How to Become a RPA Developer Tutorial: Perfect Guide [STEP-IN]

Last updated on 08th Jul 2020, Blog, Tutorials

RPA refers to Robotic Process Automation. The technology deal with the method of automating compound and redundant business responsibilities using ML and AI algorithms. It provides software capabilities to allow the machine to work on any applications or website in the same manner as humans. If you’re looking ahead to build your career in RPA Jobs, then below we have mentioned the information regarding RPA developer profile which will help you to acknowledge and make your career successful.

Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation or RPA (nowadays for everything there is an acronym) is an emerging form of business process automation, which focuses on automating the repetitive tasks which are currently performed by a human. RPA is different from the traditional way of programming which requires a lot of back end coding.

Why RPA?

RPA is not part of an organization’s IT infrastructure. Instead, it belongs to the top of the whole organization’s IT infrastructure. In an IT environment, most of the business processes are not smart and intelligent. Many of them are dependent on multiple IT systems, which rarely interact with each other. Such types of tasks are repetitive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive for human beings. With the Robotic Process Automation, it takes large IT transformation plans and implementation process to automate those types of repetitive, time-consuming, and rule-based tasks more quickly, accurately, and tirelessly, compared to a human being.

RPA technology uses bots that interact with web applications, web sites, excel worksheets, and emails to automate the tasks just like a human. RPA is currently the most efficient automation solution, and it helps human beings to focus on those tasks which require emotional intelligence, reasoning, judgement, and interactions with the customers, rather than just doing repetitive tasks.

Architecture

Enter RPA

• With Robotic automation, the company can deploy virtual workers who mimic human workers. In case of a change in process, a change in few lines of software code is always faster and cheaper than retraining hundreds of employees.
• Here, are some reasons why Robotics Process Automation is advantageous
• A human can work average 8 hours a day whereas robots can work 24hours without any tiredness.
• The average productivity of human is 60% with few errors as compared to Robot’s productivity which is 100% without any errors.
• Robots handle multiple tasks very well compared to a human being

Example of RPA

Consider the following Invoice Processing Business process.

How to become an Expert RPA Developer?

As RPA gains momentum in the global and national markets, there is no doubt that the demand for RPA developers will be off the roof. In fact, a recent search on ‘Robotics Process Automation’ on LinkedIn’s job site produced 2,158 open positions. The number further increased with a search on RPA. This clearly points to the fact that becoming an expert RPA developer is a wise choice for the future. However, it is easier said than done. RPA, as a technological disruption, is relatively in its nascent stage as compared to other technologies. Invariably, understanding what it takes to be an expert RPA developer and then realizing each of those capabilities is hard work. On the bright side, all the hard work is definitely worth it when you look at the benefits, especially monetary, it comes along with.

Our aim here is to help budding RPA developers understand what they set out for. We seek to highlight the roles, the skills, the courses they can take up and finally what fruits they can expect. 

RPA Implementation Methodology

Planning

In this phase, you need to Identify processes which you want to automate. Following checklist will help you identify the correct process.

• Is the process manual & repetitive
• Is the process Rule-based
• Is the input data is in electronic format and is readable
• Can existing System be used as it is with no change

Next, steps in planning phase are:

• Setup project team, finalize implementation timelines and approach.
• Agree on solution design for performing RPA processes.
• Identify logging mechanism that should be implemented to find issues with running bots.
• Clear roadmap should be defined to scale up RPA implementation

Development

In this phase, you start developing the automation workflows as per agreed plan. Being wizard driven, the implementation is quick.

Testing

In this phase, you run Testing cycles for in-scope automation to identify and correct defects

Support & Maintenance

Provide continuous support after going live and helps in immediate defect resolution. Follow general maintenance guidelines with roles and responsibilities with business and IT support teams.

Practices of RPA Implementation

• One should consider business impact before opting for RPA process
• Define and focus on the desired ROI
• Focus on targeting larger groups and automating large, impactfull processes
• Combine attended and unattended RPA
• Poor design, change management can wreak havoc
• Don’t forget the impact on people
• Governance of the project is foremost thing in RPA process. Policy, Corporate, Government compliance should be ensured.

