The world of technology is constantly undergoing both evolutions and revolutions. It is always difficult to know just what kinds of changes and innovations each year is going to bring. The field of Robotic Process Automation is just one example where the best people can do is offer their predictions of what might be in store.
PeerSpot users look at trends in various fields and try to anticipate what kind of changes the fields that they deal with might undergo. What follows is a compilation of the evaluations and predictions that PeerSpot users made for what the field Robotic Process Automation will look like in 2022.
PeerSpot users feel that one area that will undergo growth in 2022 is Hyperautomation, and most specifically the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The use of automation by companies that had not used it before trended up in 2021 and shows no sign of slowing. Mid-sized enterprises are looking toward the growing number of automation platforms and license options as they plan their strategies for 2022.
Hyperautomation will also likely be an area of increased focus in 2022 because mid-sized enterprises are increasingly focusing on optimizing operations, digitizing their businesses, and growing. The most effective way for them to do this will be to lean into the use of machine learning and other automation processes to automate the highest number of business and IT processes they possibly can. This will allow them to sustainably move their businesses into a digital format.
Our users predict that in 2022, RPA platforms will seek to increase the flexibility of their integration and compatibility capabilities. They will want to make it possible for RPA platforms to more easily integrate with other tools and APIs. This is especially true of other automation tools. When that happens, the platforms will enable users to more effectively employ the platforms. The platforms will be far more mature and powerful when they can work in tandem with other similar programs. Additionally, if these integration capabilities are as flexible and complete as PeerSpot users think they will be, then they will work backward. Newer versions of these programs will be able to run with older legacy versions. That ability will remove the user’s fear of losing the workflows that they so painstakingly created on the older versions when new versions are released. The integrations will put a greater number of tools into the user’s hands.
Optical character recognition, or OCR, is a further aspect in which PeerSpot’s users foresee advancements taking place in 2022. This feature, which enables programs to automatically extract text and convert it into a computer readable form, will be improved. OCR makes it possible for users to take their document text and incorporate it into the data processing functionality of their programs. This can include text editing and launching search queries. It will be upgraded in a couple of ways. The overall efficiency of the feature will be scaled up. Its ability to capture text will be expanded to enable it to capture more types of text. That will give more potential options as far as how they want to deploy this feature. It will increase its AI capabilities, improving it in several ways: Artificial intelligence will make it more likely that the data that is being extracted will be extracted accurately. There will be far fewer missing pieces of information if an AI is supervising the work. There will also be less need for human oversight of the extraction process. The AI would allow manpower to be assigned more effectively. The use of an AI would also greatly improve its ability to recognize specific types of text that might ordinarily be harder to translate for a computer. Things like handwritten text would now be easily translated.
PeerSpot’s users predict that the training that the users of RPA platforms receive will become more comprehensive. RPA programs are highly advanced and technical solutions. They tend to have very steep learning curves and what training they offer is usually the bare minimum. Users would need to be trained properly before they could fully use the different aspects of the programs. These factors make it difficult for people who do not have a deep technical background to use these solutions as they are intended to be used. Even offering greater and more in-depth documentation would make a difference in the ability of users to learn how to employ these platforms. The drain on resources associated with not being able to easily train users is a factor that could prevent people from choosing to use RPA software. That is a consideration that is likely to spur a response on the part of the RPA designers. Upon looking at this, they will probably invest more into more comprehensive training programs and supporting documentation.
Another potential place where our users predict to see RPA changes occur in 2022 is in the usability and accessibility of the programs. The steep learning curve and highly technical nature make RPA somewhat difficult for the average user to deploy. Training aside, the creators of the solutions are expected to attempt to make the systems more user-friendly. The prevalence of things like coding heavy workflow programming are possibly going to be reduced. Things like drag-and-drop options for workflow creation are things that they might look to in order to improve their accessibility.
The scheduling capabilities of RPA platforms are predicted to undergo an overhaul. One of the things that can make RPAs so effective is their ability to set specific activities for specific times and at the same time set a trigger to initiate those projects to begin. As effective as these scheduling protocols are when the platforms have these capabilities, there is room for them to be expanded. Solutions that lack the ability to schedule activities lack an important automation functionality that makes a difference as far as the solution’s overall effectiveness. This may turn some away from wanting to use it. The fact that more businesses are considering using RPAs may inspire the solution designers to include this feature in solutions that do not have it. Those that do have scheduling capabilities may move to make them even more effective by adding such things as event notifications. Additions such as this would make an already powerful function even stronger.
Which products/applications do you think are better for RPA?
The core idea of RPA it's simple. Rather than have people interact with applications, RPA instead uses software robots that drive application user interfaces in the same way. The main benefit it's delegating routinary activities to the RPA processes.
Simple RPA technologies focus almost entirely on business users. API's integrations it's more for IT-related activities.
Thanks for the article! It was very interesting.