Question 1

What is RPA Software?

Accepted Answer

Robotic process automation (RPA) may sound intimidating and ominous, but in reality, it is an extremely practical solution for traditionally time-consuming tasks. The purpose of RPA tools is to automate processes that have always required a human to physically perform the task but do not necessarily require strategic thinking. 
 RPA isn’t necessarily a new concept. In the early 2000s, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), workflow automation, and screen scraping were explored to reduce time spent on simple tasks. The combination of these technologies gave way to RPA—a more efficient method of automation. 
 What Does RPA Stand For? 
 RPA stands for ”robotic process automation.” However, when deployed properly, it is anything but robotic. Sellers have added and are continuing to add advanced features such as machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and process mining in order to streamline the automation process. 
 What Types of RPA Software Exist? 
 There are a couple of different types and use cases of RPA, but each helps an organization streamline their business. Although all of these tools automate processes, they differ in terms of how hands-on one must be with the automation. 
 Attended automation 
 Attended automation is aimed at tasks that can be augmented by software robots but still requires human intervention in one way or another. During instances of attended automation, users have bots that run in the background while they perform their normal tasks; however, the bots are triggered by human actions and work in collaboration with a human employee. These actions performed by the bots help simplify workflows for the human, empowering them to focus more on the critical, strategic task at hand. This can include assisting a customer on the phone or creating financial reports, among many other uses. 
 Unattended automation 
 Unattended automation is used during processes that require no human intervention. Businesses can deploy robots to run particular functions without paying an employee to carry out the task and be assured that there won’t be human errors that will throw off the entire process. Unattended bots are scheduled by the administrator of RPA software and run essentially unnoticed by company employees. Some processes that are commonly automated with unattended bots include generating financial reports or laborious data entry.

Question 2

What are the Common Features of RPA Software?

Accepted Answer

RPA software can facilitate the creation of the robots themselves, the workflows and processes that bots will ultimately carry out, and the management and deployment of those bots. Across those three areas of RPA tools, there are a number of common features: 
 Drag-and-drop workflows: Many RPA solutions allow users to build workflows with drag-and-drop visual editors. There is no need to code actions for the bots to perform. This benefits administrators who do not have a highly technical background. Instead, they can create flowchart-like visualizations that outline each step in a process that will eventually be performed by a bot. 
 Workflow recording: Another way RPA tools help simplify the building of processes is by allowing users to record themselves performing manual tasks. The software robots can mimic the exact actions performed by the user and perform the repeatable tasks usually conducted by a human employee. 
 Prebuilt templates: To make it easier on RPA developers and administrators, many tools offer prebuilt workflow templates so that users can quickly and efficiently build processes for bots to act on. These templates are a part of the drag and drop and workflow recording environment to ensure simplicity for users. 
 Computer vision: Most RPA vendors have AI and machine learning capabilities embedded within their tools. These deep learning features may include computer vision, which can help to identify images as well as words in documents through optical character recognition (OCR). This feature is important as it allows the system to “see” and understand documents. 
 Natural language understanding (NLU): Other machine learning capabilities include NLU, a subset of NLP. With this functionality, the software can read and “understand” words and use that knowledge to more intelligently automate processes. For example, a media organization could use these NLU capabilities to detect spelling errors in a journalist’s work. If a spelling error were detected, it could route the work to an editor. If no spelling errors were detected, it could route the work to the publishing division. 
 Integrations: Companies often implement RPA tools to perform tasks inside other types of business applications, including CRMs, ERP systems, and accounting software, among many others. The ability to integrate and work in conjunction with these systems is an important feature for RPA software. 
 Bot scheduling: Being able to schedule out bot deployments in advance is a critical feature of RPA software. Users can set the bot to start the process by using triggers such as the timing of an event or a specific human action. 
 Analytics: Not only is deployment and scheduling of robots important, but being able to track the performance of bots is a critical aspect of RPA software. Many RPA solutions offer analytics and dashboards to ensure the bots are conducting processes correctly and efficiently. 
 Many robotic process automation software tools will also offer the following features: 
 
Custom automation capabilities
Data and product security capabilities
Scalability capabilities
Machine learning capabilities
OCR capabilities
NLP capabilities

Question 3

What are the Benefits of RPA Software?

Accepted Answer

There are a number of reasons to use RPA tools, but the main reason is so companies can save time and resources, freeing up their employees to perform more strategic, business-critical tasks. Automation is becoming a key aspect of overall digital transformation, and RPA software has the ability to streamline process automation for businesses. By deploying bots to rapidly perform repetitive tasks, companies have the luxury of prioritizing work and projects that require human brainpower. 
 Automation software is most valuable for manual, time-consuming tasks such as data entry that may take hours of time and hundreds of clicks on a computer for a human employee to complete. The bots deployed in RPA tools can perform these laborious tasks in a fraction of the time that humans can. Not only does this save businesses employee time, but it also saves them money by not having to pay for human labor. 
 Additionally, RPA bots can cut down on human error when performing certain tasks. For example, when generating financial reports based on general ledger data, ensuring precise accuracy is critical. Inputting even one incorrect number can throw off budgeting and forecasting projections and mislead stakeholders. By leveraging RPA software, users can ensure that human error is taken out of this process entirely and eliminate this particular risk. One important note—RPA software is not a substitute for a business’ IT infrastructure. Instead, RPA sits on top and acts as a complement to existing systems. 
 Efficiency: At any business, processes often develop to include multiple people and multiple steps. Although humans can work together to improve these processes, RPA can help to make them more efficient. For example, HR professionals frequently need to upload identification documents for new employees. Then they might need to copy information from those documents and input it into human resource management systems. This HR employee can use RPA to remove steps and make this easier. In this case, all they would need to do would be to upload the relevant documents, and the bot could proceed to input the information into various systems and programs. 
 Accuracy: As smart and capable as humans are, they make mistakes. When trained properly, RPA bots can imitate human actions perfectly. That is, if a human allows RPA software to capture his screen and clicks, the bot can subsequently copy that action and repeat it infinitely, The flipside of this should be considered as well: if RPA software is trained poorly on poor processes, the bot will copy this as well, leading to the repetition of bad work. 
 Return on investment (ROI): RPA software is a tool that streamlines work and, when done correctly, leads to fewer errors. As such, it can have tremendous ROI. Improved work leads to improved outcomes, which can easily lead to increased revenue. It should be noted that there are ethical considerations around this. Namely, to what extent should a company reorganize their business, deploying RPA bots as opposed to human employees?

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