What's new in IBM® watsonx Orchestrate®

As new features and capabilities are added to IBM watsonx Orchestrate for October and November of 2024, you can read about them here. Refer to Previous releases to learn more about changes that happened in the previous months.

Note: Do you want to get updates on new features, bug fixes, and security fixes for IBM watsonx Orchestrate as an on-premises solution in IBM Cloud Pak® for Data? See What's new and changed in IBM watsonx Orchestrate in the IBM Cloud Pak for Data documentation.

1 November 2024

The following sections describe changes that happened on the release of 1 November 2024 for IBM watsonx Orchestrate on IBM Cloud® and on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

New models for IBM Granite


You can now use the ibm/granite-3-8b-instruct and ibm/granite-3-2b-instruct models of IBM Granite within watsonx Orchestrate such as the AI agent and AI assistants. See more details at Configuring Base LLM.

29 October 2024

The following sections describe changes and fixes for issues that happened on the release of 29 October 2024 for IBM watsonx Orchestrate on IBM Cloud® and on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Enhancing productivity with the AI agent chat


Use the AI agent chat, formerly called new chat or Beta chat, to empower your business by orchestrating AI assistants to complete tasks that are domain-specific or run more complex tasks like sending emails and posting job requisitions. You can even complete various generative artificial intelligence (AI) tasks.

See all the updates that this release brings to the AI agent chat on watsonx Orchestrate.

Switching the chat experience

Switch between the AI agent chat or legacy chat experiences to complete tasks with aid of large language models (LLMs) and run skills to accomplish more complex tasks. The AI agent chat is the default for tenants that request access to it or already have access to it.

For tenants with access to the AI agent chat, it's possible to return to the legacy chat. See more information in Switching the chat experience.

Adding external AI assistant to the AI agent chat

Now, you can add AI assistants from IBM watsonx Assistant to the AI agent chat on watsonx Orchestrate.

For more information, see Adding AI assistants to the watsonx Orchestrate chat.

Supporting the Llama and Mistral family models

You can change the routing configuration of the AI agent to use the Meta Llama or Mistral AI models.

For more information, see Changing the LLM used for routing.

Resetting and discarding the changes for AI agent settings

From this release, you can reset and discard the changes that was made while you edit AI agent settings.

For more information, see Configuring the settings of the AI agent.

More apps and skills

Unlock the potential of your use cases with additional skills

You can use additional skills upon request to empowered your business processes.

  • Dun & Bradstreet (DnB): Skills to unlock the potential of the business intelligence products and improve the business profits, marketing, and risk management.

  • SAP Fieldglass: Skills to manage external workforces, vendors, and workers more efficiently.

  • SAP Hana: Skills to let the process massive amounts of data with near-zero latency, query data in an instant, and become truly data-driven.

To request access to these skills, contact IBM Support and open a case with the following details:

  • Product URL: The URL you use to access the watsonx Orchestrate platform.
  • Details of the watsonx Orchestrate CRN: To find the CRN, click your profile and then About. Add a screenshot of the About page.
  • The list of skills and skill flows to which you need access.

New apps and skills for various use cases

This release adds new skills to the skill catalog. See the list of new skills per app:

  • UKG

    • Skills
      • Create person
      • Get all attendance balance types
      • Get all attendance records
      • Get all employee employment details
      • Get all employee job preferences
      • Get all employee leave records
      • Get all employees
      • Update an attendance balance

  • Zoho Inventory

    • Skills
      • Create a contact
      • Create a contact person
      • Create a new item
      • Create a new package
      • Create a new purchase order
      • Create a new sales order
      • Get all contact persons
      • Get all contacts
      • Get all currencies
      • Get all items
      • Get all purchase orders
      • Get all sales orders
      • Get all taxes
      • Get all warehouses

Deprecated skills

This release deprecated the skills of the WageScape app.

Other enhancements and changes

The following table details the enhancements that are delivered in this release and the user role that is affected by the enhancement.

Enhancements Description Affected role
New experience for deleting workflows Builders can now delete workflows more easily in the Skill studio. For more information, see Delete a workflow skill. Builder or Writer
Responses from the foundation model and AI assistants in real-time Now, users can read the responses from foundation model and AI assistants in real-time while these responses are generated. User or WO User
Access user context across all AI agent chat You can now define whether the context data for the conversation of a specific AI assistant is shared with other AI assistants that run within the same conversation in the AI agent chat.

