Attended vs Unattended RPA Strategies
Key Points
- The primary driver for RPA projects is achieving a strong ROI, requiring businesses to evaluate both software and hardware costs against expected benefits.
- Prioritizing automation scenarios helps identify the most valuable and quickly deliverable use cases, aligning the initiative with the organization’s immediate needs and capabilities.
- Attended robots operate with a human in the loop, where users manually trigger the bot and provide input, making them suited for tasks like on‑demand report generation that still need human oversight.
- Unattended robots run independently of user interaction, ideal for high‑volume, back‑office processes, but selecting the right approach involves weighing factors such as scalability, complexity, and potential pitfalls.
Full Transcript
# Attended vs Unattended RPA Strategies **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeRPLv1nK5U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeRPLv1nK5U) **Duration:** 00:11:01 ## Summary - The primary driver for RPA projects is achieving a strong ROI, requiring businesses to evaluate both software and hardware costs against expected benefits. - Prioritizing automation scenarios helps identify the most valuable and quickly deliverable use cases, aligning the initiative with the organization’s immediate needs and capabilities. - Attended robots operate with a human in the loop, where users manually trigger the bot and provide input, making them suited for tasks like on‑demand report generation that still need human oversight. - Unattended robots run independently of user interaction, ideal for high‑volume, back‑office processes, but selecting the right approach involves weighing factors such as scalability, complexity, and potential pitfalls. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeRPLv1nK5U&t=0s) **Choosing RPA: ROI and Robot Types** - The speaker outlines key factors for selecting automation projects, covering unattended vs. attended robots, ROI evaluation, prioritization, and common pitfalls. ## Full Transcript
today we're going to be talking about
RPA and some of the things that you need
to take into account when deciding about
your automation projects now some of the
topics that we're going to cover along
with RPA are going to be the differences
between unattended and attended software
robots some of the most beneficial
examples and things of that nature that
are going to support those scenarios
with unattended and attended robots and
then finally some other components and
pitfalls that you need to take into
account when deciding what needs to be
automated and how you can have the best
automation solution
so your first question is probably going
to be well why do I care and the reason
why is going to be a couple different
reasons but the first one is going to be
the ROI right as a business one of the
most important things that you need to
do or consider when talking about any
automation project is how can we get the
return on investment that we need when
we spend money we want to see the
benefit we want to see the business get
some some upside of that money being
spent and we want to be able to to
associate and accommodate all of the
components around any of the software
spend or Hardware spend associated with
an automation project
so after we take into account the return
on investment really the next scenario
or the next component has to be well
what other things must we prioritize
right so when we consider the
prioritization of an automation scenario
that's going to tell us a lot about what
the businesses needs are it's going to
tell us a lot what can we get done
sooner rather than later and what
ultimately is going to be the best
candidates
so when we take into account the
prioritization of these automation
scenarios that's going to lead us to
some very beneficial
um
it's going to lead us to some very
beneficial components with regards to
what our business can accommodate and
allow for those executions
so after we've prioritized some of these
scenarios really you're probably
wondering okay well how do unattended
and intended automations play into that
overall discussion
well we're going to start with attended
automations and attended automations are
essentially going to be in this context
software robots right for robotic
process automation they're going to take
a variety of actions that the user is
going to manually kick off
so when we're talking about those
scenarios that are going to be attended
automations we very much have a human in
the loop right it's going to be a person
who's going to have a significant input
or they're going to kick off provide
some information surrounding it or
ultimately provide information to the
robot that the robot's going to take to
execute those automations and to begin
so let's start with a sample scenario
right in our sample scenario let's take
a common one of pesky reports right we
all have to deal with reports and we
don't really love doing them but
automation is a great candidate
automation is a great way to take some
of those reports and turn them into a
very easy Roi and prioritized scenario
set
so with those reports I as an individual
might need to provide some information
to the software robot right so the first
step is going to involve me as an
individual and I am going to kick off
the robot I'm going to tell the robot
hey here is the file that you need to
base your report off of and that report
might be something like an Excel
spreadsheet it might be a form of a file
it might be even some plain text input
that I tell my software robot hey you
need to take this into account
so after the robot gets the Excel
spreadsheet it's going to process it
it's going to take the necessary actions
and then maybe it's going to return it
right back to me on my desktop right so
oftentimes those attended automation
scenarios might start and end with the
individual seeing or getting some
information
now when we consider those scenarios
there are a couple different things are
