Automation Anywhere Reviews

Our clients' use cases for Automation Anywhere are primarily finance and accounting, including accounts receivable, payable, reconciliation, and invoice processing. They also use it for supply chain and HR processes, IT, and contact center functions, among others.

Four or five years back, clients were looking to gain more accuracy and efficiency. Later on, they became more informed and educated about RPA technologies, and in the past couple of years, they have wanted one-stop solutions. They do not want multiple technologies or to deal with multiple vendors. They want a vendor or an OEM that can provide multiple technologies. That means not only RPA but something to handle integration document processing. They also want analytics and contact center solutions. 

It started with a technology through which a customer would gain efficiency and accuracy. Later on, the paradigm shifted and they wanted to deal with vendors who could provide all sorts of solutions to them.

The number-one feature is that Automation Anywhere can interact or integrate with all sorts of business applications.

The next most important feature is the cloud. That has been a game-changer. Currently, everyone wants to experiment more and more with cloud offerings. They don't want to spend money on setting up their internal hardware infrastructure. Automation Anywhere is the only tool that provides a pure cloud to customers. That is one of the key features. In the past couple of years, 70 to 80 percent of the deals I have closed have been for the cloud.

It's also very easy to use for non-technical business users.

Automation co-pilot integrates pretty seamlessly with day-to-day applications. The Automation Anywhere folks have added some advancements to that technology. I'm currently working on a couple of deals and we are using it as a solid unique selling proposition against other tools. For large organizations such as contact centers, automation co-pilot is going to fly for sure. It has already helped organizations increase productivity in the range of 30 to 40 percent, as a bare minimum.

Automation co-pilot has definitely helped to free up staff to work on other projects. That's one of the focus areas: Let computers do what they are supposed to do and what they are good at doing so that employees, associates, and analysts can focus on the things that they are good at doing.

In addition, the integration of RPA bots, APIs, business applications and documents in Automation Anywhere is seamless; it's very smooth.

They are already working on this: The boom of generative AI, the next-gen technologies, including advanced AI and ML technologies, are in the roadmap. I would like to see more and more AI integration and a bit more analytics. That would be great.

I have been working with Automation Anywhere for about six years. I am a reseller of the solution now, but prior to that, I was with Automation Anywhere.

The stability is a 10 out of 10.

It is definitely a very good technology. Automation Anywhere is a fantastic tool. But you need to have the right skill sets or the right partners to scale the journey. It's like having a Rolls Royce or a Mercedes. If you know how to drive it, of course, it is very easy to use it, but having an expert partner is crucial.

In terms of providing automation at scale, back in 2018 or 2019, the top five or top 10 customers of Automation Anywhere had more than 3,000 to 4,000 bots running in production. I don't think any other OEM had that sort of success story. Scaling up the journey with Automation Anywhere is pretty robust and a tested and proven technology.

Our customers deploy it in multiple locations and multiple departments. There are all sorts of models. I would rate its scalability at nine out of 10.

Their technical support is good.

Positive

I have worked on UiPath, Blue Prism, and a couple of projects on Power Automate as well. The number-one advantage of Automation Anywhere is ease of use. Number two is the success stories. Number three is that it is a mature overall ecosystem.

Deploying it is very straightforward, although I am not too involved in the nitty-gritty of implementation. My job is to prospect customers and work with them until the deal has closed. After that, I let my delivery team handle it.

We have a maximum of two people involved in deploying it. There is not much maintenance involved.

For technical employees, it takes about six weeks, and not more than that, to be trained to use Automation Anywhere. For a person without a tech background, it takes a couple of months, max. The learning curve is pretty steep for Automation Anywhere.

I have dealt with all sorts of customers, from small and medium-scale enterprises to large conglomerates. Across all of them, one commonality is that after the first year, they have all doubled their license count. 

They get a return on their investment very quickly, probably within six months the majority of customers get their ROI. After that, it is just a mushrooming effect. 

It is not only about cost savings. This technology impacts the top line as well as the bottom line of a company's P&L and balance sheets. Once they also realize its value, they come up with more asks and we scale up the journey.

Initially, they charged a premium, but now the rest of the vendors have increased their overall pricing and Automation Anywhere is not that high at this time. It's pretty viable.

I work in APAC, India and Asia Pacific countries, and customers here are very price-conscious. Every time I get a chance to work with Automation Anywhere, I tell them that I want a starter pack at a relatively low cost so that the customer can get started. But for customers based in Europe, The Middle East, or North America, Automation Anywhere is pretty competitive.

