Automation Anywhere Reviews

Initially, when we started, we were using it for back-office automation. The solution has definitely evolved. We're focusing on implementing customer and experience-facing use cases. Time is the most valuable piece, and that's how we measure the success of automation now. 

The solution is helping our customers save time. 

We were trying to solve a few different challenges with Automation Anywhere. For example, during the pandemic, gaining bandwidth was huge. Hiring while shifting to remote was challenging. There was such an accelerated use of the technology during the pandemic. Having to integrate with existing and older systems was key. That flexibility to work with other applications and other aspects of the platform really drove our decision to adopt more and more of the solution.

We've noticed time savings. The time saving varies. We look at how much value the customer gets. We've noticed time savings of up to 40 minutes, based on wait time and verification delays. Sometimes, we might only be saving a minute or slightly less. However, this is a slightly higher volume scenario where something needs to get done by the end of the day. It offers a broad range of time savings. For example, if someone calls in for the healthcare side to get benefits verified. Typically, that would take 45 minutes in terms of gathering information and validating information and prep work both before and after. Now, we can do that autonomously in a matter of minutes. 

Within the processes of automation, robots learn differently than humans. They are very interactive and literal. Diving into that tribal knowledge that makes an organization unique was really what we had to do differently. For example, if you tell someone, "Go check your email," they know what that means. With a robot, you have to translate that action into a specific language, and that was the challenging part from the process side.

Copilot is great at bringing agents and humans into the loop. Creating that AI assistant that can almost tell someone the next step, that suggested intelligence, is helpful. Getting the data an organization has over to a customer very quickly is effective with Copilot. Simple queries that may take 15-20 seconds to answer, you still have to, for example, to find the number, make the call, et cetera, and suddenly that 20 seconds if two minutes longer. Having that information ready in a conversational way is where generative AI can really help compress time. 

There's a lot of human involvement in the workflow. Automation Anywhere does a fabulous job of integrating users into the workflow. That's important. You wouldn't be able to automate with just the technology. Teaching users to interact in a relatable way with relatable interfaces has had a big impact on the business users' side.

Understanding the technology is very easy based on the way it is positioned. There are a lot of great resources out there. 

How much time it takes to get comfortable using the automation process varies. You need to gain the knowledge of understanding ways to do things, then have the practical knowledge of how to apply; then, there's a third piece of constantly improving, monitoring, mentoring, and iterating. That piece is ongoing. 

Copilot is helpful for pure-play back-office stuff. From the call center side, it's integrated and becomes available as an option as well. Any document processing is great for Copilot. 

With the new enhancements, it's very easy to integrate. It integrates well with infrastructure solutions and testing products, as well as data and analytics.

The integration with workflows has only been enhanced over time. 

In terms of document processes, there is some uncertainty between structured and unstructured. However, the intelligence applied cut down time by 50% or more. That's in time to do the work, not necessarily accuracy.

In terms of APIs and applications, when automation first came out, they shunned APIs. That was a challenge due to the fact that, when you sold it to an organization, they asked why it would be done a certain way when they already had an API. Now, it's making it easier to use solutions. You can bring in your tool kit and create synergy.

Copilot has helped us increase productivity. It's a new feature, so it's hard to quantify. I do see the established value increasing exponentially. 

The product has helped us free up staff time. The biggest thing we measure is experience. If it's moving towards higher-value projects, it's great. However, so is going home and not taking work home with you.

If we look at the concept of bringing automation to a broader user group in an organization, the focus right now is on how to build it properly. We're building it out with instruction manuals and working to make it more user-friendly. We need to do a lot of work from the perspective of education. The messaging is essential. Also, figuring out the platform so that users know where they need to interact. We're pointing users towards that and giving them the help to do that. The messaging and education around how to leverage the platform need to be more precise. Understanding what the benefits are going to be needs to be very clear. 

When you are implementing it initially, it's challenging as there's a lot of change management. That's where the lessons need to be learned. That curve is hard to overcome.

There are more challenging integrations that should be left to more expert users. 

We've been using the solution since 2015. It's been about eight years now.

Technical support is good. You don't have to reach out to them very often. The new layers are great. The services you get alongside the solution are helpful, and combining that with bug fixes, et cetera, makes it fit for purpose for all uses. 

I'm familiar with other options. The difference is the people side of things. The team outside of the technology, the people putting it together, is what makes the solution itself better. 

