Today we're going to be talking about RPA
and some of the things that you need to take into account when deciding about your automation projects.
Now, some of the topics that we're going to cover along with RPA are going to be
the differences between unattended and attended software robots,
some of the most beneficial examples and things of that nature that are going to support those scenarios with unattended and attended robots.
And then finally, some other components and pitfalls that you need to take into account
when deciding what needs to be automated and how you can have the best automation solution.
So your first question is probably going to be, well, why do I care?
And the reason why is going to be a couple of different reasons, but the first one is going to be the ROI, right?
As a business, one of the most important things that you need to do
or consider when talking about any automation project is how can we get the return on investment that we need?
When we spend money, we want to see the benefit,
we want to see the business get some upside of that money being spent,
and we want to be able to associate and accommodate all of the components around any of the software spend
or hardware spend associated with an automation project.
So after we take into account the return on investment,
really the next scenario or the next component has to be, well, what other things must we prioritize?
So when we consider the prioritization of an automation scenario,
that's going to tell us a lot about what the business's needs are,
it's going to tell us a lot what can we get done sooner rather than later,
and what ultimately is going to be the best candidates.
So when we take into account the prioritization of these automation scenarios, that's going to lead us to some very beneficial ...
that's going to lead us to some very beneficial components
with regards to what our business can accommodate and allow for those executions.
So after we've prioritized some of these scenarios,
really you're probably wondering, okay, well, how do unattended and attended automations play into that overall discussion?
Well, we're going to start with attended automations.
And attended automations are essentially going to be, in this context, software robots, right,
for robotic process automation that are going to take a variety of actions that the user is going to manually kick off.
So when we're talking about those scenarios that are going to be attended automations,
we very much have a human in the loop, right?
It's going to be a person who's going to have a significant input
or they're going to kick off, provide some information surrounding it,
or ultimately provide information to the robot
that the robot's going to take to execute those automations and to begin.
So let's start with a sample scenario, right?
In our sample scenario let's take a common one of pesky reports, right?
We all have to deal with reports and we don't really love doing them, but automation is a great candidate.
Automation is a great way to take some of those reports and turn them into a very easy ROI and prioritized scenario set.
So with those reports, I as an individual might need to provide some information to the software robot, right?
So the first step is going to involve me as an individual and I am going to kick off the robot.
I'm going to tell the robot, Hey, here is the file that you need to base your report off of.
And that report might be something like an Excel spreadsheet,
it might be in the form of a file and might be even some plain text input
that I tell my software robot, Hey, you need to take this into account.
So after the robot gets the Excel spreadsheet, it's going to process it,
it's going to take the necessary actions and then maybe it's going to return it right back to me on my desktop, right?
So oftentimes those attendant automation scenarios might start and end with the individual seeing or getting some information.
Now, when we consider those scenarios, there are a couple of different things that are going to come into play with them.
The first is going to be, okay, well, how do those attendant scenarios oftentimes start?
So the first way that they oftentimes are going to start, it's going to be something like a file, right?
So we might provide a file like that scenario I just gave that has a spreadsheet or something of that nature.
Now, the next way it's going to be something such as manual input.
Now, for the manual input, we as an individual might kick off or tell the bot, Hey, I need you to begin running, right?
We might go to a launcher or website and kick it off and say, Hey, this is where I need my automation to begin helping me out.
Now that's going to be a form of manual input or intervention where the user provides some stuff,
and ultimately, what is most important is to remember that users oftentimes with attendant robots,
are going to be the ones that are kicking those off, right?
So the user is going to be that starting note or that starting point as the bot starts when the user wants it to start.
Now that's an example of an attended robot.
But what about unattended robot?
So an unattended robot in this context and scope of robotic process automation is going to be about a software robot.
And that software robot is going to essentially be able to
take and handle things such as batch processes, schedules, things of that nature with absolutely no human intervention.
So that's going to be a unattended robot, that's going to provide
a schedule or a known execution, a known execution where the bots going to pick it up and begin automating those kinds of things.
So let's take that scenario that we did earlier with the report
and we saw what it might look like in an attended sense, but what's it going to look like in an unattended sense?
Well, in an unattended sense, we're going to start very much in a slightly different way, right?
So instead of the person here that we would have kicking it off, instead we might have a schedule, right?
And for our schedule might kick off at a certain time.
Midnight on every Friday, I want to begin my report automation.
I want my software robot to go ahead and maybe scrape a Web site,
go to a certain file location on a server, whatever it might be,
I need my robot to go there, I need it to take some information
and I need it to go ahead and begin automating those components.
And then when that robot is done taking those pieces and automating them,
we oftentimes might see the software robot doing something like
emailing it out or sending a notification or pushing something a little bit further down the process workflow, right?
So they'll send a payload or something of that nature.
Now, when we think about unattended robots in comparison to attended robots, where we have things like the file,
the human intervention or the manual kickoff,
the unattended robots kind of invocation method, there's going to be some more autonomous things, right?
So we might see something such as a calendar schedule, right?
Hey, I need it to kick off on this day or at this time.
We might see it kick off on a series of batch items, right?
We got item one, item two, and item three
that might be connected to a execution queue or some sort of list that the robot is going to be monitoring.
Now, the final way that we oftentimes see unattended robots being used
is going to be through APIs, and APIs just being simple integration points with the software robot.
Now, along with all these scenarios,
you know, now that we've discussed attended and unattended robots and some of the ways that you can see the ROI,
the prioritization in the scenarios of when we should be using the different types of bots,
what's important is to know what are some limitations.
What does my business need to take into account when making that right decision?
So the first thing that we want our business to think about
is we want our business to think about what types of limitations can an unattended robot have?
So as far as a limitation that we might see is unattended robots are not able to take every single action that we would like.
What we mean by that is think of a banking process where we might use a hardware key
or some sort of password or something of that nature
that an individual doesn't know and might be generated by a physical key fob that they might have.
So in that kind of scenario, that would not be a good unattended automation scenario.
You would see the bot struggle, right, or it have an issue kind of transferring from that physicality of a device to the digital domain.
It would be a great opportunity for an attended automation where the manual input from a user is that password from the hardware key.
They provide it and the bot begins to automate and take those scenarios or take those executions that are needed.
Now, the other limitation that we need to be aware of is bots are not great at critical thinking.
What I mean by that is that bots oftentimes are going to struggle when we have to deal with things such as ...
when we have to deal with things such as reading a subject line of an email, right, or an IT Service management tool.
The critical thinking that a human is able to bring to that process where they're able to recognize,
"Hey, this is what that email wants me to do", or "This is what that ticket wants me to do",
is a great starting point for our software robot to work after we've identified that.
But before before we've successfully identified what kind of ticket, what kind of request is coming in through an email,
that's where bots kind of need some help with that additional fuzzy logic.
And there are ways that we can talk about that in other videos about A.I. and things of that nature.
Now, ultimately, when taking into account all these pieces, it's very important that the business gets the ROI that they need.
And the best way to get that ROI is by accurately prioritizing the scenarios,
understanding when you can use attended and unattended automation
and being able to implement them to get that value add as quickly as possible.
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