Robotic Process Automation - Quick Guide

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Introduction to Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a software-based automation technology used for automating business processes and operations in most modern organizations.

RPA is basically a technology that can automate rule-based, repetitive tasks that have lower value in the organization and consume very high employee efforts. Hence, modern business organizations use RPA as a tool to automate lower value tasks and free up employees to focus on higher value, strategic tasks.

RPA provides software robots to emulate human actions in business processes. In this chapter, we will get an overview of fundamentals of robotic process automation such as basic definition, main components, types of RPA bots, etc. So, let's start with the basic introduction to RPA.

What is Robotic Process Automation?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an automation technology that provides software robots to automate rule-based, repetitive tasks within a business organization. RPA combines user interface and application programming interface interactions to execute tasks and emulate human actions. RPA uses a predefined set of instructions to execute various operations autonomously.

Robotic process automation is a valuable tool to automate a large volume of business process that otherwise require a huge number human-employee. RPA helps business organizations to free up their human resources to focus on more complex, strategic, and high-value processes. RPA also makes processes consistent and thus results in higher efficiency and ROI.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Components

Robotic Process Automation consists of several key components that operate together to perform tasks autonomously. Some of the main components of RPA are explained here −

RPA Development Tools

These components are also termed as RPA bot designer or studio. RPA development tools are designed to provide functionalities and interfaces for designing and developing RPA software bots, instructions, and automation workflows. These components of RPA are mainly used by RPA developers and process experts.

These components provide the following key functionalities −

• Provides a user friendly, drag-and-drop interface for creating automation workflows.
• Provides pre-designed and reusable templates to create automation for common processes.
• Provides capabilities to connect the RPA bots with external applications, databases, and application programming interfaces.
• Provides testing and troubleshooting functionalities to debug the automation workflows during design process.

Some common examples of RPA development tools include −

• UiPath Studio
• Blue Prism
• Automation Anywhere
• Microsoft Power Automate
• Pega, etc.

Bot Runtime Environment

These RPA components provide an environment where software bots of RPA can operate. Hence, these act as the operational layer for running the automation workflows.

Bot runtime environment is also referred to as RPA's execution engine, and provides the following functionalities −

• Provides attended execution functionality, where RPA bots run alongside the human workers in real-time.
• Provides unattended execution of tasks, where RPA bots run as autonomous virtual worker without any human intervention.
• Provides cross-platform support, so the RPA bots can run on different platforms like desktop, web, or enterprise systems.

Some popular examples of RPA bot runtime environments are as follows −

• UiPath Orchestrator
• Blue Prism Control Room
• Pega Robotics Studio
• Automation Anywhere Enterprise, etc.

RPA Control Center

This component of RPA provides functionalities for managing RPA bots. It helps business organizations to deploy, configure, and monitor the operations of RPA bots.

The key functional capabilities that RPA control center provide are as follows −

• It helps managing the deployment of RPA bots to different environments.
• It allows for configuring the RPA bots to execute tasks and processes.
• It provides real-time monitoring capabilities and performance analysis of RPA bots.
• It sets access constraints to RPA bots operations depending on role of the user.

Some common examples RPA control centers include −

• UiPath Orchestrator
• Blue Prism Control Room
• Automation Anywhere Control Room, etc.

RPA Bot Libraries

These are RPA components which responsible for storing reusable automation resources like components, scripts, or workflows. These tools help reducing development time of RPA bots by providing reusable automation blocks.

Integration Layer

It is the component of RPA that provides essential functionalities for RPA bots interactions with different systems and applications. The RPA integration layer allows software bots to establish the communication with databases, enterprise applications, web services, and application programming interfaces.

Types of RPA Bots

RPA bots are nothing but software programs/robots that can emulate human actions. Depending on the level of automation and interaction with human users, the RPA bots can be classified into the following three main types −

• Attended RPA Bots
• Unattended RPA Bots
• Hybrid RPA Bots

Let's have detailed discussion on each type of RPA bots.

