FTP Server" that stays on the Running Screen until either the run completes, or a new status message is displayed.

Action Log frame now has a "show in context" option for error actions

Selecting an action in the log and clicking "show in context" will load sibling and parent actions of the selected action into the log so it's easy to see the context of the action in question.  This is most useful when a run fails and just the failed action is shown in the log.

Sort Variables in project tree

Variables are now sorted in the project tree view.

Project Summary

Added an option to make it optional to have actions in the report.  This can be useful if you want a report containing just the variables used in your project for example.

New Script Methods

WScript.Sleep() method - this is internally mapped to a normal Windows sleep, but can be useful when copying script files that contain the WScript.Sleep() method as the function calls don't need to be changed.

Read/Write Ini File value

Load variables from command line

Variables passed in on the command line via the /v switch will always be loaded.  Previously they were only loaded if it was an automatic run.

Script Templates

The script editor in both Automise and ActionStudio now includes script templates which make it easier and faster to write JScript and VBScript code.  To activate a template, you need to type a key word (eg. if) and then press Ctrl-j which will expand the keyword into template code.

Action List Parameters

Action List Parameters are now available where other variables types (eg. Project, User) are listed.  They also are now resolved in fields that expand variables at design time.

Auto Complete variables

When editing a text field for any action and when the cursor is inside a variable (eg. %) a drop down list of available variables is shown.  The list is further filtered when typing the name of the variable, and enter will insert the variable in the text field. [Blog entry on VariableSense]

Tray Notification Popup

The Tray Notification Popup can now be configured to activate under different circumstances, not just when Automise is minimized to the system tray.

Saving project with missing packages

The IDE will now confirm saving a project that has been loaded with actions that are missing the action package.

Quick Help

The Quick Help for an action is now shown in the General tab of the action properties dialog.

Run and Exit shell integration

A new context menu item has been added to the Windows Shell which allows running and exiting the selected project.

Code Completion for Automise Variables

Automise variables have been added to code completion when editing action script events.

New in the Automise Console (ATCMD)

Added command line parameters for closing idle Automise IDE instances

In some instances a scheduled run that is run using ATCMD should attempt to close any idle Automise IDE instances running on the same machine with the same project open.  The /o parameter will close an idle instance, and the /of parameter will force Automise to close. 

Command line parameters now standardized across IDE & ATCMD

The common command line parameters between the Automise.exe IDE and ATCMD are now standardised.  If you use the command line options, please refer to the online help for details of the changes.

New in Automise 2 ActionStudio and Custom Actions

Common & Global script error line numbers in custom actions now correct

If an error occurred in a Custom Action that uses JScript or VBScript for it's implementation, the line number for the error is now calculated by taking into account any common script code or global script code in the Custom Action or Automise project.

Exposed Context.IsStopSignalled to custom actions

This new function allows custom actions to query if the user has requested that the action stop.  This is useful for custom actions that take a long time to execute.

Running script based custom actions can now be terminated

If a custom action is taking too long, or is in an infinite loop it can now be terminated by the user

Package reloading for Custom Action Packages

The Automise IDE can now reload custom actions (instead of requiring a restart).  The IDE also detects if a custom action package is saved and will attempt to auto-reload the package.

Assembly unloading for .NET Action Packages

This is an optional debugging feature for .NET based Custom Actions.  It allows Automise to unload assemblies instead of requiring a restart when the assemblies are recompiled.

Auto descriptions for custom action

Custom Actions can now define an auto description based on the action properties.  Auto descriptions are when the action creates it's description based on the properties of the action, for example the FTP actions will include the FTP server in the description automatically.

Script Syntax Checks

Action Studio now checks syntax of scripts during validation and displays any errors in the messages tab.  Fixing the syntax error will automatically hide the message tab with the error.

Iterator actions

It is now possible to write Iterator Actions with ActionStudio.  Iterator actions will run their child actions more than once.