Efficiency and accuracy improve significantly with document automation
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case for Automation Anywhere began with order processing, specifically the order-to-cash process, where we manually enter orders from the customer through PDFs and other methods.
We started from four bots and have grown to close to 60 bots at this point, expanding significantly from two or three processes to ten times that scale over the last five or six years.
What is most valuable?
Our document automation, specifically with IQ Bot as part of the automation, has significantly improved efficiency and proficiency, allowing us to be currently engaged in proof of concept initiatives aimed at further advancing the document automation process with generative AI.
Document automation has indeed been beneficial in handling large volumes of documents in our organization, where we process product-related data sheets that range from 80 to 120 pages, efficiently extracting data that would take a human several hours to read manually. I can confidently say that document automation saves us time, as it takes human effort significantly down from five to seven minutes manually per PO. It is being executed much faster by the bots.
One of the notable benefits we've realized from Automation Anywhere is a significant reduction in errors when processing data, which improves both revenue accuracy and operational efficiency.
In the age of agentic AI, the big challenge is moving to the next step. We are currently running all RPAs now. So robotic automation is the key for us now, and we are moving to the next generation of automation, which is agentic processing. We need a helping hand to make sure that our company strategy and the goal can be achieved with this agentic automation. This year, we have had a big push from our leaders to be involved, more and more, on agentic processing. That's a focus for us.
As we evolve from RPA to APA, we are at the early stages. We're just moving over. The first step we are taking is a document automation with AI capability on top of it. That's our first step that we are doing at this point of time. Eventually, we'll get there, but it's really early.
We are using some AI. There are 20 to 30 tools at this point. So we are trying to bring in Automation Anywhere into one of those ten. It's in the evaluation phase at this point. There's a big team working on it. We want to get the right tool both legally and via a vetting process before we can bring any tool into the company. That's an ongoing process.
What needs improvement?
Automation Anywhere can be improved by integrating self-correction capabilities into the bots, particularly as we develop RPA, where changes in environment paths require additional redeveloping efforts.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've used the solution for around five to six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There have been no downtime issues since we migrated to cloud. The availability has been good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Automation Anywhere is scaling well.
As we aim to keep up with current technology trends, we are working on enhancing our growth rate moving forward.
We have around 2500 people worldwide.
How are customer service and support?
The support from Automation Anywhere has been outstanding, with timely responses to submitted tickets and effective resolutions for issues that have arisen.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting Automation Anywhere, we used B2B automation for a long time for our needs, and the limitations of other tools in handling complex PDF transactions were significant factors that prompted us to consider a change.
How was the initial setup?
I was significantly involved in the deployment of Automation Anywhere, being the sole person from my company starting this automation journey, and we faced some initial challenges, particularly with hardware setup when we transitioned from on-premises to cloud, which eventually became smoother.
What was our ROI?
I've seen a return on investment with Automation Anywhere, as we've measured time saved, starting from 50 days per quarter to about 1500 days per quarter with the deployment of bots, equating to substantial human time savings.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is average. It's not an expensive tool. The pricing is mid-range.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting Automation Anywhere, we considered several tools including UiPath, which we had set up for financial functions and Kofax for SAP automation, but ultimately chose Automation Anywhere for its scalability across the company.
What other advice do I have?
For companies considering Automation Anywhere, my advice is to prioritize identifying and automating the most critical processes rather than trying to automate everything, ensuring that a thorough study backs these decisions to maximize support from leadership and demonstrate success.
We are not utilizing Automation Anywhere COE manager, but we have developed our in-house COE manager since we started the process independently in 2019.
On a scale of one to ten, I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Flexible automations with a low-code platform with a strong foundation
What is our primary use case?
We implement Automation Anywhere for our customers or for our clients, but we also use it internally for our own processes too.
How has it helped my organization?
We're in a growth phase, so this solution helps us scale and standarize processes so we can do more with less.
What is most valuable?
