Design Centric RPA Approach: The Jidoka Example

Design Centric RPA Approach
The Jidoka®
Example
by Deepak Sharma
September, 2017
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a revolutionary step forward in taking
Enterprise business process optimization to the next level and in empowering
21st century working age with Digital assistants. As RPA market is going
through its early growth phase, there are a variety of RPA product offerings
that have emerged. From an implementation perspective, these can broadly
be categorized into two distinct approaches which really determine the scope,
development practices, skill requirements, roles and processes that shape up
RPA implementations. This paper is focused on taking a deep dive into exploring
one of these two approaches –The Design CentricApproach to RPA, and bringing
out insights why it is important for complex strategic RPA implementations, what
are the key aspects of this approach, and how to implement this approach by
taking the example of Jidoka RPA product.

Deepak is a seasoned IT consultant with 15 years of experience in UI
Automation for Test and RPA; focused on Enterprise Applications such
as SAP, Siebel, PLM, Custom Wealth & Asset Management platforms,
Healthcare Claim Processing systems, etc. He has worked with major
global enterprises in the UK such as Barclays, IFDS, Department of
Works and Pensions, RWE Npower, and in the US; such as Motorola
& UnitedHealth Group. Deepak is passionate researcher, who writes
about market trends, adoption challenges, and implementation
approaches for the RPA Industry.
He is an evangelist of a Design Centric approach for RPA based on
industry standard development practices and collaborative processes
between operations and IT, which holds tremendous potential for
enterprise customers to reach the next level in business process
optimization and to act as a catalyst for digital transformation and
business model innovation. Deepak holds a bachelor in Computer
Science & Engineering degree and a Masters in Strategy & Innovation
from the SAID Business School, University of Oxford where He secured
a distinction in Innovation Strategy focused on market evolution and
implementation of nascent technologies such as Robotics, 3D printing,
AI and Big data.
About the author
Deepak Sharma
RPA Evangelist and Senior
Automation Consultant
2Design Centric RPA Approach
The Jidoka®
Example
Jidoka is a Robotic ProcessAutomation (RPA) software that automates
business processes replicating human behavior. Large companies
from key economic sectors (banking, insurance, utilities, real estate, IT,
BPO, among others) around the world utilize Jidoka's software robots
to automate their front and back office processes, freeing people of
tedious and repetitive tasks. Developed by Novayre, Jidoka holds a
prominent position in the global RPA provider ecosystem delivering
powerful software robots development tools combined with advanced
enterprise level robot operations orchestration.
About Jidoka®

The Jidoka®
Example
Background 4
4RPA Market Trends
16Conclusion
16References
5Why Design Centric RPA Approach?
Key Issues in RPA Implementations
Introduction to Design Centric RPA Approach
Top-Down Development 7
Object-Oriented Implementation 8
Collaborative Process 9
Implementing Design Centric RPA
Top-Down Development
Jidoka
12
10
Object-Oriented Implementation 14
Collaborative Process 15
17Appendix A
Jidoka Implementation Examples

The Jidoka®
Example
Background
Firstly, let’s look at some of the broad trends and issues faced by the
RPA market today as it is going through its take-off phase[2]
and as
many industry analysts are predicting- RPA market will continue to grow
at a rapid pace for the next 5-7 years before it starts to level-off. As with
the growth of any new technology market, there is a flood of different
RPA product variants that have emerged with multitude of ideas about
what the customers want. As more and more RPA products are getting
pushed out into the market, it’s increasingly the case that this does not
create new products but instead has created new product categories
such as pure-play RPA- attended or unattended, cognitive RPA, and
AI powered RPA. Although, there are tall claims being made about
RPA product offerings, to create a further 40-50% efficiency[3]
on the
traditional BPO costs, the demand is still inchoate especially in the case
of cognitive and AI powered where a lot of innovative activities is going
on at the moment till the products mature.
Given all the hype, an ever-growing variety of products and categories
on offer and an inchoate demand, the RPA market is going through
its evolution with some products prospering and others falling apart.
As more and more customers across industry sectors are trying out
RPA products and conducting POCs, consumer needs are getting more
articulated and specific. And as this continues to happen, the coming
year or two will result in a sizeable shakeout to possibly reduce the
number of providers and stabilize the RPA industry.
I recently wrote an article about the Record-Replay approach[1]
to
RPA implementations and why it is not a preferred approach. I briefly
touched upon the Design Centric Approach to RPA in that article. In this
white paper, I would like to take a deep dive into exploring the Design
centric approach to RPA, and bring out insights about some of the
key issues faced during RPA implementations and why design centric
approach is the right approach for strategic RPA implementations in
complex enterprise environments. The latter part of this white paper
demonstrates how the Design centric approach to RPA implementation
can be applied in practical using the Jidoka RPA tool. And based on
that, we would be reflecting on how the broad RPA implementation
issues can be effectively resolved to develop and deploy highly efficient,
high quality bots.
RPA Market
Trends

