Identifying functional tasks that can be automated

In the previous section, we reviewed the functional requirements for our project. Functional requirements are then prioritized and grouped into various releases as per the project roadmap during the project planning phase. In this section, we will explore and see which functional specifications can be potentially automated.

Always remember that during the initial releases, enabling functionality for users involving manual steps is more desirable than spending valuable project resources on designing and developing automation. These very steps that are performed manually during initial releases can be automated in future releases based on usage and user feedback. I personally found this approach highly effective with my project implementations.

But exactly what is business process automation (BPA)? BPA is software-enabled automation that automates multistep, repetitive tasks with little or no human intervention. In this book, we...