Jersey STEM is an all-volunteer organization, which means that we have interns doing development using donated systems. The beauty of donated systems is they're free. The challenge of donated systems is that there's a lot of data that isn't correlated, and the systems don't talk to each other, so we use RPA to establish some communication between the systems and gather data into a central coherent location.
Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
Automation Anywhere, Inc.External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
It enables us to simplify the data-gathering process and see results much faster
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Automation Anywhere has helped our organization by giving us a relatively easy way to gather all the data we need. We have data from HR, volunteer-matching systems, and grants systems. Automation Anywhere has enabled us to automate data gathering and posting that data into usable forms.
Before implementing Automation Anywhere, we processed these tasks manually by getting data from websites, putting them into spreadsheets, and going from spreadsheets to databases. Attempts to automate that using other tools were pretty onerous.
Automation Anywhere enables us to simplify the process and see results much faster. Previously, it would take six to eight weeks to get results. With Automation Anywhere, we're getting results in two to four weeks, which makes the business happy. When I say business, I must remind you that these are all volunteers with little time on their hands. They're doing this with full-time jobs. Our goal is to make their lives easier with Automation Anywhere.
Jersey STEM primarily uses Google, so we use tools like Google Sheets and Google Docs. The automations all have to do with the Google ecosystem. Additionally, we must integrate with all donated systems, including HR, volunteer-matching, and grant systems that are donated to us. Jersey STEM is building the data warehouse as we gather all that data.
In a volunteer organization, employee capacity and compliance are not the primary metrics. Because we have an all-volunteer crew, we don't have them eight hours a day. We only have them for a couple of hours a day. We want to do anything we can to better utilize those two hours a day so that they're not spending them moving data around in spreadsheets.
I have some metrics at the top of my head, but they're a little abstract. Accomplishing what we've done so far with the bots in production would take 40,000. It's not a direct correlation of full-time employees because that's all work that would not have gotten done because they don't have time for that kind of nitty-gritty work.
Automation Anywhere has saved us a lot of time but not so much cost because everything is donated. If you have volunteers and they're giving you two hours a day, it is better to spend time on intellectual work rather than repetitive mundane work. That's the big bang that Automation Anywhere gives us.
What is most valuable?
Automation Anywhere's ease of use is the most valuable feature. We have interns doing RPA development, and it takes them about four weeks to get advanced-level certification. And within four weeks, they're productive. It's user and developer-friendly, robust, and scalable. We started in March with four bots in production. We have four more bots about to go online, which is pretty quick in the RPA world.
At Jersey STEM, we haven't put Automation Anywhere directly in front of business users. We don't have citizen developers because most processes we tackle are back-office automations. In the fullness of time, we will put citizen developers to work. I'm confident they will pick it up fast because Automation Anywhere does a great job of simplifying the process of building automations.
The learning curve for Automation Anywhere is quite simple. I had four interns do some basic training online. We did a three-day course with them to get them the advanced training, and they were productive within four weeks. They are in the process of building more bots. At this stage, we may be in danger of having them run out of work because they're working so fast.
Integration is the primary reason that Automation Anywhere process-building is so simple. All the building blocks are handed to us. It removes the guesswork of what has to be connected to where. We can pay more attention to the logic of the process rather than the mechanics and infrastructure of the process.
What needs improvement?
The only thing I would advocate for is making Automation Anywhere's developer environment Mac-enabled because many of our graduate students are coming out of school with Macs. Everything else in the Automation Anywhere world is built for Windows.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've only been using Automation Anywhere at Jersey STEM since March of this year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Automation Anywhere has been rock solid for us. We have had no issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have yet to find out the limits of Automation Anywhere's scalability because we're only starting. We have a control room with one attended bot runner. I can imagine that within the next year or two, we'll need to scale up. Given the way Automation Anywhere is architected, I am confident that scaling up won't be a problem.
How was the initial setup?
Deploying Automation Anywhere was relatively seamless. I've been using Automation Anywhere since version 10 and was a solution architect for version 10 and version 11. An on-prem deployment requires a computer science degree to understand because there are so many factors involved. With a cloud deployment, everything was done for me. The only thing I had to do was provisioning and configuration. It made life a lot easier. I could complete it on my own in about two weeks.
What was our ROI?
It's too early, but the ROI will not be measured in dollars and cents. It will be measured in our ability to get data faster. For example, if we have a base of volunteers waiting to connect with us, we can connect with them much faster. If there are grants to be had, we can get to those grants a lot faster.
The difference between a volunteer organization and a typical business organization is that our funding has to come from outside. We have to find it. Help comes from outside. We have to find it. The return on investment is getting there quicker.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We purchase Automation Anywhere through a service partner that's also helping us with those costs.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Automation Anywhere nine out of 10. It's a solid nine and a half because I don't give out tens.