The Jidoka®
Example
Why Design Centric Approach
There are three broad issues that we will focus on. Firstly, the biggest is the
confusion over how to approach RPA implementations as there is a lot of
misunderstanding in the market created by RPA products sales pitches. Should
you go for a product that sound cheaper early days but offers quick, tactical
POC outcomes automating simplistic processes using approaches that fall into
the record-replay trap? Or should you go for a product that forces you to look at
business process automation in a holistic way across a large operational area?
This may sound higher investment and effort early days but so would be the
resultant RPA ROI[4]
and efficiency gains over time. It’s a tactical vs. strategic
choice for RPA implementation approach. As many of the implementation cycles
are in early days and as more and more enterprise customers are trying to make
sense of RPA benefits, many are struggling with the RPA product choice they’ve
made and are finding it difficult to realize acceptable ROI from RPAimplementation
beyond the early POC stage.
Secondly, should you be developing bots that require very proprietary
development & maintenance skills? Many RPA products are claiming to offer
code free development of bots that the front-line operations users can carry
out themselves using the pre-built capabilities offered in the tool. But seldom
such RPA implementation tactics work and soon customers find themselves in a
state where they have to bring in skilled RPA developers in the chosen tool from
outside.
The situation is not helpful as many of the pureplay RPA tools don’t necessarily
provide or support standard software development kits (SDKs). As such, getting
skilled software programmers, say in Microsoft or Java technologies for example,
does not work. And finding resources locally that have been in operations and
have become power user in proprietary features offered by an RPA tool is difficult.
This problem is widespread for customers and one solution is to have their
operations teams undergo training and acquire the necessary skills in the RPA
tool they’ve chosen. But this doesn’t provide implementation expertise to begin
with, as needed for complex implementations, and is dependent on the availability
of good quality training programs for the chosen tool. Instead, should you look to
implement an RPA tool that applies industry standard development techniques
for building software robots and does not create skills gap? It’s a choice between
highly proprietary methodologies vs. industry standard development practices for
RPA implementations.
Many consumers are
struggling with the RPA
product choice they’ve
made and are finding
it difficult to realize
acceptable ROI.
Many of the pureplay
RPA tools don’t provide
or support standard
Software Development
Kits (SDKs).
Key Issues in RPA Implementations

The Jidoka®
Example
Thirdly, because of the implementation approach and development technique
employed based the chosen RPA tool, should you push bot development
fully into operations teams? Does RPA tools offer such silver bullet that RPA
implementations be done without involvement from IT teams?
A direct consequence of this is the failure to scale RPA implementation efforts
beyond the POC stage. Another, and on a more serious note, is to do with
the level of technical quality of the solution in terms of robustness, modularity,
security, scalability and maintainability. Or, should you look to adopt an RPA tool
that inspires a collaborative effort between both the operations and the IT teams
for building process bots? Thus, the resultant RPA implementation delivers not
only the much-needed operational efficiency but is of high technical quality as
well. In a technology world where collaborative approaches like Agile, DevOps
are a new normal for Digital transformation with in businesses, it is not advisable
to take a step backwards when it comes to implementing RPA and end up creating
a silo between the operations and IT teams. It is a choice between a collaborative
vs. siloed approach to RPA implementations.
The 3 broad issues facing RPA implementations
The resultant RPA
implementation delivers
not only the needed
operational efficiency
but is of high technical
quality as well.
Low ROI
Not taking a strategic approach to RPA
implementation resulting in low ROI.
Record Replay
Bottom Up Tactical
Approach
Design Centric
Top Down Strategic
Approach
High Proprietary
Bot Development
Techniques
Standard Development
Practises for Bot
Development
Siloed Processes
pushed torwards
Operations away
from IT
Collaborative process
between Operations
and IT
Not employing industry standard development
techniques leading into skills gap.
Skills Gap
Not implementing RPA projects as a collaborative
effort between operations and IT teams causing
implementation failures with some industry
analysts stating this to be as high as 60% in late
2016 - early 2017.
Failed Projects
Problem Root Cause Solution
Why Design Centric Approach - Key Issues on RPA Implementations