Update the configuration of a specific AI assistant through the API by setting the shareable_context parameter as true or false.
Go to the Request Body properties of the Update AI Assistant instance method for more details about the shareable_context parameter.
Builder
Routable targets as journeys for specific tenant You can now get all the routable targets as journeys for a specific tenant. Journey refers to the AI assistants that you added to the AI agent chat. For more information, see List all possible journeys. Builder or Writer

The following table details the fixes that are delivered in this release and the user role that is affected by the fix:

Bug fixes Description Affected role
Search in tables was not working from page 2 Fixed an issue where the search in tables was not working from page 2, by returning empty results after the user runs the skill. User or WO User
Microsoft Teams skill was not refreshing the drop-down list Fixed an issue where the Get all message replies skill was not refreshing the drop-down list of the Message field. User or WO User
NoneType error in the chat preview Fixed an issue where the builder was getting the NoneTypeerror when they tried to run a decision flow in the chat preview from AI assistant builder. Builder or Writer
Input descriptions in the AI agent chat Fixed an issue where the input descriptions from Enhance skill page was not being displayed in the AI agent chat. User or WO User
Builder or Writer
Error message was not displayed in the chat preview Fixed an issue where an error message was not displayed in the chat preview from AI assistant builder. With the fix, now the error message is displayed when the builder provides invalid values for delete skills. Builder or Writer
Nested skill flows with looping were not working Fixed an issue where nested skill flows with looping were not working in the chat and giving a message error for the user. User or WO User
Skill was not being pre-filled in skill flow Fixed an issue where the first skill from a skill flow was not being pre-filled after the user clicked to retry it. User or WO User
Creation of a complex variable with reserved words was allowed
Fixed an issue where the builder was able to create complex variable with reserved words without validation error in the workflow. Writer
No records to be selected in skill flow Fixed an issue where the builder didn't find records to select in the chat preview from AI assistant builder. This error happened in skill flows that had two get skills with a filter section. Builder or Writer
Filter inputs were not working in the chat preview Fixed an issue where the filter inputs were not working in the chat preview. This error happened in skill-based actions created from skill flows. Builder or Writer
Expression being shown when hovering the mouse over the Status column Fixed an issue where the [object Object]expression was shown when the builder hovers the mouse over the Status column in the Skill studio table. Builder or Writer
Input form size was too long Fixed an issue where the input form size was too long in the watsonx Orchestrate chat. User or WO User
Getting the error ERR_WO_001G' : "'str' object has no attribute 'get'" Fixed an issue where builders were getting the following error when they tried to run a skill in the chat preview from AI assistant builder: ERR_WO_001G' : "'str' object has no attribute 'get'". Builder or Writer
Mappings were not displayed in the filter Fixed an issue where the mappings were not displayed in the filter when the user started a next best skill in the AI agent chat. User or WO User
The default value was not displayed in the filter Fixed an issue where the default value was not displayed in the filter when the user started a next best skill in the AI agent chat. User or WO User
The Delete button was misaligned in filter lists Fixed an issue where the Delete button was misaligned in filter lists in the chat. User or WO User
Connecting and disconnecting apps was taking more time
Fixed an issue where the users were taking more time to connect and disconnect apps on the skill catalog and skill sets pages. WO User
Manager
Routing to different AI assistants Fixed an issue where the routing to an AI assistant was occurring to different AI assistants that contained the same keywords that users used in their prompts in the AI assistants' description.
It happened in cases where those keywords were present in AI assistants' description but were modified or removed.
User or WO User
Builder or Writer
The input form for a previous skill showed instead of the form for the skill prompted Fixed an issue where, after the user first prompted an AI assistant to run a skill, the next prompts to skills still showing the input form of the first skill that was prompted to run. User or WO User
Values in filter not applied in hidden input form of skill Fixed an issue where the values in a filter were not applied in skill with input form that was hidden. User or WO User
Failing to create an action in the AI assistant
Fixed an issue where creating an action in the AI assistant builder could fail if there were many skill-based actions to load. Builder
Clear history notification in the Firefox browser
Fixed an issue where the notification message of the clear history was not shown in the Firefox browser. WO User
Error to create the slot logic
Fixed an issue where the builder was not able to add the slot logic by getting the error The workflow creation is taking more time. Please try again.. Writer

Documentation updates

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

Terminology

The Beta chat or new chat on watsonx Orchestrate now is called AI agent chat.

New section

Updated sections

  • The Configuring the next best skills section was updated to explain how to show the next best skills in the AI agent chat.

  • The Events for skill activities section was updated with a new event that is generated when you delete a skill.

  • The Generating an API key section had the procedure to generate an API key for AI assistants updated.

  • The Licenses and entitlements section has new details about licenses and entitlements for watsonx Orchestrate on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and IBM Cloud.

