What is RPA? A comprehensive guide to robotic process automation in IT

We’ve all had the old dream of automating our computer tasks and getting paid just for sitting there while our programmatic worker does everything. And RPA (Robotic Process Automation) is a trend that, with current advances, is beginning to make that scenario a reality — except for getting paid for doing nothing.

RPA emerged with the idea of automating tedious or repetitive tasks with software. However, today’s technology opens up a world of “digital workers” that could ideally perform human tasks in front of a screen.

Is that true? What is the current state of RPA and how exactly does it work? In this complete guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about Robotic Process Automation.

What is RPA?

To understand what something is, it’s best to start by clarifying what it is not. When we talk about RPA, we are not referring to Skynet creating Terminators, Star Trek androids like Data, or robot megafactories working tirelessly in the dark.

Robotic Process Automation is a software technology that allows you to configure software bots that emulate human actions interacting with digital systems to execute a business process.

With the application of Artificial Intelligence technologies, bots capable of more complex tasks — such as document analysis or user interaction (initially in customer service) — are also called agents.

Automatically entering an accounting entry from an invoice received by email could be a feasible RPA case using one of these agents, thanks to OCR and AI technologies, for example.

In the context of IT management, RPA helps automate repetitive, rule-based, and time-consuming tasks.

Theoretically, this would free up professionals to focus on high-value tasks, like playing Silksong. That is, at least in theory, it’s not about replacing workers but redirecting them toward more creative and useful tasks.

In theory…

Differences between RPA and other automation technologies

The key to RPA, and what sets it apart from more traditional forms of automation, is this: its ability to operate directly on the presentation layer of applications (that is, the user interface).

This allows it to be applied (again, in theory) to virtually any system, including legacy applications that may lack modern APIs or integration interfaces.

Since the bot emulates a person interacting with the application’s UI, any digital process or software may be automated with RPA — as long as the necessary technology is sufficiently developed.

Let’s take a closer look at how it differs from other automation solutions.

RPA vs. traditional Macros or Scripts

While a macro is usually limited to a single application (like Excel), an RPA bot can operate across multiple applications, environments, and windows — coordinating complex workflows. These might involve everything from that Excel sheet to a modern web app that provides data for the spreadsheet.

Likewise, your automatic setup script for a new Linux system (because you can’t stop distro-hopping) might download an app through wget — but if that version becomes outdated or the link changes, your script fails.

With RPA, you could make it download the latest version without having to update the script manually.

RPA vs. APIs

Using APIs is a favorite among techies for obvious reasons, but it requires the app to have APIs and proper documentation (good luck with that). RPA doesn’t need APIs, since it interacts with the interface just like a person would.

This makes it ideal for legacy systems or applications that lack APIs or have documentation written in Klingon.

RPA vs. BPM (Business Process Management)

BPM is a discipline for modeling, automating, and optimizing complex business processes from end to end. Here, RPA may complement BPM strategies by automating specific manual tasks within a larger process.

As we can see, the key is mimicking human interaction capabilities with systems — so it’s time to demystify the black magic under the hood of this technology.

How Does Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Work?

RPA operates by creating bots or agents that follow a defined set of rules (scripts) to execute a sequence of steps.
They can interact with user interface (UI) elements in the same way a human would:

• Clicking.
• Typing into fields.
• Reading data from the screen.
• Copying and pasting information…

Key Components of an RPA System

To achieve the above, RPA uses:

• Bots: Two types: attended (those that work alongside a user or are triggered by them) and unattended (autonomous bots that run on their own, while you watch in awe as they do your job a hundred times faster).
• Scripts or Workflows: Instructions followed by the bot defining logic, business rules and the sequence of actions. This includes the applications to launch, windows and information to use within those applications…
• Triggers: Events that start bot execution. These may be scheduled (like a cron job), event-based (like the arrival of an invoice in the mailbox), or user-initiated.
• Interfaces (Recorders and Editors): Most RPA platforms include tools to record user actions and convert them into a base script, which can then be edited in a visual editor.

These components are powered by technologies such as:

• Large Language Models (LLMs): Able to understand that an email contains an invoice, not a quote, and retrieve the relevant accounting data.
• OCR to read data from PDF files.
• Computer Vision (now enhanced by AI), allowing the bot to identify screen/interface elements like buttons or fields.

