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Most Valuable Pathfinder
Eric KMost Valuable Pathfinder
published in Pathfinder Blog
Transforming Customer Support Triage with Simple Automation + AI

Many people may assume Intelligent Automation can only execute rule-based tasks and processes. But the recent onslaught of AI technology is challenging—nay, enabling—us to shift what we ever thought possible with Intelligent Automation. The unruly, unstructured tasks can now be streamlined with automation. I joined TriNet, an organization that provides businesses with full-service HR solutions, in 2018 when it had just completed an initial POC use case with Intelligent Automation and received funding to launch a new automation program. Since then, I've helped expand and mature the program with the help of Automation Anywhere's innovative tools. Until now, our toolset mainly included AARI and API Tasks. However, like many of you, since AI came onto the scene as a cutting-edge tool to bolster automation efforts, I have been eager to find a use case to POC its viability within our organization. Today, I'm sharing the use case in which we were finally about to debut the power of AI and how

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Micah.Smith
Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Best Practice Guide for Establishing StandardsAutomation Pathfinder Program

You have started your automation journey with the Automation 360 platform and now you have to define a framework for all the developers to follow and use the best practices guide to ensure everyone follows the same standards. Before we dive into what the guardrails that need to be set up are, let’s try to understand why we even need these best practices for your automation initiative. You have hired a new set of engineers and they have joined from various organizations in which everyone had followed different standards and methodologies to develop the bots. It becomes important for them to know the standards followed here so they can all build in a similar fashion. If any of your existing engineers move on from the organization, the person replacing this engineer should be able to read and understand the standard with which the bots were developed earlier and continue to update with the same standards. Even if you have to allocate your engineers across different projects or even differ

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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
How to Re-Process Failed Work Items in a Queue

With Workload management, you can quickly process vast amounts of transactions by distributing the workload among multiple devices in the device pool. Let’s say you have created a queue, a device pool and scheduled a bot to run when a specified minimum number of work items are added to the queue. While the transactions are being processed, you may notice that there are a couple of work items that have failed and want to know how to re-process these transactions. Let us look at the steps to fix the data (if needed) and re-process these transactions. In this Invoice Processing example, data from invoices in a specified folder are extracted using IQ Bot and fed into custom web application for payments processing. Here is the breakdown of the two-part bot setup to execute the Invoice processing use case. As you can see in the diagram above, the second bot picks up the Invoice files from the path added to the Queue by the first bot. Let’s consider an error that a work item failed since the

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arjun.meda
Automation Anywhere Team
arjun.medaAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Bot Games Season 4 Generative AI Edition Announcement & Details - Challenge #3

Challenge #3 - Automation Resiliency We're excited to present the third and final challenge of Bot Games Season 4. Our aim in this challenge is to showcase how a Generative AI model can enhance automation resilience. When target applications are updated, the object paths for elements may change, requiring updates to the corresponding automations. By utilizing a Generative AI provider like ChatGPT (or any other provider of your choosing), we can input the source code of a web page and request object paths for all the necessary elements. These paths can then be used to automate interactions with the web page. OpenAI Generative AI package is available in Bot Store and you can read the included documentation or check out our quickstart video showing the full setup process. If you are using your own enterprise version of Control Room, you can download the OpenAI Generative AI package from the Bot Store and import it. If you are using the Community edition, it is already pre-loaded. Challeng

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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Intelligent Automation Pt I: Introduction

In this session, we take a look at defining intelligent automation and introduce a new (free!!) tool to help with creating and consuming a Machine Learning model. Summary Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is task centric, rule based automations that take place across application programming interfaces (APIs) and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) Artificial Intelligence is very broadly defined as data-driven modeling mimicking cognitive decision making. The sweet spot where these two technologies can overlap - where RPA bots consume machine learning models - is intelligent automation There are several examples of intelligent automation that many RPA developers are familiar with (and possibly already using) IQ Bot - intelligent document extraction using IQ bot makes using of machine learning to identify, cleanup, and extract text from invoices and other structured or semi-structured forms Discovery Bot - process discovery, process recording, and recording comparison all enable Discovery Bo

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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Pathfinder Community Monthly Flight Plan: February 2024Pathfinder News

