Unlock maximum efficiency with MuleSoft Automation Suite

Over the decades, automation has become a common strategic aim in business, as it solves many problems in the enterprise that are associated with the challenges of cost; time and quality. The concept of automation however continues to evolve and is multi-faceted: Business processes have different entry points; touch upon different systems and rely upon different kinds of information from different sources. Repeatable value is achieved by using the right tool for the right job, yet a common requirement in the enterprise is to deliver an automation solution that depends on more than a single tool or platform. 

MuleSoft Automation solves issues such as data entry errors, low efficiency, high operational costs, and inconsistency. Some of the challenges we see today impact business in ways where there is lack of visibility, disconnected systems and outdated & manual processes that lead to sub-standard customer experiences. 

With the MuleSoft Automation Suite, known as “Everything-as-a-service” XaaS, you get the trio of AnyPoint Platform, RPA (Robotic Process Automation), and Composer. This brings hybrid integration, process orchestration and unstructured data processing together into one ecosystem.

The value this delivers is tangible throughout your organisation by allowing different business teams to create their own solutions, reducing the IT delivery gap while providing centralised visibility and governance.

So, what do the components of the Automation Suite do?
AnyPoint Platform, the core of the suite, is a cloud-based solution for API-led connectivity that provides full application lifecycle management to suit any scale of enterprise. With AnyPoint Platform you can create a flexible and scalable network of APIs, underpinned by robust enterprise version control; access control and monitoring. These APIs are published to the AnyPoint Exchange for wider consumption in your organisation and for consumption by RPA and Composer.
RPA solves the problem of automating human activity where you can’t integrate: Navigating graphical interfaces with keyboard and mouse inputs, and the parsing of documents and images. RPA unlocks your unstructured data and legacy systems, which you can’t get to with traditional integration approaches.
Lastly, Composer comes into play where non-technical teams want to leverage the value in their connected SaaS apps “with clicks not code”; creating automation solutions rapidly while building on the solid foundations laid by central IT. 

With MuleSoft Automation your cross-functional teams always have the right tool for the job, enabling even more automation; achieving even greater productivity and efficiency.   

Use-case

Your company processes orders from many customers, and a significant number of those customers are reliant on submitting orders via a templated document format that typically arrives into your inbox as a PDF attachment. Your company has recently deployed an automated business process for order fulfilment, but it can only work with structured data (API call; CSV upload etc). You need to onboard all your customers, but they have no way of consuming your API, and the CSV upload mechanism isn’t exposed externally. What is the solution here?    

We can break this process into discrete steps; these really showcase how the MuleSoft Automation suite offers such power, and what the value of each element of the bundle is:  

1. Composer – Set up a Composer flow to monitor for new emails. Establish reliable rules to trigger the flow when an order arrives (e.g., a specific subject; a specific file attachment; etc).  Save the PDF attachment to a location that is accessible and invoke the next step as a RESTful API call to your RPA flow.   

2. RPA – Triggered by Composer, we load up the PDF document using its path and filename, and proceed to read text, two ways: specific fields from fixed areas on the form and with a collection of fields in a layout such as a grid. This form of document reading uses the intelligence of AWS that RPA is built to leverage.

So now we have a digitised and structured set of data. RPA’s job is done, so fire back the response to the Composer’s API call, which will know what to do next.     

3. Composer – With the knowledge of the originating communication and the parsed order payload, Composer’s job is almost done. Now we can invoke the complex processing power of the Anypoint Platform.   
4. Anypoint Platform – Receive the structured order data and process it as necessary: Execute cleansing; transformation; enrichment and upload to the order fulfilment process, complete with error handling and logging. A confirmation should be sent to the customer; this will be done through an API call using Composer by replying to the original email thread.

With the power of the MuleSoft Automation Suite, your process is complete, and your customers are happy. You have bridged a huge gap and reaped the rewards of efficiency and scalability. What else can you automate?  

Pace Integration is a 100% UK based technology consultancy, that provides the full 360 support through your integration journey and can help you with strategy/advisory, delivery and operational support through our MuleSoft Certified onshore delivery and operations teams. We have been partnered with MuleSoft for over 6 years and delivered industry solutions within Supply Chain, Logistics, Healthcare, Telecoms and Retail. We have expertise within integration of technology platforms such as SAP S/4 HANA, Workday and Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

Want to leverage the MuleSoft Automation Suite for maximum efficiency? Find out how you can do that by downloading the MuleSoft white-paper, or get in touch with us by e-mailing us directly at [email protected] to speak with an expert.