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Hello there! If you are starting out on your intelligent automation and RPA journey, you have come to the right place. In this comprehensive guide, I will be sharing everything you need to know as a beginner about the leading robotic process automation software – Blue Prism.
Right from understanding its capabilities at a high level to detailed step-by-step tutorials, this 30 minute master class has got you covered!
So let‘s start with the basics, shall we?
What is Blue Prism and How Does it Work?
Blue Prism refers to both the company Blue Prism Limited and its flagship RPA software product used by large enterprises worldwide for automating routine IT and business operations.
Some quick facts about the company and offering:
- Founded in 2001 by Alastair Bathgate and David Moss in Warrington, United Kingdom
- 2000+ customers across major verticals like banking, insurance, healthcare
- Pioneer of robotic process automation (RPA) technology
In simple terms, Blue Prism provides software robots to automate manual and repetitive tasks normally done by humans. Much like you may use macros in Excel to automate steps right?
But instead of just Excel, these robots can perform end-to-end processes spanning multiple enterprise applications, mainframes, websites and even paper scanned documents (via built-in OCR).
How it Works
The blue prism software suite consists of multiple interconnected components for enabling automation at scale:
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Process Studio: Visually design flowcharts representing automation recipes
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Object Studio: Create building blocks by recording application interactions
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Control Room: Central dashboard to manage all robots enterprise-wide
The typical workflow looks like:
- Model the process and integration points required as reusable constructs (objects)
- Visually map out the end-to-end automated workflow (process)
- Deploy configured robots to execute the processes via control room
Thus Blue Prism provides that easy LEGO like assembly framework to stitch all the integration points for automation without needing traditional software development.
Now that you know what Blue Prism broadly offers, let‘s dive deeper into the key capabilities it provides.
Blue Prism Features and Capabilities
Robotic software is transforming how modern enterprises operate. Let‘s see how Blue Prism stands out in enabling this journey with its platform:
1. End-to-end Automation Platform
Blue Prism offers an integrated suite covering everything from process analysis, design, development, simulation, execution and analytics. Very differentiated from pure play RPA tools like UiPath which just focus on desktop automation runtime.
This enables automating processes end-to-end seamlessly versus tackling it through traditional siloed avenues.
2. Supports All Application Environments
The software robots can interface with all types of enterprise applications commonly found:
- Mainframe Terminals
- Legacy Windows desktop tools
- Modern Web Apps, Mobile
- Java, .NET, SAP Packages
- Microsoft Office
- PDF, Email servers
This provides that flexibility to drive automation without application changes or API access upfront.
3. Central Control Room for Governance
The control room module offers managers one single dashboard to view automation metrics, schedule workload, track ROI and compliance.
Things covered in the control room include:
- Process health monitoring
- Robot utilization tracking
- User access control and audits
- Infrastructure resource planning like licenses, hardware
Thus it becomes the command center to manage your digital workforce just like your human teams!
4. Secure Access and Credentials Management
Blue Prism provides role based access combined with credential vaults for secure password storage.
This ensures only authorized users can access automation capabilities as per enterprise IT guidelines.
5. Cognitive Capabilities like AI, ML, RPA
Blue Prism readily integrates advanced capabilities like optical character recognition (OCR), natural language processing (NLP), machine learning algorithms to enable smarter automation.
For instance reading handwritten data, processing emails based on intents, document classification etc.
Now that you know the core platform offerings let‘s experience the tooling hands-on!
Getting Hands-on with Blue Prism Process Studio
The Process studio module offers that easy drag and drop interface for RPA developers and citizen automators to map out the end-to-end process flows.
Experience is similar to designing flowcharts and mind maps if you have worked with tools like Visio, SmartDraw earlier.
Let‘s look at the key concepts from a hands-on perspective:
1. Building Blocks: Stages
The fundamental elements used here are stages. Each stage represents a specific capability offered by Blue Prism like:
- Performing a calculation
- Reading from a database
- Sending an email
- Calling an action on an object
Hundreds of inbuilt stages are available covering most common app interactions, business logic, data processing use cases.
These are simply dragged from the left hand sidebar and dropped onto the process diagram canvas visually:
An example set of stages dragged onto the process studio canvas
As depicted above, I have dragged different stages like math operation, data item update, utility action onto my sample process flow.
2. Connecting Stages: Links
Next we need to logically link these stages to create the end-to-end automated workflow.
This achieved using links which depict the connectivity and execution flow across stages. For instance:
Visually connecting stages using links
Thus I have defined process flow from calculate stage -> assign stage -> excel stage and so on.
The execution will traverse these connected stages sequentially behind the scenes!
3. Loops, Branches and Transactions
Now there may be cases where you don‘t want plain vanilla sequence but more complex routing.
This is where following elements help:
Loops: Repeat a certain set of stages multiple times until condition met
Branches: Fork execution to alternate stage sets based on IF/ELSE choices
Transactions: Modularize a section of logic into its own view for reusability
All drag and drop enabled without coding!
4. Error and Exception Handling
We can also visually model how exceptions and errors should be handled using the recover stage.
For instance triggering notifications, taking screenshots, trying corrective steps etc. – entirely configured via user friendly wizards.
Now you have got a glimpse into constructing automation recipes simply using pre-built constructs without coding!
While we made use of logical stages, we still need to integrate the actual end applications being automated. This is where the object studio comes in.
Blue Prism Object Studio
The Object Studio enables RPA developers to create reusable plugin components called "Business Objects" representing specific applications.
