Great platform to fulfill not just RPA but beyond
What do you like best about the product?
A360 is a powerful RPA platform that excels in providing an intuitive, user-friendly interface, making automation accessible even to those without extensive programming knowledge. Its comprehensive features, including IQ Bots for cognitive automation and Process Discovery for identifying automation opportunities, support end-to-end business process automation. The cloud-native architecture and extensive Bot Store ecosystem offer flexibility, scalability, and time-saving pre-built solutions. Additionally, its AI and ML integrations extend capabilities to handle complex use cases, while community resources like Automation Anywhere University and the Pathfinder Community foster skill-building and engagement for developers and professionals alike.
What do you dislike about the product?
However, there are areas where improvement could enhance the platform's user experience further. The cost of enterprise-grade licenses and add-ons can be a barrier for smaller businesses. Users occasionally report performance challenges with large datasets and stability concerns with frequent version updates. While basic features are accessible, advanced tools often require deeper technical expertise, which can slow adoption. Additionally, some users experience delays in customer support for more complex issues. Despite these challenges, Automation Anywhere remains a robust platform for organizations seeking scalable and intelligent automation, though refining these aspects could boost its accessibility and reliability even further
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Automation Anywhere addresses several challenges in business process automation by reducing manual effort, enhancing efficiency, and minimizing errors. It helps organizations automate repetitive, rule-based tasks, freeing up human workers to focus on more strategic, high-value activities. Additionally, its cognitive automation capabilities enable companies to process unstructured data, such as documents and emails, improving decision-making and operational speed. The cloud-native approach ensures scalability and accessibility, making it easy to deploy and manage bots across different environments.
For me, as an RPA developer, Automation Anywhere serves as a valuable tool to streamline workflows, optimize business processes, and enhance productivity. Its robust automation framework allows you to build and deploy bots efficiently, reducing the time spent on mundane tasks. Since you're expanding your skills into containerization and OpenShift, integrating RPA with cloud and Kubernetes-based environments could open up new opportunities for automation at scale. If you'd like, I can help you explore how to leverage Automation Anywhere in containerized environments!
Empowers business users and improves customer satisfaction
What is our primary use case?
I am working for a financial organization, and we have implemented more than 100 Automation Anywhere bots in our organization from 2018 till now. Our organization holds all the teachers' annuity and 401k funds, and we automated a lot of use cases related to customer information updates as well as payments for those who are already retired, including pensions and related services.
Currently, my company is evaluating building some agnostic processes and creating our own LLM to consolidate data into a single data store. Once that LLM model is ready, we see an opportunity to automate many things using Automation Anywhere by calling those LLMs rather than multiple applications. Our top priority currently is document automation, extracting data from documents, which we have also been doing for the last three years. At the enterprise level, a separate artificial intelligence team is working on building an LLM that can be utilized by all other application teams.
How has it helped my organization?
Earlier, if a customer called our organization or created a ticket asking for their financial statement, it would take a couple of days to get that, but with Automation Anywhere, they receive their financial statements while still on the call.
Automation Anywhere has helped us save money, as we track use cases with ROI, resulting in FTE savings. For instance, last quarter itself, we processed almost six million transactions using Automation Anywhere, which involved around 70 bots running 24/7, saving about 150 FTEs.
Overall, it is pretty easy for non-technical business users to use Automation Anywhere. One week is good enough to train them, and it is 90% easy for them, except for some technical terms or knowledge required.
It integrates well. We have integrated various tools with Automation Anywhere, including PeopleSoft, ServiceNow, IBM Case Manager, Workday, and Clarity. We have integrated CRM tools, HR systems, and some homegrown applications and workflow systems. With IBM Case Manager, we were able to integrate Automation Anywhere for end-to-end process automation, handling case creation to completion.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is that it does not require any technical knowledge; if we educate business people, they can automate their daily tasks and activities. It is easy to use for non-technical people, with a simple drag-and-drop interface, so they don't need to be technically savvy to automate their processes.
What needs improvement?
To improve the product, one aspect that Automation Anywhere can work on is archiving legacy data effectively. Currently, data older than current versions remains on the server, slowing the system down.
Additionally, they should introduce a generic RE framework for better framework creation within organizations, along with enhanced task statistics captured at the transactional level rather than just the top level.
