There are two main use cases. We are working to complement their RPA capabilities. They have quite a strong position in the RPA market. Instead of trying to face them on the RPA market, we complete what they do. They are especially not good in the attended space. They are good in unattended but not in the attended space, so we kind of complement them.

The second thing we are working on with them is FortressIQ. Automation Anywhere has a task mining solution. We have a process mining solution, so it is a good completion. We have a product that is doing all the process mining stuff. When we need to investigate further into one precise process, dive a little bit into the details, and understand the number of clicks, the number of screens, and basically all the details of the process, we need a task-mining solution. That is where we have integrated with FortressIQ from Automation Anywhere.

The benefits include a reduction in tedious tasks and manual handling of tasks and time savings. This transition moves processes from several hours to a few minutes or even seconds, ensuring that money is saved. Furthermore, it secures the process, facilitates better execution, eliminates errors, and establishes a standard process, which is much more than just saving money.

The ease of use depends on what you want to do. What we do is quite simple because we are mainly using it from an unattended perspective, so we do not have any human interaction. With humans, you need to do a lot of error management. Automation is precise and simple. If the use case is A, B, and C, and you know how to treat A, B, and C, it will always be that, which is simple. If it is not A, B, or C, then you park it aside and do error handling. In the end, 98% of what you have done is good, and the remaining 2% will be manually handled. You still save about 98% of the time. It is quite easy to use as long as we stay in the unattended space. 

We mainly integrated it with non-SAP applications. It is not difficult to integrate Automation Anywhere in the workflow.

It is quite strong in the unattended space. 

I never use Automation Anywhere in the attended space because they are bad at that, at least compared to other players like us or UiPath.

I have been working with them for about four years.

I have not contacted them, so I cannot judge them.

Neutral

We are working with UiPath, Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, and Power Automate. These are the four ones we are working with.

Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism are very close in terms of market perception, and they are very unattended-oriented. They are quite strong in the unattended space and are more IT-oriented than others, especially UiPath. They are strong in terms of integration.

In terms of ease of use, it is probably one of the best because they are doing a lot of screen scraping. It is more based on the screens and less on APIs, which makes sense from an unattended perspective. However, when you want to have human interaction, it could become a bit more difficult. It is a more techie product than others but also deeper in terms of what you can do with it in terms of integration, etc.

I do not think a perfect RPA tool exists. Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere as a six out of ten. I would rate UiPath higher.

We have implemented Automation Anywhere for 2 finance use cases: recurring collections and payment forms processing. To achieve this, we leveraged the platform's invoice-tracking capability and built our bots around it.

We implemented Automation Anywhere to explore more automation possibilities.

We are happy with Automation Anywhere and the good experience it has provided. Automation Anywhere has successfully allowed us to implement our use cases.

We have identified several areas where we could potentially optimize the AI within our automation processes. However, the ultimate decision depends on the cost-effectiveness of automation. While we have a couple of significant use cases that seem well-suited for automation, others involve lower volumes that may not justify the investment. Currently, we're considering Microsoft's automation solutions due to their existing integration with our other Microsoft products. However, we might also explore Automation Anywhere for specific, complementary automation needs.

Someone with little automation experience can still create a bot using Automation Anywhere.

The learning curve of Automation Anywhere is adequate.

The time it takes to train someone to create a bot with Automation Anywhere depends on their existing technical background. For individuals with no prior technical experience, the learning process can take two to three months. However, if someone simply needs to become a casual user of a pre-built bot, a few weeks of training might be enough to get them comfortable navigating its features.

Automation Anywhere has significantly reduced our error rates, particularly in areas like allocating payment receipts and collections. Before implementing it, human error was a major issue. Automation Anywhere has effectively addressed this problem. Of course, reducing human involvement is a natural consequence of automation. However, a surprising benefit we've observed over the past two and a half years is that data quality has also improved significantly. Allocations have become much more accurate, which is an incredible advantage. Initially, the existing data was riddled with errors. Consequently, the automation rate was far lower than anticipated. However, as we progressively corrected the database, the automation rate steadily climbed, and error rates began to decline. It took roughly six to eight months to see the benefits.

Our organization has a defined AI automation strategy. We recognize its importance and have prioritized its development over the next two to three years. This focus on AI, particularly in customer service, will help us gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Automation Anywhere is integrated with our ERP, human portals, supplier portal, and CRM.

Automation Anywhere has been instrumental in saving us both time and money. It serves as a core strategy in our efforts to streamline operations and reduce our reliance on manual labor. This has allowed us to handle multiple workloads with increased stability. We are committed to continuing on this path of automation to further optimize our processes.

