Want to understand some terms used in RPA/IT projects

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1

Hi everyone,

I recently came across these terms while reading about someone’s experience on LinkedIn:

  • RCA (Root Cause Analysis)
  • Issue Triage
  • Business Continuity
  • Shakeout Testing
  • Smoke Testing

I’m familiar with UiPath development and automation, but these terms are relatively new to me.

I’m interested in understanding them from experienced professionals who have worked on real RPA/IT projects.

Could someone explain what each of these means in simple terms and, if possible, give a small real-world example of how they are used in an automation or production environment?

I’m mainly asking because I want to broaden my understanding beyond just UiPath development and learn the terminology used in real project environments.

Thanks in advance!

2

Hi @Abhinay_Reddy1,

You should be familiar with these, depending on your experience:

  • Up to 2 years: You should be familiar with RCA and basic testing concepts.
  • 3–5 years: You should have a good understanding of RCA, testing, and issue triage.
  • 5+ years: You should ideally be familiar with all of these concepts.

In simple terms:

  • RCA – Finding the root cause of a bot failure.
  • Smoke Testing – Testing the main functionality after a change or deployment.
  • Shakeout Testing – Testing after a deployment, environment change, or major update to confirm that the system is stable before detailed testing.
  • Issue Triage – Reviewing and prioritizing issues based on severity, impact, and urgency.
  • Business Continuity – How business continue during failures or unexpected disruptions.

Thanks!

3

Hi @Abhinay_Reddy1,

Here are the meanings for terms which you would like to know.

RCA (Root Cause Analysis) → Finding the real “why” behind a failure, not just the symptom.
Example: Bot fails on “queue item not found” → retry fixes it today, but RCA finds the upstream SAP export ran late, so you fix the actual dependency.

Issue Triage → Ranking issues by impact before investigating, so you work the right one first.
Example: 5 bots fail overnight; however the finance-close bot should be fixed before the report-formatting bot.

Business Continuity → Having a backup plan so critical processes survive outages (server, bot, vendor down).
Example: If Orchestrator goes down, a documented manual fallback keeps payroll/invoicing process running.

Shakeout Testing → Verifying things still work after an environment/infra change (migration, upgrade), not new features.
Example: After a server migration, run a few key bots end-to-end to confirm the new environment is solid.

Smoke Testing → A quick sanity checks after a code/build change, most commonly in UAT or Production.
Example: Deploy a new bot version → run it once, confirm login + one queue item processes, before fully enabling the bot in the environment.

I hope this clears your doubts.

Cheers!

4

Hi @Abhinay_Reddy1

RCA: Find the actual reason for an issue.
Issue Triage: Check and prioritize issues based on impact.
Business Continuity: Keep the business running when something fails.
Shakeout Testing: Quick check after deployment to make sure everything works.
Smoke Testing: Basic testing of the main functionality.

For example, if a bot fails after a website change, we triage the issue, find the root cause, test the fix, and have a backup process if the bot is unavailable.

5

Hi @Abhinay_Reddy1,

If the issue has been resolved, could you please mark the answer as the solution?

Thanks!