The low-code platform is pretty easy to learn, especially if you have come from a technical background. Then you can build quite a few powerful automations with it already with the traditional RPA in terms of the flexibility it gives you.
There are additional features, such as document automation, that expand the scope in terms of what you can use it for. It's a great multi-tool. Every piece of it works really great.
For us, the features of Automation Anywhere help us scale our automations and standardize our processes. We are able to do more with less, and that's been the key for us in terms of using the platform.
In our automation processes, we are utilizing the AI Agent Studio mostly in our training. We haven't fully rolled out any live automations yet. That's something we'll implement very soon. The integration features of Automation Anywhere are flexible in terms of what you can connect to. You can bring it over lens or use what's available, which gives a lot of flexibility in terms of how you can use the platform.
We have explored the autopilot capability of IQ Bot AI, and it's maturing. We are keeping an eye on it to determine if it can speed up the development work for us. We are definitely curious and will continue to explore as the product evolves.
We utilize Automation Anywhere's CoE Center of Excellence Manager. Its impact on visibility in the automation lifecycle is actually very important. It shows the complete lifecycle of opportunities, from what's in pipeline to what's been deployed, and how those deployments are performing in production.
In the age of agentic AI, it's allowing us to imagine what comes next.
My impression of the AI governance features in maintaining compliance and data integrity in our company so far is positive. Though we haven't rolled out anything actively yet, from what I see, it gives quite a granular level of control in terms of what can be done and how different outputs can be controlled. AI governance is very important to our company, and while the AI Agent Studio's compliance feature might not be as mature, there are security requirements around keeping our customer data safe and secure.
What needs improvement?
The availability of material in terms of more technical documentation could be improved, particularly in-depth information about how things can be done. I'm not saying it's not available at this time, but there's always scope in terms of playbooks, especially with APA coming out, as things can be done differently than traditional methods. It would be beneficial to have standardized playbooks that we can use to understand change management, position this to our leadership, and demonstrate the art of what's possible. Some playbooks of that kind, especially on the execution level, would be nice.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for about five years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before adopting Automation Anywhere, we haven't really used other solutions.
How was the initial setup?
What I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is that it's pretty flexible in terms of standing it up. You don't have to have a whole lot of infrastructure setup that's required for it.
What was our ROI?
It has not yet influenced our automation programs and we're not really tracking the level of return on investments.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, the setup costs, and the licensing of the Automation Anywhere platform is that it's pretty competitive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We do test different solutions to see how they are in the market. They don't necessarily have with Automation Anywhere offers.
What other advice do I have?
Automation Anywhere helps us overcome operational challenges. Especially with what's been announced recently, the solution expands a lot more beyond what was typically possible so far. I'm looking forward to checking it out in practice and seeing how much we can push the platform.
We've just started with APA, so we don't have anything rolled out yet, however, we are looking forward to actively using it.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. Within any solution, there is always room for improvement. They seem to be going through a maturity phase. The foundation is strong.
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
Robust automation simplifies revenue cycle management but logging feedback needs improvement
What is our primary use case?
The main objective of using Automation Anywhere is revenue cycle automation and our tie-ins with the hospital allow us to work in different parts of the revenue cycle. It specifically automates either patient info collection, Medicaid submission, and similar tasks. It is all contained within the revenue cycle, which represents the main services we provide to our clients.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is that the tool is very robust. It can handle buttons moving around and any elements changing. It makes the process super easy to maintain and, in terms of tracking failures, it is improving. It is very good for new websites, identifying elements effortlessly.
What needs improvement?
My main issue with Automation Anywhere might be the logging of bots and getting more detailed feedback of what my bot is doing, step by step. It is hard to track fine-tuning in larger codes.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for maybe a year and a half to two years now, or rather I have been using it since I joined.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Automation Anywhere definitely allows us to provide more reliability and affirmation to the client. For every client we successfully automate, it is a checkmark in our book to show that we have a huge skill set of bots and different capabilities.
