ThinkTWENTY20

So far, in this series, we have discussed Robotic Process Automation as a tool to take dull, repetitive, static tasks and give them to computers instead of people, for greater satisfaction, speed and accuracy. Let’s talk a bit about who can teach their computers to do these things.

I had mentioned using the products from UiPath as a proxy for our exploration of RPA. There is a whole suite of products under that name, but the primary tool for setting up automations is called Studio. It is a drag-and-drop environment where, having come up with the tasks you wish to automate and the steps to do so, you bring over from a library of activities one-by-one the automation task necessary to do the work.

When I say Studio, I am actually speaking of an environment which has some options. I began with Studio in its more complex form. I have been a “programmer” for a living in the past, although I do not claim to be good at it. It put food on the table. It also means that I understand basic programming concepts. Many accountants have not had to work with variables and if … then statements, and data types and conversions. Studio requires that knowledge … and you can’t always find a sixth grader when you need them.

But there’s another front end, called StudioX. StudioX is designed for the business user, focusing on using Excel, or Gmail, or Word, or the Web. It still requires more structured thought and basic understanding of the applications you need to work with, but it isolates much of the coding from the user.

While StudioX and its equivalents from other solutions providers may not meet all of an enterprise’s needs, it will be a useful tool for business people with a bit of tech savvy to begin to exploit RPA in their environments.