Their support should also be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost eight years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability can be of two types: process-wise scalability where common functionalities are created, and infrastructure-related scalability where we forecast loads for upcoming quarters to adjust our current capacity accordingly.
How are customer service and support?
I have contacted technical support multiple times. Especially when I was involved with IQ Bot and earlier A360 versions as a beta user, I faced numerous issues that required direct collaboration with the support and engineering teams for immediate resolutions or feature enhancements.
I would rate Automation Anywhere's support a four out of ten because the support is horrible for all customers. Response times and resolutions are significantly downgraded, leading to a frustrating support experience that ultimately harms the client-vendor relationship due to lengthy email back-and-forths instead of direct communication.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
It requires a bit of technical background from the server and infrastructure standpoint. If someone knows middleware, it is pretty straightforward. There can be hiccups here and there. Especially in the earlier versions, there were a few challenges, but it is now streamlined in A360. Everything is pretty easy.
Upgrading Automation Anywhere can vary in difficulty, with package version upgrades being easier than transitioning from version 11.3 to A360, which is tougher and requires significant setup work, including roles, accesses, and schedules.
What about the implementation team?
I handle the whole deployment and system upgrades personally. I am supported by a couple of people working offshore for any issues. Overall, I manage all upgrades and installations, while the two others assist anyone needing help with particular VDI or bot issues.
What was our ROI?
I see the benefits of Automation Anywhere based on the ROI factor. While immediate customer satisfaction is noticeable because customers are able to get their statements quickly; from an organizational standpoint, it shows a return on investment within six to twelve months.
Automation Anywhere has helped us save money.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The current pricing for Automation Anywhere seems a little higher compared to competitors Power Automate or UiPath. Automation Anywhere is perceived as pricey due to the support model charges ranging from 20% to 30% based on the plans. A lot of organizations are moving from Automation Anywhere or UiPath to Power Automate.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I was working at this company when Automation Anywhere was evaluated and deployed. I was one of the core members to identify what tool to use for RPA technologies for this organization. We evaluated Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere in late 2017, as those were the two RPA vendors available in the market. We identified Automation Anywhere and began onboarding from there onwards, working from scratch to implement it at the organization.
What other advice do I have?
I connect with business leaders to review the processes and identify who is manually doing these processes. I connect with business leaders every month to identify the best use cases that need to be automated. We identify the processes that need to be automated or have chances for automation. We evaluate the ROI, and based on that, we go ahead with the implementation. We assess the ROI and compare the processing speed or delivery speed to customers and customer satisfaction as our measures to keep track of statistics for human versus automated processes.
We are not using the Co-Pilot, but I work with community forums and help others, gaining hands-on experience with the Co-Pilot. For real-case scenarios, we are not exploring or introducing the Co-Pilot to the business as we are still working in a hybrid model due to market conditions. Once the market stabilizes, all businesses will be happy to explore the Co-Pilot or Discovery in the future, maybe at the end of this year or so.
I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.
RPA Solution Architect
What do you like best about the product?
Custom framework and SDK development with drag and drop
What do you dislike about the product?
Transaction level history or dashboard not available or custom dashboard not available
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Accuracy and time sensitive processing
Automation reliably improves data handling and streamlines verification processes
What is our primary use case?
I automate data entry by receiving files from one system and making data entries into other applications. Additionally, I perform file transfers by receiving files from one system and uploading them to another application. I also have OFAC verification procedures, which were previously done manually. I enter a local application, and depending on the pending cases, execute all verification processes automatically, sending responses to other applications. Basically, I have extensive data transfer automation. Moreover, I have automation that receives a file from another system and executes a procedure or invokes a web service to upload or create other things.
What is most valuable?
The product, in general, is more stable. The latest version provides easier vulnerability management. The new version offers a better experience in recognizing objects. The Co-manager tool helps calculate saving costs. Many of the issues I had in version eleven were resolved in version 360. The cloud version of Automation Anywhere 360 eliminates all the vulnerability management, making it much easier to manage. The application replaced about three employees for the OFAC verification processes, thus eliminating the need to hire more people for those tasks.
What needs improvement?
The new version requires one project to be open at a time, making it slightly more difficult to manage tasks compared to the previous version. They sell every different functionality in too many separate packages, making the procurement process complicated as it requires paying additional licensing for more features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for about six years.