Skills Required:

• Strong Problem-Solving and Analytical Skills
• Experience with one or more RPA technologies (e.g. UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism) 
• At least 2 to 4 years of professional experience in programming (including scripting /coding), SQL and relational databases, and application development
• Experience with Process Analysis, Design, and Implementation, Business and Technical requirements, Problem-Solving, and System(s) Testing, including UAT and Bug fixes
• Should be able to Prioritise and manage Multiple Portfolios
• Basic understanding of Lean Six Sigma process methodologies

RPA Developer: Process Designer Salary

INDIA

• For Freshers or people with experience of 0-2 years –  INR 6,00,000 to 8,00,000 per year 
• For Senior Role having experience of 2-6 years – INR 9,00,000 to 15,00,000 per year

USA

Average Salary Ranges from  $ 84,000 to $ 132,000 per year

Use of RPA

1. Emulates Human Action:

Emulates human execution of the repetitive process using various application and systems.

2. Conduct high-volume repeated tasks:

Robotics process automation can easily simulate rekeying of data from one system to another. It performs tasks like data entry, copying, and pasting.

3. Perform Multiple Tasks:

Operates multiple and complex tasks across multiple systems. This helps to process transactions, manipulate data and send reports.

4. ‘Virtual’ system integration:

This automation system can transfer data between disparate and legacy systems by connecting them at the user interface level instead of developing new data infrastructure.

5. Automated report generation:

Automates the extraction of data to comes up with accurate, effective and timely reports.

6. Information validation and auditing:

Resolves and cross-verify data between different systems to validate and check information to provide compliance and auditing outputs.

7. Technical debt management:

Helps to reduce technical debt by reducing the gap between systems, preventing the introduction of custom implementations.

8. Product management:

It helps to bridge the gap between IT systems and related product management platforms by automated updating of both systems.

9. Quality Assurance:

It can be beneficial to QA processes which cover regression testing and automating customer use case scenarios.

10. Data migration:

Allows automated data migration through systems which is not possible using traditional mediums, like document, spreadsheets or other source data files.

11. Gap solutions:

Robotic automatic fills the gaps with process deficiencies. It includes may simple tasks as password resets, the system resets, etc.

12. Revenue forecasting:

Automatically updating financial statements to predict revenue forecasting.

Role & Responsibilities

Let’s start the discussion by understanding what are the major roles and responsibilities of an RPA developer. As RPA is all about end to end implementation of robotics and artificial intelligence to build automated systems, an RPA developer does exactly that. Confused, what this means? To put it simply, an RPA developer is responsible for creating, designing, developing and implementing RPA systems. The RPA developer’s role also entails monitoring feedback post implementation, to ensure seamless execution. Finally, support and maintenance work to resolve bugs is also undertaken by RPA developers.

While these are the primary responsibilities of RPA developers, they may adapt to match the organizational structure. On the one hand, an RPA developer could be responsible for the end to end management, taking care of every step on the way. While such a role definition ensure consistency, however, it hinders scalability. On the other hand, some organizations recruit separate RPA developers for different parts of the RPA lifecycle. Each one is responsible for a distinct role, making it easier to scale the operations.

Robotic Process Automation tools

Selection of RPA Tool should be based on following 4 parameters:

• Data: Easy of reading and writing business data into multiple systems
• Type of Tasks mainly performed: Ease of configuring rules-based or knowledge-based processes.
• Interoperability: Tools should work across multiple applications
• AI: Built-in AI support to mimic human users

Tools:

1) Blue prism

Blue Prism is a Robotic Process Automation software. It provides businesses and organizations with an agile digital workforce.

2) Automation AnyWhere

Automation Anywhere is a developer of robotic process automation (RPA) software.

3) UiPath
The thing that excites Choudhary the most about her job is knowing she’s saving people time and energy so that they can do more productive work and contribute more to the organization.

“Generally, one person works only in one domain,” she adds. “It really excites me that my bots are skilled to do jobs in all domains, like HR, IT, finance, support, etc., which takes my one-time effort and does work all the time. Also, I get to learn a lot about how people work in each domain, and it gives me exposure to various areas to better understand how the company works.”

Colleague Mohammed agrees. “Getting to know different processes in an organization and finding ways to simplify processes using software bots” motivates him to go to work every day.

