Robotic Process Automation is a new take on Systems Automation. Connect disconnected and seemingly incompatible systems with RPA tools that facilitate low-cost/quick-implementation solutions. For a full background on RPA, please see our article “What is RPA?“

Your business has a logical workflow. You have multiple systems, but they do not “talk to each other”. You have a process in place to tackle these challenges. You have a team that in some cases, takes the output from one system, and then enters the exact information into the next system in your process. In other cases, your specialized team takes information out of a system to make some calculations, reorganize the data, transform it to then enter it to the next system in your business workflow. You take on these challenges, but you often ask yourself why does it have to be a manual process? What if you could eliminate the manual portions of your workflow and free those team-members for spending time where they would be more valuable?

Enter RPA.

Your workflows can be optimized by taking the manual portion of your systems and taking output from one system, processing, reorganize, or simply transform data into the format needed for input on the next system. Robotic Process Automation tools (like the ones BlueKatana uses), allow complex rules in the workflow you can define. Even when your input-system requires form-entry, you can automate the data flow from system to system.

Do you manage your workflow by using spreadsheets and/or notes on paper? Robotic Process Automation can still help you automate the calculation portion of it and reduce the amount of time spent on creating, copying and working on spreadsheet, and increase your attention to helping customers or closing the next deal.

Most systems offer the capability of exporting and importing data. However, your workflow may still require the data to be transformed in transit. This transformation could be the reformatting of a file, or the execution of specific calculations. Other systems don’t provide import or export capabilities and thus artificially force your workflow to have a manual step.

Robotic Processing Automation tools allow you not only to connect disconnected systems but to process the data while in transit.

This processing capability is key to the flexibility needed to automate your whole workflow. RPA tools can read information from the screen if your system does not have a way to export data. You can even create conditional flows where data is processed in a special way whenever it meets a specific criteria.

Ultimately BlueKatana can produce customized workflows that will work with whatever your systems require.

Dark IT is the name we give to hidden costs that business areas create when they use systems that were meant for a different purpose or bring completely new systems that have an impact on the company. The reason we give it this name is that they may appear as an increased cost of maintenance, or helpdesk of a specific system instead of the cost of completing the original problem it was meant to resolve.

A typical case of Dark IT systems are the small sets of data managed with spreadsheets in between departments. These are typically started with the intention to make a small data transformation between system A and system B. BlueKatana has observed whole departments created to manage these processes. Because the process grows slowly, and outside of IT’s scope, it is not detected until it creates a large burden for the company.

BlueKatana can help you review your existing workflows and systems with the goal of finding and replacing Dark IT costs with efficient and automated processes.