Life of RPA Solution Architect

RPA Solution Architect is one of the most demanding and challenging jobs in the RPA industry. Mostly known as SA in RPA Industry.
Today we will specifically talk about the roles and responsibilities of RPA-SA in COE. Please add your suggestion, question, or addition to this article in the comments.
SA is one of the most important key players in any COE (Centre of Excellence) team. Sometimes it is really difficult to survive in this role, based on its limited knowledge repository but you get to become part of those who create a knowledge base for this specific job role. When I say there is very little information in knowledge base, we all need to come together and help increase the knowledge base for each job role in RPA industry.

What is the role of Solution Architect in COE?

⦁ The solution Architect is the bridge between the client & developers
⦁ Understand the process end to end and document it as per requirement.
⦁ Define the architecture of RPA solutions. Design the flow diagram to simplify the understanding of architecture definition.
⦁ Select/Suggest an appropriate set of technology and tools to be used to build the solution.
⦁ Support each phase of the RPA lifecycle right from “Requirement Gathering” to “Hyper care”.
⦁ Make sure the solution aligns with the enterprise guidelines.

What are the responsibilities of a Solution Architect?

define the solution architecture in diagrammatical representation. Make the solution design more visual to make it simple for the business user and developer to understand the flow.
⦁ Write a solution design document (SDD) to give better-guided end-to-end documentation. A know-how handbookdevelopers to build solutions.
⦁ Perform code review also define the rules and regulations for Troubleshooting, Debugging, Internal Testing & Workflow Analyzer rules.
⦁ Try to optimize the AS-IS process by suggesting an optimistic architectural approach.
⦁ Perform effort estimation for the project in the requirement-gathering phase to streamline the RPA lifecycle.
⦁ Perform PDD and DSD sign-off – Verification of PDD designed by Business Analyst and DSD by Developer.
⦁ Define the requirements of solution design such as the number of robots required, configuration type, assets, queue, triggers, execution approach & human in loop approach if needed.
⦁ Define the reusable components and create a library of such modules if the project reuses these on the high requirements.
⦁ Create logging and reporting dashboards to visualize the output.
⦁ Write a knowledge base for developers on the confluence page for Development best practices.
⦁ Help developers with technical blockers and conduct weekly meetings to review the development approach.
⦁ Help clients understand the RPA transition in every stage of the RPA lifecycle.
⦁ Help the project manager, tech lead, and business analyst to maintain the technical level synchronization.

What are expectations from Solution Architect?

⦁ Setting up Development, Testing (UAT) & Production orchestrator environment.
⦁ Distribute licenses and assigns specific roles to each user.
⦁ Give technical inputs & change in the process if needed to optimize the AS-IS process.
⦁ Testing development thoroughly before going to User Acceptance Testing. (UAT)
⦁ Decide for sustainability and hyper care period.
⦁ Manage the smooth transition of production deployment -> Hyper care -> Change request -> Handover solution to the client.
⦁ Manage and host handover meetings with clients.

Who can become RPA Solution Architect?

⦁ Who has minimum of 5 years of core programming experience?
⦁ Team player and a true leader with cross-team experience.
⦁ Experienced on .Net, C# & VB. (At least 3 years)
⦁ Minimum 2+ years of RPA Developer (Any popular tool) experience.
⦁ Who has strong conceptual & analytical skills?
⦁ Who knows infrastructure setup, storage, firewall, load balancer, routers, database, etc?
⦁ Who can visualize and draw architecture diagrams.
⦁ Great presenter and speaker.

Challenges faced being RPA Solution Architect?

Less availability of knowledge base on template documentation. Sometimes you have to design and create your document template which takes huge time.
⦁ Multi-project allocation puts huge pressure on the completion and management of multiple deliveries.
⦁ Keeping yourself up-to-date with the latest updates of the RPA product and roadmap of upcoming releases as you need to inform clients when to upgrade and what to expect from the product.
⦁ Awareness of other products in the market to answer confidently in client meetings when asked to compare the product feature with market competition.
⦁ Good communication with developers, because one miss communication or bad reputation will lose your impact over developers’ approach and you end up fixing all the best practices around the edge of delivery.
⦁ Do not over-commit to the client, always keep buffer time in effort estimation and stand on your point while being questioned by the tech lead or client.
⦁ Remember the multiple projects process, if you are dealing with multiple projects then remembering the process flow till the delivery date is difficult so keep short informative notes of each project and keep in touch with a developer to maintain the knowledge base of the project.
⦁ Do not underestimate the developers, sometimes developers have the better approach to doing things and you might end up not giving an optimistic approach. Always be ready to accept suggestions and questions.

Around the end of this article, I just want to say RPA Solution Architect is fun, challenging, sometimes frustrating, sometimes happening, sometimes easy, sometimes difficult, and sometimes it is amazing to be close to technology rather than management roles.
RPA Solution Architect is a super amazing role to play… what are your thoughts about it? Please add your suggestion, question, or addition to this article in the comments.