How are customer service and support?
The support is good. Sometimes the technical team doesn't know too much about the situation, and they rely on knowledge articles. However, they have improved.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
This is my first RPA solution. I have other automation solutions in my company, but this was my first RPA solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup for the initial version, version eleven, is not too complex, medium. The latest version is easier because it requires less infrastructure.
What about the implementation team?
One person was involved in the deployment.
What was our ROI?
The bot replaced about three employees, saving hiring costs.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I think it is expensive. It is not a cheap solution. Though there are other options that possibly can be less expensive, this is not a cheap solution. It's not for everybody.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
My supervisor conducted research based on the Gartner reviews and decided to go for Automation Anywhere. This analysis was made several years ago.
What other advice do I have?
The overall rating of Automation Anywhere is eight on a scale of one to ten. Other departments in my company use Control-M and Ansible for automation. If I did not have Automation Anywhere, we might have needed to hire more people for certain processes. I don't have any direct integrations, but I do have several project integrations via file or triggering a bot when an email is received.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
User-friendly and works well for web automation and SAP automation
What is our primary use case?
I am working as an RPA Developer, and I am expected to create bots that simplify people's jobs, allowing them to focus on more important tasks. I am tasked with creating robotic processes.
How has it helped my organization?
Business analysts come to us with their problems and want to find out if we can address them with robotic process automation. My role is to confirm whether we can do it with Automation Anywhere. They handle the metrics calculations in terms of the impact on the business, but I am informed that with Automation Anywhere, we have streamlined processes, eliminating errors and reducing time. Previously, these jobs were performed manually, but with Automation Anywhere, they can concentrate on more significant tasks.
Its integration with Outlook and SharePoint was easy with the help of the Automation Anywhere team. After we got information about the connection strings and other things from them, integration was easy.
What is most valuable?
I like web automation and SAP application automation.
It has a good interface. Those who do not have programming experience can easily use Automation Anywhere. It is very easy to learn. Within three months, they can start creating basic automation.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes, I find that Excel automation is not as expected. Excel automation can be enhanced. For instance, to accomplish tasks faster, I use scripts. However, if I could achieve the same speed without scripting, that would be ideal.
For web automation, the recorder package can be improved. It is sometimes hard to catch certain elements on the web.
The Automation Anywhere community is less active than the UiPath community, which is a downside. When I ask questions in the Automation Anywhere community, responses take a longer time. I have checked the UiPath community, where there are more active participants.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used this solution for a bit more than four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. It is being used for automation for multiple departments. I am working in the RPA team. My company has more than 100 people, but the RPA team has seven people using Automation Anywhere. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
When I encounter difficulties, I raise a ticket with the Automation Anywhere team. They respond promptly and are willing to help, but some team members seem to lack the necessary skills. As a result, problems that typically should be resolved in one day may take three days.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I only have experience with Automation Anywhere.
How was the initial setup?
I have not installed Automation Anywhere.
The deployment of automated tasks is easy. I can do it in two minutes. I have used both on-premises and cloud models. In terms of maintenance, the bots usually require updates when there is an issue or there is an update from Automation Anywhere. It is usually once every three months.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I do not know the price, but I am told that it is cheaper than UiPath.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this product to other users because it is user-friendly, and I appreciate its features, such as SAP automation and web automation.
We have not yet used AI in Automation Anywhere, but there is an upcoming course on integrating AI, which I will attend.
Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.
Eliminates mundane tasks and is frequently updated with new features
What is our primary use case?
Get manual tasks done by automations wherever possible. For now, we only use task bots. We use them across whole EMEA at RICOH for different departments like: Business Services, SCM, Annuity & Services, Data governance, Finance and Sales. When I joined Ricoh, there were 30 processes in production and now we scaled up over 50 processes in production and counting.
By implementing Automation Anywhere, we wanted to get rid of the mundane tasks. They are better to be carried out by bots so that the employees can focus on tasks that need human decisions, not repetitive tasks. We also wanted better customer satisfaction.
We also have an email automation where people can write emails to us 24/7, and we create service requests inside Siebel. It is an Oracle app.
How has it helped my organization?
