UNIT 1

RPA Advanced Concepts

Contents
1. Standardization of processes.
2. Setting up the Center of Excellence.
3. RPA team.
4. RPA development methodologies.
5. SDLC and RPA
6. RPA business case.
7. Process design documentation
8. Industries best suited for RPA.
9. Risks and challenges associated with RPA.
10. RPA and emerging ecosystems.
Standardization of Processes

● Standardization of processes in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a critical step

to ensure efficiency, scalability, and long-term success of automation initiatives.

● It is a process of defining and enforcing consistent procedures, formats, and
documentation across the lifecycle of automation — from process discovery and
design to development, deployment, and maintenance.
● By standardization there is improved Efficiency, Scalability, Faster Development,
Better compliance, Smooth Maintenance, Team Collaboration.
Standardization of Processes
● Areas to standardize:
○ Process Selection Criteria: Use frameworks like the RPA Suitability Matrix to evaluate processes.
Defining attributes like stability and exception rate.
○ Process Documentation: Standardized Process Definition Documents (PDDs) and Solution Design
Documents (SDDs).Include inputs, outputs, business rules, exceptions, systems involved.
○ Development Standards: Naming conventions, code structuring, exception handling patterns. Use of
reusable components/libraries.
○ Testing Protocols: Test cases, test data, unit/system/UAT test processes. Standard bug reporting and
resolution steps.
○ Security and Access control: Define roles, credential handling practices and bot permissions.
Additional Information:RPA suitability Matrix
● A Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Suitability Matrix is a tool used to evaluate
whether a business process is a good candidate for automation.
● It helps organizations prioritize processes based on how suitable they are for RPA,
typically using criteria like rule-based logic, volume, stability, and complexity.
 Criteria Description Low Suitability (1) Medium Suitability (2) High Suitability (3)

Rule-based Is the process driven by clear, consistent rules? Requires human Some rules + exceptions Fully rule-based
judgment

Volume How often does the process occur? Low (e.g., monthly) Moderate (e.g., weekly) High (daily/multiple
times)

Process Standardization Are steps consistent every time? Highly variable Some variations Fully standardized

Data Structure Is the data structured and in digital format? Unstructured (emails, Semi-structured (PDFs, Fully structured (Excel,
images) tables) DB)

System Stability Are the applications/systems stable? Frequent UI changes Occasional changes Stable systems

Human Intervention How often is human decision-making needed? Very frequent Occasionally Rare/none

Complexity of Logic How complex are the decision branches and Very complex Moderate Simple
conditions?

Exception Rate How often do exceptions occur in the process? Very frequent Occasional Rare

Compliance/Security Does the process require high auditability or Low need Moderate High (RPA beneficial)
Needs compliance?