The Imagine event has been highly informative and useful for me. It's informative because I'm learning all about the generative AI coming down. That's been the focus. It's useful in that I've made lots of connections this year. When folks find out about Jersey STEM's goal, they're interested in volunteering. I have a whole bunch of new people to talk to who will help us with our future endeavors.
The Imagine experience is a full-on fire hose of automation, but it's a lot of fun. All the presentations have been geared to keep people's attention and to be entertaining. It's a brave new world, and there's a wow factor here.
I would invite folks in my field and other volunteers. It would be self-serving because our volunteers would make more connections, get more people to help, and also learn about the possibilities of where we could take Jersey STEM from a data infrastructure perspective.
Frees up staff time and easy for non-technical users with drag-and-drop functionality
What is our primary use case?
We primarily automate tasks in the financial area, including invoice processing. We can automate audits and do onboarding and offboarding as well, among other tasks.
How has it helped my organization?
Automation Anywhere is simplifying processes. It is helping us create better customer experiences.
What is most valuable?
The Co-Pilot feature is one of the features we really like. It's helped accelerate automation adoption more broadly across our organization. There are a lot of use cases for it. Co-Pilot has helped us increase productivity. Automation Anywhere in general makes tasks faster. We can do jobs in a couple of minutes versus hours or days.
We can do automation for some complex issues.
Before the processes were automated, there were a lot of gaps and places where human error could occur. Processes that took days and days of time are streamlined and reduced significantly.
Even for users who don't have technical knowledge, there are drag-and-drop features that help them create automation. They don't need to be technical.
It's helped us free up staff time to work on other tasks. All of the people who were initially part of the job processes can be moved off to other things. The automation handles the tasks.
We have other tools integrated into Automation Anywhere, including Microsft Programs.
The integration of automation into workflows and business applications has been good. It's been easy to adopt.
It's positively affected our business. We've been able to apply it to broader jobs and save time. It's enhanced user and customer experiences and ensures we have on-time interactions with customers.
We've been able to save on time and cost. We've witnessed a lot of savings. We're able to spend a few minutes on tasks instead of hours or days.
It can provide automation at scale. We've been able to develop programs that engage teams effectively.
We can go online and learn about what we learn about Automation Anywhere. There is AI training on the roadmap, and we're excited to see how much AI will enhance the solution in the future.
What needs improvement?
We'd like to see more AI features.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support was okay. They have been able to supply patches to us for issues.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not previously use a different solution.
How was the initial setup?
The setup process was easy. We were able to leverage some time savings during the deployment. We didn't have too much downtime.
What about the implementation team?
We initially began the deployment with a reseller.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing and licensing are reasonable. We were able to get what we needed. The vendor understand what we wanted and offered certain pricing based on what we wanted. As we scale up, the pricing will change according to how we use it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did evaluate other options and decided not to move forward.
What other advice do I have?
I'd rate the solution at nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
We've been able to automate everything we need and save about 2 million dollars annually
What is our primary use case?
I am the manager of our intelligent automation COE within HR. We operate in a federated model. I lead the HR team, and there are similar teams that exist across the company in five or six other areas.
We have plenty of use cases within HR specifically. We have automation for candidate-facing opportunities before people join the company. We especially have a lot of automation opportunities for our recruiting. The human capital management platform that we use is an SAP product. We use SAP SuccessFactors, so naturally, a lot of our automation opportunities come through that platform. There are a lot of emails and notifications to managers for talent management, talent acquisition, and all the way through to payroll, or anything that falls underneath the HR function. Nothing is off limits, and we have pretty much touched most of the functional areas within the department.
How has it helped my organization?
In terms of comparing the processes and tasks automated using Automation Anywhere versus how they were done prior to implementation, a lot of the processes had remained the same, especially in the early years. A lot of people were leveraging RPA platforms to recreate processes the way a human was doing them, so the look and feel were very similar to how a human was doing a process, going across applications over the UI, whereas now, there is a heavy focus on process improvement. A lot of people are leaning into process improvement or re-engineering a process before it is automated and making sure that we are automating the right thing.
It allows for more reliable dynamic automations if you can leverage something out of the UI. You can leverage a database or an API versus automating something similar to how a human would click through a screen. There is definitely a heavy emphasis on design requirements or completely changing a process from a functional perspective, which takes a lot of work, but your automation is easier to create and maintain in the long run.
Before Automation Anywhere, I have used other RPA platforms. From comparing it to others, it is very intuitive. I do not have a development background, but I lead a team of developers. I am trying to manage and teach them how to use the tool as well. I find that it comes across as very easy to use. I have seen a handful of new developers pick it up within a couple of days. They are able to understand the UI and create their first couple of automations within a few weeks and then they get running with very complex things within the first year. It is very intuitive to use. There are definitely a lot more capabilities coming out, but it is all within the same platform. If you know how to go through the platform, they make it very easy to deploy technical solutions.