Attended RPA Bots

These RPA bots are designed to operate alongside human workers in a shared work environment. Hence, attended RPA bots assist human workers to perform their tasks in real time.

The following are some key features of attended RPA bots −

• They need human commands to perform tasks.
• They run in synchronization with human user’s actions.
• They are suitable to perform tasks in which human intelligent is needed for decision-making.

Some common examples of applications of attended RPA bots include −

• In customer support services, handling and resolving customer’s queries with virtual assistant.
• In healthcare, bots used to retrieve patient’s records for consultation.
• In sales departments, bots used for generating quotes and proposals.

Unattended Bots

These RPA bots are capable to autonomously run without any human intervention. For this purpose, they use pre-defined sets of instructions and schedules.

The following some key characteristics of unattended bots that differentiate them from attended RPA bots −

• They are fully automated and do not require any human involvement to operate.
• They can run on virtual machines like servers or cloud platforms.
• They are capable in handling large volumes of repetitive tasks.

Some common examples of unattached RPA bots use cases include −

• Extracting data from documents
• Updating employee databases and processing payrolls
• Verifying invoices and processing vendor payments, etc.

Hybrid RPA Bots

These RPA bots are designed to combine the features of attended and unattended bots. Hence, these are capable in providing collaboration between human workers and software bots as well as handling some portion of processes autonomously.

Some of the key features of hybrid RPA bots are highlighted below −

• They provide a dynamic transition between attended and unattended functionalities.
• They provide capabilities to automate end-to-end processes.
• They are easily scalable and adaptable to handle complex processes.

Common example use-cases of hybrid RPA bots include −

• In customer onboarding process, verifying documents as unattended bot and performing a personal interaction as attended bot.
• In customer support, hybrid bots are used to generate complaint tickets autonomously and involve expert technician to handle exceptions.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we provided an overview of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), its key components and different types of RPA bots. Let's move to next chapter in the tutorial and learn about some Popular RPA Tools.

Popular Tools in Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) provides an efficient way of handling repetitive business processes within an organization. To implement RPA in their organizations, businesses use several different tools available in the market with their unique features. This chapter of the tutorial is meant to provide an overview some very popular RPA tools.

Popular RPA Tools

Some of the very popular and widely used robotic process automation (RPA) tools and their features are explained below −

Automation Anywhere

Automation anywhere is one of the very popular and widely used tools for implementing robotic process automation in business organizations. It provides a complete suite of automation tools to automate business processes. It is a best suited RPA tool for large organizations where scalability is critical.

The following are some important features of automation anywhere −

• It provides a user-friendly automation interface.
• It provides capabilities of advanced data analytics.
• It has an integrated bot store to provide pre-designed RPA bots.

Automation anywhere is widely used in following practical applications −

• Automating financial processes like generating and validating invoices.
• Automating HR and recruitment operations.
• Automating customer support services, etc.

UiPath

UiPath is another very popular and widely used RPA tool which is known for its quick implementation capabilities and ease of use. It is one of the best RPA tools for those organizations which are starting their RPA deployment for first time.

Some of the main characteristics of UiPath are listed here −

• It provides an easy-to-use bot development environment with drag-and-drop interface.
• It supports both attended and unattended RPA bots.
• It provides a centralized platform to schedule, manage, and monitor RPA bots.

The following are some practical use cases of UiPath −

• Automating customer support services
• Streamlining and optimizing supply chain operations
• Automating processing of documents, etc.

Blue Prism

Blue Prism is also a widely used tool for implementing robotic process automation. It is considered the pioneer for RPA development. Business organizations prefer Blue Prism for RPA implementation because of its security and scalability. It is one of the best RPA tools for large organizations that have high-volume complex processes and workflows.

Blue Prism comes with the following key features −

• It provides fully automatic RPA bots that can operate by strictly following the instructions.
• It provides object-based design for creating RPA bots that encourages reusability of automation components, scripts, and workflows.
• It can be connected with a large number of systems and applications.
• It provides robust security features with multi-level access control.

