From back-end developers to mission-critical workplace automation: The low-code advantage

Case management, decision management

The lucrative front-office automation underpinned by low code is most cogent when synthesizing its various elements. Case management systems typify this mixture of resources. “Case management, to me, is around creating this overarching layer that pulls together all these elements in the hyper automation world,” Schuerman said, noting, “there might be a little bit of RPA here, there’s some process orchestration there, I need some business rules and AI over here.” Adaptive case management is considered a subset of BPM—and of process management as a whole—in which the structure of a process involves “a decision and your decision will change the potential process path,” Winqwist added.

For example, if a customer calls a bank manager to report fraudulent activity on a credit card, the unique details of the case determine the action the manager takes. Using low-code options, these aspects of case management can be automated to encompass the decisions involved. Schuerman described a case management use case in which the Bavarian government deployed a new small business lending process. “They actually brought that process live in 5 days because they were able to use low code to take a design to implementation.”

Business process management

When integrated with other modern automation methods, BPM is a particularly formidable means of leveraging low code. Its low-code methodology is predicated on allowing users to visually manipulate representations of processes. “The BPM notation is a way to design the process, with the arrows and the boxes and everything,” Winqwist revealed. The underlying engine then generates the code necessary to automate the process. This visual scaffolding method is widely used for everything from infrastructure as code requirements for cloud developers to laymen RPA users leveraging what Mahbub called a “point-and-click, drag-and-drop means of designing automation.”

Winqwist explained the value of this technique in an application for onboarding customers in financial services—which is not only mission-critical but also requires copious amounts of risk management for Know Your Customer and other mandates. It involved a user interface for the end customer to load their information in, Winqwist said. “It used microservices along the way to check some elements of the quality of the documents that are submitted, and it used bots in the middle for some of the duplicate data to put into these files.”

Robotic process automation

In the financial services use case, automation accelerates time to action of a process, heightens efficiency, and lowers costs while freeing human workers to perform more meaningful tasks. Additional benefits include expanding the scale of such tasks while boosting customer satisfaction and the accompanying benefits of retention and cross-selling opportunities. Another advantage of this approach is its future-proofing resiliency. For example, if the code generated for a customer service process to fix internet connectivity currently relies on Java, and an organization later decides to go serverless with Angular, the process doesn’t need to be changed, Schuerman said. The underlying engine can dynamically generate new code for a different runtime.

RPA also facilitates low code with computer vision techniques that monitor users before automating their actions. Mahbub said computer vision and other machine learning facets are involved in RPA systems recording user actions, taking pictures of them, and then by looking at all that documentation, identifying the various enterprise systems used in that process, and mapping out the various connections between systems.

Process mining and click mining activities also monitor what users click on screens as means of understanding processes, said Gilfix. RPA is also adept at providing structure to semi-structured and unstructured content by leveraging natural language technologies. It’s the primary tool enabling a large South American bank to automate its front-office actions to “deliver a 1300% ROI by leveraging intelligent automation,” Mahbub said. Customer satisfaction scores have increased and there are entirely new revenue streams. Millions of dollars have been generated.”