Having them operational month-to-month and reporting that they work is a very good confidence booster, especially with smaller hospitals when this is the only grant they can invest in. Once development is done, the bot is relatively stable. It does have some discrepancy with older websites but performs really well with all new websites, current revenue cycle automation, or any submissions we have to do. It reduces the pressure of maintenance significantly because even with numerous website changes, the maintenance becomes negligible for us.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
When bringing Automation Anywhere, we were trying to solve the time taken in these processes for hospitals. We aim to improve how fast they can charge their insurance or patients, ensuring they hit their revenue targets. We are expanding into other fields, still centered within healthcare. Having these small working components and consistent bot performance brings in the next client, which is a significant goal for us.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In my company, I have not used another product that does the same as Automation Anywhere, but I have studied and used UiPath briefly. That was about two and a half to three years ago.
How was the initial setup?
When bringing Automation Anywhere, we were trying to solve the time taken in these processes for hospitals. We aim to ensure we can improve how fast they can charge their insurance or patients, making sure the revenue part is properly managed as that is what we are ensuring they hit.
What about the implementation team?
Our team is based on two engineers and one team lead.
What was our ROI?
For every client we successfully automate, it is a checkmark in our book to show that we have a huge skill set of bots and different things to accomplish.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Regarding the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of the Automation Anywhere platform, I have limited experience in answering as I do not represent the company in this aspect. From what I have heard from my team, the basic pricing seems to work for us.
For larger scaling pricing of other features, we need to bring in more clients and a larger volume to justify the potential cost of the license. Every automation license is specific for each hospital since we cannot share files or security due to HIPAA compliance requirements. Currently, we are able to bring in clients in the current price range, though it is becoming more challenging.
What other advice do I have?
We are among the smaller scale clients for Automation Anywhere. The AI component is something we are still not utilizing much because it is difficult to justify the license cost to our clients. In the healthcare sector, there is hesitation to implement AI due to security concerns and a preference for manual processes during their initial step into automation.
A-People platform is particularly helpful for discussions and finding solutions to issues. The support team provides regular updates and maintains good communication even in uncertain scenarios. The platform has a growing repository of answered questions, similar to resources available for other programming languages.
We use OCR extensively, particularly for older websites and legacy systems where button identification is challenging. We have three active builds in production using only OCR, which demonstrates the robustness of the system.
On a scale of 1-10, I would rate Automation Anywhere 7.5 to 8. While I might rate it slightly lower as a developer who works with it daily, most of my team would likely rate it 8.5 to 9 because it effectively meets our needs and critical client requirements.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Automation streamlines finance and HR processes, leading to faster implementation and greater efficiency
What is our primary use case?
I started in the other company with the manufacturing processes for logistics and finance. Now, I am implementing processes for finance and human resources.
My challenge is to use Automation Anywhere for automatic manufacturing and services. I always push my finance team first, and they have to improve the financial processes before we use Automation Anywhere.
How has it helped my organization?
Automation Anywhere is helping us improve processes, as it can handle specific improvements. As we can execute the same processes, it is now easy and fast. With the APA, we can improve more processes. As the processes are more automated and easier to use, it is faster to gain value. Automation Anywhere is helping me overcome these challenges.
What is most valuable?
Comparing Automation Anywhere with other tools for RPA, in my opinion, it is better because it is easier to use for both the final user and the developer. This gives us many benefits because we can automate the processes more easily.
APA has helped me achieve my automation goals. It's helped us achieve some of our automation goals. It's made things a lot easier. We have integrated the APA and RPAs with SAP, with Salesforce, and with many data sources.
I'm using the AI agent studio in the automation process.
I utilize document automation in my current processes. We introduced automation, and where we previously had to use many letters, we now use only documentation.
AI governance is very important in my company, and we are implementing it now. I discovered this company three years ago when I studied the RPA tools. AI governance and data governance are not currently implemented.
What needs improvement?
