RPA has become an in-demand technology with the fast pace of automation and robots growing in every field. This growth has led many young students and professionals to pursue a career in RPA.
Many opportunities are available for RPA-certified professionals, including job roles like Automation Analyst, RPA analyst, and RPA lead.
To help you crack jobs easily or ease your interview preparation, we have made a list of top RPA interview questions.
- What is RPA?
RPA or Robotic Process Automation is an automation that uses software bots to automate rule-based business tasks. It allows organizations to automate repetitive tasks that employees perform. Such tasks are automated across various systems and applications without human intervention or changing the IT infrastructure.
To make it more clear, we have broken down the three words to provide meanings.
Robotic: Robots are managed by written codes that imitate human actions.
Process: Series of sequences that results in meaningful activity.
Automation: Robots perform human tasks without human intervention.
- What are the characteristics of RPA?
The characteristics of RPA are:
- Employees need not be familiar with coding and programming concepts.
- Since there is no human involvement in the process, it remains error-free as long as the input data is correct.
- It is quite simple to assign tasks to an automated robot and carry out process transformation.
- RPA monitors and manages automated functions from a central console that can be accessed from anywhere.
- Give some benefits of RPA.
- RPA helps organizations to reduce overall costs by 30%because software robots work all the time and cost less than a full-time employee.
- RPA works 24/7 and automates tasks faster when compared to humans.
- RPA offers a better solution and reduces operational risks.
- Robots are consistent and reliable which means no risk of human error. Thus assures accuracy and quality to the business process.
- With RPA, organizations achieve better customer satisfaction with consistent performance.
- Mention some popular RPA tools.
The popular RPA tools help experts organize processes and create bots to automate them.
- Ui Path
- Blue Prism
- Workfusion
- AutomationEdge
- Kofax
- Automation Anywhere
- Automal
- Pega
- LINC
- Mention crucial factors before choosing an RPA tool.
- The RPA tool must be simple and easy to use.
- The RPA tool should be able to create new processes faster.
- It must include in-built monitoring and support systems to provide reliability and safety.
- Rapid scaling should be possible.
- What are the steps to implement RPA?
The steps for successful RPA implementation are as:
- Recognizing automation needs and the areas of implementation.
- Optimize the selected process.
- Create a business case.
- Select the right RPA vendor.
- Model RPA Development.
- Build expert RPA bots.
- What are the types of RPA?
- Unattended/ Autonomous RPA: Do not require human intervention.
- Attended RPA : Activated by the user and run on user machines
- Hybrid RPA: Combination of the upper two points.
- What are the key tasks performed by RPA bots?
- Keystroke mapping
- Mouse actions
- Screen scraping
- Web Screen Scraping
- Data input and validation
- Reconcile data across systems.
- Tabbing, searching, copying and pasting.
- What is the difference between traditional automation and RPA?
| RPA | Traditional Automation |
| RPA imitates user actions at the user level(UI). | Traditional automation uses APIs to integrate different systems. |
| Non-instructive, scalable, and versatile. | Instructive, less scalable, and less versatile. |
| It offers quick implementation. | It takes several months to implement. |
| Developer does not need to understand the underlying complexity of the system. | Developer needs to be familiar with the target system. |
- Write the stages of the RPA lifecycle.
- Identification phase.
- Analysis
- Design
- Development
- Testing(User Acceptance Test)
- Implementation and maintenance
- What is a thin and thick client in RPA?
Thin Client: Applications that never acquire specific properties while using RPA tools. It involves automatic browser tasks like web page navigation, opening browser, and more. E.g; any virtual environment(like VMware)
Thick Client: Applications that require specific attribute features while using RPA tools. It implements its own features and continues to function even without a connection. E.g.; calculator, notepad, etc.
- What is a bot? Mention the different types of bots.
Bots are developed using bot builder software tools like Ui Path, Blue Prism, etc to automate tasks.
The different types of bots are:
- TaskBot
- MetaBot
- IQ Bot
- Chatbot
- Differentiate TaskBot and MetaBot.
| TaskBot | MetaBot |
| It automates rule-based and repetitive tasks. | It is used to manage scalable tasks. |
| Front-end automation | Facilitating scalability with next-generation integration. |
| These are Automation anywhere bot. | These are Automation building blocks. |
- What are front- and back-office bots?
Front-office bots are bots deployed by the user and require human intervention. These bots function on the user’s desktop.
Back-office bots are run on locked machines from the orchestrator and do not involve user interference.
- What are the steps to create an RPA software bot?
Steps to build a bot include:
- Record a task
- Implement the bot
- Test the bot
- Upload the bot to achieve automation tasks.
- How is a chatbot different from RPA?
A chatbot is basically a programmed bot that chats with users like human beings. But a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a programmed bot that automates a task within a business function.
Although a chatbot can be used to provide input to an RPA bot, it cannot imitate the functionality of an RPA system.
- Differentiate between UiPath, Blue Prism, and Automation Anywhere?
| UiPath | Blue Prism | Automation Anywhere |
| It offers web-based desktop RPA. | It helps organizations to automate repetitive business tasks. | It automates a vast amount of tasks, from basic windows configuration processes to the ultimate networking and remote database processes. |
| It is used for web-based desktop automation. | It is used for BPO and citrix automation. | It achieves fair efficiency across all mediums. |
| The tool has both browser and mobile access. | This tool has only application-based access. | This tool has only application-based entrance. |
| It is based on SharePoint, cabana, and elastic search. | It is based on C#. | It is based on Microsoft technologies. |
| This RPA tool most often crashes in medium projects. | It offers excellent operational scalability with high execution speed. | It provides limited deployment. |
- What are the main components of RPA architecture?