With all process in production so far, we reduced the manual effort which led to more satisfaction by employees to get rid of the mundane tasks and focus more on tasks which need human decisions. Especially for our Annuity & Services department we have a quicker response time, and this led to more customer satisfaction.
What is most valuable?
Automation Anywhere constantly bringing new features in their product. Which will open more possibilities for automation out of the box.
The integration of coding languages like Python, JavaScript an VB Script will allow to extend the capabilities.
The bot store is also a good point to explore pre-built automation to integrate in your tasks.
To keep yourself up to date they provide Skill Booster learning trails for the new features and product updates.
What needs improvement?
The website has a lot to provide, but with this whole variety of information it is hard for me to keep track and navigate through.
AI agents need constant improvement, but this is by the nature of AI.
We had a use case for handwritten documents, which we were not able to extract safely, so some improvements on document automation would be great.
For how long have I used the solution?
I am using Automation Anywhere as a developer since September 2021, so for almost 4 years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability because we can use the workload management feature.
We have approximately 20 people using this solution.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate their support an eight out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to Automation Anywhere, we were doing almost everything manually. We started with Automation Anywhere version 11 and later migrated to A360.
How was the initial setup?
We have a separate team that handles the integration and setup. We are still on the on-premises version of Automation Anywhere. We are not using the cloud version. We have virtual machines running for us developers. We have a development environment where we use our own dedicated VMs. We develop automation on these VMs, and then we push it through the UAT and the last life cycle for production.
As far as I have heard from our team, they said it was easy to implement.
We started with version 11 of Automation Anywhere back in 2019. When I joined the team in 2022, we were migrating from version 11 to A360. I directly started in the migration phase where I could help with my fresh knowledge, because I was one of the first ones certified in A360.
What about the implementation team?
Our central RPA team, which handles resources, currently consists of five people. I am not sure how many people from the service provider are involved, as they handle on-prem resources. On our side, we have five people pushing these things to production. As a developer, not much maintenance is required.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I am not involved in the pricing, but based on what I hear from our central RPA team, it is not very expensive; it is also not cheap. Its price is in the midrange.
What other advice do I have?
We are not using the AI tools from Automation Anywhere, but we have created some of our own modules, which we are triggering in combination with Automation Anywhere in Python scripting language. We are using this combination for text analysis and problem descriptions from our customers. We are getting the sentiment score to categorize these service requests so that our agents can handle them better. We will, for sure, investigate if we can use Automation Anywhere's AI capabilities in the future.
I am responsible for showing and teaching new joiners how to work with Automation Anywhere. We also have some new citizen developers. We have asked different departments if they have some people on their team who are interested in this. They are not professional developers like me, but I teach them the basics. I also recommend they join the citizen developer training provided by the Automation Anywhere University. They take that training first, and then we do in-depth training tailored to the RICOH processes. It takes them three to six months, but it also depends on how much time they can spend on the training because they also have their regular work.
If you start using Automation Anywhere I highly recommend the Automation Anywhere University platform to start with the learning trails.
These are focused on three roles: Automation Lead, Automation Developer and Citizen Developer.
Also, great content on the Skill Boosters which will give you in depth training on a particular topic.
To scale your automation journey, good practice is building central tasks like “switching a responsibility” in Oracle with proper error handling that not every developer needs to implement these by his own. With these generic central tasks, it will also save time in terms of maintenance.
For any questions you might have, you can ask them in the Pathfinder Community where you get answers from Automation Anywhere’s global community of Pathfinders.
For companies starting new process automation implementation, I would advise not to tackle the largest processes at the beginning. Start with small ones to track benefits and demonstrate to the board what process automation has achieved in a short time. In the past, we tackled larger problems first and spent one or two years getting them to work end to end as expected. This was not the best strategy.
I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Easy to use, quick to learn, and simplifies processes while reducing errors
What is our primary use case?
I use it for a variety of shared service applications. It helps manage the volume of processing and handle many incoming ticket requests. I also utilize it for invoice processing, aiding AR collections, and some reporting. There is quite a variety of applications for Automation Anywhere.
What is most valuable?
I like the web-based development and the control room interface, which is robust and works well. Importantly, I experience fewer errors with finding screen elements to interact with when compared to other automation software.
Automation Anywhere presents fewer maintenance issues.
The built-in features, such as the connector builder and AI development tools, are easily accessible, keeping the software up-to-date.