Automation Anywhere is one of the easier platforms to learn. There are a lot of online resources, and they also have a community forum. If there is not a video on how to do something explicitly and you have a question, in their developer community, people are quick to respond. You can also simply Google something or look at their website, and you will be able to find an answer for it. Especially after you go through the first couple of days of their university's online training through the community version or get your hands on automation, it clicks pretty quickly. When you see it once and learn everything that is in the platform, everything comes pretty quickly after that, so the learning curve is pretty shallow.
In terms of the tools that are integrated with Automation Anywhere, we are doing a lot of work within ServiceNow. I just became aware they have a thing called Connector Builder, which basically allows us to build connections right there within Automation Anywhere with ServiceNow. There are other integrations with SAP or Active Directory right there in the developer's toolkit so that they can build automations with it. This makes integrating with your system of records or whatever systems you are automating a lot easier.
We have not done any integrations with document automation. That is a big use case that we are looking at. I know intelligent document processing has come a long way, so I am very interested to see how seamless that integration works out. In terms of being able to integrate and leverage any of our SaaS platforms or on-prem applications that we are automating, we have not seen any limitations to it. We have been able to automate everything. Being able to use API task paths or just expose more endpoints from an API perspective makes the developers' lives a lot easier. It is technically a little bit harder, but if you are able to use APIs, then integrating that way will alleviate future maintenance for automation. It is definitely useful to have that in the platform.
Automation Anywhere has had a big impact on the business. I can speak mostly from an HR perspective. All of our automations that are currently running in production save about 2 million dollars annually, both from a cost savings and cost avoidance perspective. Certain things have a dollar amount. There is a dollar amount associated with a transaction that we can automate, and then we can also inject that time back into our employees' days. Freeing up that capacity allows them to go use their human decision-making skills on more advanced and complex projects and allows automations to do that manual, repetitive, and mundane work. Hours-wise, I do not have a metric, but we are able to save 2 million dollars with our portfolio. We are continuing to add new automations, which makes that number go up and up.
In terms of time savings, it has been super helpful. We are able to give employees their time back.
We have not had any issues with scalability. Everything from our licensing structure and being able to deploy bots across the enterprise is pretty efficient. Being able to get the most out of our bot runners and start looking at bot performance and utilization across those machines has enabled us to get the most out of it. We are able to deploy everything that at least HR needs right now. I know some of the other companies or departments might need more bot runners to keep up with that scalability. When it comes to end-to-end automation and working across COEs in a federated model, that is a different story. We have not tackled that yet, but in terms of being able to deliver work for HR at our company, Automation Anywhere has been a huge help, and there were no issues in terms of getting the job done.
Automation Anywhere offers a lot of programs to get involved. I recently became involved in their MVP, the Most Valuable Pathfinder program. That is a smaller group in the Pathfinder community that allows us to see early access to what is coming and things that will be showcased at Imagine or the products clubs. We sometimes will be able to get early access to dev environments to go poke around and see what is coming. That helps leadership also see what is coming and be able to make a decision on whether or not to buy new features or capabilities. It gives us a little bit more time to go out to our business stakeholders and the people we are automating processes for and say that there is a use case here. Could we apply some new technologies?
Four or five years ago, we looked at everything in terms of whether we could automate a functional process, but now, there is a lot more coming with Generative AI and intelligent document processing. There are product clubs and community forums to see how others are leveraging the same tools. It is super helpful to see how other people are applying the same technology. It may spark some interest throughout our company.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the platform right now for us is just getting the most out of the tool. When I first joined the company, we were on version 11, which is the on-premise version of Automation Anywhere. Getting over to the new cloud platform A360 has enabled us to get the most out of general RPA or robotic process automation. There are plenty more tools that we are looking at, but just being able to automate functional processes, whether through the UI or APIs, to alleviate that manual work from the department has been really our bread and butter. That is where we see a lot of the value for the company right now.
What needs improvement?
