Platform-independent Specifications for Robotic Process Automation Applications

Abstract

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an emerged technology that uses software robots to automate human intensive repetitive tasks, traditionally associated with bureaucratic and low-complexity processes. This article introduced a concrete scenario implemented with three popular RPA tools (i.e., UiPath, Robocorp, and Robot Framework), which supported the research. First, the paper introduces informally that scenario, implemented with the platform-specific languages of these tools, namely with keyword-based scripts and other visual models. The challenge addressed in this paper is how to describe RPA applications (or just soft robots) in a platform-independent way, close to natural language, and easily understandable by technical and non-technical people. Established on the preliminary results, we conclude that adopting controlled natural languages based on use cases and scenarios simplifies the specification and development of RPA scenarios, no matter the supported RPA tool. For future works, we intend to use the best notation to specify robots in a platform-independent way and implement transformation mechanisms for the proprietary format of popular RPA tools such as UiPath, Robot Framework, and Robocorp.