Sahiti Kappagantula

RPA Tutorial | Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for Beginners

Published Mar 18, 2019

RPA Tutorial

This RPA Tutorial blog will explore a technology that allows humans to configure a computer software or a robot to interpret the existing applications, manipulate data and communicate with various other systems.

What is Robotic Process Automation?

Consider an instance, where you want to publish your articles on various social groups at a specific time every day. Would you wish to do it manually yourself or would you appoint an employee whose sole job would be to publish articles everyday?

This would cost you a lot, and also would be tiresome for that employee. Isn’t it?

Instead, you could just make a robot do it for you!

You could just configure a computer software or a robot to interpret the human actions and imitate them.

So, here you could just configure a robot to publish the articles every day at the mentioned time. That would not only cost you less but would also be less tiresome.

So, mimicking human actions to perform a sequence of steps that lead to a meaningful activity, without any human intervention is known as Robotic Process Automation.

RPA Tutorial for Beginners | Edureka

Now, you might have a question, on how exactly is automation different from robotic process automation?

Automation v/s RPA

Automation existed even before RPA came into the picture. Though multiple overlaps exist between these two, unlike RPA, Automation is the invention of a new technology to solve real-life problems with the need for human intervention.

Refer to the table below to look into the differences between Automation and RPA.

Now, that you know the basic differences between automation & RPA, let us look into the different phases of an RPA life cycle.

Lifecycle of RPA

A typical life cycle of RPA has 4 phases. Analysis, Bot Development, Testing, and Support & Maintenance.

Analysis – Business teams & RPA Architects work together to analyze a business process for RPA development.
Bot Development – Developer teams start working on developing the automated workflows for the requirements in a distinct development environment.
Testing – Run testing cycles such as SDLC to analyze the quality and correct defects.
Support & Maintenance -After the development & testing phases, a bot enters the maintenance phases in which it provides continuous support and helps in the immediate defect resolution.

After knowing the methodology, you should also know how to implement RPA. Well, the answer to this is by using the various RPA tools available in the market.

RPA Tools

There are numerous tools available in the market, each providing various functionalities according to your need. But, the top 3 tools in today’s market are the trio( UiPath , Blue Prism , and Automation Anywhere ).

Refer to the table below for the comparison between these 3 tools.

Advantages of RPA

The listed below are a few benefits of RPA.

Multiple processes can be automated at once.
Cost cutting technology and enhances resource optimization.
Doesn’t require prior programming knowledge.
Supports and allows regular compliance process, with error-free auditing.
Easy to model, scale, and deploy the automation process.
Makes it easy to track defects.
Continous builds & release management.
No training period is required as it works without human intervention

It’s a known fact that during the last few years, RPA has emerged as one of the most disruptive technology. Although there is a lot of buzz surrounding RPA, there are many misconceptions still abound with RPA.

So, let us now look into the myths about RPA.

Myths about RPA

Listed below are the myths about RPA and the truth behind them.

1. Robots will replace humans.

It’s a known fact that various business processes can be automated with RPA. This might raise a question to all human minds, will robots replicate humans?

Let me tell you guys that these technologies are not entirely independent as of now. They need humans for high-level thinking. At the same time, RPA allows employees to increase their efficiency and productivity. The manual workforce will be definitely reduced, but it will never replace the complete manual workforce.

2. RPA software robots are 100% accurate.

As all of us know that robots have no common sense. They will do as you make them do. So, if there is a flaw in the robot’s framework then it will allow an obvious error to crawl into the instructions provided to the robots. They will replicate mistakes that are present in a workflow unless someone stops it.

Just to avoid this kind of blunders, we should ensure that the processes are optimized and the bots should be monitored at initial stages of automation.

3. RPA will not work in small industries.

A common misconception is that RPA is used only by large scaling productive industries. However, RPA can be applied to almost any repetitive, rules-based, and high-volume business activity in any type of industry.

Usage of RPA

Apart from imitating human actions, repeating high volume tasks and performing multiple tasks at once. RPA can also be used to do the following:

Fig 1: Usage of RPA in various fields – RPA Tutorial

Automate the Report Generation – Makes accurate and timely reports by automating the process of extracting data.
Reduce the Gap between systems – Reduces the gap between systems by preventing custom implementations.
Assurance of quality – Delivers quality product by performing testing and automating customer use case scenarios.
Cross-check information – Data across various systems is cross- verified to validate the information.
Migration of Data – Unlike traditional systems, RPA allows automated data migration through systems.
Forecast Revenue – Updates financial statements to predict revenue forecast automatically.
Virtual system integration – Automated systems transfer data between disparate and legacy systems by connecting them at user interface level.

Industries using RPA

RPA is used in various kinds of industries to help humans automate their work, and simultaneously speed up the work in this scaling industry. Refer to the image below for examples of the few applications of RPA.