There is no need for improvement right now. The AI is very important, and they are starting to use AI. They could continue to develop it out. Innovation is very important.
For how long have I used the solution?
I started to use Automation Anywhere five years ago when I was working in another company.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
The deployment depends on the processes being put in place. Normally, it is straightforward.
What was our ROI?
I do not have the correct numbers to calculate ROI, however, overall, it has been very efficient. The time saved in document processing is good.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is a little bit high compared with other tools. Of course, some tools may be much cheaper, however, the offering isn't as robust.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
For our internal policy, before implementing a new project or new tools, we have to evaluate technical skills and make a comparison with other tools. We did evaluate Automation Anywhere and UiPath. Between Automation Anywhere and UI Path, there are pros and cons. Automation Anywhere is easier to use for final users and developers.
What other advice do I have?
I am utilizing the AI Agent Studio in my automation process. My impression of the AI governance features in maintaining compliance and data integrity in my company is that all the automatic processes are similar to processes made by humans. Only in specific cases do we have to use the compliance process with government; in most cases, enterprises would have to accomplish specific requirements. It is not usual in these kinds of processes to have compliance.
I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten. If the price were a bit less maybe I would give it a ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Automates critical tasks and improves customer interactions with integrated AI capabilities
What is our primary use case?
The main use cases include the payment extinction process, which we have automated. It is a basic, very critical servicing process, which needs to run on stringent SLAs. We automated that before and during COVID, which brought a lot of value with less human intervention and support during the peak time. It was able to process almost all the payment extinctions effectively and efficiently, providing significant value to our servicing operations team.
Another use case involves customer service, where the call center agents uses these bots as co-pilots, gathering real-time information from multiple subsystems, aggregating the information, and presenting it to the agent. This greatly improved the customer experience during real-time interactions.
Those are a couple of critical use cases we have automated.
How has it helped my organization?
We recognized the importance of RPA automation and transitioned to Automation Anywhere, onboarding and automating over 100 processes in a short period.
What is most valuable?
Automation Anywhere has all the integrated advanced features within the platform, including basic RPA-based automation, task bots, document automation, AARI co-pilot, and now the agentic AI studio. All these come as a package allowing us to handle any kind of use case using the Automation Anywhere platform, which is what we appreciate most. Instead of using different tools to automate various test cases, we are using Automation Anywhere as a platform to automate entire end-to-end processes.
We have used document processing from the beginning. We have a few use cases running in production, processing thousands of documents. With the success rate of more than 80%, it's efficiently extracting data for us.
The time saved with document processing has been impressive. Each document can take 10 to 15 minutes to process manually. With Automation Anywhere, we can process 40,000 in a given month.
It's a low-code platform where we deliver automations faster. Now it is coming up with all the AI features like agent AI and today has announced process engine, which are all coming part of the Automation Anywhere platform. It's great news.
What needs improvement?
One key feature we are looking for from Automation Anywhere is the need for a fully evolved CI/CD pipeline approach within our IT organization, given that we manage multiple applications.
We want to bring Automation Anywhere into those application stacks, ensuring easy integration from a DevOps or DevSecOps perspective. That's a recommendation I have for Automation Anywhere.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Automation Anywhere for almost five and a half years now, and we have automated 100-plus business processes that are deployed and running autonomously in the backend.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of the automation bots are quite good, especially for those running in production. However, changes in end-application UIs can affect them. With the introduction of automator AI and generative recorder capabilities, they have been able to self-heal and run seamlessly in production.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scaling potential of Automation Anywhere runs parallel to our company's growth and technology stack. It adds all the necessary AI features at the right time, allowing for a smooth experience as we expand usage.
How are customer service and support?
We have great support from Automation Anywhere. Whenever we create support cases, they respond within the given timeframe, and we haven't encountered major issues so far.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before adopting Automation Anywhere, we were using a vendor-based solution with a Cogs product that the vendor managed in their environment. We recognized the importance of RPA automation, which led us to explore building bots on-prem within our data center using our own platform.
