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Ontology-Supported Modeling of Bots in Robotic Process Automation

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Conceptual Modeling (ER 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13607))

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Abstract

Despite omnipresent digitalization, the infrastructure for information processing in companies often lags years behind. As a result, employees have to compensate for the inadequacies of legacy software and spend their time collecting, copying, and reviewing data spread across multiple applications. Robotic Process Automation can help automate such structured and repetitive tasks by using software robots that mimic the worker’s behavior. However, being mainly driven by industry, no modeling standard or possibilities for interoperability between different RPA vendors exist, which may lead to a vendor lock-in over time, for example. In this paper, we extend the ontology of RPA operations, that comprises conceptualizations for tasks that can be automated by RPA, and apply it for modeling RPA bots in a vendor-independent manner. To this end, a novel platform for modeling conceptual RPA bots and a corresponding prototype are presented, which open up new possibilities when creating and managing RPA bots.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For example, in UiPath, there are Application Scope operations: https://docs.uipath.com/activities/docs/excel-application-scope (accessed 03.03.2022).

  2. 2.

    OoP = Ontology of Plans. See [24] for information on the upper and foundational ontologies used in the ORPAO.

  3. 3.

    This design is based on a recommendation for representing ordered lists: https://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-n-aryRelations/#pattern2 (accessed: 11.03.2022).

  4. 4.

    Demonstration of the prototype and its components: https://youtu.be/Pq5FIS9KtqA. Source code: https://github.com/bptlab/conceptual-bot-platform.

  5. 5.

    https://robotframework.org/.

  6. 6.

    http://www.taskt.net/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Maximilian Völker & Mathias Weske

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  1. Maximilian Völker
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  2. Mathias Weske
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Correspondence to Maximilian Völker .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Geneva, Carouge, Switzerland

    Jolita Ralyté

  2. The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA

    Sharma Chakravarthy

  3. IIIT Delhi, New Delhi, India

    Mukesh Mohania

  4. University of Skövde, Skövde, Sweden

    Manfred A. Jeusfeld

  5. International Institute of Information Technology Gachibowli, Hyderabad, India

    Kamalakar Karlapalem

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Völker, M., Weske, M. (2022). Ontology-Supported Modeling of Bots in Robotic Process Automation. In: Ralyté, J., Chakravarthy, S., Mohania, M., Jeusfeld, M.A., Karlapalem, K. (eds) Conceptual Modeling. ER 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13607. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17995-2_17

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