Month: January 2023

Robotic Process Automation in Data Entry

Posted on by Praveen Xavier

Data entry has always been an important as well as a tedious task performed in almost every business. Initially, data entry was done manually by human employees and it took many hours and days to complete the task. With the advent of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) bots, data entry has become easier and faster. RPA software has lifted the weight of a monotonous task from the shoulders of human workers so that they can focus more on creative and productive work. Deploying data entry bots in any process, where data needs to be entered manually, not only makes the process faster but also results in inaccurate entry of data in less time.

Some of the data entry tasks that we can automate using RPA include: 

  • Obtaining data from PDF and converting it to word, 
  • Filling out surveys, questionnaires, and other forms online, 
  • Payroll data entry, 
  • Automated file conversion, etc. 

Benefits of using RPA for Data Entry 

As we have mentioned in the previous paragraph, Robotic Process Automation in data entry is different and easier than the manual process of data entry into the screens through forms. Here are some of the benefits of deploying RPA in data entry. 

Quick implementation

Deploying a new RPA solution is very much faster and easier than an employee hiring process. Within days, RPA boys will show their efficiency, once the deployment is completed. Meanwhile, a new human resource needs to go through several stages from getting shortlisted to qualifying for the interviews. After that, they have to go through the training process as well. All these processes can be eliminated by using an efficient RPA solution.  

Accurate entry of data

Manual entry of data into systems by human employees is subject to errors that might happen knowingly or unknowingly. This leads to the loss of exact data and can cost a great deal of time and money to companies and businesses. When RPA bots perform the data entry tasks, the data will be more precise and freer of errors than any data entered manually by human workers. RPA bots are designed to perform repetitive tasks without any errors and with the highest level of accuracy. But the important thing to be noted is that the degree of accuracy depends on the optimal character recognition used by the RPA bot. 

RPA Enhances Legacy Systems

RPA, being the right technology, enables you to extract data from standard formats to the correct format. The processing server can obtain images, process raw data, and pass the information to the RPA bot. This well-formatted data will be transferred by the bot to your legacy system, even if it requires keystrokes to work. Implementing robotic process automation to receive data through keystrokes enables you to efficiently store processed data. In order to make sure that RPA expands your processed data in the correct fields, engineers can connect the legacy systems with XML code. 

Enhanced productivity

The productivity of RPA bots cannot be compared with the efficiency of human employees. RPA boats operate the whole day – which means they can work without rest for 24 hours a day. Meanwhile, a human employee can work only for 40 hours a week. The use of the right tools of RPA allows your business to monitor data-entry processes on auto-pilot. When robotic process automation is implemented properly in businesses, it enables employees to free up their time and resources to focus on tasks that require more productivity and prioritizing. It also gives job satisfaction to the employees. 

Scalability

Demand has never been constant, especially with the changing market trends, international crisis, the pandemic, and much more. If there is an unexpected surge or decrease in demand for your product/service (which is very reliable) – hiring employees can become a difficult task. This is where RPA proves its scalability because it gives you the option to add new bots or remove existing ones, depending on the situation. Therefore, automating data-entry processes with RPA bots is simpler and easier than hiring a human employee for the same task. 

Eliminate turnover cost

As emotional beings, humans are subjected to change and a variety of factors such as the quality of work, wages, incentives, and work-life balance can motivate us to give up things halfway and go behind other opportunities. Bots are resistant to emotions. They work as they are programmed and never give up on the task they are doing. In simple terms, let’s say that implementing RPA in data entry processes will never make you worry about hiring, onboarding, training employees for different systems, and tracking their performance. 

Nominal IT resources

One of the main benefits of implementing RPA is that you do not need to upgrade the existing IT infrastructure to implement RPA. RPA bots take a seat on the other layer, adding new functionalities and features to your legacy systems that are not reconcilable with the new application program interface (APIs). Basically, an RPA implementation partner provides and manages RPA technology. These partners are mainly in charge of the effective working of the software bots like bug fixing, extending repairs, patching updates, and more. 

