Automating Building Control Notifications with Blue Prism

Local authorities must manage numerous notifications and documents efficiently and accurately. One of the significant challenges we faced was handling building control competent person scheme notifications submitted as XML attachments via email. To streamline this process, we utilised Blue Prism, our in-house Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tool. Our solution parses these XML attachments and splits them into separate XML files for the three sovereign councils within our organisation, ensuring each notification is accurately distributed. 

Understanding the Challenge 

Our council regularly receives building control competent person scheme notifications. These notifications are essential for maintaining accurate and up-to-date records of building works and compliance. However, the manual handling of these XML files is time-consuming and prone to errors. We needed a solution to automatically process these notifications, ensuring that each notification is correctly distributed to the relevant legacy council business area. 

The Blue Prism Solution 

Blue Prism provides a robust platform for automating repetitive and rule-based tasks. Here's a breakdown of the solution we implemented: 

1. Setting Up Email Monitoring 

The first step in the process is to set up email monitoring. Blue Prism's Email Automation capabilities allow us to monitor a designated email inbox where notifications are received. 

• Email Monitoring: We configured Blue Prism to check on a schedule, the inbox for new emails with XML attachments. 

2. Extracting the XML Attachment 

Once a new email is detected, the next step is to extract the XML attachment. 

• Attachment Extraction: Using Blue Prism's Graph API, we extract the XML file from the email. This XML is temporarily stored locally for the next step. 

3. Parsing the XML 

With the XML file extracted, the process then parses the XML content to identify and extract relevant information. This step is crucial as it determines how the data will be split and routed to the appropriate councils. 

• XML Parsing: We parsed the XML to extract the postcode for each record contained within the submission. Using an API call to postcodes.io we then allocated each record to the appropriate legacy council area. 

4. Recombining the Data 

Based on the parsed information, the next step is to recombine the data into separate XML files for each of the three sovereign councils. 

• Data recombining: We then generate new XML files for each council, ensuring the data is correctly formatted and ready for distribution. 

5. Distributing the Notifications 

Finally, the newly created XML files are distributed to the respective councils. 

• Distribution: Blue Prism automates the process of emailing the split XML files to the designated email addresses for each council. This step includes adding the appropriate subject line and email body text to ensure clarity. 

Benefits of Automation 

Implementing this Blue Prism process has resulted in several key benefits: 

• Efficiency: The automated process significantly reduces the time required to handle notifications, freeing up staff for other tasks. 
• Accuracy: Automation eliminates the risk of human error, ensuring that notifications are correctly parsed and routed every time. 
• Scalability: The process can easily handle an increasing volume of notifications, making it scalable as the council's needs grow. 
• Compliance: Automated logging and reporting features ensure that all actions are documented, aiding in compliance and audit trails. 

Conclusion 

Automating the handling of building control competent person scheme notifications with Blue Prism has helped streamline our council's operations. By leveraging RPA, we've achieved an efficient, accurate, and scalable solution.