How was the initial setup?
The setup process is pretty seamless. Recently, we have introduced the API capability, the code migration utility, which we are using to deploy the bots from one environment to another. It is helping a lot.
What was our ROI?
We realized a return on investment with Automation Anywhere, especially during the COVID surge in volume within the payment process. Since we automated that process, we managed to handle the surge effectively, granting immense value to our servicing operations.
We've saved almost 2,000 manual hours a month.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is competitive right now. I'm not directly involved in the pricing discussions, however.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting Automation Anywhere, our parent company was already using it and had evaluated it, allowing us to adopt Automation Anywhere.
What other advice do I have?
We are not using the Agentic process automation yet. We're in the exploration phase and exploring tools and requirements. We may be starting the process soon.
The real benefit we are looking at from utilizing the automator AI, which we are not working with yet (but plan to) is the ability to quickly deliver the process workflows need where AI is involved, eliminating the need to integrate multiple tools and requiring various skills and programmatic knowledge.
For organizations looking to purchase Automation Anywhere, I would recommend it for automating task bots or processes requiring AI, as the platform features all flavors of automation. It covers everything from process discovery to automation deployment with integrated AI capabilities, which is a significant advantage.
I rate Automation Anywhere nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
RPA platform transforms back office operations with impressive scalability and support
What is our primary use case?
We have had a number of different use cases for Automation Anywhere. As a higher education institution, many of the use cases have been for back office operations.
Some use cases include automating expense reimbursement processes. This involves the submission of data after collection, validation of data, and several different steps in that process.
We are exploring invoice reconciliation and invoice processing as a new use case. Many of the other use cases have been system-to-system data transfer where they don't have APIs, which has been accomplished through UI automation and RPA.
How has it helped my organization?
We chose Automation Anywhere to investigate the feasibility of using RPA in place of dedicating other team's time for developing custom APIs between systems. We wanted to tackle problems that we couldn't dedicate resources to solving with custom in-house development and bridge the gap between third-party external software.
The governance guardrails built into the Automation Anywhere platform have allowed us to develop solutions at a pace while adhering to our internal organizational policies.
What is most valuable?
The scalability of Automation Anywhere, the framework, and user interface are particularly impressive. When evaluating Automation Anywhere versus alternatives such as UiPath for RPA specifically, their tool works exceptionally well. Their customer support model has been fantastic at resolving issues. Security and infrastructure are other significant components why we continue to use them.
The actual tools on the RPA side have been very nice to work with. When onboarding members of our team, being a lower-code platform with much of it being no code, it has been good to bring people up to speed. It's easy to bring both people from developer and non-developer backgrounds up to scale. Our developers have applied standard SDLC principles towards working within that platform.
With agentic process automation, there are several challenges we were looking to solve. GenAI infused document automation has been of great interest to us, especially in invoice processing for our financial side. With APA in particular, some use cases involve taking complex processes that could have large decision trees, and instead of dedicating time and resources towards fleshing out all those if/then statements or pushing exceptions to human middle processing, we aim to lower that scope and allow for quicker delivery time.
The Composer orchestration tools have been great in developing new solutions. Automation Anywhere started as a pilot at our CMU, where we are at the forefront of numerous computer science areas. It's part of our CTO's mission to embrace automation tools, artificial intelligence, and robotic process automation, bringing internal processes into the 21st century and beyond.
Automation Anywhere helps us overcome challenges in the age of GenAI. The platform has solved our initial challenges as we transition from being a pilot to a long-term customer. With GenAI, challenges revolve around use case identification and implementing AI in processes while ensuring governance and protecting sensitive information, government information, and student information.
AI governance and data protection are extremely important for our company. We are currently reviewing the Autopilot capability and evaluating document automation with AI capabilities for new solutions.
What needs improvement?
