Process automation provides a means to integrate people in a software development organization with the development process and the tools supporting that development. This new technology may significantly improve software quality and development productivity. However, as yet there is little practical experience in its day-to-day use. This book is for those who wish to explore the technology or are considering its adoption. The monograph discusses the underlying concepts, reviews in some detail two of the major process automation products, relates process automation to process improvement, and provides adoption guidelines. Special emphasis is on the process modeling language ProNet which is commercially available. The book is enriched by numerous examples, tables, and technical appendices.

In todayâ??s IT architectures, microservices and serverless functions play increasingly important roles in process automation. But how do you create meaningful, comprehensive, and connected business solutions when the individual components are decoupled and independent by design? Targeted at developers and architects, this book presents a framework through examples, practical advice, and use cases to help you design and automate complex processes. As systems are more distributed, asynchronous, and reactive, process automation requires state handling to deal with long-running interactions. Author Bernd Ruecker demonstrates how to leverage process automation technology like workflow engines to orchestrate software, humans, decisions, or bots. Learn how modern process automation compares to business process management, service-oriented architecture, batch processing, event streaming, and data pipeline solutions Understand how to use workflow engines and executable process models with BPMN Understand the difference between orchestration and choreography and how to balance both

The main subjects in this book relate to software development using cutting-edge technologies for real-world industrial automation applications A hands-on approach to applying a wide variety of emerging technologies to modern industrial practice problems Explains key concepts through clear examples, ranging from simple to more complex problem domains, and all based on real-world industrial problems A useful reference book for practicing engineers as well as an updated resource book for researchers

This book brings together experts from research and practice. It includes the design of innovative Robot Process Automation (RPA) concepts, the discussion of related research fields (e.g., Artificial Intelligence, AI), the evaluation of existing software products, and findings from real-life implementation projects. Similar to the substitution of physical work in manufacturing (blue collar automation), Robotic Process Automation tries to substitute intellectual work in office and administration processes with software robots (white-collar automation). The starting point for the development of RPA was the observation that – despite the use of process-oriented enterprise systems (such as ERP, CRM and BPM systems) – additional manual activities are still indispensable today. In the RPA approach, these manual activities are learned and automated by software robots, either by defining rules or by observing manual activities. RPA is related to business process management, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Tools for RPA originated from dedicated stand-alone software. Today, RPA functionalities are also integrated into elaborated process management suites. From a conceptual perspective, RPA can be structured into input components (sensors in the wide sense), an intelligence center, and output components (actuators in the wide sense). From a strategic perspective, the impact of RPA can be related to the support of existing tasks, the complete substitution of human activities, and the innovation of processes as well as business models. At present, high expectations are related to the use of RPA in the improvement of software-supported business processes. Manual activities are learned and automated by software robots that interact with existing applications via the presentation layer. In combination with artificial intelligence (AI) as well as innovative interfaces (e. g., voice recognition) RPA creates a novel level of automation for office and administration processes. Its benefit potential reaches a return on investment (ROI) up-to 800% that is documented in various case studies.

The overwhelming majority of a software system’s lifespan is spent in use, not in design or implementation. So, why does conventional wisdom insist that software engineers focus primarily on the design and development of large-scale computing systems? In this collection of essays and articles, key members of Google’s Site Reliability Team explain how and why their commitment to the entire lifecycle has enabled the company to successfully build, deploy, monitor, and maintain some of the largest software systems in the world. You’ll learn the principles and practices that enable Google engineers to make systems more scalable, reliable, and efficient—lessons directly applicable to your organization. This book is divided into four sections: Introduction—Learn what site reliability engineering is and why it differs from conventional IT industry practices Principles—Examine the patterns, behaviors, and areas of concern that influence the work of a site reliability engineer (SRE) Practices—Understand the theory and practice of an SRE’s day-to-day work: building and operating large distributed computing systems Management—Explore Google's best practices for training, communication, and meetings that your organization can use

Learn how to design and develop robotic process automation solutions with Blue Prism to perform important tasks that enable value creation in your work Key FeaturesDevelop robots with Blue PrismAutomate your work processes with Blue PrismLearn basic skills required to train a robot for process automationBook Description Robotic process automation is a form of business process automation where user-configured robots can emulate the actions of users. Blue Prism is a pioneer of robotic process automation software, and this book gives you a solid foundation to programming robots with Blue Prism. If you've been tasked with automating work processes, but don't know where to start, this is the book for you! You begin with the business case for robotic process automation, and then move to implementation techniques with the leading software for enterprise automation, Blue Prism. You will become familiar with the Blue Prism Studio by creating your first process. You will build upon this by adding pages, data items, blocks, collections, and loops. You will build more complex processes by learning about actions, decisions, choices, and calculations. You will move on to teach your robot to interact with applications such as Internet Explorer. This can be used for spying elements that identify what your robot needs to interact with on the screen. You will build the logic behind a business objects by using read, write, and wait stages. You will then enable your robot to read and write to Excel and CSV files. This will finally lead you to train your robot to read and send emails in Outlook. You will learn about the Control Room, where you will practice adding items to a queue, processing the items and updating the work status. Towards the end of this book you will also teach your robot to handle errors and deal with exceptions. The book concludes with tips and coding best practices for Blue Prism. What you will learnLearn why and when to introduce robotic automation into your business processesWork with Blue Prism StudioCreate automation processes in Blue PrismMake use of decisions and choices in your robotsUse UI Automation mode, HTML mode, Region mode, and spyingLearn how to raise exceptionsGet the robot to deal with errorsLearn Blue Prism coding best practicesWho this book is for The book is aimed at end users such as citizen developers who create business processes, but may not have the basic programming skills required to train a robot. No experience of BluePrism is required.

This book discusses the major trends in Business Process Automation (BPA) and explains how BPA technologies and tools are applied in practice. It introduces the students to the concepts of BPA and describes the need for automation in business process management. The book illustrates live examples of different functions of an enterprise where automation has been successfully implemented to reap business benefits. It elaborates the applications of BPA in various sectors such as HR and payroll, marketing, e-governance, knowledge management and banking. The text also discusses in detail the role of Chief Information Officer (CIO) as a change agent for designing and implementing automation initiatives. Return-on-Investment (ROI) calculations have been shown as a business case for automating business processes. Evaluation criteria for deciding which software package to be implemented have been thoroughly explained. Key Features : Provides case studies at the end of all chapters to help the students for easy understanding of the concepts discussed. Includes chapter-end questions to test students’ comprehension of the subject. Presents a glossary of technical terms. The book is designed for the postgraduate students of management. It would be useful for the professionals and practitioners for implementation of process automation in organizations as well.