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4-star reviews ( Show all reviews )

    Prashant Mohare

Automation Co-Pilot enables us to present details from CRM for business management on one page

  • June 21, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

In the banking, financial services, and manufacturing domains it is used for process automation and OCR.

For example, it is used by banks for large-scale reconciliation. A group of companies often has multiple bank accounts. We have to do the reconciliation with multiple currencies. On a daily basis, there can be more than 10,000 transactions.

How has it helped my organization?

We have implemented Automation Co-Pilot in our organization. Suppose a business head needs to check the details about a customer, such as order history, payment clearance time, how many invoices have been sent, and how many of them have cleared on time. They may also need information about how many projects they have executed with that customer, how many of their resources have been used, and how long that customer has been associated with their organization. I get all this information in one portal by using Automation Co-pilot.

It is talking with Monday.com, our CRM, as well as with our in-house project management tool, and SAP, where I get all the account details. It gets all the information needed and more, such as how many times we had discussions with the customer about multiple projects, and which salesperson is assigned to that customer. All the details required for business management are presented on one page, using Co-Pilot.

An example of how Automation Co-Pilot has affected our productivity is that in India the taxation system differs from that in the UK. Everything is on a government portal. If I want to deal with new customers and need data about their previous taxation, I obtain all the details from the government portal using Co-Pilot.

We also use Co-Pilot for customer support. We are the number-one partner in India for Tableau and data analytics and we have many projects where we provide Tableau support. We've configured Co-Pilot to gather all the necessary background information from our support system about a customer who raises a ticket. This information is displayed on one screen from our project management systems, repositories, and accounts. All the details are presented in our ticketing software, Jira. Based on this information, we understand the customer's scenario, and what kind of dashboards and RPA processes they have implemented. Initially, a customer support ticket is opened by a chatbot, not a human. The chatbot communicates with the customer and registers the ticket. A bot then opens the ticket and triggers Co-Pilot to gather all the details. With all the details collected, a bot will then assign that ticket to a specific person. This process, which used to require three people, is now done completely by bots.

Another benefit is around approval processes. You can build one using Automation Anywhere Co-Pilot when multiple levels of approvals are involved. Initially, we didn't have an approval process. Multiple people were in approvals. Now, with all the details in a ticket, when it is resolved, it is approved by the manager. That wasn't integrated into Jira, so we automated that in Co-Pilot. A solution should be verified by a senior person. Now, when tickets are approved, it helps us provide a good customer experience and customers will renew their contracts.

And in banking, where you have thousands of loan applications each day, assessing each application involves getting the applicant's credit score and details from multiple portals and government websites. Making a decision for one applicant used to take half an hour. But by using Co-Pilot, the decision-making time is reduced to just five or 10 minutes. It is genuinely helping people speed up operations and decision-making processes.

It has also helped us increase automation. Every day we are sending the "overdue" report to everyone in sales because they do the recoveries. The salespeople update all the details in the database and a reminder is automatically sent to the customer as well as the salesperson if the payment has not cleared within the payment terms. Initially, there were three people generating the reports and sending them to Salesforce, updating SAP, et cetera. Now, there's only one person who is handling the exceptions, because there are exceptions that are not handled by the bot.

Now, our salespeople are focusing more on business opportunities and not worrying about payments. Most of the time, payments are taken care of by the bot.

After we implemented that process, we then implemented vendor invoice processing, customer invoice processing, customer payments, PO processing, and bank reconciliation. We have implemented multiple processes.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature, which was launched last year, is Automation Co-Pilot. Microsoft has a co-pilot, but it's only for Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. But Automation Anywhere offers a co-pilot that is suitable for Salesforce, Genesys, Atlassian, and other contact center and standard applications. This is a game-changing feature for Automation Anywhere compared to the market. We are also getting good responses from customers about this product.

Automation Anywhere is easy to use. In my experience with more than 100 customers, coding is not a big deal nor is writing the bot. Understanding the process and providing optimized workflow, and fitting RPA properly for their processes are important.

