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Software Engineering Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Non-developers can use the tool to create bots, but we ran into stability issues when scaling bots
Pros and Cons
  • "Non-developers can use the tool to create bots. Also, it is very easy for developers to use."
  • "The bot scaling process was painful, when you go beyond a few bots, and because we had stability issues. We had to work through the issues, and they took us a long time."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case is to automate our current exports and fraudulent transaction processing in the back office.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere brings speed with accuracy. We are replacing a lot of manual work that our agents used to do. This has been automated now, and we get things done faster.

What is most valuable?

Non-developers can use the tool to create bots. Also, it is very easy for developers to use.

What needs improvement?

The bot creation process is easy enough with its drag and drop, then add some logic. However, once you're done with it, you can't really work outside the tool that the AI provides. It is drag and drop, then work right there.

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.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It took a couple of months to scale from our pilot to the current number of bots that we are using. The bot scaling process was painful, when you go beyond a few bots, and because we had stability issues. We had to work through the issues, and they took us a long time.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good. They need to improve their response to production issues. They need to have knowledgeable people to fix issues when things are down in production.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward, but the scaling was an issue.

What about the implementation team?

We worked directly with Automation Anywhere. Their help was good, but sometimes it took a couple days for them to get back to us.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Automation Anywhere. Though, it depends on how they plan to build the environment: on-premise or cloud. There are some issues that we're facing in the cloud.

The current features are good, but we are not using all of the product's existing features at the moment.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user1070898 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Application Developer at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
The bot creation process is simple and useful
Pros and Cons
  • "The bot creation process is simple and useful. Whatever you need to do, it is there. If there is something else, there are the MetaBot functions."
  • "It has been challenging integrating Automation Anywhere with other solutions, due to all of the controls, as we are a bank."

What is our primary use case?

Our first use case was to program a bot which could do the work of approximate 30 people, taking around half a year to implement. We did that bot around a year ago. This bot was the best case scenario for Automation Anywhere, making it the perfect application for RPA in our corporation.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere can work with very old applications. For example, we had one application about to collapse and were able to capture all its information before the collapse happened.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is its easy to use. For developers, the solution is super easy. I just learned the new Workbench editor, which is even better. In the version that we have now, we normally use a few TaskBots and a lot of MetaBots, so we can integrate DLLs and further enhance the bots that we have. It is very impressive.

The bot creation process is simple and useful. Whatever you need to do, it is there. If there is something else, there are the MetaBot functions.

What needs improvement?

It has been challenging integrating Automation Anywhere with other solutions, due to all of the controls, as we are a bank. 

We are really excited to have Python run directly from the bots. This would be a massive upgrade, as we could integrate AI even further with the solution. 

There is room for improvement in AI, but they are working on it.

They can work more on integrating the code. I would like to see more similar examples where we don't have to create the code in the bot, but can create the code in the Workbench.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is great, but I would like them to be faster with their response times. Sometimes, we have to contact them multiple time on the same ticket to receive a response.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty straightforward, especially as a PoC. With the controls, it could be a bit more complex.

What about the implementation team?

We have a third-party who manages our IT. They did an IaaS, then we did everything else.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also evaluated UiPath and Automation Anywhere. 

We chose Automation Anywhere, as it was the more complete, simpler application.

What other advice do I have?

Do a very simple automation of an application entry, like registration. Then, you will see how fast the application is and will start using it right away.

Every time a new employee starts with us, we start them on the Automation Anywhere University, "Hello Bot: Introduction to RPA" course.

While the cognitive document processing is very impressive, we sadly don't have it right now. We are working on acquiring it.

We don't use Citrix. We use Azure for every deployment. Azure has worked very well and is scalable.

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.
814,560 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Supervisor at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
We are saving man-hours by hiring less people, but we would like to have more features inline with our traditional IDE
Pros and Cons
  • "We are using it to backfill a lot of our resources who are retiring, so we are hiring less people as we go."
  • "I don't use the technical support a lot. It feels like a lot of time that they will ask us to check the user manual."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use it for finance and marketing applications in our company, since we do a lot of our back office tasks at our company. We have automated in marketing, finance, our commercial organization, and are moving into HR.

The tool performs very well.

How has it helped my organization?

We are using it to backfill a lot of our resources who are retiring, so we are hiring less people as we go.

What is most valuable?

The object cloning is its most valuable feature.

It is easy for business users to utilize, who don't have IT skills.

What needs improvement?

We would like to have collapsible code loops.

