Attended vs Unattended Bots

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has emerged as a transformative technology that can streamline business processes and improve operational efficiency. RPA software robots, or "bots," can automate repetitive, rule-based tasks, reducing the need for human intervention. When discussing RPA, two main categories often come up: Attended and Unattended RPA. In this blog, we'll explore the key differences between these two approaches and the specific use cases for each.

What is RPA?

Before we dive into Attended vs. Unattended RPA, let's briefly explain what RPA is. Robotic Process Automation involves the use of software robots or bots to automate tasks by interacting with various applications, just as a human employee would. RPA can handle routine, high-volume tasks, such as data entry, invoice processing, report generation, and more.

Unattended Bots

Unattended automation is process of automation without human intervention while executing the robot. The robot is scheduled to run automatically and if the application or system is logged off the robot is capable of logging into the system and run the automation task. The robots in this model are self-triggered. Such robots have dedicated servers to be placed and scheduled to run processes.

For unattended automation the developer must keep in mind that while scheduling the robot he has to select the respective options to run the robot even if the system is logged off. Credentials are managed either through windows credential manager or other password vaults. This automation is used for back office systems.

Use Case

1. Batch Processing: Unattended RPA is suitable for tasks that involve processing large volumes of data or documents, like invoice processing, payroll, or data extraction from emails.
2. Report Generation: Bots can be scheduled to generate reports, collate data from different sources, and distribute them to relevant stakeholders.
3. Data Migration: Unattended RPA can be used to automate data migration between systems, ensuring data accuracy and consistency.

Attended Bots

Attended automation is process of automation with human intervention while executing the robot. When the entire end-to-end process can’t be automated then bots is designed to work alongside humans. In the attended automation scenario, it doesn’t require a human to invoke the robot always it can be a specific event that triggers a robot. Attended automations run on the agent’s desktop. This automation is used for front office systems.

Use Case

1. Customer Support: Attended RPA can enhance customer support by providing agents with quick access to relevant customer information and automating routine tasks like order tracking or account verification.
2. Data Entry: Employees can trigger attended bots to automate data entry tasks, reducing errors and speeding up data processing.
3. Order Processing: In e-commerce and retail, attended bots can assist in order processing, from order creation to fulfillment and shipment tracking.

Hybrid Bots

Attended and unattended RPA Bot can also be used together as hybrid RPA Bot. A task can start with an agent and be enabled by an attended RPA Bot, which can kick-off unattended RPA Bot to complete the process.

I hope this post is helpful in understanding type of Bots. If you have any questions, feel free to comment it below.

Happy Learning.. :-)

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