RPA is rapidly growing market with technologies that are still unknown to many potential buyers regarding solutions, features, supporting frameworks, commercials and deployment models etc.
Selection of RPA tool should be based on your business requirement, required features, application compatibility with the tool and expected outcomes, etc. While using RPA tool, one should achieve quick wins, where the ROI should exceed in the shortest possible time and additional benefits should occur sooner. RPA technologies are also evolving with an expanding its features and adding their many more functionalities like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Chatbot, Cognitive, etc.
Evaluation of RPA Tool
Following points are important while evaluating RPA tool for your organization:
Ease of Use
- Automation tool should be easy to work for Business Analysts who has no programming knowledge. They should be able to configure the workflow in the tool.
- A tool that is flexible enough to accommodate basic process automation with built in extendable commands, wizards and GUIs
Scalability
- Does it require dedicated automation environments or can it be adjusted on-demand through cloud and virtualization services?
- What about execution? Can this tool help multiple robots execute multiple workflows?
- Can we start small (pilot) and if it works well would it be possible to scale-up in a cost effective manner?
Reliability
- Need to check the reliability and robustness of the automation framework on which the automation tool is built.
- Need to check tool’s ability to handle different use cases with large data and different conditions. The performance should not degrade while performing iterations.
Technology Spectrum
- Don’t just pay for fancy features like AI, OCR if you are not going to use them in near future
- Potential to get Add-ons from same vendor or at least integration mechanisms.
- Find a tool that fulfills your current requirement, but has the ability to cater to your foreseeable future requirements
Flexibility
- Identify the customizations to the tool in the early stages (ideally during your tool evaluation stage) and discuss the cost of such customizations and add-ons with the vendor.
- Alternatively, you can select a tool which allows you to configure custom features without having to pay extra for customization to the vendor.
- A tool that supports a number of operating systems for the bots.
Governance and Visibility
- Monitoring and control mechanisms should be properly aligned with BCP, in case of a mishap.
- A tool should provide visibility to all intended team members with the help of dashboard
- A tool should have mechanism to notify users of pending actions from users.
- A tool should provide ROI dashboard for business justification.
In conclusion, one should consider all of the above evaluation criteria before selecting the RPA tool for their automation. This will help them to choose a right tool.
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