Business Info - issue 138

01732 759725 17 magazine RPA prescribed steps; they can collect data from multiple sources; they can move information between applications; and they can do this 24/7, with complete accuracy. However, they are not qualified to make value judgments, for which human input is still required, and are unsuitable for processes with too many steps or too many applications. Attended or unattended? There are two types of RPA – unattended and attended. These can be used separately or together. n Attended. With attended (or assisted) RPA, bots work in partnership with human workers. For this reason, they are sometimes referred to as personal assistant bots or software assistants. They run on the user’s PC; work with the same applications as the user; and are activated by the user pressing an embedded button in an application or by a trigger in a process or workflow. This is the entry-level option for many RPA deployments. The close link between workers and robots; its applicability to existing workflows and processes; compatibility with the existing IT infrastructure; easily identifiable productivity benefits; and a relatively quick ROI mean that attended RPA is often implemented by a specific department or individual (with or without the close involvement of the IT department). Attended RPA is typically used to perform routine, repetitive tasks within a process that involves human input. It completes these more quickly and with greater accuracy than a human can and enables employees to focus on parts of the process that require intelligence and judgment. For this reason, attended RPA is widely used in customer-facing roles or self-service applications. In a call centre, for example, bots can access multiple applications to retrieve data needed to answer a customer enquiry, saving an agent from having to toggle between screens or copy information from one application to another while on the phone to a customer. n Unattended. As the name suggests, these robots tend to work in the background and reside on servers. They can be monitored and controlled centrally and can even request assistance, but typically operate independently of human workers. Because they start automatically (according to a schedule or an event e.g. when a file is received in a watched folder or drive), unattended bots can operate outside office hours, 24/7. Unattended RPA is commonly used for collecting large volumes of data and distributing it to other applications. The ability to push and pull data makes it particularly suitable for applications like loans processing, invoice processing and account openings. AI & machine learning On its own, RPA has significant benefits for automating individual tasks, but leading RPA platforms are increasingly adding machine learning and natural language processing capabilities, which, as well as blurring the lines between RPA and artificial intelligence (AI), are further eroding distinctions between human and machine work. Combining RPA with intelligence enables organisations to automate not just a process but an entire workflow, significantly increasing the potential benefits of automation and the digitisation of business processes. For example, the integration of text analytics in Kofax KAPOW makes it possible to automate the extraction of data from unstructured and non- standard documents, such as forms, email messages and invoices, and can include basic decision-making. A bot could sense when a new invoice has arrived, use intelligence to find the information it needs in an unstructured document and, if something is missing, e.g. a PO number, look for it in another system. This shows a degree of problem-solving that can significantly reduce the number of exceptions that require human involvement to resolve. As the technology develops and RPA platforms incorporate more sophisticated AI and machine learning capabilities, organisations will be able to automate more varied activities. For the time being, there is still continued...

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