How do I choose between Attended and Unattended RPA for my business?

All answers to this question.

The choice depends entirely on the nature of the process. Attended RPA is best for tasks that require human intervention or decision-making, like a call center agent needing a bot to pull customer data during a live call. It resides on the user's workstation. Unattended RPA, however, is designed for high-volume, back-office tasks that can be fully mapped out with clear rules, like batch invoice processing. It runs 24/7 on a virtual machine without human oversight. For ROI, Unattended bots usually scale better because they don't tie up a human's time, but Attended bots are great for increasing individual employee productivity.

   Answered 2025-05-16 by Jennifer Miller

Does Unattended RPA require a more complex infrastructure setup compared to Attended? I'm worried about the overhead of managing virtual machines and server permissions.

   Answered 2025-05-18 by Michael Stevens

• Hi Michael, yes, Unattended RPA definitely has a steeper infrastructure curve. You need dedicated servers (VMs), robust logging, and centralized orchestration (like UiPath Orchestrator or Blue Prism Control Room). You also have to manage service accounts and ensure the environment is "locked" so the bot can interact with the UI without a physical monitor. While the initial setup is more complex, the benefit is that you can manage hundreds of bots from a single dashboard, which is much more efficient than managing bots on individual laptops.

     Commented 2025-05-20 by Jennifer Miller

Start with Attended bots to get your team comfortable with automation. Once the "low-hanging fruit" processes are stable, you can migrate the logic to Unattended servers.

   Answered 2025-05-22 by Robert Wilson

• I agree with Robert. A phased approach reduces the risk of initial failure. We started with Attended bots in HR and moved to Unattended for payroll after three months.

     Commented 2025-05-24 by Sarah Jenkins