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What is Robotic Process Automation?

Nowadays, there is almost no aspect of our lives that is unaffected by automation. Some examples include washing machines, microwave ovens, autopilot mode for automobiles and airplanes, Nestlé using Robots to sell coffee pods in stores in Japan, Walmart testing drones to deliver products in the US, our bank checks being sorted using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and ATMs.

The term automation is derived from the Greek words autos meaning self, and motos, meaning moving. It is believed to have been coined in the 1940s when there was an increased use of automated devices in mechanized production lines in the Ford Motor Company.

Automation, in simple words, is technology that deals with the application of machines and computers to the production of goods and services. This helps in getting work done with little or no human assistance.

With the advent of computers, many software systems were developed to accomplish tasks that were previously done on paper to manage businesses, or not being done at all due to the lack of tools. Some of these are bookkeeping, inventory management, and communications management.

There is also a type of software that ties these systems and people together in workflows, known as Business Process Management (BPM) tools. This software has been developed for areas such as record systems, engagement systems, insight systems, and innovation systems. These mostly replicate processes in real-life scenarios.

In the digital world, automation and software development are two different terms. Very often, however, one is confused with the other. If some portion of a workflow can be programmed to be done without human intervention, it can be called automation. For example, in order to pass any invoice in a payment system, Ms. Julia at ABC organization needs to check that goods have been delivered and recorded in an inventory management system. This is a cumbersome job, as it has to be done for each and every invoice. Also, for larger organizations, more people are needed to do this check on computers. However, Jack, an application developer, proposes that he can integrate those two systems using database integration techniques. He will write a procedure that will fetch data from the inventory management system and automate the check of receivables.

Developing an inventory management software system is called software development, while programming a step so that no more human intervention is required is called automation.

In this chapter, you will learn about the basic concepts of automation and Robotic process automation.

Scope and techniques of automation

There are various techniques used and available to automate steps and processes in an organization where software systems are being used to accomplish certain tasks. Before we look at these techniques however, let us see what can be automated and what should be automated.

What should be automated?

There are a few aspects that have to be taken into consideration for choosing automation candidates. The following processes should be automated:

Repetitive steps
Time-consuming steps
High-risk tasks
Tasks with a low-quality yield
Tasks involving multiple people and multiple steps
And everything else!

We have found out what should be automated. Now the question arises what can be automated?

What can be automated?

In order to automate something, it needs to have the following characteristics:

Well defined and rule-based steps
Logical
An input to the task can be diverted to the software system
Input can be deciphered by software systems with available techniques
The output system is accessible
Benefits are more than the cost

Techniques of automation

There are various techniques available for automation and programmers have been using them for years to increase efficiency in enterprises:

Custom software: Developing new software to perform repetitive tasks.
Runbook: Runbooks are typically used for IT-based operations. They are a compilation of a set of commands or tasks that are performed for maintenance and other types of activities. Runbooks can be offline as well, often referred to as run commands for performing sets of tasks.
Batch: Batch files used to very popular. They used to compile a sequence of commands that could be run by a single click or command. They can also be scheduled to be run at a specific time using the scheduler.
Wrapper: Wraps around existing software or hosts client applications. The wrapper monitors activities in a client app and performs actions based on rules.

For example:

- Putting validation on top of a mainframe application using hummingbird
- Hosting a website inside a shell, navigation, and actions
Browser automation: Greasemonkey and many other web macro software helped in browser-based automation. It can be used to read from a website and save to a database. It can also write to fields based on rules. Using this technique, a whole website can be changed, and components can be added or removed from the website. Sometimes, it is also referred to as web scripting or web injections.
Desktop automation: Traditionally, desktop automation used to mean that multiple screens on a desktop were woven together to present a single screen, and if there was some data transfer from one screen to another, it could be done automatically. Recently, assisted Robotics process automation has also been considered for desktop automation by some companies.
Database/web service integration: In database integration, we read/write to a client database directly. In web service integration, we communicate with the client system using a web service:

Key benefits

A beginner's guide to learn Robotic Process Automation and its impact on the modern world

Design, test, and perform enterprise automation task with UiPath

Create Automation apps and deploy them to all the computers in your department

Description

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) enables automating business processes using software robots. Software robots interpret, trigger responses, and communicate with other systems just like humans do. Robotic processes and intelligent automation tools can help businesses improve the effectiveness of services faster and at a lower cost than current methods. This book is the perfect start to your automation journey, with a special focus on one of the most popular RPA tools: UiPath. Learning Robotic Process Automation takes you on a journey from understanding the basics of RPA to advanced implementation techniques. You will become familiar with the UiPath interface and learn about its workflow. Once you are familiar with the environment, we will get hands-on with automating applications such as Excel, SAP, Windows and web applications, screen and web scraping, working with user events, and we'll cover exceptions and debugging. By the end of the book, you'll not only be able to build your first software robot, but you'll also wire it up to perform various automation tasks with the help of best practices for robot deployment.

What you will learn

Understand RPA

Learn UiPath programming techniques to deploy robot configurations

Explore various data extraction techniques

Learn about integrations with various popular applications such as SAP and MS Office

Debug a programmed robot including logging and exception handling

Maintain code version and source control

Deploy and control Bots with UiPath Orchestrator

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