Robotic Process Automation - Best Practices
In this chapter, we will learn about some of the best practices for implementing robotic process automation (RPA). RPA implementation best practices allow business organizations to develop reliable automation solutions that scale to fit their operational requirements.
RPA solutions developed by applying the best practices can optimize processes, reduce the number of recurring operations, and minimizes errors in data entry. Let's learn the key best practices for RPA implementation.
Best Practices for RPA Implementation
The following are some important best practices for RPA implementation that help business organization to create an effective roadmap for designing, developing, and managing RPA solutions that can provide maximum ROI with reduced operational costs.
Identify Right Processes to Automate
Businesses should start their RPA implementation journey by analyzing and finding most suited processes for automation. The ideal processes for RPA must fulfil some specific criteria such as −
- They must be repetitive.
- They must involve rule-based tasks.
- They have high-volume.
- They are time-consuming and transaction-heavy.
Evaluate and Simplify Processes
Before automating processes using RPA, they must be analyzed for identifying potential inefficiencies and issues in them. Then, they must be simplified to cut down complex and unnecessary steps in automation creation.
Visualize Workflows
Visualization helps easy understanding the processes and workflows. Thus, workflows must be visualized using tools like process diagrams, flowcharts, etc. to get their clear picture, which helps creating a robust RPA solution.
Follow Standardized Development
RPA implementation must be done by following consistent coding standards, conventions, and documentation practices. This provides uniformity across the system and simplifies the future maintenance.
Secure Access Control
RPA system must have strict authentication mechanism to provide role-based access. This is essential for making the RPA system secure, and it provides protection to sensitive data.
Continuously Monitor Performance
In RPA implementation, monitoring tools must be provided to regularly track the performance of RPA bots in real-time. This analytic will be important for reducing processing time, errors, and costs. Also, the continuous monitoring of RPA helps refining the processes and improving the automation capabilities over time.
Educate and Train
Organizations must provide education and trainings about benefits of RPA, how to use it, how it will be helpful in enhancing their productivity, etc. to their employees. This will help to avoid any kind of resistance in RPA implementation from employees.
Integrate Emerging Technologies
Organizations must stay informed about technological advancements in RPA. They should try to integrate new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), etc. with their RPA system to enhance its capabilities.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we explained the best practices that organizations need to apply to gain maximum benefit out of Robotic Process Automation. These best practices make the RPA implementation smoother and align it better with the business objectives of the organization.