Hyperautomation
Introduction
A robotic process automation, or RPA (robotic process automation), is a nascent form of business process automation that replicates the actions of a human being interacting with the user interface of a computer system, freeing itself from dependence on programming APIs. For example, executing data entry into a SAP system – or, indeed, an entire end-to-end process – would be a typical activity for a software robot. The software robot operates on the user interface (UI) in the same way as a human being. This is a significant difference from traditional forms of IT integration that have historically been based on Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), that is, forms of machine-to-machine communication based on data layers that operate on an architectural layer beneath the UI.[1].
Definition
The IEEE Standards Association (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) defines RPA as “*A preconfigured software instance that uses business rules and predefined activity choreography to complete the autonomous execution of a combination of processes, activities, transactions, and tasks in one or more unrelated software systems to deliver a result or service with human exception management.”[2].
Characteristics
The processes that can be automated with RPA generally show the following four characteristics:[1].
-
- They can be defined through rules.
-
- They have a high volume of work.
-
- They are activated by digital triggers.
-
- Digitized data.
The virtual entity that executes RPA developments is called a robot (automated agent), of which there are two main types:
-
- attended: they collaborate with the worker in carrying out a process, carry out the automatable parts and put themselves in standby mode when they reach a task or subprocess that requires the human user; and.