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SAP Build Process Automation: The Complete Guide (Formerly SAP IRPA)

Automation projects come with their own language, and it changes faster than most businesses can keep up with. If you’ve heard of SAP IRPA and are trying to work out whether it still exists, or what to call it now, this guide covers what changed, what the product does today, and how to get value from it.

SAP IRPA was rebranded to SAP Build Process Automation in 2023, as part of the launch of SAP Build. The capabilities described in this guide now exist under the SAP Build Process Automation product name, which is part of the SAP Build suite of low-code development and automation tools on SAP BTP.

What is SAP Build Process Automation?

The term RPA (robotic process automation) was coined back in 2012 by Phil Fersht, founder of HFS Research, but it didn’t really take off until around 2018, when digital transformation projects and improving platform capabilities pushed adoption up sharply.

SAP Build Process Automation lets you build bots that mimic what a person would do, clicking through the same steps in the same order, so repetitive tasks get done faster and with fewer mistakes. It uses machine learning and AI to learn from how people actually complete a task, rather than relying purely on hardcoded rules, and because it’s low-code, business users can build and adjust processes without needing a developer for every change.

It sits on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), so rather than being a standalone tool you install and manage separately, it comes as part of a wider automation and low-code package

Benefits of SAP Build Process Automation

Reducing human error

People’s attention slips, buttons get mis-clicked, and concentration drops over the course of a shift. None of that applies to a bot following the same steps every time. Some human oversight is still worth keeping in place, but it removes the risk of one-off slips derailing a process.

Saving money

Cutting down on manual, repetitive work reduces the number of people needed to keep a process running day to day, which frees up budget that would otherwise go on labour costs for tasks that don’t need a person doing them.

Continuous improvement through AI

Machine learning means a process doesn’t stay static once it’s built. Over time, the system can spot small inefficiencies and adjust for them, which limits the impact of mistakes and improves the process the next time it runs, without needing someone to manually rewrite the logic each time.

SAP Build Process Automation in practice

A common example is automating invoice, sales order, and purchase order processing. Traditionally this is manual work: reading the document, checking it against what was ordered, then processing the transaction. With SAP Build Process Automation handling the repetitive checking and processing, a smaller team can focus on resolving genuine disputes and exceptions instead of working through routine paperwork, and payments tend to go out faster as a result.

SAP Build Process Automation and the SAP Build Suite

SAP Build Process Automation isn’t a standalone product, it’s one part of SAP Build, SAP’s suite of low-code tools for building and extending business applications on BTP. The other pieces are:

SAP Build Apps, for building custom applications and user interfaces with little to no code
SAP Build Work Zone, the portal layer that brings applications, processes, and information together into a single workspace for end users
SAP Build Code, a professional, code-first development environment for teams that need to go beyond what low-code tools cover

In practice, these are designed to work together. A business might use Build Apps to create the interface a team uses day to day, Build Process Automation to handle the workflow running behind it, and Work Zone to bring it all together alongside other business content. We’ve covered the wider BTP picture, including SAP Build as a pillar of it, in our ultimate guide to SAP BTP.

SAP Build Process Automation and Joule

SAP’s AI copilot, Joule, is increasingly built into how SAP Build Process Automation works. Rather than manually mapping out every step of a process, Joule can help with AI-assisted process design, taking a description of what needs to happen and helping turn it into a working automation. SAP has also introduced Joule Studio, aimed at building custom AI agents and skills, which points toward a shift from bots that follow fixed steps to agent-based automation that can handle more judgement-based work with less manual setup.

For businesses already running SAP Build Process Automation, this means the product is becoming less about scripting individual bots and more about directing what you want automated and letting AI handle more of the setup.

Getting the most from SAP Build Process Automation

Assess continuously. Early automation results can be inconsistent, especially where machine learning is involved, so keep a person checking outcomes and stepping in where needed rather than assuming it will run itself from day one.
Audit your organisation properly. Plenty of tasks are good automation candidates without looking like obvious ones at first glance. A proper audit surfaces opportunities that a quick guess would miss.

Getting started with Bluestonex

Setting up SAP Build Process Automation from a standing start can feel like a lot, and getting help from a team that’s done it before makes the early stages considerably easier. Bluestonex offers SAP BTP and process automation services, helping clients implement and develop automation that fits how their business actually works, rather than a generic template.

Conclusion

SAP Build Process Automation, the product formerly known as SAP IRPA, remains a genuinely useful tool for automating repetitive work, provided it’s implemented thoughtfully and reviewed as it runs. Used well, it reduces errors, cuts costs, and frees up people to focus on the work that actually needs human judgement. Get in touch with Bluestonex to talk through what that could look like for your business.