It's important that Automation Anywhere is easy to use. There's an intimidation factor when you present people with a massive ecosystem. It's practical and fit for purpose from the outset, yet very flexible and versatile. 

I was involved in the initial setup. 

If you start out pretty simple, the challenges that cause delays are more from change management and security and clearance. That's outside of the platform itself. That takes 80% of the time.

You can stand it up in a couple of days, however, it can sometimes take a month for reasons outside of the platform.

You can get things going within a week, which you can iterate on pretty quickly. 

Maintenance depends on usage. There are tools where you can build automation to provide alerts. You need someone who's at least slightly dedicated to that. Once you get bigger, you'll need a dedicated team, and then you have to figure out how to prioritize your time, in terms of evangelizing it, making more automation, et cetera. 

The pricing is okay. We've established the value of bringing it into our organization. For scaling, you can't beat the price of adding a robot that provides basically unlimited scale. 

Our strategy when it comes to automation and AI (and generative AI) right now, as with any technology, there's a lot of buzz. Historically, we've had periods of punctuated innovation, like automation in general, that was a real change in how organizations did business. Right now, we're seeing an iteration of that with generative AI. We have the foundation down with these platforms. Our strategy is the same: understand the technology from the people's side. We're the ones using the technology. You can't blame a piece of technology - it's still on us. We need to establish it. At the end of the day, we need to own it. Technology isn't a silver bullet. However, if we approach it right, we'll have all the success in the world.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

As our business is a mortgage company that provides loans to borrowers, we use Automation Anywhere to automate business processes to help the end users process loans faster. 

The application's response time is slow when using your desktop and trying to process an application. However, when you apply automation, it can work overnight. You don't need to sit at a desk and watch what's happening. It's all automated. 

Prior to implementation, everything was manual. You couldn't inject other software, like APIs. However, with AA, you can bring in any number of tools that connect right into Automation Anywhere. This makes everything move faster. You save a lot of time and cost involved in processing the applications.

The recent update that included code analysis was very helpful. Previously, we had to go line by line. Now, inside the tool, it shows you which lines are hard-coded. 

We've saved a lot of time. How much time we save depends on the process. It's likely at least 50%. Sometimes, it's up to 70%.

We've saved on costs by about 30%.

It's reduced human error. Using Automation Anywhere, we can eliminate a lot of human error by adding exceptions and identifying what's going on quite easily.

For users who don't have technical skills, it's not that complicated. It defines what every command does. It may take a few months to understand the process; however, going through the documentation and using the community versions and forums will make it easier to learn. You can find answers to any aspect you want to understand. 

We did a POC with the automation copilot. It met some of our expectations. For some of the use cases, it will help in the future. 

The copilot's ability to integrate with our day-to-day is fine. It helps employees working with it. It helps them to make things faster. You just have to provide some information, and the background bots will run. It might help increase productivity in the future if we implement it at the enterprise level. Outside of the POC, it looks like it might help with productivity. 

The solution integrates well with other applications and third-party tools. 

There are great tools inside Automation Anywhere. 

With the automation copilot, if I have any internal tool or application and I want to pass on variables, I don't have it. Maybe the team can work on it to make it more efficient to make it work better across all automations.

I've been using the solution for four or more years. I started with version 10.x.

In the past two to three months, the support has gotten far better. Previously, we didn't have a live agent or live support, and now we do. It's great to have. They can respond immediately, and you can continue with what you are doing. You don't have to wait for support at all. 

Positive

We did not previously use a different solution. 

I was involved in the initial deployment. It took a couple of months.

It's relatively easy to upgrade. It depends on the organization. You need to add more variables and define the standards. However, it's not too complex. 

There is some maintenance needed. When you upgrade versions, devices may be disconnected. Sometimes you need to go and check if the device deployment is happening or not, or a deployment may fail. We have about two people handling the maintenance of the solution. You simply need to ensure the bots are deploying on the right schedules and check errors or disconnects. In some cases, you may need to redeploy the bot. The time spent maintaining bots maybe three to four hours per day per person. 

We also explored Microsoft's Power Automate. However, it wasn't as mature or up to an enterprise level at the time. Automation Anywhere had good standards and excellent support, in terms of architecture, design, and user interface, we chose Automation Anywhere. It also has good community support. Previously, we used to raise a ticket. Now, it's amazing - when you ask a question, people respond to it live. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

The use cases I use Automation Anywhere for are for healthcare and revenue.