Some of the use cases of Blue Prism in businesses are given below −

• It is used by banking and finance institutions to automate their complex, rule-based operations.
• It is employed in regulated industries like healthcare, manufacturing, etc. for task automation.

Pegasystems

Pegasystems is an RPA tool used by organizations that require a broader digital transformation in business processes. It makes combined use of RPA and BPM (Business Process Management) to provide a comprehensive approach to automate business processes.

Listed here are some of the important features of Pegasystems that distinguish it from other RPA tools −

• It provides an integrated automation platform with combined RPA and BPM capabilities.
• It provides better decision-making in automation.
• It provides a low-code development environment for creating RPA bots.

The following are some common examples of applications of Pegasystems −

• It is used for automating customer support services in industries like telecom, insurance, etc.
• It is also used in banking and healthcare industries for autonomously processing the claim processes.

Kryon

Kryon is an RPA tool which provides an innovative process discovery technology and enables organizations to identify possible opportunities for automation. Hence, this RPA tool is beneficial for business organizations that want to identify high-impact processes for automation.

Some of the key characteristics of Kryon are listed below −

• It provides complete automation solution by combining process discovery, deployment, and management.
• It helps identifying inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and high-impact processes for automation.
• It supports both attended and unattached RPA bots.
• It provides an easy-to-use interface for creating and managing RPA bots.

Common usecases of Kryon in various industries include −

• It is used to identify bottleneck and inefficiencies in processes.
• It is used to automate customer onboarding process.
• In healthcare industries, it is used to improve compliance reporting, etc.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we highlighted various RPA tools which are widely used to automate repetitive business processes across different industries. Each RPA tool comes with its unique features and the organizations can analyze them for selecting the best suited for their requirements.

Let's proceed to next chapter in the tutorial and understand the Implementation Process of RPA.

Implementation of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

RPA automates repetitive tasks of an organization without any human intervention, hence it needs careful planning and selection of right RPA tools to meet the desired business operational goals. This chapter provides a detailed overview of how to implement Robotic Process Automation (RPA) successfully within a business organization.

Implementation of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

For the successful implementation of RPA within a business organization, RPA designers and developers need to follow six major steps which are listed and explained below −

• Identify processes to automate
• Get organization-wide support
• Select the right RPA tool/software
• Prepare an implementation plan
• Test the RPA solution
• Deploy and improve

Let's discuss each of these steps of RPA implementation in detail.

Step 1: Identify Processes to Automate

RPA implementation starts with identifying the right, high-impact processes to automate. In a business organization, not all workflows or processes are suitable for RPA, hence this step helps picking up only those processes which have higher impacts and ROI.

We should choose only those processes for RPA that meet some specific criteria which are given below −

• Rule-base, repetitive tasks
• High volume processes
• Processes which are highly prone to human errors
• Processes that have least exceptions

Step 2: Get Organization-Wide Support

RPA implementation is a digital transformation of a business, hence it needs support from teams and stakeholders across the organization to be successful.

An organization can achieve success in RPA implementation by −

• Educating its teams about RPA’s working and benefits
• Resolving employees concerns like fear of job displacement
• Explaining how RPA will improve their productivity, etc.

Step 3: Selecting the Right RPA Tool/Software

In RPA implementation, selecting the right RPA tool is a very important step. There are several RPA tools are available in the market, and each of them have its own unique features. The business organization must select the most appropriate tool that aligns with its business operation goals.

While selecting an RPA tool, the organization may also consider the following parameters −

• Ease of use and interface complexity.
• How easily it is scalable.
• It is compatible with existing systems or not.
• How strong customer support the developer provides, etc.

Step 4: Prepare an Implementation Plan

After identifying processes to automate, getting support from teams, and selecting the right automaton tool, now the organization must prepare an effective plan that can be used as a roadmap to implement RPA within the organization. This plan is supposed to provide process mapping details, methods to save time and reduce errors, and realistic timelines for implementation phases.

