How can you ensure high-quality RPA output?
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Robotic process automation (RPA) is a powerful tool for streamlining and optimizing business processes. However, to achieve the best results, you need to ensure that your RPA output is high-quality and reliable. In this article, you will learn six practical tips to improve the quality of your RPA output and avoid common pitfalls.
Before you start designing and developing your RPA solution, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and what are the expectations and standards for your output. You should define the scope, goals, success criteria, and quality indicators for your RPA project. You should also document the inputs, outputs, and workflows of your existing process and identify any gaps, errors, or risks that need to be addressed.
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Shibi Kuniyal, MBA
MBA | Ex- NatWest Group | Intelligent Automation | UiPath | Automation and Robotics Implementation | Project Management | Change Management | Banking Operations | Private Banking
1) Choosing the appropriate RPA tool that matches the complexity and specifications of the process is crucial. 2) Thorough analysis of the intended automated process, including understanding potential business and system exceptions. 3) Implement an effective change management process for the RPA solution to handle updates, modifications, and new versions. 4) It is important to have a strong backup plan to reduce any potential downtime in the event of unexpected issues. This can help ensure that business operations continue smoothly and minimize any negative impact on productivity.
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Mahboob Hassan
RPA Specialist | UiPath, Automation Anywhere | Test Analyst | Playwright, Cypress, Appium | Empowering business Operations and Delivering Quality Solutions
Shift-left approach while adopting agile development methodology rather than adopting any conventional development methodology ensure the high-quality RPA output. Involvement of business users (SMEs) at early stages and in each sprint review meeting helps in identifying if anything is a miss rather to address at the end of the project that eventually increasing the cost due to lot of re-work. Since Agile methodology aids shift-left approach so, identifying and resolving bugs as early as possible will not only reduce the development cost but also improve the quality outcomes.
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John Joffin
RPA Tech Lead @TCS | UiPath Certified | Automation Anywhere Certified | .Net Developer
To achieve consistently high-quality outputs from RPA implementations : RPA Tool Selection: Choose the most suitable RPA tool that aligns seamlessly with the specific requirements of the automation project. Exception Handling: Implement robust exception handling mechanisms to effectively manage both anticipated (business and technical) and unexpected exceptions. Modular Workflow Design:Modular approach to workflow creation, enabling effortless adaptation to ad hoc changes without extensive rework. Scenario Coverage: Ensure that the automation covers all conceivable scenarios within the process. Exhaustive Testing Looping Optimization Exception Notification Custom Programming Avoidance
When you build your RPA solution, you should follow the best practices and standards for RPA development and testing. You should use a consistent and logical naming convention, modularize and reuse your code, comment and document your logic, and apply error handling and logging mechanisms. You should also follow a structured testing approach, such as unit testing, integration testing, and user acceptance testing, to verify and validate your RPA output.
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Gabriel Archanjo
Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at BotCity RPA Platform
Since RPA usually deals with third-party systems out of our control, it is essential to have a good monitoring and notification system. The RPA team needs to take action quickly as some system or API was updated. The time response to those changes will affect the automation availability, SLA and SLO.
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Deepika Damodharan, MBA
Program Manager - Intelligent Automation
In my experience, amongst multiple factors listed here, the KEY to a high quality solution is the Design. Spending adequate time to design the process - answering your whats, hows, and whens of Process-System-People-Technology would automatically resolve the problems in the current process and ensure an unbreakable future state process. Make sure all the what-if’s are addressed in the most optimized way to gain efficiencies. Do not look at solving a problem with a tool and its features in mind.
