Recommendations
Unless you still execute Desktop packages on Intelligent RPA platform, you should migrate all your Agents 2.x to Agents 3.x as it brings many benefits such as easy installation and automatic update (more details in this blog post from @soufia )
Also you have to know that the Agent 2.x is in maintenance mode, all new features are implemented on Agent 3.x. End of maintenance dates for the Agent 2.0 are:
- 30/06/2024 for SBPA tenants
- 30/06/2025 for IRPA tenants
If you have only cloud studio project, you can move from agent 2 to agent 3 really . But we provide some recommendations:
Dev and tests machines:
You have to know that developer machine can have Agent 2 and Agent 3 installed on the same machine in order to make comparative testing. The user will just have to start manually the chosen agent.
Warning : you can’t execute Agent 2 and Agent 3 simultaneously.
Agent 3.x and different SDK versions ensure ascending compatibility, now it's recommended to ensure a test period before deploying on a large scale on production machine.
In order to be sure that your project is compatible with the agent 3, you have to upgrade the SDK version to the last one. It is with the last version of the SDK that you have to execute your first tests.
There is two different way to procced :
- Keep same project for both Agent 2 and Agent 3 (recommended)
- Update SDK to recent version
- Execute Non regression tests on Agent 2 and Agent 3
- Diverge project to have separated on Agent 2 and Agent 3 (eg. 1.x for Agent 2, 2.x for Agent 3)
- Duplicate and update SDK for Agent 3
Acceptance machines (a few machines)
After dev tests, you have to be sure that everything is fine in acceptance.
We recommend to follow the manual uninstall/install procedure and keep a certain period of non-regression tests. It’s important to do that on unattended and attended bots.
Production machines :
On production machines, Agent 2.x and Agent 3.x should not be installed simultaneously.
Depending of the number of machines and their mode (attended or unattended) you have two ways to do that. It’s explained in the next section.
How to the replace the agent 2 by the agent 3
You have to know that the installation mode is different between the agent 2 and the Agent 3.
The Agent 2 installation was per machine and with admin rights, while Agent 3 installation is per user session without admin rights. It means that one independent agent is installed for every session.
Depending of the number of users/machine that you have to migrate there is two ways :
- Manual for few users/machines
- Mass for a lot of users/machines
Manual installation
Prerequisite
- Requires admin right for Agent 2.X uninstallation.
Steps :
- Uninstall Agent 2.X
- Follow this procedure to install the agent 3.X
- The tenant will be configured automatically in the agent 3, but you will have to authenticate agai
- You will have to setup the mode (attended or unattended) and load the project if attended.
- This procedure has to be done for every user on the same machine.
Mass installation
Prerequisite
- Requires admin right for Agent 2.X uninstallation.
- IT/Admin rights to configure Agent 3.X installation files
Steps
- Uninstall Agent 2
- Follow this procedure the agent 3.X will be installed during session start
- The tenant will be configured automatically in the agent 3, but you will have to authenticate agai
- You will have to setup the mode (attended or unattended) and load the project if attended.
The service
The service is optional with Agent 3, it is only required in unattended mode for production machine, as it allows to automate opening session at boot time, and unlock user session when required (keystroke actions, ...)
The service was installed with the agent 2, it’s not the case with the Agent 3 because of the per user installation mode (you will need admin right). To install the service follow this .
