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reviewer1468443 - PeerSpot reviewer
RPA Platform Architect at Accenture
Real User
Bot deployment is easy but exported bots packages are not updated
Pros and Cons
  • "We have seen AA bringing immense value to the clients once operational. Bot deployment is easy and controlling Access is easy with RBAC With Recent additions. User groups and user management is on par with tools like Blue Prism & UiPath."
  • "Verbose logging of bot compiling and deployment from the control room. Events occurring during compiling, pre-processing the bots should be logged in the control room or bot launcher logs."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for building Solutions involving RPA bots. We have implemented two standalone infrastructures each with A2019.16 Control rooms. 

Multiple Developers are working using the tools and commands in A2019 to create bots that will be deployed for clients to address their business requirements.

The infrastructure is running on the private cloud . 

The control room is running on the latest Windows server and the latest Windows SQL server is running the control room database.

Developers use VMware Virtual desktops to execute their bots. Chrome and IE browsers used by the developers.

How has it helped my organization?

Clients approach us to implement Automation Anywhere for three main reasons:

1: FTE reduction
2: Improving AHT 
3: Quick implementation and getting started on their RPA journey.

We have seen AA bringing immense value to the clients once operational. Bot deployment is easy and controlling Access is easy with RBAC with the recent additions. User groups and user management is on par with tools like Blue Prism & UiPath.

From a development perspective, the web-based approach is easy to deploy. The downside is that it is difficult to troubleshoot as logging on to the clients has been reduced.

It's comparatively easy to find developers who are accustomed to working with AA compared to other RPA tools.  

What is most valuable?

A2019 Control room

1: Single installer for all components and it installs all pre-requisites- Makes life easier as only admin access is required from the IT team to complete the installation
2:RBAC - Each component access can be controlled via Custom roles. I have created roles for developers, schedulers, admin, testers are all in a single control room.
3: Inbuilt credential vault with encryption is easy to implement and manage.
4:Recently included features of adding Security groups from the Active Directory is a lifesaver for the Control room administrator. Users are managed at the AD level with no overhead tasks of CR admin managing users.

A2019 Bot Agent

1: Easily installed but requires admin rights. 
2: It can be installed on a server now as the option to add multiple users is enabled in bot agent installer files

What needs improvement?

Verbose logging of bot compiling and deployment from the control room. Events occurring during compiling, pre-processing the bots should be logged in the control room or bot launcher logs.

Exported bots packages are not updated. Each package must be validated independently upon being exported from one control room to another.

Moving away from Client-server architecture to web-based deployment compromised developer experience of app reliability offered by 11.3.X flavors.

Desktop app experience >>> Web experience. Developers are not pleased. 

Buyer's Guide
Automation Anywhere
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Automation Anywhere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
814,528 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using A2019 for 4 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stick to long term releases.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Easily scalable on-premises.

How are customer service and support?

Customer support is excellent and have helped on multiple occasions.Raising a ticket through through partner/support portal is very easy. Frontline engineers are quick to respond and access the issue mentioned in the ticket.

In my experience , most of the cases are resolved by frontline team and rarely get to involve their escalation team. Case resolution time differ vastly based on the complexity of the issue being reported and availability of the support engineer. 

Getting quick support/response is difficult and most of the calls are pre-scheduled. Categorizing a support ticket is crucial to get right resources for the issue. You will not like a platform engineer supporting a bot development issue and vice versa.

Enhancement requests via support requests are time consuming and might not see daylight till next minor/major upgrade.  

knowledge base articles available for troubleshooting known issues can be improved. Articles are not sorted properly and finding the correct KB for a known issue takes lot of time and effort.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

UiPath, we switched due to organizational use.

How was the initial setup?

Simple installation.

What about the implementation team?

In-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Setup: A2019 is very easy. A single installer does it all.

Cost: Cheaper compared to Blue Prism and UiPath Orchestrator.

Licensing: Floating licensing 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Blue Prism but it had a high cost.

What other advice do I have?