In terms of the learning curve, Automation Anywhere provides detailed resources through their portal, including instructor-led training, prerecorded sessions, and exams. When training my team, I initially recommend that they go to the Automation Anywhere University. Then, for two days, I provide high-level training, covering the use cases and overall process. We then give simple use cases to the team and they are ready to implement them. Within three months, I have trained a team of over 20.

I hire people who have worked with other technologies but who want to shift to RPA. They already have knowledge of processes and their logic is strong. Others don't know about logic or how to apply algorithms.

I'm impressed with the solution's OCR and document automation because I've worked with multiple OCRs and Automation Anywhere has built in most of the document formats so you can easily get results. You can easily and quickly extract data from a PDF and it's faster than other tools.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see a low-code/no-code platform, similar to Zoho Creator or Joget, for process building, so that we can build applications within Automation Anywhere itself. Right now, we need some kind of portal that supports these types of activities. We would like to give a 360-degree solution to our customers without needing to get help from other technologies, like Joget to build processes, or Java to build custom portals.

If Automation Anywhere included these features, I would be able to include all these processes. There are features in place in Automation Anywhere right now, in AARI and Co-Pilot, but they have limitations. They do not match the development capabilities of platforms like Joget or other applications like that.

I'd like to see the stabilization of Co-Pilot and integration with multiple products. Right now, it is integrated with Genesys and Salesforce, among others. In the future, I will require integration with SAP Oracle, Atlassian, and Service Now. The contact center vertical is important and ticketing comes into the picture. We can build integration with Atlassian, but I have to do the coding and use extensions on everyone's laptops. Integration of Co-Pilot with Atlassian and other products will help the user.

For instance, if a big bank wants to automate loan application management with Co-Pilot and I need to use their CRM, if the CRM is not supported they won't do the project. And if a bank has over 3,000 loan agents, I have to install the extensions and integrations on each of their laptops. Instead, I could add one line of code inside Atlassian and get all the results automatically on everyone's laptops. This would save a lot of time for both developers and customers.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Automation Anywhere for more than four years.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is related to the product only. We receive good support from them because they respond within one hour. They even have chat support.

Customer environments aren't the same. Sometimes they block the reverse proxy or other things. That's when I need help from Automation Anywhere because they are the product experts, while we are implementation experts. If we have an issue with the product, we get help from Automation Anywhere.

For example, if there is a problem with communication between the server and client and the bot is down, I need to contact Automation Anywhere to resolve the issue. We reach out to Automation Anywhere for these kinds of problems, but we handle process-related or implementation-related issues ourselves.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I worked with UiPath for about two to three months.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Co-Pilot is not free. It has a user-based cost. If I have 100 users, I need to purchase 100 licenses. But for practice purposes, you can get the Community Edition where you can understand all the details for implementing Co-Pilot.

The pricing is reasonable.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Automation Anywhere is the only RPA tool that is developed using something other than .NET technology. If you go for UiPath, Blue Prism, AutomationEdge, or Pega, they are all built on .NET, and only support Windows. But Automation Anywhere is developed on Java and Python entirely, and is totally web-based. Other tools are desktop-based. That means I can install their server on Linux too. Most banks and many other enterprise organizations require servers on Linux, not Windows. That's an advantage for Automation Anywhere.

We are working with one of the top-three banks in India. They have a policy that all servers have to be Linux servers. Because of that, UiPath and other tools were eliminated in the first stage of the deal.

We did build our own product related to OCR but not RPA, but Automation Anywhere is the biggest product. We also looked at Power Automate, but cost was a factor. Power Automate charges per process, not per bot. For example, it doesn't take more than 10 minutes to close the last month's General Ledger. One of our customers was paying $600 per month for this process with Power Automate. He went with Automation Anywhere, where he only had to pay $3,000 to $4,000 in total for an unattended bot, which was able to help 24/7.

And to get all the components in UiPath that are similar to what you have in Automation Anywhere, a customer would pay more than $37,000, while an Automation Anywhere customer would only pay $25,000. That is a game-changer.

As for using an API integration instead of RPA, API is faster than desktop automation, but it depends on the scenario. If you want to work with standard applications like SAP or Oracle, you can use APIs or desktop automation. I faced an issue with one of my customers who said that to do an API ABAP integration for SAP automation, he would have to pay for automation and ABAP development. I suggested he not pay for ABAP and just do desktop automation. What will be cost-effective depends on the scenario and the automation.

