Businesses and organizations can leverage automation technologies such as Artificial intelligence, NLP, and RPA to streamline their operational services. Among all sectors, IT industries are often responsible for routine system checks and manual data handling.
This case scenario has underscored the pivotal role of IT process automation in the digital transformation journey that CIOs and other technology leadership positions are embarking on. According to a report, the global process automation market size is projected to surge by USD 23.15 billion in 2024. IT process automation (ITPA) solutions are designed to automate and enhance IT-shared services and operations such as service desk automation, application monitoring, and infrastructure management. By incorporating IT process automation, technologists can efficiently monitor applications and workflows, freeing up time for market planning and business strategy.
Characteristics Of top ITPA use cases
Before incorporating IT process automation tools in your organization, it is a must-have to look at the criteria for the process to be automated. However, IT process automation can reduce the service delivery time and enhance the productivity of IT resources. Still, it is crucial to keep the criteria in check before implementing them in your operations. Here are some criteria or characteristics of IT tasks that are suitable for IT process automation-
- Prone to error or reworks
- High volume & value of transactions
- Frequent access to multiple systems
- Limited Human Intervention
- A clear understanding of current manual costs
These criteria are crucial for IT process automation, but the automation use case can fulfill only some of these characteristics. Many business processes have low transaction values, but they are the right fit for automation if performed in high volume.
IT Process Automation Examples
IT process automation solutions can alleviate the burden on service desk agents by automating multiple processes that demand significant time. This not only enhances the efficiency of the IT staff but also allows them to focus on more complex tasks. Some of the IT process automation examples that can bring this relief are –
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User Management
IT staff must create a user account to grant access and permissions while onboarding new employees. They must also update and add user details in the database, such as Microsoft, Oracle, etc. Creating new user accounts and updating their details manually is time-consuming and difficult for IT staff, especially when the data is significant.
IT process automation comes in handy to streamline the account creation process. The automation bots can automatically get account creation requests, create usernames, generate passwords, and send email notifications to users. By automating the account creation process hiccups related to delay resolutions manual execution can be avoided.
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Password Reset
Gartner says 20-30% of IT tickets are password reset requests, costing $300K annually. Password resets are the simplest, but their sheer volume affects IT staff productivity. This process is like a swarm of ants; it is not harmful but persistent and annoying. During non-business hours, IT staff might be unable to access data across the system and provide resolution.
However, a password reset process can be streamlined without manual intervention. An AI-powered chatbot can autonomously access user information from an Excel file, verify the username in the active directory, and reset the password without manual intervention. This automation of the IT staff for more complex tasks reduces the Turnaround Time (TAT) from 2 minutes to 3 seconds, instilling confidence in its reliability.
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Service Desk Automation
Service desk agents handle labor-intensive tasks like email routing, end-user support, security operations, IT tickets, etc. Also, they have to complete the necessary documentation for ticket classification and assignment. A large number of IT ticket assignments lead to delayed resolution and unresponsiveness. This antiquated operation model can be transformed with intelligent automation in place.
With IT process automation tools, organizations can provide self-service to users and quickly resolve email, IVR, and chat-based tickets. AI also collects diverse user information and creates a knowledge base for auto-ticket assignment and resolution. With AI, IT organizations can reduce the TAT by 90% and operational costs by 25%.
[Also Read: How AI with IT Automation can transform towards Digital Innovation]
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Data Access Management
Access management aims to grant authorized users the right to use a service. When new employees join the organization, they request access to a shared drive/folder, database, remote VPN, and software like HRMS, Salesforce, etc. Manual access management processing leads to a lack of security, unpremeditated disclosure of data, and lack of evidence for access activities.
However, AI-powered IT automation reduces the probability of human error by ensuring that authorization is accurate. Automation makes saving and recording user activity easier, revoking specific user access, efficient security audits, and avoiding security breaches with a predefined set of rules.
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System Health Check
A system health check provides a snapshot of a system’s overall performance at a moment in time. Manually monitoring the system’s data, determining the device status, monitoring the agent’s application, and sending an alert for remediation before a critical issue arises can be tedious.
Going beyond automation and using AI-enabled automation enables the documentation of all steps in the workflow for future investigation or statistical reporting. This process reduces the time from minutes to seconds and allows IT engineers to make real-time data-driven decisions.
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Email Notifications
Manually sending hundreds of email notifications about incident resolution, system alerts, data access, ticket status, and other topics disrupts service desk agent productivity. Also, manually crafting notifications is a repetitive and time-intensive process.
However, the excellent part about email notification is that it can be carried out using predetermined rules applied to structured data. This end-to-end automation decreases processing time, improves service desk agent productivity, and allows employees to work on more complex tasks.
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Server Disk Space Management
In an IT organization, monitoring and maintaining servers with disk clean-up increasing disk space can be time-consuming and repetitive. This activity is crucial because running out of disk space due to a temporary file might crash your system. Automation tools can alert on low disk space and take corrective action for required disk space capacity without glitches. By automating this process, service desk staff can quickly diagnose and resolve the issues proactively and reduce TAT with enhanced customer experience.
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Data Management
In an IT workplace, many business processes involve data and information. As per a report, three key challenges that impact the ability to deliver excellent customer service include poor data quality, method of data transfer, and lack of new technology.
Manual data collection, integration into the mainframe system, and analysis are iterative. However, applying AI technologies like machine learning OCR makes tasks like data entry, capture, creation, and update faster and more efficient. This AI-powered IT automation reduces operations costs and overheads by eliminating manual errors. With the capability to connect with any external source for data processing, automation simplifies the workflow and increases ROI.
[Also Read: IT Support During COVID-19: How to Stay Sane in a Crazy World!]
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Security Automation
Keeping track of data breaches is time-consuming for IT service desk agents.IT process automation solutions powered by AI can be deployed to scrutinize the patterns and behaviors of malicious software. For instance, within service desk operations, security automation handles tasks like addressing alerts related to USB block/unblock, managing application cleanup requests, and sending email notifications for account activation or deletion.
Conclusion
Today, more than ever, organizations are leveraging AI and IT automation tools to streamline their business processes. Near-zero error rates are no harm, and operational costs are reduced. IT process automation increases service satisfaction and productivity and gives service desk agents enhanced digital capabilities to provide better resolutions. Hence, it’s time for IT organizations to change the way their business operates and prepare for the digital transformation the industry demands.