Use of Low-Code and No-Code Platforms

Modern RPA tools have often evolved into low-code and/or no-code environments.
This means business experts or IT staff with little programming knowledge may use visual tools and built-in logic to design, develop and deploy automation processes.
This democratizes automation and accelerates time-to-value, reducing the load on dev teams who must double their workload today to automate tomorrow.

Types of RPA: Attended, Unattended, and Hybrid

As mentioned, not all bots are the same. Their classification (and thus the type of automation) depends on how they are deployed and interact with the system.

Attended RPA

These bots run on the user’s machine and are manually triggered. You finally get your own virtual minions helping you with specific tasks in your workflow.
They are ideal for processes that require human intervention for decision-making or data input.
Example: A bot that assists a support technician by auto-filling client data across systems after receiving a call or a ticket.

Unattended RPA

These agents run autonomously on servers or virtual machines, without human intervention, executing on a schedule or triggered by specific events.
Ideal for high-volume or long-running background processes.
Example: A bot that nightly retrieves data from multiple systems, generates an IT report and emails it to ruin your coffee. Or a customer service agent that handles the same question clients ask a thousand times a day.

Hybrid RPA

This type lets me quote one of the greatest TV episodes again — combining the best of both worlds.
Hybrid RPA enables attended and unattended bots to communicate. An unattended bot can hand off control to a human (through an attended bot) when it encounters an exception, and vice versa.
When well configured, this model provides maximum flexibility and coverage.

RPA Use Cases in IT Management

Let’s take a closer look at how these virtual minions can ease our lives in the IT empire.

Automation of Internal IT Processes

Some RPA applications in this area include:

• Support Ticket Management: For example, automating ticket classification, prioritization and initial assignment based on keywords or LLM-based understanding of the ticket.
• User Management: During employee onboarding, offboarding or role changes, a bot may create or disable email accounts, in Active Directory, SaaS apps and other systems, discarding manual errors.
• Proactive Monitoring and Response: Bots can monitor logs and dashboards. Upon detecting a specific alert (like low disk space on critical systems or network issues), they can automatically run predefined scripts (like clearing temp files), or create a ticket in the ITSM system.
• Compliance and Auditing: Automating evidence collection for security audits, retrieving configuration data from multiple systems, generating consolidated reports…

In short: the tedious and repetitive stuff.

Examples of Process Automation in Different Sectors

IT management is not the only area that can benefit from RPA. It can also assist in many activities such as:

• Finance: Automating bank reconciliation, generating periodic reports, parts of the billing process…
• Retail: Updating prices in the ERP and online store, processing orders or helping manage returns.
• Healthcare: Automating patient intake, confirming appointments via messages and processing responses to find out if the patient will attend or not.

Benefits of RPA and Why It’s Critical

It’s undeniable that the benefits seen above provide significant advantages to organizations that implement RPA, such as:

• Reduced Errors and Inaccuracies: Bots don’t mentally drift off to the Cyberpunk world we were promised but never got, avoiding attention-related mistakes during repetitive tasks.
• Regulatory Compliance: Since bots follow consistent steps, processes are executed according to defined regulations and policies.
• Cost Savings, Higher ROI and Happier Employees: Automating the soul-sucking boring stuff allows engineers to focus on valuable tasks, instead of configuring UFW rules all day long.
• Improved Efficiency and Productivity: Agents work 24/7 without breaks or crumbs on the keyboard, accelerating workflows and increasing throughput.
• Greater Customer Satisfaction: By solving daily issues faster, user experience is improved.
• Meeting SLAs: The multiple use cases we’ve seen also support the fulfillment of Service Level Agreements.

RPA Tools and Complementary Technologies

There is currently a wide variety of RPA platforms such as:

• UiPath. It offers agent-based automation for tasks ranging from order management to risk analysis or user request handling.
• Automation Anywhere. Similarly specializes in agents that automate tasks from marketing and sales to HR, accounting, customer service…
• Blue Prism. Another player offering automation solutions across industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, insurance, and telecommunications.