Before joining, I observed it to be a robust program with immediate visible benefits. I had fifty bots running, effectively demonstrating their workload. The hard parts, like recognizing ROI, building a backlog, and setting up internal infrastructure and governance, were already completed. Having done this elsewhere, I appreciate these accomplishments.
There are a lot of good built-in features like the connector builder. The AI aspects are very good. The software is keeping up with the times and I appreciate the new features they add.
It's easy for new users with no experience. You can learn quickly. You can also use pre-built packages that allow you to build a bot without much experience. There's Automation Anywhere University to assist as well. All of the tools are there to build a very robust robot. There is a learning curve within development. However, if you already have basic programming skills or a basic understanding of how computer science works, then it's fairly easy to build the bots that you need and can incorporate advanced logic, looping, variables, and things like that. If you understand those concepts, then it's not hard at all.
We have integrated other tools or applications with Automation Anywhere. That's one of the things that RPA is really good at. I couldn't say I've integrated other applications with Automation Anywhere so much as Automation Anywhere with other applications. We're using a lot of external vendors and automating processes for those external vendors that were problematic since they didn't integrate well with others.
What needs improvement?
The main request I have for Automation Anywhere is to focus more on technical demonstrations. They do extensive marketing and explanations of new technologies, which are great - however, often less technically focused. Common use cases are frequently repeated, such as loan processing and order fulfillment. I would like to see better and more technical use cases for the AI features, showing how to build them instead of repeated general examples.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used the solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is rock solid. Stability is great. I have never had any concerns about downtime or other issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The software is very capable. I am small compared to others, however, as a higher education institution, I'm probably one of the largest as a whole. The software can scale as far as I need, with no limit other than the investment of money, development time, and effort.
How are customer service and support?
Initially, it took me some time to reach the right team for help, however, the support was knowledgeable and resolved the problem fairly quickly. Although it took a little over a week due to the tricky nature of the issue, I am generally satisfied with the support and have no significant concerns.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used UiPath previously. I like Automation Anywhere better.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy. It took me about a week or two to understand how to use it, and that's being generous. The concepts are straightforward and it's very similar to UiPath, beyond a few differences.
We haven't needed to update to a new version. The major update from on-prem to cloud was done before I came.
The more minor upgrades were painful, yet not at all due to Automation Anywhere. ERP updates and things like that required us to test every bot. None of that was a fault or a problem with our Automation Anywhere. The rest was relatively smooth and straightforward, and the control room updates were relatively smooth and straightforward. This last update, we had a little bit of a hiccup. However, working through support, we got a workaround until the fix can get into place.
There is some maintenance needed on the bots. That's not the software's fault. The maintenance effort is quite low compared to what I was used to.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing is fine. Renegotiating our contract was challenging, however, I have a new salesperson, and I am excited about working with him.
What other advice do I have?
I'm an Automation Anywhere customer.
I have spent the last year getting a handle on Automation Anywhere, bringing five years of experience with its main competitor, UiPath. The opportunities for AI are boundless, and I am working heavily with the hospital to identify use cases. I am incorporating AI in invoice processing to extract data correctly and for image preprocessing.
Benefits form transactions, like enrollment forms for healthcare and dependent change forms, are the next focus.
I have yet to use Copilot, although I do have a use case that I'm hoping to build out.
In terms of seeing the benefits to Automation Anywhere, this particular job had already been using it for five years before I came. So the benefit had already been realized, and it was already a fairly robust program. I could see the benefit the first day I started. We already had 50 bots running, and it was very easy to see all of the work that they were doing. The hard part had already been completed in terms of recognizing ROI and building out a backlog of work, and having the infrastructure and the governance internally set up was already huge. I've done all those things before in other employers, and that takes significant time, a couple of years, to do it properly. Since that was already done, I could just hit the ground running, and we could just build more bots and make the bots that we had more robust.
I rate the product eight out of ten.
Automation software reduces manual effort significantly with user-friendly functionality
What is our primary use case?
I use it mainly as automation software. Any kind of processes that are manual, like data entry, for example, I definitely use it for those. Many legacy applications like Mainframe that don't have APIs or can't access the data to write out to that system are addressed mainly for those purposes.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the ease of use. It's very user-friendly. Someone with even basic technical prowess can jump in and learn it very quickly. The difference is night and day. With processes involving three or four people, having it full-time manually to address that, and once we implement the automation software on these processes, it effectively reduces eighty to ninety percent of the manual effort.