Too frequent updates and major changes in each update is frustrating.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Manager - Engineering, Automation CoE at KPMG
Real User
Saves time and improves quality of mundane manual tasks, and the support for Excel is beneficial
Pros and Cons
  • "Using this solution has freed internal operations employees to do more "human value-add" work by removing mundane manual tasks."
  • "We would like to have a better debugging facility."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is automation development supporting internal business operations at KPMG. We have 100+ live automations, with v10 and v11 deployments.

How has it helped my organization?

Using this solution has freed internal operations employees to do more "human value-add" work by removing mundane manual tasks. It has improved the quality of these tasks through automation and enabled us to do things we couldn't have previously done due to time and cost.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature so far is Task bot deployment. We hope to expand to IQ Bot this year.

Automation Anywhere's interaction with Excel is a key benefit.

What needs improvement?

Currently, Automation Anywhere's debugging functionality is minimal.  Most notable is that it works on only the top-level task (not on sub-tasks called by the top-level task).  This limits its practical usefulness.  Increasing the robustness of the debugging functionality would be very helpful.

Additionally, implmentation of a "global" variable concept (variables shared across tasks) would be very useful.  AA's variable mapping between tasks is cumbersome.  

For how long have I used the solution?

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

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Automation Anywhere
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Automation Anywhere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
814,528 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1464534 - PeerSpot reviewer
RPA Specialist at Thirdware Solution Ltd.
Real User
The flow chart view helped our customers easily understand the code
Pros and Cons
  • "It has improved a lot. We could identify a lot of manual processes that can be automated for our customers. The scope of automation by using Automation Anywhere has become wonderful. IQ Bot and AI sense are the incredible features provided."
  • "We have encountered some issues in the actions like Terminal Emulator-> Send Key -> Page Down/Up not working."

What is our primary use case?

Automation of AP 3 Way Invoice Matching Process. Details from PDF invoices with the corresponding data in terminal. This project involved applications like Outlook, Aurora Terminal, PDF reading by IQ Bot, and Excel. The current scope of the project was to process around 600 invoices per day from 20 different suppliers which has saved a lot of time for the end-user. It has been deployed in production and the customer is pretty much happy with the performance of the bot.

On-Premise installation of CR with 1 runner and 2 creator license.

IQ Bot

16GB RAM

How has it helped my organization?

It has improved a lot. We could identify a lot of manual processes that can be automated for our customers. The scope of automation by using Automation Anywhere has become wonderful. IQ Bot and AI sense are the incredible features provided.

The features and the architecture of Automation Anywhere make it easy to analyze any process and conclude good candidates for the automation. The flow chart view helped our customers understand the code pretty easily. The handover or knowledge transfer also becomes very comfortable. 

What is most valuable?

  • The most valuable features I see on the actions added have a lot of commands that were unavailable in older versions.
  • The concept of packages with the flexibility of adding our own package. The packages for running Python Scripts, different packages for excel, and it has the option to work with Excel if it is not installed in the machine.
  • Exception handling with try, catch, finally and many other actions introduced.
  • Concept of different data types.
  • The different views for writing code like Flow or List or Dual.

What needs improvement?

1) We have encountered some issues in the actions like Terminal Emulator-> Send Key -> Page Down/Up not working.

2) We found difficulties while copy-pasting commands after the end of "IF" condition and "Loop".

3) A scroll bar will be good in the "Flow" tab.

4) When any command is double-clicked, if the command opens in a popup window as we had in AA desktop versions, then that could have saved some space for development as the code writing section seems to be less which creates difficulties when there are loops in the loop.

5) Email trigger was also not working.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using AA for four months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Currently, it is a beta version but has pretty good performance stability. There are issues in some packages. I hope with all the updated packages the solution will be much more stable.

For example: Terminal Emulator-> Send Key -> Page Down/Up command is currently not working.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Excellent.

How are customer service and technical support?

Supportive but takes longer time to respond.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I always used Automation Anywhere from version 10.5 to A2019.15

How was the initial setup?

It was easy and straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

In-house.

What was our ROI?

ROI of the current project delivered saved 4 hours of time per day of the end user.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The setup cost is less than other solutions in market

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Blue Prism. I personally did not like the way and features provided for developing bots.

What other advice do I have?

