RPA vs API – rivals or best buddies?

Organizations may benefit from using RPA and API in tandem

Choosing the winning strategy

In the automation-first world, the market is filled with tons of automation solutions. It is crucial to clearly define the tasks you want to automate, your business goals and potentials before selecting the automation technology. At Global Mediator, we suggest you consider the traditional scenarios when each of the technologies applies best to help you make the decision.

RPA – a platform-agnostic, cost-efficient, and less IT professional-reliant option – applies best when:

• API is unavailable. API or source code of the application is vital for traditional IT-regulated integration. RPA, on the other hand, works faultlessly with any platforms, applications, and packaged solutions – regardless of the API availability.
• Enterprise applications may use legacy systems that lack any integration layers, software support, and proper documentation. Developing APIs for such systems is either impossible or extremely costly and time-consuming. In such cases, RPA sidesteps any complex integrations and seamlessly interacts with legacy systems by mimicking human users’ interaction with the system’s UI.
• A predictable, rules-based, repetitive sequence of actions requires automation for one specific process owner. These usually include step-by-step processes like calculations and queries, filling out forms, creating and updating records and reports, as well as other high-volume transactional tasks (which involve moving information between and within the applications).
• Deadlines are critical. Compared to the time-consuming API integrations, RPA robots are developed significantly faster (a few weeks instead of months for API). Thus, your routine business processes are managed 24/7, error-free, fatigue-free, and almost in the blink of an eye. Still, consider investing some additional time in training end users: positioned as a low-code technology, RPA is still a software solution. It does not require deep technical expertise to be developed, but it takes some effort to get familiar with it.
  
  

API – although more demanding, less cost-efficient, and entirely based on the software engineering – is a viable alternative when:

• Everything the business process needs is a medium that allows two applications to communicate and exchange the data: send the requests and get back with the necessary information.
• A long-term solution is preferred. RPA is often treated as a quick fix while API integrations are seen as structured and long-term solutions.
• A flexible solution is necessary. Organizations may easily fine-tune the API solutions as the processes evolve and change, keeping the product operation and experience consistent. RPA is more challenging to maintain if applied to the systems prone to frequent logic changes.
• A reusable solution is what your organization needs. A professionally designed and developed API can become a multi-functional product that many departments and organizational units can reuse for different purposes.
  
  

Is there a silver bullet?

Can it be as simple as that? It looks pretty straightforward – the areas of the technologies’ application are easily categorized and labelled. In fact, when it comes to selecting the approach to invest in, the choice between the API and RPA becomes quite confusing. Fortunately, knowing your primary goals is half the battle. Drawing a parallel between the purpose of your process automation and something very familiar helps – transport, for instance. Imagine a jet aircraft – it reaches the destination in an instant, but it does not give much of a chance for intermediate landings along the way. That is the peculiarity of APIs – connecting the two dots on the map. RPA, on the other hand, might be compared to a highway network – less speedy, but so many possibilities for sightseeing during the trip – like making the necessary number of mouse clicks to complete the journey.