Process Discovery

Process discovery is a method of analyzing and understanding how a particular process works within an organization. The goal is to identify the steps and activities involved in a process, and to gain insights into the way in which the process is carried out, including any inefficiencies or bottlenecks.

Process Discovery is the first step in automation used to identify which processes can be automated in a business. Process Discovery uncovers business processes by capturing user interactions with various systems and analyzing the interactions to identify patterns. You can capture and analyze user interactions with any of these systems:

Enterprise solutions: ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management), BPM (business process management), and ECM (enterprise content management)
Personal productivity applications: Microsoft Excel and Outlook
Terminal and virtual environments: Citrix XenApp and Remote Desktop

Organizations that perform process discovery see increased efficiency, reduced costs, and improved quality control. By understanding how a process works, organizations can identify areas where improvements can be made, such as by automating certain steps, streamlining workflows, or eliminating unnecessary steps. Process discovery is often used in process improvement initiatives, as well as in compliance and risk management efforts.

Automation Anywhere Process Discovery products

Process Discovery

The Process Discovery application is used in combination with the Neo Sensor and Privacy Enhanced Gateway (PEG) applications to streamline data capture, analysis, and process modeling. The Process Discovery interface enables users to perform the following tasks:

Capture, parse, and analyze user interactions with various systems.
Identify and map all relevant pathways (including variations) and automatically documents the most common workflow.
Compare the potential ROI from automating these processes and enables Business Analysts to accelerate automation and maximize RPA ROI.
Convert automation opportunities into bot prototypes using the Process Definition Document (PDD) for further development and deployment by the Automation Developer.

Neo Sensor application

The Neo Sensor application is installed on end-users' machines to capture data on user activities. This data is sent to Process Discovery for analysis to determine what business processes are candidates for automation.

Privacy Enhanced Gateway

The Privacy Enhanced Gateway (PEG) redacts sensitive data collected by the Neo Sensor application, which prevents Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from being included in the data sent to Process Discovery for analysis.

Discovery Bot

Discovery Bot is the legacy version of the three previously-described products.

Process Discovery end-to-end workflow

The following diagram shows the Process Discovery end-to-end workflow for Admin, IT, and power/discovery users:
Process Discovery workflow

Step 1: Set up users: The Admin creates users and assigns them Process Discovery roles.
Step 2: Install PEG: Install Privacy Enhanced Gateway (PEG) in the On-premises Cloud to limit Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and sensitive data capture
Step 3: Install Neo Sensor: Install Neo Sensor on multiple end-users (Observer's) machines for simultaneous process capture
Step 4: Configure Observer activity: Verify and configure Observer data capture to ensure you only capture what you want
Step 5: Create Cycles for event data: Create cycles for event data based on groups of observers, applications used, or time frame
Step 6: Classify application screens: Classify application screens and create web applications for mining
Step 7: Review Events and filter data: Review events and filter data to identify key mining parameters.
Step 8: Create Mining runs: Create mining runs to discover patterns and prepare for automations.
Step 9: Analyze and select a process to automate: Map and compare workflows in data visualization tools. Prioritize processes based on ROI and select a process for automation opportunities
Step 10: Create a Process Definition Document: Select and annotate instances and create a Process Definition Document (PDD) for bot developers, compliance, training, or process improvement

Automation 360