From the customer's perspective, the biggest benefits are automation of the security and monitoring systems. Our automation consumption has increased considerably since we began using Automation Anywhere. Initially, we were using two or three bots. Now, we have almost 25. In terms of revenue, we can save around $10 million through automation. We still have room to expand, and we're looking to implement more bots, especially IQ bots, but we have some concerns about the accuracy level. 

Automation Anywhere is easy to learn for business users without technical knowledge. For example, I don't have much technical knowledge, but I learned how to use the solution from Automation Anywhere University. It's a user-friendly solution everyone can understand and implement in their business with the help of Automation Anywhere University. The university is more than enough to develop a small bot. It's a comfortable platform. Even the new employees who don't know about automation can gain experience. It only took me about one month to learn the solution. 

The IQ Bots have a lot of room for improvement in terms of accuracy level. We need to improvise a lot. I'm facing another big challenge with one of the use cases. We raised a ticket and did multiple follow-ups with support, but the accuracy still isn't up to the mark. 

We've been exploring FortressIQ and tools that use AI/ML in the past three or four months. We're looking at ways to implement those tools in new areas, but there is a gap because Automation Anywhere University doesn't have much information about them yet. 

We have web recording applications, so we need something like AI to be involved where we can give a verbal command, and the bot can learn to do an automated process. That's the kind of technology or innovation required from the business perspective. If a business consultant can interact with a generative AI or some other advanced AI that can act as a developer, the development cost will come down drastically. 

I have used Automation Anywhere for more than six years.

I rate Automation Anywhere support seven out of 10.

Neutral

I don't deal with purchasing, but I know that Automation Anywhere is more cost-effective than Blue Prism. I won't say the cost is low, but I can say that it's cost-effective. 

I rate Automation Anywhere seven out of 10 overall.

I have used Automation Anywhere in various industries, including banking, telecommunications, retail, and oil and gas. In such clients, there's often a mismatch between systems, needing more integration. Creating new integrations from scratch, like calling APIs, is complex. Automation Anywhere bypasses this by integrating systems through their user interfaces. For instance, inserting data into an SAP database typically requires knowledge of connection strings, database design, and tables. This information isn't readily available. With Automation Anywhere, I observe users performing tasks like creating clients. I note the screen and information used, then load that into an Excel file. Automation Anywhere processes numerous transactions using Excel data and screen interactions. This accelerates digital transformation. While APIs are the ideal engineering solution for integration, robotics provides the fastest results.

We have installed Automation Anywhere on AWS, Azure, and GCP, which works well.

Automation Anywhere is user-friendly with its concept, even C-level executives can try automating tasks in five minutes, which is a great marketing strategy. However, for professionals in sectors like banking who design critical mission bots, deeper knowledge is necessary, including logging, API calls, etc. Automation Anywhere's best features are sufficient for newbies or those needing quick implementations.

Copilot is a good feature for those using machine learning and AI.

Copilot helps increase the productivity of new users.

Typically, extracting information from transactional systems requires tools like Automation Anywhere. For less structured tasks, generative AI is a great option. One area where these tools can improve is web scraping. For instance, if a website changes, traditional bots fail. However, with generative AI, we can create bots that understand page context and adjust accordingly. For example, if the input field for a flight code changes its location or ID, a generative AI-powered bot can still identify it by understanding the context of the surrounding labels, like "flight code". I believe we'll see a significant evolution in the coming years, with computer vision and generative AI enabling bots to understand the location of information on a screen and adjust web scraping strategies dynamically.

One of the main concerns with Automation Anywhere is the lack of a robust feature for capturing and managing information from the user interface, something competitors like Blue Prism already offer. In Blue Prism, you can create an "application model" to capture every control on a screen and assign them to variables, making it easy to reference and update them in your code, even if the screen layout changes. In Automation Anywhere, however, you must manually search and update capture instructions within the code, which is time-consuming and error-prone. Implementing a similar feature in Automation Anywhere would be critical for improving efficiency and maintainability. While this idea has been discussed with the company, it has yet to be implemented.

For experienced developers, there's room for improvement. For instance, code refactoring, a valuable feature, is currently impossible in Automation Anywhere. While Automation Anywhere is excellent for beginners, it could benefit from enhancements for advanced users.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for eight years.

Automation Anywhere is scalable. One of my clients, the largest bank in our country, is also one of Automation Anywhere's biggest clients. We have Automation Anywhere running on over 9,000 computers at the bank.