Undoubtedly, the current leap in RPA is driven by advances in key technologies such as:

• AI / Machine Learning: Enables agents to handle exceptions, unstructured data, and make decisions based on patterns, rather than collapsing in the face of an unanticipated situation within a traditional conditional logic nest.
• OCR (Optical Character Recognition): Essential for bots to recognize text in images, documents, or PDFs.
• NLP (Natural Language Processing): Helps bots understand human language in emails, chats, or documents, classify information, and extract sentiment.

This combination allows for the automation of complex processes requiring interpretation, going beyond simple rules and decision trees, which can never cover the thousands of exceptions daily life throws at us.

How to Start with RPA: Phases and Strategy

Before jumping into automation, we need to pause and follow the right steps. Otherwise, we risk breaking processes that were working just fine.
The stages of an RPA project are:

1. Process Analysis

We must have a deep understanding of our IT infrastructure and processes to identify which are suitable candidates for automation.
Those that are repetitive, rule-based, stable, high-volume, and operating within digital applications are ideal.
Additionally, process monitoring tools like Pandora FMS can help identify bottlenecks. These should be the first to automate.

2. Development & Testing

Depending on the solution that best suits us (or our internal agent programming), we must design the bot’s workflow, develop it, and rigorously test it in a controlled environment before deployment.

3. Deployment and Maintenance

If testing is successful, we launch the agent into production and monitor its performance. If everything works out fine, great—but the work doesn’t end there.
Processes evolve, so bots require maintenance and updates to remain effective.

4. Scaling

Once we see value in pilot projects—or confirm the bot hasn’t blown anything up in the non-critical areas where we deployed it—we can scale.
Once again, monitoring is essential, not just of the bot itself, but of other key performance and satisfaction indicators. RPA is powerful, but every coin has two sides, and we must avoid falling into the dark side.

Challenges of RPA Automation

Not everything is made of gold, and automation is no exception. It still faces quite a few challenges—especially when it interacts directly with people, whether employees or users.
These challenges include:

• Resistance to change: Employees may fear that automation will replace their jobs. Clear internal communication and reassignment to higher-value tasks are essential.
• Customer dissatisfaction: If automation is the initial point of contact with users or customers and it’s poorly implemented—becoming a frustrating maze with no solution or human contact—we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. Satisfaction must be monitored.
• Governance: Without proper governance, we risk creating shadow IT management with unsupervised agents and bots, leading to security and compliance issues.
• Scalability: Managing a few bots is easy, but handling hundreds requires a robust platform with centralized monitoring.
• Stable and high-quality data/processes: RPA relies on high-quality data and stable processes. If a UI changes frequently, the agent may fail and require constant maintenance.

How Pandora FMS Supports RPA Automation

As with any rising trend, RPA is often made of marketing and big promises. That’s why we’ve emphasized monitoring—everything sounds great… until it meets reality.
In this automation process, Pandora FMS allows you to:

• Monitor the RPA ecosystem: Tracking the health of the servers running the agents, CPU/memory usage, application availability…
• Integration with ITSM Workflows: Receiving alerts from RPA platforms and ensuring that any issues are detected and solved quickly.
• Performance measurement: Is RPA delivering on its promises? Is that scaling working? Can we enforce governance because RPA performance is clear? Pandora FMS can measure this performance by comparing it with pre-automation metrics.

Automation without monitoring is an act of blindness—and the first step toward disaster.

Why Invest in RPA and Its Future Evolution

Automation sparks both fantasies and skepticism, but regardless of our opinion, it’s a trend that’s here to stay.
That’s why it should not be seen as a short-term tactic to eliminate heavy processes, but rather as part of a long-term strategy.
Technology is a bullet train that stops for no one, and if we miss the one that’s coming, it becomes nearly impossible to catch up with those who got on board.
This isn’t about investing out of FOMO, but understanding that despite its current limitations and the fact that RPA is full of promises (like any IT trend), it appears to be unstoppable and a new digital transformation.
Only time will tell whether the most optimistic expectations are met, but it’s already clear that RPA can help us create an augmented workforce, handling some of those soul-draining tasks and freeing time and mental space for what truly matters.
The challenge is to integrate it with its original goal of optimization—not replacement—and avoid being blinded by the shiny lights of marketing. That’s something we’ll achieve with a well-defined pilot project to test how RPA works in our specific context.
This way, we might finally fulfill the desire to focus on what’s important—and have something that actually does what we say without talking back.