Security

One of the major responsibilities of every business is data security. This is because any data leakage to rivals will have serious repercussions for the development of business in the upcoming future. In particular, for employees with no responsibility or professional ethics, disclosure of confidential data is not at all a serious concern or a matter of loyalty. Many businesses have opted for RPA to restrict the leakage of data considering the fact that RPA bots can neither cheat nor decide which data is important and which is not. This prevents data leakage outside. At the same time, RPA only works on a specific scale, offering maximum protection from external harmful elements. 

Wrap Up 

Robotics Process Automation (RPA) is revolutionizing the business industry with the many benefits it offers. In this digital era, RPA is a much sought-after area and by 2021 the industry is expected to show a growth of $ 2.9 billion. Those who have already adopted this technology are quickly recouping their investment and reaping the benefits consistently. Implementing RPA to replace manual and inefficient data entry processes facilitates faster and more accurate processing of data.  

How To Turn An Idea Into An App?

Posted on by Vishnu T

Let’s say the advent of technology has created opportunities for bringing more and more ideas into the limelight. Mobile phones have changed to smartphones, either Android or iOS. The increased sales of these smartphones have resulted in an increase in the use of mobile applications. The handier they became, the more people downloaded them. Earlier, the concept of mobile apps was limited to features that supported music, videos, recording, and file sharing. But nowadays there are apps for everything that we do in our daily lives – diet apps, beauty apps, sleep monitoring apps, health monitoring apps, fashion apps, personal loan apps, credit apps, and the list go on. All these concepts of apps have been brought into practice after going through many stages.  

Here in this article, we are going to discuss how to turn an idea into an app. 

How to bring an idea into an app? 

It is totally okay to get tempted by the sheer opportunities found in the mobile app development area. What if an idea about developing an application hits your mind? Idea generation is not a problem here, but keeping the idea alive and giving it a chance is actually a responsible task. Let us take a look at the different stages of bringing an idea into an app. 

Expand the idea 

The very basic beginning of app development lies in the way you expand your idea. Expanding your idea means identifying the purpose of the app, the service you want to offer through the app, and the target audience. It is better to evaluate the quality of your concept to understand whether it meets the user’s expectations or demands. Always keep in mind that your app will be impactful only if it reaches the intended audience. If you find any inappropriate feature that doesn’t make your idea sensible, try multiple ideas to replace it with an appropriate one. 

Market research  

Once you fix your idea, the next focus should be on the market trends. You may want to get a better insight into the market conditions to analyze the future outcome you may get once you launch your app. This will also enable you to identify the relevancy of the app according to the market conditions. You can compare other applications with similar features and understand what they lack in performance. This will help your app to stand at the top of all other apps with similar features. Add new elements that make your app look unique to the audience.  

Brand idea 

When you are done with developing the concept and market research, you should start thinking about establishing a name and generating a brand image. For this purpose, you can seek the help of professional developers who have better knowledge and skill and can help you bring up the name. 

Choose your audience 

Once the foundation of the theoretical framework of your app is laid, the next step is determining the audience you want to reach. For this purpose, you can look for demographic conditions like gender, geographic location, age group, profession, educational background, or whatever you prefer. The accuracy and effectiveness of your app depend on the user experience. A good user experience indicates successful use and implementation of the app. If you succeed in choosing the right audience for your app, then your app achieves success in the first stage itself. 

Decide your budget 

A clear idea alone cannot make an app. If you want to build your idea into an app, you need to invest a certain amount of money in the process of developing it. If you don’t have a fixed budget, you may face unpredictable costs and expenses at each stage of your app development. This can happen even after having a fixed budget. Therefore, it is always better to have an estimate of expenses that may come your way and prepare one step ahead of it in order to avoid any financial damage. 

Start building the app 

After defining the idea, determining the audience, and fixing the budget, the next thing you would want to do is build your app. App building can be a complex process sometimes and this is why you can seek the help of a developer or a company that can make your app according to your requirements. They can manage the entire process efficiently as they are proficient in mobile application development services. This will save you time, and money, and give a more professional appeal to the app. There are many online app development tools available if you want to build the app yourself.  