If a customer has to spend $10,000 on ABAP and another $30,000 to $40,000 for Automation Anywhere, they will kick us out. But if we go with Automation Anywhere and there is no need for ABAP, and instead we'll do desktop automation, the customer will be much happier because they are saving costs.

What other advice do I have?

I have replaced existing portals for multiple customers. For one of my customers in Dubai, when we came into the picture, multiple things were not in their portal. They had developed the portal in-house. We started by understanding all the requirements. Before we started with RPA, we redeveloped the portal and then applied RPA OCR and pushed the data where it needed to go.

People develop their portals according to their convenience, but they don't know the standard processes and how to implement them. When they have to provide reports to management, or they have to do an audit, or they have to check details of particular transactions, they don't get the details from their existing portal or process. We standardize their process and then we implement RPA. If their process is not standardized, RPA will be a failure for the customer.

A simple process, from requirement gathering to production, takes about one month. Solutions don't require more than two or three people. For smaller projects, we don't assign a dedicated project manager. Instead, we use a shared project manager. The business analyst is also shared, because the costs of these roles need to be recovered. If the cost isn't recovered, there's no need for us to assign this role. The business analyst will do the final testing of the project because they're involved from the initial phase of the project.

The time spent maintaining bots depends on the bots, the situation, and the customer. A critical process might have 40-plus unattended bots and might take two resources during business hours for project support and monitoring. But I recommend support on an hourly basis.

An enterprise with multiple licenses should have at least one dedicated support person. That resource will provide reports to management. For instance, when discussing future projects, management will require all the information to approve the budget. We can present all the information: the number of transactions over the last month, and how much time or money was saved. Support will also provide training to business users if required. When AARI is part of the picture, we have to train people.


    Chiranjibi P.

RPA innovation and future ahead

  • June 21, 2023
  • Review provided by G2

What do you like best about the product?
Systematic, error-free, easy to comprehend, collaborative, fast and useful mechanism for any organisation to activate on. It provides a seamless experience for all the stakeholders. Thanks team!
What do you dislike about the product?
Timely support and periodic features updates are what would be on the top of any executive's mind while leveraging any automation/ RPA tool. That's the space where your team needs to put more efforts.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Configuration of products - mostly BFSI related
Design and innovation around financial services offerings and services
Contract outsourcing modules
Upgradation of the existing IT setup


    Tianyuan Zheng

Is cost-effective, integrates well, and increases automation consumption

  • June 16, 2023
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

We use Automation Anywhere for our Finance department.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere is cost-effective.

The ability of Automation Anywhere to provide automation at scale is quite good.

Automation Anywhere integrates well with APIs, RPA bots, and business applications.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation consumption by over 20 percent.

What needs improvement?

The customization feature should be made more user-friendly in order to enable the use of external reference components.

The technical support has room for improvement.

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 is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere is hardly scalable.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We are a partner of Automation Anywhere and find the pricing to be reasonable. There is an additional cost for using OCR.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated UiPath, but the cost is higher compared to Automation Anywhere.

What other advice do I have?

I give Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.

Users of Automation Anywhere should possess programming skills. The learning curve for the solution is straightforward. Training for Automation Anywhere does not exceed two weeks.

If the solution is maintained by the business user, I believe that robot automation processes are better, as they do not require the same skill set.

We use Automation Anywhere in our Finance, Pricing, and Purchasing departments.

Automation Anywhere requires a significant amount of maintenance. The maintenance is performed by me and two of our business partners and requires approximately ten minutes of testing per day to ensure everything is running properly.

Our organization is planning to transition from using Automation Anywhere to Blue Prism Cloud due to our business requirements. I highly recommend Automation Anywhere to other users.

Automation Anywhere is a suitable solution for businesses.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)


    reviewer367378

Provides automation at scale, frees up time to focus on value-added tasks, and increases automation consumption

  • June 15, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

I am striving to provide individuals with more time to focus on value-add tasks due to widespread headcount reductions. For instance, in finance and accounting activities, we use Automation Anywhere to replace individuals in maintenance tasks or those that were previously unknown to be time-consuming. This is where we witness the greatest utilization of bots.

