MuleSoft Connect 2022: Automation fuels digital transformation

Salesforce expands on MuleSoft’s automation tools at their annual event.

Between the pandemic, inflation and the rising skills gap and talent shortage, 2022 has proven to be a difficult year for most businesses. The last few years have forced companies to reevaluate their process and dive head first into a digital transformation. This transformation means different things to different enterprises, but more often than not, it has meant looking toward automation to increase efficiency and accuracy. This was an ongoing refrain at MuleSoft Connect 2022.

A recent report from Salesforce and Vanson Bourne revealed that 91% of companies had an increased demand for automation in their processes in the last two years. The report also notes that 96% of those surveyed said modifying and rebuilding their automations is difficult due to the frequently changing needs of businesses.

MuleSoft increases access to automations tools

During the event’s keynote, MuleSoft’s SVP of Product Stephen Hsu described their goal of empowering teams to integrate and automate, noting that automation was “more than having bots, it’s about having our team members available to do high-value work.”

MuleSoft introduced their slate of automation tools and provided a demo at their annual event:

• MuleSoft RPA (robotic process automation)
• MuleSoft Composer
• Anypoint Platform

These tools have been designed with no-code capabilities so both technical and non-technical teams would be able to pivot and adjust with changing workflows. Rather than spending valuable time on tasks like manual data entry, users could build an automated process that would be more efficient and reduce the user error that comes with manual tasks.

“It’s vital that organizations become more adaptable to technological change, enabling them to build automations and connect data and applications in a holistic manner,” said Matt McLarty, global field CTO & VP of the digital transformation office at MuleSoft.

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How does MuleSoft RPA work?

Much like it sounds, robotic process automation blends robotics and automation to handle repetitive processes.

“RPA tools can record users performing repetitive tasks and generate a script that the software robot follows to perform said task,” Mulesoft said. “Oftentimes, the script that this bot creates is based on the clicks, entries, movements and overall actions that the user performed on the screen. The RPA bot will then follow the script to repeat those steps — capturing data and manipulating the applications and systems just like the human would.”

MuleSoft RPA will be generally available in early August 2022.

What is Mulesoft Composer?

Once users have the automation built, MuleSoft features their Composure no-code integration platform to connect data to apps. These apps can include those in the Salesforce family, like Slack and Tableau, but can also integrate with non-Salesforce apps.

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AnyPoint Platform combatting API sprawl

As automations are developed, MuleSoft offers their AnyPoint Platform as means for IT teams to govern, monitor and secure any automation and integration built with APIs or bots.

At one of their sessions, MuleSoft team members Sameer Parulkar, director of product marketing, Jing Li, director of product management, and Parvez Mohammed, director of product management, discussed this issue of API sprawl. They described API sprawl as an issue where IT departments will develop APIs as they need them, and they end up sitting in a cloud. Other developers and team members are totally unaware that they exist, so they end up creating new APIs. The AnyPoint Platform catalogs APIs, enabling developers to reuse or reconfigure them rather than constantly rebuilding.

MuleSoft Connect took place in New York on June 29 and on June 30 in London, Paris and Sydney, and MuleSoft took the opportunity to unveil its latest automation and integration tools.