Welcome to your one-stop hub for this month’s key Pathfinder Community news and featured events, content, forums, and more! 📚Community Stories Never miss a beat—here are your can’t-miss updates from the Pathfinder Community this month: You’re officially invited to join Product Club! Each month, the club meets to discuss the latest features with product leaders. You’ll hear about use cases, see demos, and get answers to your questions. Catch up on prior sessions by checking out the recaps: December 2023 January 2024 If you love our Developer Challenges, you’ve probably noticed that they are only accessible to logged-in users. Don’t worry — it’s the same credentials you use to log in to the Pathfinder Community and you can still find the list of challenges here. 💥 AI Activation Area Let’s put AI to work! Here are our latest featured resources to help you integrate AI into your automation workflow: Automation Anywhere MVP ChanduMohammad wrote a blog on using gen AI with the Automation S

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Sai Madhur PotturuGround Control | Tier 1
published in Pathfinder Blog
Unlocking Resiliency, Agility, and Scale with Automation Frameworks

When I first began working in both the banking and animal health industries, we faced the serious challenge of maintaining code consistency. Developers all wrote code their own way, making it hard not only to understand the code but also to maintain it. Our organization needed to scale automation; and an empty pipeline or small developer team certainly wasn’t our issue. We had a huge number of people expressing interest in building automations! But our inconsistent, hodgepodge approach to writing code was the glaring obstacle stifling our ability to design and develop resilient automations, enable citizen developers at a higher level, and scale across the organization—all things we knew were achievable. Automation frameworks were the key to revolutionizing our development practices and accelerating the growth of our automation program. What are Automation Frameworks? An automation framework is a predefined template that provides developers with a starting point each time they embark on

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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Pathfinder Community Monthly Flight Plan: January 2024Pathfinder News

Welcome to your one-stop hub for this month’s key Pathfinder Community news and featured events, content, forums, and more! 📚Community Stories Never miss a beat—here are your can’t-miss updates from the Pathfinder Community this month: Missed last month’s User Groups? Here are a few blog posts to get you caught up: Tips From Customers To Be Successful with Citizen Developers (South-Central User Group) Take The Proactive Approach: Nurturing Automation to Scale (West User Group) Making Metrics Meaningful (Midwest User Group) Don’t miss Micah Smith’s latest video on our top 5 features from the .30 release. New guide! Getting Started with Generative AI + Document Automation 📆 January’s Can’t Miss Events We know you’ve got a lot on your plate. If you can make time for some of our valuable events this month, these are the ones you won’t want to miss! Product Club January Meeting: API Tasks v.31 Release webinar: Unlock the Future with AI-Powered Automation ✨ Stellar Contributor Spotlight Ea

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
AARI Web: Full Build Tutorial

AARI is Automation Anywhere's new robotic interface - enabling humans and bots to collaborate on work like never before. In this tutorial, we'll take a deep dive into AARI Web to understand what makes up an AARI Web request, how forms are used to provide humans an interface for interacting with a bot, and how bots can be triggered with input values to make use of operator provided data. It's explained in the video above as well, but you'll need a couple of things to build along with the tutorial: Access to Automation Anywhere A2019 Community Edition (or Enterprise Edition with AARI licensing) The AARI Web Proof of Funds bot files from the Automation Anywhere GitHub. You'll want to click the green Code button and select Download Zip Leave the downloaded file as a zip...this zip file is an export of the Automation Anywhere A2019 bots needed for the exercise. Once the download has completed, import the bot into your Automation Anywhere A2019 Community/Enterprise Edition Control Room Note:

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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Take The Proactive Approach: Nurturing Automation to Scale

“Ask not only what automation can do for you—ask what you can do to support the automation program in your company.” In the recent quarterly User Group meeting for the West region, Jeremy Segura, MVP and Director of Smart Automation CoE at Experian, opened his discussion with this twist on JFK’s famous words. He brought a call to action to the group members to go from passive to proactive automation support in order to achieve sweeping transformation with their programs. What exactly does that mean? Let’s dive into Jeremy’s blueprint to scale automation proactively. Passive vs. Proactive Passive automation encompasses the day-to-day elements that make up a humming intelligent automation program. This includes: Automation & process development Operational productivity and efficiency Career development Human-in-the-loop integrations Proactive automation, on the other hand, takes automating one step further, not necessarily by simply integrating new tools or technologies but by actively s

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
MVP’s Tips To Making Metrics Meaningful & Driving ScaleAutomation Success Platform