Step 5: Test the RPA Solution

Before deploying the RPA solution into the actual working environment, it must be tested thoroughly to ensure its desired functionality. This step involves observing the performance, identifying and fixing the bugs, and making the potential improvements.

Step 6: Deploy and Improve

Once, the RPA solution is successfully tested, it is to be deployed in the actual environment and continuously monitored to evaluate its performance. Also, it is improved or optimized to provide better accuracy over time.

Conclusion

In conclusion, RPA implementation begins with finding the right processes for automation, getting support from teams, selecting the right RPA automation tools, and deploying them as per implementation plan. Let's proceed further and learn the Benefits and Challenges of Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

Benefits of Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) offers several benefits such as task automation, reduced errors, enhanced efficiency, etc. However, it also comes up with several implementational challenges such as integration and compatibility issues, scalability-related challenges, long-term maintenance and monitoring requirements, and many others.

This chapter is meant to explain the key benefits of RPA and challenges in its implementation. So, let's start our study with understanding the key advantages of RPA.

Benefits of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

In business organizations, RPA offers numerous benefits by automating rule-based, repetitive tasks. Some of the main advantages of robotic process automation (RPA) are explain below −

Cost Reduction

It is estimated that the application of RPA in business processes reduces the operational costs around 25% to 50%. It is because software robots can work 24/7, takes no vacations, and do fewer manual errors when compared to human workers. Therefore, RPA results in significant cost reductions in business operations.

Accuracy and Quality

Robotic Process Automation improves the process execution and reduces errors, and hence it increases the accuracy. Also, RPA bots can operate consistently, tirelessly, and reduces the needs for re-work. Therefore, it enhances the quality of output.

Consistency

Robotic process automation does not interfere with the inherent systems and performs activities consistently during the entire execution of processes.

Enhanced Analytics

RPA collects error-free, accurate data from different sources in business processes. This provides enhanced data analytics, which helps in improved decision-making and process execution.

Increased Employee's Productivity

RPA allows to automate low-value, mundane, repetitive tasks in business processes and frees up employees from them. Thus, employees can be engaged in higher value tasks like customer interaction, research and development, client relationship management, etc. This increases employees job satisfaction and productivity.

Faster Process Execution

RPA bots can perform tasks and complete the processes at a higher speed than human workers. Therefore, RPA completes more amount of work within a short span of time, and results in faster delivery of service with higher accuracy.

Improved Customer Experiences

As RPA enhances the quality of work by reducing errors and increasing accuracy. This betterquality output results in improved customer satisfaction and experiences, and helps building a positive relationship with customers.

Challenges of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

The most common challenges in implementing RPA and strategies to prevent them are explained below −

Integration with Legacy Systems

Most business organizations are dependent on their legacy systems, and the modern RPA tools face compatibility issues with these existing systems. This challenge is mainly because the existing systems use different user interfaces, protocols, or data formats.

Also, RPA tools can handle only structured data and cannot process unstructured data without any advanced tool like AI. All these issues make it difficult to integrate RPA with existing systems within a business organization.

This challenge can be addresses by following these prevention strategies −

• Before implementing RPA, organizations must analyze their processes to identify potential integration issues.
• Select an appropriate RPA tool.
• Build custom RPA integration solutions for legacy systems, etc.

Scalability Issues

Robotic process automation is mainly designed for automating small-scale processes, and it faces challenges when deals with processes involving large volumes of data and continuous changes.

The following are some prevention strategies to overcome this challenge of RPA −

• Design the RPA solution which can be scaled easily when needed.
• Identify inefficiencies and optimize processes by employing process mining tools.
• Use modular RPA systems that can be easily upgraded with increasing scaling demand.

Long-Term Maintenance and Monitoring

RPA uses pre-defined sets of instructions to perform tasks. Hence, it is not entirely self-sufficient to automate processes because RPA bots can face bugs, system failures, or changes in processes over time. Therefore, RPA requires continuous monitoring and regular maintenance to adapt to updates or changes.