It would be nice to upload a project, instead of individual files, so we can look at file and versions changes.

We would like to have more features inline with our traditional IDE, like what is in Visual Studio.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It scales pretty well as long as you have enough developers to scale it with you.

We can scale the bots in about a year. When we started, we went from a pilot of about 14 bots, which all got stripped away. Then, we ended up implementing 30 different bots about a year later.

How are customer service and technical support?

I don't use the technical support a lot. It feels like a lot of time that they will ask us to check the user manual. When we eventually just tell them, "No, we want to set up a call." Then, they are usually pretty helpful on the call.

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

This is our first RPA solution. We haven't previously used another solution. Our strategy group and IT department were the ones who decided to use Automation Anywhere.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex. However, Automation Anywhere came onsite and helped us with our architecture, then it was fine.

What about the implementation team?

We used a reseller for the deployment. We really enjoyed working with them.

What was our ROI?

We evaluate ROI as time savings and resource costs not needed resulting from deployed automation.

We save approximately 10,000 hours per year.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also looked at Blue Prism and UiPath, but Automation Anywhere was more secure.

What other advice do I have?

Ensure that IT is invested. Don't expect your business to carry the load.

We like the idea behind the Bot Store, but we haven't really adopted the Bot Store yet.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller.
PeerSpot user
Business Transformation Manager at a maritime company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
The bot creation process is pretty user friendly for a lot of tasks, but it can be cumbersome for logic and variable manipulation
Pros and Cons
  • "The ability to automate low decision, highly repetitive tasks and clear large backlogs of tasks that we could not do with our human staff."
  • "We would like a smoother process for moving bots and tasks between the different development environments, from development to testing to production. We find this to be pretty cumbersome to work through."

What is our primary use case?

We are automating internal processes, mostly at the task level. We are going in and looking for manual work which can be reduced through the use of automation.

Primarily, we have automated finance and cost control related expenses.

We are still in the proof of concept and pilot stages.

How has it helped my organization?

We have had some moderate, qualified success, so far. We are just starting out, but we have been able to take an accounting task and clear a very large backlog. Therefore, being completely up-to-date of the task since implementing a bot on it.

What is most valuable?

The ability to automate low decision, highly repetitive tasks and clear large backlogs of tasks that we could not do with our human staff.

What needs improvement?

We have had some difficulty with ease of use. As far as getting the overall architecture setup, we had a lot of difficulties ensuring the control room was installed correctly and that we were setting up our runner machines correctly, as well. Some of that was due to our own IT not being fully up-to-date on the process and being properly informed. We also just found the install procedures somewhat cumbersome to use. In addition, we have had some difficulties getting it to interact in predictable ways with our in-house software.

We would like a smoother process for moving bots and tasks between the different development environments, from development to testing to production. We find this to be pretty cumbersome to work through.

For how long have I used the solution?

Trial/evaluations only.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have had some issues with stability. However, we think this is as much on our end as on Automation Anywhere's side. They have been very helpful with their customer service on resolving these issues.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex.

What about the implementation team?

We are doing everything in-house.

What was our ROI?

We look at ROI in a couple of different ways: FTE reduction, hours saved of human work, or errors caught. We are also looking at finding errors in our invoicing for our accounts payable team to be able to reduce those errors.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We spoke with a number of vendors.

What other advice do I have?

Look into what the requirements are from an IT standpoint and involve the IT team in ensuring that the installation and setup are handled smoothly. Make sure that the IT team is onboard and invested in a way that makes them a close partner in the automation process.

The bot creation process is pretty user friendly for a lot of tasks, such as the object cloning. I know a number of our developers have felt that it is a bit cumbersome with its logic and variable manipulation. A lot of us want to be able to start typing in directly rather than having to click and drag things, but as far as the core automation functionality, we found that pretty easy to use.

We have not used the IQ Bot.

I have not taken any course on Automation Anywhere University.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Automation Manager - Nordic at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
MetaBot reusable code makes development much quicker and role-based access gives us security control
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the features that we have used the most is an action in the Workbench called Object Cloning. We find that very reliable and very useful for implementing different business processes."
  • "Security is a top priority for us. To be allowed to automate different processes, we need to have a good set of controls around who is allowed to do what, and what credentials people can and can't use. It allows us to manage access make sure that we have full control."
  • "The main things I've found that could be better are small things that can be annoying when you're using them a lot. I would recommend they add a feature where, if you mark the start of an "If" sentence it will highlight the end of the "If" sentence. That would make it easier to get a better overview."
  • "We would like to see more options for merging and un-merging PDFs. More flexibility there would be good. We've figured out ways around this and, using their software, we've been able to do everything we wanted to do. It just took a bit more time to do it. We were on version 10.5 and in their Bot Store they actually had a bot that did exactly what we wanted to do, but it was for Version 11.0."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to automate all kinds of business processes. The primary use case is the RPA platform, even though they have the cognitive platform and the analytics platform. We use it for so many different things it's hard to focus on one, but it's automating business processes in our banking system.

