Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is one of the fastest growing segments in the enterprise IT space enabling the automation of repetitive tasks performed by humans. RPA is usually applied to various business processes and activities in sales, customer relationship management, support functions, etc. A service quotation generation (SQG) is a process often used in sales market for creating a service quotation, tracking it, and, after acceptance, transferring it to a service order. SQG can be designed in diferent ways and for diferent purposes, but in general it is repetitive and rule based process thus a good candidate for RPA. In this paper RPA approach is proposed for automated service quotation generation. The time-efectiveness of the proposed technology was tested with diferent amount of tasks (cases). Results obtained through automation are superior more than 2 times to those achieved by human labour.
© 2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative CPWrEooUrckReshdoinpgs IhStpN:/c1e6u1r3-w-0s.o7r3g CCoEmUmoRns WLiceonrsekAsthtriobuptioPnr4o.0cIneteerdnaitniognasl ((CCC EBYU4R.0)-.WS.org) 2. Service quotation generation process has to approve his actions by pushing the button, but he cannot do that for one reason or another, it will be a system error. Queue items with system exceptions are repeatable most often, up to three attempts. Internal errors are associated with unpredictable cases, when robots in a certain situation do not know how to behave and consequently have to terminate their job. These errors are visible in the processes management part only. The biggest challenge is to predict all the possible scenarios in process execution in order to avoid terminations. The algorithm of the process should handle diferent/new situations and to ensure stable working process for all cases.
Structured description of SQG process is divided into 7 steps and presented in Fig. 3, including the explanation of four SAP transactions, VA05, VA03, VA21, and YVAFE [20] involved in the process.
it is a process where quotations are created from filtered orders (with detailed information) and then sent to the clients. SQG can be designed in diferent ways and for diferent purposes. The process of SQG included in this research is described below.
First of all, the whole process has to be separated into smaller sub-processes to reach scalability. It is separated into three sub-processes: “Populate Work Queue”, “Main” and “Reporting”. The first sub-process loads all filtered sales orders from SAP into the “Blue Prism” control room queue. Only one software robot (digital worker) is required for this task. The “Main” sub-process is responsible for the process logic controls. To ensure efectiveness multiple robots should be involved in this sub-process. Items from the queue 1/2 steps The first SAP transaction VA05 is used for are taken one by one and independent quotations are getting, filtering and adding sales orders to the queue. generated. The process automation needs one robot The two steps are pretty simple: go to transaction, set to create a queue, and the particular number of other company code and date period of sales orders, get all robots to do all tasks form the “Main” sub-process. The sales orders, add three more informational columns: last sub-process “Reporting” stands for storing infor- material, description, order quantity. Filtering provides mation related to the current state of tasks. It takes all all sales orders by material numbers, but before this data from the working queue, reads significant infor- step it is necessary to read material numbers from .xml mation and makes a report. This report is transferred format file. The next step is to add all filtered sales orto human workers who are responsible for operating ders to the queue. The sub-process “Populate Work the robot. To complete all tasks of the “Reporting” sub- Queue” uses only one SAP transaction to do its task. process one software robot is required. This sub-process cannot be performed by multi–robots
After execution, the responsible persons can find all because there will be created duplicates in a queue and required information about the queue items. For ex- the whole process cannot be separated in several indeample, it can be identified whether it has been a suc- pendent parts. cessful execution or not, which is marked as a green check symbol or a red flag respectively. In case of suc- 3 step The “Main” sub-process needs the other three cess, customers only care about execution parameters SAP transactions (VA03, VA21, YVAFE) to execute the like quotation number, Purchase Order (PO) number process. The first transaction is used for getting inand other quotation related data. Moreover, employ- formation about the client (his/her e-mail and name). ees, who are responsible for operating the robot, have In this step there might be some business exceptions, to be sure that approved cases are certainly successful because the robot may encounter missing values of an and there are no logical mistakes in execution. In the e-mail address or name. Here, the robot first of all goes case of an exceptional – unsuccessful operation, ex- to this transaction and writes a sales order document ception type must be verified. There are three types of number. Next, it tries to go to the “Partners” tab to get exceptions: business, system and internal. Business ex- an e-mail address. There is more than one tab and by ceptions include data errors. For example, if the robot default. Usually, the robot goes to the eighth tab, reads instead of information in e-mail address format gets its name and if there is a “Partners” tab, the robot tries information with unknown/wrong format, it will be to get an e-mail address. If there is no such tab, it goes considered as a business exception. from the beginning of tabs one by one to find the “Part
Queue items with business exceptions are non- re- ners” tab. When a robot finds an e-mail field, it reads peatable because it makes no sense to repeat it as the it and saves into memory. If there is no email (after data will not change. System exceptions are associated all searches) – it is considered as a business exception. with application based errors. For example, if the robot The same actions are performed while searching for the customer’s name, but by default, robot is initially placed to the tenth “Order Data” tab. 4 step RPA service product analysis is performed in this step and it follows the actions, described in step 3. 5 step The second transaction VA21 is used to create a quotation. It is the most dificult transaction for a robot to perform. A digital worker has to write all data from VA05 and VA03 transactions very carefully and correctly. First of all, the robot goes to VA21 transaction, then sets up an initial screen, where all fields depend on the company and are always constant. Next, the digital worker has to fill in all the required fields to create a quotation. Required fields usually include - the purchase order number, document date, valid to date, some fields about company parameters and material numbers (must be read from .xls format file before writing). In this transaction, the robot has to enter the customer’s name from the VA03 transaction, which is initiated after completing the required fields and the next actions are the same as in VA03 transaction with tabs. The essential thing is that a robot has to write the customer’s name – not to read. If this action is performed correctly, SAP will display a message with information about the created quotation and its number. A robot has to filter out quotation number from the message using RegEx (regular expression) and save it to the memory.
