Your Salesforce AI Trail Guide Webinar Series: What You Need to Know
Centric’s Salesforce experts explored the maturity curve of AI capabilities in Salesforce and Agentforce in a three-part webinar series.
Tracy Dixon, Centric’s Operational Modernization Partnership Lead, is our go-to expert for UiPath, the software platform that’s leading the way for agentic automation.
Unlike robotic process automation (RPA), agentic automation uses AI agents to independently make decisions and coordinate tasks without human intervention.
Recently, UiPath recognized Dixon as a Most Valuable Professional, an honor she has held now for six consecutive years. The recognition reflects her many vital roles in the UiPath community, including:
- Certified UiPath Automation Developer Professional and UiPath Business Analyst Professional
- Co-leader of the UiPath South Florida chapter
- Regular speaker at UiPath FORWARD events
- Educator in many of UiPath’s instructor-led community series, such as Women in Automation, the UiPath Veteran’s Training Program, the UiPath Business Analyst Associate Training Program, and Upskill to Agentic Automation.
I wanted to know how Dixon became interested in automation, especially UiPath, and where she sees the field going in the future.
What does being recognized as a UiPath Most Valuable Professional mean to you?
It’s been an incredible honor to hold this recognition for six consecutive years now. What makes it meaningful is that it reflects not just technical expertise, but active contribution to the UiPath community.
That community aspect is very important to me. When I started with UiPath in 2018, it was super new technology, and we really didn’t have any resources at Centric — maybe one person overall, since the practice had just started. Being able to help others navigate that learning curve and build that expertise feels like giving back to something that has transformed how I work.
Were you always drawn to computer science?
Not directly. At the University of North Florida, I started as a business student, but I didn’t find the courses challenging enough. I’d never taken a computer science class before, but I was a huge math nerd, so when I looked into it, I saw it as an interesting new challenge.
I worked my way through college and had a full scholarship from the university and tuition reimbursement from my employer, the company that became the mass media giant Comcast. Ultimately, I earned my bachelor’s degree in computer science and MBA from UNF. In fact, I was an adjunct instructor for the university when I started at Centric in 2014.
How did your career begin?
I began my professional journey at Comcast, where I worked throughout my bachelor’s degree program in computer science. I started at Centric as a contractor in 2014 and became a full-time employee in 2015.
My initial role at Centric was in the Miami business unit, where I primarily did project management work and Azure DevOps projects for several years, all the while retaining my .NET coding ability through small personal productivity efforts.
How did you begin using UiPath?
My first personal project with UiPath was automating access to my children’s school grades. With four children, each taking seven classes, checking grades manually from the school’s website was a painful 15 minutes every day that I looked at them.
I created an automation that would log in with secure, stored credentials, navigate through my children’s classes, and text and email me daily reports. It focused on current grades, so I knew what to prioritize, and it also highlighted upcoming and past-due assignments in time for me to do something about them. This saved me significant time and ensured I didn’t miss important information about my kids’ schoolwork, and UiPath presented the information in a manner I preferred to consume it.
How did you make the connection to professional applications of UiPath?
After starting UiPath training in 2018, I began looking for experience using the platform, which was very new at the time. I mentioned the need for further experience and Centric helped me find a fitting project. I got the opportunity to complete a proof of concept for an insurance client that involved reading PDF information and entering that information into Guidewire automatically, based on agent forms submitted by email.
This project successfully demonstrated the value of automation to the client and helped Centric win the business. By 2019, I was working on client automation projects.
Why did UiPath appeal to you?
I’m always looking to get more time back for things I enjoy instead of spending time on repetitive tasks like timesheets or weekly reports. I had previously tried numerous tools like macro recorders to create personal productivity automations, but none of those solutions worked consistently.
When I discovered UiPath in 2018, I realized it was the tool I’d been looking for — it actually worked a second time unlike the other automation tools I had tried. Plus, its low-code environment and the number of native activities made creation of automations quick and easy.
How have you seen UiPath evolve over time?
I have witnessed significant evolution in UiPath since 2018. Initially, it was very prescriptive, requiring detailed requirements for every click and keystroke. We needed to know exactly where information appeared in documents to successfully read them. Automation could only handle very formulaic processes.
