Blue Prism Automation Lifecycle Suite Simplifies Intelligent Automation in the Enterprise

New capabilities help businesses make the most out of their digital workforce, automating processes at scale and pace

LONDON, AUSTIN TX – November 16, 2020 —Blue Prism today announces the availability of its Automation Lifecycle Suite, with several new tools that make it easier for enterprises, at any stage of their automation journey, to unlock the full potential of intelligent digital workers. The suite, which includes Automation Lifecycle Management (ALM), Process Assessment Tool (PAT), and Capture: Process Modeller, makes it easier to identify, deploy and scale automation and reduce the typical planning and design time by 70%, delivering more value from your digital workforce.

Research shows that 66% of IT decision-makers globally have identified investment in automation as a priority post-COVID-19 and the shift to remote working has enterprises looking to streamline processes and increase productivity. But unlocking the full potential of enterprise automation is not always easy. Just like deploying human workers effectively, it can take time to identify the best tasks for [robots] and to ensure they are impactful in their roles. Customers have told us that they often struggle to identify which processes they should automate, how to prioritize their automation journey, how to design, and then how to manage their automation projects.

Blue Prism Automation Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a set of tools that helps enterprises accelerate, manage and scale their automation projects. Included are easy-to-use interfaces with guided wizards alongside pre-designed workflows, such as the Process Definition design, allowing businesspeople to document the steps required to complete a business process. Requirements critical for corporate governance, such as identifying those who can be assigned certain tasks and who has the authority to sign them off, are also pre-built into the system.

Blue Prism Process Assessment Tool (PAT) helps build a complete view of a business’s automation pipeline with clear recommendations about how to deploy digital workers using the right processes, at the right time, anywhere in their business. It can often be a struggle to expand from automating a few initial processes, to gain the real value that comes from automating multiple processes across an organization. PAT provides customers the opportunity to further boost efficiency by providing cost-cutting and time-saving information, ease of implementation scores, and recommendations for prioritization. This prioritization helps customers to use their digital workforce to deliver against their overall business goals and objectives while ensuring a maximum ROI from every automation project.

Blue Prism Capture: Process Modeller automates the laborious manual tasks that go into mapping a business process before it can be automated. Getting this work right is the foundation for the eventual success of any automation and typically involves mapping out the different steps of a process - gathering background documents, reviewing screenshots of an employee’s computer screen, the number of keystrokes needed that show the various action in progress - that together becomes an eventual Process Definition Document (PDD). Capture: Process Modeller uses AI and computer vision techniques to recognize and interpret these screenshots, videos, and data, and consolidate them into a form that can then be checked and rearranged, as needed, by an analyst. The final outcome can then easily be exported in MS Word or other software formats. The time it takes from the initiation of a process definition to achieving sign-off of a PDD can vary from days to weeks, depending on the availability of the individual in charge of the process. Automating tasks is now accessible to anyone in the enterprise, reducing the time from process definition through PDD signoff to days.

“These offerings are all about improving operational agility,” says David Moore, SVP of Product Strategy and Management at Blue Prism. “These tools will help new and existing Blue Prism customers determine the best step forward in their intelligent automation journey and ensure sustainable and efficient management of their automation process. “

“Robotic Process Automation’s (RPA) promise is all about speed and agility, but organizations can struggle to deliver at scale,” says Neil Ward-Dutton, VP of AI and Intelligent Process Automation Practices, IDC Europe. “Tools that help teams streamline and govern the lifecycle of automation delivery are crucial to delivering automation programs at scale with consistent quality while keeping the core promise of RPA.”

“We were impressed by Blue Prism Capture’s ability to reduce the time it takes to create a Process Description Document. In addition to minimizing the back and forth with the process owner to finalize all of the details, we are now able to include many more screenshots, which enhances the clarity and accuracy of the automation that follows” says Grant Byron, Specialist Apps Engineer, Tech and Integration, Orica (Australia).

Available later this month via the Blue Prism Portal, these offerings support a holistic view of an organization’s potential automation pipeline, while maintaining the critical aspects of ensuring proper oversight and control of Blue Prism’s Robotic Operating Model (ROM™). To learn more about these products please click here.