To monetize or not? 

There is one easy way to get back the money you have spent on developing the app. It means monetizing your app. You can put a fixed price for installing your app from the App store. If you are confident in the features and uniqueness of your app, if your audience finds it worth purchasing, they will definitely pay the money to get the app. In the other case, you can simply put your app in the App store, making it accessible to anyone who wants to use it. This will apparently increase the download rate of your app but may take some time to obtain good revenue from it.  

Test and optimize  

Now is the time to test the prototype. When the app is developed, you need to ensure that it functions the way you have designed it. Run the app to check its compatibility. You can also detect problems if there are any and optimize them. You can cross-check the efficiency of the app, its compatibility with devices, and its functioning. If you have a hired team for app development then you should be aware that the development process is different from testing and optimization, and therefore it requires a separate charge.  

Launch your app 

After successfully completing the testing and optimization process, your app is ready to be introduced to the market. Once the app is launched in the market, generating traffic in the field is an important aspect. 

Start marketing to the target audience 

If you already had a marketing campaign before the launch of the app, then gaining the attention of users will not be a challenging task. If you haven’t had a campaign before, you can start one to market your product. Social media is the best platform you can use to market your app to the target audience. Search for events or pages on social media where you can do promotional activities for your app. You can pinpoint the features of your app in the campaign. This will drag the audience’s attention to the app. Meanwhile, you will get the chance to analyze the drawbacks of your app and make the required updates as soon as possible.  

Wrap Up 

It is true that turning an approximate concept into an app certainly takes a lot of time, effort, and resources. All of this is worth it if you are able to develop an app based on thorough research and innovative ideas that address the issues of your target audience. This is a simple guide that gives a roadmap to build your idea into an app and also lets you know about the things to be expected. 

Automation of Repetitive Tasks: How and Why? 

Posted on by Suneer P A

Automation involves performing a task using technological tools and without human intervention. It is more like turning the ‘autopilot’ mode on so that the task will be performed without deviating from the pre-set rules and conditions. The main objective of automation is to complete repetitive and monotonous tasks so that human resources can use their time and energy to perform tasks that are more productive, valuable, and meaningful such as decision-making, collaborating team, and problem-solving. Automation not only supports the completion of tasks with perfection but also with accuracy and in minimum time. The outcome of automating a task is far better and more efficient than what the human workforce would do.  

Through this article we intend to explain two relevant questions: 

  1. How do robotic process automation solutions work across different workflows? 
  2. Why is it important to automate repetitive tasks? 

How does task automation work in different workflows? 

Selecting an automation program that speeds up your business and makes your employees efficient is the first step in task automation. The success of task automation can be measured by analyzing the input given on repetitive tasks, which the employees usually spend more time on. Here are some of the areas where automation works effectively: 

Marketing management  

Automating the process of information dissemination and social media content development improves interaction with audiences, attracts new customers, and retains older ones. Social media automation involves scheduling the automatic publication of social media content on the estimated time or occasional republication of popular articles to gain audience attention and create a brand image. With the automation of marketing tasks, time and resources can be reallocated into other areas of marketing that require human intervention like budget-making and strategic planning. Automated tools have helped marketing companies scale their business 5 times better.  

Human resources  

There are many administrative tasks that come under the responsibilities of a human resource manager or the HR department. Calculating the payroll for employees, time-off requests, hiring and onboarding of new joins, and setting reminders for timesheets and employee reviews are all part of the HR activities. RPA systems with the HR department help in arranging and storing data, including employee information, scheduling meetings, recording attendance, and all other related information. RPA automation tools also help in evaluating or giving automated feedback on the performance of employees and employers, thus helping in performance improvement and coordination. Moreover, automation avoids paper waste, works according to industry regulations, and minimizes form errors.  

Managerial approvals   

Automation in the approval workflows makes it easier for employers and employees to work faster by streamlining workflows and storing the entire communication on a single platform. Automation tools help in converting emails and forms into records, transferring those records to databases, syncing data throughout the application, and combining data for analytics, reports, and dashboards.   