What needs improvement?
The automated regression testing could be better. I need to build my own testing suite, and I know other tools have built-in testing suites. That is an area that's very weak in this platform.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for about six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is pretty good. They are responsive. Just like with any software organization, they usually deal with tier one support, and nine times out of ten, I know more than they do. I get some good support when I advance beyond tier one support. When it gets escalated to the next level is when I receive some good responses and better support.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I think it's a little difficult to scale just because they don't have an automated regression testing suite. We currently have a bottleneck at quality control because of that. If I had to give it a number, I would say six.
How are customer service and support?
Their customer service is pretty good. They are responsive. Just like with any software organization, they usually deal with tier one support, and nine times out of ten, I know more than they do. I get some good support when I advance beyond tier one support. When it gets escalated to the next level is when I receive some good responses and better support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used UiPath, Blue Prism, OpenRPA, and NintexRPA. I've dabbled in a couple of others, and I can't even remember what they are because there are so many, but those are the main ones that I've used throughout my career.
How was the initial setup?
It was already in place when I got to my company.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I think the setup cost is comparable to the other solutions. I don't think it's anything out of the ordinary. I've been on platforms that are a lot more expensive, and this one is comparable.
What other advice do I have?
I would give them an eight out of ten. I definitely would make sure that you at least have some basic understanding of development, just basic principles, and then start training in Automation Software Anywhere Academy. Many like to think businesses can come in and build stuff, which they can, but sometimes they don't know basic software design principles. Once the volume increases or if they don't build it correctly, there are constant issues, and then we have to bring in the core team to help out. It's nice to say something, but in action, it's something that's not the same. Let's put it that way. You can build anything, as I said, you can build all kinds of things, but is it built correctly?
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Empowers business users to execute bots with AARI, and saves a lot of time for developers and users
What is our primary use case?
I work for a company, and we mainly automate tasks that we deem necessary, which are often repetitive and mundane. Anything that can be automated to save costs, from the finance and manufacturing perspective, is automated.
We are currently considering how to use it for document automation so that we can read unstructured data, such as invoices, that is a little bit messy and hard for a standard rule-based OCR to understand. We are also looking at an AI solution that could do that for us.
In terms of integration, we use tools like SAP. That is a big one. We have integrated Python scripting a lot. We also use Active Directory.
How has it helped my organization?
The advantage of Automation Anywhere is that it automates the mundane jobs that are brainless or take up time out of people's day that they could use to do other tasks. That was the main challenge that we wanted to address by implementing Automation Anywhere. We wanted to free up time in other areas by automating jobs that would make good candidates to do so.
It is built keeping business users in mind. Every single human being who uses a computer uses a UI, so automating those clicks is not a very complicated thing. You are just telling the computer what to do. In that respect, they try to make it as simple as possible to use things like Excel, send emails with Outlook, and automate clicks on a computer. That part is done well.
Allowing business users to trigger the bot means that I do not have to worry about scheduling or triggering the bots. I can just give them the keys to the car and let them do whatever they want to do. It saves time. We spend less time micromanaging and more time developing.
I have heard from people who are using these bots that it is saving them hours every week, every day, or so. They start to see those time savings instantly.
What is most valuable?
AARI allows business users to trigger the bot, so I do not have to schedule everything. This convenience allows users to utilize it as they need. I can set it up to provide users with a form to fill in all required information, and then the bot operates based on those specifications. AARI is very convenient, and that is their biggest selling point.
What needs improvement?
I have found that Automation Anywhere is prone to bugs in handling Excel. It breaks and gives vague error messages. I have had a lot of experience with that and learned that it is better to write a Python script instead of using Automation Anywhere's package when dealing with Excel because it is buggy and tends to break, unfortunately.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have only been using it for about seven months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I do not remember having any problems. It usually does not lag or crash. Some packages, like Excel, can behave unpredictably, but I have never had any issues with the application itself.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I do not have much information about scalability. When use cases come, I just build them and move on.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before Automation Anywhere, I used Power Automate by Microsoft. I prefer Automation Anywhere because it is more robust. It allows us to build more powerful applications. Power Automate was great for small-scale things, but it had its limitations.
