When I started working with Automation Anywhere, I automated mutual fund statements. Later, I switched to a financial services company, so that involved a lot of monotonous rule-based work that we had to automate. Then, I started working for this oil and gas company. We focus on finance, procurement, IT, legal, and refining processes. 

I've seen business users doing this kind of repetitive work for 20 years, and they feel that there is a better use of their labor, so I wanted to automate things for them. For example, in the oil and gas industry, we need to extract information from purchase orders that we must pay out on invoices to various contractors. It's possible to improve efficiency by as much as 20 to 30 percent by automating those processes. We can do even better by asking the right questions to the business stakeholders. There's potential to automate and improve on things they've done manually in the past. 

We see opportunities to operationalize AI for HR use cases. For example, we need to gather documentation for work travel, including a visa if an employee plans to travel abroad. Instead of having an employee ask HR folks about the process, we can set up something with generative AI. AI would also be helpful in some finance use cases. We still need to do some PoCs for generative AI before moving forward. Our data science team is working with something similar, but I haven't used it yet, so we need to try some smaller PoCs before trying it at a larger scale. 

Automation Anywhere saves money. At my previous employer, we achieved $1.3 million in cost avoidance over two years. I expect to realize that much savings in my current role, but we are still in the enabling phase of our CoE. Next year, we'll complete large-scale automation. That's our goal.

UI and document automation are two features I like. Document automation is helpful because it simplifies extracting and putting data into different ERP systems. I have three or four use cases for document automation. I also like the recorder objects feature, which was called object learning in the previous version, and screen scraping. 

It's easier for business users to work with Automation Anywhere A360. My previous employer used Automation Anywhere version 11, which was sometimes a little difficult. A360 is much more interactive. We have several users in our organization who have a business background, so it takes some time with some of the use cases. A business user might take two months to build more challenging use cases, whereas a developer could do it in three or four weeks. Though it takes longer, we want them to learn and implement Automation Anywhere. 

Automation Anywhere is interactive, and my experience with my coworkers has been positive so far. I'm on the CoE team, and we've been working to enable various functions involving the HR, IT, finance, and refining teams. They are using it. On average, it takes a month or so to train them, build their use cases, and put them into production. 

The solution is currently integrated with PeopleSoft, ServiceNow, and SAP. The document integration gives us about 70-80 percent accuracy. We're mostly working on purchase orders, but I want to implement it for financial use cases, too. I'm trying to determine what the most efficient one is. 

When we need to upgrade the bot version for various applications like SAP, the compatibility issues could be easier to resolve. The financial team is using version 5 or 6, but the automation engineer recommends only version 6 because it is more compatible. I think Automation Anywhere could handle these compatibility issues better. 

I have used Automation Anywhere for nearly seven years now.

Automation Anywhere is scalable, but it depends on what you do during the design phase. You must consider the opportunities for scaling up while you're planning. It's easy to scale if done correctly. 

I rate Automation Anywhere support nine out of 10. It's excellent. We have premium support. Our account manager is very nice. If we raise an issue, it will be resolved the next day. 

Positive

We also have Power Automate, but we do not use it at the enterprise level. We only use Power Automate for two use cases. A different team uses Power Automate, but they are not associated with the CoE. They are only using it for personal automation. 

Deployment is easy, but the testing takes time. It also takes some effort to migrate the bots from version to version, like v11 to the cloud version of A360.   We learned it the hard way, but once we moved to A360, that took care of many of the infrastructure issues we faced with the on-prem version. It was mostly some technical challenges, not infrastructure-related changes. The cloud version is much better than the on-prem. 

Automation Anywhere requires maintenance, but how you develop the processes also matters. We try to implement best practices, like using wildcards instead of URL names. That's why we try to find ways to make API calls instead and get the data from there. We are currently doing a PoC that involves retrieving the data from third-party websites, and they told us that they could build an API that would make it easier to maintain. The APIs work better than redirects. 

I tried UiPath, but I didn't like it as much for our current use case. Automation Anywhere is a better fit, but I have used UiPath at three organizations as a contractor, consultant, and full-time employee. 

I rate Automation Anywhere 10 out of 10. 

We teach Automation Anywhere to people with refugee backgrounds. It is cutting-edge technology that requires no code which makes it easy to learn and earn. This has given them greater opportunities for job inclusion.

We also use Automation Anywhere in-house in collaboration with other corporations in our Social Impact office to create curriculum and scholarship programs for people with refugee backgrounds. We train them and we do projects where they can test automation delivery for Automation Anywhere's new features. They can learn quality assurance and delivery. This way they are well trained and can provide test automation services for other companies.

The reason we implement Automation Anywhere is two-sided. For refugees, it is about evolving their skills and digital career development. For corporations, they want to utilize automation with generative AI so they can do both automation and analytics at the same time which increases their productivity even for test automation. 

Automation Anywhere changes everything drastically. Testing software takes long hours, but with Automation Anywhere we can do it within seconds. With generative AI we can create test scenarios and test data more accurately. There are a lot of changes going on.