While we initially implemented Automation Anywhere due to its inherent strengths, the software landscape has evolved significantly in the past two and a half years. Several competing products now offer superior functionality compared to Automation Anywhere's current capabilities. Microsoft's automation solutions are particularly compelling. They integrate seamlessly with the wider Microsoft product suite, which is often the core software environment for many businesses. This integration advantage isn't present with Automation Anywhere, which operates independently of Microsoft products.

The price has room for improvement.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for 2.5 years.

Automation Anywhere is a stable product.

Automation Anywhere is known for its scalability. This means that financial institutions can leverage it to automate large processes without worrying about the platform's ability to handle the increased workload. In simpler terms, Automation Anywhere can grow alongside our automation needs.

In the past, we relied on other automation applications. However, these applications lacked the flexibility and adaptability of a bot.

The deployment process was successful thanks to the contributions of the third-party implementation team.

The full deployment took eight months to complete.

For the implementation, we leveraged a third-party vendor with expertise in Automation Anywhere.

The positive return on investment for Automation Anywhere is clear after two years of successfully automating a few business processes.

Automation Anywhere, once a competitively priced option in the RPA market, has seen a shift in its pricing strategy. Currently, it stands as one of the more expensive RPA tools available.

In our evaluation of RPA tools, we've considered Microsoft Power Automate and UiPath. Automation Anywhere, while a strong contender, appears to have a steeper technical learning curve compared to the other two options.

I would rate Automation Anywhere six out of ten.

We rely on an external company to handle the maintenance of our Automation Anywhere software.

Companies considering an Automation Anywhere solution should approach it with a long-term perspective. Ideally, they should be prepared for a ten-year commitment. This allows them to understand how the product will evolve and adapt over time. A ten-year timeframe, or at least eight years, provides a significant advantage compared to a two to three-year outlook. By taking a long view, companies can ensure they are well-positioned to benefit from the ongoing development and reshaping of the Automation Anywhere platform.

We use it for processes related to IT operations in the manufacturing industry.

There are hectic IT processes, jobs that run overnight, weekly, and monthly. We can optimize, rewrite, and automate them. They represent the most important use cases that I have been involved with: IT operations and software for manufacturing.

It has helped our organization increase automation consumption by 20 to 30 percent.

The most valuable feature is the Control Room.

Also, the integration of RPA bots with other processes and documents is good. We don't have any issues there. We could have more connectors, but it's fine. I have used it for SAP and for direct API-to-API, and that went well.

It is good for standard procedures with an SOP. For those, it works well. But there are processes that are tricky and need human intervention and intelligence. In those cases, the process gets stuck. Something that is a straight-ahead process—you do A, B, C, and D—is fine. But when you do A and then have to decide whether to do B or C, where there is a need for logical thinking and human intervention, we find it difficult to automate those cases. We have to break down those processes and do that tweaking.

We would like to see a more seamless UI, and we would like AI help. Wherever we are stuck or there is a logical error, AI help, with prompting and suggestions on what to do, would be good. If I have dragged and dropped something in the wrong logical sequence and it fails during execution, there should be automated AI help.

We use NetBeans IDE where we get something like automated help, but that's a platform for doing standard Java and PHP development. Automated help is coming up more and more in many tools. For example, Microsoft is providing it. We would like to have something like that in Automation Anywhere, with automated debugging and self-help.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for two years.

Overall, the product is stable for SOP-based use cases. It is not very stable for complex use cases.

It is not very scalable for complex use cases.

Their technical support is good overall, not excellent. They can improve the response time and on-call support. We have SLAs, so we need support to be immediate.

Neutral

We did not have a previous solution.

Recently, automation has gone to the cloud, and that has been most beneficial because installation was quite hectic before. On-prem was quite difficult, but the moment they launched the cloud version, it became easy.

With on-prem, there were issues with installation over production as well as the setup of the Control Room. Often, the Control Room would go down or hang, and we would have to do restarts. It was not seamless.

The licensing cost could be improved. It costs a lot. At the very least, the developer licenses and the control panels should be made free to enterprises, and the production environment licensed. Production should bear the cost; we would be okay with that, but not the development side.

Business users didn't find it that easy to use, but for developers who are building the use cases, it's quite easy. For the business users, the issues were standard ones, such as navigation, user friendliness, and the terminologies that they needed to understand. They often require training before using it, and not just one training session, but training and retraining. On a scale where 10 represents a low learning curve and one is a large learning curve, Automation Anywhere is a seven. For non-technical people, it's difficult. For them, the learning curve is a four or five. It usually takes four to five months for them to be able to really use it on their own.