How was the initial setup?
It was already deployed when I got here.
In terms of maintenance, the updates happen monthly. I do not have to do anything, but there is some maintenance when users want to get connected to run bots. There is a little bit of upkeep that happens there. Other developers sometimes do not have the necessary permissions. That process is not particularly painstaking. It is usually painless. There are two or three of us involved in the maintenance. We spend very little time on maintenance. It does not happen too often.
What other advice do I have?
In our organization, there is a fairly steep learning curve because we have a very particular framework in terms of the way that we handle our bots and our processes. This is likely not the case with other organizations that do not have a similar framework. We like to break down our bots in a very particular way, and we like to control our bots' inputs with configuration files and use Python scripting to handle a lot of work rather than using Automation Anywhere's packages because it is more effective, but then there is a little bit of a steeper learning curve.
I never had to train somebody who is not technical on how to use Automation Anywhere, but you could teach someone how to make something super simple in 30 minutes, and then give them an hour. You can quickly teach them how to send themselves email reminders or do something similar, so you could get going pretty quickly.
Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten. It does what it does well.
Boosts efficiency in billing management and significantly reduces costs
What is our primary use case?
I am an assistant professor in a DMI institute in our country. In our institute, we have to manage a lot of invoice billing. I have been using the bots to automate and maintain invoicing in our institute.
We have also been using AI. I have created many projects, such as a virtual assistant, to automate tasks in our institute.
How has it helped my organization?
Automation has been playing a significant role in every aspect of our institution. In our institution, it is very difficult to manually manage more than 1,000 people's data. I like the ability to automate and the bot feature in Automation Anywhere.
Previously, we were doing everything manually. We needed a lot of people to do the work manually. We need 20 to 30 people to manage invoice billing every day. With Automation Anywhere, it has become very easy for us to do invoice billing. It has saved us about 80% of the time. We only need 10 people now. Financially, it has helped us a lot because we can manage tasks very easily with few people. The workload has been reduced by using automation.
I like to make use of Co-Pilot with every task because it is very reliable. They have improved it a lot. I like to use it every day and integrate it with my software. A task that takes months can be done in weeks with the help of Co-Pilot. It helps us save time and do other tasks. It saves a lot of time for employees to do or prioritize other tasks.
In terms of integration, some of our staff have been using the integration of Automation Anywhere with Microsoft 365, but I have not integrated it.
What is most valuable?
The interface is really nice and user-friendly. Anyone can start right away.
What needs improvement?
I have been using IQ Bot, and its accuracy can be improved. It could be more accurate.
Managing all the bots in the control room can be a difficult task for a large organization. The control room features could be enhanced for better performance.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for around one year in my institute.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
At times, I faced some issues with Internet connectivity, even though I had a good Internet connection. This happened at the initial stage, but over the last five to six months, they have improved a lot. Other than that, everything is perfect. I would rate it a nine 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.
The automation is used by 60 to 100 people on a regular basis. Around 50 to 100 people use it at intervals. They are not using it regularly in our institute. Overall, there are about 200 to 250 users.
Around 30 to 40 people are involved in maintaining the bots that we have been using. We usually assign them tasks to maintain the bots weekly. It takes a few hours. It is not a big deal.
How are customer service and support?
Support is really good and genuine. I would rate their support a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have not used anything other than Automation Anywhere. We were introduced to this by an employee of one of my friends, and we have been using it. We have not used any other solution.
How was the initial setup?
For a non-technical person, it can be a little bit complex, but it gets easier with time. A couple of days are enough to learn and deploy it.
We have five to six people involved in its deployment.
What was our ROI?
It has helped us save a lot of time and money. It helped us a lot financially.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is reasonable and affordable. If you consider the tasks that we can get done using this, the pricing is reasonable and affordable.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, it is not very difficult, but initially, it can be a bit difficult to understand how the bot works. Over time, even a non-technical person can manage it. A week or ten days would be enough to learn everything and start using Automation Anywhere.
I would suggest starting small for anyone new to Automation Anywhere. I would also recommend learning and gaining experience from those who are already experienced. Other than that, it is fine. I would definitely recommend Automation Anywhere to everyone.
I would rate Automation Anywhere a solid eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud