FAQ

RPA is a software solution that does not involve physical hardware. It works by performing human-like actions on predictable tasks such as copying data from a document to a system (i.e., from a quote to an order), collecting data, generating reports, etc. RPA can perform repetitive tasks that a human would otherwise perform on a computer system. The technology has matured to the point where accuracy and speed have become essential characteristics. It continues to evolve and simplify the effort of creating and deploying solutions.

There is a wide range of RPA vendors and the price range varies depending on the functionality and complexity of the software. Solutions can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars for simple solutions to enterprise level budgets for global companies.

There has been a lot of hype around RPA implementations. They can be deployed in reasonable "chunks" or be large projects with teams of people working on a delivery. As with any good business project, it's about managing the risks, the benefits and focusing on what will produce a reasonable return on investment - the 80:20 rule applies as much to RPA as anything else. Using a proof of concept (POC) can be an effective way to ensure that there is alignment between what is possible and what is practical.

RPA can reduce costs. RPA processes can run 24/7 and are extremely fast and accurate. It's not about eliminating humans, but enabling them to solve problems and add value. If the 80% standard is taken care of by an RPA robot, then the human effort can be focused on the remaining 20%. RPA is best viewed as a way to enable a workforce to do more, not as a way to replace people.

All major management consulting firms have RPA practices. At Sophia , we can help with the technical aspects, but we know that clients know their business better than any consultant.

RPA is an acronym that stands for Robotic Process Automation. To implement an RPA solution, the RPA software observes the user perform a task in the application's graphical user interface (GUI), and then provides a solution by repeating those tasks directly in the GUI using a software robot. This simplifies system programming and increases productivity while reducing costs. The software robot is also known as a "Bot". The software bot takes the specific example it has been shown and a developer can create the generic ability to perform the task with different data values.

RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation. It is a technology that automates the tasks that a person normally performs on a computer system by reading the screen, typing on the keyboard and clicking and moving the mouse. The implementation uses a software robot or "Bot" to perform the activity. Depending on the configuration, the actions of the software bot may or may not be visible on a physical screen. RPA is often used with "virtual desktops" to perform activities without user intervention. This is often called an "unassisted" process.

You should be interested in RPA because it is one of the fastest growing areas of the technology industry. RPA can increase the productivity, efficiency and quality of your business. Software robots can cost as little as £1 per hour, making them a cost-effective alternative to humans working on computer systems. There are other benefits to using RPA that are outlined in the RPA Benefits infographic.

RPA has been implemented by many large companies around the world. While the technology initially required high volume processing to justify the costs, the products have evolved such that the solutions are financially attractive to organizations of all sizes.

In some respects, they are very similar. In general, macros are considered ways to perform a set of actions within an application. For example, an Excel macro works within an Excel spreadsheet. A script can be a "Windows" script that performs actions. The script is deployed on a specific PC. RPA functionality varies by software product (e.g., UiPath, Automation Anywhere), but they can all perform the activities of an Excel macro and a Windows script. RPA offers greater functionality, actions can be performed in multiple applications and are not limited to a single application as with a macro. RPA allows to read information from screens, which is almost impossible for a scripting language that can only get "response codes".

Historically, RPA has been used primarily in finance departments, for invoice processing, accounts payable, month-end reporting, reconciliations, etc. The technology has also been widely used in HR departments to perform tasks related to employee onboarding, leave management, GDPR-related requests, etc. Other sales and marketing departments are particularly using RPA as part of the company's CRM usage. Logistics departments use the technology for transportation paperwork, licenses, permits, etc.

Historically, RPA has been used primarily in finance departments, for invoice processing, accounts payable, month-end reporting, reconciliations, etc. The technology has also been widely used in HR departments to perform tasks related to employee onboarding, leave management, GDPR-related requests, etc. Other sales and marketing departments are particularly using RPA as part of the company's CRM usage. Logistics departments use the technology for transportation paperwork, licenses, permits, etc.