Now, with the influence of AI, automation has become a lot more “squishy,” meaning it’s less rigid in its requirements. Pre-trained machine learning models for documents in industries like insurance and accounting help us consume many versions of a given type of form and find expected fields on forms regardless of placement.
In addition, automations that use Intelligent Extraction and Processing (IXP) can receive feedback and handle complex, long-running business processes.
This is important because it allows for more “human-in-the-loop” functionality. More flexible automations allow a process to pause and wait for human approval or decision-making if desired. Or it can proceed without intervention if the confidence and success rate are at the desired level. Significantly, those pauses can be for days or weeks before UiPath resumes and completes the transaction, rather than requiring separate automations for each phase. That allows UiPath to handle more sophisticated business processes and full transaction lifecycles, like order to cash or procure to pay.
What other changes have you seen in UiPath over the last few years that excite you?
Most recently, UiPath released a “healing agent” or “self-correction” capability that can automatically detect and fix automation issues. It can even provide recommendations and fixes for updating the original automation to prevent future problems, eliminating the need for manual workarounds.
UiPath also has new task discovery features that can automatically document existing processes, including step-by-step details on applications and user actions. UiPath’s discovery tools can also integrate with ERPs and other systems to analyze transaction cycles, identify bottlenecks, and use generative AI to map major steps within a transactional lifecycle and suggest where automation would be most beneficial.
How else is generative AI affecting UiPath?
I think automation serves as an ideal “easy button” for implementing AI, without the need to hire data scientists or understand the intricacies of Large Language Models (LLMs). UiPath now offers 60+ pre-trained models that have already been presented with tens of thousands of samples, nearly eliminating the need for organizations to do model training and removing months or years from the process.
With AI working alongside traditional automations, employees can set up tasks like retrieving and intelligently sorting emails, where the opening of emails is automated and AI does departmental classification, while still flagging urgent items like complaints from unhappy customers.
What skills do you rely on most in your role at Centric?
My role draws equally on project management, business analysis, solution architecture, data analytics, and building strong client and team relationships. This mix allows me to consider challenges from multiple perspectives, ensuring solutions are technically sound, strategically aligned, and well-received by the people who will use them.
How do you manage being a technology expert while raising four children?
It’s definitely a juggling act! I have three girls and a boy, ages 18, 17, 17, and 15. The twins were a very special surprise. Having automation tools like UiPath has actually been a lifesaver for managing family logistics.
It’s funny — I’ve always been one to look for more efficient ways to do things, especially administrative tasks that aren’t particularly fun. Whether it’s automating timesheets at work or getting daily reports on my kids’ assignments, I’m constantly looking for ways to free up time for the things that really matter.
Outside of work, what activities keep you energized?
I love to travel because it allows me to see differences and learn new things from new perspectives. I also love to dance, because it gives me a chance to enjoy creative expression and I love music. Both bring me joy and keep me feeling refreshed.
What personal values shape how you approach client work?
Collaboration and innovation guide my work every day.
I believe the best solutions come from working closely with clients to understand their goals and then exploring creative, sometimes unconventional, ways to achieve them.
I enjoy introducing new technologies that help people work smarter, not harder, especially when the result is an improvement in their daily experience.
If you weren’t in your current field, what career might you pursue?
I have always loved teaching adults, along with the challenge of making complex ideas understandable. In fact, when I joined Centric in 2014, I was also an adjunct instructor at the University of North Florida.
If I were not in automation, I could see myself as a university professor. I am also drawn to the legal profession, which I learned while taking contract law coursework as part of my masters’ program.
Who has had the greatest influence on your career?
The retired former head of our Miami business unit, Kim Caruthers, had a tremendous impact on me personally and professionally. She was a supportive leader who believed in my abilities and encouraged me to take on challenges that expanded my skills. It always felt like she was one of my biggest fans, but she never shied away from a tough and timely conversation if she felt I could do better. Her trust and advocacy helped me gain confidence to step into larger roles and pursue opportunities I might have otherwise hesitated to accept.
