RPA

(ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION)

INTRODUCTION:-
RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation. Robotic process automation (or RPA
or RPAAI) is an emerging form of business process automation technology based
on the notion of software robots or artificial intelligence (AI) workers. RPA tools
have strong technical similarities to graphical user interface testing tools. These
tools also automate interactions with the GUI, and often do so by repeating a set
of demonstration actions performed by a user. RPA technology, sometimes
called a software robot or bot, mimics a human worker, logging into
applications, entering data, calculating and completing tasks, and logging out.
RPA software isn't part of an organization's IT infrastructure. Instead, it sits on
top of it, enabling a company to implement the technology quickly and
efficiently – all without changing the existing infrastructure and systems.

In our bank we have people doing work like robots. Tomorrow we will have
robots behaving like people. It doesn’t matter if we as a bank will participate
in these changes or not, it is going to happen.
-John Cryan
(CEO of Deutsche Bank)

The relationship between technology and people has to change in the future for
the better, and I think RPA is one of the great tools to enable that change
- Leslie Willcocks
(London School of Economics professor)

a) What do you mean by RPA?

Simply put Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the process of automating
your current work flows. What it means is that the way you are currently
working and operating once you start automating that it becomes robotic
process automation. So any of your work flow that you have, you
probably can automate. This automation of your business process is
called RPA. Robotic process automation (RPA) is the use of software with
artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities to handle high-
volume, repeatable tasks that previously required humans to perform.
These tasks can include queries, calculations and maintenance of records
and transactions.
b) How it works?
As industrial robots transformed the factory floor, RPA bots transform
back offices. RPA Bots replicate employee actions like opening files,
inputting data, copy pasting fields in an automated way. To set up an RPA
bot, it isn’t required to know programming. There are 4 ways to setup RPA
bots

1- Programming
As expected, the most powerful interfaces for programming bots is a
programming language. However, using a programming language
requires skill and patience so this method is relevant for technically
inclined personnel. Programming instructions essentially tell the bot
which programs to use and how to interact with those programs.

2- Graphical User Interfaces

Many vendors offering solutions to program RPA bots with drag&drop
interfaces. Anyone in the company should be capable of setting up simple
bots.

3- Recorder
Just like macros in excel, bots can complete recorded actions. Recorded
actions can involve numerous enterprise software such as taking data
from Sales force, merging it with a report from mail chimp in excel to
identify which customers to target during the company’s routine
customer activation SMS campaign.
Recorder function is an important advantage in a RPA tool because it
enables rapid bot programming. However, recorders have some
limitations as well:

• Recording a complex set of functionality can be difficult and error

prone
• Maintaining recorded bots is difficult as their code is machine
produced and may not be easy to read. Re-recording actions after
each small change in the process can also be time consuming

4- Self-learning bots
These bots watch recorded employee activity to learn automatable tasks.
They are the easiest to deploy bots. However, their learning is not always
perfect since they rely on recognizing images in scraped screenshots.
Especially during initial deployment, they could be making mistakes and
their activity needs to be audited. Most of the time mistakes are avoided
as bots understand when they see cases they don’t know how to
complete. In such cases, they contact employees for guidance.

Once bots are setup, an orchestration module helps start/stop bots and
analyse their activity.
c) Why is it called RPA?
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an idea more than a product. Over the past
few years the definition of RPA has been refined to denote the use of software
automation that works through a normal user interface, using business rules to
automate process activities. As with many technology definitions, the practical
application of RPA is a bit different. All of the major vendors who offer RPA
software solutions also provide methods to automate using something other
than the normal user interface such as database queries, REST or SOAP API calls
or the execution of external scripts. What the software vendors provide in
addition to the ability to manipulate user interfaces to run business processes,
are tools to manage, schedule, monitor and report on the execution of
automated processes. Could you build your own tools to do all of the above, as
well as automate processes using Python, Perl or .Net? Perhaps, but how long
would it take you and how much is your time worth?.The reason that it is called
RPA is that it uses bots (robots) to do the work and automates the processes of
businesses.

Example:-
A typical example would be the real estate industry. The real estate industries
work flow is usually the following: (this is just an example and the actual
process is far more complicated than that)
Step 1) Go to a particular set of websites
Step 2) Obtain data from these websites of new listings of property
Step 3) Store it in a database and or in excel in proper format
Currently this work is being done by a human, however this work can be done
by robots. Using robotic process automation, you could potentially automate all
of these things.

EVOLUTION OF RPA:-
Although the term "robotic process automation" can be traced to the early
2000s, it had been developing for a number of years previously.

RPA evolved from three key technologies: screen scraping, workflow automation
and artificial intelligence.

Screen scraping is the process of collecting screen display data from a legacy
application so that the data can be displayed by a more modern user interface.
The advantages of workflow automation software, which eliminates the need for
manual data entry and increases order fulfilment rates, include increased speed,
efficiency accuracy. Lastly, artificial intelligence involves the ability of computer
systems to perform tasks that normally require human intervention and
intelligence.
BENEFITS OF RPA:-
Robotic process automation technology can help organizations on their digital
transformation journeys by:

● Enabling better customer service by increase speed of/reduce errors in

customer-facing processes.
● Reduce manual data edits, increasing quality of data and reducing
compliance risks
● Ensuring business operations and processes comply with regulations and
standards
● Allowing processes to be completed much more rapidly
● Providing improved efficiency by digitizing and auditing process data
● Creating cost savings for manual and repetitive tasks
● Enabling employees to be more productive
● Allows employees to focus on higher value-added activities improving
both business results and employee satisfaction
TOOLS OF RPA:-

1. UiPath

UiPath is a global software company that develops a platform for Robotic

Process Automation (RPA).UiPath was founded in 2005 by Romanian
entrepreneur Daniel Dines. In 2015, with the help of seed funding, UiPath
started its international expansion and opened offices in London, New York,
Bengaluru, Singapore, and Tokyo

2. Blue Prism

Blue Prism is the trading name of the Blue Prism Group, a UK multinational
software corporation that pioneered and makes enterprise robotic process
automation software to eliminate low-return, high-risk, manual data entry and
processing work. Blue Prism is headquartered in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside,
UK with regional offices in the US and Australia.