The marketing of software vendors can confuse the issue, but they are different and complementary capabilities. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability to determine an answer to a question, at least in its simplest definition. A typical AI product uses lots of data about a situation to determine what normally happens in all possible scenarios. It finds patterns in the data. Once that pattern is established, when the AI is asked a question, it uses that "intelligence" to determine how to answer. The match will have a "confidence factor". This will never be 100%. Just like humans, AI works on the basis of an accuracy threshold. When a new invoice arrives, the AI is able to determine that it is an invoice and thus extract the name and address of the supplier, the amount of the invoice, etc. Robotic process automation (RPA) is the ability to perform actions that simulate a person working on a computer. For example, an RPA software robot could be configured to open an Outlook inbo , find new emails, download invoices attached to the emails, transmit each invoice to the AI, and use the extracted information returned by the AI to update a financial system with the invoice details.

How digital workers (or software robots) are configured determines how staff can initiate them and how they interact with them. For example, there may be an icon on the computer desktop to initiate a digital worker, or a combination of keys on the keyboard. The data sent to the software robot and the actions it takes can all be configured. The actions taken by a software robot can be visible to a person working with the computer, the display can change and the person can have to wait for the actions to finish, or the software robot can finish its actions in the background with a simple message displayed at the end.

Digital workers interact with computer applications by simulating the actions of people. Digital workers can use the same graphical user interface that a person would use if they were performing the actions in question. Since no modification of the applications is required, it is possible for people or digital workers to perform the activity, which means there is no risk of compromising the applications.

It is possible to implement as many digital workers (or software robots) as needed in an enterprise. The challenge is to utilize the capacity provided by each digital worker. A digital worker who can work 24/7 and is a software robot can interact with computer applications at ten times the speed of a person. Compared to a person working 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday, a single digital worker can do 42 times the work of a person! The organization of a digital worker's workload and the restrictions imposed by vendor licenses may mean that this theoretical capacity is not often achieved, but it illustrates the potential.

There are academic definitions, but in the context of robotic process automation, a software robot is code capable of simulating a person "reading" from a computer screen, typing on a keyboard, moving around, and clicking a mouse. It is this ability to simulate, combined with the ability to follow a set of instructions, that makes a software robot capable of performing a wide range of activities on computer applications using standard software such as browsers, Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel and working with documents such as PDF files.

Software robots do what they are told to do. Robots are capable of performing repetitive tasks when all processing logic is determined by value-based decisions and all information is available in digital form (e.g., e-mail, spreadsheets, browser pages for customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, finance). By using a software robot, it is possible to "remove the robot's actions from the human workload". Typically, this repetitive work is described as mundane, boring, or "boring", meaning that people don't like doing it.

A number of software companies offer the ability to create robots. Sophia IA works with UiPath, which is widely regarded as one of the top three vendors. Sophia IA works also with other reputable vendors include Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere. As a partner with these brands, Sophia IA has consultants with the skills and knowledge to configure the software robot to perform the specific tasks required by a professional user.

Several software companies, such as Blueprism and UiPath, provide a wide range of free educational materials. This allows anyone interested to invest time and learn the capabilities of software robots and how to configure them to perform professional tasks. Consulting firms such as Sophia IA have staff with the knowledge and experience to develop and implement software robots. The industry tends to offer business users the ability to create "simple" robots without extensive training.

Software robots do what they are told to do. Robots are effective at performing repetitive tasks when all processing logic is driven by value-based decisions and all information is available in digital form (e.g., email, spreadsheets, browser pages for customer relationship management, ERP, finance). Creating a robot requires effort that must be weighed against how often the robot can perform and save a user's work. The more often the robot can be used, the more efficient it is for the company to create a robot. This is why the use of software robots has begun in large global companies that undertake enough business volume to make automation with a robot cost effective. Now that software robot technology has matured, it is easier and less expensive to create software robots, thus meeting the needs of smaller companies with less business volume.

Software robots will impact many jobs. They are often called "digital workers" because they can perform tasks currently done by people. Software robots are very good at repetitive tasks, but they can't do everything. Exception handling, which requires judgments, is best handled by staff. With the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) alongside software robots, further automation is possible, but complex tasks will still need to be performed by humans. Experience has shown that the introduction of software robots improves the work activities of staff. The staff's knowledge about the business can be better utilized and tasks become more interesting.

A software robot (aka "Bot") can perform repetitive tasks both quickly and accurately. In general, a robot is ten times faster than a human at performing the same actions on computer applications. For repetitive, mundane tasks, humans typically make about 4% errors in a reasonable amount of work. A robot will simply repeat its actions with 100% accuracy. While many robotic process automation (RPA) initiatives start with a focus on cost reduction, experience shows that the most important value is freeing up staff time to do better work. Software robots offer a large work capacity (1 robot capacity is equivalent to 42 employees) and can offer significant cost savings.

