Why would you use a Robot to do integration?
We often hear
from the less technical savvy that “Integration is easy” when in fact integration
can be extremely hard to impossible for much more of a project than most
realize. Alan Trefler uses a term that clarifies just how hard integration can
be with “Applications that cannot be opened, even with a can opener”. Funny but
true. And my old adage was “if it were that easy, it would have been done
already”.
Let me clear
up something else not always so obvious. Accessing a database and accessing business
“data” are two different things. Databases of course contain data but most data
is meaningless unless you first pass it through the years of custom developed
business logic. Imagine writing a balance to a credit card field straight to a
database without first calculating all of the interest, currency rates, charges
etc., Or in reverse, reading a data field that looks like “last name” but
actually needs to be used to part verify one of many names on an account as to
who owns the greater share in an LLC. This
is why building API’s is hard. Many application developers never envisaged this
data being accessed through anything other than the 1000’s of man hours of business
logic they’ve evolved. If only they had a crystal ball in the past to have considered;
Providing access to business logic
level data through API’s
SOA and Enterprise Service Busses open up new worlds of
accessibility
Their own applications would one day become legacy (or
historic even!)
So, if building API’s on top of old legacy
applications is hard, what are the alternatives? Enter the world of Enterprise
Grade Robotics. Robotic Desktop Automation (RDA) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) from Pega are truly Enterprise Grade.
Pega Robotics allows
you to put a wrapper on the one interface that pretty much guarantees to go
through the business logic and security layers when you extract or enter data.
That is, the user interface. These applications have been built to run on
desktops to display and take data all day long from workers, and ALWAYS go
through the business logic layer securely.
Using Pega Robotics to build an API through automation (wrapper BOTS) to write or read
business data against the desktop applications UI solves a significant problem
quickly; How to deliver time to value for any BPM, Transformation and/or
digitization project without having to break the bank and risk missing key
critical security, governance or business logic.
So, with Pega
Robotics you could automate an entire process (say to open a new account) and
then when some or all of the account opening capabilities become available as fully-reengineered
API’s, you can switch to them quickly. More importantly and uniquely, Pega
robotics can partially automate just the key steps in real time, or in a longer
running process by running alongside the workers (assisting) on their own
machines. These Enterprise Grade Robotic options give great flexibility when
you want deliver value quickly, to scale and robustly.
Any Pega
Robotic Automation that is built can be called from a fully integrated server
process, from another Robot, via BPM or Customer service application etc., In
fact, Robots can even call Robots and self monitor their own work to your set
SLA’s. It just makes sense to stop paying people to do work if it can be
automated. Let your employees, do what they are best at, interacting with
customers or using their intelligence where it’s required.
Pega Robotics
has been designed to work fast (most competitive RPA only products are 3-5
times slower and require you configure more servers than is really necessary).
In addition, Pega Robotics is fully integrated into the Pega platform meaning
every aspect critical to enterprise security, auditing and control becomes part
of the fully integrated solution as if it had been designed from the ground up
to do so.
So, the next
time you hear that building API”s is easy, think again. Build API’s using
Robotics and it is much easier but more importantly, buys you time, and
delivers value early so you can reap the rewards or whatever transformation
journey you are on.
Check out Damon Lockwood's post ; BPM AND RPA: BRIDGING THE LAST MILE OF INTEGRATION
