As businesses across the globe invest in digital transformation, many of them are taking advantage of emerging technology to redefine work efficiency and help employees focus on their work. value added.

What are RPA tools?

Robotic process automation (RPA) uses software bots to simulate human interaction in a graphical user interface (GUI) to automate manual and repetitive tasks, helping Save time, effort and reduce trouble for businesses. An RPA tool is a software that defines workflows and configures bots to perform specified tasks in a logical sequence. A robot can execute any multi-step process in a GUI faster without generating errors. Therefore, robotic process automation tools will help you accelerate manual, error-prone business processes, so employees can focus their efforts on higher-value tasks.

For example, your HR department could deploy an RPA tool to automate how leave requests are processed. Instead of an employee having to spend five minutes processing each request, an RPA bot can extract data from a company’s enterprise resource planning system and process requests more quickly into another system — even systems without APIs — without error.

Bots created by a robotic process automation tool can perform specified operations and interact with other systems through copying information from digital displays (screen scraping). or by using APIs. For example, your business can use RPA tools to create bots that log into applications, process files and folders, copy and paste content, complete forms, work with structured data and even interact with other applications.

Benefits of adopting RPA tools

Any organization that implements an RPA tool can experience some or all of the following benefits:

• Use human resources better. RPA helps employees spend less effort on repetitive and low-value tasks, such as data entry, so they can focus on work that brings greater value to the business.
• Improve customer touchpoints. When using RPA to accelerate direct customer interaction processes, efficiency will be enhanced, thereby improving customer experience and driving loyalty.
• Lower costs. RPA bots do human work at a fraction of the cost.
• Improve data analytics to understand your workflow management. Each bot generates an activity log file so you can monitor how effectively the bot functions are performing.
• Improved scalability. The simple reality is that you won’t be able to scale a team of employees the way you can scale and reach a team of automation bots. Using RPA software, you can easily clone and program bots to perform a similar but slightly different set of processes.
• Better security. RPA bots absolutely never forget to log out. You can set the bot to “timeout” so that your system cannot be accessed at the time of need, reducing the risk of attack by malicious hackers.

How are RPA tools different from other process automation solutions?

To understand the advantages of RPA tools when compared to other workflow automation solutions, it is helpful to understand the difference between automation and RPA. Workflow automation uses technology to reduce manual steps in business processes, but still requires the involvement of a person to complete the process. RPA tools create robots that work through a GUI so that human intervention is not required. These can be supervised processes where humans still have to initiate tasks, or they can be unattended processes, meaning fully automated.

RPA tools require little to no manual coding. Additionally, because bots use the same infrastructure and solutions as workers, you won’t have to change your underlying architecture. Business users drive RPA solutions. In fact, some RPA solutions are designed for non-technical developers — employees without a technical background — so they can automate manual processes in their day-to-day work. mine. With little or no intervention from your IT team, you can optimize operations and improve employee satisfaction without the traditional development costs.

RPA also differs from traditional process automation tools in the following ways:

• Traditional automation processes may require partial or complete changes to the technology infrastructure. RPA bots work in a GUI and interact with other systems in the same way as humans.
• RPA bots are flexible enough to enable automation of processes for many applications.
• RPA bots are for common, repetitive processes like data entry, so users can scale and upgrade bots more easily than workflow solutions designed for a single process.

While RPA software creates value by improving the efficiency of repetitive and rules-based workflows, there are still some processes that are best left to employees. In general, for processes that use a lot of unstructured data or graphical information and depend on rapidly changing parameters, it’s best to leave it to your staff to manage.

