Nowadays, companies are striving to improve internal processes using new technological approaches. Bot-supported process automation is a great tool to conduct processes more efficiently and to relieve employees from repetitive or tedious tasks.
RPA bots can be divided into attended bots, where a program assists an employee in executing tasks at his or her workplace, and unattended bots, where the program operates autonomously on a server.
Attended Bots
The automation starts when a bot, or the software, performs specific actions instead of a human. Similar to a human, the bot reads the content of an application, searches for fields that contain useful data, copies the data to another application, starts a transaction, and many other things. The bot can also check data and provide the company with additional assurances of compliance with defined processes.
During process execution, a bot is able to pass the control back to the user so that the user can make a decision that requires the intelligence of an employee.
This aspect of Robotic Process Automation, where a bot interacts with the application like a human software assistant following business logic, is a function of an attended bot.
An example for this kind of bot is supporting a buyer to create a quotation or to process an order.
Unattended Bots
Some processes can also be automated on a server and run without human interaction. For example, this type of bot can
- Access applications to get information,
- Control rules to get this information,
- Execute operations to create new data, and
- Then submit the new data to other applications using their user interfaces (UIs) or application program interfaces (APIs).
This aspect of Robotic Process Automation, where the robot works alone, is known as unattended bot.
This autonomous bot will not be actively monitored, but its execution should be monitored to ensure that it is successful. If an exception or problem occurs, a human expert must figure out the reason, resolve it, and reschedule the bot to continue the process wherever it left off.
One example, related to the purchasing context, is a bot that analyzes Excel spreadsheets, fetches information, and feeds the information to the ERP system of the company.
Examples of tasks that can be automated using bots
No matter which type of bot you use; both types have their advantages and can be used in different areas. Examples of possible use cases are:
- Creation of a goods receipt
- Creation of a contract
- Recording of incoming invoices
How your company can benefit from using SAP RPA
Both “attended” and “unattended” bots can push your business to the next level. Using bots, you can achieve the following advantages for your business:
- Reducing human error – employees can focus on the important tasks.
- Avoiding human error.
- Short implementation period for RPA compared to tradidtional automation tools
- RPA automates products and business processes, unlike traditional automation tools that are limited to specific products
Discover SAP RPA on your own with a live demo via web or (if possible) on site.
Our experts will be happy to clarify your questions and discuss company-specific requirements with you.
Do you have a process that you would like to digitalize and automate?
lets-talk@parasus.com
Daniel Kirchhübel
+49 160 44 00 980