Automation Anywhere Reviews

We use it for automating manual processes that are done by people now, data-entry type tasks.

We're using it to process line items in invoices. We get the invoices via Excel and we have to validate the accuracy of the line item charges. We get them once every two weeks and there are about 30,000 to 40,000 line items, and each one has to be validated. With a person doing it, it would cost more money than it would save to catch the defects. But to have a bot do it is much better because a person can only sample a certain amount. Now, we can have the bot check all of them.

There are a lot of valuable features. It's a very complex piece of software. One of the most valuable features is the different possibilities it gives you to manipulate the interface screens that you're working with. It's helpful to have a certain solution already baked into the environment. 

You really need a four-hour conversation about specific features because there are a million moving parts inside of the software. It's not that one feature is so helpful, and that I decided to purchase it over something else because of that.

Having some more pre-mapping and pre-setup analysis of what you're going to be doing with it would be helpful.

The stability is good. The only issues we've had with the product have been responded to pretty quickly. We've also had some infrastructure issues on our side. But on the Automation Anywhere side, it's been pretty good.

So far, it's scalable.

We have four developers doing the developing in Automation Anywhere. We set it up so that things are triggered automatically by somebody putting a file in a folder. Right now, we have seven bots in production for seven departments.

The four developers handle deployment and maintenance of the solution.

We're looking to increase usage of the solution. We're doing a workshop in a few weeks to bring a lot of our managers in to get them thinking about things that exist in their areas that can be automated.

Technical support, so far, has been pretty good. We haven't had any major issues and the ones we did have were answered pretty quickly.

This is a brand-new implementation. We didn't have a previous solution.

The setup was a pretty complex undertaking. We're a global company. We have our virtual IT management done in Switzerland, while our hardware is in New Jersey. So to get the different stakeholders of Automation Anywhere within our company working together to iron out the Control Room stuff and the virtual side of things, as well as the on-prem software side of things - to have it all connecting properly - was a pretty complex implementation.

The setup of just the developer environment and the actual Bot Runners took about three weeks. As far as building the bots goes, we haven't scaled as far as we can, yet.

We didn't really have a deployment strategy, per se. We just followed the action items that we were given to do by Automation Anywhere. We're still working on how to implement it across our organization. We have Automation Anywhere coming in with some Professional Services people in a few weeks. We still have to work on getting things moving with the managers, teaching them what are good processes to automate, etc.

We deployed ourselves. We own a technology company, so we had that benefit.

So far, we haven't seen return on investment, but I think we're getting there.

Yearly, our licensing costs are about $90,000 to $100,000. There will be additional licensing costs when we add more Bot Runners to our infrastructure.

We evaluated UiPath. We went with Automation Anywhere primarily because of the bot analytics, called Bot Insight. The analytics capability was a big one. UiPath didn't have the kind of functionality we were looking for in analytics.

Definitely do a very thorough infrastructure assessment first and make sure you're all set up there. Do some testing of the solution on any proprietary software that only exists inside of your company. Have a good understanding of what you're looking to automate. Don't just take a manager's word for it, but really look at it yourself to make sure that the process doesn't have any decisions that have to be made by a person or that there aren't some small things there that might stop you from automating.

I would rate Automation Anywhere at eight out of ten. It would have been good if they had helped us be a little bit more realistic about feasibility. If they had asked us for some examples of processes that we're looking at automating and had pre-tested some of those, it would have been helpful. The expectations of what we thought was possible, versus what appears to be possible, were a little bit off. They should investigate, early on, exactly what you're trying to do to make sure it's a good fit and set expectations.

We are using Automation Anywhere to automate our reports. We are an insurance firm, so we need to ensure that we send out notifications to our customers day to day to announce when premiums are due and so on. We're automating the process so that, rather than sending out manual messages to customers, we can automate these messages. 

We were manually tracking all the premiums and all payments that are due from customers and so on. Now, with Automation Anywhere, at least every month, on a certain date, we have the pre-trained notifications being sent out to customers. It's saving us time.