A couple of hours ago, I had a meeting with the group CEO of a multi-national corporation and he asked why he should use RPA when he can do automation using APIs and Python. That can definitely be done. If a customer has only a couple of processes to automate, I'll be the first person to tell them they don't have to invest in RPA. They can use scripting technology or API integration. But when we talk about scale, API automation with Python or any other type of scripting automation will not be the right choice. The reason is that it consumes a lot of time and is not that agile. That approach also becomes "person-dependent", meaning you have to keep the guy who developed that script around. If he is gone, your automation journey goes for a toss. When a customer wants to scale, they need a mature, solid, RPA platform such as Automation Anywhere.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Automation Anywhere is able to provide automation at scale.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I give Automation Anywhere a six out of ten.

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

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

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

We did not perform any maintenance on Automation Anywhere.

I am striving to provide individuals with more time to focus on value-add tasks due to widespread headcount reductions. For instance, in finance and accounting activities, we use Automation Anywhere to replace individuals in maintenance tasks or those that were previously unknown to be time-consuming. This is where we witness the greatest utilization of bots. 

Moreover, we employ bots to handle fines associated with individuals driving company cars. With hundreds of fines occurring each month, it used to be a nearly full-time responsibility for one person to receive the fine, identify the driver at the time of the incident, and ensure the fine was directed to the appropriate person for payment. Such activities lacked significant value and consumed a considerable amount of time for someone, but now the bot handles these tasks on our behalf. I believe that finance is the primary area where we extensively utilize Automation Anywhere.

When we began deploying the bots, we established Key Performance Indicators to assess the return on investment. For instance, if a bot could save one-third of an individual's time, we would evaluate the amount of time saved and dedicate it to value-add tasks. However, evaluating the exact monetary savings facilitated by the bots is challenging because the funds are not directly spent on low-value activities. Instead, they can be utilized differently. 

It is important to note that the bots never completely replaced human workers. No job was entirely taken over by a bot. Rather, it was an assessment of how effectively we spent money with the assistance of bots, as they enabled individuals to perform tasks more efficiently. Although I don't recall the exact details since it was in the past, we would reassign the equivalent of full-time employees to these value-added tasks instead of low-value ones. At the time of my departure from the RPA topic, we had 150 bots in production, and we had a clear understanding of how many full-time employees would be dedicated to higher-value tasks as a result.

The ability of Automation Anywhere to provide automation at scale is commendable. We have indeed achieved tangible business benefits. That is certain. I am no longer aware of the metric used to evaluate this, except for the fact that we have eliminated various mundane activities from the workday of numerous individuals.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation consumption.

From what I recall of the type of issue we had to deal with when we started implementing Automation Anywhere, it was the integration with the identity and access management system that the company might use. This is because Automation Anywhere has a vault where we store all the information related to the bot, including the password it will use to connect to the system. The feature, which might be interesting for companies that don't already have an identity management system, was a bit tricky because I would have preferred the system to directly rely on our corporate identity and access management system to manage the bot's credentials. This way, we wouldn't have to store this information in the bot as well. It's something to consider in terms of integrating with an existing IT landscape.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost six years.

We did not encounter any stability issues with Automation Anywhere during the time I worked with the solution.

Automation Anywhere is scalable.

The technical support was helpful and responsive.

Positive

We had previously been using UiPath, and in late 2017, we acquired an organization that was already using Automation Anywhere, which belonged to a much larger organization. Consequently, we began to explore that tool and benefited from our colleagues' positive experiences with Automation Anywhere.

They were able to provide suggestions on the setup and deployment of the solution. As a result, we ultimately decided to discontinue the use of UiPath and transitioned to Automation Anywhere. Without the acquisition, we might not have implemented Automation Anywhere and instead would have continued with UiPath or explored other alternatives. Due to the acquisition, we were able to recognize that Automation Anywhere was one of the market leaders and swiftly create a proof of concept.

The initial setup was straightforward. Although I was involved in the deployment project, the actual installation was carried out by those responsible for implementing the Windows servers.

We needed to acquire the hardware because we had an internal cloud at that time, so we still have it. I would say that we managed to allocate the servers. It didn't take long. We provided training for the people who would deploy and customize the product with the assistance of Automation Anywhere in France. The global deployment infrastructure was ready to be used within a few weeks.

The implementation was completed in-house with the help of the Automation Anywhere team.

We obtained benefits from the original price prior to the acquisition and had to engage in negotiations due to the expansion of the usage scope. We were required to purchase licenses and bot runners, which determined the permissible run times for the bots. We successfully achieved a fair price worldwide. 

I rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten. 

We primarily utilize an attended bot, meaning they are not created by users. We have made efforts to retain control over IT in bot creation to prevent it from becoming a new avenue for shadow IT. When we started in 2018, the final department had a dedicated team responsible for bot development. However, they eventually hired contractors who developed C-Sharp programs that interacted with SAP through APIs. The bot would simply launch these programs, which is not the ideal method for automation, as we believe the bot should directly interact with the application instead of relying on a separate program to communicate with SAP through an API. I believe the team responsible for this no longer exists. Presently, we have a process in place to identify relevant use cases, and we are collaborating with a subcontractor who creates the bots for us based on specifications provided by the business.