The role of RPA today and tomorrow

Currently, RPA software is attracting a lot of attention as companies learn how to apply and reap the benefits this tool brings, such as saving time and costs. But like all technology, RPA will become more complex and change as business needs change. According to https://blog.rpa-cloud.io/ here are some predictions about possible development directions for RPA tools:

• Deeper integration with AI. As RPA grows, it’s likely that businesses will discover new ways to combine the tool with next-level technologies like AI, machine learning, or even the Internet of Things (IoT). — something a number of companies have now implemented. Hyper-automation, or intelligent automation, helps diversify the types of tasks that RPA tools can perform and empowers them to automate a wide range of complex tasks.
• Automation is more complex. Businesses use RPA to automate countless types of routine tasks, but merging the tool with AI and machine learning opens up the possibility of streamlining countless new tasks. For example, today, businesses can use RPA tools to digitize documents, but AI-integrated RPA tools can also understand the content and classify documents effectively without encountering problems. error.
• Less expensive and more accessible. When they first hit the market, RPA tools were harder to come by and could be expensive. But as demand for RPA software has increased, more and more companies now offer it. With more options available, prices will likely decrease and features will become more competitive.

Main functions of RPA software

There are a variety of RPA tools on the market with different features. However, the minimum core features that a good RPA software must provide include:

• Interoperability. RPA software should be able to work with desktop applications, web applications, and other major software applications you have in place. The software will also be able to connect to system APIs and read/write to the database.
• Data enhancement. Your software will be able to extract data from websites and social networks.
• Handles different data types. It’s important that your software can extract and import data, combine data from multiple sources, and obey conditional statements like if/else.
• Programming interface. A programmable interface is important. RPA software can provide intelligence or cognitive functions, allowing bots to be configured for decision making, helping businesses operate more efficiently. For example, bots can help respond to IT support tickets, reducing the administrative burden on IT teams so they can focus on other initiatives. Some software options even offer methods for programming bots without manual coding, but all RPA tools will be able to interact with other types of applications, emails, files, and folders. together.

Select and work with RPA software

As you begin evaluating the RPA tools available on the market, keep in mind the types of processes you plan to automate. Each robotic process automation tool is integrated with different controllers and commands that determine the tool’s capabilities. So make sure they align with your workflow automation goals. Furthermore, try to find reusable components and ensure bots can easily work within your existing systems.

Consider the following criteria to choose the right RPA software for your organization:

• Easy to use. RPA software must be easy enough to use so that people with limited programming skills can still build automations and then configure the workflows within the RPA software. There are some RPA software that don’t even require too much manual coding effort that citizen developers without IT skills can use to automate their workflow. Whatever your choice, the software should have built-in commands, wizards, and an extensible GUI.
• Flexible. The software needs to allow you to configure custom features without having to pay the vendor extra for customization. The software also needs to be able to handle different use cases and different amounts of data, while maintaining consistent performance.
• Easy to scale. RPA software must be able to scale quickly to meet business operational requirements and receive updates. Additionally, the software must be able to run multiple bots and multiple workflows.

How industries use RPA software

Businesses in many different industries have found ways to benefit from RPA software. For example, industries like healthcare can use RPA to schedule appointments, perform patient data entry, process claims, and manage payments. Here’s how other industries are using RPA tools to transform their processes:

• Retail. Update orders, ship products, and track shipments.
• Telecommunication. Monitor, manage fraud data and update customer data.
• Bank. Improve work efficiency, data accuracy and security.
• Insurance. Manage workflows, import customer data, and support running applications.
• Manufacture. Supports supply chain processes, bill of materials, administration, service and customer support.

Limitations of RPA tools

RPA software brings many benefits but cannot do everything. Although technology is evolving, RPA software still works best when within a network of other technologies; This is not yet a comprehensive solution that can solve all operational challenges.

Currently, RPA is a rules-based technology that works best with structured data or information that follows a predefined data model. For RPA to work successfully, you must program the bots to do what you want and will only operate within those parameters. Unless augmented with AI or machine learning technology, your RPA solution is only capable of following the rules you assign, not understanding or interpreting the content it accesses.

For example, for an RPA tool to process information from invoices or other documents, all of those documents must follow the same format. The tool will not be able to process any files with a format other than that general format. For this reason, RPA tools are not suitable for unstructured data or information that does not follow a predefined data model.

Additionally, RPA tools do not have the ability to learn or adapt. If your business processes change, you will need to reprogram your bots to the new processes, which can be time-consuming. And if your RPA tool isn’t compatible with new processes, your investment in it may only be useful in the short term. To avoid this problem, consider how your processes and technology are likely to change before adopting an RPA tool.