Before the installation, we had a manual process for notifying customers. We'd have to get an excerpt out of the system, get a CSV file, then have someone look at it, and manually filter, for example, what are the due amounts, et cetera. So all these processes have been automated now from our side.

Automating the entire process for us has been extremely beneficial. Earlier there had to be proper dedicated resources who had to take a report and so on, and it would take a lot of time. Our resource utilization has gone down drastically for this activity now.

It is kind of difficult for business users to use the product. In our case, we didn't really have any in house team who were able to process the mapping and everything. Now this is done by Automation Anywhere.

Being the end user, we didn't really have to get into a learning curve as such since our vendor partners were able to map everything for us as per our requirements. There was not much training that we had to do.

We have Oracle Finance incorporated with the solution. It's pulling our data directly for us. We do not have many use cases are in the inline environment. 

Automation Anywhere helped save time and costs. In our scenario, it has drastically helped us as there used to be a proper dedicated team who had to do these manual activities. That has been cut down, and the system is taking care of everything for us. 

Applications like Microsoft Power Automate do have zero-code systems. I've not done much research on Automtin Anywhere in comparison. However, if Automation Anywhere could also have something of that sort, that would be a game changer. I see that Microsoft has already added all sorts of AI capabilities that can support users who are trying to automate any process—including building reports. That will eventually help a lot. 

We've been using the solution for over three years now.

So far, we have not faced any issues. 

We only use the solution in our finance department. For us, the solution is scalable enough. I'd rate scalability seven or eight out of ten.

I'm not really raising any tickets with technical support.

We did not previously use a different solution.

I wasn't involved in the deployment of the solution. 

We do not really have any maintenance. 

The pricing is still pretty high. If I have to consider Power Automate from Microsoft, I have to consider that that application is covered in my Microsoft licenses, and that would still save me a good amount of money.

We didn't evaluate other options. 

We don't use any AI yet. Generative AI is something that management is still not really keen on focusing Automation Anywhere on. As AI advances, there might be some initiatives that might be pushed down from the CEO side. So far it's tough to pick up as AI is still at a very early stage from a use case standpoint for insurance. If there are some tools that are coming into play, we will then consider investing in them and maybe try to incorporate them in our current setup.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Gping with Automation Anywhere was an organizational decision. However, Power Automate would also do the job for most companies. If cost is a concern, users can still go with Power Automate under a Microsoft license. 

I basically develop automations and also configure and create new scripts. I do user testing and separate testing as well.

We use it for legacy applications. We can automate legacy applications well, even with complexity.

It's very easy to use. It helps streamline manual processes. Manual work can cost the company a lot of money, but with an automation, work can be just a click of a button. That, and the work is more accurate and happens much faster. Any manual processes can be automated.

While it does use AI, we don't use it too much. We're looking at it. However, it's not something we prioritize.

I like that we can customize almost anything. You can create workflows fairly easily.

Even if users do not have technical skills, they can still use Automation Anywhere. It's not hard to learn.

I did training over one or two weeks. However, I did find some of the training challenging, specifically in areas where I didn't have any background. That said, I'm using it with legacy applications, which makes some things more complex. For most users, it would be very easy to get going. 

We did see near immediate results once we started using Automation Anywhere. Within a week or two, once we started testing it, we could see how useful it was. 

It's saved us time and money so far. We were able to do reports both before and after running Automation Anywhere and could compare the results and we were able to see that we did actually record savings on both counts. 

The scripting can be a bit difficult. 

I've used the solution for the past three years. 

The stability is very good. That said, it's not 100% stable. Sometimes it does crash.

I've never contacted technical support. 

The initial setup was fairly straightforward. Our team did not find it to be difficult. our deployment team was pretty small. We only had four or five people working on it. It was easy to upgrade as well. There is some maintenance needed, including the need to take logs. However, it doesn't take too much time. 

The price is a bit higher than other options. 

We did look at other options; however, we needed something that could handle legacy automation, and Automation Anywhere made the most sense. 

I'm a customer and end-user.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

New users should be knowledgeable enough to write scripts, as that's the main issue. However, it's a good solution for automating small processes.

