Hyperautomation: The Future of Test Automation

In the early 1900’s most of the work we come across today was done manually. Take a product packaging company for example. Earlier we had big workshops with daily wage workers standing in line with a running machine tirelessly folding and taping your packaging boxes and stamping with company logos. Then a wave of automated machines walked in that folded and taped your boxes automatically followed by the latest types of machinery that fold, tape, stamp and seal your boxes all by itself.

This is precisely how we define manual, automation and Hyperautomation.

Manual Processes

Automated Processes

Hyperautomated Processes

Hyperautomation is nothing but automating everything that you possibly can. In IT terms Hyperautomation can be referred to as:

The idea that anything that can be automated in an organization should be automated. Hyperautomation is driven by organizations having legacy business processes that are not streamlined, creating immensely expensive and extensive issues for organizations.- Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2020 (Gartner)

It’s a combination of multiple AI, machine learning and packaged software and automation tools that help deliver tasks along with the application of similar advanced technologies to help automated processes and augment humans.

Hyperautomation can be considered as an extension of automation both horizontally and vertically.

To understand this better lest look at the key components of hyperautomation first:

The Key Components of Hyperautomation

Robotic process automation (RPA)
Business process management (BPM)
Artificial intelligence (AI) and/or Machine learning (ML)
Advanced analytics

As a shift in technology, you need to expand your horizon of thinking of automation beyond RPA and task automation to a highly sophisticated AI-process automation process.

So, to summarise everything we mentioned above, Hyperautomation is nothing but a perfect blend of the latest automation technologies and AI resulting in augmenting human capabilities by allowing them to complete daily processes with increased efficiency and effectiveness ultimately moving towards a new era of digital transformations.

Dig Deeper Into Automation And How Is It Different From Hyperautomation

Before moving forward, let’s define a basic rule. The automation referred to henceforth is IT process automation and not automated machines or robots used in production plants.

Here the automation we come across can further be divided into two parts: Test automation and Robotic process automation, a significant contributor towards enterprise test automation. Both these concepts, though separate, offer the same advantages that any other automation process would do: complete processes faster, with increased efficiency and higher accuracy ultimately contributing to higher productivity, lower risks and increased ROI.

What is Hyperautomation?

Hyperautomation is not a new concept though it came into the limelight when Gartner mentioned it in its top 9 Strategic technological trends for 2020.

As mentioned in detail above, Hyperautomation is an advanced version of automation clubbed with AI/ ML and mixed technologies along with the complete sophistication of the automation process. In other words, Hyperautomation lets you do more with your existing automation technologies.

General Use Cases or Examples of Hyperautomation Include:

Understanding emails using NLP (Natural Language Processing)
Understanding documents using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) capabilities
Improving automation flows using ML/ AI (Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence)
Stock forecasting and automate restocking

Can you be a ’Digital First’ with Hyperautomation?

Though surviving for a couple of years, as this technology will grow and become more sophisticated, numerous benefits can be derived out of it for enterprises.

Intelligent bots set in the process can help effectively help become a ‘digital first’ organisation by determining critical areas that need improvement and identifying how to provide an unrivalled customer experience.

1. Flexibility

Hyperautomation can help enterprises achieve greater scalability and flexibility in operations as they are not limited to a single digital technology anymore.

2. Improved productivity

Automating redundant, time-consuming tasks allow employees to serve more valuable roles in an organisation and focus on human sensitive areas that improve overall productivity and efficiency.

3. Integration

You get the liberty to integrate digital technologies across processes and legacy systems that promote the smooth transfer of data across departments and promotes better communication.

4. Improved ROI

Hyperautomation helped increase revenue and reduces costs. With the help of analytical tools, organizations can optimize the deployment of their resources as and when required.

5. Faster delivery with increased product quality

With the automation first trend in the market, businesses are increasingly focussing on the need to release products at the DevOps speed and ensuring a delightful user experience that can be supplemented by hyperautomation.

According to Gartner, “By 2024, organizations using Hyper Automation will see over 30% drop in their operational costs”.

Hyperautomation in Quality Assurance

Hyperautomation in quality assurance automation would typically mean taking a step beyond test case-based automation. It’s about a scenario where the entire IT Life Cycle has been optimised with zero human intrusion in the process. More like creating a digital worker.

Till now, automation in QA is limited to the test execution phase with a significant amount of human intervention throughout the cycle. QA team are limited to developing a strategy to automate requirement analysis, unable to reach the final reporting layer.

Hyperautomation on the other hand helps to eliminate that limitation. It helps to deploy digital testers that are supported by many test pipelines. The intention here is to reduce human intervention as much as you can, going beyond automating repetitive tasks and automating the entire decision-making process using advanced technology like RPA, Business Process Automation and AI

But how would you achieve that?

Few key features must be adopted here:

Automate more frequently
Take a technology-agnostic approach towards automation at the granular level
Deploy smart automation techniques
Adopt orchestrators

What Makes Hyperautomation Possible?

Usually, Intelligent process automation harness both artificial intelligence and RPA along with underlying Technologies including computer vision, machine learning and natural language processing.

While RPA can easily handle algorithm-based automation along with mimicking human actions, the walk-in by AI has proved to be a game-changer. The biggest advantage AI brought with itself was the ability to automate the processing of unstructured data that previously required countless hours of human effort and a data scientist supervising the entire process.

Once AI is done processing the data, RPA walks in proving IPA to be the most useful intervention for automating data-intensive, highly repetitive processes.

Hyperautomation is a Win-Win!

One thing that cannot be overlooked is the fact that hyperautomation boosts operational efficiency. While implementing IPA techniques, streamline and improving process steps becomes more of a necessity than a choice.

Hence the improvement is twofold. An efficiently optimised process and a technology that automates segments resulting in faster time to market, increased efficiency and enhanced scalability.

ImpactQA is a leading software testing company that rigorously follows a standardized automation approach throughout its processes that helps enterprises speed up their testing processes. The presence of multiple environments, multiple user devices, and third-party integrations ensure you get better test coverage, high reusability and cost savings on a long-term basis.

Ensure a reduced time to market and increased efficiency with ImpactQA’s quality assured services for your next automation project.

Schedule a call now!