Change Management

Implementation and deployment of RPA significantly impact the existing workflows, and hence it faces resistance from employees because the fear of job displacement or change in their workflow routine. A poor change management can result in failure of RPA implementation.

To overcome this issue, organizations can follow the prevention strategies given below −

• Educate employees about the benefits of RPA.
• Highlight the role of RPA as a collaborative tool to enhance productivity.
• Train employees about how to use RPA tools, etc.

Identifying Right Processes to Automate

Finding right processes to automate is one of the biggest challenges in RPA implementation. Within a business organization, not all processes are suitable for RPA and automating wrong processes can lead to wasted resources and entire automation project failure.

Organizations can overcome this challenge by following some of the practical solutions given below −

• Perform in-depth analysis of processes to identify high-impact processes.
• Map processes and pre-assess their automation potential by using process mining tools.
• Define the automation goal clearly and avoid over-automation, etc.

Regulatory and Compliance Challenges

RPA deals with sensitive data of a business organization such as financial data, employees personal information, etc. Thus, its operation must comply with regulatory standards to avoid reputational damages, legal issues, or penalties.

Organizations can follow the prevention strategies given below to address this challenge −

• Define roles and responsibilities for data processing and security.
• Implement robust security measures like access control, data encryption, etc.
• Perform regular security checks to ensure adherence to RPA governance policies and legal requirements.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we highlighted some of the main advantages and implementation challenges of RPA with possible solutions to prevent them. Let's move forward to the next chapter and learn the Applications of Robotic Process Automation.

Applications of Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is transforming and revolutionizing businesses across various industries by automating low-value, mundane, time-consuming, and repetitive tasks. RPA is becoming an integral part of most modern business organizations.

Robotic Process Automation Use Cases

In this section, we have highlighted some of the very common practical usecases robotic process automation across various industries −

RPA in Healthcare

In healthcare sector, robotic process automation is used for the following purposes −

• Automating rule-based, repetitive tasks such as patient engagement, bill payments, operational procedures, front office activities, etc.
• It reduces operational costs, streamline activities, and speed up the processes.
• It enhances patient experiences and allows staff to provide quality care.

RPA in Customer Services

In customer services, robotic process automation is employed for −

• Reducing administrative workload by automating tasks like data collection, record updating, etc. This enhances customer services and experiences.
• Speeding up customer services by using software bots to handle customer requests and responding inquiries.
• Improving customer satisfaction by providing quick responses and efficient services.

RPA in Banking

RPA is also used in banking sector for the following purposes −

• Automating tasks that consume much time like loan processing, account reconciliation, compliance checks, etc.
• Minimizing dependency on human employees for repetitive operations.
• Enhancing operational efficiency and reducing costs.
• Allowing human employees to be engaged in strategic activities like customer engagement.

RPA in Human Resources

HR departments use robotic process automation in various applications, including the following −

• Automating HR operations and recruitment processes such as employee onboarding, managing employee data, and streamlining administrative operations.
• It is also used to automate operations like releasing offer letters, organizing and consolidating datasets, etc.
• It improves employee experiences and job satisfaction by freeing up them from low-value tasks.

RPA in Supply Chain Management

Some of the common practical usecases of robotic process automation in supply chain management are listed below −

• It is used to automate highly error-prone processes like generating invoices, processing credits, and collections.
• It increases precision in supply chain operations and enhances productivity.
• It makes supply chain processes compact and faster.

RPA in Manufacturing

In manufacturing industries, robotic process automation is used to automate tasks like order processing, inventory management, quality control, etc.

By automating these mundane tasks, it helps improving consistency and efficiency in production. It also allows organizations to reduce production time and errors, that in turn reduces the production costs.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we provided a comprehensive overview of applications of RPA in industries, ranging from manufacturing to supply chain, banking, and healthcare. Let's move to next chapter in the tutorial and learn some of the Best Practices for Implementing RPA.

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.