What's new in IBM® watsonx Orchestrate®

Changes in the navigation menu

IBM watsonx Orchestrate has made updates in the main menu, aiming to improve the UI usability.

New additions

• Skill sets tab is now available in the main menu. You can click the Skill sets tab to manage skills and connections.

Updates

• The Manage team tab is now moved under Administer for a structured layout. You can click the Manage team tab to manage users.
• The Usage tab under Manage team is removed.

Enabling a builder to manage skill connections

The users with the builder role can now manage the connections of the Team skills, skill sets from AI assistants, and the Orchestrate Agent Skillset. They can now configure an application credential as either Team credentials or Member credentials. Also, they can set connection parameters, such as client ID, client secret, as the required parameters for app integration. Builders can now connect to an app or configure the app connection either from the Skill catalog page or through the chat.

Support for more languages in conversational search

You can use Conversational search in languages other than English. The new supported languages include French, Spanish, German, and Brazilian Portuguese. To do this, switch from the default Granite model to another model. You can test the results to ensure that they meet your expectations.
The accuracy of the responses depends on the selected model.

Configuring data retention time for AI chat

You can set the data retention period for chat threads in AI chat as per your requirement. It is possible to retain the data for a minimum of 30 days to a maximum of 365 days. This feature provides you the flexibility to manage your data as per the requirements.

For more information, see Data retention policies of AI chat.

Other enhancements and changes

The following table details the enhancements that are delivered in the current release corresponding to the user role:

The following table details the fixes that are delivered in the current release corresponding to the user role:

IBM® watsonx Orchestrate® API updates

See the updates in the IBM watsonx Orchestrate API for this release.

• List message threads API is now updated to add the sample response for the request with limit and offset query parameters.

• Get Welcome content API is now updated to add new responses and descriptions. The property isDefaultMessage is added to indicate if the default content for the welcome message and description is used instead of customized message.

• Register AI Assistant instances and Update AI Assistant instance APIs are now updated to add descriptions for the config parameters in the request body.

• Register an external agent and related operations were updated to include the enable_cot parameter. It enables agents within IBM watsonx Orchestrate to show the reasoning into the AI's decision-making process in the AI chat. Agents within watsonx Orchestrate generate the trace of tool calls and their responses as a form of a chain of thought (COT).

• The IBM watsonx Orchestrate API known issues and limitations topic now has the following entry:

  • Using skills
    • AI Assistant instance operations work only with IBM Cloud AI assistants

Documentation updates

See the updates in the watsonx Orchestrate documentation and other contents for this release.

New sections

• Configuring data retention time for AI chat section is now added to describe how to configure the data retention time.
• Managing agents in the AI chat section is added to provide information about how to add an agent, edit an existing agent, or disconnect an agent that is no longer needed.
• Configuring a web chat language section is added to provide information about how to handle hard coded texts in web chat.
• Release notes for IBM watsonx Orchestrate for On-premises section is added to provide information about the latest updates to IBM watsonx Orchestrate for On-premises.

Updated sections

• Documentation is now rearranged for more usabilities. You can view all the content that is related to prebuilt applications in the Exploring the catalog section.
• Connecting to apps is now updated with the prerequisites that are required to connect to an application and information on how to configure the connection.
• Managing app connections section is now updated to document the navigation (main menu) changes.
• Installing IBM watsonx Orchestrate On-premises section is now updated to add separate procedures for installing IBM watsonx Orchestrate on IBM Cloud Pak for Data and IBM Software Hub.
• Connecting to apps content is now updated to mention that the users with the builder role can now manage the app connections.
• Updating skills from OpenAPI specifications section is updated to add a note on how to change the endpoint of a prebuilt app or an imported app.
• Outbound IP addresses section is now updated with IP addresses for Toronto region.
• The Enhancing skills with OpenAPI specification properties section is now renamed to Configuring inputs and outputs types for your skills and it includes the configuration of all input and output types that watsonx Orchestrate supports.
• The Troubleshooting topic now has the following entry:
  • No results with Elasticsearch

Testing limits update

There are no longer limits to the number of tests, but there is still a limit of 250 messages per test. For more information, see Testing limits for the set of data.

IBM Cloud data center expansion

The IBM Cloud data center is now expanded to include the following region:

London

IBM watsonx Orchestrate data center now expands to London DC. With this new data center, watsonx Orchestrate offers secure and compliant data storage solutions for user data in accordance with European data protection laws.

Documentation updates

See the updates in the watsonx Orchestrate documentation and other contents for this release.

Labels

The app pages in the documentation now display all the deployment label tags that they support.

The labels in the watsonx Orchestrate documentation are now updated with designated colors for deployments and personas.

New sections

• The Deprecated or withdrawn models section is added to provide information about the foundation models that are deprecated or withdrawn from support.
• Configuring a web chat language section is added to give information about the hard coded web chat texts.
• Added skill-ids for the followings apps:
  • Adobe Workfront
  • Cognos
  • FreshService
  • IBM Process Mining
  • Salesforce Chatter
  • Salesloft
  • Seismic
  • Webex
  • Workday HCM
  • Zoho Recruit
  • ZoomInfo

Updated sections

• Combining skills into skill flows section is now updated to add more information about workflows and skill flows and how to use them.

• Activity tracking events for IBM watsonx Orchestrate are now updated to add information about how to view the watsonx Orchestrate logs in the account.

• The Known issues and limitations topic now has the following entries:

  • Building AI assistants
    • Custom-built actions
  • Skill-based actions
    • Duplicate skills are created
  • Building skills
    • OpenAPI builder
  • AI chat
    • Embedded AI chat does not work with security that is enabled
  • Skill catalog
    • The IBM Process Mining app does not appear in the Skill catalog

IBM Cloud data center expansion

The IBM Cloud data center is now expanded to include the following region:

Toronto

IBM watsonx Orchestrate data center now expands to Toronto DC. With this new data center, watsonx Orchestrate offers improved performance, low-latency access, and data sovereignty for users in Canada and North America.

Stopping the streaming of responses for AI assistants

When a response is streaming in the chat of AI assistants, you can see a Stop icon in the chat. Click the Stop icon to stop streaming the response. You can use this feature to continue with your chat experience without waiting for the response to finish.