ATTENDED VS UNATTENDED VS HYBRID BOT: WHICH IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

Attended Automation is the type of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) that runs mainly on the user's computer. In this form of automation, each robot is assigned to a specific user. This basically means that every employee has an attended robot installed on their desktop or laptop.

Attended bots operate in a simple manner. An employee can assign their bot tasks as per their requirement and let the bots automate operations accordingly. With attended bots, businesses are provided with accurate results without having to invest a lot of time for the same. Attended automation differs from the other two primarily because every bots is assigned to a specific employee.   

Moreover, attended bots can also be activated automatically by a predefined user action. To help you understand this better, we can take the example of a call center. To ensure that every customer service representative handles the customer information correctly, call centers may want to create specific rules.

Whenever an employee violates any of these rules, an attended bot will either display an alert to rectify the mistake or automatically perform the predefined process for the employee. This will make their work easier and also ensure accuracy and precision.

Attended Automation offers a unique ‘Guide Me’ mode alongside the standard ‘Do It’ mode. With the ‘Do It’ mode, automated robots perform specific processes automatically, without the employees having to do anything. However, in the ‘Guide Me’ mode, an attended robot visually shows an employee how to complete a process to train them. It’s these modes and features that make Attended Automation stand out.

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Furthermore, companies choose Attended Automation because it's a much more viable alternative for various processes compared to Unattended Automation. Attended Automation can be beneficial for processes that can't be automated from end to end. For instance, if employees have to make a decision at some point, only attended bots can assist them.

Because the robot is assigned to a specific employee and runs only on their computer, it can be conducive for them. The robot can further prompt the user for the required input to complete the process.

If Attended Automation can help train a user, why wouldn't everyone want to use Attended Automation? We have already seen how Attended Automation is available to assist employees whenever they want. Since attended automation is the only solution for robots to perform automatable portions that require user input, this question makes a lot more sense.  

To begin with, sharing attended robots among several employees is immensely hard. And this issue can be solved by providing a separate robot to each employee. A different bot for each employee becomes even more important because while an attended robot is active on a user's computer, that user cannot continue working on their computer. The robot takes over the screen for the time being, which prevents employees from accessing it during that period.

Even though this isn't an issue for quick processes, it can be an issue for functions that take hours to run. Fortunately, many of these time-consuming processes do not require the level of user interaction offered by Attended Automation.

Unattended Automation is useful when you require bots to undertake heavy lifting. Our RPA developer in USA is familiar with the fact that Unattended Automation involves unattended bots assigned to multiple employees. This means that an unattended robot performs processes assigned to it based on a schedule instead of being operated by a single user.

With Unattended Automation, processes can be prioritized according to rules and levels assigned by the user. These processes can then be monitored and managed with RPA tools. However, the most crucial benefit of Unattended Automation is that it doesn't prevent users from continuing to work on their computers. This is because each robot runs on a virtual machine.

Unattended robots can also execute processes from multiple sources. This provides them with an upper hand over Attended Automation for time-consuming processes. An example of such a process can be processing the invoices received by the finance and accounting department.

Now that you are familiar with both Attended and Unattended Automation, what if a time-consuming process requires some user input? A Hybrid Automation solution is recommended for the same.

While both attended and unattended bots are accurate and reliable, many processes take a significant amount of time, even if you employ the fastest robots. With a Hybrid Automation business model, an attended robot performs the parts that require human involvement, and an unattended robot performs the rest. Thus, processes complete a lot faster with minimum effort.

In Hybrid Automation, communication takes place between attended and unattended robots. And many times, employees initiate a process by activating the attended robot. The attended robot then triggers the unattended robot to undertake the rest of the process. Meanwhile, in other cases, an unattended robot starts performing a procedure and sends it to the attended robot when it needs an employee to make a decision. The attended robot then alerts the employee to perform the part that requires human input.

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Hybrid Automation lets the user automate most of the process without giving up access to their computer. Employees can operate their computers simultaneously while the robot is in action.

It’s difficult to understand which type of automation to integrate just by going through their names. Moreover, automating operations involves a lot of time and resources. If your business involves small-scale processes which a user primarily initiates, attended robots are suitable. Whereas, for processes that can be automated from beginning to end, unattended robots should be preferred.

For processes that can neither be fully automated nor attended by a user, Hybrid Automation can be employed by businesses. This is because it offers the flexibility of Attended Automation and the convenience of unattended automation even when processes cannot be fully automated. Moreover,  these processes require a full-time employee to make a decision.