New: Added Google Gemini to the supported AI Providers.
Improvement: The Lookup From Excel action now also supports CSV files. Used for reading specific cell ranges from Excel or CSV files.
Improvement: The Read Or Write Text File action now allows specific line numbers to be read.
Improvement: Added Conversation Id to Lookup From A Database Using AI action, for use when the AI database lookup is part of an AI conversation workflow. The previous conversation lines will be included in the prompt, which will provide better results for follow-on questions.
Improvement: Updated Send Email action so that if an On Error - Resume Next action is added prior to the Send Email action and the email contains an attachment where the file does not exist, the email is still sent.
Improvement: Added optional Only Modified Since option to the Web Spider action. Allows you to read a list of URL's from a website with a modified date greater than the date specified.
Fix: Fixed message store search in studio not working if search term contains \ characters.
Fix: Fixed error with File Pickup Message Source where Delete Processed Messages was enabled and folder is empty (introduced in 1065).
New: Renamed 'Developer Edition' to 'Community Edition'.
5.0.1065 (9th June 2025)
New: Added Lookup From A Database Using AI action. This action enables you to query a database using natural language. The database schema along with the natural language query is sent to an AI to generate a parameterized SQL select statement that is then executed and the results returned to a variable. See Sample: Using AI To Chat With Local Databases
New: Added Embedded Vector Database action. ThinkAutomation now includes a built-in vector database for storing large numbers of items for use with the Ask AI action or for performing custom semantic search operations.
New: Added Secret Constants to the Global Constants. This allows global %variables% to be assigned where the value is securely stored in the Windows Credential Manager. Secret values are not saved with Automations and will not appear in any logs.
New: Added GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1-mini models to the OpenAI AI Provider type. These models have a much larger maximum tokens size (1,047,576 tokens) allowing a larger context window.
Improvement: The Ask AI action with the Ask AI To Respond To A Prompt With An Image operation, now supports PDF files in addition to images.
Improvement: The Database Message Source type will now reset the connection pool on failed connections. This will improve reconnections when the database comes back online.
Improvement: Added Include Sub-Folders to File Operation - Get Folder Contents operation. The list of files can now be returned as text (comma or line separated) or a JSON array.
Improvement: The File Pickup message source type now supports sub-folders and multiple file masks (eg: *.pdf,*.docx).
Improvement: The File Pickup new Message Source wizard will now ask if you want to add document text content to a Vector Database for use with AI. It will also ask if you want to create a chat message source and automation. This enables you to quickly create an AI based conversational front-end to a local file-based document store. See Sample: Using AI To Chat With Local Documents
Improvement: Added PDF Use OCR For Image Only Documents option to the Convert Document To Text action. This is useful when converting multiple PDF documents to plaintext and some of the PDF documents contain only scanned images.
Improvement: Improved PDF to plaintext conversion results when PDF documents contain only images.
Improvement: Added Auto Rotate and Page Segmentation Mode options to the Convert Image To Text Using OCR action.
Improvement: Added new method for HTML to plaintext conversion. The new method preserves more layout and will convert HTML data tables to aligned rows and columns in the plaintext. The new method is not enabled by default on existing ThinkAutomation installs. It must be enabled in Server Settings - Message Processor. The differences can be tested using the Text Operation action preview.
Improvement: Added Extract - Summarized Text operation to Text Operation action. Summarizes text into the most relevant sentences.
Improvement: Added Tokenize Into Sentences option to the Tokenize action. Will return the top x sentences for any text based on keyword density.
Improvement: The Update A Database Using CSV Or Json action now allows you to create a new table. This is useful if you need to quickly a new table prior to importing CSV or Json.
Improvement: Added option to Email message source types to restrict processing to messages received in the last x days.
5.0.1052 (20th March 2025)
Improvement: Added Azure OpenAI to the supported AI Providers.
Improvement: Improved the server settings AI Providers section. You can now create multiple AI-Provider types (OpenAI, Azure, Grok and OptimaGPT). You can create multiple AI Provider types for the same AI Provider (such as OpenAI) but with different settings (eg: A different model). You then select which AI Provider type to use on the Ask-AI action. This will make it easier to add more AI providers in the future.
Fix: Fixed issue with Process Attachment action where Rename To was used with filename containing spaces.
5.0.1046 (26th February 2025)
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).
5.0.1040 (22nd January 2025)
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.
5.0.1025 (2nd December 2024)
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;)
5.0.1020 (19th November 2024)
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.
5.0.1016 (7th November 2024)
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.
5.0.1000 (4th June 2024)
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.
5.0.992 (8th January 2024)
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.