RPA Development Life Cycle

The process used by the software industry to deliver a high-quality software/program

is known as Development Life Cycle. It aims to produce a high-quality
software/program that meets or exceeds customer expectations within times. It is
also known as RPA life cycle or RPA development process.
The following figure is a graphical representation of the various stages of a typical
RPA development process.

A typical RPA development process consists of the following stages:

Planning: It is the most important and fundamental stage of

the RPA development process. It is performed by the senior
members of the industries or the organization with domain
experts. It starts with the getting educated or educating the
clients about the RPA and its benefits and it ends with
defining the roles and responsibility of the members. There
are many vendors available in the market who provides RPA
software. These vendors either has their own software tools
or they has brought the licenses from the others organization
and provides extra benefits as well.
 Analyzing: It is the second most important stage. After
identifying and defining role and responsibility in the
planning stage in an organization, Process has been
analyzed for identifying the best candidates for the RPA
development process basis on Benefits Analysis, Risk
Analysis and Cost Analysis. For Process Analysis,
Organizations follows some basic assessment or
procedures. After analyzing, we get the best candidates for
the RPA development.

Designing: From this stage, actual

bot delivery process starts. In this
stage, Preparation of the
Requirement Document, Solution
design, System Setup, Test Data
and Testing procedure has been
started. Based on the Requirements
Document, usually more than one
design approach for the Bot
architecture is proposed and
documented in Solution Design
document. 
It is reviewed by all the important
stakeholders and based on various
parameters as risk assessment,
product robustness, design
modularity, budget and time
constraints, the best design
approach is selected for Bot
delivery. 

Development: From this stage, actual bot development

process starts and the product is built. The programming code
is generated as per solution design during this stage. If the
design is performed in a detailed and organized manner, code
generation can be accomplished without much hassle.
Developers must follow the coding guidelines defined by their
organization. As per the timeline of developments, RPA
developer or RPA developer team completes their target. It is
recommended that a RPA developer completes its module or
task as per schedule time with zero bugs. 
 Testing: It is the most important part of the RPA
development process. In this stage, Quality of the
product has been assured. A good testing
procedures assured a high quality Bot delivery.
Some of the basic test approaches are Unit Testing,
Smoke Testing and System Integration Testing
which are used during after the development stage.
UAT or User Acceptance Testing is used to check
weather the product is meeting the Client or
customer expectation or not. In this stage, Most of
the Bugs and changes has been identified and fixed
into the program.

Deployment: Once the product is tested and ready to

be deployed it is released formally in the appropriate
market. Sometimes product deployment happens in
stages as per the business strategy of that
organization. The product may first be released in a
limited segment and tested in the real business
environment. Based on the feedback, the product may
be released as it is or with suggested enhancements in
the targeting market segment. After the product is
released in the market. This period is also known as hyper care period.
 RPA Roles And Responsibility
There are three key roles in Document Preparation. In some cases, the same person may play all
three roles:

1. Process Owner/ Subject Matter Expert (SME)  - are

valuable information resources within an organization.
They are the go-to people for specific information on
products, services, policies, quality, marketing, call
center technology and more. They provides the
knowledge and expertise in a specific subject for a
project. The SME ensures that the content is accurate. It
is the SME's responsibility to provide his/her expertise
and accurate information to the BA.

Document Custodian/Business Analyst (BA)  - are the link

between the end user and a project manager. The
requirements for business analysts may vary between positions
and the business analyst key responsibilities may differ from
company to company, but their main purpose is to analyze,
evaluate, and refine processes. It is the BA's responsibility to
prepare process design document. 
2. Technical Writer/Solution Architect - A solution architect is responsible for the
design of one or more applications or services within an
organization. He or she must have a balanced mix of
technical and business skills, and will often work with an
enterprise architect for strategic direction. They are often in
front of management, trying to explain a complex problem
in layman's terms. They have to find ways to say the same
thing using different words for different types of audiences,
and they also need to really understand the business'
processes in order to create a usable product. It is the
Solution Architect's responsibility to prepare Solution
Design Document for the Process Design Document
prepared by BA.
Analyzing Or Assessment Stage
It is a stage, where we can understand a process in term of human behaviour. We
need to understand that how a human perform a process. It allows you to evaluate
and make a considered decision. Like:

 What percentage of transactional/rule based processes are there in my

enterprise?
 What are the dependencies that automation could disrupt?
 Are they worth automating? What is the potential cost advantage in terms of
ROI?
 Are there any other advantages beyond cost?
 Is the process repeated several times a day?
 With a high degree of predictable outcome?
 Does it deal with structured data?
 Is the process cross organisational or is it contained within a department?
 Because RPA is neither a silver bullet nor a panacea for all your corporate
headaches. As an independent consultant, I often advise to clients or others
that not all of their processes are suitable for automation.