Moreover, we employ bots to handle fines associated with individuals driving company cars. With hundreds of fines occurring each month, it used to be a nearly full-time responsibility for one person to receive the fine, identify the driver at the time of the incident, and ensure the fine was directed to the appropriate person for payment. Such activities lacked significant value and consumed a considerable amount of time for someone, but now the bot handles these tasks on our behalf. I believe that finance is the primary area where we extensively utilize Automation Anywhere.

How has it helped my organization?

When we began deploying the bots, we established Key Performance Indicators to assess the return on investment. For instance, if a bot could save one-third of an individual's time, we would evaluate the amount of time saved and dedicate it to value-add tasks. However, evaluating the exact monetary savings facilitated by the bots is challenging because the funds are not directly spent on low-value activities. Instead, they can be utilized differently.

It is important to note that the bots never completely replaced human workers. No job was entirely taken over by a bot. Rather, it was an assessment of how effectively we spent money with the assistance of bots, as they enabled individuals to perform tasks more efficiently. Although I don't recall the exact details since it was in the past, we would reassign the equivalent of full-time employees to these value-added tasks instead of low-value ones. At the time of my departure from the RPA topic, we had 150 bots in production, and we had a clear understanding of how many full-time employees would be dedicated to higher-value tasks as a result.

The ability of Automation Anywhere to provide automation at scale is commendable. We have indeed achieved tangible business benefits. That is certain. I am no longer aware of the metric used to evaluate this, except for the fact that we have eliminated various mundane activities from the workday of numerous individuals.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation consumption.

What needs improvement?

From what I recall of the type of issue we had to deal with when we started implementing Automation Anywhere, it was the integration with the identity and access management system that the company might use. This is because Automation Anywhere has a vault where we store all the information related to the bot, including the password it will use to connect to the system. The feature, which might be interesting for companies that don't already have an identity management system, was a bit tricky because I would have preferred the system to directly rely on our corporate identity and access management system to manage the bot's credentials. This way, we wouldn't have to store this information in the bot as well. It's something to consider in terms of integrating with an existing IT landscape.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did not encounter any stability issues with Automation Anywhere during the time I worked with the solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support was helpful and responsive.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We had previously been using UiPath, and in late 2017, we acquired an organization that was already using Automation Anywhere, which belonged to a much larger organization. Consequently, we began to explore that tool and benefited from our colleagues' positive experiences with Automation Anywhere.

They were able to provide suggestions on the setup and deployment of the solution. As a result, we ultimately decided to discontinue the use of UiPath and transitioned to Automation Anywhere. Without the acquisition, we might not have implemented Automation Anywhere and instead would have continued with UiPath or explored other alternatives. Due to the acquisition, we were able to recognize that Automation Anywhere was one of the market leaders and swiftly create a proof of concept.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. Although I was involved in the deployment project, the actual installation was carried out by those responsible for implementing the Windows servers.

We needed to acquire the hardware because we had an internal cloud at that time, so we still have it. I would say that we managed to allocate the servers. It didn't take long. We provided training for the people who would deploy and customize the product with the assistance of Automation Anywhere in France. The global deployment infrastructure was ready to be used within a few weeks.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house with the help of the Automation Anywhere team.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We obtained benefits from the original price prior to the acquisition and had to engage in negotiations due to the expansion of the usage scope. We were required to purchase licenses and bot runners, which determined the permissible run times for the bots. We successfully achieved a fair price worldwide.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

We primarily utilize an attended bot, meaning they are not created by users. We have made efforts to retain control over IT in bot creation to prevent it from becoming a new avenue for shadow IT. When we started in 2018, the final department had a dedicated team responsible for bot development. However, they eventually hired contractors who developed C-Sharp programs that interacted with SAP through APIs. The bot would simply launch these programs, which is not the ideal method for automation, as we believe the bot should directly interact with the application instead of relying on a separate program to communicate with SAP through an API. I believe the team responsible for this no longer exists. Presently, we have a process in place to identify relevant use cases, and we are collaborating with a subcontractor who creates the bots for us based on specifications provided by the business.