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Anand P G
Leveraging the best practices and lessons learned will help us to predict and mitigate of risks by providing crucial, proven frameworks which will help to ensure success on future engagements. 1. DO A COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS – RPA should be pragmatic.🤐 2. Follow an approved software development lifecycle 3. Build for others and leverage what others have built 4. Queue up 5. Wait for things intelligently 6. Nobody is perfect – plan for errors 7. Resiliency builds credibility 8. Make it easy for others to understand your work 9. Measure your performance 10. Control and monitor your bots as you would any workforce 11. Safeguard your data
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Another way to ensure high-quality RPA output is to implement quality checks and controls throughout your RPA process. You should design your RPA solution to perform data validation, data cleansing, data transformation, and data reconciliation tasks. You should also use checkpoints, alerts, and reports to monitor and measure your RPA output and performance. You should also establish a quality assurance team or function to review and audit your RPA output and ensure compliance with the requirements and standards.
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Yong Heng Michael Tan
Educator, Practitioner and Researcher in Intelligent Automation
Many factors contribute to high quality RPA output, quality checks, or testing, is certainly one of them. It can be complex and tedious to do this correctly, but it needs to be done. To do that, we need to come out meaningful test cases, identify as many possible system and business exceptions, and finally test them. When testing, we need to check that the entire data lifecycle, from being extracted to enter into the final system are done correctly. The robots need to be tested in different environment too. High volume of Hypercare operations should be planned for as well. Strong production support when going live is another critical consideration.
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Sainath S.
RPA Consultant || GenAI || ML/AI Aspirant
Rigorous testing is crucial. Test the automation extensively to identify and fix errors. Include unit testing, integration testing, and end-to-end testing to ensure the RPA performs as expected.
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Praneashram (Ram) Dhuraimurugan
Tesla | American Airlines | MS IE at Purdue | Lean Six Sigma Green Belt | Operations & Supply Chain | Data & Decision making |
Implementing RPA in multiple progressive phases would be a key element to reliability. In each phase, it is certain that different challenges would arise and solving them on those stages helps build a steong foundation for the automation and build on from there.
Once you have deployed your RPA solution, you should not stop there. You should continuously optimize and refine your RPA solution to improve its efficiency, effectiveness, and quality. You should collect and analyze feedback, data, and metrics from your RPA output and identify any issues, bottlenecks, or opportunities for improvement. You should also update and maintain your RPA solution to adapt to any changes in the business environment, process, or technology.
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Rishi Agrawal
Digital Transformation, AI, Data & Analytics Leader | Educationist, Speaker & Mentor | SVP & CTO @3i-Infotech
RPA should be have learning and continuous improvement which lead to optimise and refine the automation solution to provide the best solution for the given process to have best outcome and optimised the return. There are multiple ways to achieve the outcome e.g. Automate AS IS and keep optimise based on process outcome data and add alternate flows. Another way is to first optimise the process then Automate but can have multiple iterations to correct it further.
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Deepak Rai
2 Million YouTube views | Author | 3x UiPath MVP | Corporate Trainer | Atlassian Leader | Influencer | Technology Expert | Leader | Business Strategist | Coach | Content Creator
Optimizing and refining a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution is a crucial step to ensure that it continues to deliver value and efficiency. Here are some thoughts and considerations for improving your RPA implementation: Identify the Right Processes Enhance Process Understanding Optimize Workflow Data Quality Security and Compliance Monitoring and Analytics Remember that optimizing and refining your RPA solution is an ongoing process. Regularly assessing its performance, incorporating feedback, and adapting to changes in your organization's needs will help ensure the long-term success of your RPA implementation.
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Chandra Shekhar Pujari
Project Lead at Provana
Certainly after the deployment of the automation solution we should focus on code letency and we should find out the ways to overcome those.
One of the key factors that affect the quality of your RPA output is the level of skill and knowledge of your RPA users. You should train and empower your RPA users to use your RPA solution correctly and confidently. You should provide them with adequate guidance, support, and resources to operate, troubleshoot, and enhance your RPA solution. You should also encourage them to share their feedback, suggestions, and best practices with other RPA users and stakeholders.
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Deepak Rai
2 Million YouTube views | Author | 3x UiPath MVP | Corporate Trainer | Atlassian Leader | Influencer | Technology Expert | Leader | Business Strategist | Coach | Content Creator
Training and empowering your Robotic Process Automation (RPA) users are essential for the successful adoption and utilization of RPA within your organization.