RPA (Robotic Process Automation) simulates the work done by a person using one or more computer applications. The activity of the software robot leads to the same result as if a person had done the work. Automation can be achieved without a robot by making changes to a computer application, which also eliminates the need for human involvement, but completely eliminating humans through automation is very difficult when multiple computer applications are part of the process (e.g., Microsoft Outlook, CRM and ServiceNow).

RPA software provides generic capabilities such as the ability to read Outlook emails, the ability to update Salesforce CRM, etc. It is the RPA developer who creates the instructions for the robotic software deployed in a robotic automation process to perform a specific task in a specific way. To perform the deployment, an RPA developer will use the software's "Designer" tools to provide some configuration and create detailed instructions in the form of script code.

RPA software vendors such as BluePrism and UiPath have enhanced their products to enable business users to create bots. UiPath offers StudioX, which provides a set of features to define a robot's activity without the need to write code. The more complex the robot's activity, the more it is necessary to use specialized consultants like the Sophia IA team to develop the code. The more complex the robot activity, the more code development by specialized consultants like the Sophia IA team is necessary.

There are two aspects to implementing RPA. The first is the business analysis activity to identify the process that needs to be automated, ensuring that it is a suitable candidate. The second aspect is the software robot technology that requires installation, configuration and development of the script to perform the business task. Sophia IA consultants provide this capability.

An RPA analyst works with business teams to identify and define a business process suitable for automation. This includes defining the scope of automation, happy path processing and exceptions. In addition to looking at the specifics of automation, the business analyst typically looks at the impact of automation on the rest of the business. This includes how people will interact with the robot, how exceptions will be handled, etc.

An RPA Center of Excellence is often created by organizations as part of the deployment of robotic process automation (RPA) within the enterprise. This is a group of people who have the knowledge and experience to create software robots to automate a business process, as well as an understanding of how to effectively implement the solution within an organization from a change management perspective. This core group can learn from each implementation, determine the correct role to play in setting standards, and have an overview of the implementation strategy, in order to work with the different business areas on their specific automation needs..

As software robots are deployed and the tasks they are to perform are defined, there is a need to continuously monitor and manage them. An RPA Operations Center is the team responsible for the continuous operation of the robots. For reasons of segregation of duties, this group is often different from the teams that develop the robot scripts that define the execution. The focus is on operation rather than business functionality. The team is typically responsible for software updates, security policy enforcement, resilience and recovery, performance, and monitoring.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a broad concept that refers to a machine that mimics the cognitive functions that humans associate with the human mind, such as learning, problem solving and reasoning. The term "artificial intelligence" is now getting a lot of marketing hype when it is used for less sophisticated challenges such as setting up a question-and-answer mechanism.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is generally classified into the following categories: (1) Narrow artificial intelligence (NAI). Sometimes called "weak AI," AI specializes in a single domain. (2) General Artificial Intelligence (GAI). Sometimes called strong AI or human-level AI, AGI refers to a computer that is as smart as a human being in all areas. (3) Artificial superintelligence (ASI), an intellect that is smarter than the best human brains in virtually every area. Today, almost all products and solutions advertised as AI fall into the ANI category, meaning they are designed to solve a specific problem or type of problem.

Leading RPA tools, such as UiPAth, come pre-integrated with AI platforms, allowing AI decisio -making to be integrated into existing business processes. RPA software bots automate the transmission of the question or problem to the AI software and use the results of the AI analysis to complete the business process.

Machine learning is a process that improves AI analysis of a problem by providing feedback on the acceptance of the result. RPA software robots are an effective way to submit the problem to the AI software and use the result. For ML to be implemented, the subsequent acceptance of the AI result must be captured in the business process, and this acceptance information must be part of a feedback loop used by the ML software to determine how to improve the AI model to produce higher quality results. Since the RPA software bots are working with the output of the AI analysis, they are also well positioned to provide the acceptance information to the ML software.

Natural language processing (NLP) is a way for computers to analyze, understand, and infer the meaning of human language in an intelligent and useful way. They do this by examining text to determine "intent", "objects" and "actions". RPA software bots can use NLP engines to examine information and use the results to determine the actions of a business process.

Chatbots use natural language processing (NLP) to understand and build a dialogue with a person, usually through a website. When a chatbot determines that an action is needed, it passes the information to an RPA software bot to perform that action as part of a business process. They are different and perform different functions.