Customer service   

Instant responses from the other end make a customer happy. Using customer service chatbots in the workflow helps customers to get immediate responses to their queries and it also assists customers to find out the products and services they are actually looking for, in less time. Using Artificial Intelligence automation makes it easier for customer service representatives to better evaluate what a customer wants and provide them with the best quality service. Additionally, automation also allows for gathering customer feedback through online forms in order to analyze the data quickly and effectively.  

Sales   

Sales automation enables reducing sales costs by eliminating time spent on administration and reporting and generates extra revenue as it automates outreach to customers in the sales funnel. Besides, the possibility of losing many of the important details involved in the customer-company relationship is very high, especially when there is a mix-up of multiple sales cycles. Automation enables sales managers to manage follow-up emails and messages, update feasibility information, and organize meetings.  

Order processing   

When it comes to businesses, orders are what help businesses thrive in this commercial competitive world. But for dealing with all the orders, your business requires a lot of time and effort, especially when your brand grows to a recognizable level. Automation of order forms and integrating them with payments is a good solution to this problem. Automation tools help businesses to collect order forms from customers, send them to the inventory team, and give the estimated budget plan to the accounting team.   

Why is it important to automate tasks? 

There are many tasks that are repetitive, boring, tiring, and demand continuous human intervention. Such tasks do not allow employees to work creatively using their intelligence. They just make the employees do routine work instead of letting them focus on things that actually require human intelligence. Wouldn’t it be beneficial if all such repetitive tasks were automated? Automation goes beyond saving time and resources. Here are some of the reasons why automation is important: 

Saving time and resources 

One of the most important benefits of automation is that it frees up a lot of time, no matter how complex the task is. The faster you complete the task, the fewer resources you require. 

Reduce errors  

Since it is free from human intervention, it eliminates the chance of any possible human errors. 

Reduce expenses  

Automation has only a one-time charge for implementation and a maintenance charge which is quite low. Since it does not involve highly-skilled workers, there is no need to pay high wages.   

Improves productivity and profit 

With automation comes effective completion and functioning of tasks which in turn results in greater productivity. When productivity increases, it automatically increases the profit or revenue of the business. 

Better workflow 

Automation tools enable you to finish work quickly and efficiently. It avoids any delay in the overall workflow in which tasks must be completed before proceeding to the set of tasks. 

Wrap Up 

Automation is one of the best examples that show how our lives and work have changed with the advancement of technology. The calendar notifications we make on our mobile devices, and the auto-payment, we have enabled while paying bills are some daily examples of automation.  

Now the question is about how we choose automation. Well, the answer lies in choosing the automation tools wisely as there is no shortage of choices. You can select the appropriate tool after understanding and analyzing your business requirements and available resources.

Why Use RPA in Legacy Systems?

Posted on by Jins Mathew

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has always been serving its role as a promising solution for many enterprises that are about to commence a digital transformation journey. With constantly evolving requirements and demands of consumers and companies, businesses are in need of taking advantage of the power of modern technology. However, legacy systems are often seen as a major barrier to attaining competitive advantages.

Legacy systems use obsolete technology, applications, and hardware that use conventional or outdated software. Choosing modern and advanced technologies over the old and obsolete ones is theoretically an excellent idea, but not so easy to bring into practice. Many IT companies still use legacy systems to a specific extent, but they face many problems like security issues and incompatibility. Moreover, legacy systems cannot be integrated with any new process because of the following reasons: 

  • Lack of proper IT support 
  • Complications during the integration 
  • Difficulty in maintenance 
  • Poor user experience 

This is where RPA works by enabling businesses to effortlessly convert legacy systems upgrade solutions. RPA mainly aims to automate monotonous and manual tasks, that are rule-based and take up a lot of time and resources of an organization.  

