Category: Uncategorized

The Impact of Waiting Time on Employees and the Role of RPA

Posted on by admwintask

Waiting time in the workplace refers to the period employees spend waiting for resources, information, or approvals necessary to complete their tasks. This idle time can significantly impact productivity and employee morale. Here are a few examples of common waiting times in standard processes:

Examples of Waiting Time

  1. Approval Processes: Employees often wait for managerial approvals for tasks like expense reports or project proposals. On average, this can take 1-3 days.
  2. Data Access: Employees may need to export data from another department for analysis or reporting purposes. This can take 2-4 hours or even days if the data request involves complex queries and validations.
  3. IT Support: Waiting for IT to resolve technical issues can range from 30 minutes to a whole day, depending on the severity of the problem.
  4. Document Verification: Employees might wait for the verification of important documents such as contracts or compliance papers, which can take 1-2 days.

Impact on Employees

Prolonged waiting times can lead to:

  • Decreased Productivity: Employees are unable to proceed with their tasks, leading to a slowdown in project timelines.
  • Increased Stress: Continuous delays can cause anxiety and stress, impacting mental health.
  • Reduced Job Satisfaction: Constant bottlenecks can diminish an employee’s sense of accomplishment and satisfaction with their job.

How RPA Can Help

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can significantly reduce waiting times by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks. Here are some ways RPA can help:

  1. Automating Approvals: RPA can automate the approval workflow by routing requests to the appropriate managers and providing real-time notifications. This can cut down approval time from days to minutes.
  2. Data Retrieval and Export: Bots can be programmed to fetch and compile data from various sources automatically. For instance, if an employee needs data from another department, an RPA bot can automatically extract and deliver the required data in minutes, significantly reducing the waiting time from hours or days to seconds.
  3. IT Support: RPA can handle routine IT support tasks, such as password resets and software installations, reducing the time employees wait for IT assistance.
  4. Document Verification: Bots can verify documents against predefined criteria and send notifications once the process is complete, cutting down the verification time from days to minutes.

Real-World Examples

  1. Data Export from Another Department:
    • Current Process: An employee requests data from another department, waits for 2-4 hours or more for the data to be extracted and sent.
    • RPA Solution: An RPA bot is programmed to access the required databases, extract the necessary data, and compile it into a report. The waiting time is reduced to a few minutes.
  2. Approval Processes:
    • Current Process: An employee submits an expense report and waits 1-3 days for managerial approval.
    • RPA Solution: An RPA bot routes the report to the appropriate manager and sends automated reminders. Approval time is reduced to a few minutes.

In summary, waiting time is a significant productivity drain for employees. RPA offers a solution by automating repetitive tasks and speeding up processes, leading to increased efficiency, reduced stress, and improved job satisfaction. By implementing RPA, organizations can minimize waiting times and empower their employees to focus on more strategic and fulfilling work.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Its Role in Desktop Automation

Posted on by Andra P.

Long gone are the days of digitizing text by hand. Since the early 70s and the advent of personal scanners, the OCR industry has experienced a boom in growth. Today, scanners are available to everyone directly from their mobile phone. However, until recently, optical character recognition (OCR) technologies required human input. With the rise of automation, everything has changed. Let’s take a look at what role OCR plays in desktop automation. 

What is optical character recognition (OCR)?

OCR is a technology that converts various types of documents, such as printed documents, PDF files, or photos, into searchable and editable formats like TXT, DOCX, and so on. 

The first step in the process of running OCR is to use a scanner to process the physical shape of your document. After every page has been copied, the OCR software converts the document to a black-and-white version. The program then analyzes the bitmap for the presence of light and dark areas. Next, the OCR app identifies dark areas as characters that need to be recognized and light areas as background. Then, OCR processes the dark areas to identify letters and numbers.

OCR uses feature detection rules related to a particular letter or number (ICR). The software evaluates the document data according to rules about how a letter or number is generated. For example, the capital letter “A” is stored as two diagonal lines intersecting with a horizontal line in the middle.

