Discovery

RPA Knowledge Base

RPA Glossary

Your complete guide to Robotic Process Automation terminology. Learn the language of automation.

Essential RPA Terms

RPA

Robotic Process Automation - the foundation of digital transformation

Bot

Software robot that performs automated tasks

Process Mining

Discover processes from system event logs

Attended Automation

Human-triggered automation assistants

Terms starting with A

Attended Automation

RPA bots that work alongside humans, triggered by user actions to assist with tasks in real-time.

Automation ROI

Return on investment calculation for automation projects, measuring cost savings versus implementation costs.

API Integration

Connecting software systems through Application Programming Interfaces for data exchange and automation.

Terms starting with B

Bot

A software robot programmed to perform automated tasks, mimicking human interactions with computer systems.

Business Process

A series of steps or activities that organizations perform to achieve a specific business goal.

BPM (Business Process Management)

Discipline of improving business processes through modeling, analysis, and optimization.

Terms starting with C

CoE (Center of Excellence)

A dedicated team responsible for establishing RPA best practices, governance, and scaling automation initiatives.

Cognitive Automation

Advanced automation that uses AI, machine learning, and NLP to handle complex, judgment-based tasks.

Terms starting with D

Digital Worker

A software bot treated as a virtual employee, handling tasks that would otherwise require human workers.

Desktop Automation

Automation of tasks performed on desktop applications, often using UI interactions and screen scraping.

Terms starting with E

Exception Handling

The process of managing errors and unexpected situations in automated workflows to ensure reliability.

ERP Automation

Automating tasks within Enterprise Resource Planning systems like SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft Dynamics.

Terms starting with H

Hyperautomation

Gartner-coined term for combining multiple automation technologies (RPA, AI, ML) for end-to-end process automation.

Terms starting with I

Intelligent Automation

Combination of RPA with AI capabilities to handle more complex, decision-making processes.

IPA (Intelligent Process Automation)

Evolution of RPA that incorporates AI, machine learning, and analytics for smarter automation.

Terms starting with M

Machine Learning

AI technology that enables systems to learn from data and improve automation over time.

Terms starting with O

Orchestrator

Central management platform for deploying, monitoring, and scheduling RPA bots across an organization.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Technology that converts images of text into machine-readable text for automation processing.

Terms starting with P

Process Mining

Technology that analyzes event logs to discover, monitor, and improve business processes automatically.

Process Discovery

The phase of identifying and documenting processes suitable for automation.

PoC (Proof of Concept)

A pilot project to demonstrate the feasibility and value of an automation initiative.

Terms starting with R

RPA (Robotic Process Automation)

Technology using software robots to automate repetitive, rule-based tasks across applications.

ROI (Return on Investment)

Financial metric measuring the profitability of an automation investment.

Terms starting with S

Screen Scraping

Technique to extract data from application screens when APIs are not available.

STP (Straight-Through Processing)

End-to-end automated processing without human intervention.

Terms starting with T

Task Mining

Technology that records user desktop actions to identify automation opportunities at the task level.

Terms starting with U

Unattended Automation

Bots that run independently without human interaction, typically scheduled or triggered by events.

Terms starting with W

Workflow Automation

Automating the flow of tasks, documents, and information across business processes.

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