It's an awesome solution for automation.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Gajanan Shalgar - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at OMFYS Technologies India Pvt.Ltd
Real User
Top 10
Enables us to automate many processes and increase productivity
Pros and Cons
  • "V.11 has three different recorders but A2019 Automation Anywhere created an all-in-one recorder called Universal recorder which more reliable to use."
  • "Automation Anywhere changed OCR features in A2019. My suggestion is to improve the OCR command scope and usability. We use OCR for PDF data extraction as we use in V. 11.x product."

What is our primary use case?

Automation Anywhere provides a tool for RPA. We can create software bots that mimic humans. The RPA solution is created to work for repetitive tasks and to use human resources for a creative perspective. Automation Anywhere provides the best feature to make a software bot for processes. We use it for SAP, HRMS, SQL, etc.

Environment: we have a V11.x environment and A2019 cloud-deployed environment on AWS Cloud. Right now we are doing a migration process from V11.x to A2019.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere provides an RPA solution for my organization. We automated many processes through Automation Anywhere in which productivity increased. We also implemented the IQ Bot by extracting invoice data to CSV format and uploaded it to Oracle E-Business Suite. We implemented Automation Anywhere in many department processes. We have two unattended bot runners. We implemented more then 40 processes until now. I used both V11.x and A2019 and I like more A2019 than V.11.

What is most valuable?

Automation Anywhere provides many features for automating processes.

1. V.11 has three different recorders but A2019 Automation Anywhere created an all-in-one recorder called Universal recorder which more reliable to use.

2. One of Automation Anywhere's best features is the IQ Bot. In V.11 we created many instances & train many groups. In A2019 Automation Anywhere updated IQ Bot to provide more accuracy. They included Python scripting for validation. Before that, we used Macro for validation.

3. Automation Anywhere provides more commands in A2019 and also provides a feature called Packages through which we can update commands that we need.

What needs improvement?

Automation Anywhere changed OCR features in A2019. My suggestion is to improve the OCR command scope and usability. We use OCR for PDF data extraction as we use in V. 11.x product.

Automation Anywhere has a perfect structure of working. Automation Anywhere has the best product structure. It also provides support for customers and they respond in 24 hours.

They still provide updates on packages to get more accuracy in process creation. The automation has already improved very much.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using AA for 1.5 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Through Automation Anywhere, we can create stable bots for processes.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Through Automation Anywherl, we create bost for process and it very scalable & secure. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I only use Automation Anywhere tools V 11.x &A2019

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easier than the migration. We have to follow the steps given by Automation Anywhere for the initial setup. If we have any issues with the setup, Automation Anywhere provides support.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented in customer environment. 

What was our ROI?

We have to calculate ROI before the process creation to get clarification and to understand the benefits of automation. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Automation Anywhere provided the best quality for products like iPhones. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before using Automation Anywhere I checked Blue Prism & Ui Path but I preferred Automation Anywhere because it is best in quality. It also has IQ Bot for unstructured data converting in structure.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1457211 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Operations Associate Consultant at ZS Associates
Real User
Easy to learn, tweak, and implement in our day-to-day tasks
Pros and Cons
  • "The best part about A2019 is its ease of use. You don't need to be a coding champ or an expert to use and implement A2019 in automating tasks. It's very easy to learn, tweak, and implement in your day-to-day tasks, especially features like capture/record is completely marvelous."
  • "One of the challenges that I face every now and then while working with A2019, is around the bot agent updates. Every week/alternate weeK, I receive an error while running my bots, that asks me to update the bot agent."

What is our primary use case?

I have been using A2019 for validating IC reports and scorecards that we publish every month for the client on a portal. As the reports are around 200, it used to take a lot of manual efforts previously to get this done, however now, A2019 has helped in automating the complete validation part. 

Apart from this, the other major use case is validating the child level reports with the parent. Though the underlying reports are generated from the parent itself, validating individual reports just to add another level of the quality check was a tedious task initially, however, A2019 has made it very easy in comparing the two excel based reports end-to-end

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere, specifically A2019, has helped me and my organization in automating the tasks related to quality checks and assurances. As a consulting firm, it is really important to provide correct insights, reports, and deliverables to the client and it involves a lot of QC checks and validations. A2019 has helped us in automating a major chunk of such tasks, thus helped in saving a lot of time, effort, and revenue. There are trainings going on every now and then, to spread the knowledge and access of this tool to other folks in the organization, so that more number of people would be able to implement this in their projects

What is most valuable?