You can capture, extract, and report data metrics from your automation initiatives in a thousand or more ways. Metrics are the cornerstone of your program's success and something we've established time and again as fundamental in the Start phase of every automation program. Metrics are the manifestation of your intelligent automation work that allows leaders to understand overall business processes and make informed, strategic decisions. Determining your metrics from the outset is crucial to establishing how your work will illustrate and support business value. Recently, Ryan Dennings (Manager of Intelligent Automation & ECM at Auto-Owners Insurance Company and Automation Anywhere MVP) presented his insights on metrics reporting to members of the Midwest User Group in their quarterly meeting. His advice: Set a metrics logging standard Determine what's important to whom Leverage existing resources to share your metrics Setting Your Standards Metrics logging standards enable automation l

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Tips From Customers To Be Successful with Citizen DevelopersUser Group Recap

Growing an automation program is a big task in itself. Introducing citizen developers to an automation program adds a layer of complexity and often elicits feelings of trepidation for many automation leaders, so we understand why many are hesitant to take that journey. But it doesn’t have to be a scary endeavor, and there are many benefits to nurturing your own citizen developers. In fact, many of our Automation Anywhere MVPs came up in automation as citizen developers and now certified professional developers and leaders in the intelligent automation field! In the recent quarterly meeting with our South-Central User Group, Vern Dickson, Senior Program Manager at Range Resources Corporation and Automation Anywhere MVP, shared his experience starting a new automation program exclusively with citizen developers from the start, as well as insightful tips from lessons he learned along the way. If you’ve ever given citizen developers a thought, or are perhaps in the thick of growing a citiz

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Virtual Meetup Recap: Workload Management in Automation 360

During this virtual meetup, we discussed queues, device pools, workload package, and work items prioritization. Concepts Queue: A queue is one of the main building blocks of Workload Management (WLM). A queue holds data known as Work Items for further processing. The system distributes these Work Items to individual unattended Bot Runners in a device pool for processing. Device Pool: Device pools provide built-in High Availability for the Bot Runner machines. You are not tied to a single Bot Runner machine, so if your Bot Runner machine is unavailable for any reason, your automation is not affected. The scheduled automation will automatically run on the next available Bot Runner machine, thereby providing high availability. Running a Bot with Queue: Use this feature to collectively process all work items of a queue across all the Bot Runners present in one or more device pools. Here are the links to packages showcased during the session. IQ Bot Extraction Workload Analyze Conclusion Wo

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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Pathfinder Community Monthly Flight Plan: December 2023Pathfinder News

Welcome to your one-stop hub for this month’s key Pathfinder Community news and featured events, content, forums, and more! 📚Community Stories Never miss a beat—here are your can’t-miss updates from the Pathfinder Community this month: Bot Games is Back! Join us for the Season of Giving Edition We’ve partnered up with United Way Bay Area to bring you a new challenge starting December 11. The best part: for every challenge completion, we’ll be donating to United Way Bay Area. Get more details in our blog post. 💥 AI Activation Area Let’s put AI to work! Here are our latest featured resources to help you integrate AI into your automation workflow: Automation Anywhere + Amazon Web Services: Supercharging AI-Powered Automation, Responsibly All About Solution Packs: What Are They & Why Should I Care? Level Up Your Customer Service with Automation + Gen AI with our free Solution Pack ✨ Stellar Contributor Spotlight Each month we’re shining a light on a stellar member whose recent contributi

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Most Valuable Pathfinder
ChanduMohammadMost Valuable Pathfinder
published in Pathfinder Blog
Streamlining Property Address Comparison with Automation Success PlatformMost Valuable Pathfinders

In the world of Intelligent Automation (IA), efficiency and accuracy are paramount. One common challenge involves comparing two property addresses across different systems in use cases like Accounts Payable/Order fulfilment Process/Insurance Claim Processing etc making it a cumbersome and error-prone task. Consider a use case where we need to compare two property addresses from two different systems. Example 1: System 1 Address : 555 Oak Ave, Queens, NY 11370-1234System 2 Address : 555 OAK AVENUE, QUEENS, NEW YORK 11370-1234 These addresses have the same street name ("Oak Ave") and are in the same city (Queens, NY). The differences are in letter case and the use of full words for city names, but these do not change the core address hence it’s a match. Exploring further examples reveals that addresses may contain different combinations of special characters and do not necessarily require an exact match in subsequent systems. The comparison can be performed using Address Line 1, Line 2,

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Most Valuable Pathfinder
arjun.meda
Automation Anywhere Team
arjun.medaAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Bot Games: Season of Giving Edition - Automate for a Cause! 🚀🎁