Object-Oriented
Implementation
Collaborative
Process
Top-Down
Development
The Jidoka®
Example
Design Centric approach to RPA implementations focuses on taking a top-down approach[5]
for automating the business
processes within an enterprise. It’s about starting with designing high-level workflow for processes to be automated in a language
that is understood by the domain experts, and not focusing straight into the technical implementation details by attempting to
record an isolated bot for example in a bottom-up fashion. The processes to be automated are designed in their entirety by
Operations SMEs. The high-level process flows are made deterministic to ensure all possible exceptions and recovery paths are
covered. The whole idea follows the principle that Design is not coding and coding is not design.
Design Patterns
The high-level process flows for automation are modeled using the standard design
patterns for business process modelling. The process steps are considered as domain
events and are labelled using a common language that describes the application
domain. This lays the foundation for an object-oriented layered solution architecture.
Modularity
As business processes are modeled using a common domain language, the process
steps that represent domain events once implemented in code provides a library
of automated reusable modules or business objects that can be re-used across
multiple automated process bots. This reduces the level of maintenance needed once
automated process are released into production. Any change to a domain event can
be made only in the corresponding automated module to reflect in all applicable bots.
Scalability
As processes within an operations area of a business are being automated and a library
of domain specific automated process components starts to emerge, this provides for
scalability in the RPA implementation to automate much greater number of processes
within the enterprise with minimal additional effort.
TOP
DOWN
Process
Let us now look at the Design Centric approach to RPA implementation and analyze how that helps to
solve the broad problems facing the RPA industry that we’ve discussed above.

The Jidoka®
Example
Implementation of automated process bots is done using industry standard object-oriented programming techniques. OOPS
concepts are applied such as building objects to model application attributes and behavior as needed for RPA implementations.
The technical implementation details are abstracted from the high-level process workflow. The technical details of object attributes
(such as UI object locator attributes) are encapsulated from misuse and duplication. Inheritance is applied to implement more
sophisticated custom actions extending the raw API calls provided by the RPA tool for complex implementation requirements.
The high-level process flow represents
the top layer of the automated solution. The
actual implementation of the process steps
as a software robot is done in one or more
bottom layers. Typically, the implementation
of domain events as reusable process
components is done in an application
specific techno-functional middle layer that
sits in between the business domain
specific top layer and the technical base
layer provided by the RPA tool. The base
layer provides the technical API that the
RPA tool uses to perform actions directly
on the application/s under automation (for
e.g. Web, Windows, Citrix, Excel, SAP,
etc.). The diagram depicts the layered
architecture of RPA solution.
Extensibility
The use of standard development technologies allows for extensibility to utilize proven external APIs or libraries, or by building
custom libraries to enhance the existing solution and fulfil specific technical implementation requirements.
Layered Architecture
Object-Oriented
Implementation
Collaborative
Process
Top-Down
Development

Automation Developers
Process SMEs
+
The Jidoka®
Example
The business process to be automated is first designed as a high-level process workflow by one or more process SMEs, who are
experts in the given operational area within the enterprise. The process workflow is created in the workflow designer provided
by the RPA platform. An automated bot is then created by implementing the domain events in the process workflow as object-
oriented code. This is done by one or more automation developers in the IDE provided by the RPA tool, decoupled from the
high-level process flow.
The automated implementation in the form of object libraries and methods
are then published to the RPA platform. Process SMEs are then able to
map the domain events in the process flow to the automated components,
test the automated process and release it into production. Both, process
SMEs and automation developers, work in collaboration to deliver the
automated process bots. The automation developer ensures the technical
quality of the solution whilst the process SME ensures that the automated
process bots are accurately designed to deliver true operational efficiency
to the business.
Object-Oriented
Implementation
Collaborative
Process
Top-Down
Development