The best part about A2019 is its ease of use. You don't need to be a coding champ or an expert to use and implement A2019 in automating tasks. It's very easy to learn, tweak, and implement in your day-to-day tasks, especially features like capture/record is completely marvelous. Apart from these, the Excel basic and Excel advanced features are really handy and easy to use. I personally have used them frequently in all my bots as most of my work is related to excel and stuff. Last, but not least, using A2019 for automating the tasks even on the virtual machines, which is one of my favorites.

What needs improvement?

One of the challenges that I face every now and then while working with A2019, is around the bot agent updates. Every week/alternate weeK, I receive an error while running my bots, that asks me to update the bot agent. I have to download the bot agent every time and reinstall it, in order to get the work done. This thing has also created an issue for me in the past, where I need to present something to my US counterparts, and then the bot was unable to run because the bot agent update notification came few minutes before the meeting. This was really frustrating at that point in time, however, fortunately, I got that resolved within minutes during the meeting by updating the bot agent. Hence, I believe, there should be some facility available, which can help me in running my previously implemented bots, even if there are some updates in the bot agent

For how long have I used the solution?

I recently got involved in A2019 training organized within my organization as part of motivating folks for Automation. It's been around six months that I have been using this as a part of my day-to-day work.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have been using this for the past six months and have been already utilizing this for my day-to-day work. The level of involvement of A2019 for me is increasing as time passes, as now, I see things from a point of view, where I try to automate major chunk of my work using this.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This can be used to any level of tasks/processes as it allows the bots to communicate within. This helps in automating major tasks into smaller bots and then coordinating them together to automate the complete process.

How are customer service and technical support?

I used to have connections with Automation Anywhere folks every week/alternate week and I must say that they were highly professional and learned people. They always guided me before even implementing something and made me aware of all the nuances. Overall, I am really happy to get in contact with such folks, who not even helped me in shaping my imagination for automation, but also showed directions by demonstrating their example bots.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have a little experience of working on Blue Prism in my previous organization. However, Automation Anywhere is far better it in terms of features and ease of use and implementation.

How was the initial setup?

For me, the setup was quite straightforward. Yes, I did take some online help to get some issues resolved, however, the overall process was pretty easy.

What about the implementation team?

I implemented it in an in-house setup. This has really become a part of my organization's work as the Business Operations vertical is using it very frequently.

What was our ROI?

I invested around 2-3 weeks in learning this and creating my first bot. Then it took me a week to use it for targeting parts of my day-to-day work. And now, I am using it for the past 6-7 months without any investments and saving a lot of effort on a weekly basis.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The costs are just a one-time cost, but the amount of savings it will generate is uncountable. So it's better to invest in something now, learn and start saving your time, effort, and money in the future.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

One of the options was the level of features present in Automation Anywhere. It allows both back-office and front-office bots to automate. However, in the other case, only back-office bots can be automation. I personally like the UI and the overall features present in A2019 and level of ease, with which this can be implemented to any application.

What other advice do I have?

The only con is the frequent updates in the bot agent every now and then. This annoys the user at times and (s)he may land up in some trouble due to this, as the bot would be able to run without installing the updated bot agent.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Consultant at Capgemini
Real User
The versioning concept increases the security and tracking mechanisms
Pros and Cons
  • "Instead of packages like other RPA tools, I think the repo check-in and check-out feature enables the same in AA."
  • "When comparing the code under version checks, although there is a change done, it doesn't say so because the change is done at the variable level and not in the line of code."

What is our primary use case?

We have applied AA to our customers. KPMG another solution they use. 

Streams like HR, payroll are reasons that AA may have been chosen in an environment.

Use cases like report extractions, SAP interactions, HR data, and many payroll automations have been put into use.

We used UiPath and Automic before AA and I feel the difference very clearly and I am sure there's a long way ahead.

Sensitive data handling departments are usually not allowed or exposed to automation but I do not see such limitations when it comes to AA.

How has it helped my organization?

AA definitely did improve the scope of our organization but tools like Automic and UiPath still take a slightly upper hand in terms of business and market.