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Leonardo Soares de Queiroz
Developer RPA | Microsoft MCT Low Code Application | RPA Analyst | Automation Anywhere Certified Master | Power Platform PL-400 Certified | Blue Prism Automation | Laiye Automation | Robotic Process Automation
Training the usersteam in RPA automation is essential to boost operational efficiency, reduce errors, save time and costs, improve data quality and allow the company to quickly adapt to changes, providing a competitive advantage. with this, new automation ideas are suggested with feasibility refinement analysis
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Bhaskar Roy
Deputy Vice President at KFin Technologies Ltd
Training of the bots is as necessary as the training of the people managing the same. We often miss the aspect of training the IT teams on the process and wish that the outcome of the automation will yield the desired result. Time spend in training will ensure that the COPQ will be negated in future. Specially in processes which replicate the assembly line production.
Finally, you should review and learn from your RPA output to gain insights and lessons for your future RPA projects. You should evaluate the results, benefits, and challenges of your RPA solution and compare them with your initial objectives and expectations. You should also identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your RPA solution and how they affect the quality of your RPA output. You should also document and share your findings, recommendations, and learnings with your RPA team and organization.
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Deepak Rai
2 Million YouTube views | Author | 3x UiPath MVP | Corporate Trainer | Atlassian Leader | Influencer | Technology Expert | Leader | Business Strategist | Coach | Content Creator
Reviewing and learning from your Robotic Process Automation (RPA) output is a crucial step in the RPA lifecycle. Here are some key inputs and considerations for this process: Results Evaluation Benefits Analysis Challenges and Issues Alignment with Objectives SWOT Analysis Quality of RPA Output Feedback Gathering Documentation and Reporting By systematically reviewing and learning from your RPA output, you can refine your automation strategy, address challenges, and leverage opportunities for further improvement.
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Chandra Shekhar Pujari
Project Lead at Provana
Learning from RPA solutions' output should focus on process improvement, cost savings, accuracy, compliance, scalability, employee feedback, continuous improvement, data security, customer satisfaction, and ongoing support and training. These insights can help refine and optimize your RPA implementation for maximum benefit.
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Swaroop Raj
Senior Technical Architect - Intelligent Automation | AI ML Enthusiast | EMBA
Reviewing and learning from your RPA output is essential for continuous improvement. By evaluating the results against initial objectives, you gain valuable insights into the solution's effectiveness and areas for enhancement. Assess the strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats, to understand the impact on RPA output quality. This process not only helps in fine-tuning current projects but also informs strategies for future ones. Documenting and sharing these findings within your team and broader organization fosters a culture of learning and collaboration, driving overall success in RPA initiatives.
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Aswin Bhaskar
UiPath MVP 2023 | LinkedIn Top Voice - Process Automation | RPA Developer | AI & Data Science Enthusiast | Certified UiPath Trainer | 13k+ Connections
We should consider the following factors to ensure quality in RPA projects.. clear requirements, robust design, thorough testing, data accuracy, security, performance optimization, documentation, version control, monitoring, user training, compliance, maintenance, feedback, scalability, and collaboration.
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Divyashree Muddagangaiah
RPA Tech Lead, 2*UiPath MVP(2022,2023), UiPath Community Moderator, Certified ABBYY Developer - FlexiCapture and Vantage. UiABA Certified
We need to consider about the ROI as well before we design and develop any process, this was one of the major drawback I have seen in few process.
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Gunasekhar Kotla
Senior Consultant & Technical Architect @ EY | Delivering Innovative Solutions | UiPath MVP - 2023
To ensure high-quality RPA output: 1. Define clear requirements. 2. Create a robust design. 3. Thoroughly test the automation. 4. Maintain data accuracy. 5. Implement monitoring and logging. 6. Regularly update and maintain the bots. 7. Prioritize security measures. 8. Design for scalability. 9. Document the processes. 10. Continuously improve the automation.