Developing Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Capability - NLIT Summit 2023 in Milwaukee, WI

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DEVELOPING A ROBOTIC
PROCESS AUTOMATION (RPA)
CAPABILITY
 
Rich Griego, Solution Architect
 
NLIT SUMMIT 2023 | MILWAUKEE, WI
 
SAND2023-05501C
 
June 28, 2023
 
 
This article has been authored by an employee of National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC under Contract
No. DE-NA0003525 with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The employee owns all right, title and interest in and to the
article and is solely responsible for its contents. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the
article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-
wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this article or allow others to do so, for United States Government
purposes. The DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE
Public Access Plan 
https://www.energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan.”
 
AGENDA
 
Inception
Evaluation
Initial Development
Governance
Path Forward
 
2
 
INCEPTION – PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
 
Contributing Points:
Sandia’s people are its most valuable resource.
Manual labor intensive processes exist that occupy valuable time from high skill people
The value of accuracy/repeatability and the cost of errors/rework
Increasing cost of customization and on ongoing battles with technical debt
Initial Scenario:
Problem raised by functional partners in HR Solutions initially
Case management, hundreds of cases 
created per day – some standard requiring
repeatable manual intervention
Many labor intensive, manual processes across multiple systems
 
3
 
 
Maximizing our efficiency, agility, and effectiveness with increasing workloads and limited resources
 
 
In response to this challenge, we identified the need to implement Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
to streamline our operations, reduce manual labor, and free up resources for more strategic tasks.
 
WHAT IS ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION (RPA)?
 
4
 
 
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is software capability that enables automation of digital tasks.
 
RPA is a low code/no code software capability that allows a user to configure scripts
(“bots”) to execute graphical user interface  (GUI) navigation, clicks, keystrokes and calls in
an automated manner
 
The bots can be used to emulate the manual tasks for a IT or business process
 
The bots can manipulate data, move/transform data between applications to execute
system transactions
RPA bots can operate quickly on demand with 100% reliability and precision
Bots are developed and run from a “control room”
GUI recorder, scripting, tools, and bot packages are used to create attended and
unattended automations
 
INCEPTION - USE CASES FOR RPA
 
When compared to other automation mechanisms, RPA is particularly good at mimicking
human computer interactions via mouse and keyboard input. From an end user stand point
and documentation perspective this makes basic RPA configuration digestible for non-
technical populations, since the bot can execute a task the same way a human would.
In general, RPA is well suited for processes 
where
:
The process has well documented, straight forward, non-variable logic
The process tasks are currently manual and repetitive via 
GUI of one or more systems
The software or data sources required to execute the process do not have mature APIs
Enhancement to the process and supporting applications that would enable more
sophisticated API based automation aren’t feasible
 
5
 
INCEPTION – WHAT WE LEARNED
 
Partnership between IT and Business from day one
IT may not always be the initial driver for an RPA capability, but for it to become a
sustainable and secure service its critical IT own the capability
There may be the perception that IT is slowing adoption, but RPA is software development
and that the principles of good software development apply to RPA
Leverage the initial interaction to educate partners about existing automation capabilities
Begin considering funding model and team structures early in the process before a tool is
acquired
 
6
 
EVALUATION
 
Internal Evaluation, comparisons to existing automation technology at Sandia
Eggplant
Test complete
Python scripting
Selenium
Katalon, etc.
Leveraged existing contractual relationships with software vendors
Used internal experience with other automated testing tools (i.e. Test complete)
On prem trial installation and a hands-on evaluation to develop a use case
Involved cyber during the evaluation phase
Evaluated software provider support and roadmap during evaluation
 
7
 
EVALUATION – WHAT WE LEARNED
 
Evaluate existing internal automation capabilities before procuring an RPA
Cyber partnership for a new capability is standard at Sandia, but is a necessity when
approaching credential management standards for RPA
Automation success was dependent on external factors – remove where possible (DAAS)
User system preferences in the GUI can interfere with the way an RPA script interacts with
on-screen elements. (i.e. night mode, window size, screen resolution)
Bot development was more labor intensive than anticipated, even with experienced devs
Contract with automation resource providers to achieve velocity and partner with
experienced Sandia devs to build competency internally
Basic technical skillset for technical developers
Adding bot packages (small application plug-ins) securely is labor intensive
 