We have been trying our best to sell AA as our best tool and we are getting projects one by one eventually.

Not all tools give us the clear utilization of the infrastructure in place but this does and trust me, this has been proved far better than other RPA tools and that is why I see AA booming day by day.

We are pretty positive about AA.

What is most valuable?

Live executions on the prod machine with the player options is good.

I have been using tools like Automic and UiPath that has either an engine to run for Automic and Orchestrator for UiPath.

The versioning concept is pretty nice and increases the security and tracking mechanism.

Instead of packages like other RPA tools, I think the repo check-in and check-out feature enables the same in AA. 

Although it does the same, the ease of usage is fantastic in AA from my experience.

The line compare feature is another feature that I personally like the most but there is an anomaly as well.

What needs improvement?

Maybe not improved but I heard that the 2019 version is going to look more like UiPath, which is not ideal for a typical/classic developer.

The feel of parsing at the code is different from viewing object images for sure.

When comparing the code under version checks, although there is a change done, it doesn't say so because the change is done at the variable level and not in the line of code.

This is logically wrong, a line would contain n number of variables including object clonings, screen images, variables, etc so any change to any of these has to be captured and shown as a change done in the version history.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using and working with AA for 1.5 years. 

I started with initial training, they gave me a project and then a certification as well.

I am AA Master certified, I did it around the start of 2020. Ever since I got certified I am working on the solution building for major clients, client proposals and enhancements for the existing bots on production.

Not all developers use a full fledged tool and that is where I am being considered to propose better solutions. 

We took new clients since April 2020 where AA is the only prime RPA tool being used and we have been enriching it since then day in day out.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I am sure AA is pretty stable.

Now that it's on its own framework, I am positive about the stability. At any point in time, I would preferably suggest sticking to the initial platform and framework that people like the most providing an overall package.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is always a sensitive topic when it comes to RPA.

For me, I look at it as availability in simple terms. The scalability factor has to be stretched to an extent where availability is never compromised.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have personally had interaction only twice along with my onshore peers.

1st was with Mae Chang about v11 environment setup &

2nd was with one of the support engineers who helped solve the control room blank screen error.

So far so good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I used ITPA tools like Automic (CA Technologies product, now Broadcom product) & RPA tools like UiPath and BluePrism.

For a classical and typical developer, we like code to be seen, written, and parsed but not objects. More importantly, security features like parsing, code versioning, ease of use, live executions, etc made us chose AA.

We haven't moved completely to AA for now but talks are in place with customers.

So, for multiple valid reasons, AA takes the first place when it comes to automation.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was good. I wouldn't say straightforward but the process and steps were laid down clean so for us, it seemed to be cool.

What about the implementation team?

It was in-house for the POC project and the customer himself for the account we hold.

Our setup was pretty clean and neat.

I would rate the customer level a 70/100. They haven't defined the scope, networks, security properly, and there is too much of JUST red tape. The process definitely takes priority but not at the cost of providing solutions. The optimal path has to be chosen.

What was our ROI?

I shouldn't be projecting this out but would say there is a grace ROI with our current clients.

I am not 100% sure. Revenue is nominal as of now. The business model defines it more in order to sustain a customer but I am sure it's doing well.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

So far so good.

When it comes to 2019 and the AA cloud I think many are skeptical about the pricing and support model.

For example, we are already on our own cloud, AWS and azure so as a cost-effective solution we would obviously want to choose our own platform for hosting. Be it IAAS, PAAS, SAAS etc.

Now that AA is proposing a cloud as well, we are still in the thinking phase of the costing model to see if this fits us better in terms of revenue and margins.

We are looking forward to experiencing the AA cloud soon.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Like mentioned, we have been using Automic, UiPath, and BluePrism to a pretty good extent for about 2+yrs and it was good until we realized there is a better product in the market and who doesn't want the best.

It was not a one day's decision to chose AA. A big set of people, the cream of the project, were deployed to learn and explore AA to the maximum extent possible.

I lead the operations part of the existing automation project and so was I leading this POC project under AA as well. So all possible test cases, comparisons, ease of use, security, and many other factors were considered before we opted for AA and so is the product now.

What other advice do I have?