We have developed solutions for IT back-end processes, so there are no end-users. These jobs run weekly, fortnightly, and monthly. There are two or three people involved with it, but it's the jobs that we have automated.

We need three to four people to maintain the solutions, but that doesn't take a lot of time—about four hours a week. It's not something that needs to be done every day. Before the jobs run, they check to make sure everything is okay, that no errors or notifications are coming up. The maintenance is very low.

Automation Anywhere is good but not exceptional. It's good because, for simple use cases, we use it with different technologies. For complex processes, automations should perform better.

We are a partner of Automation Anywhere, and we utilize their software in the manufacturing industry for procurement and administration purposes.

Most of our customers deploy the solution on the public cloud, with some opting for private cloud deployment, and a small percentage choosing on-premises deployment. The majority of our customers are extremely price-conscious.

We deploy Automation Anywhere for our cost-effective customers. These customers prioritize automation for fee optimization rather than productivity improvement. 

Business users without technical skills can still utilize Automation Anywhere with some training. The solution is user-friendly, however, we provide training for individuals before they come on board. Therefore, there is support available in that regard.

On average it takes two months to train someone without technical skills to use Automation Anywhere.

Automation Anywhere aids our customers in enhancing productivity and optimizing workforce size. Typically, we achieve a 25 to 30 percent reduction in time, although the exact results may vary depending on the specific case.

Although Automation Anywhere may not match Blue Prism's scale of automation due to budget constraints, our current clients can still have their requirements met by Automation Anywhere.

Automation Anywhere's most valuable feature is its seamless integration into procurement software, allowing for the automation of purchase orders, billing, employee travel details, and other tasks.

Integrating RPA bots, APIs, business applications, and documents in Automation Anywhere is a challenging task. We have come across a type of YAML application that we use with the APIs, enabling us to get a holistic picture. However, direct integration has always been problematic. For instance, when attempting to integrate with SAP, we encounter certain gaps. As a solution, we can either input the data into the call sheet or create a YAML application for the integration process. Unfortunately, it is not a seamless process where we can transfer everything directly into an SAP system. This presents a double issue for us. I would like Automation Anywhere to work with SAP and improve their interfaces.

The technical support needs improvement. They take a long time to respond, and they are not very knowledgeable.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for six years.

Automation Anywhere is stable.

Automation Anywhere can scale, but it requires significant intervention from the technical team to achieve.

Technical support is difficult to reach and obtain a resolution.

Neutral

We used to use Blue Prism for our customers, which offered better integration and more features. However, we had to switch to Automation Anywhere due to the high initial license fee associated with Blue Prism. Automation Anywhere is more cost-effective.

The initial setup is straightforward. The complexity lies within the interfaces. Our development team handles the internal implementation for our customers.

We implement the solution for our customers.

Our clients definitely see a return on investment because that's how we gain business.

I would rate Automation Anywhere's cost a six out of ten, with ten being the most expensive.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a six out of ten. When compared to other options, Automation Anywhere remains a more cost-effective solution. However, it has integration issues and is not directly compatible with many ERP systems, which forces us to find numerous workarounds.

In recent years, there have been many cheaper solutions that have become available. To a certain extent, I believe these solutions need to meet the current requirements. We began using Automation Anywhere years ago, but with new clients, there is a bit of a challenge to convince them to adopt the solution due to the availability of other options in the market.

With the variety of solutions available in the market today, people are seeking the most cost-effective option. RPA was a viable choice a few years ago when we began in 2017. However, attitudes have since changed, leading people to consider more affordable tools. Additionally, individuals are reluctant to bear substantial license charges, as we faced with Automation Anywhere, where we had to pay significant fees annually.

Automation Anywhere is more commonly deployed across various departments and less frequently in multiple locations. Due to its typical usage, we are employing it as a standalone model for each functional department.

Automation Anywhere requires maintenance due to changes we handle from the client center, as well as the configuration of the solution according to all client requirements. We need more than five people for the maintenance.

We spend one to two months maintaining bots.

For an organization that has a technical team and wants to deploy a cost-effective solution, I recommend Automation Anywhere.

There are many use cases for Automation Anywhere. One of these involved reconciling numerous financial reports in the company I work for, which deals in consumer products and goods. Specifically, we handle credit notes and debit notes from various customers. These notes serve as certifications of transactions, indicating whether we owe something to the customers or they owe something to us. The challenge is that these notes come in different formats, all in PDFs. Consequently, someone has to manually go through each of them, input the data into Excel, and compare it with an existing Excel report. After verifying the information and ensuring it matches, we input the data into the SAP system. This process is a part of our monthly activities and involves a considerable volume of documents, given that we are a multinational company focusing on AMEA markets. 

