RPA: What it is?

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.

RPA is a way to easily automate individual, relatively simple tasks that would otherwise be handled manually.

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.

Understanding UiPath Platform

The UiPath RPA platform has three major components namely, UiPath Orchestrator, Robot and Studio.

UiPath Orchestrator

Orchestrator is the server platform that acts as a control room to manage, monitor and control the entire virtual workforce. Orchestrator facilitates centralized logging, monitor and control your robots, manage jobs, schedules, queues, assets and also offers role-based user and access management. In short, Orchestrator is targeted for administration and monitoring of robots.

UiPath Robot

The robot is the UiPath’s execution agent that runs the workflows built using studio. The robot (agent) is installed as a windows service by default or it can be installed at the user level. However, you can connect the robot to Orchestrator in both the modes. Robots need to be connected to Orchestrator to execute processes or they have to be licensed locally.

Robots execute the automation workflow designed in UiPath Studio and can be centrally managed from UiPath Orchestrator. UiPath offers two types of robots namely Attended and Unattended Robots.

UiPath Studio

UiPath studio is the comprehensive integrated development environment (IDE) for the developers to create their automation workflows. The studio looks more like a modelling tool, where it enables you to automate business processes graphically using flowcharts, sequences and state machines. The workflow you create using studio will consists of multiple action steps such as clicking button, typing a text etc. These actions are called as activities and the activities are grouped into packages. The developers can drag and drop activities to create their workflow.

Benefits of RPA

Some of the key benefits of RPA are as follows:

Cost: A software robot costs much less than a human worker and each does the work of 3-5 FTEs
Speed: 4 x the processing speed. Works 24 x 7 / 365
Quality: 100% accuracy: no human errors, no rework
Human effort shifted to value adding tasks that involve interaction, judgment and interpretation - improved job satisfaction; new value
Faster deployment of new services – fast automation of processes and rapid integration of front-end digital technologies with back office legacy environments: a potential lifesaver for incumbents struggling to keep pace with new rivals
Increased operational agility – robots can scale up and down and switch their tasks according to demand. If requirements change, a robot can be trained quickly to adapt, without the constraint of business silo or human resource issues and associated training costs
Improved compliance - especially in highly-regulated industries. RPA improves control by providing consistent adherence to set rules. All tasks are tracked and monitored to aid compliance evidencing and audit trails
Improved customer experience – faster service delivery; 24 hour coverage; staff freed-up for customer-facing roles
Provides insight – RPA makes gathering and organising data easier so a company can predict future outcomes and optimise their processes
Flexible Workforce – robots don’t go sick, require performance reviews or compensation increases and don’t depart for jobs with competitors

Myths about RPA

Here below are some common myths about RPA

Robots will take my job - RPA will still need human supervision and will assist you in improving the efficiency of your work. Its not meant for replacing humans all together.
RPA is only about cost reduction - This is not true. As you see in my benefits section above, RPA offers a lot more other benefits than just cost reduction.
RPA is only for big organizations - This is not true. RPA can fit for any type and size of organizations. Today its become affordable to every organization.
Bots are 100% accurate - Robots are accurate when they are correctly set up. However there are possibilities that robots can be wrong due to various factors like incomplete logic, unknown / new scenario etc.