The Jidoka®
Example
Let’s now shift our attention to show how the design centric approach we’ve described above can be put into practice by taking
the example of Jidoka RPA tool. And towards the end, we will assess how this approach allows to effectively resolve the broad
RPA implementation issues that we discussed earlier.
But firstly, let me provide a brief about the Jidoka RPA tool and explain why this tool provides a great fit to showcase the Design
Centric implementation approach for RPA.
Jidoka is a leading RPA solution in the RPA Spanish-speaking market, developed by Novayre a technology-based company that
specializes in software development, integration and automation. The vendor talks about many key technological differentiators
in their product catalogues but, having tried the tool hand on, the ones that stood out for me are:
Development Technology
Workflow Designer
REST API
It’s Java! Unlike many other Microsoft based Core RPA tools, Jidoka is
a 100% Java platform providing a more open, universal character and
an easier adaptability to the most complex business processes and
environments. Jidoka is like the Selenium of RPA World!
For domain SMEs, Jidoka platform provides a visually attractive and
easy to use console for modelling complex business processes to
begin the automation process separate from the SDK.
Jidoka Server provides a REST (Web Services) API that allows
Jidoka to integrate with other Intelligent automation tooling and to
interconnect with other systems in highly complex enterprise operating
environments.
Jidoka is a 100% Java platform
providing an easier adaptability to
the most complex process.
The Jidoka platform provides a
visually attractive console for
modelling business process.
The Jidoka®
Example

The Jidoka®
Example
Server
Platform
Provides standard features such as central
storage of robots and library components,
orchestration of robots on client nodes,
control panel that gives access to robots
and nodes configuration, dashboard that
provides analytics information, central store of
execution logs.
SDK Tool
If you are one among the 9 million Java
developers[7]
, you can implement software
robots using Jidoka in a software development
kit (SDK) of choice, for instance Eclipse, and
can enhance your robots with any proven
Java libraries available from popular internet
sources.
Client Nodes
Jidoka nodes can be installed on machines
with any operating system that supports Java
Virtual Machine (JVM), even Linux.
Configuration
Management
And yes! You can also GIT your robot code.
Jidoka does not restrict you which SDK
and what source code tool you want to use,
distributed or centralized, within your team.
Supported
Application
Technologies
Core Jidoka API provides modules to
automate standard technologies such as Web,
Windows, MS Office, databases, file sources,
etc. Additionally, Jidoka has successfully
demonstrated in a number of high profile
enterprise projects over the years the ability to
develop your own custom libraries for various
ERP and CRM technologies such as SAP,
Oracle, terminal emulators, etc.
Solution Architecture
The only pureplay RPA tool that I found so far to have ticked all the components that I mentioned in my generic RPA solution
architecture[6]
.
Server
Robots
Dashboard
Nodes
The platform provides a
central storage of robots
and library components and
a dashboard that provides
analytics information.
Implementing Design Centric RPA - The Jidoka®
Example

Let us now look at how the key aspects of a Design centric approach to RPA implementation can be
applied using the Jidoka®
tool by taking a simplistic example of a software robot.
Object-Oriented
Implementation
Collaborative
Process
Top-Down
Development
The Jidoka®
Example
Complex real life Jidoka implementation examples in Appendix A.
Development of a RPA bot is guided by a business process workflow that is created in the Jidoka platform console as the first
thing. This is done by modelling the set of actions and transitions that apply within a process as can be seen in the example as
below.
The steps in the process workflow are kept as high level process events only and are labelled using a common language that the
operations SMEs can easily define and maintain for the application domain in context. The example here shows a robot that is
designed to open a browser session, navigate to a web application, read data from an excel spreadsheet, perform an operation,
capture the output of the operation, and repeat these steps till all the data iterations are complete.
The high-level domain events in the process workflow once implemented in code provides for a library of automated process
components that can be reused across multiple process bots reducing the maintenance effort across the RPA implementation. As
the library of domain specific automated components gets established, it provides for scalability to implement further bots within
that operations area of the business.