We get a lot of requests related to documents. We can use automation, OCR, and generative AI. OCR works like eyes where we scan documents and we can use the data with automation to let the AI read it. The AI functions as the brain. Many retail companies have import and export departments dealing with many papers. They can automate them using OCR, generative AI, and automation.

The most popular programming language is now English. It has expanded the digital population. Everyone can use generative AI with just natural languages and people can focus more on local technology to handle that AI. Automation Anywhere together with generative AI is great because it is easy to use and automate.

Automation Anywhere did a lot for us. Neeti Mehta who is one of the co-founders of Automation Anywhere believes in our purpose. Everyone deserves a second chance. The number of refugees on Earth is now one hundred million people. This means that every second another human is being forcibly displaced. These people need another chance. Automation Anywhere is used by corporations and governments. People are looking for a solution that works well with generative AI and Automation Anywhere is the best solution for that. Automation Anywhere accelerates the productivity of humanity and at the same time creates inclusive job opportunities for refugees.

Automation Anywhere is super easy to use for people who don't have technical skills. Our people with refugee backgrounds didn't have IT knowledge but now they have the talents to professionally provide automation technology for corporations. It is really easy to use.

We train our refugee talent professionally, so it takes about three months to learn. Professional coding training usually takes six months. The learning curve for Automation Anywhere is shorter for our people. Our members deliver projects to teach other employees in large companies. This doesn't take three months because we provide workshops to learn bot creation and they work together to create their first bot within two weeks. It is really easy.

We started using Automation Co-Pilot around two months ago and it has helped increase everyone's productivity.

I anticipate that Automation Co-Pilot will help save us and our customers time and money, not just because we can automate our tasks but also because we can do many analytics that we couldn't do without Automation Anywhere. It is about how to enable value-add work that we can't do without automation technology. It is not just about saving time but also about advanced analytics.

Automation Anywhere is one of the best companies for automation technology and we invest a lot in integration with other systems. We have many requests from other companies but Automation Anywhere goes well with most of the systems.

Automation Anywhere has saved us and other organizations who care about social impact a lot of time and money. As an estimation, Automation Anywhere is about 60 times faster than a human. The time spent goes from one hour down to one second when we use Automation Anywhere.

Automation Anywhere can improve process mining. Many people have started using generative AI. There are many types and many systems. People are reshaping their operational flows and with a process mining system, we can visualize what we are doing with generative AI and easily spot where automation can be used to improve productivity.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for three years.

I have used other automation products and find Automation Anywhere to be easier to learn and use. Other products are more low-code, whereas Automation Anywhere is no-code making it easier to learn and user-friendly. It is also cloud-based making it more portable and easier to integrate with many cloud systems.

The deployment is easy. We are not implementing huge ERPs, but rather automation technology so it is easier than traditional huge systems. It is more flexible and we can use it to automate any task we desire.

The time it takes to deploy depends on the tasks. When automating critical operations we need to be careful in the assessment but it should not take more than six months to complete. We can complete an easy deployment in two weeks. 

I am working on the democratization of DX. I teach refugees digital skills and then our members accelerate DX of society by teaching other people digital skills. Automation Anywhere is easy to learn. The metrics we focus on when evaluating products are the learning curve and how much the product is used in the market in different countries. Automation Anywhere is used in many countries and we can support many global corporations.

I would rate Automation Anywhere ten out of ten.

As our business is a mortgage company that provides loans to borrowers, we use Automation Anywhere to automate business processes to help the end users process loans faster. 

The application's response time is slow when using your desktop and trying to process an application. However, when you apply automation, it can work overnight. You don't need to sit at a desk and watch what's happening. It's all automated. 

Prior to implementation, everything was manual. You couldn't inject other software, like APIs. However, with AA, you can bring in any number of tools that connect right into Automation Anywhere. This makes everything move faster. You save a lot of time and cost involved in processing the applications.

The recent update that included code analysis was very helpful. Previously, we had to go line by line. Now, inside the tool, it shows you which lines are hard-coded. 

We've saved a lot of time. How much time we save depends on the process. It's likely at least 50%. Sometimes, it's up to 70%.

We've saved on costs by about 30%.

It's reduced human error. Using Automation Anywhere, we can eliminate a lot of human error by adding exceptions and identifying what's going on quite easily.

For users who don't have technical skills, it's not that complicated. It defines what every command does. It may take a few months to understand the process; however, going through the documentation and using the community versions and forums will make it easier to learn. You can find answers to any aspect you want to understand. 

We did a POC with the automation copilot. It met some of our expectations. For some of the use cases, it will help in the future. 

The copilot's ability to integrate with our day-to-day is fine. It helps employees working with it. It helps them to make things faster. You just have to provide some information, and the background bots will run. It might help increase productivity in the future if we implement it at the enterprise level. Outside of the POC, it looks like it might help with productivity. 

The solution integrates well with other applications and third-party tools. 

There are great tools inside Automation Anywhere. 

With the automation copilot, if I have any internal tool or application and I want to pass on variables, I don't have it. Maybe the team can work on it to make it more efficient to make it work better across all automations.

