3 Things You Should Know About the Federal RPA Use Case Inventory

Dozens of agencies across the federal government, including leading agencies like the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Department of the Treasury, and Defense Logistics Agency, have set out on paths to realize the value and efficiencies promised by robotic process automation (RPA). Like any new technology, there are significant challenges to successfully adopting the technology. One of the key hurdles is selecting the ideal use case to begin an RPA journey or creating a pipeline of use cases that are primed for development and deployment.

To help agencies identify ideal use cases, the RPA Community of Practice, led by the GSA, set out to identify all automations deployed across the federal government, and share this within the community. Here are three things you should know about that effort - the Federal RPA Use Case Inventory.

1. The Use Case Inventory is a repository of deployed automations across government

Through the first collection effort in 2020, the RPA Community of Practice was able to gather 328 use cases from 17 federal entities. Automations are categorized by federal agency, type of application, and description. Now we are conducting the first update of the inventory, and are asking federal agencies to submit newly deployed automations and update existing entries.

2. The Use Case Inventory makes automation process selection easier for beginning or scaling an automation program

The federal government performs common back office processes that are applicable to all agencies. The Use Case Inventory enables programs to detail these common processes and share information about deployed automations, assisting agencies looking to identify additional automation candidates. Further, the Use Case Inventory supports common federal standards for credentialing, privacy, and security, and designing common management metrics to gauge government-wide impact of RPA.

3. The Use Case Inventory creates an avenue for programs to share automation program progress

The Use Case Inventory is an easy way for agencies seeking to start or improve existing RPA programs, and to find and connect with other agencies with deployed automations. Read through use case descriptions to find out how agencies have used RPA to automate specific business processes, and then connect with those subject matter experts by joining our 1,100+ member strong community listserv.

What is RPA?

RPA was first introduced in the federal government when the first automation was deployed in 2018. A low-to-no code solution that emulates human actions and reduces low value, manual workload for employees, RPA is seen as a game changer for increasing organizational productivity, freeing up employees to perform higher-value work, and making government work better for citizens. Popular uses of RPA include data entry, data reconciliation, spreadsheet manipulation, systems integration, automated data reporting, analytics, and customer outreach and communications. Learn more about RPA in our RPA Playbook.

How to launch RPA at your agency

The federal RPA Community of Practice helps agencies convert RPA enthusiasm into action. To learn more about RPA and join the conversation, interested federal employees can visit the RPA Community of Practice page to subscribe to the listserv and gain access to our events and publications. To submit your agency’s RPA use cases or to ask questions, please email RPA_COP@gsa.gov. Look forward to hearing from you!