The technical support team is an excellent resource. We are a long-standing partner of Automation Anywhere in our country. My team possesses a deep understanding of the platform, but when we require assistance, the support team is always helpful.

Positive

The initial deployment of Automation Anywhere is straightforward. We use the bot model and deploy bot runners through the Automation Anywhere cloud, simplifying the process. While using the Automation Anywhere cloud is convenient, we've also deployed an instance in a private cloud environment like Azure or AWS, which works well. However, deploying in a private cloud requires knowledge of clustering and related concepts, so it's not suitable for everyone.

On average, a bot runner in Automation Anywhere can cost $5,000, while in Microsoft Power Automate, you can get most of the same functionality for $100. However, when you factor in the materials, support, and ecosystem of Automation Anywhere, it proves to be a more cost-effective solution overall.

I rate Automation Anywhere ten out of ten.

Typically, they release hotfixes, and if you're using Automation Anywhere's cloud platform, you receive these hotfixes automatically and at no cost. However, in my situation, as a system integrator partner of Automation Anywhere, they inform us of available hotfixes, which we then download and implement without issue.

We use Automation Anywhere for all R2R processes, including reconciliations, journal entries, and fixed assets. Our systems are set up in a way that requires a lot of manual processes. We redesigned the processes so that we could move to some rule-based ways of working. Then, wherever we could make it rule-based, we implemented RPA.

The benefit of using Automation Anywhere is the efficiency of operations and speed. Humans cannot work 24/7 on a task, but a machine can work continuously on it. The solution saved us a lot of time on various processes. We needed fewer people to work on those processes, which resulted in cost savings. For every one bot, we were able to save the effort of one and a half STE.

There should be a way to avoid recoding everything whenever there's an upgrade to the latest version. A lot of finance applications do not support Automation Anywhere. Many ERPs and finance tools do not talk to Automation Anywhere directly. If there are any updates or changes on the UI, you have to recode everything, which used to be a big concern area.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for seven to eight years.

We faced challenges while implementing the solution because we were probably among the first to do it in the R2R space. However, we were able to work through and overcome those challenges.

We have seen a return on investment with Automation Anywhere.

The solution's pricing is pretty decent. We get good rates since we work with platinum partners.

We have a development team, and our business users do not do the coding. I think it depends on how simplified your design is. We try to make things quite dynamic. If there is a matrix behind the automation that defines the rules, then the business users will handle that matrix.

However, the technical team will handle the coding of how that will translate into an RPA automation. We focus on the design to ensure that it doesn't get stuck.

AI is definitely the future, but it depends on how well you can integrate it with your processes. From a financial perspective, it is still evolving. I don't think anybody has cracked the code for end-to-end automation using artificial intelligence. However, we are using AI in bits and pieces and intend to expand on that.

I don't think we have integrations because Automation Anywhere works more on the UI. Essentially, you'll create a bot ID, which is a mirror of a human user ID. Any access that that human has is replicated to that bot. You don't necessarily need to integrate Automation Anywhere with your systems. It just sits in your VDI, and then it works like any human user would work.

Upgrading the solution was a challenge because it required a whole project and some coding.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I am using Automation Anywhere to automate tasks with desktop applications. There are SAP applications, ERP applications, and browser-based applications. The business is related to the airline.

Automation Anywhere helps a lot. It saves time. Recently, we automated a process that used to take 5 minutes for an application, and there were 500 applications. It used to take a lot of time. Now, it takes only 1 minute for an application. The time savings vary based on the process. For some processes, it saves 70% of the time, and for others, it saves up to 50% of the time.

It frees up people from manual and repetitive tasks. They can do other interesting tasks.

Automation Anywhere is very stable. At run time, Automation Anywhere can let you know which line of code the bot is running and what it is doing. It is very clear. It is also easy to debug. When you have some change requests or you have to update the new version of the code to fix something, Automation Anywhere can help you to do the code review. Similar to GitHub, you can see the difference between the two versions. It is very good for that purpose.

When working with Excel, unlike other tools such as UiPath, Automation Anywhere does not have the standard variables for .Net data types. It does not support data tables and many of the data types supported by Microsoft and the .Net technology. When designing automation, you need to use only the few data types that Automation Anywhere supports. For example, when you work with Excel, you need to do many tasks with the data tables, cells, and rows, but that is more difficult with Automation Anywhere than with other platforms.