As we expand our components of the Automation Anywhere platform that we utilize, we need better connections between them. Currently, our shell framework, metrics, logging, and guardrails are done at an RPA or Bot level. As we take advantage of other features such as work queues, process Composer, and AI agents, we would prefer to see features around offering frameworks around those models or domains specifically that can encompass all of the subset features that Automation Anywhere offers.
Bot Insight is an available feature, and we can create our own custom metrics and logging in RPA Bots, but we don't want to have to send results to a logging subset bot after using an AI agent or higher components such as document automation. We need a native way in Automation Anywhere's framework to tie all that information together, including AI dashboard, governance dashboards, and document automation results.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Automation Anywhere for about two and a half to three and a half years.
How are customer service and support?
Their customer support model has been fantastic at resolving issues.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In the RPA space specifically, we have not used any other solution that addresses similar needs before using Automation Anywhere.
For internal technologies prior to implementing RPA, we had various solutions. For table-based and database-based operations, users were using spreadsheets.
We are now able to convert certain things to databases, even without native APIs for certain software platforms, because we can leverage Automation Anywhere to bridge the gap between disconnected systems. In the specific landscape that Automation Anywhere competes in, we haven't used direct competitors.
We have been replacing software developer adjacent technologies, custom script solutions, and low code/no code platforms with different features from Automation Anywhere.
How was the initial setup?
Standing up the service itself had no significant challenges. There were a few small challenges, however, nothing significant that were nonstarters for us. Our teams were able to work around any issues. The biggest thing we had was was enabling SAML authentication to work with our identity management services.
Other than that, standing up the service, connecting the host controller to our local VMs, etc., that was easy. There was a little bit of network stuff, and some of DevOps stuff. Thankfully, we have a great DevOps team. Working with Automation Anywhere is largely straightforward and seamless.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We have been happy with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Automation Anywhere so far. There is sticker shock with many new features, however, we definitely think that the end results can more than justify the cost. We are evaluating the use case and the resources needed to stand up solutions using some of these features.
The cost versus return for the traditional out-of-the-box features has been very reasonable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Since the evaluation phase, we have not considered other solutions that do the same as Automation Anywhere. We have been extremely happy with Automation Anywhere. The tools provided for the cost, scalability, robustness, and infrastructure have been very satisfactory, and we have not had a significant need to evaluate alternative platforms.
This may not stay that way forever as this is an ever-changing landscape, but for the foreseeable future, we don't see ourselves evaluating alternative platforms.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I rate Automation Anywhere a ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Boosts efficiency and everything is easy to set up
What is our primary use case?
The main use cases for Automation Anywhere are customized bots for customers, and lately, we are working with AI through Agentic.
How has it helped my organization?
With Automation Anywhere, we have been able to streamline processes for our customers in the logistics industry. Currently, we are increasing efficiency for logistics agents or logistics operators and increasing their productivity.
Running a business with a lot of people is expensive. Agentic AI is going to help us have the same level of productivity but with lower costs. The biggest challenge for the models is to keep track of the context. Whenever the context is too large, it tends to hallucinate. That's something that we're working on right now. Automation Anywhere helps me overcome these challenges through its well-structured knowledge base. We're still looking for ways to improve the context window. The support they provide in helping through every step is beneficial.
Document automation impacts our efficiency and productivity significantly. A part of our key processes is reviewing invoices. It helps us in terms of people who process invoices, allowing them to focus on what really matters, which is approving or denying the actual changes, as opposed to doing data extraction and data entry.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate most about Automation Anywhere is the ease of use. Everything is easy to set up. I also appreciate the extensibility that it has.
What needs improvement?
Automation Anywhere can be improved with better documentation. We would benefit from having better technical documentation that is more readily available.
Having better documentation that is more openly available would help. Often, it feels necessary to contact someone or search for documentation that is stored behind a login or in another location. It would be beneficial to have one centralized place for everything.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Automation Anywhere for approximately five years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have not used another product before choosing Automation Anywhere. We have been using it from the beginning.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment experience with Automation Anywhere was great. It was smooth, and it was helpful that we had somebody already set up the way.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's fine. However, I'm concerned with the credits in terms of the pricing for the AI models. It is understandable that the new ones are more expensive, but the base models, after doing the pricing conversion, cost about four to ten times as much as paying directly.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Initially, we were considering UiPath, but since we started with Automation Anywhere, we have remained with it.
