Every IT leader dreams of monitoring systems that don’t just report problems, but help solve them. That dream is now becoming a reality. By combining front-end synthetic transaction monitoring (STM) with robotic process automation (RPA), organisations are at the threshold of an era of self-healing IT operations, where incidents are detected, diagnosed, and resolved automatically—often before users even notice.
From Speedy Detection to Fast Action with RPA
Synthetic transaction monitoring is designed to simulate the actual journeys that users perform on applications and websites, and to measure the quality of the experience delivered by those digital services.
In running the user journeys, synthetic monitoring robots proactively detect degradations in performance, interface freezes, and unavailability or downtime. This information feeds into dashboards and alerts for IT teams to investigate.
But what if those alerts didn’t just notify someone? What if the monitoring system took the next step and triggered an immediate fix?
That is exactly what Ekara Automation does. It can replicate human actions within software interfaces to execute routine tasks like restarting services, clearing caches, or relaunching processes. Combined with front-end synthetic monitoring, the system no longer stops at detection—it acts. The result is a closed-loop process where monitoring tools and automation work hand in hand to maintain performance and availability around the clock. This automated process follows a clear sequence to swift resolution:
- Proactive detection of an incident by STM
- Automated decision-making on the type of remediation needed
- Immediate execution of the action via an RPA robot
- Post-remediation check to ensure return to normal
A Closed Loop That Saves Time and Money
Consider the typical workflow in incident management. A digital experience monitoring (DEM) tool detects a failure and issues an alert. Next, an engineer investigates—often spending precious minutes logging into systems, identifying the problem, and applying a fix.
Imagine the contrast: with a combined STM and RPA setup as part of the overall DEM solution, all of those steps can happen automatically.
For example, if a synthetic user journey detects that an application’s login page is unresponsive, an RPA bot can immediately trigger the appropriate corrective action—restarting a web service, clearing a session cache, or running a diagnostic script—without human intervention.
This automation has measurable impact in terms of cost effectiveness and efficiency:
- Faster recovery: Mean time to repair (MTTR) drops dramatically because the system can act instantly.
- Operational efficiency: Repetitive, low-value interventions are handled automatically, freeing IT staff for strategic or creative work.
- Cost reduction: By reducing manual effort and unplanned downtime, organisations save both in labour and productivity losses.
- Legacy System Support: Since the DEM tool interacts through the UI, it is ideal for automating tasks that span multiple systems, even those that lack direct API integrations, allowing organisations to leverage RPA without overhauling their entire IT landscape.
A Real-World Example: Insurance Under Pressure
To illustrate the value, let’s look at a practical case from our industry expertise.
A large insurance company relies on a suite of customer-facing applications that allow policyholders to file claims online. These systems are critical to their customer experience—but they are also prone to recurring slowdowns during peak usage. The IT operations team was already using synthetic monitoring to track response times from multiple geographies, but alerts often came too late to prevent customer frustration.
By integrating RPA into their digital experience monitoring, they built a self-remediation loop. When synthetic monitoring detected that the “Submit Claim” button failed or the transaction stalled, an Ekara Automation robot automatically performed a set of corrective actions: restarting the microservice in question, refreshing the application cache, and rerunning the transaction test to confirm recovery.
The results were immediate. MTTR fell by over 60%, helpdesk tickets related to front-end unresponsiveness dropped sharply, and customer satisfaction scores improved. Just as importantly, IT staff were freed from endless reactive troubleshooting and could focus on optimising the user experience instead.
Beyond Detecting and Alerting: Toward Autonomous IT
This convergence of monitoring and automation is more than just operational efficiency—it heralds a change in the culture and practice of IT management. Traditionally, monitoring ends at “detect and alert”. The new paradigm extends it to “detect, decide, and correct”.
Imagine a world where synthetic monitoring tools detect anomalies, feed the information to decision engines (such as AI-powered triage modules like Ekara Incident Guard), and trigger RPA workflows that apply tailored remediation actions. The loop then closes with post-fix verification to confirm that the system has returned to normal.
That world is within reach. With intelligent orchestration of monitoring tools, IT systems become resilient, intelligent, and self-sustaining. In learning from each intervention, recognising recurring issues, and refining automated responses over time, robotic process automation can lay the foundation for the autonomous digital enterprise.
At this stage, the monitoring platform doesn’t just detect anomalies—it initiates remediation, verifies outcomes, and continuously learns from each event. In practice, this means moving from reactive firefighting to proactive, autonomous operations where IT systems sustain themselves with minimal human intervention.
More Reliable Systems, Happier Teams
The benefits extend beyond performance metrics. For IT teams, automation means fewer repetitive tasks, fewer late-night interventions, and more time and resources for innovation. For business leaders, it means tangible savings and better service continuity.
End-user synthetic monitoring combined with RPA also helps bridge gaps between modern and legacy systems. Because a user experience monitoring platform like the Ekara Automation offer interacts through user interfaces, it can execute actions across disparate environments without the need for costly API integrations or system replacements. This makes it an agile solution for organisations that are modernising incrementally.
The Road Ahead: Smarter Digital Experience Monitoring
Digital experience monitoring (DEM) is evolving from observation to intervention. As synthetic monitoring meets automation, enterprises are moving closer to the dream of self-healing digital ecosystems—systems that not only tell you what’s wrong but also fix it on the spot. Ekara’s vision for RPA in monitoring reflects this next step. By enabling proactive, automated resolution of incidents, it helps organisations achieve higher availability, lower costs, and more intelligent operations—all while keeping users satisfied and IT teams empowered.
The future of monitoring is not just about seeing. It’s about doing.