What are the best practices for using RPA in different industries?

1 Assess your processes

Before you start automating your processes with RPA, it's important to assess them and identify which ones are suitable for automation. Not every process is a good candidate for RPA, and some may need to be redesigned or optimized first. To be a good candidate for RPA, a process should be stable and standardized, meaning it follows the same steps and rules every time without frequent changes or exceptions. It should also be high-volume and low-complexity, involving a large number of transactions or data that can be handled by simple logic and rules without human judgment or intervention. Additionally, it should be manual and repetitive, requiring a lot of human effort and time to complete, as well as documented and measurable with clear inputs, outputs, and performance indicators that can be tracked and monitored.

2 Choose the right tools

When selecting the processes to automate with RPA, you must choose the right tools and platforms to suit your needs and goals. There are many RPA vendors and solutions in the market, each with its own features, capabilities, and prices. Factors to consider include ease of use – how user-friendly and intuitive the interface and design are, and how much coding or technical skills are required – scalability – how well the tool can handle increasing volumes and complexity of processes, as well as adding or modifying bots or workflows – security – data protection, encryption, authentication, and compliance with industry standards and regulations – integration – how well the tool can interact and communicate with other systems, applications, and platforms involved in the processes – and support – responsiveness and reliability of the vendor or provider in terms of technical assistance, training, updates, and maintenance.

3 Design your bots

When designing your bots for RPA, you should keep them as simple and modular as possible, aiming for reusability and maintainability. Additionally, you should document your bots and their workflows, explaining their purpose, logic, inputs, outputs, and dependencies. This will help to ensure their performance, reliability, continuity and quality, while also facilitating their understanding and management.

4 Test your bots

Before you deploy your bots to the production environment, it is essential to test them thoroughly and guarantee that they work as expected and deliver the desired outcomes. While testing your bots, it is recommended to use a separate environment, such as a sandbox or a replica of the production environment, to avoid any interference or impact. Additionally, testing with real data that is similar to what your bots will encounter in the production environment is necessary for accuracy and validity. Furthermore, testing with different scenarios and involving different stakeholders will ensure the robustness and flexibility of your bots, as well as their satisfaction and compliance.

5 Monitor your bots

After you deploy your bots to the production environment, you need to monitor them regularly and ensure that they meet performance expectations. You should monitor the key indicators and metrics that measure the efficiency, quality, and effectiveness of your bots and processes, such as speed, accuracy, throughput, or cost. Additionally, you should monitor errors or issues that occur during execution, such as failures, delays, or exceptions and identify their root causes and solutions. It's also important to monitor changes or updates that affect your bots and processes, such as new requirements, regulations, or systems. Finally, you should monitor feedback or suggestions that you receive from different stakeholders regarding your bots and processes and use it to improve your bots.

6 Optimize your bots

Finally, you need to optimize your bots and processes continuously to ensure that they deliver the best value and benefits for your business and customers. To do this, you should review and analyze your processes, bots, tools, and platforms to identify any opportunities or areas for improvement or enhancement. This could include eliminating waste, streamlining steps, increasing speed, accuracy, or functionality, upgrading features, capabilities, or security, expanding scope, scaling up, or integrating with other technologies. Additionally, you should review and analyze your RPA strategy and goals to identify any opportunities for improvement or alignment.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?