RPA Solution Architect's Handbook

RPA Solution Architect's Handbook

by Sachin Sahgal
Released June 2023
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781803249605

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Book description

Drive digital transformation by increasing efficiency and ROI for your organization as a robotic process automation (RPA) solution architect Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Key Features

  • Learn architectural design and analysis of enterprise-wide RPA systems with real-world use cases
  • Explore tips and best practices to deliver scalable business outcomes through RPA implementation
  • Overcome challenges in intelligent automation, data, and security while building RPA solutions

Book Description

RPA solution architects play an important role in the automation journey and initiatives within the organization. However, the implementation process is quite complex and daunting at times. RPA Solution Architect’s Handbook is a playbook for solution architects looking to build well-designed and scalable RPA solutions.

You’ll begin by understanding the different roles, responsibilities, and interactions between cross-functional teams. Then, you’ll learn about the pillars of a good design: stability, maintainability, scalability, and resilience, helping you develop a process design document, solution design document, SIT/UAT scripts, and wireframes. You’ll also learn how to design reusable components for faster, cheaper, and better RPA implementation, and design and develop best practices for module decoupling, handling garbage collection, and exception handling. At the end of the book, you’ll explore the concepts of privacy, security, reporting automated processes, analytics, and taking preventive action to keep the bots healthy.

By the end of this book, you’ll be well equipped to undertake a complete RPA process from design to implementation efficiently.

What you will learn

  • Understand the architectural considerations for stability, maintainability, and resilience for effective RPA solution design
  • Interact with cross-functional teams for seamless RPA implementation
  • Write effective RPA documentation, non-functional requirements, and effective UAT scripts
  • Demo RPA solutions, receive feedback, and triage additional requirements based on complexity, time, and cost
  • Design considerations for intelligent automation and learn about RPA as a service
  • Explore best practices for decoupling, handling garbage collection, and exception handling

Who this book is for

This book is for RPA developers, RPA Sr. developers, or RPA analysts looking to become RPA solution architects. If you are an RPA solution architect, then this book can help you advance your understanding and become more efficient. Familiarity with RPA documentation like SDD, and PDD along with hands-on experience with either one or more RPA tools will be helpful but is not mandatory.