Data from Logic Template .xls format file is included in the customer_MAT. Meanwhile A, B or C is filtered one row from the corresponding lists. If sign “X ” is found in A column, material number is recorded. Special case in MAT has two signs “X ”, therefore additional checking is performed to verify part_MAT value and the index. Additional checking is performed to identify if there is a specific_Mat in the order. If the returned value is true, part_MAT is added to selected_ MAT. “X “ sign denotes which part_MAT is selected (see Fig. 2). 7 step The last step is to go to the YVAFE transaction and send a quotation to the customer. The robot needs to go to the transaction, write quotation number, review quotation, write customer e-mail address, send quotation to the written e-mail address and close all confirmation pop-ups. These steps define the procedure, how the quotation is created and sent to a specific customer. The “Main” sub-process can be executed with multi robots. All robots can take data from diferent sales orders and create diferent quotations independently at the same time.
All interactions with SAP are executed using SAP scripting. SAP buttons, tabs, fields, windows, tables and other elements have their references. Using “Blue Prism” code stages and SAP references, robots can interact with elements in every possible way. For example, if there is a button, the robot can press it using the code stage press method. The biggest dificulties arise when there is a need to read the whole data table (all sales orders) into one data set called a collection. Collection in “Blue Prism” is like a two-dimensional array/ a hash table mix, like a two-dimensional array with a header. To use SAP scripting IDs of the session and connections must be known, but these IDs are always the same and usually are equal to zero. Connection ID always depends on how many users are connected to the same resource computer. The whole process should be done by one user and thus the connection ID should always be equal to zero. Session ID depends on how many SAP windows are open. It means that all transactions can be opened in diferent windows and have diferent session IDs. Using best practices, the robot always does its job in a transaction and goes to another transaction from the same window. As a result, the session ID always remains the same number and equal to zero.
The main goal of this process it time optimization. The digital worker can generate one quotation much cess execution. However, there is a possibility to imfaster than physical human employee. Robots can work mediately stop the process. In the control room we twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week without can request the stop for the current process and then any pauses and breaks or holidays. Even one robot the robot will stop process execution after it finishes can increase the process of service quotation and re- a current case. There also are some certain variables, duce costs significantly. There is a need only for one called “Session variables”. Values of variables might be physical human to ensure that digital worker operates changed in the control room even when the process is properly. in execution stage.
It is very important to denote general robot behav3.1. Rules and Constrains ior rules and reaction to the information predefined in the settings file. However, such rules may be modified When the RPA process is executed, we cannot change according to the required changing needs. any steps of the robot but we can do monitoring from Rules according to the settings file : the control room. There we can see the current robot step. Diferent applications such as “VNC Viewer” can 1. Customer email must be found in a first choice be used to monitor real-time execution processes. “VNC line, if not – then in a second choice line, if not – Viewer” is a program for logging into another virtual then in a third choice line. If no email is found in environment allowing to view the processes from the all choice lines – business exception is recorded outside. In case of an emergency, there is a possibility and the case is ended. to untick “View only” checkbox from “VNC Viewer” 2. Quotation must be sent by email to primary reparameters and make some changes in real-time pro- sponsible person and 3. to the customer, if there is a “yes” option selected (Question: “send a service quotation to the primary responsible person as well”) in settings. If no email is found in the “Primary Responsible” line – business exception must be thrown. 4. Text from the settings must be added to PO (Pur
chase Order) number in quotation. 5. The date of PO must be selected from two options: (1) actual date or; (2) the date from the sales document. 6. The date must be validated by the value of the ifeld “ Valid to” calculated using formula: _ _ = + (1) Figure 4: Processing time of cases (5, 10, 15, 20 and 25) per
formed by humans.
where denotes the number of months. 7. Customer cannot get another quotation if the inter-time between two consecutive quotations and (set in settings file) did not pass.
In other words, the customer after one received quotation has to wait for a time period (for example 7 days). The time duration is predeifned in the settings file. 8. Quotation cannot be created and sent to customer if the customer’s number is included in a “Black list”. 9. Quotation must be sent only to the primary email of the responsible person in case the customer’s email is in a “Grey list”.