What other advice do I have?
APA has not yet helped to achieve our automation goals because it hasn't been rolled into production, but it looks promising.
AI Governance is pretty important because we handle customer data. We need to make sure that what we're building is not open to any exposure. We need to ensure that AI is not doing things that are not part of the plan, and there is data confidentiality, and keeping track of information.
I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Automation empowers employees by reducing repetitive tasks and minimizing errors
What is our primary use case?
We have many use cases. We have 200 bots, and we are doing extensive order management. We work at Cargill, so they do a lot of order management type of bots, but there are many different types of bots for all industries.
What is most valuable?
With Automation Anywhere, the features we are using help to remove tasks that humans are not good at, such as repetitive tasks. It's this type of task that people don't want to do. With intensive repetitive work, it's prone to human errors. That's what is helping us. It first motivates people not to do this type of work, so they can focus more on the customer and work on things that are more engaging. Additionally, it reduces the errors.
What needs improvement?
The main challenge that we are trying to solve with agentive process automation is business rules. We have many bots that have complex business rules, and these business rules are usually hard coded.
For how long have I used the solution?
I joined my company, Cargill, in 2018, and since then, they have been using Automation Anywhere. I have been six years working with Automation Anywhere.
How are customer service and support?
The main complaint with Automation Anywhere is when they release features that they don't have ready.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I did use another solution before choosing Automation Anywhere for the first time. In the past, we had UiPath as well. Also, when I worked for Hewlett-Packard, we were using WinAutomation, which is the one that Microsoft is using now for Power Automate desktop.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing of the platform are the worst. This is my major concern and complaint.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I have considered other solutions. We are working with Power Platform, which is another vendor we are using at Cargill. We did an analysis last year on cost for the long term. If it works, we might change to that platform in the future.
What other advice do I have?
In the age of agentive AI, the biggest challenge for me and my company is that there are many vendors and companies offering the same thing, which gets complicated and confusing.
I would rate Automation Anywhere overall a nine out of ten.
Streamlined processes in finance department and improved code transparency
What is our primary use case?
The main use cases that we have currently for Automation Anywhere are for our finance department, where we tend to have a lot of manual labor regarding the whole process of paying for everything within our company. We use Automation Anywhere in order to streamline these processes and make it really efficient for the department to do their internal processes.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is that, from a development and developer side, it is really intuitive to do the whole automation, which also makes it easier to do all the support side of the code. It is really great for the user to be able to see everything that is happening in the code, such as what could be wrong or right.
At the end of the day, the effort that you put in has exponential benefits, giving you many advantages from your lines of code, which is amazing.
What needs improvement?
One of the problems we have found with Automation Anywhere is that the rollout of new upgrades or tools is not readily available for everyone to know about the new benefits offered. For example, the Imagine event is a great way for everyone to learn about what is coming and the new benefits, but outside of Imagine, it can be difficult to know what is new.
For how long have I used the solution?
The whole company has been using Automation Anywhere for around four years; I have been using it for around two and a half years.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
At Volkswagen Mexico, we just use Automation Anywhere. However, I believe that Volkswagen Germany uses another tool. The decision to implement Automation Anywhere at Volkswagen Mexico was made by Volkswagen Germany. I do not know what considerations they took into account, but they chose to go with Automation Anywhere.
What other advice do I have?
Since Automation Anywhere is intuitive for the developer, it is easier for them to express to the business side of the company what the benefits and opportunities are, making that communication really easy so we can get ideas from the business and then develop them from our knowledge. It is also easier to onboard people onto this tool.
