Take a look around you. Try to soak in all the ways in which technology is driving our lives. Isn’t it amazing? Bewildering? Or maybe scary? Whatever the case, it’s a fact of life now. And one of the good news is - it works for us. Better yet, now there are even computer programs that work alongside us.

In this article, we’ll be talking about how the combination of RPA technology and tracker software can revolutionize the work landscape.

What’s RPA?

RPA stands for robotic process automation. It’s a computer program that’s aimed at completely automating some menial and repetitive work processes.

It starts by mapping out the process as performed by human workers and recording all the steps included in it. RPA program does this multiple times and, if possible, for several different workers, trying to find the most efficient way to perform the task. Once the software has ‘learned’ how to do the process, it can begin performing it on its own, entirely independent of any human input or guidance.

As we’ve stated earlier, RPA is perfect for repetitive tasks that don’t require any degree of originality or creativity. These processes typically include a lot of copying and pasting, accessing and manipulating data, form completion based on provided information and so on. Examples include claim processing, invoice creation, filing returns, registering new clients and employees, and other similar tasks.

The best part is that the RPA software does these processes much faster than a human employee and any chance of error or compliance failure is completely eliminated. If you want to see how this works in practice, you can check out some demo videos here.

How Does Tracker Software Help RPA?

If you’re familiar with employee tracker software, you might know that it’s used for monitoring employees’ computer activities. This means that it detects which apps they use, which websites they visit, how long they spend on each task, etc.

Having this in mind, it becomes clear that work tracker software can provide an excellent basis for the RPA learning stage. In other words, its ability to detect software use, time spent on tasks and the order of different apps in it can provide input on which processes are good candidates for robotic process automation.

Let’s say that your tracker software shows that employees use four different apps while they’re creating invoices and that it usually takes them about 15 minutes for one invoice. Since you know that this process consists of just copying data and packaging it into a ready-made format, you can decide to make it automatic by implementing RPA. You’ll even have some of the data that RPA software needs - which programs it has to use and in what order.

Implementing employee monitoring system is an increasingly popular practice in many industries where RPA can be used, including insurance, e-commerce, finance, customer support, human resources, etc.

How Will This Technology Affect Our Work?

RPA, helped by computer monitoring software, has many benefits for process-based tasks. First of all, it’s much faster than any human. An activity that takes 20 minutes for an employee to do can be performed in mere seconds by the program. There’s also the fact that it doesn’t make mistakes - once the procedure is learned, it’s always done in those exact steps, no deviations, mixing up the data or forgetting anything. Plus, all of the tasks performed are automatically logged, so that also solves the compliance issues.

It can be pretty alarming reading about all the processes in all the industries that RPA can learn to perform on its own (and apparently better than humans do), but there’s no need to panic over millions of people losing their jobs.

RPA can only be taught to do repetitive data-based tasks that most employees find menial, boring and time-consuming anyway. It can’t be creative, make decisions, think up ideas or solve complex problems. The sole purpose of this system is to eliminate the need for dedicating hours to copy-paste-based tasks and to free up some time for knowledge workers to focus on creativity, innovation and client relations.

Conclusion

Robotic process automation technology in combination with tracker software can be a powerful tool for optimizing the time spent on menial tasks. However, it’s not designed to replace humans, but only to assist them in dedicating more time to innovative, creative or client-facing tasks and to making a real difference to their company.

‍

‍