I have primarily worked in the presales as well as in the sales cycle. I do not have hands-on experience with the tool. I have a team of people who are the continuous improvement folks who work in a particular area. We have developers or continuous improvement people who leverage the tool and go ahead and help to get them deployed. For example, if it is UiPath's process mining capabilities, they basically plug the data and do other things. They do the work, and we ensure that we drive the transformation and build the business connects for the customer. So, my role is very different. I am a management consultant. My core hands-on experience is not with digital tools in itself, but I leverage digital tools to drive transformation for a customer. As part of my role, I understand the features and the value add that it brings to the table. I do quality assurance of the outputs that are generated. I also ensure that teams are able to work in a client environment because they need to be able to access the client environment. I also need to drive transformation because there is a lot of stakeholder management. There is a lot of project management that is needed. I work in that area and that sphere. I am not a technical person as such, but when a tool is deployed, I understand how to execute the implementation, how to drive the discussions, and with automation, how to drive value for my customers. That is my area of expertise.

People primarily use it to fast-track and automate transactional, repeatable tasks. By using Automation Anywhere, people want the execution of transactional activities. It could be the back office. It could be the middle office. I have not seen front office use cases, but I am sure there are use cases for that. I have only seen a lot of middle office and back office activities. For example, in the Procurement area, a typical transactional activity would be PR to PO, where information is readily available. That is the use case where it can be easily applicable. Likewise, in the Accounts Payable area, you can use Automation Anywhere to execute automation for payment processing activities. The finance area has got a lot of use cases. They could be reconciliation-related activities, data-gathering activities from different documents, etc. In some areas of Audit to Cash, it could be even looking up invoices and answering customer queries that are pretty straightforward. These are the high-level use cases that I have seen.

Typically, when you are able to execute any repeatable task in an organizational environment, you enhance organizational AI capability. The reason is that your increased accuracy will improve the predictability of the AI algorithm for getting the job transactional activities completed. For example, if somebody is going to create a purchase requisition and the average turnaround time is five days, with a bot, I can get the purchase requisition created in one day. The organization can check and see what is the rate of improvement or what is the predictability of getting the orders received for producing the finished goods. When you look at the end-to-end view, you get predictability to say when will my goods reach the customer. You get to know that by improving one area with automation and ensuring that the work is done in a repeatable manner, you can improve your predictability by a certain percentage, so any automation of a particular process will improve an organization's AI capability. 

The biggest integration is how it integrates with the system of record. When you automate a process per se, you are extracting information or reading information out of a system of record. It could be SAP. It could be Oracle. It could be Microsoft Dynamics, but Microsoft has its tool called Power Automate. That is one level of system integration. The other level of system integration is where you have a front-facing bot. For example, anything to do with query management or queries that keep coming via mail or shared service portals. These integrations are a little different from the ones that you have with a system of record. Automation Anywhere integrates pretty seamlessly for both types of automation. The system of record integration can be a little bit of a challenge as compared to the regular mail servers or shared service portals because of the permissions and the security checks that are needed. Getting VDI access becomes a little bit challenging because customers sometimes are not comfortable giving full-fledged access during the UAT. It becomes a little bit challenging, but it also depends upon the maturity of the customer and the nature of the business. They are not comfortable giving full-fledged access because it will create problems for them, but after that, when it gets into the live environment, things are a lot easier and streamlined. It has nothing to do with Automation Anywhere. It is just about the maturity and the protocols that a customer has in place. These aspects make it easier to integrate with Automation Anywhere or any other service provider. Based on what my peers have mentioned to me, it is not challenging to integrate with APIs, etc. It is pretty seamless. There are not too many issues. There might have been a challenge in a specific situation, but by and large, in general, the capability it offers is pretty standard for a typical automation tool.

There have been a lot of use cases where we have used Automation Anywhere to save time and costs. Typically, any automation gives you 20% to 30% efficiency. That is what I have seen. That is an average. In some cases, it could be high, and in some cases, it could be low depending on the task and the domain, but 20% to 30% efficiency is typically possible.

Since implementing the solution, the tasks are taking place in a seamless manner. As long as the process is not changed, there is the ease of replicability. Repeatable tasks constantly get done without any challenges. 