Requirement Gathering - AS IS Flow Diagram

To understand the process and gather the requirements, the best approach is to
prepare the AS IS flow diagram. By preparing AS IS flow diagram, we can
understand the process flow in term of human behavior. Let's take small example of
below AS IS Flow diagram:
Suppose the process name is Account creation. And in the process, an employee
comes in the office and after logging into a particular application. He/She picks a
ticket number one by one from his/her buckets or queue. He/She opens the ticket
number. He/She validate the documents. If the documents are valid then he/she
creates the user account else he/she rejects the ticket number and intimate the end
user with the details.

So above diagram will be the AS IS flow diagram of the Account Creation Process.

Prepare CBA - Cost Benefit Analysis

Let take an example of 10 FTE process to understand the Cost benefit analysis
process. Suppose the process name is Account creation And suppose you are
paying $ 1800 for each FTE (which is the current market price as well) in the process
for processing. So the total cost for FTE processing will be $90,000.
1st Year Cost

Using RPA you can not reduce 100% FTEs because there could be a manual
judgement , there could be a document verification which can performed by human
only. Suppose taking a decision by seeing a document which can not be performed
by RPA. Only rule based things can be done by RPA that is why suppose you have 5
FTEs for developing the Robot as well. So the total cost for FTE developer will be
$9,000.

For implementing RPA, you will need Automation application ( Vendors are like
Automation Anywhere, UI Path, BluePrism ). Suppose the cost of automation
application licence is $10,000.
So your total spend for the 1st year will be $1,09,000.00 Dollars.  
2nd Year Cost
When you will move the RPA robot into the production. Some FTEs will be released.
Suppose after releasing the FTEs, there are only 40 FTEs in the process for
processing. So the total cost for FTE processing will be $72,000.

As the development of RPA has been completed so we will not need 5 FTEs for
Development. We will need only 3 FTEs for maintenance and support. So the total
cost for FTE developer will be $5,400.
As 10 FTEs will be reduced, my total spend will reduce to $87,400.00  

3rd Year Cost

As Robot will become mature, Some FTEs will be released again. Suppose after
releasing the FTEs, there are only 25 FTEs in the process for processing. So the
total cost for FTE processing will be $45,000.
As 10 FTEs will be reduced, my total spend will reduce to $60,400.00.
On 3rd year, after implementing RPA Robot, total spend will become from $1,09,000
to $60,400.

In Assessment or Analyzing stage, we understand the process and analyze the CBA.
This information has been captured and has been shared with the customer.
ROI
When someone says something has a good or bad ROI it’s important to ask them to
clarify exactly how they measure it.
Return on Investment (ROI) is a performance measure, used to evaluate the
efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of a number of different
investments.To calculate ROI, the benefit (or return) of an investment is divided by
the cost of the investment. The result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

The return on investment formula:

ROI = (Gain from Investment - Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment

ROI Formula
Return on investment (ROI) is a financial ratio used to calculate the benefit an
investor will receive in relation to their investment cost, most commonly measured as
net income divided by the original cost of the investment. The higher the ratio, the
greater the benefit earned. This guide will break down the ROI formula.

There are several versions of the ROI formula. The two most commonly used are
shown below:

ROI = Net Income / Cost of Investment

or

ROI = Investment Gain / Investment Base

Example of ROI calculation
An investor purchases property A, which is valued at $500,000; two years later, the
investor sells the property for $1,000,000.

We use the investment gain formula in this case.

ROI = (1,000,000 – 500,000) / (500,000) = 1 or 100%

or

ROI = Return(Benefit) / Investment (Cost)

Benefits of ROI
1. Simple and Easy to Calculate
The return on investment metric is frequently used because it’s so easy to calculate. 
Only two figures are required – the benefit and the cost.  Because a “return” can
mean different things to different people it makes the formula easy to use as there is
not a strict definition of “return”.
 2. Universally Understood
Return on investment is a universally understood concept and so it’s almost
guaranteed that if you use the metric in conversation people will know what you’re
talking about.
Limitations of ROI - Disregards the Factor of Time
A higher ROI number does not always mean a better investment option. For
example, two investments have the same ROI of 50%; the first investment is
completed in three years, while the second investment needs five years to produce
the same yield. The same ROI for both investments blurred the bigger picture, but
when the factor of time was added, an investor can easily see the better option.

