Straight Through Processing - Document Automation DesktopAutomation DrivesExpectations Oneofthesolutionareas that is driving expectations the most, in terms of business processes, is robotic process automation or RPA. RPA emerged from the tried-and-true use of scripting and macros to automate simple and rote tasks such as moving data from one application GUI to another. Thisis mostcommonlyreferredtoasdesktop automation. RPAexcelsat these types of automated tasks because it offers an easy way to “record” a user’s actions and play them back repeatedly with high throughput.Theresultisbinary:eitherthetaskiscompletedsuccessfullyas awholeoritisnot.Thistypeofautomationiswhatisknownasunattended automation where the tasks don’t require input from a person, or only in rare situations. Organizations enthusiastically adopted RPA for all of their simple processes for obvious reasons: it reduces workload and allows staff toeitherbereducedor reallocated. Unfortunately, only so many processes are simple and routine enough to support unattended automation via any type of solution. This is where expectations currently do not match the capability of solutions. RPA and business process automation vendors have started to talk of artificial intelligence using words like “cognitive” to convey the notion. Let’s take, for example, a process that involves more complex parsing of information: the information contained within documents. A common and complex use caseisinlending. 5