To streamline this process, we utilized Automation Anywhere, making use of OCR technology to extract data from the PDFs. Another use case for the automation tool involved generating aging reports. As a company, we deal with numerous customers who haven't made payments yet, and we need to monitor the time they have left to pay or identify if they have exceeded the due dates. This information is available on our SAP system and needs to be created daily and distributed to all our sales teams.

If someone without technical skills wants to learn to use Automation Anywhere, it's not very difficult. However, if we simply want to use the solution without any prior experience, it may not be possible, but with proper training, someone can learn it in a month.

The learning curve is relatively easy, and it just takes time. Getting comfortable with the tool is, in my opinion, quite feasible; it can be done. The other aspect of the problem is understanding the use case and how to design it. How will we design our system? How will we design our process? Because it's never just one process that someone wants to automate; it's usually a bundle of processes. When we obtain a bot from automation anywhere, we cannot get just a fraction of a bot. We have to get a full bot. And if we have a process that does not consume all of that, then our cost-benefit ratio doesn't work. So we need to have a bunch of processes and then figure out how to schedule each bot, and how to process it. There are multiple ways of designing the flow of a bot. We should look for the optimum way considering the context, it depends on our context. The templates keep changing, and the sales keep changing, so we would have to define it in a different way where we have templates that can be replaceable. But if we are dealing with something related to compliance, then we would prioritize reliability and robustness, and we may have to compromise on flexibility while designing a solution with robustness in mind. 

All of that comes with expertise, and all of that comes with experience. However, just understanding the product and the tool to a good, fairly okay level where a business user can create a small automation and do something with it even if they don't fully maximize its value can be achieved in a couple of months. But becoming a true expert and being able to call ourselves an RPA expert will take a lot of time and further exposure to various use cases.

By using Automation Anywhere, we observed a reduction in paperwork costs and the implementation of a reliable bot. When we require manual report generation, workflow execution, and other tasks. Its efficiency is contingent upon the availability of the person overseeing the process. With Automation Anywhere, the reporting, workflow executions, and other tasks are automated and thereby enhancing overall reliability. Additionally, a notable advantage is the development of a digital mindset within the company. Exposure to automation fosters a digital way of thinking among employees, leading them to identify opportunities that can be automated. These benefits are just a few among several others, including financial gains and improved compliance.

The benefits are seen typically after three to four months per process, depending on its complexity. For processes of low to medium complexity, it usually takes about three to four months for the board to start functioning correctly. The payback ratio varies depending on the number of products or processes we have and their complexity. If we have many low-complexity processes that can be completed within six months, we will see returns on our investment within that time frame. However, it's important to note that the payback period ultimately depends on the complexity of the process. I have observed instances where processes have not yielded returns even after several months, as changes were required at three or six-month intervals, leading to additional expenses. So, the success of the process is contingent on its specific characteristics.

Automation Anywhere is able to provide automation at scale.

Integration is truly beneficial; it serves as a significant advantage of Automation Anywhere. The level of integration is highly commendable.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation consumption by around 50 percent.

The way templates can be configured is quite simple - it's a matter of drag and drop. Within the console, which is easy to navigate if we've seen it before, we can understand how things work. This allows business folks to join calls if needed, and I comprehend what happens within the console. 

The Board Control room is a centralized place where we can monitor all our bots and see how they are running when they are scheduled to run, and how our CPU and CB usage are looking - basically, the entire orchestration. 

I noticed that they opened up to other service providers like Accenture and Avaya, which is not a platform feature, but it was very helpful for us. Automation Anywhere, being a product company, might not excel in service, so partnering with companies like Avaya or Accenture provided us with a reliable service operation. 

The capability of understanding and extracting documents is not very good. Therefore, automating unstructured documents or any structured documents that we want to automate on Automation Anywhere is not a good idea.

The UI is not intuitive and doesn't come across as smooth.

I would like the licenses to be transferable. Currently, we are unable to transfer a user license.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for three and a half years.

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

I give the scalability of Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

We saw a return on investment with 50 percent of our automation processes. 

I give Automation Anywhere a six out of ten.

It depends on the specific capabilities you require. When we started out as a team at Mondelez we were setting up all the necessary components. At that time, we were primarily focused on basic capabilities such as having a good service partner, efficient bot operations, and a manageable console. Figuring out the licenses was crucial, as some companies were unwilling to share their licenses with others. So, if you had the license, you were the one responsible for using it, and it couldn't be transferred to someone else. Certain software had this complexity, and we were also not considering advanced features like OCR back then. 

