Bot checkpoint on resume

Challenge description

Imagine, that you are working on a project. You identify your goal, probably write down what needs to be done and then cross out each of these actions as you complete them one by one. This project would probably take some time – you need to sleep, and it’s hard to focus and be productive all day, isn’t it? Plus, there are distractions. So, when you get back to work on your project (especially after some time) and want to resume, where do you start? In my case – I’d take that piece of paper and check what was done already, and what needs to be done next to determine stage the process of completing project is currently in.

Now, when bot is working on completing a process, unexpected interruptions can occur such as network issues etc. In case of simple automations, usually it can be restarted and simply start over from the beginning of the process. However sometimes, there are actions which cannot be repeated once completed – what then? Then bot should take a peek at its piece of paper.

Answer

During identification of recently automated process, business users requested that some SAP transactions should be executed only once for given set of parameters. Additional requests included bot saving data produced during processing, to MS Teams-based Excel files, containing inputs for various steps of process. Due to requirements, bot needs to check its state before start of processing. Resulting procedure, in simplified form, is shown in BPMN diagram below:

Notice, that we can determine total of 6 bot starting states, each of them preceded by condition node checking pass condition – if given condition is met, bot is skipping corresponding stage:

Moreover, after closer look, we can look deeper, and see that assuming bot starting from state 1, happy path skips entirely state 2 and passes directly to state 3. In case Doc Generating part of process fails, bot resumes on state 2, which needs users input outside of bot execution – document number might be already generated, but not provided to the file which results in failure:

Conclusion

Depending on complexity of automated process, determining states of the bot during execution may be tricky. Number of checkpoints increases safety of data processing, however at the possible cost of constant saving and uploading data which decreases efficiency of execution. The risk can be managed by using different ways of preserving bot state. Excel being user-friendly but time-consuming solution. On the other hand, if process requires communication and delayed input from end users or is otherwise prone to multiple resuming, solution helps to preserve resources.