From a platform perspective, our model has been getting operational data back out to our automation owners. We are a pretty small team. We have about 70 automations in production. Everything that we automate, we naturally own a fraction of that just from a technical perspective. Having a team of developers, you want them focused on building new things. We are at an inflection point where we have automated so much that just keeping the lights on certainly takes 20% to 50% of the time, depending on the time of year. Being able to enable the stakeholders is one of my main focuses. If we are automating their process, I want them to continue owning that as much as possible. We are just expanding on the bot insights. From a security perspective, there have been some challenges for us getting our customers in there from a role-level security perspective and making sure that they have full access to the control room and their automation after it is automated. Being able to manage a digital worker has been a big focus. That is what I am looking to get the most out of the tool right now.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been in automation for about seven years now. This is my second or third year with Automation Anywhere, specifically. I just went over my two-year mark. This is the beginning of the third year using the platform.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Automation Anywhere is fantastic. The platform itself is very reliable. Automation, in general, can be finicky sometimes, and it will break. That is business as usual, but in terms of the platform, reliability, and uptime, it is good. If there are patches, by being on the cloud, we get them faster. Fixes and new features are constantly available to us. We have no complaints there. It has been a great journey.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have not had any issues being able to deploy solutions for all of HR. The platform has everything to offer that we would need to automate for our company.
How are customer service and support?
Their customer support is very good. There are very few times when we have to go out and open up a ticket, but every time we do, we get very timely support. We seem to be getting connected to the same reps, which is super helpful to build that relationship. If we cannot find a knowledge article or something online, they point us in the right direction or let us know if there is a patch or something else coming that will fix it for us.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used a competitor. I worked with UiPath for about four years before Automation Anywhere. There are a lot of similarities in terms of conceptual robotic process automation and similar trends in terms of intelligent document processing, process mining, and task mining. I am sure they all have features around Generative AI.
How was the initial setup?
It was deployed before I joined. In terms of the deployment model, it is probably fully on the cloud, but I am not too sure. When I joined two years ago, we were on version 11 on-prem. One of the biggest things I had to do was migrate us from version 11 to the cloud version.
What was our ROI?
Even if we do not automate anything and just keep the automations that we have running, that is going to save around 2 million dollars year over year for our HR group. Continuing to expand into new automations will drive higher ROI. So, year over year, even if we do not continue to automate anything, those savings and those hours continually go back into the business.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I do not have any experience with pricing and licensing. We have an admin team and IT team that handles a lot of the infrastructure and technology, so I would not be able to speak too much about that.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Automation Anywhere was evaluated before I joined my current company, so I cannot speak much about that. I know they worked with an implementation partner, and that Automation Anywhere was obviously the chosen one.
What other advice do I have?
We do not use Automation Co-Pilot. It is definitely one of the items or features that I am very interested in. I was excited to get my hands on it during the bot games today at the Imagine event and see how it works. You can give it a string of text, and it will generate code for you right there in the control room. That is super helpful. I am looking to see how my developers react to that as well. I am sure that would save some time from the developer aspect. There is another aspect for business users. I certainly think there are some use cases there that they would be interested in looking at.
My favorite aspect of the Imagine event has been connecting with everyone in person. I work remotely, so it is nice to see people in person. We get to sit in a room and do the bot games again. We get to see some cool new features and everything around Generative AI. I do not hear the term RPA so much. The big focus in the world is Generative AI. There are a lot of keynotes, and we are able to see how people are starting to apply it early. There is a lot of excitement. It is an exciting time, and I am very interested to see how we will be able to leverage Automation Anywhere with the new technologies.
The Imagine experience is energetic. The world of Gen AI feels like a bit of a playground. It is generating a lot of buzz all the way up at our executive level, and I am sure it is the same for a lot of people. I see the wheels spinning for everyone. There are ideas, and it is good to see everyone saying to start small. It felt a little bit daunting how we are going to apply this, but it is nice to see everyone reiterating the same thing, "It is coming, and you have to be careful. Start small, and it is a journey." It is nice. It is a good pivot.
If I were to invite people to the Imagine event, I would say that it feels like a tight-knit community. There are probably a couple of thousand people here. Seeing familiar faces and being able to meet everyone and talk about some of the same struggles that we might be seeing is good. We get to know how others are thinking through it. Being able to see the new technologies is awesome. That was one of the main reasons I wanted to come. It forces you to take a look at what is coming next and how others are applying it and start thinking so that you can make a decision on where you can help your customers with it.
I would rate Automation Anywhere a solid eight out of ten. It is not perfect. There are probably a couple of little things, but being with the tool for two years, I have seen so much being changed. It is a playground. There are plenty of features and capabilities. We are just scratching the surface, so I am excited to see what is next. It is very good.
Challenging tool in RPA-AA360
It will help to reduce the manforce, it was more benefitting to companies.
Designed for situations where humans and bots work together, especially useful when users need to enter specific details during the automation process itself
What is our primary use case?
We use Automation Anywhere to automate specific use cases for our clients. The majority of use cases fall under the logistics and finance departments.
Our organization utilizes Automation Anywhere on the Automation Anywhere private cloud infrastructure.
We implemented Automation Anywhere to automate repetitive tasks and save humans time to focus on other tasks.
How has it helped my organization?
Automation Anywhere is easy to use with basic knowledge or training.
The learning curve is easy. We can learn how to use it within one week. There are a lot of courses available for Automation Anywhere.