Both RPA developers enjoy working at Automation Anywhere and have been recognized by business users, managers, and teammates. “People are very helpful here,” Choudhary says. She knows that at any time, she can reach out to a teammate, whether she knows that person or not, and they’re always ready to help.

Additionally, people go to her for help, and she finds it not only rewarding to be able to help them, but also to get to know more of her teammates. “It feels like working in a family where we can reach out to anyone as everyone works for everyone. There is no client and project and such,” she says.

“The business users are very supportive, kind, and helpful,” she adds. “They have always appreciated whenever we have delivered their bot and have helped us immediately whenever we needed their input.”

Benefits of RPA 

• To avoid human errors and to reduce human efforts.
• To save time and improve productivity, accuracy, and consistency.
• Enhance the business analytics and easy standardization of workflow.
• To have a friction less delivery of tasks.
• Complete Audit trail for any kind of compliance purposes.
• Cost reduction.

Process

Robotic Process Automation for Invoice Processing can be summarized in 5 major steps.

• Extracting Invoice: RPA will extract the PDF copies of Invoices from Email, or Workflow or from a dedicated folder etc.
• Reading Invoices: Once the invoices are extracted, the Robot will read the specific fields in the Invoices that need to be updated in the ERP.
• Verification of Invoices: RPA will verify the Invoice details like the Company code, Supplier number, VAT etc with the database and if verification passes it moves to the next step.
• Inputting Invoice details in ERP: Once the required information is gathered and verified from the Invoices, RPA robot will open the ERP and key in all the fields that need to be filled. It can be in SAP, Oracle or whatever ERP your company uses.
• Confirmation: Once the data has been successfully inputted in the ERP system, the robot will provide confirmation. Either it can be over email for each Invoice or a consolidated email for all posting. If require a report with all the posting details in excel etc. it can be provided, it’s highly customizable however the organization wants.

processes for RPA.

• Rule Bases Process: Select only the Rule-based process for RPA. Rule-based process are those where a series of simple “If…then” logic can be applied without involving any human decision.
• Stable Process : Identify a process which is been performed in the same way for a period not less than 6 months. Also, ensure there are no frequent changes expected in the process in the near future.
• Standard Inputs : Ensure the identified Stable Rule-Based Process always should have Standard Input, else it’s not a suitable process for RPA.

These are very basic 3 Golden Rules to qualify a process for RPA. In addition to this, to get a better ROI also make sure the identified process qualifies the below checks too.

• Repetitive Manual Process : Its ideal to select repetitive manual process for automation to gain FTE reduction cost benefit.
• High Volume : Also the process should quantify in terms of high volume to gain a better return on investment for automation.

This helps you in identifying the right process for robotic process automation.

Myths of RPA:

1. Coding is required to use RPA software
   That’s not true. To use Robotics Process Automation tools, one needs to understand how the software works on the front-end and can how they can use for automation.
2. RPA software does not require human supervision
   This is an illusion because humans are needed to program the RPA bot, feed them tasks for automation and manage them.
3. Only large big companies can afford to deploy RPA
   Small to medium-sized organizations can deploy RPA to automate their business. However, initial costing will be high but can be recovered in 4-5 years.
4. RPA is useful only in industries that rely heavily on software

RPA can be used to generate automated bills, invoice, telephone service, etc. which are used across industries irrespective of their software exposure.

RPA Developer Career Options

There are different types of career options are available for RPA developer in the IT industry. Some of them are given below:

• RPA Consultant
• RPA Administrator
• RPA Engineer
• RPA Business Analyst

Conclusion:

Thus, due to the various benefits of RPA, its utilization is gradually increasing in the market worldwide. Most of the organizations are already implementing the RPA technology, as it optimizes the cost and frees the other resources. It is a cost-effective technique and also has non–financial benefits such as it consists of more accurate and consistent processes, which are less prone to errors. Nowadays, most of the organizations are using RPA for testing the particular application and eliminating the old testing tools due to its limitations. For example, selenium, this automation tool is limited to only to a single browser. If the other part of the application has to be tested, then it is required to integrate it with other tools, but with RPA any part of the system can be tested with a single tool.