After OCR identifies a character, the app converts it to ASCII code that computer systems can use. The last step is to copy all recognized characters as words into an editable document, such as a Word doc or other formats.

OCR use cases

Here’s a list of the most common OCR technology use cases:

  1. Scanning printed documents and saving them in an editable format
  2. Indexing printed materials for search engines
  3. Automated processing and data entry
  4. Transcribing documents into text that can be read aloud for visually impaired users
  5. Archiving of historical information (newspapers, magazines) and enablement of text searches
  6. Data extraction and transfers to accounting software (receipts, invoices)
  7. Archiving critical legal documents in an electronic system of record
  8. License plate recognition with speed camera and backlit camera software
  9. Sorting letters for mail delivery
  10. Translation of words in an image into a given language
  11. Providing searches for scanned books

As you can see, most of the uses mentioned above are repetitive processes. If so, they can be easily automated. In this blog, we will not dwell on all the possible applications of OCR in automation. Let’s consider the most popular way OCR helps to automate repetitive tasks in Windows.

How does OCR benefit desktop automation tools? 

OCR allows companies to automate business processes that depend on scanned paperwork, such as application forms, contracts, bills, and invoices. For this, a user can also include various operations such as researched website data and photo images.

The three most common operations where intelligent automation needs OCR are: 

  • Reading and searching through PDF documents. It could be essential for business as most PDFs come in an un-editable format. 
  • Extracting data from images. This kind of extraction can be critical when you are analyzing website data. A lot of information is placed on images that are not available for analysis by automated bots if they don’t have OCR.
  • Transcribing sensitive information from printed documents. Such transcripts help to eliminate data transfer errors by up to 99%. 

Through the use of OCR, automation achieves nearly total control over the content of websites and documents. The ability to recognize text on graphical objects allows you to automate those processes that were prerogative of a human in the recent past. Another plus here is that it is not difficult to configure OCR for automatic operation. Let’s look at how the optical character recognition technology works using WinTask automation.

OCR and desktop automation

Let’s imagine that a bank has automated the process of opening a new account for a business client. What will this process consist of? 

The process of opening a corporate account involves several steps. First, the customer must select the type of account they intend to open. Then, the client fills out a particular application form and sends it to the bank. Usually, a clerk for that bank collects additional personal information to confirm the client’s profile. This can be information from public social networks, a client’s website, and photographs of the business itself, collected from sources such as Google Maps. Here’s how WinTask automation would do that without any human involvement.

  1. A new client logs in to the bank’s website and chooses the type of account they want to open.
  2. Once their application form is submitted, WinTask automation extracts the data and begins the research process.
  3. First, the automation script creates client records in the bank’s CRM system. 
  4. Then, it searches for a LinkedIn profile of the company and all its employees and enters this information in the company’s CRM profile. 
  5. Then, the automation bot opens Google Maps, searches for the business address indicated on the form, and analyzes the signs and shop windows on the street to locate the desired business’s name. This is where OCR comes into play. By recognizing textual information, the bot can confirm the presence of the expected sign.
  6. Suppose the desired images could not be obtained from public sources. In that case, automation sends an email to the client to send the photos by mail. These photographs are then analyzed in the same way by the bot until the desired name is established.
  7. After the information is collected, the bot creates the customer’s PDF profile and saves it to the bank’s local system of records. After that, automation sends a notification to the manager, who performs the final approval. 

To set up this type of automation, you’ll need to run the process through WinTask Developer manually and create a new automation script. Then, use Runtime to run the script on each new machine of your organization. It would help if you had a couple of hours to set up a workflow of that complexity. 

Easy, right? Want to try it yourself? Don’t hesitate to contact us for more details. We can schedule a free consultation and customize a demo just for you.

Top 5 Tasks to Automate with Desktop Automation

Posted on by AndiCMA


The concept of automation has now exceeded robotics that can supervise industrial development on a high level. Automation can be defined as a process that requires minimum human effort. Any business has processes that can be fully automated from the beginning to the end. However, there are still workflows that require human intervention. And that’s where Robotic Desktop Automation (RDA) comes in handy.