8
 
INITIAL DEVELOPMENT
 
Began with our first partner in HR, case management
Counterintelligence Questionnaire Instructions
Agile software development methods
Process documentation was not solid, and process was evolving
Functional users were testers from day one
Finance provided FY23 investment funding and joined the product ownership
Finance had many use cases initially and needed assistance assessing feasibility
Process feasibility template and complexity calculator leveraged
 
9
 
INITIAL DEVELOPMENT – USE CASE SELECTION
 
10
 
INITIAL DEVELOPMENT– BOT PIPELINE
 
In Production
Counterintelligence Questionnaire, Human Resources
Home Checks Process, Finance
In User Acceptance Testing
Conflict of Interest, Human Resources
Payroll Separation Phase 1, Finance
In Development
Student Counterintelligence Questionnaire, Human Resources
Payroll Separation Phase 2, Finance
In Scoping/Documentation
Prudential, Human Resources
Reclassification Purchase Orders, Finance
Telecommuting/Remote Work Data Entry, Human Resources
Etc.
 
 
11
 
INITIAL DEVELOPMENT – IMPACT
 
An initial step for establishing if a process is fit for automation is use of a process
feasibility template to assess volume and handling time to gauge impact.
The template assesses data quality, process stability, and other inputs to produce a feasibility score.
 
Counterintelligence Questionnaire, Human Resources
In FY22 the over 5,000 transactions were manually handled which moving forward will be
addressed by this bot. At an average 5 min handling time per case, the estimated time saved is
400+ hours annually.
Home Checks, Finance
On average the over 13,500 transactions are manually handled per year (~260/week) which
moving forward will be addressed by this bot. At an average 2.5 min handling time mailing, the
estimated time saved is 500+ hours annually.
 
12
 
INITIAL DEVELOPMENT – WHAT WE LEARNED
 
Use case identification is critical - establish criteria for identifying and prioritizing
Ensure that the criteria evolve to reflect your level of maturity, skill and investment RPA
Agile methods are effective for incremental delivery, but process and technology changes mid
development are very disruptive – resulting in a waterfall approach to requirements
Allowing career growth and leveraging devs from the projects where tools will be automated
were advantages
Managing the RPA work in conjunction with the other work on same tool was a challenge
The Recorder tool has significant limitations (such as dynamic objects in GUI), can be useful for
prototyping but is rarely a substitute for an automation script
API utilization, within the confines of RPA use, should be prioritized
Functional partners may be hesitant to share monetized labor savings as a result of RPA
 
13
 
GOVERNANCE – PURPOSE
 
14
 
RPA Governance
Consolidate front door for automation services in IT
Keep processes lightweight, communicate clearly why practices are required
Enforce criteria for when RPA is used and in what circumstances
Own RPA roadmap, including thresholds for developer personas (i.e. technical or citizen developers)
Enforce Solution Delivery Lifecycle (SDL) and corporate/regulatory requirements on automations
RPA governance should focus on three key milestones
Process selection criteria and development standards for RPA
Review and approval of potential RPA use cases
Validation of the 
automations
 before promoting to production
 
 
 
14
 
GOVERNANCE – BOARD STRUCTURE
 
15
 
RPA Governance Board Membership
A business product owner to represent the functional teams and the citizen developers
A member of the technical team responsible for RPA operations
A technical lead to serve as automation architect and enforce development standards
 
 
 
 
 
15
 
GOVERNANCE – ENFORCE STANDARDS
 
16
 
Establi
sh best practices, development and operational standards, for example:
Thresholds and criteria for developer personas
Error and 
process l
ogging standards
Identity/access control policies and credential management
Authentication methods and guard rails
Code versioning standards and hygiene
Exception handling standards
Standard reusable bots for handling common activities
Bot package expansion and release
 