We are back with another exciting edition of Bot Games, and this time, it's all about giving back! 🤖🌟 Unleash Your Automation Skills for a Humanitarian Cause! In partnership with the United Way Bay Area, Bot Games: Season of Giving Edition features a simulated non-profit related use case. The challenge involves supporting individuals in need of shelter, clothing, and other essential emergency items — important work where automation can make a real difference! Why Join Bot Games: Season of Giving Edition? Support United Way Bay Area: For every completion of this challenge, Automation Anywhere will donate to United Way Bay Area to support it’s efforts in providing immediate and long-term support for employment, housing, financial stability, and basic needs. See how automation can make an impact: Here’s your opportunity to test your automation skills with a challenge that’s applicable to organizations relying on volunteers to do their important work. Whether you work for a nonprofit, or

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arjun.meda
Automation Anywhere Team
Kate.Ressler
Pathfinder Community Team
Kate.ResslerPathfinder Community Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Catch-up on absolutely everything you need to know from Imagine Austin 2023Imagine 2023

Couldn’t make it to our Imagine event in Austin or join by virtual livestream? Well, we hate to admit you missed out on a jam-packed few days of fired-up automation champions who sparked fresh inspiration on implementing intelligent automation in business. But we’re not here to rub in the FOMO or safeguard the happenings! We want to loop you in on all the juicy session discussions, product announcements, and more that went down. This blog will recap the important moments from Imagine that we want to ensure you don’t miss. Let’s dive in! Keynote Insights Product Announcements Customer Perspectives Pathfinder Panels Bot Games More Session Re-plays HumanAI When you think of generative AI for content, you likely think of Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft. When you think of generative AI for work, we want you to think of Automation Anywhere. Our Automation Anywhere Founder & CEO, Mihir Shukla, kicked off Imagine with a powerful keynote. His message: amid the declining workforce availability, th

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Kate.Ressler
Pathfinder Community Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Pathfinder Community Monthly Flight Plan: November 2023Pathfinder News

Welcome to your one-stop hub for this month’s key Pathfinder Community news and featured events, content, forums, and more! 📚Community Stories Never miss a beat—here are your can’t-miss updates from the Pathfinder Community this month: Top 5 New Features in the Automation Success Platform .30 Get the latest updates on the .30 release, including our top 5 features: Generative AI for Document Automation: Extract data with GenAI from complex and unstructured documents Bring Your Own Generative AI Package: Identify and utilize Large Language Models (LLMs) with ease Developer Experience: Enhance developer experience and improve productivity Process Composer: Orchestrate complex processes spanning multiple users Cybersecurity: Gain peace of mind with fortified enterprise security options Ready to take on a new mission? Get started with Pathfinder Mission Control. After taking the interactive assessment, you’ll learn where your program is strongest and where you have the most opportunity for

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Tech Breakdown: How Republic Airways Automates Bot Support

Tech Breakdown is the opportunity to understand how developers are implementing Automation Anywhere through the lens of the value-added for their organization, and the technical solution that got them there. This Tech Breakdown was written by former A-Lister, RPA developer, and CoE lead Zeth Baker previously of Republic Airways. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a need for flexibility and speed in creating new automation solutions, solving for unforeseen business changes, and increasing our overall development velocity to support our operation. As a regional airline, Republic Airways operates flights 24/7, and every second matters in the operation to make sure our flights depart and arrive on time. If you have ever flown, you know how important it is that flights take off on time, as nobody wants to be delayed while trying to visit their family and friends, go on vacations, or business trips. The bots we build support that goal of helping our flights to take off on time, along with eas

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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
How to Use the Debug Tool

It debugs me that not enough people are using this amazing feature! Let's see how it works. Watch the video above or read the key points below to get started! What does the Debug tool do? The Debug tool you to see each line your bot is executing during runtime, as well as details on how your variables are currently being filled. Once on Debug mode you will be able to pause/run your bot line by line, while seeing values being processed in real-time. This is especially helpful for longer or more complex bots and when inspecting your code while checking for bugs. How to use it While editing your bot, click on “Debug” at the top-right of the Workbench – alternatively you can press “F10” on your keyboard. Now the only visible lines of code are the ones your bot will use during this run, as all disabled lines will be hidden. This offers a clearer view of what your bot will be processing. Adding Breakpoints enables you to control the bot execution, as the bot pauses for each breakpoint added

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Kate.Ressler
Pathfinder Community Team
Kate.ResslerPathfinder Community Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Defining Responsibilities in the Automation Development LifecycleAutomation Pathfinder Program

