Challenges Faced in Blue Prism with Proven Solutions
Though a robust RPA solution, Blue Prism poses some challenges for organizations. These are that it is hard to implement initially, the cost of licenses is high, and there is the continuous requirement of maintenance and change management as business processes change. A strategic way is necessary to overcome the challenges faced in Blue Prism and ensure a successful automation journey.
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Blue Prism Challenges and Solutions
Here are the various challenges faced in Blue Prism with proven solutions:
High Costs of Entry and ROI Justification
Challenge: The Blue Prism license model can be costly, with costs escalating depending on the amount of “digital workers” (robots) being used. The high initial expenditure usually makes it challenging for companies to justify the ROI, particularly at the early stages of a pilot on a small scale.
Solutions:
- Begin with a Phased Approach: Start with a small pilot project on a high-impact, low-complexity process. This enables the organization to show a rapid, visible ROI and establish a solid business case for future investment.
- Prioritize High-Value Processes: Automate processes with a distinctive and quantifiable impact, i.e., those of high volume transactions, high manual intensity, or high error rates. This maximizes the initial investment return.
- Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Analysis: Look beyond licensing fees. All true TCO analyses should take into account implementation expenses, maintenance fees, and infrastructure expenditures, along with the value of time gained for employees and decreased errors. This shows a truer picture of the long-term financial savings.
Real-time Example:
A medium-sized insurance firm wishes to automate claims processing. Rather than a global deployment, they begin with a pilot project on one particular, high-volume type of claim.
- The automated process performs data entry and checks, cutting the average processing time from 30 minutes to 5 minutes per claim.
- This tangible gain in efficiency and cost savings from minimized manual effort provide adequate justification for further investment in more licenses and a broader rollout.
Recommended: Blue Prism Online Course.
Intricate Implementation and Integration
Challenge: Though Blue Prism is a no-code solution, its implementation does necessitate intimate knowledge of business processes and a firm technical background. Merging with intricate, legacy, or in-house-built applications with no APIs can be especially difficult, necessitating sophisticated workarounds and custom solutions.
Solutions:
- Create a Center of Excellence (CoE): A specific CoE consolidates process experts, business analysts, and developers together to implement best practices. This centralized group can establish standards, maintain the project pipeline, and deliver internal support, diminishing dependence on outside consultants.
- Hybrid Automation Strategy: For legacy applications with no APIs, use Blue Prism’s powerful UI (User Interface) automation features such as surface automation and image recognition. For current applications that have APIs, take advantage of Blue Prism’s web service and code stages for more efficient and stable integration.
- Careful Process Review: Prior to starting automation, perform an in-depth process analysis to look for all possible stumbling blocks and system interactions. This avoids any surprises during development and makes the automated process robust.
Real-time Example:
One manufacturing firm wishes to automate the purchase order process, which has both a combination of new web-based ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software and a legacy system for managing vendors.
- The staff utilizes the Application Modeller to model and interact with the user interface of the legacy system, whereas the Web API phase in Blue Prism is utilized to link to the new ERP.
- This blended strategy enables the automation to shift rapidly between the two systems.
Sample Code: Python
Following is a theoretical code sample demonstrating how a Web API can be invoked in Blue Prism to retrieve data, followed by a UI automation action:
# This is a high-level pseudo-code representation
# In Blue Prism, this would be configured using the Web API stage
# instead of direct Python code.
def process_purchase_order():
# 1. Use the Web API stage to get new purchase orders
# This would call a REST API endpoint
response = call_web_api(
url=”https://api.erp.com/orders”,
method=”GET”,
headers={“Authorization”: “Bearer token”}
)
orders = response.get_data()
for order in orders:
# 2. Use the Application Modeller to interact with the legacy system
# This is UI automation, so no code is written, just modeled.
navigate_to_legacy_system_login()
enter_username(“bot_user”)
enter_password(get_credential(“LegacySystemCred”))
click_login()
# 3. Enter order details into the legacy system
enter_text_into_field(“order_number_field”, order.number)
enter_text_into_field(“vendor_id_field”, order.vendor)
click_submit()
log_status(f”Processed order {order.number} successfully.”)