Today, we will talk about the two important documents in RPA, PDD and SDD. What
is PDD and SDD ? what the difference between PDD and SDD? What is
the importance of both of them?

As per RPA Development life cycle, Automation of the above process will start with
creation of PDD and SDD documents as part of Planning , Analyzing and Designing
phase.
First Document - PDD

A PDD stands for Process Definition Document and it contains information on the
As-is process flow diagram. It is like a user manual and it is provided by the end-user
or the business analyst. This document shows the high level flow of the manual
process (like sequence of steps performed as part of the business process, the
conditions and rules of the process). It is usually used as a platform (a base for
developers) from which the automated solution will be designed. It comes under the
Planning and Analyzing phase of the  RPA Development life cycle.

This document is highly classified confidential because of its contents. It contains:

  Document History - Name Of Author, Approver and Document Version
 Process key contact - Process Owner, Process Reviewer and Process SME.
 AS IS process - Like Process map , Process Steps , Process Required
Applications 
 TO BE Process - Expected Design of the Business Process
 In/Out Scope for RPA
 Business/Application Exceptions
 Reporting

Second Document - SDD

A SDD stands for Solution Design Document and it contains a high-level design
report that describes how you may implement a technical solution to your project. It
is created for every business process that is automated using RPA technology. This
document is filled in by the RPA Solution Architect and RPA Developer who
automates the business process and reviewed by the RPA Solution Architect before
handover to RPA Operations. It comes under the designing phase  of the  RPA
Development life cycle. It contains:
 Scope of Automation - In/Out Scope for RPA and Human Interactions.
 High-level Design - Automation Flow Diagram and Infra Architecture Diagram
 Information Security - Required compliance observation 
 Prerequisite to run Automation - Like Resource, Hardware , software ,
licences etc
 Exception Handling - Business and Application
 Debugging Tips - Tips to check Issues
 Success Criteria - Factor that impacts the success of automation

Next Article:
I hope this post will give some clarity about the PDD and SDD documents. If you
have any questions, feel free to comment it below.

In my next article, I will explain how to create a PDD for the process.  happy
learning :)
PDD Creation Example
let's start with an example of Employee Account Creation Process.
In this process when there is a new employee, there is an email sent with an excel
file contains the employee information. then we login into the HR System, create new
employee, add his details and send mail to manager for confirmation. Below are the
screenshot for preparing PDD for the process:
RPA Solution Design
Today will know more detail about Solution Design. Writing a perfect solution design
or solution architect for any RPA solution is the most critical piece into the RPA
development process. A good solution designer will not just deliver a design but will
also own a responsibility to hold views stronger across platforms when a change in
views and decisions is needed in favor of a robust solution and in the benefit of the
program.

There are four types of an automated solution that can be applied to a manual
process. Let's assume there is a process of containing 1-9 steps.
1. Full Automation:
The ideal scenario where all the manual steps can be automated and entire
manual process can be replaced.

2. Partial Automation:
The scenario where all the manual steps can not be automated. It may be
possible to automate a sequence of contiguous steps within the original
manual process. Often to enable the partial automation, an adjustment to the
remaining manual steps is required. For example, Suppose in step M1, the
user may need to prepare structured data for step A2 to consume. Similarly,
in step M9 the user may need to become the recipient of a handoff from A8.

3. Fragmented Partial Automation :

The scenario where all the manual steps can not be automated. It may be
possible to automate more than one sequence of steps. Sometimes handoffs
creates new manual efforts that's why it always requires weighing up the
overall benefits from the automation.Low benefits may leads to rejecting the
idea of automation.

4. Restructured Partial Automation :

The scenario where all the manual steps can not be automated and to avoid
Fragmented Partial Automation, it may also be possible to re-engineer, or re-
order some of the manual steps to facilitate a continuous sequence of
automation. For example, Suppose M1, M3 and M5 will be arranged into a
manual sequence step to achieve A2, A4, A6, A7, A8, A9.
Attended vs Unattended Bots
RPA Bot is used to create a digital workforce to remove repetitive tasks, maximizing
knowledge workers’ productivity by enabling them to focus on higher-value activities.
Based on the Automation Solution Types, there are three mode of RPA Bot.
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.
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.
Hybrid Bot
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
kickoff 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.. :-)