Table of contents

  1. RPA Solution Architect’s Handbook
  2. Contributors
  3. About the author
  4. About the reviewers
  5. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
    4. Download the color images
    5. Conventions used
    6. Get in touch
    7. Share Your Thoughts
    8. Download a free PDF copy of this book
  6. Part 1:Role of a Solution Architect
  7. Chapter 1: Why Do We Need a Solution Architect?
    1. Understanding the importance of the SA role
    2. Bridging the gap
    3. Being a guardian angel, influencer, and enforcer
    4. SAs as solution owners
    5. SAs and the multiple hats they wear
      1. Being a consultant
      2. Being a business analyst
      3. Being an SA
      4. Being a developer
      5. Being a delivery facilitator
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  8. Chapter 2: Case Study of a Banking Client
    1. Introducing the scenario
    2. Synopsis of the case study
      1. Engagement details
      2. Vision and strategy
    3. Finding RPA opportunities
    4. Learning more about the team structure
    5. T-shirt sizing – sizing the project
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  9. Chapter 3: Extracurricular Activities
    1. Contribution to presales activities
    2. Orals
    3. Building a talent pool
    4. Coaching and mentoring
    5. Contributing to a COE
      1. Guide for best practices
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  10. Part 2:Being Techno/Functional
  11. Chapter 4: Studying the Lay of the Land
    1. Setting up the scenario
    2. The project management team
      1. Hybrid model
    3. The information security team
      1. Industry-based policies
      2. Region-based regulations and policies
      3. Organizational policies
    4. The infrastructure team
      1. One size doesn’t fit all
    5. The networking and security team
    6. The production support team
      1. Team structure
    7. Summary
    8. Questions
  12. Chapter 5: Designing Framework for Consistency and Resiliency
    1. What is a framework, and why is it essential in RPA projects?
    2. Design principles
      1. Modular design
      2. Multi-bot design
      3. Memory management
      4. Manual override
    3. Development standards
    4. Security standards
    5. Bot operating model
    6. Bot capacity planning
    7. Summary
    8. Questions
  13. Chapter 6: Need for Documentation and Working with SIT/UAT Scripts
    1. Project plan
      1. Initiation
      2. Planning
      3. Analysis
      4. Design
      5. Development
      6. Implementation
      7. Post-implementation
    2. Process design document
      1. The AS-IS and TO-BE process
      2. Defining the in-scope and out-of-scope
      3. Business exception handling
      4. System exception handling
    3. Nonfunctional requirements
      1. Reporting requirements
    4. Solution design document
      1. Solution approach
      2. Architecture diagram
      3. Project details
      4. Assets or variables
      5. Code structure and modules
      6. Requirement traceability matrix
    5. System integration testing (SIT) and user acceptance testing (UAT)
      1. Runbook
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  14. Chapter 7: RPA Development Phases
    1. POC
    2. Wireframing
    3. Guiding the team
    4. Daily checkpoints
    5. Integration testing
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  15. Chapter 8: Customer Obsession in the RPA Journey
    1. A demonstration and early feedback
      1. Planning the demo
    2. Keeping the client engaged
    3. An SA as an influencer
    4. UAT
    5. The wow factor
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  16. Part 3: Tool Agnostic Approach
  17. Chapter 9: Intelligent Automation
    1. What is IA?
    2. Understanding the difference between RPA and IA
    3. Components of IA
      1. AI and ML
      2. OCR and Intelligent OCR
      3. Computer vision
      4. NLP
    4. Design considerations for IA
    5. Chatbots
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  18. Chapter 10: Hyperautomation: The Future of RPA
    1. What is hyperautomation?
    2. Integration platform as a service (iPaaS)
    3. Advanced analytics
    4. When to consider hyper-automation
    5. Is hyperautomation the future of automation?
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  19. Chapter 11: Reusable Components
    1. What are reusable components?
    2. Benefits of reusable components
    3. Faster, better, and cheaper development
    4. Use cases
      1. Use case 1
      2. Use case 2
    5. Building a reusable component library
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  20. Chapter 12: RPA as a Service (RPAaaS)
    1. RPAaaS – an abstraction of SaaS
    2. Understanding what RPAaaS is
    3. RPAaaS architecture
      1. RPAaaS
      2. Cloud deployment
      3. On-premises implementation
    4. BYOP
    5. Summary
    6. Questions
  21. Chapter 13: Finding the Best Solution
    1. Research
    2. Issues and challenges while doing research
    3. Putting your findings to the test
    4. Socializing your solution
    5. Securing approvals
    6. Summary
    7. Questions
  22. Part 4:Best Practices
  23. Chapter 14: Design Best Practices
    1. Modular design
    2. Module pattern
      1. Module patterns in the software industry
      2. Module patterns in RPA
    3. Breadcrumbs
      1. What are breadcrumbs in software development?
      2. Why are breadcrumbs important in modern-day development standards?
      3. Types of breadcrumbs
      4. Best practices for implementing breadcrumbs
      5. Use of breadcrumbs in RPA
    4. Decoupling
      1. Decoupling in software development
      2. Benefits of decoupling
      3. Best practices for decoupling
      4. Decoupling in RPA
    5. Garbage collection
      1. What is garbage collection?
      2. Challenges due to mishandling garbage collection
      3. Best practices for handling garbage collection in RPA and automation
    6. Exception handling
      1. Importance of exception handling
      2. Challenges faced due to not handling exceptions
      3. Exception handling in RPA and automation
      4. Best practices for exception handling in RPA and automation
    7. Summary
    8. Questions
  24. Chapter 15: Data, Security, and Logs
    1. Cooked and synthetic data
    2. Understanding the differences between application and custom logs
    3. Credentials
    4. RBAC implementation
      1. How RBAC can be applied in RPA and automation
    5. Effective governance
      1. Why is governance important in RPA and automation?
    6. Auditing
      1. Why is auditing important in RPA and automation?
    7. Summary
    8. Questions
  25. Chapter 16: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
    1. STP
      1. Setting up STP KPIs
    2. Using exception metrics in KPIs
      1. What are exceptions in RPA?
      2. Business exceptions
      3. System exceptions
      4. Impact of exceptions on business processes
      5. Using exceptions in KPIs
      6. Building exception metrics in RPA
    3. Accuracy
      1. Why is accuracy important for RPA?
      2. How to measure accuracy in RPA
      3. How to use accuracy as a metric and a KPI
      4. Why efficiency is important for RPA
      5. How to measure efficiency in RPA
      6. How to use efficiency as a metric and KPI
      7. Accuracy and efficiency as complementary metrics
      8. Other metrics and KPIs for RPA
    4. BHT
    5. Measuring utilization of underlining bot hardware
    6. Reliability metrics
      1. Mean Time to Failure (MTTF)
      2. Mean Time between Failures (MTBF)
      3. Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
    7. Summary
    8. Questions
  26. Chapter 17: Reporting, Analytics, Efficiency, and Efficacy
    1. CBA and ROI
    2. Queue reporting
    3. Keeping the history
    4. Data retention
    5. Analytics
    6. Alerts and notification
    7. Resilience and discovering the unknowns in RPA projects
      1. Building a resilient RPA solution
      2. Discovering the unknowns
    8. Monitoring the health
    9. Updates and upgrades
    10. Change management – enabling seamless and effective transitions
    11. Summary
    12. Questions
  27. Epilogue
  28. Index
    1. Why subscribe?
  29. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Packt is searching for authors like you
    2. Share Your Thoughts
    3. Download a free PDF copy of this book

Product information

  • Title: RPA Solution Architect's Handbook
  • Author(s): Sachin Sahgal
  • Release date: June 2023
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781803249605