I've been using the solution for four or more years. I started with version 10.x.

In the past two to three months, the support has gotten far better. Previously, we didn't have a live agent or live support, and now we do. It's great to have. They can respond immediately, and you can continue with what you are doing. You don't have to wait for support at all. 

Positive

We did not previously use a different solution. 

I was involved in the initial deployment. It took a couple of months.

It's relatively easy to upgrade. It depends on the organization. You need to add more variables and define the standards. However, it's not too complex. 

There is some maintenance needed. When you upgrade versions, devices may be disconnected. Sometimes you need to go and check if the device deployment is happening or not, or a deployment may fail. We have about two people handling the maintenance of the solution. You simply need to ensure the bots are deploying on the right schedules and check errors or disconnects. In some cases, you may need to redeploy the bot. The time spent maintaining bots maybe three to four hours per day per person. 

We also explored Microsoft's Power Automate. However, it wasn't as mature or up to an enterprise level at the time. Automation Anywhere had good standards and excellent support, in terms of architecture, design, and user interface, we chose Automation Anywhere. It also has good community support. Previously, we used to raise a ticket. Now, it's amazing - when you ask a question, people respond to it live. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

We are the implementer and sales partner of Automation Anywhere. We have implemented hundreds of business processes for clients in the banking, insurance, and manufacturing sectors. We use Automation Anywhere to help our clients automate routine tasks.

Automation Anywhere can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises based on the client's requirements.

Programmers with good logical thinking will find the learning curve of Automation Anywhere to be relatively easy. Non-programmers can also learn to automate parameter configurations with relative ease, but they may find it more difficult to automate tasks that require customization or workflows.

Automation Anywhere has helped our clients' organizations during the lockdown period in the last two years, from 2020 to 2021. Our clients who were using automation were very happy because the bots could run while the people were away. We were able to control the bots remotely and scale their businesses. In fact, there are several use cases where we implemented solutions solely for scaling purposes. Our clients used to receive millions of records that needed to be processed within a defined time frame, which was not possible manually. This is where the RPA solution using Automation Anywhere came in. It allowed them to scale up their businesses. One particular use case that I still remember is the insurance for farmers' crops. Farmers need to be issued crop insurance policies within a given time frame, as the crop cycle is typically three to six months. This needs to be done well in advance, and India is a large agricultural industry with millions of partners. The scale of this process is huge. There were some complications involved in this process. For example, we had to connect to bank accounts to verify whether payments had been received, and then connect to the insurance system to issue the policies. Even though I am simplifying it, there were many complexities involved.

It can provide our clients with scalable automation to a certain extent. However, as the processes become larger, the optimization decreases and the performance suffers. This is because of the scaling and the processing that needs to be done. To address this, we also use open-source programming to do the processing outside of the RPA tool and then call those libraries from within Automation Anywhere.

It has many connectors, so we can easily integrate with other applications.

Automation Anywhere has helped our clients increase their automation consumption. For one of our banking clients, we automated 85 percent of their processes, significantly reducing the amount of human involvement and only requiring human interaction in the approval process.

Automation Anywhere is fully configurable. It has several commands that can be used to configure the parameters, and it is easy to use.

Novice users are able to automate basic applications using Automation Anywhere. Business processes are more complex and require experts to be brought in to automate. The automation process can be made more user-friendly.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for eight years.

I give the stability of Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.

I give the scalability of Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.

The technical support is good. They stay within their SLAs.

Positive

We have used Automation Anywhere and UiPath, and in one place, we have also used Power Automate. We find Automation Anywhere and UiPath to be very easy to implement. Both products have a lot of features and are configurable. We can connect to any specific data source, such as Oracle Finance or Salesforce, through an API, or we can do desktop automation using either tool. Power Automate also allows us to connect to various data sources for automation. However, it is mostly cloud-based, which is not ideal for our banking and insurance clients. They prefer on-premise solutions. Power Automate does offer an on-premise solution, but it only supports desktop automation. For workflows, we need to use the cloud-based solution. This is a limitation of Power Automate. In terms of cost, Power Automate is much cheaper than Automation Anywhere and UiPath.

Assuming that the infrastructure is in place, the deployment of the Automation Anywhere components, which include the controller, parts, and studios, can be completed within a maximum of five days.

Automation Anywhere is generally more expensive than Power Automate, but they may offer a better price for large volume consumption. 

On a scale of one to ten with ten being the most expensive, I rate the price of Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

I would rate Automation Anywhere ten out of ten.

API integration is a good thing. However, it takes longer to implement than RPA. Once implemented, API integration can execute tasks faster. The cost of API automation is higher than RPA because it requires specific programming by experts.

Automation Anywhere itself does not require maintenance. Only the processes need to be maintained, as they may need to be updated to reflect changes in compliance requirements, government regulations, or the underlying systems. Additionally, patches to the Automation Anywhere software may sometimes cause changes to the processes, which may require maintenance. We currently have 150 processes, and two experts are able to maintain all of them.