My request would be to keep a little lower pricing for services like on call support, cloud, and other key services. Otherwise, the rest all seems to be very much feasible in AA.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Associate Consultant at KPMG
Real User
The ability to add multiple bots and Bot Runners to the process gives it a lot of scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "No other competitor has this email trigger, so it saves a lot of time if you automate the process. We don't need to fix a time for a task to run. It gives the feature of on demand execution for any task. Whenever a user wants, it can send a mail and get the task done as soon as possible."
  • "For improvement, I would like to see Automation Anywhere integrating with multiple other technologies. As of now, it is integrating with .NET. When it come to future technologies, I want Automation Anywhere to integrate with Python scripts, and make the execution easier. That will be very helpful, having our cognitive technologies interacting with Automation Anywhere."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Automation Anywhere for multiple automation processes. There are multiple clients with KPMG who have many automations going on.

In finance and accounting companies, they ask for report generations and record fetching from some data source type of tasks. They want it to be fetched and exported into forms, charts, etc. using automation. The task will happen when triggers are required based on some data sources. It is the data that will be exported and sent over mail. These tasks are mainly focused on organizations.

What is most valuable?

No other competitor has this email trigger, so it saves a lot of time if you automate the process. We don't need to fix a time for a task to run. It gives the feature of on demand execution for any task. Whenever a user wants, it can send a mail and get the task done as soon as possible. That is our main feature, I feel. 

What needs improvement?

There are multiple features, like PDF integrations, which are coming up. Task-related features to PDF integrations are coming up nowadays, so people want those executed and improved a lot in Automation Anywhere.

For improvement, I would like to see Automation Anywhere integrating with multiple other technologies. As of now, it is integrating with .NET. When it come to future technologies, I want Automation Anywhere to integrate with Python scripts, and make the execution easier. That will be very helpful, having our cognitive technologies interacting with Automation Anywhere.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

On the basis of rating, I'll give a 90 percent to the process being stable. The remaining 10 percent is based on the change in the environment. If you change the environment from development to production or some other environment, then there are minor glitches which come into the process. But, that also can be handled a bit easier in Automation Anywhere.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. If we come to the point where we need to increase the number of bots in a process, for different countries or teams, we can add multiple bots and Bot Runners to the process, then we can execute. This gives a lot of scalability to the process.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support team was very helpful on on our development. There were many cases where we needed their support and urgency. They gave a lot of support to us. They responded well quickly. That's what is required for our development or developer team, so I'm a bit happy with our technical support team from Automation Anywhere.

How was the initial setup?

It's a bit straightforward. If you go through the user manual of Automation Anywhere, the stuff with automation there is quite easy. A layman or common man, who is new to the Automation Anywhere can install it quickly. So, it's easy.

What was our ROI?

There are a lot of savings in terms of effort and time as well as costs. Automation Anywhere automates a lot of processes. It allows an organization to save the efforts of a lot people. It saves a lot of time because people can't work a whole day (24/7), but Automation Anywhere bots can.

What other advice do I have?

I'll rate it near an eight (out of 10) for Automation Anywhere. I'm giving this rating because the first thing which can be improved is integrating multiple technologies like Python, which can enable the developer and the process to run in a much better, faster way. The second thing is the automation that is available in Automation Anywhere can be improved. This will help other use cases to run.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
RPA Developer and BA at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
The IQ Bot's extract information accurately and the accuracy is very high
Pros and Cons
  • "It is easy to use and deploy."
  • "Integration with secondary environments needs to be improved or enabled."

What is our primary use case?

There is not one specific use case in the sense of what we use the product for. In the broader scope, it would be automation. But right now we have several applications. We started our journey with the tool in 2017, and we have automated several processes in finance, IT, and engineering. 

In finance, for example, we have automated cash application, billing processes, reporting, payment processing, and we are using IQ Bots to automate our invoice processing. We completed the pilot, which provided us with phenomenal results. So we tested with a small entity with 30000 invoices and around 300 suppliers with a high level of success.

The character extraction capability of IQ Bot is much, much better than the other OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engines that you have in the market today. So we are completely pleased with that, and we are planning to upscale our invoice automation processing.

How has it helped my organization?

