
The Potential of UIPath
UIPath is product that has the ability to revolutionize many industries that deal with fragmented systems. I first learned about UIPath this summer while working with the 2nd Marines Logistics Group at Camp Lejune, NC. The vehicle dispatchers working at the Marines Transportation Groups were tasked with monitoring mission requests and then assigning drivers with the proper credentials to the appropriate vehicle for the mission. However this information is scattered across three different systems causing the Marine dispatchers to spend a whopping twenty hours of their workday transferring information from one system to the other in order to satisfy the paperwork requirements.

My partner, a Fuqua alum, and I were tasked to help them design a solution that could help optimize this workflow as part of the DoD X-Force Fellowship. We decided to investigate UIPath, a Robotic Process Automation tool, in order to automate this process as we read case studies touting the benefits of RPA technology. UIPath is a piece of software that allows users to automate industry workflows: think of it like a more advanced version of Excel macros. UIPath has been used to solve problems at companies ranging from reporting the ideal number of hairdressers at a salon in Norway to helping create a finance and logistics center for shipping giant DHL.

I was initially intrigued by the potential of UIPath: imagine a system that could allow non-coders to automate their “grunt-work.” In order to test the capabilities of UIPath, we created a set of test databases that modeled the Marines transportation databases. UIPath features two ways of creating RPA solutions: designing workflows or using their screen recording tool. I was immediately fascinated by the screen recording tool as it seemed to allow anyone to automate tasks with little to no technical knowledge. However when we began to implement UIPath to automate the transferal of information, we realized why many of the tutorials suggested using the workflow method.
The screen recording tool was extremely buggy and crashed over five times before we were able to successfully record the movement of data. We were excited for a bit because it seemed like we had solved the Marine’s problem but our celebration was premature.

When we began to test our solution in the Marine’s test environment we noticed our RPA solution kept breaking. We realized it was due to the fact that the UI of the test database had slightly changed confusing the RPA system on the correct place to click. We found that many others had similarly given up on using UIPath to automate workflows that required heavy interaction with the UI as the solution would break whenever the UI would change. Ultimately we decided to design a solution using the workflow method which was unnecessarily complex.
UIPath could be extremely powerful if they focused on working with specific tools and improving their recording system. Oftentimes the customers of UIPath attempt to automate workflows involving the same common pieces of software such as Excel or QuickBooks. UIPath does have some tools for dealing with these software, such as an Excel tool, but they are still unnecessarily complex. Much of this difficulty because UIPath tries to be as general of a tool as possible in order to increase their market. However this results in a product that involves dealing with too many steps and adjusting too many parameters. If they focused on building a system that was focused on fewer, more common, processes then the software would be much less bloated and much easier to use.
They should also strongly consider investing more and improving their screen recording tool. The idea is a very good one but fails in execution. One suggestion could be using machine learning and NLP methods so the system can understand the different field involved in the workflow so that it can adjust in the event of a slight UI change. If the screen recording tool watched several instances of completing a workflow, rather than just once, it could help it gain understanding on what its goal is.
UIPath does have some rivals in the RPA space. The most popular of these competitors are Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism. We also investigated these systems but found their offerings to all be somewhat similar. We ended up choosing UIPath because it had the most extensive documentation and therefore seemed the easiest to learn. UIPath should consider going out to different trade shows, where RPA could be useful, and holding workshops on how to use UIPath and how it can help streamline businesses. The biggest hurdle stopping potential consumers from using UIPath from using their product is the learning curve and therefore they should focus more on simplifying their product and demonstrating to businesses that their solutions both work and are easy to use.
UIPath has the potential to streamline a huge percentage of businesses around the world but they first need to focus on simplifying their product and increasing the reliability of their screen recording tool.
