Robotic Process Automation

Robots are cool - and always attract much attention when they show up. But at first glance, it seems there are fewer extroverted bots. Those are usually not as much in the foreground, but they are extremely useful nevertheless. The Arvato Systems team around Björn Brockschmidt, for example, shows exactly that. Here the bots are not only developed, but they also do their work every day.

Robotic Process Automation - short: RPA - stands for the automated processing of structured processes by digital software robots. Repetitive and rule-based procedures and tasks that were previously performed by humans can now be performed automatically with the help of so-called bots. The software robots (which are not physical machines, but a piece of software themselves) thus assume roles and tasks from users and interact with other software systems. Especially with regular and monotonous tasks, bots can be a big help. Processes that otherwise cost too much time are handled automatically and continuously by RPA. And well-trained employees can use their time for more demanding and creative tasks. Arvato Systems has, therefore, already developed a wide variety of bots and integrated them into everyday life. Here are a few examples:

Less effortless risk: regular license checks with RPA

If a software product has to be used in different license levels for a large group of employees, a regular review of the licenses is indispensable. If employees use a license level that is too low, penalties may be imposed if the license level is checked. If they use a license level that is too high, the company pays too much right from the start. A corresponding manual comparison, however, is very time-consuming. And this is where RPA can help. At Arvato Systems, for example, all Office 365 licenses - and these affect all of the company's 2,700 employees without exception - are automatically checked by comparing a list of users with the defined license standard and simultaneously monitoring the validity of the users. The result: a clear report with potentially incorrectly licensed or invalid users - automatically generated and available daily if required. That significantly reduces the license risk while at the same time reducing the manual effort required for verification. 

User management - without manual effort

 In many companies - this also applies to Arvato Systems - temporary employees working with IT systems are employed for various reasons. And for these, too, so-called "users" must be created so that access to IT is possible at all. However, if temporary employees are deployed beyond the initially planned date, an extension of the users is also necessary. A manual process usually does this: The user helpdesk receives an order - a so-called ticket -, this order may end up in a queue and is then processed manually. By using RPA, the manual effort can be minimized. The bot recognizes the corresponding tickets, extracts the relevant data, independently adjusts the specified time limit date, and finally closes the ticket. All in all, this means that manual processing is no longer necessary; the process is carried out more quickly and is also less prone to errors because manual copying is no longer required.

The decentralized control of access authorizations - simple and regular

Wherever IT is used, permissions must be maintained. However, the decision as to who has access to certain functions or areas is often made decentrally by many different people. For example, "owners" of specific e-mail mailboxes usually decide for themselves which colleagues also have access to the corresponding mailboxes, or which team members have access to particular folders of data servers. The "owners" must be contacted regularly to control this large number of different decentralized permissions so that they can personally check whether the authorities are still current. Arvato Systems is already using RPA for this as well: a bot exports data from different systems, summarizes it, and prepares it for each "owner," before finally sending an e-mail to the user asking for verification. The otherwise wholly manual and time-consuming process of exporting, summarizing, preparing, and sending files is now entirely handled by the bot. 

RPA & KI: A great team

If RPA is also linked to Artificial Intelligence, even more complicated scenarios, which go beyond the mere processing of predefined steps, can be excellently automated. For example, it is possible to use AI text analysis to categorize incoming e-mails in general mailboxes according to their content and then forward them via RPA to the correct recipients. There is no need for manual checking and distribution, and the process is significantly faster and less prone to errors.

These examples show: Wherever structured manual tasks in the IT area have to be performed, again and again, it is worth checking how Robotic Process Automation can help. And in combination with AI, the range of possible application scenarios is significantly expanded once again. The development of the corresponding bots as "digital assistants" is usually less time-consuming than many think. "We are already able to create prototypes for many task types in just a few days," says Björn Brockschmidt, RPA expert at Arvato Systems. "And the fact that RPA really works and also offers real added value is demonstrated by the various examples we have implemented, many of which are in daily use at Arvato Systems itself."