It is not flexible for custom activities. With UiPath, you can use C#. You can use VB.NET directly. With Automation Anywhere, customization is more complicated than UiPath.

There are a lot of resources available on the Internet to learn Automation Anywhere. They have Automation Anywhere University, but the difficult thing is that it does not have a specific path for a beginner. When I was learning it initially, I had to choose randomly. I could not work out where to start. It is probably better now.

A good thing about Automation Anywhere is that when the bot is running, it displays which line of the code is running, but we also want those logs to be displayed on the web. When we implement an automation process, currently, we have to write the code to archive the logs. That is the thing they need to improve.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost 3 years. I am using Automation 360. It is web-based. 

It is stable.

I have worked with UiPath, Power Automate, and a few local automation tools available in our country.

UiPath is easier to use for business users than Automation Anywhere. Automation Anywhere is also not as good as UiPath for custom activities. It takes a month to train a non-technical user on Automation Anywhere. You also cannot directly use C# and VB.NET. If it starts to support all data types in the platform, that would make it easier to learn and use.

We have used Google or Microsoft OCR for document understanding. We have also used the API of a third party to translate the document and email it.

At this time, I prefer open-source solutions because of the cost.

It is deployed on-premises, and its deployment is straightforward.

The deployment of a bot used to take about three days. There were some steps for approval, and we used to manually deploy, but now, my company has CI/CD integration. We run the pipeline to automatically deploy. It is very fast now. It just takes an hour. We just need some approvals and we need to review the package. It is straightforward. One person is enough for deployment.

It is also easy to upgrade Automation Anywhere. It is not difficult. In terms of maintenance, one or two people are enough to maintain the bots. If there is any issue with the bot, we can resolve that within 5 days.

It is not too expensive, but there are many tools available in the market that can provide the same functionality at a cheaper price.

I have done some research on the automation market, and I see that there are many automation platforms. There are also open-source ones. Every organization wants to reduce the costs. Organizations are now considering cheaper platforms such as Microsoft Power Automate. Even my current organization is considering migrating to an open-source solution.

I tried the AI capability, but it did not help me much in reality. I did not find it stable. It will probably get stable in the future. 

We are using APIs for integration. It is a perfect way to integrate.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a 9 out of 10. 

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.

We use Automation Anywhere to automate all back-office manual tasks, including service case management, support cases, and financial reconciliations between multiple spreadsheets and source systems.

We faced challenges because we were running the on-premises version. It was too demanding on our physical system architecture. Last year, we moved to the cloud, which has improved our landscape. It's better now, but it was tough before. Anyone new to Automation Anywhere will find it much better now.

Before we implemented Automation Anywhere, all of our tasks were manual. Automating them has saved us a lot of time and eliminated a lot of risk. As of now, our run rate is around 15,000 manual hours saved per year.

Automation Anywhere helps eliminate our daily manual tasks, allowing our staff to focus on more valuable tasks.

We have integrated AA with Salesforce, our homegrown platform, ServiceNow, and PeopleSoft.

Our workflows, APIs, business applications, and document automation integration with AA are well-integrated and efficient.

AA has helped us save time.

The code automation platform is the most valuable feature.

Recently, Automation Anywhere acquired FortressIQ, a company that specializes in discovery automation. Discovery automation is the process of sitting down with businesses and documenting their processes and all related information. It is a very human-intensive process. Automation Anywhere acquired FortressIQ to do this work, but the two platforms are not yet seamlessly integrated. This is a pain point that we are currently working on.

I hope that Automation Anywhere can improve its capabilities in the areas of sophisticated unstructured data parsing, contextual routing, and long-running process orchestration. These are areas where AI can be especially helpful. For example, AA could use AI to suggest the next best action in a process and to configure everything in one shot. It should also be smart enough to adjust and move on.

The process discovery side needs improvement. Before we can automate, we must document the current process map and create a process design document. This is a time-consuming and painful process. We have to go to the line-of-business people who perform the operations, sometimes multiple times, to get an understanding of the problem. Automation Anywhere is improving in this area, but it's still not perfect. So, we're relying more on other reliable platforms. The platforms they acquired are not yet fully integrated into the core RPA design platform. This is a big gap. If they can close the gap between discovery and bot development, it would eliminate many manual hours of discovery, allowing the automation team, or COA team, to scale faster.

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

At first, we had issues with the stability, but it has significantly improved in the last six months after we migrated to the 360 version.