The main challenge with agentic process automation that we are trying to solve is the whole implementation of artificial intelligence within our company, which is crucial because everything that has to do with security and all our databases requires us to be super careful. We are currently facing the issue of ensuring careful implementation while realizing the opportunities for implementing these agentic solutions within our company, which I expect will happen in the next couple of years.
In the age of agentic AI, understanding what all the things that agentic AI can provide for our company means focusing on translating AI technology into actual use cases. The challenge lies in prioritizing and making the link between actual use cases and the tools available, especially since AI technology presents many options but can leave us uncertain about which to tackle first.
We are currently migrating to document automation; we previously used an older version before starting this migration, but we are just at the beginning. In Mexico, where our company is based, we face issues regarding obtaining new licenses, as this has to be done through a third-party company. This limitation affects what we can get because there are certain packages we have to purchase, restricting our ability to acquire specific licenses, such as for testing AI agents, since we must buy the entire package to get just one license. Therefore, that presents challenges when trying new things.
I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine because we want to try new things and incorporate more innovations into our company that Automation Anywhere offers; however, the nervousness about testing them poses challenges, which is the only reason I would not rate it a ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Increases productivity and delivers significant financial benefits through enhanced customer experience and efficient analysis
What is our primary use case?
Our use cases for Automation Anywhere are numerous; we have KYC use cases, onboarding in some parts, credit analyzing, and in operations, we have some automated processes.
How has it helped my organization?
It helped with company culture. Sometimes, people are afraid the technology will replace them. However, it makes their job easier. It doesn't replace them.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is the analyzer. The analyzer acts as a hub; this robot analyses and then assigns different persons to perform deeper analysis of every customer.
Automation Anywhere improves my company by providing about $5,000 USD per year in benefits. Automation Anywhere contributes to helping me achieve my goals by improving customer experience and accelerating the process of delivering audits and related processes.
In the age of agentic AI, the biggest challenges for my company are the need for a significant cultural change and managing information security. Automation Anywhere helps me overcome those challenges in part since it empowers people to focus on value-added activities instead of repetitive tasks that hold no value. I hope that Automation Anywhere continues to help me achieve my automation goals.
My impression of the impact on visibility in the automation lifecycle is that we help to standardize the process and become more productive in those activities and visibility. The cloud-based nature of Automation Anywhere COE Manager in managing my automation pipeline is beneficial. Using the cloud accelerates upgrades and allows us to benefit from AI with different partners OpenAI or Copilot.
With APA, the customer experience is improving. We can also accelerate the delivery of certain processes.
We are presenting a business case related to document automation in our current process. Document automation impacts both efficiency and productivity. Document automation impacts my company because the credit analysis requires reviewing every digital document from customers, and with this implementation, we aim to be faster instead of reviewing each document individually. I have not measured the time saved by using document automation in document processing.
What needs improvement?
Automation Anywhere can be improved by reducing the time of the processes and enhancing the efficiency of people. I would prefer them to reduce the time of the process.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for six years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have not used another similar solution before Automation Anywhere.
How was the initial setup?
My experience with the deployment of the solution is positive; it's fast, and we have not encountered any problems related to that.
What was our ROI?
Automation Anywhere improves my company by providing about $5,000 USD per year in benefits.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is good; the business case we are working on shows that it is a good price.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
At the beginning, about six years ago, I reviewed UiPath, Blue Prism, and those three competed for the RFP that we did, with Automation Anywhere being the winner. Automation Anywhere was chosen because of its simplicity, the interface, the platform, the customer reviews we showed, and the price as well.
What other advice do I have?
I am not currently utilizing the AI Agent Studio in my automation process. My impression of AI governance in general is positive; I really appreciate the monitoring that we have and believe it represents good governance, and the insights we can gain from the platform are great. I do not use the autopilot capability of Automation Anywhere currently. I utilize the Automation Anywhere Center of Excellence, or COE.
We are currently on-premises with Automation Anywhere.
While there is always some space to improve and nobody's perfect, I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten overall.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises