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Module 1

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shashankgowdar02
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1. Whats RPA? 2. Flavors of RPA 3. History of RPA 4. The Benefis of RPA 5. The Downsides of RPA 6. RPA Compared to BPO, BPM, and BPA 7. Consumer Willingness for Automation 8. The Workforce ofthe Future |Chapter 2: RPA Skills 1. On-Premise Vs. the Cloud 2. Web Technology 3. Programming Languages and Low Code 4 OCR (Optical Character Recognition) 5. Databases APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) 7. Al CAnificial Intelligence) 8, Cognitive Automation 9. Agile, Serum, Kanban, and Waterfall 10, DevOps 1 Flowcharts 1.1 What Is RPA? The word “robotic” does not refer toa physical robot that can automate human actions in the workplace (generally for white collar applications instead, itis abouta software-based robot (or bot) in clerical and administrative functions). Even the word This is» Titlee/strong> HTML would ultimately be 100 simple. So there emerged other systems to provide even richer experiences, such as with CSS (Cascading Siyle Sheets, which provides for borders, shadows, and animations) and JavaScript (this makes it possible to have sophisticated interactivity, say, with the use of forms or calculations) RPA must deal with such systems to work effectively, This means it will have to take actions like identify the commands and lays so as to automate tasks, 2.3 Programming Languages and Low Code ‘+ A programming languaye allows you to instruct a computér to lake actions, ‘+ The commands generally use ordinary words like IF, Do, While, and Then. But there can stll be lots of complexity. especially with languages that use advanced concepts like object-oriented programming. * Some of the most popular languayes today include Python, Java, C++, C#, and Ruby * To use an RPA system, you have to use some code ~ but it's not particularly difficult. It's actually known as low code. As the name implies itis about using minimal manval input For example, an RPA system has tools ike drag-and-drop and visualizations to create a bot. This is not 0 imply that low cade does not need some training, To do low code correctly, you will needto understand certain Iypes of workflows and approaches, 24 OCR (Optical Character Recosnition) + A-key feature for an RPA platform is OCR (Optical Character Recogn) n), a technology that has actually been around for decades, has two parts: >Documen scanner (which could even be somthing ike your smartphone) sofware that recognizes tes. In other words, with OCR, you can sean an image, PDF, oF even handwritten documents ~ and the {ext will be recognized. This makes it possible to manipulate the text, such as by transferring i onto m or updating a database There are definitely many challen es wih effective OCR scanning, such as + Thesizeofa font +The shape ofthe text +The skewness (is the text rotated or slanted?) + Blurred or degraded text + Background noise + Understa ling different languages 4 ‘Then how docs this technology help with RPA? vvorking on an application. The OC, " hile + One way is with recoding a person's actions wl oe e uals on the screen, So, eve, vist beter eapture the workMows by regnizing words and other fy them, there sa change ofthe locaton ofthese items, the RPA system can still identi ‘Something else: Automation involves large numbers of documents. Thus, OCR will greatly improve the processing. An example ofthis would be processing loan With OCR, a document will use OCR to extract information abo! background, the information about the property, and any other financial deta RPA system will apply the workflows and lasks to process the loan, say, with apply rules and sending documento different departments and regulatory agencies Bur there are OCR systems that can help ou, sueh as Hyper Science. The sofware leverages sophisticated ua person’s financial ils Afler this, the ng various ‘machine learning (ML) technology to quickly and accurately exact the information (understanding cursive Writing, for example), 2.5 Databases * At the hear of most applications isa database, which sores data thal can be searched and updated. This is usually done by putting the information in tables (ie, rows and columns of information). + To ineract with his, there i a scripting language called SQL (Structured Query Language), which was relatively easy to lam ‘+ It a5 not until the late 1970s that relational databases were commercialized. led by the pioneering effons of Oracle * While relational databases proved io be quite effective, there were sill some nagging issues. Perhaps the biggest was data sprawl. Another problem was that relational databases were not cheap. ‘And as new technétogies came onthe scene, suchas cloud computing and real-time mobie applications, it became more di to process the data ‘+ In the meantime, there have been new approaches that have gone against the model for relational databases, They include offerings like MySQL (whieh is now owned by Oracle) and PostereSQI Yer these systems did not zet enough traction inthe enterprise ‘+ But there is one next-generation database technology that has done so: NoSQL. It also began as an ‘open source project and ssw tremendous growth. As of now, MongoDB has 14,200 customers across 100 countries and there have been over 70 million downloads. + Where relational databases are highly struciued, a NoSQL. system is quite exible. 11s based on a ‘document model tha can handle huge amounts of data at pelabyte scale Imoloyy. Yet relational # And going forward, there is likely 10 be much innovation with database 1 databases will remain the majority of what companies use ~ which also means dha this will also be what RPA interacts with as well, 26 APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) oe \ fee An APL Which isthe acronym for “a plication programming interface” ~ is software that connects {wo applications Programming interface” —is software that For example: ‘ample: let's say you want to c SAY You want to create a weather app. To get access to the dala, you can setup an API, w . Wh ofen is tiysruighvorward suchas by puting together a few lines of code to make data requests (say \ “Wess (Say forthe city). By doin this, you will increase the sped ofthe development Pls are pervasive ATE Pervasive in entemprise environments since they ate so effective. They also have differen structures. Althougt ; the most common is a REST (representational site transfer) APL 1S tre that APIs can he used asa form of automation The technology requires having people with echnical backgrounds. The development of an API can ‘ake time and require complex integration There is also the need for ongoing esting, However, there are third-party services that can help ou ‘There must be focus on maintaining an API (it’s not uncommon for an API to break if there isa change in the structure) + APls can sil hve bugs and glitches especially when in complex IT environments. Because ofthe difficulties, RPA has proven to bea very attractive alternative. Again, the development is much easier and there is less of a need for integration. But, interestingly enough, 2n RPA platfomm can bea vehicle for delivering advanced APIs within the enterprise 2.LAL (Artificial Intelligence) A ypical RPA system does not have much Al (Antificial Intelligence). The main reason is that thereis @ literal carrying out of tasks, which does not require any smart system, But as AI gets more powerful and accessible, RPA will increasingly start to use this powerful echnology ~ which should greatly enhance the outcomes, AL Is software that ingests large amounts of data that is processed with sophisticated algorithms that help answer questions, detect pattems, or lear. Interestingly enough, Al is actually made up of a variety of subcategories Machine Learning : This is where a computer can leam and improve by processing data without having to beexplictly programmed. Machine learning is actually one of the oldest forms of Al and uses traditional statistical methods like kenearest neighbor (k-NN) and the naive Bayes classifier, Deep Leaming: Deep leaming became a major force in AI, Some of the important factors For this included the enormous growth in data, the use of GPUs (graphics processing units) that provided for ultrafast parallel and innovation in techniques like back propagation, ng so-called neural networks ~ such as, recurrent neural networks (RNS) Deep leaming is about us convolutional neural networks (CNN), and generative adversarial networks (GANs) ~ to find patterns that humans ofien cannot detect NLP (natural language processing): This is AI that helps understand conversations. The most notable ‘examples of this include Siri, Cortana, and Alexa ‘But there are also many chatbots that focus on specific uses eases (say, with providing medical advice) ‘tific! intetigence Machine Learning Figure 2-1 Vhissahigetevel bok atthe hey compinents ofthe AL world nder, or Ss: According 1o IBM: “Bad data can contain implicit racial ‘deologicalbiases. Many Al systems will cominue to be trained using bad data ‘making this an ongoing problem,” 2Causaion: Huinans have 9 strong grasp of this, We know what vill happen if We use @ hammer fo hit aplss. I's prety much instinctive, But Als another matter. ion ~and this isa This technology is really about finding correlations in data noc major limiting factor. =2Common Sense: A human does not have to process many cases to understand certain rules of thumb. We jusinaturally understand them. But with Al, eommon sense has been extremly dificult o code because ofthe Jambiguity and the lack of useful data for the seemingly infinite use cases. Black Box ; Deep learning ean have an enormous number of layers and parameters nearly impossible for @ person to understand why the model is peneratiny certain results. Now there is more his means it can be innovation in uying 10 find ways 1 understand deep learning outcomes ~ whieh is something called “explainabilty”~ but the efTorts are sil in the nascent stages, 2Comprchension : An Al system cannot truly understand what it is reading or observing, For example, if it read War and Peace, it would not be able 10 provide thoughts on the characterdevelopment themes, and so on lions to learn, But of course, the real world is much Sialic’ It is also possible to conduct millions of sin ended, and chaotic more dynamic, ope Ac