Definition

Robotic Process Automation is an emerging form of Business Process Automation that mimics what people do by autonomously logging on, capturing data and orchestrating various applications and systems. RPA tools are smart enough now a days that carry out intelligent automation (IA) as against the regular form of rule-based automations when it got introduced.

RPA is termed as a non-invasive automation technique as it does enable automation at the UI Layer interacting across multiple applications by emulating human actions without the necessity of changing the existing applications. These robots put together forms the virtual workforce within the organization and are controlled by the Business Operations team. They interact with any application or system using non-invasive techniques.

Note: It is common to misunderstand RPA with Robotics. In RPA there are no physical robots. RPA is a separate and distinct classification of technology from “robotics” or “robots,” which involve physically moving assets.

Deploying RPA software is not equivalent to building fully automated processes and platforms from the ground up. With standalone RPA, a software robot literally does what a human would do: tasks such as data retrieval and entry, button clicks, file uploads and downloads, or invoice processing.

Hyper Automation

Hyper Automation is the application of advanced technologies like RPA, AI, machine learning (ML), and process mining to augment workers and automate processes in ways that are significantly more impactful that traditional automation capabilities.

So it starts with robotic process automation (RPA) at its core, and expands automation capability with artificial intelligence (AI), process mining, analytics, and other advanced tools.  

The idea of hyperautomation is to involve multiple tools with the goal of increasingly AI-driven decision making and engage everyone in an organization to be part of the digital transformation. 

UI Automation

A User Interface (UI) is the series of screens, pages, and visual elements - like buttons and input fields - that enable you to interact with an application. A typical RPA tool, through its building blocks (e.g. Activities), mimics the way you interact with applications and recognizes interface elements irrespective of position, resolution or font size, helping you automate most common UI interactions.

All interactions with the UI can be split into Input (sending or adding something to the application) and Output (getting something from the application). Clicking a button and typing text in a text box are examples of input actions. Getting the text from a browser page is an example of an output action.