Benefits of deploying RPA in legacy systems 

The advantages of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are appealing to businesses seeking to make efficient workflows, boost efficiency, and increase output. Anyhow, there are a lot of organizations who are not sure whether it is a good option to upgrade their legacy systems or use automated tools such as RPA to keep up their competitive margin. The fact is that the RPA helps companies to get better business results by integrating with their legacy systems. Here are some of the major benefits of implementing RPA in legacy systems: 

Automation of business processes 

A company has many functional tasks across different departments that can be automated to create more dynamism. RPA can automate rule-based and standardized tasks that are structured and repetitive. Automation using RPA solution includes error reconciliation, data entry processes, invoice processing, and small decision-making tasks. Hence, it is important to recognize the business processes that can take advantage of RPA, before deploying RPA bots into legacy systems. 

Integrate different workflows 

RPA software bots are capable of performing business tasks with a greater speed and with fewer errors than manual processing. It enables businesses to integrate workflows throughout different departments and legacy platforms to increase dynamism and take advantage of its speed and precision. Obsolete systems like customer relationship management, finance systems, email, etc. can be leveraged with RPA tools to make monotonous tasks of multiplatform data entry and processing easier and simpler. 

Low expenses  

Unlike the systems that run on APIs, RPA deployment does not demand the requirement of highly professional employees once it is deployed. This helps to reduce the cost incurred for deployment while providing businesses with a scalable solution to suit various operational requirements as needed. 

Improved future readiness 

It is evident that RPA enables enterprises to obtain more mileage from their existing systems. That is, if there is any need to upgrade your legacy software or bring up a new system without an inbuilt integration option, automation can easily handle the process. It is easy for digital workers to process and transfer data quickly from existing systems to the latest ones rather than depending on manual techniques alone. 

Low-security issues  

One of the major benefits RPA offers is improved security. When compared to the threats possessed by other alternatives, integration of legacy systems using RPA involves zero or minimal risk of data leakage or other security concerns. RPA enables enterprises to completely restrict their access authentication and securely manage strategic information.  

Reduced Employee Workloads 

One of the most important benefits of RPA is that the most trivial and tedious jobs will be handed over to RPA’s digital workers. They mimic the manual steps that employees do in their legacy systems and are much faster and more precise. Meanwhile, employees can give attention to meaningful tasks that harmonize well with their skills and give better value to the organization. 

Why use RPA to improve legacy systems? 

When it comes to the up-gradation of legacy systems, there is no better technological tool that is cheaper, scalable, and faster than robotic process automation. Other than that, most mainframe legacy applications are not compatible enough to be integrated through APIs. This is where RPA takes the lead in improving such legacy systems.  

Legacy software is vulnerable to security breaches over time because the previous versions are no more supported. The significance of upgrading legacy systems using RPA is not only related to the smooth functioning of the system but also associated with the security of the system. The security is high and more sophisticated in the RPA technology and therefore prevents any risk of system hack by an external party. Additionally, RPA bots facilitate the transfer of data from legacy systems to external or local sources like google spreadsheets, cloud storage,  and any other available options. 

Wrap Up 

Finally, Robotic Process Automation improves the performance and functional life of legacy software and enables organizations to eliminate expensive upgrades, training costs, and the division of strictly integrated workflows. Integrating legacy systems with RPA is important as well as easy. The application of robotic process automation can be effectively integrated with CRM, SAP, Excel, and many more. This way, mechanical work involving human laborers working on legacy systems can be eliminated. Furthermore, it is important for a business to identify the most appropriate usage cases accurately, select the right RPA vendor, calculate the ROI, and plan its RPA-based legacy upgrade process accordingly. 

Robotic Process Automation in Clinical Trials 

Posted on by Naif M A

Clinical trials are research studies aimed at determining whether any medical practice, device, or procedure can be used or consumed safely by humans. The clinical trial area involves a large volume of data and is highly driven by compliance. The data from the experiments establish the key control base needed to deliver the best health outcomes for patients by introducing advanced or modern treatments to the market while reducing the risks caused.

Besides the compliance requirements, clinical trials need extensive data management work. Most of the tasks that handle this data are quite obvious – and will distract researchers from their research. RPA in clinical trials offers a solution to that problem by relieving researchers from tedious and time-consuming tasks, thus helping them to focus on compliance, publication, and innovations in medical science. Here’s how to reduce costs, speed up research, and reduce errors in clinical trials using RPA. 