We utilize Automation Anywhere with an attended bot. This implies that after receiving the specifications from the business and creating the purchase, we establish an agreement on the bot's scheduling for execution. However, the user never directly interacts with the bot; they only observe the results of its actions. Therefore, there is no need to provide training for users to utilize Automation Anywhere. We maintain IT control over it, while the development itself is outsourced. Consequently, the issue of the learning curve is not applicable to our situation.

We didn't use a lot of APIs with Automation Anywhere. Instead, we simulated the user's actions on the application's user interface. I can't recall any instances where we relied on APIs to initiate actions in the systems we were connecting to. However, I am aware that APIs can be utilized. There was a point when we wanted to employ APIs to retrieve the password or the bot from our identity and access the financial system just before the bot was about to commence its task. Additionally, we intended to trigger an API to reset the password once the bot had completed its job to ensure that there were no potential security threats associated with the user IDs used for the bots.

For those who prefer using API integration instead of a comprehensive process automation solution, I would like to emphasize that it's not exactly the same approach. Integrated APIs require developing a program for them to interact with. In my opinion, RPA offers a more straightforward approach as it simply replicates user actions within an application. We already have a ready-to-use bot. However, I wouldn't recommend using bots for everything, especially when we encounter use cases that resemble interfaces. 

Essentially, it involves manipulating the user interface of an application to extract data and then sending that data to another application on a daily basis. This approach doesn't seem logical. I'm not sure about the usage of APIs in the context of actual IT program development, where we need to retrieve data from various source systems that provide APIs. In such cases, we genuinely desire bots that faithfully mimic the actions of real users within an application. Our intention was never to replace any kind of deployment with bots, which is why we wanted Information and Communication Technology to be involved in the decision-making process. We wanted to ensure that the distinction was made between tasks that should be handled by bots and those that should be treated as interfaces or programs, aligning with our understanding of process automation.

We have a team of three people in Spain who are in charge of the daily operation of the Automation Anywhere platform. However, deploying our new bot is a quick process. There is a test environment where the bot is validated, after which it is transferred to the production control room and the bot's schedule is updated.

The team responsible for the data operations of the platform, taking everything into account, including the intrusion of the new bot into the production environment. They also handle the platform's maintenance. I believe we have three individuals dedicated to these tasks.

Our company uses the solution for automations. 

As a portfolio manager, the key responsibility is to determine how to use our latest technologies for use cases. We identify use cases in various functions and buy software licenses for them. 

Once we buy licenses, we use the solution for end-to-end discovery of use cases, onboarding in-house technical staff for ongoing management, and collaborations for training or licenses. 

Our licenses are used by our technical team within our Center of Excellence. The team handles the end-to-end work that includes development, testing, quality assurance, and production. We are using the solution to its full capacity. Bots are at an optimum because we want to extract maximum value from our licenses. 

We plan to increase usage once we finish migrating from on-premises to the cloud. 

The solution has helped us embrace more of a digital transformation footprint, bring in efficiencies, and create an internal infrastructure.  

The solution's architecture is very nice. The three components are a bot, a control room, and a bot developer. 

The control room is quite a good feature. It is easy to use and gives you the power to manage your digital workforce. It gives you a sense of understanding in terms of how the audit trail happens. 

The solution should include an analytics dashboard. As the space is maturing, many vendors sell functionalities as separate components so this is not unique to the solution. If I am buying a license, I should at least get a flavor of my analytics with a dashboard related to operational KPIs. Right now, if you want detailed analytics, you need to buy the dashboard separately. This licensing structure adds to the overall cost. 

The solution should include bot insights instead of selling it as a separate license. From the bot and business perspectives, insights are important for operational agility metrics and managing KPIs. For example, I want to how many hours in a day or month a bot runs for human resources when it performs A, B, C, D, and E and gives benefits across D, E, and F. 

I have been using the solution for three years. 

The solution is stable so I rate stability an eight out of ten. 

The solution is somewhat scalable so I rate scalability a six out of ten. 

We get the right support when we ask for it. Sometimes though, service requests are not handled within the timeframe we expect. Issues move in circles until they are placed with the proper technician. 

There is definitely an opportunity to lessen the response time so I rate support a seven out of ten. 

Neutral

I have prior experience with UiPath to a certain extent. 

The setup takes a good amount of time because you have to develop an infrastructure that includes servers and compliance. A lot of time is spent framing those requirements and signing contracts that are quite detailed. 

I rate the setup a five out of ten because it is not that easy.

We worked with technicians from the solution to implement.

There are some difficulties in migrating to a new platform. There are a lot of internal governance forms or approvals that can delay the process. Lots of things need to be reworked as you go through the process. 