Automation Anywhere Co-Pilot is designed for situations where humans and bots work together, especially useful when users need to enter specific details during the automation process itself.
It has helped our clients significantly increase their production and has freed up time for employees to work on other tasks.
We have integrated Automation Anywhere with our SQL database.
Adding automation into workflows and APIs is easy.
Automation Anywhere helps save organizations time and money.
What is most valuable?
Automation Anywhere's OCR functionality stands out as the most valuable feature for us, as it allows us to swiftly extract data for repetitive tasks, significantly boosting our efficiency.
What needs improvement?
OCR technology could be more inclusive by offering a wider range of supported languages, as its current selection is limited.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Automation Anywhere is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Automation Anywhere does a good job of providing automation at scale.
The scalability of Automation Anywhere has impacted our ability to expand across more processes.
How are customer service and support?
There was a time when the technical support was not able to provide an exact solution for my query.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
While I've used UiPath, I prefer Automation Anywhere for its user-friendly interface and competitive OCR capabilities. Automation Anywhere's bi-directional flow, allowing both graph and sequence views, offers greater clarity compared to UiPath's linear flow.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment is straightforward.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Automation Anywhere nine out of ten.
Automation Anywhere requires maintenance and updates semi-annually. For an experienced person, it is an easy task.
We have eight people on our team who utilize Automation Anywhere.
I recommend taking advantage of Automation Anywhere's trial version to thoroughly test its capabilities within your specific environment before committing to a full deployment.
Easy to learn and use and allows for extensive customization
What is our primary use case?
I basically develop automations and also configure and create new scripts. I do user testing and separate testing as well.
How has it helped my organization?
We use it for legacy applications. We can automate legacy applications well, even with complexity.
What is most valuable?
It's very easy to use. It helps streamline manual processes. Manual work can cost the company a lot of money, but with an automation, work can be just a click of a button. That, and the work is more accurate and happens much faster. Any manual processes can be automated.
While it does use AI, we don't use it too much. We're looking at it. However, it's not something we prioritize.
I like that we can customize almost anything. You can create workflows fairly easily.
Even if users do not have technical skills, they can still use Automation Anywhere. It's not hard to learn.
I did training over one or two weeks. However, I did find some of the training challenging, specifically in areas where I didn't have any background. That said, I'm using it with legacy applications, which makes some things more complex. For most users, it would be very easy to get going.
We did see near immediate results once we started using Automation Anywhere. Within a week or two, once we started testing it, we could see how useful it was.
It's saved us time and money so far. We were able to do reports both before and after running Automation Anywhere and could compare the results and we were able to see that we did actually record savings on both counts.
What needs improvement?
The scripting can be a bit difficult.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for the past three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good. That said, it's not 100% stable. Sometimes it does crash.
How are customer service and support?
I've never contacted technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was fairly straightforward. Our team did not find it to be difficult. our deployment team was pretty small. We only had four or five people working on it. It was easy to upgrade as well. There is some maintenance needed, including the need to take logs. However, it doesn't take too much time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is a bit higher than other options.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did look at other options; however, we needed something that could handle legacy automation, and Automation Anywhere made the most sense.
What other advice do I have?
I'm a customer and end-user.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
New users should be knowledgeable enough to write scripts, as that's the main issue. However, it's a good solution for automating small processes.
Significantly boosted both our sales department's performance and our finance department's efficiency by automating time-consuming manual tasks
What is our primary use case?
We use Automation Anywhere to integrate between different systems like CRM and ERP.
We adopted Automation Anywhere to streamline our operations, enabling us to extend service hours while reducing manpower needs and human error, ultimately driving down costs and improving efficiency.
How has it helped my organization?
Before Automation Anywhere, manual processes were time-consuming and error-prone. Now, automation gives us peace of mind with error-free execution, saving us manual time while running 24/7.
AI, specifically through machine learning techniques, will impact data analysis and decision-making.
Automation Anywhere is easy to use, even for business users. It is considered user-friendly, with clear documentation available. However, I've found the most effective way to learn is by observing colleagues who are building new processes, allowing users to see the software in action.
A non-technical person can learn to use Automation Anywhere within two weeks.
Automation Anywhere has significantly boosted both our sales department's performance and our finance department's efficiency by automating time-consuming manual tasks, freeing up employees, and enabling us to complete many processes without human intervention.
Depending on the task, Automation Anywhere has saved us up to 70 percent of our time, directly correlating to cost savings.
We have Google Workspace, Microsoft Excel, ERP, and CRM integrated using Automation Anywhere.
Automation Anywhere's integration with APIs is durable.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Automation Anywhere is the ease with which it integrates with our existing APIs.
What needs improvement?