 
 
16
 
GOVERNANCE – WHAT WE LEARNED
 
Governance and Ownership
IT should own the capability
Begin with technical developers and partnership with product owners in Finance and HR
There will be a lot of interest as soon as you begin delivering results
Protect and mature your capability with core functional partners before over extending
Partner with other automation capability owners – plant seeds for a Center of Excellence (CoE)
Developer Community
Establish vision for the developer community – RPA success depends on aligning technologies
and processes with developer personas
Define development standards, compliance rules, security practices
Align SDL practices to RPA governance to mitigate risk
After stability is achieved with the technical developers proceed with citizen developers
 
17
 
THE PATH FORWARD - VISION
 
Robotic Process Automation is a mature capability owned by IT at Sandia
Developers from across IT collaborate with the RPA dev team to build automations for our customers
Security best practices and collaboration are critical to the success of the capability
RPA is used when it is well-suited to automating the process, and avoided when it is not
Initial RPA governance as an input to existing IT Software governance
Process selection criteria for RPA
Review and approval of potential RPA use cases
Validation of the RPA code and security before promoting to production
There are clear expectations, communication and pipeline for automation candidates
Once initial RPA governance is mature an Automation Center of Excellence (CoE) is pursued
Citizen developers are trained and assisted by IT to build RPA automations within predefined thresholds
with guard rails
 
18
 
THE PATH FORWARD
 
19
 
Remainder of FY23
Continue bot development for HR and Finance
Work SDL iteration for unattended bots
Screen use cases for FY24 Investment
Continue governance design
Establish thresholds developer personas
FY24
Citizen developer pilot (Ambassadors)
Mature RPA governance and evolve into an Automation CoE
Continued HR and Finance development
Unattended bots
FY25
Expanded citizen developer rollout – (pending pilot)
Onboard functional partners beyond HR and Finance
 
 
 
19
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QUESTIONS?
 
20
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This article discusses the initiative of developing Robotic Process Automation (RPA) capability in the national interest at the NLIT Summit 2023 in Milwaukee, WI. The focus is on maximizing efficiency, agility, and effectiveness by implementing RPA to automate digital tasks, reduce manual labor, and free up resources for strategic initiatives.


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  1. Exceptional service in the national interest DEVELOPING A ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION (RPA) CAPABILITY NLIT SUMMIT 2023 | MILWAUKEE, WI Rich Griego, Solution Architect June 28, 2023 This article has been authored by an employee of National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC under Contract No. DE-NA0003525 with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The employee owns all right, title and interest in and to the article and is solely responsible for its contents. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world- wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this article or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan https://www.energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc. for the U.S. Department of Energy s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525. SAND2023-05501C

  2. AGENDA Inception Evaluation Initial Development Governance Path Forward 2

  3. INCEPTION PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION Maximizing our efficiency, agility, and effectiveness with increasing workloads and limited resources Contributing Points: Sandia s people are its most valuable resource. Manual labor intensive processes exist that occupy valuable time from high skill people The value of accuracy/repeatability and the cost of errors/rework Increasing cost of customization and on ongoing battles with technical debt Initial Scenario: Problem raised by functional partners in HR Solutions initially Case management, hundreds of cases created per day some standard requiring repeatable manual intervention Many labor intensive, manual processes across multiple systems In response to this challenge, we identified the need to implement Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to streamline our operations, reduce manual labor, and free up resources for more strategic tasks. 3

  4. WHAT IS ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION (RPA)? Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is software capability that enables automation of digital tasks. RPA is a low code/no code software capability that allows a user to configure scripts ( bots ) to execute graphical user interface (GUI) navigation, clicks, keystrokes and calls in an automated manner The bots can be used to emulate the manual tasks for a IT or business process The bots can manipulate data, move/transform data between applications to execute system transactions RPA bots can operate quickly on demand with 100% reliability and precision Bots are developed and run from a control room GUI recorder, scripting, tools, and bot packages are used to create attended and unattended automations 4

