Companies in most major industries are turning to RPA to automate internal processes that are repetitive and damaging to employee productivity. Therefore, this technology replaces human intervention by one hundred percent, improves operational efficiency and reduces costs.
What does a robot application exception entail?
However, robots cannot be used to their full value if they are not designed properly. Therefore, one of the most important components of the bot is exception handling, that means a right categorization of the errors and then the development of solutions to solve the errors.
An application exception occurs when the robot encounters a problem of a technical nature, e.g. a server crash, a failure or a change in the technological environment, which requires interaction with a new application, or a website. For example, a robot that needs to press a login button on a website, will crash when the page does not load completely. The best strategy to overcome this exception is for the robot to click again until the page loads. Such problems can be solved by repeating a certain step in the process.
Sometimes, during its activity, a bot may encounter certain situations that it has not been programmed to handle and thus, it will crash.
In other words, the exceptions a robot faces fall into two groups:
- System exceptions – For example, when a system such as SAP is unavailable for IT reasons.
- Business exceptions – problems related to certain processes, for example, missing customer information in the application form, which blocks the robot from processing data.
How should RPA bots be programmed?
The robot should be programmed to notify process managers, most often by e-mail, of incomplete processes due to exceptions of any kind. It is then necessary for the managers to provide the data where it is missing, so that the robot can complete the process. If several exceptions of the same kind occur, then the manager can further sign them to the programmer for the configuration of typical errors.
Successful automations manage to recognize where an error is likely to occur and are able to try again. Developers should also plan for failure and integrate a solution for the robot. For example, if a bot encounters an error while browsing a URL, it should close the web application, then reopen it.
As a precaution, the main automation code should be in the “try” block, belonging to the “try catch” argument – which tells the robot what to do in case of an exception, and should contain the code block for cleaning up the automation. This way, the robot will be prepared and will know what to do in case of exceptions.
When a robot is well programmed, with all the necessary precautions for handling exceptions, then the business is on track for maximum ROI.
Successfully automate your processes as well as their exceptions with the BeeDigital team.