Robotic process automation

Robotic process automation (RPA) is software that uses bots to replicate the actions a person takes inside a graphical interface: clicking buttons, typing text, reading fields, moving files, in order to carry out a well-defined, repetitive task. Because an RPA bot works at the interface level, it can automate a task without any change to the underlying application, which makes RPA one of the fastest ways to remove manual work from legacy systems that expose no usable API.

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What is robotic process automation (RPA)?

RPA software records or is programmed with a fixed sequence of interface actions, then replays that sequence exactly, run after run. It does not understand the task the way a person does: it follows a script of clicks, keystrokes and field reads, applied to structured, predictable inputs. That is what separates RPA from custom integrations, which talk to an application's API directly rather than its screen, and from AI agents, which can adapt their steps to inputs that were never explicitly programmed. RPA matters because it lets a team automate a task in days rather than months, on top of an existing application, with no request to the vendor and no development on the target system itself.

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How an RPA bot works

A bot executes a fixed chain of steps against the same screens and fields a human operator would use, for example a bot that processes an incoming supplier invoice:

Open invoice inbox -> download PDF attachment -> extract vendor name and amount -> open ERP form -> fill in the amount field -> click "Save"

Each run repeats this exact sequence, whether the bot was built by recording a human doing the task once, or by assembling the steps directly in a visual RPA studio. If a button moves, a field is renamed, or a pop-up appears where none did before, the bot has no way to adapt on its own: it fails silently or acts on the wrong element, which is why RPA processes need monitoring, logging, and a clear escalation path for exceptions that do not match the expected pattern. Most RPA platforms also expose an orchestrator, a central console that schedules bots, queues the work items they process and reports failures, so a team can track hundreds of runs without checking each one by hand.

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Types of RPA

• Attended RPA: runs on a person's own desktop, triggered manually to assist them during a task, for example while they are on a call with a customer and need a record pulled up instantly.
• Unattended RPA: runs on a server, on a schedule or an external trigger such as a new file landing in a folder, with no human involved once it starts.
• Hybrid RPA: combines both, with unattended bots handling the bulk of a process end to end and attended bots stepping in for the specific steps that still need a human decision or approval.

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RPA vs workflow automation (iPaaS)

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Best practices and common pitfalls

A process should be documented and stable before it is automated: RPA makes a broken or inconsistent process run faster, not better, and simply moves the same errors further downstream at higher speed. Bots should be scoped to well-defined, structured tasks rather than open-ended judgment calls, with clear exception handling for the inputs that do not match the expected pattern instead of a bot that silently skips them. Because bots are sensitive to interface changes, an owner should be assigned to monitor runs and update the bot whenever the target application is updated, rather than discovering the failure days later in a pile of unprocessed invoices or orders. Finally, RPA should be treated as a bridge, not a permanent architecture: whenever an API becomes available for a system a bot depends on, migrating that flow to a direct integration usually pays off in lower maintenance.

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RPA at BeBranded

We favour API-level workflow automation whenever a usable API exists, since it is more stable to maintain over time, and reserve RPA for the legacy systems that genuinely have none. This choice is made process by process, as part of the Automation engagements we deliver, so each task runs on the integration method that actually fits it.