Automation Anywhere Inc. today debuted a new assessment tool and professional services offerings to assist enterprises with implementing robotic process automation in their operations.

Robotic process automation, or RPA, refers to a category of software platforms that use artificial intelligence to perform repetitive business chores normally carried out by a firm’s employees. Automation Anywhere is one of the market’s top providers of RPA software. The company is backed by over $840 million in venture funding.

Automation Anywhere’s RPA platform automates repetitive business tasks by allowing companies to create software “bots” that perform manual work instead of employees. The process of creating and deploying bots, then maintaining them, can be quite complicated in large enterprises that may be looking to automate as many as hundreds of tasks. The new assessment tool Automation Anywhere introduced today aims to remove some of the complexity involved in enterprise-scale RPA projects.

The tool, called RPA Maturity Assessment, creates a report that provides companies with an overview of opportunities to improve their RPA programs. Automation Anywhere says that RPA Maturity Assessment evaluates program effectiveness across four criteria: vision and strategy, process and measurement, organization and people and, finally, architecture and technology. The tool then highlights obstacles to RPA adoption, as well as opportunities to increase the speed and efficiency with which a firm’s RPA program can be expanded.

The other offerings Automation Anywhere debuted today have a different focus: helping business users without extensive coding expertise create RPA bots. In many cases, creating bots is the responsibility of a company’s developers or information technology team. Enabling business users to perform parts of the task can free up time for developers and IT administrators, while potentially also helping enterprises accelerate their RPA rollouts by allowing more employees to take part in the effort.

Automation Anywhere is adding a new software license to its flagship RPA platform, Automation 360, that is specifically designed for business users. The Citizen Developer license, as the company calls it, allows enterprises to create accounts in Automation 360 for non-technical employees to let them create bots on their desktops. IT teams can manage the accounts through an administrative console. 

Automation Anywhere is also adding new professional services offerings on the occasion. They’re intended to help enterprises make it easier for their business users to participate in RPA projects.

The first offering, called Citizen Developer Practitioner Training, provides business users with training on creating RPA bots. The other offering is marketed as the A+ Accelerator Citizen Development Program and is geared toward executives. According to Automation Anywhere, it provides guidance on incorporating bots created by nontechnical employees into a company’s RPA initiatives and managing related organizational processes.

“Our goal is to place a software bot that’s able to automate manual, repetitive business processes into the hands of every knowledge worker who finds themselves frustrated, bored, or unfulfilled by these types of arduous tasks,” said Automation Anywhere Chief Technology Officer Prince Kohli (pictured). “With these new resources, we can empower every employee across the organization – from automation leaders to citizen developers – to expand their use of RPA, helping us move closer to realizing this vision.”

Previously, Automation Anywhere introduced a tool called AARI that makes it easier for workers to use RPA bots to automate business tasks. AARI allows workers to have a bot perform a specified task by giving it natural-language instructions.

By making its RPA platform easier to use, Automation Anywhere is ultimately making it simpler for enterprise customers to expand their existing RPA programs and roll out automation bots to more business units.

Photo: SiliconANGLE