Automate Reviews

We use Fortra's Automate to handle a variety of tasks, such as moving files for FTP and pulling files from AWS S3 storage. The solution is also utilized for web scraping. It provides multiple functionalities that we need for efficient operations.

By implementing Fortra's Automate, we wanted to automate so that there are fewer manual processes. The more manual processes there are, the higher the chance of failures or errors. By automating something, we make it more consistent.

It enhances my workflow by allowing both static scheduling and dynamic job execution. It allows us to schedule things based on a static schedule, but we also use the feature where it watches for files to be available or delivered. That makes it more dynamic. If we cannot predict a schedule to run, it allows us to dynamically run automation jobs when files become available.

We run it in a Windows environment, and it integrates with everything we need it to, whether it is an API call or Python code. If there are certain things that we cannot do with Fortra's Automate, we call it a secondary piece of Python code. It gives us the ability to communicate with the entire environment.

I use it for OCR, grabbing text from PDFs, grabbing data from CSVs and Excel spreadsheets to populate other spreadsheets. I use mail merge, utilizing PowerShell for the mail merge, and RPA to handle the mail merge process. I also use APIs to update and import data.

I find the ease of use from a programming perspective very valuable. The ability to walk through and find issues if needed is a great feature. I really like the API functionality; it's a slick aspect of the solution when I'm using it. Overall, the whole product is really nice and provides significant benefits.

I am a consultant and I am making a lot of processes in human resources, payroll, certifications, trainings, web scraping, pre-reporting, and many processes that need to be automated on the web. My focus is to pick up and transfer the data automatically.

Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities. Another important feature for me is its compatibility with MBI, the Power that is ISEQUADO Centers. I appreciate the ability to scale and increase the number of bots or studios without additional expense. Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.

One use case is to automate single sign-on for different applications with the Active Directory. When people change roles within the company, we need to alter the permissions for multiple users. Another use case is assigning tickets to technicians. We classify what the customer needs and then automatically transfer the ticket to the person in our company who will handle this case. We also have some financial automation dealing with bank transactions.

We sometimes use Automate to help us with data migration. When we have a new CRN that is a hotspot, we make a little robot for data migration because the company has accumulated a lot of data in 30 years. We only did this once and changed the bot after three months. These are some of our use cases. We have had 40 different automation cases in three years. 

We like to deploy on-premises because we have many related programs. When our customers make some tickets, we prefer to have everything in-house rather than on the cloud. We have servers in our office. One of the principal applications is on the server, and we have five bots in different areas, including finance, human resources, and operations.

Since adopting Automate, we have spent much less time on general tasks. In the past, we had one person writing all the emails and assigning them to the people who would handle the case. Now, that is not necessary. Another example is data migration. Migrating a large volume of data sometimes involves repetitive tasks. It's easier and faster for us to develop a little robot to do all that.

It's pretty easy for us to use a bot for single sign-on. When people join the company, we can add them to the bot and set all their permissions based on the Active Directory. Our employees spend less time on these tasks and are more productive. 

It also reduces human error. When you have a human dealing with ticketing, they must collect customer information like names, phone numbers, ticket numbers, etc. It's always possible for the employee to mix up customer information or input the wrong numbers, but the bot never makes these mistakes unless they are broken. 

Automate has over a hundred connections with email, PDFs, Excel, the web, and various areas. It's like Excel, which has functions, so you don't need to know how to code or be a developer. People need to understand how to use all these connections and functions to customize the solution. Having a little technical knowledge is better because it's faster and easier to use, but you don't need to know how to code. 

All the applications that we need are drag and drop. A lot of functions can be implemented quickly with only some tiny adjustments. They change only one value and the name, then drag and drop. It's essential for us. 

Our employers have strong technical backgrounds, and we have a standard training course for Automate that takes about 10 hours. Usually, we have four sessions that are about two and a half hours. It's crucial when you have a training session that you have some time in between to apply the knowledge and improve. After the next session, you take a week to test and improve. After about 10 hours, you can understand how to use the system well.

They also have Automate Academy, where you can learn best practices. The problem with RPA is that it's impossible to know everything about data and SAP. The standard training is high quality, and you can improve as you go. If you need something special, you can check the bots the community has produced and see how users have built bots using data from ServiceNow or many other solutions. 

My company, where I work, is a value-added distributor for Fortra's Automate. We distribute Automate and other solutions to various customers, each with a different use case. We develop a proof of concept solutions and full projects for them. We have done projects for hospitals for insurance eligibility checking, HR automation, and price comparisons for vendors. A specific use case is the insurance eligibility checking we have done for a hospital chain in the region. Whenever a front desk employee takes a person's ID, they enter the identifying number and our bot picks up the ID from the back end, searches the insurance portal for the ID, and finds out if they are eligible, what their copay is, what their coverage is, and what network they are in.

The solution can be deployed on-prem or on the cloud depending on the organization's requirements and preferences.

For no-code automation specifically, Automate is very good. It is all just drag and drop, so developers do not need to see any of the underlying code that is going on behind the scenes. This makes it very user-friendly, so no one needs to be highly technically proficient to start developing solutions with Automate, which is a great benefit. However, if someone is a more proficient developer who wants to use a more traditional coding language, they can still integrate it into their workflow, as Automate has actions for that.