These objects expose attributes, actions and integration hooks to interact with target systems using Blue Prism robots.
For instance, you can have:
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Excel business object – Enabling workbook manipulations
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Email business object – Mail sending, attachment and inbox processing
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Database business object – Interacting with DB tables and running queries
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Desktop application object – Automating legacy UI flows
Once created, these objects can be reused across multiple processes via simple action.perform() calls like in traditional coding.
Let‘s visually depict how this works:
Business Objects provide reusable application integration points
As you can see above, sample business objects are invoked from the main process via calls like:
Excel_Object.Open_Workbook()
App_Login_Object.Enter_Credentials() This enables easy pluggability to incorporate applications without worrying about internals of these objects, separating core logic from integrations.
Next let‘s look at some examples of real life Blue Prism RPA deployments.
Real World Blue Prism Application Examples
Automation is enabling remarkable transformation across enterprises as evident from these examples:
1. Streamlining Mortgage Lending
A leading housing bank deployed Blue Prism to automate their home loan application processing workflows.
This improved efficiency allowing faster decisioning, enhanced quality and better experiences:
Benefits
- 70% faster home loan processing
- 90% reduction in application errors
- 20% improved employee productivity
Such automation allows rapidly scaling processes on-demand to respond to market needs.
2. Insurance Claims Lifecycle
Another use case is of a prominent insurance provider aiming to optimize their health claims review process given numerous manual steps.
Post intelligent automation deployment via Blue Prism:
Benefits
- 30% improvement in claim review accuracy
- 60% reduction in cycle times
- 3 FTEs reallocated from repetitive tasks
Thus it helped compress process cycles, enhance quality and shift focus on value adding exceptions.
As evident, automation is revolutionizing workflows across banking, insurance, retail, telecom, healthcare and many more areas.
Now an common question asked is how does Blue Prism licensing work? Let‘s discuss next.
Blue Prism Pricing and Support Models
Given significant benefits and returns achieved from intelligent automation, what is the associated licensing investment?
Broadly there are two pricing models offered:
1. Perpetual License
Upfront one-time license fee based on number of software robots deployed. Includes 1 year support coverage by default.
2. Annual Subscription
Pay only for capacity you use based on active robots on monthly or annual basis. Allows flexibility to scale up/down.
In both cases the metric driving cost is number of robots leveraged in production. The greater the scale, the higher the costs.
However the licensing is still very affordable compared to traditional software packages for the degree of efficiency gains unlockable.
Getting Started
I would recommend you checkout the Community Edition for hands-on exposure allowing up to 2 robots for free.
This will let you build a sample process and test it out before considering larger production rollouts. Links provided in resources section.
Now that you know about Blue Prism, how does it compare with other similar offerings in the market?
Comparing Blue Prism with Leading RPA Tools
While Blue Prism pioneered the space, many other tools have come up over years broadening the RPA landscape. Let‘s see how they stack.
1. UiPath – Extremely strong capability for desktop process automation. Huge community around it helping drive rapid adoption.
2. Automation Anywhere – More cloud focused, aims democratization via built-in ML capabilities.
3. WorkFusion – Differentiated focus on weaving intelligence into automation via cognitive modules. Low code.
There are also common capabilities like surface level process modelling, control rooms, scheduling etc. provided across tools.
Key Diffs:
| Capability | Blue Prism | UiPath | Automation Anywhere | WorkFusion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Process Modelling | Advanced, visually enabled via process studio | Basic process recorder and editor | Decent modelling built-in with AA assist | Strong process discovery tools |
| Application Support | Very extensive across legacy, web, SaaS apps | Mainly Windows + Browser based | Good cross-app support with surface integration | Broad app coverage |
| Intelligence | Comes via separate bolt-ons and partnerships | Elementary level skills support | Strong vision leveraging ML with IQ Bot | Core strength being cognitive automation |
| Pricing | Mid Range | Lowest | Mid Range | Premium |
Depending on your needs, budget and ecosystem – architectural alignment, TCO, use case fitness, vendor partnership would help determine the right choice.
Now that you know how Blue Prism fares relative to comparable options, are there any resources for better understanding?
Additional Blue Prism Tutorials and Resources
Here are some useful links for supplemental learning:
- Blue Prism Product Documentation – Concept guides covering core modules
- YouTube Video Tutorials – Live demo based learning
- Community Edition Download – Hands-on experiment sandbox environment
- Process Mining and Task Mining – Automated process discovery SaaS
Hope these provide additional perspectives to take your automation skills to the next level.
Let‘s wrap up with key takeaways.
Conclusion and Key Takeaways
We have covered quite a lot of ground here discussing everything from basics of Blue Prism, how it works, key capabilities, tooling hands-on like process studio, object studio and building blocks involved.
We also saw some real world RPA deployment examples in areas like banking, insurance along with pricing models comparison with alternatives like UiPath, Automation Anywhere etc.
Some key things to remember:
- Blue Prism pioneered robotic process automation way back in 2001 when the word wasn‘t mainstream
- Offers an integrated suite covering end-to-end automation needs from analysis to monitoring unlike point solutions
- Visual modelling paradigms for building automation recipes without traditional coding
- Central control room enabling management and governance of digital workforce
- Plug and play business objects providing easy integration mechanism to incorporate target applications
So in a nutshell – it provides that rapid, flexible and intelligent automation delivery framework unlocking new possibilities.
I have covered quite a lot here to accelerate your RPA learning journey! Feel free to checkout additional resources shared above for supplemental perspectives.
Hope you found this guide useful. Happy Automating my friend!
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