There is also an increase in the efficiency of the people. There is reduced turnaround time for responses or getting the activities done.

We work with lots of digital tools, and I have been engaged with teams for the last seven years or so.

They are one of the top service providers for automation. They are definitely stable.

Automations are also pretty stable. Automation works on the fact that you are not changing your process. As long as things are repeatable, every automation software does the same thing. Challenges come when you do upgrades to your ERP, or for that matter, you make one simple change in the process. That is when you have any stability-related challenges.

I believe they can do automation at scale.

It has been a long time since I reached out to them for support. As a service provider, they are always there to provide support. The challenges happen in terms of how the deal was constructed, what was agreed, and where were the gaps in understanding. That is where the issues happen. There are usually many unknowns. I would rate them an eight out of ten based on my experience a while ago.

We work with lots of digital tools. We have leveraged UiPath in the past. We are platinum partners with some of the service providers.

 I know that Automation Anywhere, UiPath, or any other solution has its own specific nuances, but the gap between them is closing up technically. In terms of value, I do see that Automation Anywhere offers value.

The tool selection depends on the partnership deal. It depends on who an organization is considering and the approach for partnership deals. In my organization, we have different partners with whom we work. How you partner with an organization and approach that organization is one of the big differentiators. I know there are not too many players out there in the market. You only have big fours. The key thing is how you are partnering with them and how you are going into the market and taking their support. The second thing is how you are promoting the key capability that you are bringing to the table and how you are comparing it with other people. For example, I know that UiPath has process mining capability, but Automation Anywhere is offering AI capabilities. If I go to a customer and immediately start talking about AI via automation, it is a little drawn-out process for me, whereas with process mining, I can immediately plug and play the data and tell them what are the challenges and for those long run activities, what are my automation possibilities. The positioning is important, but I am not undermining the AI capabilities that Automation Anywhere brings. 

I was not involved in the deployment of Automation Anywhere. I work with the RPA team.

The deployment environment varies. It is dependent on the client's environment. It depends on where your data is and where you are doing the automation. If you are doing automation on the data fabric for reporting purposes and you are deploying a bot to gather the data from specific tables, you might put it onto a data fabric or a data lake. If you are working on PR to PO, that information is going to be on a system of record. It might be on the server itself. It is truly use-case-dependent in my view.

In terms of maintenance, customers typically buy the licenses, but these days, I see that customers prefer to use one main partner for all their licenses because it is easy to manage that one main partner. It could be the largest partner they have in their set of vendors who are supporting them for all IT-related activities. If they buy it from them, they do not need to do maintenance, but if they buy the licenses themselves, they may need maintenance. It depends on whom they are engaging with and what is the purchasing model of licenses.

They all are very competitive today. At the end of the day, it boils down to the negotiations that happen and what type of partner you are. Are you a premium partner or are you a preferred partner or a gold partner? Prices are very standardized. There could be a little bit of deviation, but they are comparable. It is a pretty saturated market because everybody has been doing our RPA for the last decade, so they are pretty competitive in pricing.

Every customer is at a different maturity level. Customers at a high level of maturity of process standardization definitely are looking at the next wave of evolution with generative AI. To do some things in generative AI, there have to be some elements of automation. Companies that are not so mature or the small and medium are not yet there. They are trying to digitize the ways of working. They want to ensure that they have the right framework structure within the organization. They are experimenting with automation, but it is more like a basic level of automation. Mature companies with billions of dollars in revenue have already been doing it for the past many years. They are taking up more of the generative AI opportunity to enhance and go deep into those areas.

I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

We use Automation Anywhere to process data entry from our government website.

We implemented Automation Anywhere to reduce human effort and cut costs.

Automation Anywhere offers a complete solution, encompassing both development tools and a control room for managing automation.

Automation Anywhere's front end is designed to be user-friendly for non-technical individuals, while the back end remains under the management of IT.

Several of our projects incorporate generative AI, and while we are new to this field, it has proven beneficial thus far.

The integration of APIs in Automation Anywhere is easy and works well.

We integrated Automation Anywhere with some of the business applications which was straightforward.