  5. INCEPTION - USE CASES FOR RPA When compared to other automation mechanisms, RPA is particularly good at mimicking human computer interactions via mouse and keyboard input. From an end user stand point and documentation perspective this makes basic RPA configuration digestible for non- technical populations, since the bot can execute a task the same way a human would. In general, RPA is well suited for processes where: The process has well documented, straight forward, non-variable logic The process tasks are currently manual and repetitive via GUI of one or more systems The software or data sources required to execute the process do not have mature APIs Enhancement to the process and supporting applications that would enable more sophisticated API based automation aren t feasible 5

  6. INCEPTION WHAT WE LEARNED Partnership between IT and Business from day one IT may not always be the initial driver for an RPA capability, but for it to become a sustainable and secure service its critical IT own the capability There may be the perception that IT is slowing adoption, but RPA is software development and that the principles of good software development apply to RPA Leverage the initial interaction to educate partners about existing automation capabilities Begin considering funding model and team structures early in the process before a tool is acquired 6

  7. EVALUATION Internal Evaluation, comparisons to existing automation technology at Sandia Eggplant Test complete Python scripting Selenium Katalon, etc. Leveraged existing contractual relationships with software vendors Used internal experience with other automated testing tools (i.e. Test complete) On prem trial installation and a hands-on evaluation to develop a use case Involved cyber during the evaluation phase Evaluated software provider support and roadmap during evaluation 7

  8. EVALUATION WHAT WE LEARNED Evaluate existing internal automation capabilities before procuring an RPA Cyber partnership for a new capability is standard at Sandia, but is a necessity when approaching credential management standards for RPA Automation success was dependent on external factors remove where possible (DAAS) User system preferences in the GUI can interfere with the way an RPA script interacts with on-screen elements. (i.e. night mode, window size, screen resolution) Bot development was more labor intensive than anticipated, even with experienced devs Contract with automation resource providers to achieve velocity and partner with experienced Sandia devs to build competency internally Basic technical skillset for technical developers Adding bot packages (small application plug-ins) securely is labor intensive 8

  9. INITIAL DEVELOPMENT Began with our first partner in HR, case management Counterintelligence Questionnaire Instructions Agile software development methods Process documentation was not solid, and process was evolving Functional users were testers from day one Finance provided FY23 investment funding and joined the product ownership Finance had many use cases initially and needed assistance assessing feasibility Process feasibility template and complexity calculator leveraged 9

  10. INITIAL DEVELOPMENT USE CASE SELECTION Stability Processes and technology solutions should not change very frequently. Processes have standardized corporate supported data sources access is appropriate for credentials used within the script. Data Quality Processes should have appropriate volume to justify investment, but not so often as to introduce risk or be better suited for another automation solution. Volume/Iteration Process Quality Processes are well-architected, well-implemented and well-documented. Processes have well documented, straight forward, non-variable logic that can be expressed and resolved through regular expressions. Process Logic No RPA AlternativeEnhancement to the process and supporting applications that would enable more sophisticated API based automation aren t feasible 10

  11. INITIAL DEVELOPMENT BOT PIPELINE In Production Counterintelligence Questionnaire, Human Resources Home Checks Process, Finance In User Acceptance Testing Conflict of Interest, Human Resources Payroll Separation Phase 1, Finance In Development Student Counterintelligence Questionnaire, Human Resources Payroll Separation Phase 2, Finance In Scoping/Documentation Prudential, Human Resources Reclassification Purchase Orders, Finance Telecommuting/Remote Work Data Entry, Human Resources Etc. 11