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Maintenance and Change Management
Challenge: Automated processes are brittle. If the underlying applications are modified or the business process is altered, the automation bot breaks. This necessitates ongoing maintenance, and without a well-defined change management process, an excessive number of bots become unwieldy.
Solutions:
- Solid Design Principles: Adhere to Blue Prism best practices, including designing reusable Business Objects for application interactions and maintaining processes independent of objects. This modular approach requires a modification in one application only to update a single object, rather than all processes utilizing it.
- Automated Monitoring: Have a monitoring system within the Control Room to receive real-time notifications when a process breaks down. This enables proactive repair and minimizes downtime.
- Change Control Framework: Have a defined change management procedure where any change in an automated application has to be brought to notice by the RPA team. The team can then modify and re-run the affected automations in a non-prod environment before it is rolled out.
Real-time Example:
A bank has automated a process for printing customer statements. The bank makes a decision to update its core banking application, which moves a certain button on the user interface.
- Since the automation was created with a reusable object for the core banking application, the Blue Prism team just has to re-write the one object.
- The 20+ processes that utilize that object can then be republished without any additional changes, significantly lowering maintenance effort.
Security and Governance
Challenge: RPA bots tend to deal with sensitive information such as personally identifiable data (PII) and financial transactions. In the absence of security and governance, these bots pose a huge threat. Keeping the audit trail clear and adhering to regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA is a daunting task.
Solutions:
- Centralized Credential Management: Store and manage application login credentials in Blue Prism’s native Credential Manager, where they are encrypted and can only be accessed by authorized robots. No hard-coding of passwords is needed in the automation logic.
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Enforce RBAC to restrict access to sensitive data and processes. For instance, limited developers may be allowed to access the credit card payment automation, whereas others are permitted to see logs only.
- Detailed Audit Trails: Use Blue Prism’s rich logging capabilities to record each action a robot performs, including data consumed, operations executed, and exceptions raised. This leaves an unequivocal audit trail that is important for adherence.
Real-time Example:
A doctor automates updates of patient records using Blue Prism. To achieve HIPAA compliance, they maintain all patient PII in an encrypted, secure database.
- The Blue Prism bot uses a credential stored in the Credential Manager to access this information.
- The bot’s activities, such as the records it accessed and changes it made, are recorded in the Control Room, giving a full audit trail for compliance audits.
Related: Blue Prism Interview Questions and Answers
Insufficient Skilled Resources
Challenge: It might be costly and challenging to find qualified Blue Prism solution architects and developers. High demand exists for RPA skills, and an absence of in-house competence may slow down or even stop automation projects.
Solutions:
- Invest in Training and Certification: Upskill current employees who possess strong analytical or business process expertise. Blue Prism provides extensive training tracks and certifications (Developer, Solution Architect, etc.) to create an internal team.
- Take advantage of Managed Services: For those that are unable to develop an in-house team, collaboration with a Blue Prism certified managed services provider is a great alternative. This enables the company to take advantage of RPA without the expense of hiring and training professional staff.
- Community and Knowledge Sharing: Involve the internal team in engaging with the Blue Prism community and forums. Having access to a large number of pre-developed “VBOs” (Visual Business Objects) and solutions shared by others can speed up development and eliminate common issues.
Real-time Example:
A big retail organization wants to initiate an RPA program but is struggling to bring in skilled developers. Rather than waiting, they take a few of their top business analysts and send them through the training program at Blue Prism University.
These analysts, who already possess deep knowledge of the business processes, learn quickly to create simple automations. This ensures that the company is able to create its own internal RPA capacity, instead of depending only on outside talent.
Explore: All Software Training Courses.
Conclusion
With a strategic and phased approach, organizations can overcome the Blue Prism implementation challenges. It’s vital to overcome the obstacles of high costs, integration complexity, and the requirement for continuous maintenance to ensure long-term success. Through emphasis on having a robust governance framework and reskilling your team, your automation journey becomes robust and scalable.
Ready to be an expert and lead these solutions? Register for our Blue Prism Course in Chennai today.