  • The Skill IDs of prebuilt apps section was updated with the list of skill IDs of the new skills for this release.

  • The Templates for system prompts section was updated with the templates for system prompts that you can configure according to the models that you want to use for the AI agent.

  • The Known issues and limitations topic adds entries for the following sections:

16 October 2024

The following sections describe changes and fixes for issues that happened on the release of 16 October 2024 for IBM watsonx Orchestrate on IBM Cloud® and on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Other enhancements and changes

The following table details the fixes that are delivered in this release and the user role that is affected by the fix:

Bug fixes Description Affected role
Team skills page with access problem Fixed an issue where some users were not able to access the Team skills page in their tenants. User or WO User
Japanese translation for Skill studio Fixed an issue where the texts were not translated to Japanese in some screens in the Skill studio. Builder or Writer
Skill with slot logic was failing Fixed an issue where skill with slot logic was failing in the chat preview of the AI assistant builder. Builder or Writer
Intermittent error to run actions in the chat preview Fixed an issue where users were facing an intermittent error to run actions in the AI assistant chat preview, by showing the message "There was an error displaying this content". Builder or Writer
Skills are taking too long to load
Fixed an issue where the skills are taking too long to load and display inputs and outputs in the chat preview of the AI assistant builder. Builder or Writer
Inputs from slot logic variables were not being populated
Fixed an issue where the inputs that were provided for the slot logic variables were not being populated in the task activity for the composite variables. User or WO User
Builder or Writer
Japanese translations in the legacy chat Fixed an issue where the chat had texts that weren't translated to Japanese. User or WO User

Documentation updates

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

Updated sections

11 October 2024

The following sections describe changes and fixes for issues that happened on the release of 11 October 2024 for IBM watsonx Orchestrate on IBM Cloud® and on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Passing values to skill-based actions in the conversation flow


Add skill-based actions as subactions in the conversation steps, and set the values that you want to pass to the skill-based actions based on the conversation flow.

Passing values to skill-based actions enables you to build a seamless conversation flow by getting the required values from other steps.

For more information, see Choosing what to do at the end of a step.

External skill providers must implement the new endpoint for skill-based actions to use this feature. For more information, see Conversational Skills: Masterdoc for API Endpoints to Implement by the Pro-Code Conversational Skill Client.

Documentation updates

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

Updated sections

  • The Known issues and limitations topic adds entries for the following section:

9 October 2024

The following sections describe changes and fixes for issues that happened on the release of 9 October 2024 for IBM watsonx Orchestrate on IBM Cloud® and on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Improved currency recognition


Conversational search now supports filling currency slots with number entities in skill-based actions.

4 October 2024

The following sections describe changes and fixes for issues that happened on the release of 4 October 2024 for IBM watsonx Orchestrate on IBM Cloud® and on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Configure Milvus in Custom service integration


You can now configure Milvus, a full-text search engine with high performance and real-time analytics capabilities, in the Custom service integration of your assistant for enhanced search. For more information, see Setting up Milvus for Custom service.

2 October 2024

The following sections describe changes and fixes for issues that happened on the release of 2 October 2024 for IBM watsonx Orchestrate on IBM Cloud® and on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Support for new languages in skill-based actions


Create skill-based actions in AI assistants, which language is English, French, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, German, or Spanish. For more information about how to create skill-based actions, see Building your AI assistant with actions.

1 October 2024

The following sections describe changes and fixes for issues that happened on the release of 1 October 2024 for IBM watsonx Orchestrate on IBM Cloud®.

New features for IBM watsonx Orchestrate on IBM Cloud®

This new release brings a wealth of enhancements and features to help you and your team to drive better business outcomes.

The key features include:

  • Use of projects in the Skill studio
  • Use the capabilities of the AI agent chat through the API
  • New experience for the generation of API keys
  • Set the default language of the product and switch between the languages available
  • Set a confidence threshold for confirmation questions
  • Support for more LLMs for the AI agent
  • New apps and skills for various use cases

Check the details of the features at What's new in IBM® watsonx Orchestrate® on 26 September 2024.

Documentation updates

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

Updated sections

  • The Known issues and limitations topic adds entries for the following section:

    • Prebuilt apps and skills

      • [IBM Cloud] Error to run IBM watsonx.ai skills

    • Building AI assistants

      • [IBM Cloud] Intermittent error in the AI assistant chat preview
      • [AWS] Failed to create an action in the AI assistant builder

    • Skill catalog

      • [IBM Cloud] Connecting and disconnecting apps is taking more time