Automation Anywhere can scale vertically, but not horizontally. This means that it can add more resources to a single machine to handle increased load, but it cannot distribute the workload across multiple machines. This is a limitation for long-running, complex processes that require state maintenance. However, Automation Anywhere has a roadmap item to release a horizontal scaling solution in 2024.

In other words, Automation Anywhere can scale up, but not out. We can add as many small bots as we want to a single machine, but we cannot distribute the workload across multiple machines.

Technical support is decent. We were previously on a lower level of service support but realized we needed better support and were upgraded to top-level service. It's been better since then. We have a dedicated account customer success manager and architect assigned to us, so we can ping them anytime and they'll chase it for us internally.

Positive

The initial deployment was straightforward. It took six months to deploy ten bots.

The pricing of AA is similar to UiPath.

We evaluated UiPath but AA is more resource friendly and has a shorter learning curve.

I would rate Automation Anywhere eight out of ten.

Our organization's approach and strategy will be to accelerate cross-cutting capability across all technology solutions, including automation. We expect vendors like Automation Anywhere to step up their game to compete. If they cannot compete in the United States, they will not be able to compete in the rest of the world and will be left behind.

We tried to get business users to build bots. We have reports of business users who have built bots. It is easy to get them started, but it is very difficult to get them to build production-quality bots. I am sure that this is a common challenge with any tool or platform. All the solution developers and concepts are theoretical. In reality, they do not work. Business users can build whatever they want, but their bots will not withstand the production infrastructure. Therefore, we need to step in and do the job properly. I do not believe in the concept of business users building bots. It just creates more problems down the line.

The learning curve is around two weeks.

We are starting a POC for Co-Pilot which was formally ARI. At the time when it was ARI, it was not a good feature.

Runners in our local landscape require maintenance.

We have automated PO processing, PO-to-order booking, and various website flows, such as ticket generation, timely uploads of files on the website, and report generation. We have also automated report delivery to all end-users.

Manual efforts have been reduced and the accuracy has increased. In the processes I have done, the accuracy has reached 100 percent, and manual load and time has been reduced.

Object cloning and Excel operations are what we use most.

The ability of Automation Anywhere to provide automation at scale, on a scale of one to 10, is a nine. Integration of its RPA bots using APIs is an eight out of 10.

More and more innovation is going on, and they'll have to keep adding features to keep up with the market. They have generative AI on their platform, but that's a new part. They are working on it. It's not 100 percent foolproof, but eventually it will get better. They need to work on their AI capabilities.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for four years.

The new version is stable now. When we first started, the platform was not stable, but it became stable when we shifted to A360.

If we are stuck anywhere, their technical team is always available. We have raised one or two issues with them and they were able to help us out and turn them around.

We haven't required them very much, but they are available if we need them.

Positive

I've worked with Microsoft Power Automate, but at a very basic level.

The initial deployment is easy. The documentation is clear. Implementing A360 on-premises, a complete end-to-end installation, takes four hours. We just need the server team for administrator passwords.

I had already tested and tried it on a development server, so I had all the steps written that I had to follow for deployment to production. It didn't take much time. I read the installation guidelines and documentation from Automation Anywhere and it was easy for me to do it.

We have about 25 end-users of the solution in our organization, and three of us take care of maintenance. In terms of bot maintenance, not much time is spent unless and until there's a change in the process or the environment.

For business users who do not have technical skills, it is easy to use the product. They understand what is possible with the tool over time. Within a year, they understood what needed to be automated and what not. Training non-technical employees on Automation Anywhere usage takes three to six months.

I did it myself.

It's an ongoing process. I have done more than 400 processes for our client over a four-year period. The time a process takes to automate depends on the complexity of the process. Within three or four weeks, a process is generally completely done, from development to production.

We tried UiPath at the time, but Automation Anywhere was more promising. It was easy to scale the bots in Automation Anywhere, and the implementation using Automation Anywhere was simpler compared to UiPath. However, I've heard from people working with UiPath that it's faster compared to Automation Anywhere. The execution time for Automation Anywhere might be 10 seconds, whereas with UiPath it might take six seconds.

If someone is considering an API integration instead of an RPA solution, that means the API has to be available. Using Automation Anywhere, you can automate any process completely, end-to-end. It doesn't need an API. We can automate front-end, Excel, Word—anything. That is more helpful compared to an API integration.