Yes, as the RPA market has become more mature, a number of open source RPA software bot solutions have become available, including "G1ANT" and "Robin".

By enhancing and repositioning its "Flow" product as an RPA solution, Microsoft is adding credibility to the RPA market and setting a benchmark for all independent RPA vendors to surpass.

It is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the automation of a process. This combination of AI and RPA is sometimes referred to as "intelligent automation" or "cognitive automation." Rather than strictly value-based decisions driving the operation of an automated process, AI is used to make the decisions, allowing for greater complexity of criteria. In any implementation, the AI model will need to be trained in the correct decisions based on all available factors, so that when presented with the values of the factors in a new case, it will be able to advise the correct decision. There are things that people don't immediately realize require AI, such as document recognition. This is a key requirement in many processes, but without AI capability, it can be difficult to recognize similar documents.

While robotic process automation is the use of software robots to replace repetitive manual tasks on computer applications, hyperautomation is the implementation of multiple technologies such as AI, RPA, and machine learning (ML) to automate the majority of processes using "humans in the loop" only when absolutely necessary. Business processes are completed, but the amount of human involvement is minimal. This could be described as maximum automation.

Of course, this depends on the processes to be automated. The related question of how long it takes to automate a process has the same answer. For practical reasons, RPA should first be used to implement the "Happy Path" activity on a simple process. By taking this approach, the RPA process from initial scoping thoughts to implementation to execution can be short, in many cases a few days (1 to 10). There may be separate activity to deploy the robot software in a development and production environment, but this should be accounted for independently of the process activity. This rapid development provides experience in the operation of the robot, which can feed into a plan and decisions about how to improve the Happy Path to handle more exceptions or to use the development activity to provide Happy Path solutions for other business processes. Automating parts of entire business processes may not be perfect, but such an approach can deliver benefits quickly and is more aligned with the "Agile" style of repeated, incremental delivery of modern IT than some advocates of large project solutions. Each development iteration (or sprint) should be short, typically 10 days, and then taking into account separate testing and release checks, it is normally possible to deliver improved RPA software robots every 20 days or less. There is one important aspect to consider when implementing RPA, and that is automating a process that is already underway. This is different from delivering a new IT system. The impact on users will also be different in that they will be able to stop doing certain things and will not need to learn new skills in most cases...

RPA is used to automate business processes that are run on computer systems. Rather than having people work on repetitive business processes, software robots are deployed to perform the tasks of simulating screen reading, simulating keyboard typing, and simulating mouse clicks. Robot simulation removes the effort of the person. Automated activities can include anything a person does on a computer, but to be effective they must be repetitive. RPA was first adopted by multinational companies because their volume of work justified the investment, but the technology has matured and become affordable for small, medium, and small and medium-sized businesses (mid-market) and large national companies.

RPA was initially adopted by large companies because the volume of work justified the investment, but the technology has matured and become affordable for SMEs, SMBs, and large domestic companies. Although RPA has been adopted primarily in the financial sector, the technology can be applied to any business. As a result, users can now be found in every industry: government, accounting, distribution, energy, insurance, legal, logistics, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, retail, supply chain, services, telecommunications, transportation, etc.

RPA is designed to automate business processes that are run on computer systems, it is used to reduce manual efforts and thus improve productivity. As software robots do the repetitive work instead of humans, human error is eliminated, which improves the quality of the output. Since RPA software robots are capable of working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, restructuring the work organization can be considered.

RPA is designed to automate business processes and can provide significant benefits. The best results are achieved when the process is stable and the computer applications with which the robot interacts are not subject to change. Updating RPA software bots to accommodate any changes in business processes and any variations in the computer applications used will incur a support cost. If the RPA design is robust and appropriate metrics have been included in the design, the cost of support should not be higher than other IT solutions. RPA will generally bring more benefits than problems. It is important to remember that humans managing business processes make mistakes that need to be corrected, so any problems with software robots should be considered in that context.

Digital workers (or software robots) are capable of performing repetitive tasks with speed and precision. These tasks are normally considered mundane, boring and tedious by people. As digital workers do the routine work, they can focus on higher value-added activities: handling exceptions, being creative, performing ad hoc activities, adding emotions such as empathy when engaging with others, actually being people and not behaving like "Robots".