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I’ve worked adjacent to RPA and I’d like to think they were saving personnel from the most tedious and hair-pullingly annoying work routines. Not using RPA is

I’ve worked adjacent to RPA and I’d like to think they were saving personnel from the most tedious and hair-pullingly annoying work routines. Not using RPA is like not using macros in your text editor, because they are automating programmers out of work. Some data can only be accessed through a legacy gui and it needs to be cross referenced with several proprietary databases that also can only be accessed through a gui. Even if you begin migrating these it can take years if not decades. Meanwhile shit needs to be done.

netizen-936824 5y ago
Increasing interoperability sounds like a good reason to move the data to things that don't use GUI only proprietary interaction, rather than a good reason to throw some duct tape on. But that takes actual work
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  I don’t think even the RPA department will disagree on that one. But while the 3rd 100million project to rewrite that legacy, proprietary cobolt data app is faltering, the RPA department is actually making it accessible via a rest api that activates a virtual mouse that clicks around and ctr+c,ctr-v the result back to the user. The curse of building great digital infrastructure in the 80s is you might get stuck with it 40 years later.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Also, and I think this is underappreciated by the HN crowd, because they don't work at these types of companies -- interfacing with legacy business-critical applications. Most software products that companies buy have interoperability as either the least prioritized feature or as something to be actively prohibited. The best, brightest, most modern examples of software, we are not talking about.
crispyambulance 5y ago
> Even if you begin migrating these it can take years if not decades. Meanwhile shit needs to be done. Yep, that's the key thing. The ERP systems which have their tentacles all over every part of the organization make changing stuff out effectively intractable. I don't know if it's intentionally like this (by design on the part of the vendors) or if it's just a consequence of people being terrified of change.

netizen-936824 5y ago

Increasing interoperability sounds like a good reason to move the data to things that don't use GUI only proprietary interaction, rather than a good reason to throw some duct tape on. But that takes actual work

wodenokoto 5y ago
I don’t think even the RPA department will disagree on that one. But while the 3rd 100million project to rewrite that legacy, proprietary cobolt data app is faltering, the RPA department is actually making it accessible via a rest api that activates a virtual mouse that clicks around and ctr+c,ctr-v the result back to the user. The curse of building great digital infrastructure in the 80s is you might get stuck with it 40 years later.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Also, and I think this is underappreciated by the HN crowd, because they don't work at these types of companies -- interfacing with legacy business-critical applications. Most software products that companies buy have interoperability as either the least prioritized feature or as something to be actively prohibited. The best, brightest, most modern examples of software, we are not talking about.

crispyambulance 5y ago

> Even if you begin migrating these it can take years if not decades. Meanwhile shit needs to be done. Yep, that's the key thing. The ERP systems which have their tentacles all over every part of the organization make changing stuff out effectively intractable. I don't know if it's intentionally like this (by design on the part of the vendors) or if it's just a consequence of people being terrified of change.