What is Desktop Automation?

RDA includes software robots (they are sometimes called bots) that every employee can have on their desktop. These robots can navigate the complexities and dynamism of the desktop environment.

This way, bots can provide real-time assistance or guidance to employees when they need it. That includes various things, from copying and pasting information to inputting data or even opening applications and doing specific actions. Also, they can gather and analyze a more significant amount of data than a human being with 100% accuracy.

These automated activities can be triggered by any event, such as switching tabs, a button click, or even a complex combination of several events.

At WinTask, we make it easy for you to automate repetitive tasks. One of the Desktop Automation tools we offer is WinTask Developer. It saves you time and increases productivity allowing you to automate recurring tasks. Also, there is a Runtime that works parallel with WinTask. It helps you run the script generated by WinTask to automate your repetitive tasks. And for Pro users, there is a WinTask Pro that can create a stand-alone .exe file that you can run on an unlimited number of machines. 

Which industries are amenable for Desktop Automation? 

According to Harvard Business Review, ‘60% of existing US jobs, 30% or more of current work activities can be automated with available or announced technologies.’ More to say, businesses that run automation software report high customer and employee satisfaction.

For instance, one of the UK’s largest network providers has automated 32 processes, saving over 4 million seconds per month just in automation.  

But what are the key industries that can benefit from desktop automation? Let’s have a look.

Accounting. Automation makes it easy to deliver error-free financial reports; streamline processes in payable and receivable accounts. Also, you can automate reconciliation, reducing the time and stress that goes with the manual reconciliation process.

Healthcare. It’s crucial to improve health services, lower costs, and provide better care to patients. Automating healthcare services makes patients your number one priority. You can use task automation to support your front desk and client care teams to offer personalized help to patients. 

Telecommunications. By automating repetitive tasks in Windows, you can create an exceptional customer experience and optimize costs. Moreover, you can increase operational performance by using automation, and upgrade your digital response to crises. 

Top 5 tasks you can automate with Desktop Automation

When you have the right tool for the job, you can make any task easy to do. For example, you can wash your dishes by hand, but using a dishwasher is much more efficient and frees up your time for the things that matter. Don’t you think it would be great to have such a tool in the office?

Here are just some examples of why you would want to implement robotic desktop automation. 

  1. Change or reset passwords
    Quite often, password resets lead to repeated account lockouts. It happens that IT support teams handle password reset calls for almost 40% of their working day. Each call procedure includes phone authentication, execution of reset, confirmation, and documenting the call closure. Just automating password reset can drop helpdesk queries by more than 30%.
  2. Automate web browsers
    If you’ve ever tried to log into a website to collect data and put it into a spreadsheet, you know how time-consuming that is. Using Desktop Automation tools for website automation tasks will allow your desktop bot to do the work for you, including logging into a website, clicking on links, selecting from a menu, and even typing into a text box.
  3. Collect data
    Instead of manually gathering information from emails, PDFs, or other documents, you can automate this process with Desktop Automation tools. Set up bots to extract data for you. Once you do that, you can automate sending the data into documents, reports, and critical business applications.
  4. Report generation and distribution
    Desktop Automation tools can work together with your critical business applications for automated report generation and distribution. Regardless of the data source, an excellent automation solution can help you build workflows that merge, process, and put your data together to create intelligent reports.
  5. Shutdown remote computers
    Reduce energy consumption by a simple automated workflow that switches all the PCs to standby mode. For example, Ford, a US-based car manufacturer, estimated that 60 percent of its global employees didn’t shut down their PCs at the end of a working day.

    A workflow that turns to standby mode all network-connected idle computers or servers, based on rules and policies. The switch to standby mode is preferred to a forced shutdown, as it eliminates complications and the need for a long wait for boot up each morning.

All in all, Desktop Automation tools help you work faster and more accurately, especially during unexpected crises – like the ones generated by natural disasters. We’re proud to have had the opportunity to implement automation for a US utilities company during hurricane Irma.

Sign up for a free trial or contact us to discuss the best option for your company – we’re here to help.