Benefit Potential How much time/cost/resource savings could Low Moderate High
automation bring?
Additional Information:RPA suitability Matrix
Score each process from 1 to 3 for each criterion.
Total the scores — the higher the score, the more suitable the process is for RPA.
Use thresholds to guide decision-making:
21–30 → Ideal for RPA,
15–20 → Consider RPA with adjustments
Below 15 → Not a good candidate
Commonly Used Terms
1. Center of Excellence: RPA is a long-range capability meant to empower organizations. A Center of
Excellence (CoE) is a way to embed RPA deeply and effectively into the organization.
2. Process Design Document: Describes business process in detail
3. Solution Design Document: Describes RPA Solution in detail
○ These documents are generally used in RPA implementations
4. Process Engineering: Describes intentional changes or improvements made to a process
○ Refers to the changes that need to be made as pre-requisites for automation (to make sure that the
processes are eligible for automation using RPA), and also the changes made through RPA.
5. Proof of Concept: Describes exploratory evaluation of an RPA business use case, before starting
implementation
Center of Excellence
● Center of Excellence(CoE) governs RPA deployment standards, best practices,
support and training capabilities inside an organization.
● CoE is created for RPA so that the project timelines are met and not delayed.
● It is important to have an internal, self-sustaining and scalable RPA expertise to run
and maintain robots.
● At the core of the CoE is the RPA team responsible for establishing and maintaining
standards, gathering and following best practices, and providing leadership, training
and support to the entire organization.
Center of Excellence
● CoE team:
○ Act as a bridge between the RPA and process excellence team.
○ They are responsible for taking decisions regarding the implementation of automation
project, the cost and efficiency benefits of the module.
○ They also decide about the future automation project in pipelines
Center of Excellence- Types
● The center of excellence plays a very critical role in defining the scope and
importance for the growth of RPA implementation.
Center of Excellence- Centralized CoE
● Centralized CoE: Single CoE serves all business units. This model is suited for
organizations that do not have too many business lines and a single area of the
business governs the processes to be automated.
● Advantages:
○ The IT support services are unified and centralized, avoiding any kind of conflicts in terms of
infrastructure.
○ The best practices and learned lessons can be maintained and disseminated more easily.
○ There will be only one RPA solution, so the deployment model, challenges and solution will be more or
less the same.
○ The maintenance costs will also be lower.
Center of Excellence- Centralized CoE
● Disadvantages:
○ In large companies comprising of multiple business units, some challenges might occur when it
comes to the prioritization of the processes to be automated.
○ Furthermore, the communication between the CoE and each individual business unit may be
distant.
Center of Excellence- Federated CoE
● Federated CoE: A CoE serves each business unit. This model is functional in
organizations with multiple business lines, where processes are different from one
unit to another, and governed by different teams.
● Advantages:
○ Each business unit is fully in control of automation projects. They are able to set their own
priorities and capitalize on speed or other unique traits.
Center of Excellence- Federated CoE
● Disadvantages:
○ Exchange of best practices across CoEs may not happen naturally.
○ High risk of incoherence( inconsistent) in process methodologies.
○ Incoherent or even conflicting technical solutions may be applied.
○ Certain RPA roles will be duplicated.
Center of Excellence- Hybrid CoE
● Federated CoE: One main CoE, plus some secondary CoEs serve the business lines
directly.
● This may be the best option in organizations where business lines have some degree of
autonomy, while using some resources and processes that are centralized
● Advantages:
○ The main CoE handles the complex projects while the smaller CoEs cover the rest, resulting in an
effective resource allocation model.
○ Decreased risk of prioritization challenges due to smaller and dedicated RPA CoEs.
○ Higher process know-how specific to business units concentrated in the smaller CoEs.
○ All RPA CoEs are close to each business unit.
Center of Excellence- Hybrid CoE
● Disadvantages:
○ Discrepancy between the larger CoEs and the smaller or Sub CoEs
The RPA Team
● The first step after the decision to go forward with an RPA solution is to bring
together the RPA Team.
● The RPA team is a very important component of the Center of Excellence and is
critical for the success of RPA implementation.
● The size of the team depends on the size and complexity of the RPA solution.
The RPA Team- Essential Members
The RPA Team- Additional Roles
For larger projects, additional roles may be defined.
● Program Manager (oversees all the projects in a program)
● RPA Supervisor (in charge of the solution after implementation)
● RPA Support (supporting the users during and after implementation)
● RPA Change Manager (change and communication agent)
RPA Development Methodology
● The RPA development methodology is a structured approach to plan, build, test, and
deploy robotic process automation solutions.
● A good methodology ensures that bots are reliable, scalable, and aligned with
business goals.
● RPA lifecycle methodology, often used in combination with an Agile or Waterfall
approach depending on the organization’s maturity and preferences.
RPA Development Life cycle
RPA Development Life cycle
1. Analysis: The term analysis refers to the discovery of automation opportunity from
the existing business process.
● This involves understanding the process map (as it is) and how the process is done
manually by the user.
● The business analyst gathers all the important information about the underline
automation and creates a document which has the relevant information about the
project.
RPA Development Life cycle
2. Development: Once the requirement gathering is done, the RPA developer gets the
design approved from project manager and starts the development of robot using the
automation tool.

