5 Features To Look For in Process Automation Software

What you have to do for your business to succeed isn’t always complicated or dependent on so many different factors. Some recipes for better results come from doing something that’s already tried and true, and this is most definitely the case for many businesses when it comes to automation. In the business workflows that occur in today’s environment, automation is one way to make your operation more robust and more capable of benefiting your business long-term. That’s why many businesses have chosen to migrate to process automation software.

But don’t go blindly into that new horizon without an idea of what to look for: every process automation software worth using for your business will possess certain features that make your life easier and that communicate a sense of immediate value for your operation. Look for software that offers these value-driven features in order to better your operations.

Comprehensive Process Monitoring

You can’t know too much when it comes to your business processes. Having a comprehensive and easily understood monitoring system is simply one of the main requirements to having successfully automated workflows. In fact, automating without being able to implement a strong monitoring feature means you’re leaving a lot of things — including the proper operation of these automations — without a means of direct observation and correction. Even if you’re confident in the code, there are factors that can create new challenges for any process, and being able to identify bottlenecks like capacity issues or timing issues can make it far easier to address said challenges proactively. Without a keen idea of what’s in the way, you won’t always be able to make such adjustments in an adept, timely fashion.

Integrations With Crucial Tools

What a process automation software can accomplish has a lot to do with what tools are at its disposal: namely, you should be able to use various virtual machines, and even other services like CMS tools, in tandem with your cloud business process engine. With these connections in place, you’re able to actually use these tools in your operations. By automating certain tasks related to each of these integrations, you have the opportunity to make your process all the more self-sufficient, as these outside tasks become a part of the general business process.

Governance-Compliant Security

One thing that can’t be ignored in today’s business environment is the importance of data to each business operation in kind. Certain services and products can’t even be produced without customer-specific or operation-specific data to accompany it, but even so, there is a sanction on how this data is used. In fact, depending on your business’s industry, you may have several such sanctions to consider, known as regulation standards. Standards like FINRA and HIPAA, among various others, require data governance within very strict guidelines, and by utilizing a process automation software, you’re actually bettering your data security posture overall by eliminating the human element in certain places. The transfer of data between silos, for example, can be automated to keep such data out of human hands where necessary. The best possible process automation softwares have security standards that can withstand the compliance needs of even the most stringent of these regulations.

Developer-Friendly Tools For Modeling And Deployment

You shouldn’t overcomplicate the things that are meant to make your life easier. Having an automation software that uses a straightforward environment made specifically for developers can do exactly that. In this day and age, you can’t always rely on drag-and-drop tools to automate — if you’re on the lookout for a process automation software, then you’re looking for something where there aren’t UI limitations keeping you from getting the job done. Don’t force yourself in a corner with a UI that complicates the coding process with visual tools that limit your flexibility in the system. What you are looking for is now easier and smarter than ever for developers to use for process automation.

It’s important to have workflows that are easy to fix, and straightforward to set up. That’s why process automation softwares shouldn’t insert too much of their own UI into deployment, by making it code-light or even code-free. That complicates your ability to address problems the right way, the fast way. Adding to the straightforward operations is the fact that you can see everything at work: monitoring tools make it clear what’s operating, what’s not working, and much more. Staying on top of deployment and operations is never easier than it is with the right automation tool in play.

Accessibility and Access Control

Ease of access is a huge perk to the right automation tools. However, it’s also important that the process automation platform in question also remains accessible in other senses, such as the ability to share access with various team members based on roles and tasks. The best-case scenario of this shared access includes a way to control such access, varying permissions based on those roles and the tasks that are relevant to each team member’s jobs. By looking for a software that not only allows access, but also enforces access control, you’ll have the best of both worlds and be able to use your team to the fullest extent without compromising your process resources.