Automation Anywhere can be enhanced with additional safeguards during the database-building process to minimize errors.
When dealing with a large number of variables, uploading them directly from an Excel sheet to Automation Anywhere is not supported. In such cases, we have to enter each variable one by one.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Automation Anywhere is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We can scale Automation Anywhere by adding more licenses.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support team is not only responsive and helpful, but they also offer a rich library of documentation that provides valuable self-service resources.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
We need to install a client into our machine to use Automation Anywhere.
Implementing Automation Anywhere proved challenging due to platform-specific intricacies. Each platform, like Google Cloud and AWS, requires unique implementation techniques. Fortunately, once these variations are understood, the process becomes streamlined – it only took me two days to grasp it on Google's platform.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Automation Anywhere might have a higher upfront cost than some competitors, but its extensive features and seamless integration with other tools can save organizations money in the long run. This is because they wouldn't need to purchase those capabilities separately.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
After implementing Automation Anywhere, we explored other options like Microsoft Power Automate and considered UiPath, though I hadn't used it directly. Automation Anywhere provided the smoothest integration with our existing third-party tools.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Automation Anywhere eight out of ten.
Maintenance is only required for the on-premise version of Automation Anywhere and is performed by a couple of administrators.
Daily, we perform routine bot maintenance for a few minutes, unless a significant problem arises.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Users save time and effort since most integrations come with clear documentation readily available before the standard setup process, ensuring immediate functionality
What is our primary use case?
Automation Anywhere is an RPA tool we use to automate common workflows that interact with various enterprise applications. These workflows can involve tasks like data generation, sending emails, or completing transactions within those enterprise systems.
We implemented Automation Anywhere to automate our workflows and save time.
How has it helped my organization?
In the past, these tasks were handled manually, leading to a lot of repetition. Automation Anywhere has eliminated that burden, making these same tasks much easier and significantly faster to complete.
We implemented AI-based automation that combines documents using intelligent document processing. This involved integrating generative AI to automatically create responses based on the data extracted from the documents. This automation streamlines the process and delivers the desired business output to end users.
Automation Anywhere caters to business users with its user-friendly interface, allowing them to build automation with minimal technical expertise. Our large business user community exemplifies this – after a five-day training program with hands-on exercises, they're empowered to independently develop their own automation within three to four days. This highlights the platform's ease of use from a business user perspective.
To ensure our business users can leverage RPA, we provide training through Automation Anywhere University. This platform offers in-depth coverage of both use cases and technical aspects, along with customized training that helps users directly connect their daily tasks to RPA methods. This blended approach has proven to be very effective.
Non-technical users can overcome the learning curve in four to five days.
While Automation Co-Pilot is a strong solution overall and integrates well with web applications, integrating it with legacy systems may require some effort on our part. However, this effort is typically minimal, taking just a few days to achieve successful integration. We're currently testing Automation Co-Pilot and exploring its potential for AI integration, which reinforces our belief in its overall value.
Based on our POCs, we project that Automation Co-Pilot will add value to our projects.
Automation Co-Pilot helps free up our staff's time on projects.
Automation Anywhere's service and customer support are improving. Their management prioritizes strong relationships with customers, evidenced by frequent collaborative meetings. This focus on customer solutions, along with other efforts, contributes to a clear upward trend in their overall support effectiveness. They've been a valuable asset to our organization.
Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize how we implement automation. Our organization sees a significant opportunity to leverage generative AI within the Automation Anywhere landscape. As a bot-focused organization, we have achieved a 30 percent automation feasibility rate. By combining automation with AI, we can achieve a 70 percent rate. This represents the kind of scalability we envision for our organization.
Our organization is expanding its use of Automation Anywhere. We have two main approaches: governance is handled through a dedicated platform integrated with Automation Anywhere, while bot deployment utilizes a separate web platform built with XTML or Java that interacts with Automation Anywhere for bot execution and deployment.
Integrating automation and APIs with Automation Anywhere streamlines workflows significantly. Users save time and effort since most integrations come with clear documentation readily available before the standard setup process, ensuring immediate functionality. Automation Anywhere's documentation serves as the primary resource for all integrations, and users can find most information there. For any remaining questions, support channels are readily available for further assistance.
Automation Anywhere has significantly reduced our operational costs and freed up employee time. With thousands of automated processes running on our platform, we're saving thousands of hours of work every month.
What is most valuable?
Automation Anywhere offers a complete suite of development tools to empower developers for various enterprise automation needs. These tools include packages specifically designed for SAP integrations and other commonly used enterprise applications, making them highly efficient for building automation across different use cases within large organizations. Additionally, the web-based nature of the platform adds further value by enabling easy access and collaboration.
What needs improvement?
