Receiving process run requests using MS exchange server as a queue

[BarryBell]

Hello, I have a "is it possible" question.

At my firm, we are very early in our RPA Journey (4 months). We have two processes in production. In a conversation with my CIO regarding the scheduling of productions runs he asked the following question: "If tax needs to run process x can they not just send an email to the bot, the bot reads the subject line "Run [Tax-Processxxx]" and selects that process to run? He wants our internal customers to just be able to submit an email request that goes to the bot to run their process. 

My initial thoughts with my current level of training  are:
If the bot is running a process to check an exchange server for requests then how could that bot run the process it sees in the email? (we have two bots)
Is this the most efficient way to get to what he wants? (an automated request system so I do not have to set the schedule or run the process after being asked via email or chat. This is our current process)
I can (with help and more experience) develop some process to do this but this is down the road....

what are some of the ways mature firms have set up processes to be run in production with no human involvement other than the requester submitting the request? 

I have asked this question on Stack and other forums and been laughed out of the forum... LOL they can tell I'm a novice by the way I asked my question. 

Respectfully,

Barry

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Barry Bell
RPA Manager
DHGLLP
America/Hendersonville, NC
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[Manoj_kumarNunn]

Hi Barry,

You can set a rule on Outlook email to trigger an application (or a batch file).
Create a batch file consists of a command to trigger the runtime resource (bot) along with the desired process to run.
"C:\Program Files\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate\AutomateC.exe" /resource <<MachineName>> /run <<ProcessName>> /user <<Username>> <<Password>>

As soon as the BOT receives the email, the batch file will be triggered. Make sure the BOT is free during this time to run the process.
I hope this may help you. Please let me know if any concerns.

Regards,
Manoj

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Manoj kumar Nunna
Senior Developer
Tyson Foods
Asia/Kolkata
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[BarryBell]

Thank you for this information.

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Barry Bell
RPA Manager
DHGLLP
America/New_York
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[PratyushGarikap]

Hi Barry,

You can always build an Email Monitoring process which looks for the incoming email. If email is found, then it will trigger the sub-process on the same machine. If no email is not found, then you can have it sleep for a while and then retry.

Efficiency depends on which way you look at it. If the ask is to have an automated on-demand trigger, then you will probably have to add a layer of intelligence - E.g. who from the tax department is authorized to request for a run - specific individuals or everyone? How will you handle multiple requests coming in at the same time - will you run 1 session per email or batch them together? Is there a priority order for incoming emails? Controllers can obviously react to these situations quite easily.

One alternative is to setup a scheduler in agreement with the tax department so that process is triggered at specific times, and the tax department can ensure that any required inputs are made available to robot as per the scheduler times. There could be other ways of doing it depending on the nature of the business process itself.

Regards,
Pratyush

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Pratyush Garikapati
ROM Architect
Blue Prism
Asia/Kolkata
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[BarryBell]

@Pratyush Garikapati thank for this information and suggestion. I will need to get the process communicating directly with the exchange server and not use the Outlook VBO. The idea is to have all our bots (we only have two for now) monitoring the same email account on the exchange server. 

Thanks,

Barry

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Barry Bell
RPA Manager
DHGLLP
America/New_York
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