Can RPA interface with any application?

Hello Lillian Moya-Levi, I work for an RPA consulting firm that partners with Blueprism, Automation Anywhere, Power Automate, and UI Path. These RPA technologies are used in many industries such as Banking, Energy, and Retail, and they all allow you to consume APIs and automate interfaces for applications or ERPs.

Blueprism:

• Code reuse: Business Objects allow you to extend functionality without limits with C# or VB.net and encapsulate screen automations for reuse.


• Traceability: Natively incorporates work queues and their automation flow, allowing for traceability and control of automation.


• Security: Includes a credential manager and encryption of both credentials and information.


• Cost: Unattended licenses range from 8000-10000 USD. There is no license per developer, and with one license, you can have three environments (DEV, TST, and PRD).

Cons:

• No unattended robot


• Infrastructure is on-premise, so you must maintain the servers.

Automation Anywhere:

• SaaS


• Contains attended and unattended robots


• Programming through the web browser


• Easy installation


• Contains packages to interact with many applications easily


• Performance

Cons:

• The concept of work queues is different from the rest, and other strategies must be used to resume attempts.


• Not as reusable


• Cost: It is paid per environment, per user, and per robot. It is cheaper than UiPath or similar according to the commercial agreement.

Power Automate:

• More than 400 connectors to interact with applications and services


• Triggers of all kinds that allow automation to be launched from when an email arrives to when a record is inserted in a database.


• Integration with Microsoft and its entire ecosystem


• It is new with a lot of potential.


• Allows for some automation without the need for VDIs and executes in the Microsoft cloud. If you do not need to interact with applications, a robot costs 15 USD.


• Cost: Unattended robot + RPA in VDIs: 200 USD/user.

Cons:

• Being new, it has some kinks to work out.


• It has scripting to extend functionality, but it is not as robust as other tools.


• Managed from several pages.

UIPath:

• Contains the best of Blueprism and Automation Anywhere


• Reusable code


• Work queues


• Attended and unattended robots


• And other features mentioned

Cons:

• Cost.
  
  
  If you need more detailed advice or want to analyze your needs, we are available and I offer you to contact me at elopez@entaconsulting.com or our company at info@entaconsulting.com.
  
  

Yes, you can use several applications, and also you can use APIs for your automations, if you have questions you can also join UiPath Community, and look for topics related to the applications you are planning to interact with. It is also UiPath Academy where you can try it yourself.

Sure can - Ideally you should pursue integrations with APIs using screen scraping as a last resort so you avoid the hassles of changes in the user interface, performance fluctuation of the target application, unexpected or not mapped exceptions, and other variables that may be out of your control. Screen scraping would work fine for applications that are stable, not prone to frequent changes in the user interface, and with a small number of exceptions.

@Lillian Moya-Levi ​totally agree, you could consume APIs from RPA tools and it's a quite friendly. By other hand you asked about the compatibility from RPA to extract data from any application, I understood. Let me share you a brief How to choose between interface or RPA?  If you have a legacy system perhaps, you'd try scrapping technique because the APIs doesn't be developed. It means sometimes not 100% accuracy but with the new AI integration components you could do it faster, handled and more accurately.  Whether you have a Dev Team available to work with you and it's been developing APIs for the applications you need to integrate, simply use the APIs is the fastest way to gathering information. But if you don't sure about what is the best way when you don't have APIs and it's a third-party system, the best way is to make a Proof of Concept first (PoC). Hope this helps.

Yes, RPA software can make use of APIs. Typically web services, JSON, HTTP, etc., are supported by the major RPA vendors. The important aspect when designing an RPA solution that is going to use API functionality as part of the solution is to consider the "Exception" process. What will happen when there is an issue, how do you make the data available and how do you bring a "Human into the loop"?

YES! RPA can automate any app and can use APIs. However, you should ask one more question - Can RPA bring you a positive ROI? Unless you save millions by automating your tasks, your ROI will suffer as many RPA solutions cost a lot in license, consultation, and development. I recommend you also look at new-generation tools like Robocorp and ARGOS LABS. They are based on Python. Open, flexible, powerful, and economical.

Interfacing through API to get transactions from an account, maybe 2 or 3 calls you have the data.  Most well-established banks will provide APIs. Using screen scraping, if it is through imaging, if the layout of the screen is changed, you have to reprogram it again. If you go through HTML/JavaScript coding, it probably is more stable but needs a little more expertise in coding/scripting. But as mentioned before, API is efficient and stable. We did some testing extracting data from a bank account, in a few seconds, you will have the data. Regarding "any application", could be through API, for which you need to understand some coding or platforms could have plugins to ease integrations. Then the question is, how will this data be massaged? Here is probably where you find most differences in automation platforms. We did the mentioned testing on the AutomationEdge platform.

I believe most of the below responses have covered all possible solutions. But the main question is what is the need in the current situation? Does assessment happen for complete requirements? There are a lot of solutions available but the most important is which one is better and needs to be selected as per the organization's need. RPA is a more preferable option for automation but please make sure you had already accessed all other possible solutions. It would be really great if you analyze the complete requirements from all possible solutions including RPA and see which one is better. If you need any assistance then please register yourself on the leading technology platform support group (RPA, non-RPA platforms) and ask to support team. If still you don't get satisfied solutions, then feel free to ask here and all experts in this forum will surely help you (including me).

I work with HelpSystems' AutoMate RPA software and you can use any software with it, also you can use APIs. If you have any questions please email me at jfrano@adaptivegrowth.com.
Regards,
Jack Frano

The short answer is yes, as others have already stated. Having helped several banks and mortgage companies automate many of their tasks, your biggest obstacle to automating things efficiently will not be the technology, but will be the business process analysis and approach, and how the solution(s) is choreographed with the staff. Understanding your current state processes, and getting baselines, is critical to your success.  A previous poster referenced "changes in the user interface, performance fluctuation of the target application, unexpected or not mapped exceptions, and other variables that may be out of your control." Things that cause problems in production are not obvious in the planning stages unless an automation-proficient process professional helps you evaluate opportunities and prescribe approaches.

Sure, you can RPA interface with any applications (e.g. SAP, Excel, Word, Notepad, Web browsers and etc.). About APIs, yes you can use them. With the RPA you can manipulate any .csv, .txt, .pdf, .xls, or .doc files. You can receive and send emails. You can use telnet, FTP, and remote desktop. Any RPA solution has more than 800 functionalities that you can use for different cases.

Yes. All well-known RPA products can interface with applications using exposed APIs. If not API, then via desktop automation for Web/Desktop applications. In some cases, you may have to use Java Access Bridge. 

However, if it's a mainframe AS/400-based application, I have a faster and better solution using API.

We use UiPath and Microsoft Power Automate. Both of them work well for integration with most web/desktop applications. MSFT Power Automate has many ready connectors for a lot of applications to help with API integrations. Contact us if you need help with implementing the RPA solution.                                                                 Mail ID: jo@neelitech.com.   Website: www.neelitech.com