Other Rules: 1. If the robot cannot send a quotation to the customer because of “SAP” limits, the sending operation must be repeated in a few hours or on the next day. 2. Sales orders with the same document number
must be sent to the customers in one quotation. 3. Robot must find customer’s name, if it cannot do
that – a business exception must be thrown. 4. Robot must save all the data (customer’s email, primary responsible person’s email, quotation number and other data required for quotation generation) for report. 5. The Robot having order materials must find all part materials according to the algorithm described in Fig. 1.
2 Cores, 3.20 GB RAM, 3.20 GB of total physical memory and 4.76 GB of virtual memory. SAP scripting, “Blue Prims” and Visual Basic frameworks has been used for creating realization models.
The evaluation of time eficiency of the implemented RPA experiments have been performed using diferent number of cases implemented into 5 scenarios. The same scenarios have been tested with humans - 20 participants have been involved in this research asking them to complete the tasks ensuring the same working conditions.
In Fig. 4 the diagram representing the time results achieved by humans performing diferent number of cases: 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 is included. For completing 5 cases the average time required for human is 13.22 minutes, thus 2.64 for one case. With the increasing number of cases, the average time to complete one case is increasing as well and estimating the time to complete 25 cases, the average time to complete one case unknown and conflicting situations. [1] G. Capizzi, G. Lo Sciuto, C. Napoli, R. Shikler,
M. Wozniak, Optimizing the organic solar cell manufacturing process by means of afm measurements and neural networks, Energies 11 (2018). [2] D. Połap, M. Woźniak, C. Napoli, E. Tramontana, Figure 6: Comparison or humans and robots time results Real-time cloud-based game management sysachieved performing tasks. tem via cuckoo search algorithm, International Journal of Electronics and Telecommunications 61 (2015) 333–338. is equal to 3.51 minutes. Meanwhile, estimating the [3] R. Vedder, et al., Robotic process automation in average time to complete the same cases for the robot the finance function of the future (2016. Available online: https://insightsbenelux.com/ publicathe constant value of 1.264 ± 4.6% to finish one case has been observed (Fig. 5). tions/%2314_werkplaats_(ochtend)_EYFinance
Comparing the time results of humans and robot, _Robotics.pdf.). we can see that superiority of the robot increasing with [4] Role of rpa and ai in transforming the increasing number of cases. With the small num- banking operations (Hexaware and ber of cases the robot can complete all cases twice faster IBS Intelligence 2019. Available online: than the human. The gap between results is more sig- https://ibsintelligence.com/files/media_temp/ nificant and reaches 2.82 times when the number of Hexaware-Role_of_AI cases reaches 25 (Fig. 6). Performing the testing of the &RPA_in_transforming_Banking_Operations_ RPA process no logical loops or other critical errors v9.pdf). have been observed. The whole process is fast, stable, [5] C. Lamberton, D. Brigo, D. Hoy, Impact of ensures the task completeness and responds correctly robotics, rpa and ai on the insurance industry: to all input data. challenges and opportunities, Journal of Financial Perspectives 4 (2017) 1–13. [6] Rpa’s impact on the travel industry (2017. Avail5. Conclusions able online https://www.uipath.com/blog/rpasimpact-on-the-travel-industry).
This research paper has proposed an RPA approach [7] I. Karabegovic, E. Karabegovic, M. Mahfor automated service quotation generation. The time- mic, E. Husak, The application of serefectiveness of the proposed technology has been test- vice robots for logistics in manufacturing ed with diferent number of cases and compared with processes (Available online: http://apemthe results archived by humans. Comparing the time journal.org/Archives/2015/APEM10-4_185-194 results of humans and robot, we can see that superior- .pdf). ity of the robot is increasing with the increasing num- [8] F. Mazzenga, R. Giuliano, F. Vatalaro, Fttc-based ber of cases. With the small number of cases, the robot fronthaul for 5g dense/ultra-dense access netcan complete all cases ∼ 2 times faster than the human work: performance and costs in realistic scenar(taking the average time values calculated from all ex- ios, Future Internet 9 (Oct. 2017) 1–21. periment participants). When the number of cases is [9] H. Leopold, H. Van der Aa, H. A. Reijers, Identifyequal to 25, the execution time of the robot is 2.82 ing candidate tasks for robotic process. automatimes faster. Such results prove that the application tion in textual process descriptions (Enterprise, of RPA is reasonable for the automated service quo- Business-Process and Information Systems Modtation generation and could be valuable for diferent eling (EMMSAD), 2018) 67–81. business companies, especially for those that have to [10] C. Napoli, E. Tramontana, An object-oriented complete a huge amount of operations every day. neural network toolbox based on design patterns,
In future work, we plan to improve the rules of our in: International Conference on Information and approach in order to ensure stable performance under