For about four to six months, you can take on the fixed paper side to get all the needed approvals. In some cases, the process might even take eight months because everything takes time and other business activities may take priority. Separate contracts need to be created for automations and they are usually handled by another team. Many approvals are needed at all levels of the organization. 

We currently use the solution on-premises but are migrating to the cloud. This process is also not that smooth and requires nudging. We are going back to the drawing board to take another look at things and rework if needed. Most components should be scalable and reusable but we are having a few issues on that front. 

Ongoing maintenance includes our internal team working with two or three of the solution's technicians to resolve issues. The solution's team routes or allocates the right technician to handle our service request. Our internal team supports and helps their technicians to understand our unique scenario. 

The solution is definitely worth the money. It is up to you to add quality use cases and utilize the digital workforce along with the human workforce. The tools are there, but the actual metrics derived are your baby. There are many benefits to automation solutions. 

I won't give 100% credit to the solution. Perhaps UiPath would have given us the same results. The way you use a solution makes all the difference in ROI. 

Similar to how competing products are priced, the solution has separate licenses for features that should be included in a bundle package. For example, the analytics dashboard and bot insights are sold as separate licenses. 

No one wants to buy a product that is too complex because components are sold separately. Give longstanding customers these benefits as icing on the cake. 

The solution is not the least or most expensive. Pricing is good and in the middle so I rate pricing a five out of ten. 

The options were evaluated before I joined the team, but I believe the company also looked at UiPath, Info Sales, and XCL. 

No tool, product, or technology is 100% foolproof. Each has its own set of pros and cons, including the solution. 

The common sales approach across the solution and other vendors is misleading. They make it look like a utopia where you will increase productivity by 200% in six weeks. This is not possible because organizations can't do magic in six weeks. Some of the claims being made by developers or content providers are creating a false impression in terms of senior management. There is no magic wand. There has to be automation. It looks and sounds simple, but implementation is not that easy. Your program, team, and communications management need to move in tandem to give you the inputs or outputs for sensitivities around people, roles, responsibilities, and training. 

It is important to be realistic when launching a new product or partnering with a player in the market. Be open and honest with customers. Don't make things too glamorous because it will be difficult to achieve that expectation. Stop overselling it and just be natural. A lot of consolidation is happening in the space and customers are aware because they read Forrester and Gartner. You can't fool customers so be honest and let them know that the solution needs to be managed by human beings. 

The biggest lesson is to understand the functionalities you need before you buy the solution. Determine if the solution passes the litmus test. Be cautious about overselling it and instead set the right expectations. 

Ask upfront if some additional features can be bundled because that will really help with your automation journey. 

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

I use Automation Anywhere to automate the data input process and produce the forecasting output.

We store our data in Databricks, which is sometimes shared via email. To automate this process, I've created a pipeline using Automation Anywhere that extracts CSV files from emails, uploads them to Databricks, saves the resulting table on a selected AWS page, processes the data, and feeds it into the model.

Automation Anywhere is user-friendly, with drag-and-drop features for nontechnical users.

The learning curve is no more than one month.

It integrates well with other tools.

Automation Anywhere saves us one month per year.

Automated data processing is the most valuable feature of Automation Anywhere.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for 16 months.

Automation Anywhere is stable.

Automation Anywhere is scalable.

Automation Anywhere supports automation to scale.

The technical support is good.

Positive

The deployment is straightforward and can be completed within one and two weeks.

Before implementing, we want to ensure we have all the support and collaboration.

Automation Anywhere is affordable.

I would rate Automation Anywhere eight out of ten because it is practical and user-friendly.

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.

We use Automation Anywhere in a DevOps environment. 

Automation Anywhere helps us resolve some friction between IT needs and business requirements. In an agile environment, the first questions are always: How much money do you have? What is your budget? Automation Anywhere or any other RPA solution can help you achieve your goals within budget constraints by lowering operational costs. It increases productivity and reduces errors.

I like Automation Anywhere's cloud-based nature. You don't need any on-prem infrastructure to host it. If you have suitable infrastructure, you can easily integrate it with Automation Anywhere. The learning curve is reasonable. Automation Anywhere has a user-friendly environment, but digesting all the platform's features takes significant time. 

It's challenging to train users on Automation Anywhere. There should be more organized training sessions. I prefer interactive classes to one-on-one training. You can create super users and organize conferences or workshops where users can learn from experts. Maybe you only have a few of these super users in your organization, so that's why you need to have workshops on a weekly basis. 

I have used Automation Anywhere for three to five years. 

I rate Automation Anywhere seven out of ten for stability. 

I rate Automation Anywhere support seven out of ten.

Neutral

I previously used UiPath at a past job but switched when I started work at my current company. 

I rate Automation Anywhere seven out of ten. 

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.