  12. INITIAL DEVELOPMENT IMPACT An initial step for establishing if a process is fit for automation is use of a process feasibility template to assess volume and handling time to gauge impact. The template assesses data quality, process stability, and other inputs to produce a feasibility score. Counterintelligence Questionnaire, Human Resources In FY22 the over 5,000 transactions were manually handled which moving forward will be addressed by this bot. At an average 5 min handling time per case, the estimated time saved is 400+ hours annually. Home Checks, Finance On average the over 13,500 transactions are manually handled per year (~260/week) which moving forward will be addressed by this bot. At an average 2.5 min handling time mailing, the estimated time saved is 500+ hours annually. 12

  13. INITIAL DEVELOPMENT WHAT WE LEARNED Use case identification is critical - establish criteria for identifying and prioritizing Ensure that the criteria evolve to reflect your level of maturity, skill and investment RPA Agile methods are effective for incremental delivery, but process and technology changes mid development are very disruptive resulting in a waterfall approach to requirements Allowing career growth and leveraging devs from the projects where tools will be automated were advantages Managing the RPA work in conjunction with the other work on same tool was a challenge The Recorder tool has significant limitations (such as dynamic objects in GUI), can be useful for prototyping but is rarely a substitute for an automation script API utilization, within the confines of RPA use, should be prioritized Functional partners may be hesitant to share monetized labor savings as a result of RPA 13

  14. GOVERNANCE PURPOSE RPA Governance Consolidate front door for automation services in IT Keep processes lightweight, communicate clearly why practices are required Enforce criteria for when RPA is used and in what circumstances Own RPA roadmap, including thresholds for developer personas (i.e. technical or citizen developers) Enforce Solution Delivery Lifecycle (SDL) and corporate/regulatory requirements on automations RPA governance should focus on three key milestones Process selection criteria and development standards for RPA Review and approval of potential RPA use cases Validation of the automations before promoting to production 14 14

  15. GOVERNANCE BOARD STRUCTURE RPA Governance Board Membership A business product owner to represent the functional teams and the citizen developers A member of the technical team responsible for RPA operations A technical lead to serve as automation architect and enforce development standards 15 15

  16. GOVERNANCE ENFORCE STANDARDS Establish best practices, development and operational standards, for example: Thresholds and criteria for developer personas Error and process logging standards Identity/access control policies and credential management Authentication methods and guard rails Code versioning standards and hygiene Exception handling standards Standard reusable bots for handling common activities Bot package expansion and release 16 16

  17. GOVERNANCE WHAT WE LEARNED Governance and Ownership IT should own the capability Begin with technical developers and partnership with product owners in Finance and HR There will be a lot of interest as soon as you begin delivering results Protect and mature your capability with core functional partners before over extending Partner with other automation capability owners plant seeds for a Center of Excellence (CoE) Developer Community Establish vision for the developer community RPA success depends on aligning technologies and processes with developer personas Define development standards, compliance rules, security practices Align SDL practices to RPA governance to mitigate risk After stability is achieved with the technical developers proceed with citizen developers 17

  18. THE PATH FORWARD - VISION Robotic Process Automation is a mature capability owned by IT at Sandia Developers from across IT collaborate with the RPA dev team to build automations for our customers Security best practices and collaboration are critical to the success of the capability RPA is used when it is well-suited to automating the process, and avoided when it is not Initial RPA governance as an input to existing IT Software governance Process selection criteria for RPA Review and approval of potential RPA use cases Validation of the RPA code and security before promoting to production There are clear expectations, communication and pipeline for automation candidates Once initial RPA governance is mature an Automation Center of Excellence (CoE) is pursued Citizen developers are trained and assisted by IT to build RPA automations within predefined thresholds with guard rails 18

  19. THE PATH FORWARD Remainder of FY23 Continue bot development for HR and Finance Work SDL iteration for unattended bots Screen use cases for FY24 Investment Continue governance design Establish thresholds developer personas FY24 Citizen developer pilot (Ambassadors) Mature RPA governance and evolve into an Automation CoE Continued HR and Finance development Unattended bots FY25 Expanded citizen developer rollout (pending pilot) Onboard functional partners beyond HR and Finance 19 19

  20. QUESTIONS? 20

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