GSA puts bots to work in bulk
Connecting state and local government leaders
The General Services Administration has implemented 25 RPA bots so far, including Truman, which automates the work associated with processing offers under the Federal Acquisition Service’s Multiple Award Schedules.
The General Services Administration is leading the charge to rid federal and contractor employees of repetitive, boring and time-consuming manual work by adopting robotic process automation.
RPA Program
General Services Administration
Click here for all the 2019 Public Sector Innovation winners
The General Services Administration is leading the charge to rid federal and contractor employees of repetitive, boring and time-consuming manual work by adopting robotic process automation.
GSA has implemented 25 RPA bots so far, including Truman, which automates the work associated with processing offers under the Federal Acquisition Service’s Multiple Award Schedules. Truman helps vendors pull data from multiple sources into a central report and has increased customer and employee satisfaction while minimizing errors and backlogs. Thanks to Truman, GSA’s contracting specialists can now spend more time helping vendors with their applications and learning about new products and services.
Truman developer Jeff Lau, FAS’ regional commissioner for the Northeast and Caribbean, won a 2019 Federal 100 award for his work on the bot.
GSA’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer, meanwhile, uses an accounts payable email notification bot to pull 300 invoices per day that are due for payment and notifies those responsible. The bot has also eliminated the need for manual data entry of hundreds of receiving reports every month and captured data for almost 40,000 purchase cards annually.
In hopes of spreading the use of RPA across the federal government, GSA also set up an RPA community of practice, led by the Office of the CFO. The group focuses on federal digital transformation mandates by bringing together and formalizing RPA across all agencies. It also serves as the catalyst to reach a crucial goal of the President's Management Agenda: shifting federal employees from low-value to high-value work.