Automation Anywhere has helped save time.

The license cost is high and needs improvement.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for over two years.

Automation Anywhere is stable.

Automation Anywhere is scalable.

The technical support is good. The few times I called them they were able to promptly address my issues.

Positive

We switched from Automation Anywhere to Power Automate because of the price and more functionality with other Microsoft products.

We were not able to migrate from Automation Anywhere to Power Automate. We had to recreate everything from scratch.

I prefer Automation Anywhere to Power Automate because it offers a more comprehensive set of features, performs reliably, and provides deeper insights.

The licensing cost for Automation Anywhere is high.

I rate Automation Anywhere nine out of ten.

While Automation Anywhere offers training and community versions for learning and experimentation, it is not user-friendly for non-technical users.

No maintenance is required.

I primarily used Automation Anywhere to streamline and automate standardized business processes. This included tasks such as claims handling, policy registration, and document processing from customers. Our focus was on creating efficient and consistent workflows for handling routine documentation flows.

We aimed to solve the challenges of a hands-off, lights-out approach by implementing Automation Anywhere. The goal was to automate processes like claims handling and document registration, minimizing manual intervention and ensuring a more efficient workflow.

Anywhere contributed to increased efficiency, reduced manual efforts, and notable time savings across various processes.

There is room for improvement in terms of costs and procurement considerations. Additionally, aspects like procurement conditions, technical connectivity, and global reach with Automation Anywhere could be enhanced as well. As part of procurement, these factors become crucial, especially in a global operating context where using the platform in various countries is a key consideration.

We started using Automation Anywhere in 2018.

I wasn't entirely satisfied with Automation Anywhere's support. Cultural differences between them and UiPath or DDI were noticeable, and understanding their company perspective was crucial. Despite this, I handled it professionally, and it was generally okay with no major issues. I would rate the support as an eight out of ten.

Positive

Before using Automation Anywhere, we initially explored three different automation solutions. One was widely mandated across the company and had better pricing. The second was used regionally, but the local teams struggled to adapt to robotics process automation. 

When comparing Automation Anywhere specifically, the solutions were acceptable and useful, but pricing conditions and procurement leverage were areas that could be improved. Overall, the transition to Automation Anywhere enhanced our processes. The choice depended on factors like regulations and conditions. Automation Anywhere didn't have the ease of a global solution we experienced with another tool. We also used DDI locally, which was good in quality but needed transformation into a full RPA solution. Comparing Automation Anywhere with UiPath, UiPath was more global, scalable, and had better contract and pricing conditions.

Automation Anywhere requires limited maintenance, and at the time, three individuals were involved in maintenance and implementation. As the applications expanded, there was a need for a gradual increase in the team for ongoing support and enhancements.

Introducing Automation Anywhere to non-tech-savvy business users had its challenges. Some needed training to understand and develop their use cases with technical support, while others already grasped the requirements and could effectively communicate with developers. Managing this diverse group required a centralized approach. Training typically took one to three months, depending on individual skill sets, to bring non-technical employees up to speed on using Automation Anywhere.

We currently use standard RPA with Automation Anywhere, not incorporating Automation Co-Pilot. The challenge is identifying repetitive tasks suitable for RPA. We are exploring whether these functionalities are embedded in existing software or if direct engagement with RPA providers is necessary. The ongoing discussion revolves around the potential future integration of robotic solutions into software. For artificial intelligence, we distinguish between IoT, machine learning, and similar aspects, with development ongoing from both smaller players and major companies like Microsoft. The goal is to combine both robotic and AI solutions for comprehensive automation eventually.

Integration with other tools and applications with Automation Anywhere was smooth, especially for cloud-based applications. We did not encounter any significant difficulties, and the process was straightforward, meeting relevant requirements.

Automation Anywhere provided us with good automation at scale, and we did not encounter any problems with its ability to handle large-scale automation tasks.

Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere as an eight out of ten.

My business Analysis team describes the cases, and my architect team works based on that. I look into how this architect team is working to fulfill the requirements of my client.