going to come into play with them the
first is going to be okay well how do
those attended scenarios oftentimes
start so the first way that they
oftentimes are going to start is going
to be something like a file right so we
might provide a file like that scenario
I just gave that has a spreadsheet or
something of that nature
now the next way is going to be
something such as manual input now for
the manual input we as an individual
might kick off or tell the bot hey I
need you to begin running right we might
go to a launcher or website and kick it
off and say hey this is where I need my
automation to begin helping me out now
that's going to be a form of manual
input or intervention where the user
provides some stuff and ultimately what
is most important is to remember that
users oftentimes with attended robots
are going to be the ones that are
kicking those off right so the user is
going to be that starting node or that
starting point is the bot starts when
the user wants it to start
now that's an example of an attended
robot but what about an unattended robot
so an unattended robot in this context
and scope of robotic process automation
is going to be about a software robot
right and that software robot is going
to essentially be able to take and
handle things such as batch processes
schedules things of that nature with
absolutely no human intervention so
that's going to be a unattended robot
that's going to provide
a schedule or a known execution
a known execution where the bot's going
to pick it up and begin automating those
kinds of things so let's take that
scenario that we did earlier with the
report and we saw what it might look
like in an intended sense but what's it
going to look like in an unattended
sense well in an unattended sense we're
going to start very much in a slightly
different way right so instead of the
person here that we would have kicking
it off instead we might have a schedule
right and for our schedule might kick
off at a certain time right midnight on
every Friday I want to begin my report
automation I want my software robot to
go ahead and maybe scrape a website go
to a certain file location on a server
whatever it might be I need my robot to
go there I need it to take some
information and I need it to go ahead
and begin automating those components
and then when that robot is done taking
those pieces and automating them we
oftentimes might see the software robot
doing something like
emailing it out or sending a
notification or pushing something a
little bit further down the process
workflow right so it'll send a payload
or something of that nature
now when we think about unattended
robots in comparison to attended robots
where we have things like the file the
human intervention or the manual kickoff
the unattended robots kind of invocation
method is going to be some uh more
autonomous things right so we might see
something such as a calendar schedule
right hey I need it to kick off on this
day or at this time we might see it kick
off on a series of batch items right we
got item one item two and item three
that might be connected to a execution
queue or some sort of list that the the
robot is going to be monitoring
now the final way that we oftentimes see
unattended robots being used is going to
be through apis right an API is just
being simple integration points with the
software robot
now along with all these scenarios you
know now that we've discussed attended
and unattended robots and some of the
ways that you can see the ROI the
prioritization and the scenarios of when
we should be using the different types
of bots what's important is to know what
are some limitations what does my
business need to take into account when
making that right decision
so the first thing that we want our
business to think about is we want our
business to think about what types of
limitations can an unattended robot have
so as far as a limitation that we might
see is unattended robots are not able to
take every single action that we would
like what we mean by that is think of a
banking process where we might use a a
hardware key or some sort of password or
something of that nature that an
individual doesn't know and might be
generated by a physical key fob that
they might have right so in that kind of
scenario that would not be a good
unattended automation scenario
you would see the buy struggle right or
it have an issue kind of transferring
from that physicality of a device to the
digital domain it would be a great
opportunity for an attended automation
where the manual input from a user is
that password from the hardware key they
provide it and the bot begins to
automate and take those scenarios or
take those executions that are needed
now the other limitation that we need to
be aware of is Bots are not great at
critical thinking what I mean by that is
that Bots oftentimes are going to
struggle when we have to deal with
things such as
when we have to deal with things such as
reading a subject line of an email right
or a IT service management tool the
critical thinking that a human is able
to bring to that process right where
they're able to recognize hey this is
what that email wants me to do or this
is what that it ticket wants me to do is
a great starting point for our software
robot to
um to work after we've identified that
but before uh before we've successfully
identified what kind of ticket what kind
of request is coming in through an email
that's where Bots kind of need some help
with that additional fuzzy logic and
there are ways that we can talk about
that in other videos about Ai and things
of that nature
now ultimately When taking into account
all these pieces it's very important
that the business gets the ROI that they
need and the best way to get that Roi is
by accurately prioritizing the scenarios
understanding when you can use attended
and unattended Automation and being able
to implement them to get that value-add
as quickly as possible
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