What is Robotic Process Automation?

“What is Robotic Process Automation?”

Hint: It Doesn’t Involve Actual Robots…For Now

Tech buzzwords like “Machine Learning”, “Artificial Intelligence (AI)”, and “Big Data” typically make us think of futuristic sci-fi movies like The Terminator, The Matrix, or that terrible Will Smith movie from the early 2000’s …and the newest trending phrase in tech is no different: “Robotic Process Automation (RPA)”. Luckily for us, RPA doesn’t involve any actual robots and isn’t going to lead to the machine uprisings depicted in the aforementioned sci-fi movies. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, let’s get to what RPA really is and how it drastically improves business processes.

The Basics of RPA

The term “robot” in Robotic Process Automation refers to software “bots” that are configured to learn & replicate human digital actions. For example – RPA bots can be trained to read documents, scrape webpages, open/move files, log in to applications, copy & paste data, extract unstructured data, perform calculations, and much more. Automation Anywhere, a leading RPA solution, describes Robotic Process Automation as software bots that “can interact with any application or system the same way people do—except that RPA bots can operate around the clock, nonstop, much faster and with 100% reliability and precision”.

I know what you might be thinking – “Great, RPA is here to take our jobs…”. But, it’s important not to look at RPA as something that is here to replace human staff, but rather a workforce of digital assistants that enhance the efficiency of your human staff and allow them to focus more time on their core job functions. By eliminating manual, repetitive tasks (busy work) – RPA gives employees the ability to further utilize their ingenuity and collaboration skills. So, not only are employees more efficient & productive, they also enjoy more of what they do on a day-to-day basis.

The Benefits of RPA & Laserfiche

One of the most exciting things about RPA is its ability to work with any line-of-business application and its enhancement of business process automation tools like Laserfiche.

Laserfiche is an incredible Enterprise Content Management application that combines industry-leading document & records management with powerful business process automation, intuitive web-forms, and seamless integrations. Laserfiche provides all of the tools needed to complete your Digital Transformation journey – throw in RPA, and now you can take your Digital Transformation journey to the next level!

The most immediate and recognizable benefits of RPA are the impacts it has on productivity, accuracy, reliability, and consistency. By eliminating manual processing and the risk of human error, RPA provides an around-the-clock workforce of bots that get work done fast and without mistakes. However, Business Process Automation & Integration is where RPA really shines.

Laserfiche Forms & Workflow are extremely powerful tools that are essential to business process automation. With RPA, processes can be further automated by leveraging bots to perform tasks like reviews & approvals, routing decisions, filling out forms, and more. These previously manual tasks in business processes (sometimes referred to as “automation gaps”) are now completed by RPA, providing true end-to-end automation and making business processes more efficient than ever before.

Additionally, RPA provides even more seamless and compete integrations as well. With powerful integration tools like data-base lookups & Laserfiche Connector, Laserfiche has always served as the one central digital repository that connects to all of your line-of-business applications. These seamless integration capabilities are an essential part of every Laserfiche implementation, from automated indexing & filing rules, to auto-filling web-forms Forms & searching for documents from 3rd party applications. But, there have always been certain limitations with legacy systems that lack API’s or externally hosted 3rd party applications that limit accessibility. With RPA, we can now easily bridge those integration gaps by utilizing bots to log in to applications, copy data, input data, make updates, and more.

RPA Impact on Efficiency

We’ve talked a lot about the impact RPA has on efficiency, but let’s take a closer look at exactly how effective RPA is at streamlining processes. In this infographic from Deloitte, they take a typical manual AP process and compare it to using RPA to complete the same exact process. We can easily see that RPA eliminates 4 of the 5 manual steps that are completed by a human employee. And, the one step that still requires human interaction is made much easier than before.

The time savings from this single instance of a very common process are extremely significant. Now, imagine those savings multiplied by the hundreds or thousands of times this same exact process occurs over the course of a year. According to a study on the use of RPA, through interviewing over 150 corporate controllers, Gartner, Inc. says that “Robotic Process Automation Can Save Finance Departments 25,000 Hours of Avoidable Work Annually”.

Using the example above, we can see that RPA has already made a substantial impact on efficiency – and that’s with just one single process! What’s even better is that RPA can bring immediate value & efficiency to core business processes across every area of your organization, including:

• Payroll Changes/Updates
• Employee Status Changes
• Employee On-Boarding
• Account Payable Invoice Processing
• Report Creation
• Student Enrollment
• Student Information Updates
• Data Migration
• And More

Learn More About RPA

As you can see, the possibilities are truly endless with Robotic Process Automation (RPA). At Modified Logic, we not only provide the highest level of Laserfiche support, implementation services, form design, workflow automation, and integrations – we specialize in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as well. Our focus is to guide our clients through each step of their Digital Transformation Journey, and we see RPA as the perfect complement to Laserfiche’s already powerful functionality.

If you would like to learn more about Robotic Process Automation or are looking to begin your Digital Transformation journey, please contact us at (833)813-2221 or email sales@modifiedlgic.com.

About Modified Logic

With over 20 years of experience, Modified Logic has a proven record of providing the highest level of support & exceptional services for Laserfiche clients across multiple different industries. From initial deployments and expansion initiatives, to providing responsive support & continuous maintenance – Modified Logic provides everything you need to ensure a successful Laserfiche implementation. Modified Logic also specializes in business process automation, custom integrations, and providing advanced Digital Transformation services through Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Business Intelligence & Analytics, and more!

Source Material:

• Gartner Press Release: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-10-02-gartner-says-robotic-process-automation-can-save-fina
• Automation Anywhere: https://www.automationanywhere.com/rpa/robotic-process-automation
• Laserfiche: https://www.laserfiche.com/ecmblog/what-is-robotic-process-automation-rpa/
• CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3124638/why-bots-are-poised-to-disrupt-the-enterprise.html#tk.cio_rs