We utilize Automation Anywhere with an attended bot. This implies that after receiving the specifications from the business and creating the purchase, we establish an agreement on the bot's scheduling for execution. However, the user never directly interacts with the bot; they only observe the results of its actions. Therefore, there is no need to provide training for users to utilize Automation Anywhere. We maintain IT control over it, while the development itself is outsourced. Consequently, the issue of the learning curve is not applicable to our situation.

We didn't use a lot of APIs with Automation Anywhere. Instead, we simulated the user's actions on the application's user interface. I can't recall any instances where we relied on APIs to initiate actions in the systems we were connecting to. However, I am aware that APIs can be utilized. There was a point when we wanted to employ APIs to retrieve the password or the bot from our identity and access the financial system just before the bot was about to commence its task. Additionally, we intended to trigger an API to reset the password once the bot had completed its job to ensure that there were no potential security threats associated with the user IDs used for the bots.

For those who prefer using API integration instead of a comprehensive process automation solution, I would like to emphasize that it's not exactly the same approach. Integrated APIs require developing a program for them to interact with. In my opinion, RPA offers a more straightforward approach as it simply replicates user actions within an application. We already have a ready-to-use bot. However, I wouldn't recommend using bots for everything, especially when we encounter use cases that resemble interfaces.

Essentially, it involves manipulating the user interface of an application to extract data and then sending that data to another application on a daily basis. This approach doesn't seem logical. I'm not sure about the usage of APIs in the context of actual IT program development, where we need to retrieve data from various source systems that provide APIs. In such cases, we genuinely desire bots that faithfully mimic the actions of real users within an application. Our intention was never to replace any kind of deployment with bots, which is why we wanted Information and Communication Technology to be involved in the decision-making process. We wanted to ensure that the distinction was made between tasks that should be handled by bots and those that should be treated as interfaces or programs, aligning with our understanding of process automation.

We have a team of three people in Spain who are in charge of the daily operation of the Automation Anywhere platform. However, deploying our new bot is a quick process. There is a test environment where the bot is validated, after which it is transferred to the production control room and the bot's schedule is updated.

The team responsible for the data operations of the platform, taking everything into account, including the intrusion of the new bot into the production environment. They also handle the platform's maintenance. I believe we have three individuals dedicated to these tasks.


    reviewer2212380

A user-friendly, time-saving solution that has a low learning curve

  • June 15, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use Automation Anywhere in our HR department for onboarding and attendance verification. We also utilize it in our Finance department for bank transaction reconciliation, and in our assets department for multiple data entry of assets in the system.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere has helped us integrate different data entry systems.

It has a low learning curve and can be utilized for traditional automation with minimal training.

Automation Anywhere has saved hundreds of working hours per year for our organization.

It is capable of providing automation on a large scale. The technology is remarkable.

In the latest release of Automation Anywhere, version 360, new features have been included to facilitate connectivity with APIs, RPA bots, business applications, and documents. Additionally, users can now leverage their own language and Python for enhanced functionality.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase the consumption of automation.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable aspect of Automation Anywhere is its ease of use.

What needs improvement?

The optical character recognition of various documents and templates, particularly when using the Arabic language, has room for improvement.

The technical support has room for improvement.

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?

With the new release, Automation Anywhere is extremely stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere is scalable and capable of adapting to any new requirements and technologies.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup requires some expertise. We formed a team to handle the preparation, installation, and configuration of the platform internally.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing for Automation Anywhere is reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten. I appreciate their solution, as they continuously improve by addressing the gaps.


    IshanDutta

Helps increase our automation utilization, saves us costs and time

  • June 14, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

I use Automation Anywhere to automate multiple desktop applications for data filling, data collection, and information downloading.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere assists customers in building automation to streamline workflows where they require multiple tools, thereby saving valuable time.

The learning curve to train semi-technical people is around one month.

Automation Anywhere saves us costs. To have a human perform the same job would cost four times as much. The solution also replaces humans in repetitive, tedious tasks, thereby enhancing employee satisfaction. We observed the benefits within the initial four months of usage.

Automation Anywhere's capability to automate critical scenarios for delivering scalable automation is absolutely solid.