Today while we look at the opportunities in front of us, our customers are expecting us to be more productive and execute with greater speed to be relevant and competitive in the market. The expectation as far as the accuracy is really very high, and we need to be compliant. We have experienced that the more manual and hands-on that we are that there is a higher risk of being non-compliant.

There are skilled companies who are spending more time on transactional activities. For example in the engineering field, there are engineers who are spending time on transactional activities and there are finance guys who are spending time on transactional activities that could be automated. 

We can use intelligent automation with great value in helping these people upskill themselves into newer areas of analytics, new roles in reporting, and project accounting in finance. We're trying to eliminate these transactional activities, be faster over time. We started by looking at specific activities and we looked at the processes. Now, we are looking at a complete value chain. When you look at the complete value chain, that's when you actually begin driving positive change in business results. That is our projected approach for the next couple of years. We'll be looking at the complete value chain and see how bots can help us make our process more efficient.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the IQ Bot's ability to extract information accurately. It can do things like process table-level information, line-item level information, etcetera, and the accuracy is really very high. All of our users are accountants rather than programmers or anybody with an IT background. The accounting people can easily learn Automation Anywhere. We tried a few other tools but our folks were more comfortable using Automation Anywhere. They felt that it is easy to learn, and it was easy to train them as to how to use it.

What needs improvement?

In the next release, I think it has to be more compatible when deployed with the Citrix environment. That's one bottleneck that we have seen. Technically when we used the IQ Bots, we couldn't work directly through the Citrix environment. With our ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) setup, we needed to access it through the Citrix environment. Because we were not able to do that, we had to have a workaround. We are currently working with Automation Anywhere to have that fixed. They have given us confidence that it can be done.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

When looking at stability, we have to remain ready for any surprise even if we have not experienced any stability issues. We don't know what that kind of surprise will be, but we have backup plans in place.

In case the tool fails, we may not be as fast as the bots, but we have a BCP (Business Continuity Plan) but we know we can't be specific on what challenges will come, because we don't know.

In two years, I think once in one process where a bank changed its user interface on the bank website, a bot failed. We had to go and correct it. It was a fairly quick fix because to create it doesn't take much time. Changes like this are not predictable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

If you look at our shared services, we are growing and we need to keep our costs flat. This means I cannot hire more people. This need for greater efficiency is made up by what I have been able to gain out of the automation. We are actually using automation to move more processes into our shared services. Ours is a private business and we create big cement plants. One project could last for five years. When we land a big deal our volume spikes. It's a very cyclical business. It has been very easy for us to deploy scalable solutions now.

How are customer service and technical support?

The company is very service friendly and willing to work with us when we need it. I would give them high marks for attention to customer service.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Our decision to go with an RPA solution was one that I made. One of the reasons I was hired into this organization was to drive automation. There was a specific goal for that which I was tasked with.

When looking at other options in the market Automation Anywhere seemed to be the company for us for a couple of reasons. One is that when we had our first engagement with Automation Anywhere we felt that they were very customer-focused. We did not see that with the other service providers. They really came prepared when they first met with us. They had all their books, IT, operations, delivery plans and such, so they were able to answer all our questions. They were very flexible in meeting our requirements and needs.

They were willing to go out of their way to support us and to ensure that we would succeed in the journey. Some of the service providers even refused to create POC's for us. But Automation Anywhere said they would and they went ahead and created them.

How was the initial setup?

I thought the initial setup was straightforward and easy.

What about the implementation team?

We did not use any consultants for our deployment. We worked directly with Automation Anywhere. Our belief is that we know our business better than anybody so we opted for maximum direct involvement.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before deciding to go with Automation Anywhere we looked at other products for comparison like UiPath. We looked at the desktop automation tool, I currently don't even remember their name. The choice seemed obvious from the first impressions.

What other advice do I have?

If I have any advice to give to people who are considering this product as a solution to their automation needs, I would say don't waste time thinking too much about adopting it and just go ahead and start.

On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best, I would rate Automation Anywhere as an eight.

If you look at the first year we had the product, we had a 6% efficiency gain. This year we are looking at 10% in finance and 12% in IT. The more we discover ways to use it, the more efficient we will become.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
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Updated: October 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Automation Anywhere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.