Heepiual Thinking: AI cannot understand abstact ideas lke justice, misery, or happiness: There i als0 {ack of imagination and creativity Bain: | 2Brain: I's really a miracle of evolution. A typical brain has 86 billion neurons and | Sructured Data This is data tha is formatted socal security numbers, adresses, point of sale informatiln etc) that cam be stored ina relational database or spreadsheet 2Unsmered Daa This dta tha is ufomated (mags, vies, viens, PDFS, aalls and ave files Focthe most pan RPA ses srctred daa, However his reese about 3% of wha's asset 2 typical organization. Bu with Al, an RPA system will likely be much more effective since willbe better able in process wnstrctred data Frherore there ae other potential benefits ofthe technology: judgement. he use of reason nd the tection ot highly omplx ates. With hese th automation wl be greatly enhanced helping with things Tike detecting frau. 28 Cognitive Automation Consider cognitive automatian to be an application of Al actally «Fist ofall tis automation uses.a combination of technologies like speech recognition 3d NLP. By doing thi the ga sto replieate human actions 25 best as posible, such a= by analysing patterns of workers and then finding patterns and correlations. «somthing else: Unlike other forms ofA, engntive automation is usually effective with the use trmuch ees data There may also be not as much reliance on highly technical talent, such as data scientists 2.9 Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and Waterfall In today’s world, software development has become even more difficult because ofthe emergence of new platforms lke the cloud and the hyb cloud, This is why it's important to look a software management approaches Mone is called Agile, which was created back in the 199% (a big part of this was the publication of the Manifesto for Agile Sofware Development) The focus ofthis was to allow for incremental and iterative development, which beg ins with a detailed plan -rhis also requires much communication across the eams and should invalve people from the-b ofthe organization. ss side [Nowadays, Agile as gotten easier because of the emergence of sophisticated technologies like Slack and Zoom that help with collaboration." y asta week oF Wo done as quick sprints, which ma This i actually a subset of Agile. But the iterations are manageable (ust asa side ‘This can help with the momentum ofa project bu also make a larger project more ne, fo g well with software nove: Scrum was fis used for manufacturing but it was later Found 4 work quite well wil developmen) 3. Kanban: “This comes fom the Japanese word for visual sin or card the roots ofthe system go back 10 Toyota's high-quality manufacturing processes) So yes, with Kanban, there i the use of visuals to help streamline the process. What's more, te general approach is similar 1o Agile as there i iterative development, fl fall This isthe adtional code development model, which goes back tothe 1970s The waterfall model i a structured plan that goes over each step in much det ‘To elp tis along, there may be the use ofa project management too, say, a Gantt chart While the waterfall approach has its advantages, it has generally allen out of favor Some ofthe reasons areas fellows: It can be tough to make changes, the process can be tedious, and there is often a risk of a project being late 210 DevOns ‘+ DevOps has emerged as a eiical part of a company’s digital transformation + The“Dev" part ofthe word is actally more than ust about coding software + I also refers to the complete application process (such as with project management and quality assurance or QA), As for “Ops,” itis another broad term, which encompasses system engineers and administrators as well as database administrators, network engineers, security experts, and operations stall. ‘+ For the most pan, DevOps has come about because of some major tens in IT. One is the use of ‘agile development approaches . Next isthe realization that organizations need wo com ‘and operational staff when introducing new technologies and innovations ‘And finaly, DevOps has proven elective in working with cloud computing environn LLL flowcharts + An essential part of RPA understands workllows and systems, the use of Mowcharts is commion 1S usually athe core ofthe software application. ‘+ With a Nowchan, you can both sketch out the existing workflows ‘department And then fiom hete, you can brainstom ways of improving them Then you can use the flowchart to design a ot fr the automation The Mowchar is relatively simple to use andi also provides a quick visual way to understand what ‘you are dealing wth, As the old saying goes, picture is worth thousand wards. = + some ofthe basis: ‘Teaminator: This isa rectangle with rounded comers and is used to start and end theprocess, as seen im Figure 2-2 Figure 2-2 Ths is terminator, which stats and ends 2 flowchart Process This is repesented bya rectangle, With his there i nly one nes step he proses Figute 2} shows an example a Decision: This is a square symbol that i at an angle. There will be at last wo possible paths, Figure 2-4 isan example Fipure 24 This shows a decision process ina flowchart

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