3. Testing: The developer shares the code (ready product) with the business user to
test the code and check if the delivered product (code) meets all the business
requirements.

4. Support and Maintenance: Once the robot is deployed, it is very important to

ensure and monitor the working of the robot.
RPA Development Life cycle vs SDLC
● SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) and RPA Development Methodology
share similarities (both are structured approaches to build and deliver technology
solutions), they differ in focus, speed, roles, and the types of systems they work with.
RPA Journey
● The RPA Journey outlines the end-to-end roadmap an organization follows when
adopting and scaling Robotic Process Automation.
● The first step is to list all the processes that are eligible for automation and assess
them thoroughly not only from a technical perspective, but also from cost vs. benefit
perspective.
● The next stage is the prioritization. The first process chosen for automation is the
subject of pilot implementation. In typical cases, a process that is not the most
challenging, that doesn’t require the highest number of resources or the highest
amount of time should be chosen for Pilot.
RPA Journey
● The purpose at this stage is to evaluate the viability of the solution and the
performance of the team.
● Thus, it’s a good opportunity to document the lessons learned and revise the
methodology and frameworks before advancing to ramp up.
RPA Journey- Pilot Process
● The Pilot Implementation refers to the first process that is actually automated and
run in production.
● Proof of Concept :This is the first step of Pilot Implementations.
● In order to create impact and confidence on the business regarding the importance and
reliability of the Automating tools a proof of concept is done.
● A small portion of the end to end activity is automated to check the feasibility and
stability of the automating tools. This is called proof of concept.
RPA Journey- Ramp Up
● Ramp-up is the stage in which RPA is applied at large scale in the organization .
● Once the pilot proves to be successful, it’s time to ramp-up to maintain momentum
and capitalize on the success of the Pilot implementation.
RPA Journey- Ramp Up
● This stage includes:
○ Taking care of the newly established robot workforce works at full capacity, and that efficiency
and effectiveness are being achieved.
○ A proper handover from the RPA development team to the support and maintenance has to be
made.
○ It’s the time when solutions to challenges and best practices start to develop.
○ All of this should come with an increase in headcount and expertise of the Center of Excellence, to
match the growing number of the automation workflows and their complexity. It’s the time when
the CoE has to become a formal and permanent structure.
Selecting Processes to Automate
● Since the process chosen for automation is an important decision to make, the criteria
taken into consideration are also complex.
1. Highly repetitive and manual processes are preferred. Once automated, their return
on investment is very good and the fact that they are repetitive makes it easier to
automate. If a process is not repetitive, an improvement initiative should be applied
before considering automation.
2. A rule-based process is considered a good candidate for automation.
Selecting Processes to Automate
● The input should be electronic and readable. If the input is non-electronic, it will lack
efficiency.
● The inputs should be limited and standard type of documents. Non-standard inputs are
hard to process for humans and almost impossible for robots.
● The exception rate throughout the process (input, additional steps, output) should be
very low, as the normal way of handling exceptions in an automation project is to
send it to a human user. If there are too many exceptions, RPA becomes ineffective.
Selecting Processes to Automate
● Processes that can be changed in terms of processing method (like implementing self
service for cashing in invoices from household users) are not good candidates for
automation, as a comparable return on investment can be achieved by simply doing so
rather than automating.
● Processes that produce a high number of transactions are better fit for automation, as
the robots will be able to increase the speed of processing. If the volumes are not that
high, a tactical solution (hiring an expert and paying over the market rate) may prove
to be more effective.
Selecting Processes to Automate
● Sometimes, very good outcomes can be obtained with a minor automation, like
using an OCR technology instead of automating the entire process. This should be
also considered when choosing the process to automate.
● Last but not least, a pre-analysis of the IT systems should be made. If deep changes
would be necessary for automation, then the cost may prove to be too high if the
integration is not addressed separately. Once all these conditions are met, RPA is the
answer
Planning RPA Development
Planning RPA Development
● The best approach is to combine the Waterfall and Agile methodologies, in order to
reflect the unique nature of the RPA journey.
● From the Waterfall methodology the following points can be borrowed:
○ Planning in advance and following the plan sequentially, including waiting to finish a step before
starting the next one
○ The long-term approach – having success criteria from the beginning