The integration of RPA bots, APIs, business applications, and documents in Automation Anywhere are integral components.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation utilization. Prior to using Automation Anywhere, we needed four employees to accomplish the work that can now be done by just one with the help of Automation Anywhere.

What is most valuable?

Automation Anywhere's image reader is the most valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

AI would enable improved automation and faster training times that would be reduced from one month to one week.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of Automation Anywhere is the best among all these automation solutions.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere excels at scalability. We can effortlessly deploy thousands of machines. I give the scalability of Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

We provide our own support and do not depend on Automation Anywhere's support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex, primarily because of the time required for the first deployment. The deployment takes one hour. First, we need to ensure that the infrastructure is correct, install the automation workflow, and then implement each of the workflows on them. Afterward, it should be run for one to two days before handing it over to the employees. Two DevOps administrators are needed for the deployment.

What about the implementation team?

We implement Automation Anywhere in-house.

What was our ROI?

Our organization has seen up to four times the return on investment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Automation Anywhere is expensive, making it suitable only for enterprise organizations. Although there are more affordable solutions available, they lack the comprehensive features of Automation Anywhere and cannot scale to meet the demands of large organizations.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

It is challenging for non-technical individuals to utilize Automation Anywhere. Automation flows are authored by humans, making it impossible for non-technical individuals to directly program Automation Anywhere.

I also use Blue Prism and UiPath alongside Automation Anywhere.

For someone who wants to use API integration instead of robotic process automation, it is important to note that APIs cannot be utilized in all desktop integrations. As more individuals transition to the cloud, it is recommended to employ a combination of both APIs and robotic processes.

Automation Anywhere is deployed on 100 hosts, each with 100 users.

We offer a periodic maintenance review for the individuals utilizing the solution to ensure the functionality of the workflows we have implemented. The maintenance process requires the involvement of three individuals.

Five percent of the time is spent on maintaining bots.

There are several scenarios that function well when we design the workflow, but they do not function properly in the production environment due to intermittent issues that may occur with the specific host. Consequently, it is essential to always take into account the type of host and ensure that it can handle special cases automatically, relieving the burden from the workflow creators.


    Aishwarya Khanna

Helped our organization increase its automation consumption

  • June 08, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

How has it helped my organization?

We could automate BPO processes, and people were shifted to other tasks because we could automate the manual tasks.

It has helped our organization increase its automation consumption.

What is most valuable?

It's easy to use for business users. Everything is good. It's a nice product.

What needs improvement?

The integration in UiPath is much better. Automation Anywhere's latest version has improved. It's fine but not as good as UiPath.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for two to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable, but it also depends on how the development is done.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable. We have plans to increase the number of users in the future.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is good. They take a day to get back. It also depends on the severity. I'd rate them 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 haven't used any other solution. I am comfortable with Automation Anywhere. I know about Blue Prism and UiPath, but I haven't worked with them. UiPath also has many features. The new version of Automation Anywhere is similar to UiPath.

Every tool is good. Every tool has its advantages and disadvantages. There are benefits to using any automation tool, such as Automation Anywhere, UiPath, or Blue Prism. It depends on which tool you are the most comfortable with.

How was the initial setup?

It's very easy. They have changed it in the latest update. The latest update does not need any kind of preparation. There are just basic requirements of RAM that should be met. You just need to log in on the web browser, and it gets installed. It isn't an issue.

What about the implementation team?

It was deployed by our team because Automation Anywhere doesn't help for the latest version. It can be deployed by one person.

In terms of maintenance, you do require a support team because the bot sometimes stops. It isn't error-free. Sometimes, the site is down, so you need maintenance. You need a support team for it. Every RPA tool requires some support. The number of people required for maintenance depends on how many bots you have. If you've deployed 100 bots, you would need five to ten people. The maintenance time also depends on the issue.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Based on what I've heard, it's costly, but I don't know much about its pricing or licensing. I'm not a part of that.

What other advice do I have?

I'd recommend this solution to others.

It's easy to use for business users and it's easy to learn.

It's easy to learn for non-technical employees, but you should approach it with a logical mindset. Only then can you learn it. The tool is easy to use, but for applying rules and other aspects, you should address it logically.