No-code drag-and-drop and form-based development are very useful for clients who don't want to dedicate a lot of technical resources to developing and automating. We have seen this in our clients, where they have their regular IT staff who are not doing a lot of coding but are still able to get Automate up and running quickly and start working with it. This is a big selling point, but there are some clients who are more used to traditional scripting languages and are less willing to try out Automate. It varies on a case-by-case basis, but in the majority of cases, having no-code automation is a major advantage.

Fortra offers a free Automate Academy on its website, which includes multiple modules and hours of videos covering the basic and advanced concepts of Automate, such as working with workflows and more technical aspects. Customers can also get certified through the Academy. Additionally, the Bot Store provides pre-built bots that can be freely modified, edited, and used for specific use cases. Most of the bots in the Bot Store are free. Combining both of these resources provides a good amount of support for training. However, the amount of time it takes to learn Automate depends on the individual and their technical background. Those with a developer background may find it easier to pick up and use Automate, as they will already have the concepts of loops and if statements. With a few hours of training and practice, they should be able to use Automate effectively. Fortra also provides additional resources to fill in any gaps.

Automate is pretty good at reducing human errors. Whatever we set up, it is done and it's functioning logically. If there are any errors that come through, it is almost always due to gaps in the logic of the implementation that we have done, which can be hard to detect. That is where most of the errors come from. There could also be some edge cases that we don't consider while developing, which might be causing some errors. But if we set it up correctly, it's usually quite effective. The other source of errors could be if we're using OCR or something similar, as there is inherently some ambiguity which can lead to incorrect readings. That is also a potential source of errors.

Automate reduced errors by 90 to 95 percent, which is an estimate based on my observation of the insurance equity process. In most cases, this estimate is accurate.

The biggest advantage of Automate which saves us time and money is that it is easy to automate any repetitive manual tasks. This means a quick return on investment can be achieved. However, my advice to companies planning to use Automate is to not just automate a single process but to also invest in maintaining and scaling Automate. They should set up an automation center of excellence and consider automating processes in other departments such as HR and finance. Automate is also easy to use compared to other solutions, so it does not require a lot of technical expertise to get started. This is the biggest selling point of Automate.

We use HelpSystems Automate primarily for file manipulation, such as moving files from folder to folder and tasks that other tools can't do without some programming.

When files come in, we want to send them to specific locations based on their names and based on the results of IF statements. The solution makes this kind of work more straightforward and more drag and drop.

We also use the product to move Excel spreadsheets or PDF files and to convert PDF files; it's a powerful tool for transferring information. It has a playback feature, but we don't use that in our current environment.

We have two servers running the solution; one for development and one for production. Going from development to production is as simple as dragging the object over and putting it into production with little to no change, which makes promotion straightforward.

We get a data file comprised of multiple reports, and it's a text file. We use the solution to split the text file into individual reports, and then we can drop them into a folder, and they get picked up by another tool, OnBase. That is an essential task for us.

We also use the tool for retrieving data files and sending them out via AWS or Google Cloud, as it has cloud-based capabilities.

The tool works behind the scenes; we created a process that reads many data files, matches them to a SQL database and moves them to the correct folder while collecting information required for other processes further down the road. That's mainly what we use it for, and I'm responsible for maintaining it. Automate makes my job easier because I don't have to keep rewriting scripts or changing file names; we can quickly change a database file, and the solution picks that information up and processes it.

For example, we get a file that has ten reports in it. We take that file and run it through Automate, which reads the data file line by line and breaks it up. Line one through 1000 is one report, and 1001 may be a second report. Automate handles that repeatedly very well. It then reads the database to determine what the report is and where it is supposed to go. If a report doesn't match any database parameters, it's simple to go into the report in Automate and add the condition.

We're a small shop with only two of us running Automate for the corporation. We deal with claims and other insurance-related work. The solution reduces the number of staff required because we don't have to hire network programmers or use VB scripts to edit data.  

As the tool deals with repeated tasks and mostly removes human error from the process, it cuts down on errors by about 50 to 75%. 

Behind the scenes, we see the value of using Automate immediately, as when we turn it on or enable it, as HelpSystems calls it, the tool beings working. Depending on the schedule, that could be within five seconds or 15 minutes. The process works fine; it's flawless. 

We use Fortra's Automate primarily to automate different tasks that different users would otherwise have to do manually, whether running secret queries, pulling files off FTP servers, or uploading files to FTP servers, primarily logistics. You'd be sending and receiving EDI documents, sending inventory files, transferring data to and from customers, and running general reports, whether exception reporting or regular inventory. We're even using it in payroll to set notices when people work overtime. We get reports from the payroll provider. We have automated reports for our transportation business. The solution is the whole company.

Automate in pre-judge instances was primarily a work multiplier, so it helped alleviate a lot of the work for our customer-facing team members, provided an additional set of services and tools from IT to the business, as well as supporting sales, customer service, and accounting in many ways.

We use the solution to automate some repetitive tasks which we execute in IT areas, such as backups, for instance. Also, we developed a systems support enterprise related to the transport industry that captures information that comes from electronic sources like Excel and other types of forms. In addition, we also make prototypes supporting the inbox and in the backend. The system looks for information that the user requests.

The OCR functionalities already embedded, and you can also use the command-line functionality such as those provided by Google, IBM, or others, even AWS.