What is RPA ?

Today, RPA or Robotics Process Automation has become an emergent technology in the world. This is not only related with IT sector, many domains and industries such as Banking and Finance, IT Integrated Processes, Human Resources, Insurance Agencies, Marketing and Sales, and Customer Relationship Management uses RPA. RPA service adoption has been showed increasing trend since 2016, and continuity increases every day.

Since RPA processes has been developed, testing related to RPA also should be in the play. Therefore from now onwards let’s see how we can perform quality testing on RPA.

Before getting started, we need to get a thorough idea about RPA…

Just think about an Accountant in multinational company…!!!

He handles several invoices and other financial records such as monetary transactions, liabilities, cheques, and ledgers on daily basis. Another one of his tasks is, gather all the relevant details of financial related factors of those

Invoices and cheques, such as Name of the company, Invoice ID, and Date of processing into a spread sheet along with other financial reports and send it to his superior every day.

As he is a prompt employee, he extracts all the financial details in to documents and sends it via an e-mail to his boss every day. Even though that is a repetitive task, it is time consuming.

While people were thinking about efficiency and time savings of works, RPA came into the play. Thank GOD!

Then people stubbled across Robotic Process Automation. We called RPA in short.

Using robotic process automation, simple bot was built to extract invoice information from several invoices and gather them to a excel sheet by attaching all the necessary documents of financial reports and send reports to superiors via e-mail at a specific time every day.

What exactly is RPA?

Robotic Process Automation, RPA is the use of software with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning capabilities to handle high volume repetitive tasks that previously required humans to perform. Some of these tasks include addressing queries, making calculations, make records and performing transactions.

There are several misconceptions about RPA…

· RPA is not a humanoid robot. It does not have a physical form and no resemblance to human.

· RPA cannot replace humans or cannot replicate human cognitive functions. It does not have a brain its own and cannot perform logical or critical thinking as humans do.

Working of RPA includes 4 crucial phases.

1. Planning phase:

Typically involves gathering processes to be automated, identifying the test object, and finalizing the implementation approach

2. Development phase:

This includes the creation of automation work flows as per the agreed plan

3. Testing and Testing phase:

This a vital phase, since it covers all the test scenarios and provides bug free product

4. Support and maintenance phase:

This ensures that the product is continuously updated with smooth deployment across the user base

To meet the objective of RPA tools are used…

These RPA tools are software applications that can configure tasks and automate them. Some of the popular tools in the market are.

- UiPath

- Automation Anywhere

- Blueprism

- WorkFusion

- OpenSpan

- Redwood

Among other tools.

When it comes to quality, RPA ensures consistent error of output, which is leading to reduce operational risks. That term improves customer satisfaction.

In the area of delivery, RPA can help to decrease the average handling time, and this enhance the customer experience and ensures 24/7 business continuity.

With respect to cost, according to NASSCOM, domestic businesses can reduce the cost by up to 65% through RPA. It offers higher profits by driving cost saving methods within quarters as opposed to years.

Other advantages of RPA

- Reduce training cost

- Minimal utilization of IT resources

- Easier software migrations

According to McKinsey’s research, knowledge on work automation gained economic impact of 5–7$ trillion by the year 2025. It will impact more than 230 million knowledge workers, which represents 9% of the global workforce. Any company, which is labor intensive, where people are performing high volume and high transaction functions gets more advantages from RPA. Boosting company capability, saving money and time.

Finally,

RPA offers ability to automate business processes quickly and easily. It provides a way to digital transformation by placing RPA tools at the user’s side.

So, what are you waiting for?

Get certified and become a RPA developer or Quality Engineer on RPA to get a bright future in field of automation.