● From the Agile methodology, the most important part is the iterative approach
centered on solving the challenges, risks, and requirements encountered at each step.
RPA Development method
RPA Development method
● Stage 1: Analysis, where the process to be automated is mapped (AS IS)
● Stage 2: Design, in which the TO BE (automated) process is defined, together with
the technical solution
● Stage 3: Development, where the automations are actually built
● Stage 4: System Integration Testing, where the functional systems are being tested
with the automation
● Stage 5: User Acceptance Testing, where the solution is tested by the process owner
and QA
● Stage 6: Warranty, where the solution is being moved to production
RPA Business Case
● A well defined scenario that has quantifiable results.
● This means looking at the quantifiable benefits of having a business processes
automated and weighing those benefits against the cost of implementation and
maintenance of the RPA solution.
● The financial perspective refers to the business case whereby the benefits are
quantified and measured against the cost of implementing and maintaining the RPA
solution.
● It may seem simple for a single process, but the complexity increases with the number
of processes to be automated
RPA Business Case- Example
Challenges in RPA
Some of the challenges faced by the developer in RPA are:

1. Input Standardization required: The processes to be automated need to be based

on well-defined standard operating procedures (SOPs) where the rules for
decision-making have very clear parameters.

The process which requires manual intervention, research work or follows up is still
not considered a good candidate of automation.
Challenges in RPA
Some of the challenges faced by the developer in RPA are:

2. Maintenance of RPA is costlier: Maintenance is key when it comes to keeping

RPA up and running.

3. Business case issue: Implementing successful RPA is a challenge that requires lots
of approval and validations. One of the basic challenges is the unavailability of
business cases. The importance of business case cannot be left over as this is very
critical and essential only the complete process can be efficiently automated when
this has been developed by considering all the scenarios and situations.
Challenges in RPA
Some of the challenges faced by the developer in RPA are:

4. Business-IT collaboration (challenge): Both business operations and IT bring

specific value in RPA projects.

5. Weak Governance: Once the RPA is implemented, we need to ensure that the
RPA is governed properly as the maintenance is very much required. The working
Robots do not assure 100% performance if they are not well maintained and regulated
hence there should be an efficient model and regulation to maintain the same.
Challenges in RPA
Some of the challenges faced by the developer in RPA are:

6. Human workforce resistance: Many automated processes still rely on human

intervention in exception handling or in connected processes. Communicating
effectively and training will ease the normal resistance that humans have and address
the before/after the RPA implementation gap.
Industries suited for RPA
RPA in Emerging Ecosystem
● RPA is still an emerging technology at this point and there is still a lot of potential for
automation by using current RPA technologies.
● Artificial Intelligence : This describes the actions of machines that mimic the
cognitive functions of humans, such as learning, understanding and problem-solving
approach.
● The concept of Artificial intelligence is well supported by machine learning (ML),
natural language processing (NLP). The future of automation will see the RPA Robot
as the arms and legs and the AI as the heart. Going ahead AI would be seen as an
integral part of RPA .
RPA in Emerging Ecosystem
● RPA in the Emerging Ecosystem is no longer just about automating repetitive tasks
— it’s becoming a core enabler of digital transformation, working in synergy with
AI, cloud, and low-code platforms to reshape how businesses operate.
RPA in Emerging Ecosystem
Component How RPA Integrates

AI/ML AI handles unstructured data; RPA executes decisions (e.g., read an invoice with
OCR → trigger payment)
Cloud RPA bots are deployed on cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) for scalability,
flexibility, and faster delivery
Low-Code/No-Cod RPA platforms are evolving to enable citizen developers (business users building
e
bots themselves)
APIs & RPA can bridge systems that lack APIs while also working with API-enabled
Microservices
environments
IoT Trigger bots based on sensor data (e.g., warehouse alerts triggering restocking
workflows)
COMPLETE of UNIT 1