Clearly defining roles and responsibilities is important in any team, especially in the world of automation when there may be lots of stakeholders and team members across the organization. The entire team collectively steers the ship toward successful automation implementation — as long as they know where they’re going and how they’re getting there. Let's explore the key players and their responsibilities in this dynamic ecosystem. Then, we'll uncover why defining these roles is so critical, and share an example of how skipping this step can take things off course. What are the roles and responsibilities to be defined in the automation development lifecycle? Automation roles can vary based on your organization's structure and the complexity of projects, but below are some common roles on the automation team, and their typical responsibilities. Automation Developer: The automation developer is responsible for designing, building, and maintaining automations. This requires a strong under

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Kate.Ressler
Pathfinder Community Team
Micah.Smith
Automation Anywhere Team
Micah.SmithAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Leveraging Virtual Machines to Empower Automation Team Growth and Optimization

In today's dynamic business world, where speed, precision, and adaptability are paramount, the role of automation has never been more crucial. Behind the scenes, a robust automation team works tirelessly to ensure processes are efficient, seamless, and ready for the challenges of tomorrow. Enter virtual machines (VMs) – the unsung heroes that can transform the way your automation team operates. In this blog post, we'll review what VMs are, why automation program use them, and share how you can leverage VMs to realize the full potential of your automation initiatives. What are virtual machines? In the context of an automation program, virtual machines (VMs) are like virtual versions of actual computers — the software kind of magic that lets you run various operating systems and apps all at once on a single physical machine. VMs are isolated from each other, each operating as an independent system with its own virtual hardware – think CPU, memory, storage, and even network connections. T

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Micah.Smith
Automation Anywhere Team
arjun.meda
Automation Anywhere Team
arjun.medaAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Structuring Deployments for Successful Automation ImplementationAutomation Pathfinder Program

What is this blog about? A well-planned and executed deployment process is foundational for achieving successful automation implementations. It ensures that automation initiatives are seamlessly integrated into production processes, providing lasting value and setting the stage for further growth. Why should the reader care about this topic? Production Efficiency: A structured deployment process ensures that automation solutions are integrated seamlessly into the production environment. This leads to increased efficiency in operations. Quality Assurance: A well-planned deployment process includes rigorous testing and validation procedures. This helps in assuring the quality and reliability of the deployed automation, which is critical in a production setting. Minimizing Disruption: A structured deployment minimizes disruption to ongoing operations. This is particularly important in Mission 3, where the primary goal is to optimize existing production processes. Cost Efficiency: An effec

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arjun.meda
Automation Anywhere Team
Kate.Ressler
Pathfinder Community Team
Kate.ResslerPathfinder Community Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Evaluating what’s a good fit for automationAutomation Pathfinder Program

Automation can transform workflows and supercharge efficiencies, enabling us to focus on tasks that truly require human creativity and problem-solving. But not every process is suitable for automation, and implementing it without careful consideration can lead to inefficiencies and setbacks. Let’s dive into the aspects and best practices of a use case assessment — an essential process used to evaluate what’s a good fit for automation. What is a use case assessment and why is it important for automation programs? A use case assessment is one of the first steps of automating business processes. This systematic evaluation method identifies and analyzes potential scenarios where a particular solution, such as automation, can be effectively applied to solve challenges. Without a use case assessment, you’re shooting from the hip. And when you’re shooting from the hip, you could be wasting time, effort, and resources on ideas that don’t actually make the most sense for your business or for yo

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Kate.Ressler
Pathfinder Community Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
mark.goodaireAutomation Anywhere Team
posted in Pathfinder Blog
Conversational Automation (Run Remote via API)

This pattern involves invoking an automation by use the Control Room APIs, from a “ChatBot” application. The automation will execute on one or more unattended runners/devices. Use this pattern any time you need to provide a conversational interface where users will receive answers by executing automation. EXPERT TIP: With conversational AI/automation solutions, responsiveness is critical to provide a great user experience - not many people want to wait a significant amount of time to get an answer from a chatbot! Consider use of ‘API Tasks’ to quickly retrieve results from an automation that can be supplied as a response to a chatbot question. Development Framework : Any Automation360 Development Framework can be used. Solution Design (SDD) : A sample SDD is attached. Administration : You’ll need a role defined that can generate an API key, as well as role for the ‘runner’ that will execute the automation. Several Control Room APIs are used to securely connect to the Control Room, and

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Automation Anywhere Team

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