It takes a while to realize its benefits because you need to train people. It takes four to five months to see the actual results.

Overall, I'd rate it an eight out of ten.


    reviewer1584543

Makes our processes error-free while boosting productivity

  • June 07, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We typically use Automation Anywhere for backend operations and financial processes, such as APR.

How has it helped my organization?

The biggest benefit of Automation Anywhere is that it makes our processes error-free. Accuracy is how you build efficiency within the system and increase productivity.

What is most valuable?

Document Automation, one of Automation Anywhere's core features, is excellent. All the other features are also useful, and their cloud solution is pretty seamless.

Automation Anywhere is relatively accessible to non-technical business users. It's about 60:40. Around 60 percent of the solution is intuitive, but you still need to do some work to learn the platform. The company offers strong learning resources. Most people can easily learn Automation Anywhere in a couple of months using tutorials.

Automation Anywhere works with POST and REST APIs, so it's easy to integrate with any platform or application. Automation Anywhere is applicable to any industry or department where there are large volumes of processes that are straightforward and require no manual human intervention.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Automation Anywhere for nearly four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate Automation Anywhere 10 out of 10 for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate Automation Anywhere 10 out of 10 for scalability. We usually optimize one or two processes until we can achieve an ROI and scale them up for the entire organization.

How are customer service and support?

I rate Automation Anywhere support 10 out of 10. They have a solid team to address any issues or glitches as they arise.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

We typically deploy to Automation Anywhere's public cloud. We haven't used the private cloud option because it's expensive. I'm the project delivery manager, so I was involved in the deployment. It doesn't require any infrastructure because it's in the cloud.

The deployment time depends on the complexity of the processes. Simple processes can be configured in a couple of weeks, but complex projects might take up to three months.

The number of people involved also depends on the client's needs and the licenses purchased. You need a developer license for each engineer. Automation Anywhere licensing is based on the individual users, not the partners. For example, let's say a project will take one engineer three months, but the client wants it done in 45 days. You would need to double the number of engineers and pay for an additional license.

Automation solutions require some maintenance and change management because no process remains constant. You will need to update and optimize the bot as the process mechanism changes.

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI. It's hard to give a solid metric because every organization has a different way of calculating it and it varies between processes. However, I can say that Automation Anywhere reduces costs while increasing productivity and accuracy. By automating repetitive tasks, we can shift our human employees to more productive work that requires imagination and creativity.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Automation Anywhere is expensive. They should consider lowering the price to make Automation Anywhere more affordable to SMEs, which comprise a huge segment. The license is annual, not monthly. You need to pay for some of the advanced features, such as document automation, which doesn't come with the base package.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Automation Anywhere nine out of 10. RPA can be integrated with API and integrated on top of any application. However, it's always better to go with API if you have that option. It's steadier, more scalable, and more robust. The best part about RPA is you can create a hybrid model, so you can use API when available or RPA when that isn't the case.


    SabrinaTrabelsi

Has cloud capacity, can increase automation consumption, and is scalable

  • June 02, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to automate the financial process.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere has helped improve our organization by automating many processes that used to take us a lot of time.

We see the benefits of Automation Anywhere within one year of launching a project.

Automation Anywhere has been helpful in scaling our organization's automation efforts.

The latest version of Automation Anywhere makes it easy to integrate RPA bots, APIs, business applications, and documents. However, we had a lot of problems migrating from the previous version.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase automation consumption.

What is most valuable?

The capacity to use Automation Anywhere in the cloud is the most valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

We have a new feature share in Automation Anywhere, but it does not migrate automatically from the previous version to the new one. Therefore, we had to do a lot of work to adapt the records to the network, which was a problem.

I would like Automation Anywhere to have more integration with for example, with AI platforms.

The technical support response has room for improvement.

Automation Anywhere is not user-friendly and could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Automation Anywhere for four years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere is scalable. We have 100 end-users and the solution is deployed across multiple locations and departments.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support response time is slow. They are difficult to contact and I am not satisfied with their support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I previously used UiPath, which is more user-friendly than Automation Anywhere. UiPath has many more features, and a better platform, making it easier to learn.

How was the initial setup?