Our use cases mainly are for the financial domain. We are working for an international organization. The automation that we are building is going to be utilized in various projects for tracking the expenditures of projects, managing the budget, and maintaining the planning. The information is then returned to the core finance providers. 

We have integrated it with TMX and the public finance model. Government Resource Planning or GRP is integrated. We have implemented a lot of triggers to give all the information to various points.

We have our own architecture. It is able to take the information from the core engine, API engine, or triggers from databases or data pipelines and execute the process based on the defined logic. It is able to give information to various process owners using the workflow.

In most places, the processes are scheduled automatically, so it saves time because we are not executing any process manually. For example, we are able to get information about the utilization of the funds given to a particular country for a specific purpose. It triggers an alert if the funds are being spent in a particular area that is not allowed based on the business logic.

Being able to implement automation is valuable. We take the business logic and provide a solution to the client. Defining the intelligence pipeline is the most interesting and challenging aspect for me.

For us, nothing is complicated. It is quite easy. We have a competency and learning team that gives training to clients. It does not seem very difficult for them.

The approval process needs improvement.

We have been using this solution for approximately one and a half years. I do not directly use it, but my team uses it.

It is a private server farm where we have implemented AWS because the governments do not allow hosting on the cloud in most countries. This is a restriction from the government side.

We have two teams. One is the technical team, which is involved in network security and the server side. I am from the functional team where we are involved in all the services, all the applications, and all the databases. The technical team takes care of the software installation, maintenance, patches, and upgrades. We are only working on the application side.

I did not evaluate any other solution. I got the instructions from my company to use it.

We have a full-fledged deployment of automation in our organization, and we have a number of projects in the pipeline. There are definitely a lot of possibilities inside the organization, not only for me but also for my team members.

The main challenge currently is that we do not have proper resources, and the requirement of the client is very specific. Apart from that, I have not felt any problem with my team in deploying any of the solutions at the client site, so at this point in time, I cannot say that a specific technology is the best technology or that Automation Anywhere is the best. We are facing some challenges, and we are working on that. We are getting references of some of the other solutions, and we are working. We are doing the research every day and providing the solution to the client. Every day, it is a new challenge, and we are implementing the solution on the client site and understanding how to overcome those challenges.

At the moment, a person like me who is only working on one particular technology cannot compare it with other available alternatives in the market.

I would rate it an eight out of ten.

We use Automation Anywhere for our clients which consists of banks and a telecommunication company to automate their developing systems using bots. We receive the process definition documents from our clients and we developed a process that they need to approve before we can implement the automation.

With Automation Anywhere, we can automate high-priority projects first and gradually shift our focus to automating smaller, manually-driven projects.

It takes around three months to train non-technical people to use Automation Anywhere. We start training on simple Excel automation tasks and progress from there.

Automation Co-Pilot has helped increase productivity. The bots save three to five minutes for each small task per person and even more time on larger tasks. One bot can handle thousands of projects.

Automation Co-Pilot has helped save staff time for other projects.

Automation Anywhere successfully integrates automation into workflows, APIs, business applications, and documents. Everything runs seamlessly in the backend with no issues. 

Automation Anywhere offers valuable features, including command packages for PDF, Windows, XML, and Excel, as well as universal recording capabilities.

Automation Anywhere has difficulty collecting data from Citrix and Oracle applications.

Extracting customer addresses from Google that are not in a standard URL format is a challenge for Automation Anywhere.

I would like Automation Anywhere to make available more development tools, so our people can learn on their own and enhance their skills.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for just over one and a half years.

Automation Anywhere effectively automates our manual tasks at scale.

We clear up any issues in the testing phase, so once we are ready to deploy it is straightforward.

The solution itself is free unless we want to add the support option but we have to pay for the bots we use. There are two types of payment options: monthly or quarterly licenses for the bot agents. 

Between Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Blue Prism I find Automation Anywhere to be the best with UiPath a close second.

I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

Upgrading Automation Anywhere is easy.

We use Automation Anywhere in multiple projects and multiple teams.

Maintenance is required for updating bots or if changes are made by the developers.

We have five to six people working around the clock who are responsible for the bot maintenance.