Why LexisNexis is “In Awe” of Automation Hub and Task Capture

When Luke Thompson, a project manager at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, first saw Automation Hub at UiPath FORWARD III late last year (2019), he was floored. “I was in awe” according to Luke.

UiPath Automation Hub gives center of excellence leaders one central place to manage their automation rollouts with instant visibility and control.

“It does everything I need from a project management perspective and captures what a good process looks like.”

Luke has used Automation Hub (and the bundled application Task Capture) to:

• House and manage automation ideas (including one that cleared a backlog of 30,000 records in a day)

• Get executive support for his automation program

• Evangelize automation with business users

From RPA pilot to scale in weeks

Even before using Automation Hub, LexisNexis Risk Solutions piloted RPA. They first partnered with UiPath in 2018, finding success with an initial unattended robot pilot that worked “like a fetch agent for our agents,” says Luke.

While the pilot results were strong and grew automation interest in the 6000+ person company, LexisNexis wasn’t satisfied. They wanted to scale the pilot’s success.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions uses data and advanced analytics “to help our customers make better, timelier decisions” through a host of solutions to reduce the risk of “identity theft, fraud, money laundering and terrorism, and prevent financial crimes.”

With such an important mission, Luke sought to ensure there was a clear automation roadmap post-pilot, particularly as the organization navigated a remote, post-COVID reality.

How do we show ROI? How do we capture year over year progress?We maintained our automation pipeline in email and spreadsheets. We had info everywhere; it was hard to get a good picture together.

Luke Thompson • Project Manager at LexisNexis Risk Solutions

Automation Hub helped Luke and his team paint that picture.

“We’re a data company, and compliance around data is very strict.” As Luke was looking to expand his automation program, he uncovered a significant backlog of records that needed to be cleansed.

Luke’s team shared an idea in Automation Hub that cleared more than 30,000 records from this backlog in just one day.

This week, we went live with 11 robots cleansing data from present and past. In just one day bots cleared 31,000 records.

Luke Thompson • Project Manager at LexisNexis Risk Solutions

Readying the stage for robots to tackle the backlog only took a few weeks from intake in Automation Hub to assessment and development. “We were done in 30 days,” Luke notes. Automation Hub “takes a process idea from start to finish, that’s what nothing else does.”

Fund your RPA program with your ROI data

Providing management with a unified automation ROI view can be challenging for any CoE, particularly if there are multiple automation initiatives dispersed through a company.

With Automation Hub, “I showed leadership ROI in under an hour. I quickly clicked on the cost-benefit tab, said ‘this is our savings,’ and got funding approval for 10 robots.”

*An example of the cost-benefit Analysis screen

Critically, LexisNexis is now able to see a comprehensive automation pipeline in Automation Hub. “It helps me analyze what to go after next, and best of all, after a process is complete, I can reutilize the bot.”

Luke also leverages Automation Hub to “see what an easy automation costs our company from a time and equipment standpoint, compared to a medium or hard one. I can easily answer what gives us the biggest ROI. A lot of times, the easier automations may cost less and get to production quicker.”

As LexisNexis’ robot count grew, so too did support of their CoE.

According to Luke, when his management team saw Automation Hub’s ROI dashboard, they immediately decided to grow the CoE team.

Just a few short months after first seeing Automation Hub at UiPath FORWARD III, Luke used it to hire two additional developers and a business analyst.

One of the new developers “was beside himself to have a platform that helps us gather and manage ideas, he was excited that Automation Hub does a lot of the heavy lifting work. It’s expanding our team.”

“I’m in up to 10 meetings a week where I’m trying to help people understand that RPA is not ‘R2D2’ and that it can do incredible things for their work lives. Automation Hub is making that simpler.”

Automation Hub is helping Luke’s team introduce RPA to the company.

It puts a bow on automation. When I have a kickoff meeting, I like using Automation Hub as the meeting notes, and to show the team a feasibility score for their idea.

Luke Thompson • Project Manager at LexisNexis Risk Solutions

Laughing, Luke quips that people get so excited by their Automation Hub results that “all you need is a little John Legend piano in the background, and they could use them for glowing performance reviews.”

So far, LexisNexis has used Automation Hub to process more than 50 automation ideas.

“It helps answer how digital, structured, and stable is the process? It lets you add process documentation as you submit. Those elements are exactly what I needed…Automation Hub explains it in a way that helps everyone understand.”

“The tool allows you to analyze the idea, qualify it, and add all the elements to build a business case. Plus, it includes tools to build out the business case even more.”

Supercharging the CoE with Task Capture

One such tool is Task Capture, which Automation Hub users can easily download. It’s an on-premise tool which helps anyone document their processes, action by action, simplifying the requirements—gathering process for both subject matter experts explaining a process, and the CoE members providing production-grade automations.

For Luke, Task Capture was a revelation. “I knew it would transform how long it took to analyze a process.”

“Previously we used Visio to map out our current state and show input processes. Task Capture is a huge operational benefit. You can quickly process map all activities across team. You can have your whole team map out a process and identify best practices.”

*Task Capture in action

Task Capture exports Process Definition Documents (PDDs) with data on mouse clicks, and actions. It helps LexisNexis create “a very good conversational piece about best practices.”

“It’s also an incredible training document,” according to Luke. “It captures the process, lets you edit, and add notes. Before Task Capture, it was a monumental process to build training documentation.”

The cherry on top for Luke’s CoE is that they can export process maps gleaned from Task Capture directly to Automation Hub, or even as automation skeletons to speed up development in UiPath Studio.

Task Capture sped going from idea to assessment, from opportunity analysis to solutioning, and ultimately, to delivery.

Luke Thompson • Project Manager at LexisNexis Risk Solutions

“It also gives you the guardrails you need and instills a level of trust among the team. We can all share notes, and ensure we’re building process maps the same way. It takes re-work out of the process.”

What’s next at LexisNexis?

So how does Luke see the automation program growing this year?

“At a minimum, team leads and managers will get access to Automation Hub” says Luke. But beyond that, “I see it opening our pipeline big time, allowing users to submit ideas, and helping them learn about automation. It gets us even closer to ‘A Robot for Every Person’, that’s huge.”

“I also want to explore the component space further. When it comes to citizen development, being able to have an index of reusable components is big.”

Start your Automation Hub trial

LexisNexis first started its Automation Hub journey with a free two-month trial.

“I love this product. Playing with it before I got a production account, that trial period was critical. When I saw how it worked, that set the lightbulbs off.”

Ready for your own lightbulb moment?

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