Automation Anywhere risks falling behind by focusing solely on Robotic Process Automation when competitors offer more versatile and adaptable solutions that integrate AI for a more intelligent automation experience.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Automation Anywhere offers a 99 percent uptime, ensuring a reliable and stable platform for its users.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Automation Anywhere is capable of automation at scale.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support team is knowledgeable and efficient, readily guiding users toward automated solutions. While some complex issues may require additional data validation, they consistently deliver resolutions within established timeframes.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
Getting started is easy - the initial deployment follows standard procedures and can be completed in as little as two days for a simple use case. Complex setups may take up to a month, and the number of personnel required varies from two to ten people depending on the specific needs of each project.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Automation Anywhere falls within a mid-range price point when compared to other RPA tools on the market.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
After considering UiPath, Microsoft Power Automate, and Automation Anywhere, we chose Automation Anywhere due to its ability to handle growth in our automation needs and its strong data security measures.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Automation Anywhere nine out of ten.
Upgrading Automation Anywhere can be challenging, especially when migrating from a client-server architecture to Microsoft's. However, within the Microsoft architecture itself, upgrades are significantly smoother and can be completed within a four to five-hour downtime window.
While Automation Anywhere itself doesn't require application-specific maintenance, we still need to perform regular maintenance on the server it's running on. One person is enough for the maintenance.
The time to maintain bots varies depending on their purpose but typically ranges from one to four days on average.
Automation Anywhere is best suited for enterprise-level deployments due to its robust features. However, for smaller-scale needs, other options might be more efficient. If you're dealing with a large organization, Automation Anywhere is a strong choice. I recommend trying it to experience its microservice architecture, which allows for scalability and agility, as well as its integrated AI capabilities. These features provide a powerful and user-friendly platform for automating tasks.
The copilot helps our workers save time and focus on more important work
What is our primary use case?
I'm a developer supporting my clients with Automation Anywhere. I work at McKarthy Labs. We use Automation Anywhere to provide automated processing to our clients. For example, we might get paid to do automated invoice processing. The bot can extract all the information, complaints, or remarks in that invoice. All of these details will go into an Excel spreadsheet.
Any repetitive, rule-based task will be appropriate for Automation Anywhere, but a judgment-based task will require some AI to implement. For example, if a user needs to send an email once an invoice is ready, we can check automatically to determine when the invoice is available in the appropriate folder and send the email to the user.
The developer gathers the requirements, and we prepare our business equipment once approved or assigned. First, we will see which applications are being used and how they could be automated. For example, we might need to automate logging into a Gmail account multiple times. We'll create it in three phases: 30 percent, 30 percent, and 40 percent. The process can be completed in about a week. Sometimes, it may take longer due to data scalability issues or some required changes in the back end. Some minor changes in the domain may take a little more time.
How has it helped my organization?
Since we started using Automation, we have automated more and more tasks. We are gradually expanding the capacity. It has helped them save time and money. The automation copilot has helped our workers save time, freeing them up for other work. I have a co-pilot based on SQL database connectivity. It pulls the required information tables. Automation Anywhere's AI is excellent for automating any process.
What is most valuable?
It's easy for non-technical users to work with Automation Anywhere. There are many options and methods they can use if they want to run a bot. The Automation Copilot is helpful. It will automatically give you all the solutions your bot requires. It's like a dictionary.
What needs improvement?
The integration is not always seamless. Sometimes, it takes a while to get everything to communicate and be ready to go into production.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Automation Anywhere for five years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of 10 for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Automation Anywhere support 10 out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used UiPath and Power Automate. It depends on the client's requirements. We use Automation Anywhere if the clients prefer that.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Automation Anywhere is a little expensive, but it's a good value. I've seen many companies use Power Automate, and the subscription is very low.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of 10.
Reasonable price, easy to use, and helps to improve productivity and accuracy
What is our primary use case?
I have built multiple solutions. Many times we have used Automation Anywhere for data entry. At times, we have used it for Excel Automation tasks. We have also used it to create a virtual assistant agent to improve employee productivity and remove manual tasks.
How has it helped my organization?
We built a solution for an airline client where they had to scrub more than 5,000 PNRs on a daily basis, which was not possible with manual tasks, so we deployed a bot there. The bot is doing the scrubbing on behalf of the agent and sending the report at an interval of one hour. Because of this, we could achieve 100% more productivity. Previously, such tasks were done manually. After automation, there is no need for any person to sit for this task.
We are not only using it to automate manual tasks. We are also using it to overcome other challenges.
We are using Automation Anywhere with other applications. We have Python scripts and Java scripts. We do face multiple challenges while automating. Sometimes, Automation Anywhere does not have the required compatibility, so we have to go with another application. For example, if we want to do some kind of highlighting in an Excel file, it is not possible with Automation Anywhere. In such cases, we have to go with some third-party tools, VBA script, PowerShell script, etc.