My manager completed the initial setup, but I believe it was complex. The deployment required one person from Automation Anywhere and four people from our technical office, including my manager.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house with the assistance of an Automation Anywhere tech.

What other advice do I have?

I give Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

Automation Anywhere requires users to have some technical skills to use it.

For someone who wants to use an API integration instead of a robust process automation solution, I would say that it depends on the API process. Performance is not the only factor to consider.

We have two people responsible for the maintenance of the solution.

We maintain our bots daily because our processes are complex and ever-changing. We spend around two hours each day maintaining bots.

Automation Anywhere has a steep learning curve and should not be learned on the job.


    Marina Maged

They've added some handy Excel actions that have saved me a lot of time as a developer

  • June 02, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use Automation Anywhere to automate our processes. The company has three bot creators and one bot runner, but there are other users triggering the bots in various ways. I don't have a precise number of end-users, but it's around 20 people.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution's primary benefit is improved efficiency. Automation Anywhere enabled us to enhance many processes that were previously done manually. It helps save time while improving compliance by keeping the data clean. We've also increased visibility for our end-users because we use the data from Automation Anywhere to build dashboards.

Each process might take one or two hours manually, but we can complete the same processes in a few minutes. It frees our employees to focus on other things, such as training and building new skills. It took about three weeks to fully realize the benefits because we had to adjust the processes.

The API integration has been helpful. There are no errors, and it performs much faster than any object clone or anything like that. My overall experience with API integration is positive. I use Power Automate for documents and OCR, but I haven't used Automation Anywhere for this purpose. It saves time if we use the APIs more than just the RPA bots, and it reduces the number of errors. Overall, our automation consumption has increased by about 70 percent.

What is most valuable?

I've had a generally positive experience with Automation Anywhere. The solution has improved significantly in the latest version. They've added some handy Excel actions that have saved me a lot of time as a developer. Object cloning has been enhanced, so our automated processes are more stable and have fewer errors.

Automation Anywhere is accessible to users without technical knowledge. However, you need to learn some basic programming skills to go from conceptualizing a business use case to realizing an automated process. Breaking down a process step by step requires some rudimentary programming and problem-solving skills. Most of it is drag-and-drop, but you need to understand programming logic.

I had some programming skills before I started, so it wasn't difficult for me to learn. It took me about two weeks to get comfortable using the software. There are lots of resources online, so I could easily Google information whenever I got stuck on something.

I haven't tried training any non-technical users. When I started at this company, we all underwent the same training. The employees' skills and backgrounds varied. I have more of a technical background, and another colleague had taken some programming courses previously. Others had backgrounds in finance, operations, marketing, etc. All of those people took seven days of training, but they aren't doing anything with Automation Anywhere. They're business users, not developers. Non-technical people need at least a couple of weeks to learn the solution.

What needs improvement?

We've struggled with some of the new features Automation Anywhere added in the latest version. For example, they added a new OpenAI package, but it took a while for me to find it in the actions menu.

It would be helpful if the company communicated more about new features or created some built-in instructions within the platform. I feel like we aren't fully utilizing the latest features. They could add some links to tutorials or provide some training to walk us through the new features.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Automation Anywhere for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability has improved significantly in the latest version.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of 10 for scalability. The scalability is excellent because we have subtasks and bots that we can reuse to scale up other customers. We can build templates and customize them for various clients' needs. We can also combine sub-tasks and templates to build bigger bots.

How are customer service and support?

I rate Automation Anywhere seven out of 10 for support. We had a customer service rep who was supposed to help us with issues when they arise, but we had a bad experience, so we started going through the ticketing system, which has worked out well.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I was using the online version of Power Automate to try it out for a week or two.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of 10. I recommend getting some training before using Automation Anywhere. Try to automate as many processes as you can to understand appropriate use cases. You must learn to translate a business requirement into a bot's coding. Learn as much as you can about all the features. It's sometimes hard to keep up with the latest updates.

My biggest lesson has been the importance of persistence. You have to keep trying to improve the processes because there are often better ways to do something and multiple approaches you can adopt. You need to occasionally revisit processes you've already automated and consider ways to improve them. Initially, I would automate a process and move on, but you sometimes need to optimize the process first.