The Jidoka®
Example
As Jidoka uses Java, the implementation of the high-level process workflows as automated bots is done by applying object
oriented programming concepts. Classes & objects are developed to capture the exact details of the application UI components
as attributes and the implementation behaviour of the process events as methods. The technical implementation details as such
are abstracted from the high-level process workflow visible in the console. Given Jidoka uses Java programming language, OOP
concepts such as inheritance are applied extensively to develop more sophisticated custom actions by extending the core API
that the tool provides.
Once the implementation code has been developed in a Java SDK of
choice, it is published on to the Jidoka server using Maven to become
available in the platform console as methods and libraries. These
application specific modules available as Java methods can then be
mapped to the high-level process steps in the workflow as shown in the
example below.
As you can see by expanding the Open Browser Session process node
from the workflow, all the published Java methods and libraries are visible
to choose from and the “openBrowser” method is mapped to that process
node.
The automated bots are implemented using a layered solution
architecture. The high-level process flow represents the top layer of
the automated solution. The step by step implementation code as Java
methods & libraries represents the application specific middle layer of the
automated solution. The core technical API layer of the Jidoka tool acts
as the base layer providing different modules to automate against various
types of standard UI interfaces such as Web, Windows, Excel, etc.
The middle layer methods are implemented by making the base layer
API calls as shown in the example. Here the browser object is created
by calling the “IWebBrowserSupport” interface which is part of the core
browser module provided by the Jidoka tool.
Object-Oriented
Implementation
Collaborative
Process
Top-Down
Development

Object-Oriented
Implementation
Collaborative
Process
Top-Down
Development
The Jidoka®
Example
Given Jidoka uses Java to develop bots, the automated solution is highly extensible in complex situations to allow use of proven
external Java APIs into the automation projects and for building custom methods and libraries. The below example shows a
custom library function that makes use of Apache POI, a standard Java API for working with Microsoft Documents, to read data
from an excel file and provide it to the robot in the form of a two-dimensional array.
The custom library function “GetExcelData” in this example robot is being called inside the “init” method, as shown below, which
is mapped to the “Start” node of the process workflow. This gives the bot the ability to read the execution data at the start step in
this example and then use it through the bot execution.
Please note that Jidoka tool does provide a core API module to work with Excel files and this example to use Apache POI as an
external API is for illustrative purpose only.
eclipse
CONSOLE

Collaborative
Process
PROCESS FLOW
CREATION
• Identify business
processes to automate
by applying a top down
approach
• Design high level Process
Workflow using stardad
process modelling
techniques.
• Implements Process Workflow
events in code in a Java
SDK using object oriented
programmed techniques.
• Publish automated code to
Jidoka console as automated
methods & libraries.
• Map process events to
automated code methods
from the Jidoka console.
• Test Automated bot against
expected outcomes.
• Publish Automated bot into
Production.
automated bot
finalization
automated bot
development
Process SME Automation Developer
The Jidoka®
Example
Jidoka tool enables a collaborative development effort between the Process SMEs and the Automation Developers as depicted in
the below process flow. As you can see, Jidoka tool provides a truly collaborative role-based automation implementation process,
one that leads to high operational efficiency and high technical quality of the software bots produced.
Object-Oriented
Implementation
Collaborative
Process
Top-Down
Development

To conclude, let us look back at the broad issues we discussed in the first
part of this article and assess how a design centric RPA implementation
approach helps solve those issues. Firstly, taking a top-down strategic
approach to RPA implementation to begin with designing the process
workflows first, as in case of Jidoka using the platform console, provides
a highly efficient and modular approach for automating complex
business processes giving scalability to RPA implementations resulting
in high ROI. Secondly, by employing industry standard object oriented
implementation techniques offers a solid technical foundation, layered
architecture and extensibility to the RPA solution for developing high
quality bots. This offers a pragmatic solution to the resourcing issues
in the RPA industry to tap into the existing extensive development
community, such as for Java technology in the case of Jidoka. And
thirdly, by implementing RPA projects as a collaborative effort between
the operations and the IT teams with a clear role-based development
process, as depicted in case of Jidoka, significantly reduces the risk of
failure in RPA implementation projects caused either due to technical or
operational holes in the bots.
The Jidoka®
Example
Conclusion
References  [1] Sharma, D. (2017, March 23).
Record Replay RPA - A boon or a bane?
 [2] Press, G. (2017, January 23).
Top 10 Hot Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technologies.
 [3] Casale, F. (2015).
Introduction to Robotic Process Automation A Primer.
 [4] Sharma, D. (2017, March 2).
Analysing impact on ROI from RPA AI implementations
using System Dynamics Approach.
 [5] Ayllón, V. (2016).
Record or develop software robots? That’s the issue in RPA.
 [6] Sharma, D. (2017, January 12).
RPA Solution Architecture.
 [7] Beneke, T., & Wieldt, T. (2013).
JavaOne 2013 Review: Java Takes on the Internet of Things.

Searching for potential clients in CRM Application
Payroll Automation
The Jidoka®
Example
Appendix A
Jidoka Implementation
Examples

Design Centric RPA Approach: The Jidoka Example

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