Process Orchestration and Automation—a Winning Combination for Business

Orchestration can be defined in many ways. When one thinks about the term, the musical definition often comes to mind. In that context, it can be defined as the arrangement of a musical composition for performance by an orchestra that results in a harmonious rendering for the audience to enjoy. Businesses can enjoy another type of harmonious rendering brought about by process orchestration.

In large enterprises, there are hundreds of well-defined processes to achieve specific business outcomes for customers. These business processes go across various departments (sales, logistics, finance, HR, customer service, etc.) and systems of record (Salesforce, SAP, Oracle Financials, Workday, Zendesk, etc.). They contain a sequence of steps chained together in a continuous workflow and, hence, need to be well orchestrated for effective outcomes. 

Process orchestration is the rendering of such workflows for each business transaction that needs to be performed (customer contracts, order processing, supplier onboarding, invoice processing, customer complaints handling, and more). Handling orchestration manually can be inefficient, leading to time delays, convoluted steps, processing errors, and frustration for everyone involved. And that’s where intelligent automation can help.

  
Improving processes

Intelligent automation that combines Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) has proven itself to be an effective solution for accelerating and streamlining repetitive processes at scale, freeing users for higher-value work. While intelligent automation software bots still require humans to train them to accomplish tasks, they can be scheduled to start at a particular time or triggered by a business event without further human intervention. They can also be trained to seek human direction during a task if the task requires decision-making at a particular stage.

  
Combining process orchestration with automation

When intelligent automation is applied to process orchestration, it accelerates and streamlines each business transaction. At the same time, it ensures that the underlying systems of record are kept updated and synchronized to ensure users have a complete view of the operation. At Automation Anywhere, we’ve developed an intelligent automation tool that can, in addition to other functions, enhance process orchestration.

Enter Automation Co-Pilot

Automation Co-Pilot is a cloud-delivered digital assistant. It improves business processes with automation working inside daily business workflows for the entire enterprise. Automation Co-Pilot helps scale automation by allowing easy access to intelligent automation across platforms, applications, and devices. It provides a web interface that makes it possible for users to access process automations based on their departments and roles. And it’s well-suited for handling process orchestration.

The Automation Co-Pilot Process Editor defines processes as a combination of many:

• Human steps (to accept human input)
• Bot steps (to interact with systems of record via APIs or screen recordings with human input)
• Business rules that determine the specific path a business transaction is routed through during orchestration

How Automation Co-Pilot benefits enterprises

With Automation Co-Pilot-driven process orchestration, the human input layer is greatly simplified. Business users don’t have to go into different underlying systems to provide input. Exception handling and required authorizations can be conducted within the Automation Co-Pilot process. Any process that a user interacts with can be triggered from one screen.

The results? Less human intervention and fewer steps mean less training is required and fewer opportunities for human error. It also means the process can be accelerated, with no bumps along the way, resulting in faster process throughput over time.

All that can make orchestration a harmonious experience for everyone involved—employee, customer, and partner.