The main components of Robotic Process Automation are listed below:
- Recorder
- Development Studio
- Plugin / Extension
- Bot Runner
- Control Center
- Which type of RPA tool will support an open platform for automation?
UiPath supports an open platform for automation.
- What is Citrix automation?
Citrix automation refers to any automation system developed using a virtual desktop or designed to perform with virtual desktops. It is important in BPO and call centers where applications need to be accessed remotely due to security reasons.
- What is scraping in UiPath?
Scraping in UiPath is done is two ways:
- Data Scraping: In this technique, structured data is extracted from any application and stored inside a database or .csv file.
- Screen Scraping: In this technique, data is collected from the screen display of an application and translated to display in another application.
- What are the benefits of screen scraping?
- Performs on applications that are not accessible even using UI frameworks.
- Provides optical character test digitization services.
- Better accuracy and easy to implement.
- How to create a variable in UiPath?
You can create a variable in UiPath in three ways:
- Click ‘Control Bar’. Choose ‘Variable tab’. Click create a variable.
- Go to the Properties Pane and choose the Output section. Choose “Create variable” or press ctrl+K.
- From the Ribbon tab, choose “create variable”.
- Is it possible to audit an RPA process? Are there any benefits to it?
Yes, it is possible to audit an RPA process.
It helps to create new strategies for enhancing business operations.
- What is a macro-recorder?
A macro-recorder records keyboard and mouse activities to generate automation scripts. The activities are arranged in the order of actions that take place on the screen.
- What is the major difference between RPA and Macros?
| RPA | Macros |
| It can run autonomously. | It cannot run autonomously. |
| It reacts to outside stimuli and changes its own programming. | It does not react to outside stimuli. |
| Allows learning from repetitive processes. | Lack of learning. |
- How much time is taken to implement RPA?
RPA implementation takes a few weeks. However, a more complex level can take more time to implement.
- What are the scripting standards to consider during automation testing?
- Proper indentation
- Uniform naming convention
- For every ten lines of code, three lines of comment
- Use of Frameworks wherever possible
- A solid scenario to handle error and recovery
- Discuss some disadvantages of RPA.
- During RPA implementation, complexities can arise.
- Since RPA mimics human actions, it can be a huge threat to unemployment.
- Redundancy
- What do you understand about the Process studio in RPA?
Process Studio is a feature in RPA tool to create the real business flow that needs to be automated. It involves control loops and business strategies that can be arranged and tested in a business flow.
- Mention the different types of log.
Log fields are basically message, filename, process etc. There are two types of logs:
- Default logs
- Execution start
- Execution end
- Transaction start
- Transaction end
- Error log
- Debugging log
- User-defined logs
- Name the frameworks with which you are familiar in software automation testing?
- Hybrid automation framework
- Keyword-driven framework
- Modular automation framework
- Data-driven framework
- Mention a few industrial applications of RPA.
- RPA in the telecommunications industry helps manage subscriber feed, update customer data etc.
- In the banking sector, a bot can automate the process of credit card application, check status of application, loan disbursement etc.
- With RPA, it becomes easy for HR to automate payrolls, verify background details, create reports etc.
- Retailers can manage invoice processing, provide barcode scanning, maintain customer data etc.
- List the limitations of RPA.
- RPA tools cannot take unstructured input data in non-electronic format.
- As it is AI supported, it cannot learn from experiences. It performs on the set commands.
- It cannot be used for processes that require judgment.
- RPA implementation cannot fix broken processes.
- Is the Robotic Automation Process a secure and reliable approach?
Robotic Automation Process provides extra security in an environment. The runtime function is entirely different from the process that is related to the editing of files. All the users are restricted to perform the same action which includes running, creating, editing, and designing the processes.
- Do an organization need to change their entire infrastructure in order to adopt the RPA approach?
It is not compulsory for an organization to change their entire infrastructure as RPA can be easily deployed with the existing IT infrastructure. RPA tools are quite compatible and can be easily used to automate tasks without any change in infrastructure.
- Is robotic automation similar to screen scraping or macros?
Robotic automation is far more capable and powerful than screen scraping or macros and can integrate with web applications and window applications. RPA is a combination of screen scraping and macros but with many other features. Screen-scraping and macros are just a part of RPA, but it does not govern RPA.
- How do we perform test cases and scripts in RPA?
Test cases and scripts in the Robotic Automation Process are performed using automation testing. In this testing, automation tools reduce the overall number of test cases needed to manually perform RPA.
- List all the various building blocks or bot activities of RPA used to build automation.
- Desktop Automation
- Excel Automation
- Web Automation
- Email Automation
- OCR Automation
- SAP Automation
- Terminal Automation
- Database Commands
- Exception Handling
- API Commands
- File Operations
- What do you think about the future scope of RPA?
RPA is expanding in every sector of the IT industry. It has a very high perspective and an in-demand technology as it imitates human activities with automated tools and technologies. As it does not require any programming knowledge, it is easy to pursue a career in it.
Conclusion
The future roadmap of RPA is promising as it automates digital processes. Organizations can gain a considerably more significant customer-centric advantage and opportunities for innovation.
RPA does not require much knowledge; anyone can become an RPA-certified professional with some training. This blog contains some basic to advanced-level RPA interview questions that help you before a quick interview or when you need more time.