Our focus was on basic RPA without many complexities. About four years ago, we believed Automation Anywhere was a well-established player in the market, so we chose them. However, later on, we realized that automation had much more to offer than simply configuring and automating certain processes. We discovered the concept of hyper-automation, which includes low-code and no-code applications that business users can build themselves. Document-related automation became crucial, and we found that Automation Anywhere lacked proper support for structured documentation and didn't leverage artificial intelligence or natural language processing effectively. Consequently, we had to explore other software options. As time progressed, we recognized the need for more capabilities. Therefore, we adopted two approaches to address this. Firstly, we sought a solution that offered modular usability. Consequently, we included Power Platform and are currently exploring the UI part. Additionally, we ventured into using newer technologies like Blue Prism, experimenting with various possibilities. Ultimately, our aim is to stay on top of advancements and adopt the best-suited tools for our needs.

The preference for API integration over a robust process automation solution depends on the capabilities of our in-house tech team. If we have an in-house tech team, then API solutions are significantly better than an automated bot. Additionally, our cost-benefit analysis, in terms of tech capabilities, also plays a crucial role in the decision-making process.

We did not perform any maintenance on Automation Anywhere.

We use Automation Anywhere for process automation.

Automation Anywhere has enabled us to eliminate manual, time-consuming tasks, and increase accuracy within our organization by automating them.

We witnessed the benefits of Automation Anywhere within six months of its deployment.

Automation Anywhere helped reduce the workload of our P2P billings by around 60 percent.

Automation Anywhere helped our organization increase its automation consumption by 25 percent on our billing automation once we resolved all the background issues.

Automation Anywhere performs efficiently.

Automation Anywhere is difficult to use and could be made more user-friendly. The GUI needs to be improved.

Using Automation Anywhere can be extremely difficult for individuals who lack technical skills.

The learning curve for Automation Anywhere is challenging. We should not need to rely on a vendor to handle the solution. The end-user should be able to use the solution independently.

The automation at scale has room for improvement.

There are many features missing from Automation Anywhere, including cloud collaboration tools provided by Google and Microsoft, that I would like to see integrated into the solution.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for three years.

Automation Anywhere is stable. I rate the stability an eight out of ten.

Scalability involves both the customer and the vendor, requiring significant effort to increase due to its lack of user-friendliness.

We experience difficulties in getting our issues resolved when dealing with technical support.

Neutral

I used Microsoft Power Automate, which was not a great application at the time. However, it has now become easier to use, more cost-effective, and more scalable compared to Automation Anywhere. As a result, we are considering switching back to it.

The initial setup was complex. The vendor was unfamiliar with the process, and there was no guidance from Automation Anywhere regarding the requirements. According to Automation Anywhere, we were supposed to simply follow the onscreen instructions and click "next," which should have taken a maximum of one hour. However, due to an error and misunderstanding, it took us around three days instead.

The deployment started at the control room, then the client, and finally the developer.

One person, who was an Automation Anywhere specialist with infrastructure knowledge, was used for the deployment.

We used a vendor for the implementation.

To realize a return on investment, we must utilize Automation Anywhere for several years.

Automation Anywhere is significantly expensive. The cost is at the highest end of the spectrum.

In addition to the licensing cost, let's say, $1,000, we also have to pay the OEM vendor fee, which can be around $150. Furthermore, we are responsible for the payment of managed services, and occasionally there are additional charges for maintenance.

We considered several options, including Blue Prism, before choosing Automation Anywhere.

I give Automation Anywhere a six out of ten.

When I joined my organization, we were using Automation Anywhere. Consequently, I am currently using it. However, all the features are also accessible through Microsoft Power Automate, which offers a free upgrade.

We attempted to train non-technical staff members for one month to utilize Automation Anywhere; however, learning proved to be quite challenging. As a result, we ultimately abandoned the endeavor and opted to hire a technical professional.

Automation Anywhere requires technical personnel who can write code to utilize the solution, making it challenging to integrate RPA bots, APIs, business applications, and documents. We are compelled to hire a vendor to write the code, which is not a practical approach.

I would recommend Microsoft Power Automate over Automation Anywhere because Automation Anywhere is excessively complex and challenging to use.

We have three users across three teams who utilize Automation Anywhere in our organization.

Automation Anywhere is self-maintained unless there is an error.

I advise exploring other options before settling for Automation Anywhere.