RPA application in clinical trials

The complexity involved in a large number of clinical trials has the backing of many processes operating in the background. They need regular reporting, rigorous data administration, and stringent data quality maintenance. One of the great advantages of using robotic process automation in clinical trials is that it enables continuous recording of steps included in each process. Let us take a look into various applications of RPA in clinical trials: 

Trial master process management  

Every activity involved in a clinical trial is normally recorded by the sponsors. It consists of various sites in the main data storehouse known as the Trial Master File (TMF), where documents and data are entered manually.  

By using RPA in clinical trials, it automatically uploads data and documents to TMF without human intervention, thus automating a repetitive and tedious task. This will reduce the time consumed for data entry by 90% and save millions of dollars a year on a clinical trial. 

Patient matching  

Setting up a patient population with dynamic inclusion and exclusion to evaluate the outcome of the trial is a tiring task. This is where the RPA tool plays its role. With an increasing number of trials conducted with patients enrolling using the internet, the amount of data to verify grows and requires more automated solutions, especially when combined with the growing interest in DTP (direct-to-patient) drug distribution strategies in trials. DTP distribution also eliminates patients’ need to physically visit the clinical site. As it potentially contributes to improved patient recruitment and retention, a high level of automation is required within the supply chain of a trial drug, to minimize risks and drive better results. 

Regulatory submission process  

When it comes to regulatory activities in clinical trials, the submission process takes a lot of time. For this, pharma companies have to engage in activities like monitoring document status and records compilation. With RPA, these tasks can be automated easily which will significantly reduce the time to hit the market. 

Ease in administration  

RPA bots are the perfect choice when it comes to increasing the efficiency of important administrative tasks in clinical trials. This will gradually enable pharma companies to give more attention to making safer and more effective drugs available in the market at lower prices.  Rule-based workflows and processes in clinical trials can be improved by Robotic Process Automation. RPA bots are also capable of improving storage, transaction processes, etc. 

Benefits of using RPA in clinical trials 

There are so many processes involved in clinical trials and RPA tools help in simplifying each process and making them more efficient. This in turn results in accelerating the process and improving the precision of the results obtained. Regulatory authorities, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have identified the advantages of automation and the use of modern and sophisticated technologies in organizations. This has resulted in more companies adopting RPA tools and techniques with the support and appropriate industry guidelines from the regulatory authorities.  

Here are some of the benefits of using RPA in clinical trials: 

Error reduction

Manual tasks are mostly prone to errors and automation highly reduces the possibility of clerical errors. 

Cost reduction

Since less manual work is involved, the time to be spent on them is less. This not only reduces costs but also enhances the efficiency of the entire process. 

Quick completion

Automation of the processes has resulted in optimizing every step of the trial and the overall completion of the study much faster.  

Data quality improvement

With RPA, data quality becomes high with fewer errors and more accuracy. Better quality is the result of better data which in turn increases the possibilities for approval.  

Pharmaceutical companies that begin with building an optimal strategy are the real ones to reap benefits from the use of robotic process automation. It must not only pay attention to finding the most promising tasks but also make sure that the purpose and potential advantages of automation are familiar to the employees involved in the processes. 

Wrap Up 

Healthcare organizations are required to collect a huge amount of information daily. This comprises data from a variety of sources, including clinical applications, scheduled applications, info from lab systems, radiology information, insurance portals, and ERPs (enterprise resource planning). Synchronizing the flow of information throughout these channels is a very complex and labor-intensive task. This ultimately results in huge resource consumption and reduced efficiency. Robotic Process Information (RPA) aims to address these challenges by automating such repetitive and tiring tasks that are crucial to the efficient functioning of the system. It reduces labor utility, minimizes costs, prevents the possibility of errors, and improves overall performance.  

Any important development within the pharmaceutical area can be expanded through rapid data integration into difficult environments and integrating it with RPA to enhance administrative performance.