Automation Anywhere has been helpful for tasks that are repetitive or do not require human intervention. If human intervention or decision-making is required, that task is not possible with Automation Anywhere. Also, if a task is using multiple applications, it becomes complex for Automation Anywhere or any RPA solution.
Automation Anywhere is not very hard to learn for business users. Like any tool, it requires some learning. It takes one to three months for a business user to use Automation Anywhere. There are many learning resources available at Automation Anywhere University. There are complete or end-to-end courses available about Automation Anywhere. You can also do certification in Automation Anywhere.
Automation Co-pilot has been helpful when any human intervention is required in the RPA process. If I need human intervention, I can use Automation Co-pilot where a human can intervene and make a decision on the basis of the data. Based on the decision, we can go ahead with the remaining processes. This is now possible. It is a very useful feature.
It improves productivity. Previously, there were many manual tasks that people had to do on a daily basis. Those tasks are now taken care of by bots, and people can focus on other tasks. It has improved productivity by 30%. We have deployed Automation Co-pilot for 700 users, and there is about a 30% increase in productivity.
We have more accuracy. Bots are more accurate than humans. Previously, there were high chances of human errors. With automation, errors have been reduced. There is more productivity and accuracy.
We have integrated Automation Anywhere with multiple applications. We have integrated it with Salesforce. We have integrated it with Windows services for Windows-based automation. We have also integrated it with other applications based on the requirements.
We have seen time savings, but it is hard to measure time savings. The time savings vary from process to process. For example, it takes a person three to four hours on a daily basis to download the reports, do the scrubbing, and generate the report. With automation, such repetitive tasks can be performed by a bot, and the person can do more productive tasks.
Similarly, the cost savings also vary. Sometimes, we are able to save more. It depends on the data and volume.
What is most valuable?
It is easy to learn and easy to deploy. That is the best part compared to the other RPA solutions available in the market. Automation Anywhere is easier than UiPath and Blue Prism.
In terms of cost, Automation Anywhere is cheaper than UiPath and Blue Prism. These are the advantages of Automation Anywhere, but other solutions have their own advantages.
What needs improvement?
There is a limitation with Automation Anywhere where if you want to build your own packages and deploy them, it is very difficult.
Integration with other applications can also be difficult at times.
Except for Automation Anywhere University, there are not a lot of education resources available for Automation Anywhere. They need to build a strong community for Automation Anywhere where any user or developer can post questions and get answers. That would make things very easy for us.
Its stability and support also need improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for close to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Since the last two updates, we are having issues with Automation Anywhere. Our automation is not working properly on the Chrome application. They are saying that it is because of Chrome. From the stability point of view, I have a little bit of doubt.
I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
We have about 26 people in our RPA team. In my organization, there are about a thousand people who are impacted by Automation Anywhere's automation on a daily basis.
How are customer service and support?
We have raised multiple tickets with Automation Anywhere, but we were not able to find a proper solution from them. I am not very satisfied with their support.
Their support needs improvement. They do not have a proper answer or justification about why we are facing certain issues. When we raise a ticket, we want an RCA so that we do not face the same issue the next time. They are not able to provide an RCA. That is the main issue. I would rate their support a seven out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have a lot of exposure to UiPath and Blue Prism. As compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere has many limitations. Queue-based workload is not very feasible with Automation Anywhere. It is very difficult to use for that. I do not see many users using queue-based automation. That is a limitation that we have right now. UiPath and Blue Prism are good in this aspect. The queue implementation is very easy, and there are multiple things that we can achieve from the queue.
How was the initial setup?
It took about four weeks to deploy Automation Anywhere on-prem, do the basic settings, and do all kinds of installation.
Currently, we have to upgrade our license. Previously, we had the enterprise version with a limited license. We are now expanding the license.
What about the implementation team?
For deploying it on-prem and doing the installation, we have our IT team with about seven people.
We also have seven people to support us if there is any issue with the Automation Anywhere service or any difficulty with the VM on which we have deployed Automation Anywhere.
What was our ROI?
Over the five years, we have seen 50% to 60% ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Automation Anywhere is cheaper than UiPath and Blue Prism. From a market point of view, Automation Anywhere is reasonable. Any organization can adopt Automation Anywhere.
What other advice do I have?
If you are looking for an RPA solution and have cost restrictions, I would recommend Automation Anywhere. It is easy to use.
We are still evolving in terms of RPA. We have a roadmap. We have not yet used the AI capabilities of Automation Anywhere. With the help of AI and other technologies, we will be able to achieve more productivity. We are looking into GenAI and RPA AI. There are so many things where we can implement AI, but as of now, we do not have the right project for that. We have to figure out where we can use it.
Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten. There is a lot of scope for improvement.