RPA Life Cycle

In this section, we are going to learn different stages of the RPA Life Cycle. RPA Development Life Cycle (RDLC) is similar to what we follow in Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

RPA Life Cycle

RPA life cycle can be described in 5 phases.

  1. Discovery
  2. Design
  3. Development
  4. Testing
  5. Deployment and Maintenance

Let us learn about each phase of the RPA life cycle in detail.

1. Discovery Phase

This is the phase where we analyze the client’s requirements and decide on if the process can be automated or not.

A Process Definition Document (PDD) is created which includes information about the entire process to be automated. Sometimes, it is also referred to as Business Requirement Document (BRD).

2. Design Phase

In this phase, the Solution Architect (SA) prepares a Technical Design Document (TDD) also known as Solution Design Document (SDD) based on the PDD.

The architecture of the project is decided and the team creates a flowchart, a visual representation of the process flow.

3. Development Phase

In this phase, the RPA Developers refer to the TDD and create bots to automate the process using RPA Tools like UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, Power Automate, and many more.

4. Testing Phase

In this phase, the team tests the bots developed in the previous phase. If there are any bugs or defects, those are taken up by the RPA Developers and fixed before moving the bots to the production environment.

Integration Testing and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) are the main areas of focus in this phase.

5. Deployment & Maintenance Phase

Once the bot testing is successful, the bots are deployed into the production environment.

If there are any issues encountered in the production, the bot is moved back to the development phase for the RPA developer to work on the issues and then to the testing phase.