State Licensing Department Saves Time With Robotic Process Automation

The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) has implemented two robotic process automation services to achieve same-day processing of real estate initial licensure exam applications and electronic fingerprint result files.

According to a spokesperson for the DBPR, “The real estate industry makes up a large portion of our licensee base, creating high volume of real estate initial licensure [applications] and electronic fingerprints processing.”

To streamline operations, DBPR staff members internally identified an opportunity to simplify the department’s licensing review process, resulting in two robotic process automation services being developed in-house through a partnership between the department’s Service Operations, Technology and Real Estate divisions.

“The design, based on established application processing guidelines, was completed by team members from the Division of Service Operations,” the spokesperson said.

As for how these services work, “A business process flow chart was created, detailing each step within DBPR operating systems that an application processor follows when reviewing an application,” according to the spokesperson.

At each decision point within the process, logic is refined based on data prepopulated in DBPR operating systems until staff can arrive at a “yes,” “no” or “else” response. The process flow and staff responses are then used to either fully process and approve the application, or if deficiencies are identified, present the application to the processing team for further review.

So far, approximately 4,000 real estate initial licensure examination eligible applications have been approved using this process, along with more than 9,100 electronic fingerprint result files, saving the department 830 hours of staff time.

Moving forward, “DBPR is working to identify other program areas where this service may benefit licensees and staff,” the spokesperson said.