In a previous blog post, What Is RPA? I discussed the three types of robotic process automation: unattended, attended and hybrid automation. Hybrid automation is the newest iteration of RPA–and as such there’s some confusion on how it actually works.

So let me paint a picture for you.

Jane is a loan officer. She comes into work, grabs a cup of coffee, sits down and opens up her queue of work for the day. Presented to her are applications that have already been scanned, digitised and uploaded into the loan processing system–along with key data fields populated from the CRM system, the credit bureaus, and other third-party data sources. 

Previously, these are all tasks she would have performed at the start of each application, but a software robot (RPA unattended automation) was programmed to perform all of those tasks for her.

Jane pulls up the first application and verifies the signature and reviews the data collected. The robot in its data gathering has flagged a discrepancy between data sources. Based on the context of the loan, Jane’s Process Assistant (attended automation) suggests a course of action.

Jane agrees with the suggestion and tells the robot to do it. Jane is then able to move forward with the next application in the queue. When her Process Assistant completes the task, the application returns to Jane’s work queue, categorised and prioritised based on its turnaround service goal.

Hybrid automation, the combination of unattended and attended RPA, increases the speed and accuracy of the data gathering and populating tasks–and frees Jane up to handle the more complex applications and assists Jane through the process steps as needed.

Hybrid automation has helped increase Jane’s capacity and job satisfaction, because many of the tedious tasks have been offloaded to RPA. And, the real-time, contextual process assistance is giving Jane greater confidence in the decisions she is making.

I hope that helps clarify how hybrid automation works and can help organisations increase capacity and employee job satisfaction. For more info, watch the on-demand webinar: Managing the Combined Human and Digital Workforce, which includes a demonstration of hybrid automation in action.