It's Still Up to Humans

Ultimately, it still falls to humans to define the workflow up front. Humans are also in charge of process recording and writing and editing scripts. Sometimes IT sets up the flow and sometimes flow-chart-like choices are available so that digital citizens can develop the process flow. The most difficult aspect of reproducing business processes for automation is defining what the business processes are to begin with and why they exist. Sometimes process mining tools can help with this and sometimes it has to be done manually.

Choosing an RPA product and vendor is not easy. All vendors have priority file structures and there are no standards for RPA. Careful evaluation up front and doing a proof of concept can save pain and money. Before committing to anything do the homework because changing your mind can be a disaster and be very expensive. Look at the features and look at the work environment without rose-colored glasses. Build sample scripts and create a proof of concept for as many possible scenarios as is realistic.

Generally, these bots will work off of limits and probability rules. Somewhere between those boundaries is room for human judgment, and it is important that the RPA tool recognizes this and is capable of submitting the case for human review. Testing and process evaluation up front and in depth are essential. Documenting each step of the RPA process including creating each bot might help. Remember, with RPA, not AI, humans are in charge of defining the flow.

New vendors for RPA are springing up all the time. The challenges for organizations are usually internal. RPA will facilitate the automation of flow between existing infrastructure and systems, but humans have to figure out what that is. The main reason for implementing RPA is to maximize profit and minimize workload. Implementing RPA can become a large-scale, long-term nightmare if the processes and testing are not done well.

Another challenge to RPA success is the systems it tries to link together automatically. It is critical the business has systems that can uphold the RPA tools so that accurate output can be generated from them. Timely updates and monitoring are necessary because the technologies move quickly, and RPA should be able to withstand changes. RPA failures can come in many forms like bot failure, system error or unexpected random issues.