We're interfacing a lot with Excel, our ERP systems, some legacy systems, the databases, file folders, text files, CSVs. It's hard to pin down one.

How has it helped my organization?

Through the software, we have been able to reduce the time that we spend on manual, repetitive tasks, so that we can focus on activities that add value to the business or to our partners and customers. The most important things are saving time, increasing control, and increasing automation.

If you ask our CFO, I think he would say that the most important thing is that we saved some money, with more efficient operations, etc. But I feel the ability to change from doing non-value-added tasks into work with added value is important.

We have saved the equivalent of about $40,000 to $50,000 by using it, during my time here. That's a lot. We recently did a large migration that saved us a lot of time on things that were going to be done manually. We were able to automate it and we saved around $15,000 to $20,000 on just that migration. That's quite substantial.

What is most valuable?

One of the features that we have used the most is an action in the Workbench called Object Cloning. We find that very reliable and very useful for implementing different business processes.

In general, the security and role-based access control - credentials security - are also important. We have a high focus on security in the bank. It's obviously a very highly regulated environment, so security is a top priority for us. To be allowed to automate different processes, we need to have a good set of controls around who is allowed to do what, and what credentials people can and can't use. It allows us to manage access to make sure that we have full control.

Other things that I also find very useful are the Bot Store and the Apeople community. If we run into troubles, we can always ask the forum and get an answer. People know if there is a pre-existing bot in the Bot Store that we can use to solve a problem. It's very useful to take advantage of the community. When they launched the Bot Store, it was a unique thing in the RPA market and it is providing tremendous value to a lot of businesses.

Also, their MetaBot tool is a very useful building block. We call it Lego bricks, here in the Nordic region. So if you build a wheel for your car, you don't have to build three more, you just use the same wheel over again. That's very useful and it makes the development phase even quicker. I hear other people talking about how they're spending three months on one process and that's a bit crazy. We deliver new processes every week and we estimate a process should not take a lot more than two weeks. But on average, we're spending two weeks per process, to get from idea to production.

What needs improvement?

The main things I've found that could be better are small things that can be annoying when you're using them a lot. I would recommend they add a feature where, if you mark the start of an "If" sentence it will highlight the end of the "If" sentence. That would make it easier to get a better overview. The small things are the most important in our day-to-day work with their software. Incremental improvements for a better overview or better user experience would help.

Also, we would like to see more options for merging and un-merging PDFs. More flexibility there would be good. We've figured out ways around this and, using their software, we've been able to do everything we wanted to do. It just took a bit more time to do it. We were on version 10.5 and in their Bot Store they actually had a bot that did exactly what we wanted to do, but it was for Version 11.0.

I find that they are making a lot of improvements that we are able to take advantage of with every release. I can't really think of something large that's missing.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's been very stable. I can't really put my finger on things that haven't been stable that are under Automation Anywhere's control.

There have been some troubles for us when it comes to doing monthly Windows updates. That always turns off the Bot Runner machines and we have to do a complete, new log-on once a month on those machines. But we are aware of it and it's on our side, not Automation Anywhere's side.

Other than that, the runtime might differ. Sometimes it goes very fast, sometimes it can go a bit slower but I think that's also due to the speed of internet access as well as the computers we're running it on. Some of them have less computing power. We don't have the perfect virtual environment yet, so we're still working on improving that. But we can't blame Automation Anywhere for our having a legacy infrastructure.

In general, it works very well and we're really happy with the stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good. I think we haven't really used the Bot Farm product yet, but that looks very exciting. We're planning on moving the infrastructure into the cloud and it's then a very interesting prospect to be able to scale up from 100 bots to 1,000 bots with just the click of a button. To my knowledge, it's probably the most scalable RPA software out there. We haven't really met any major challenges when it comes to scaling up, other than our own computers. But that's an in-house problem, not an Automation Anywhere problem.

I've talked to people using other RPA vendors and they have said they face some major issues once they pass 40 automated processes, but we haven't really faced those kinds of challenges. It has been running smoothly.

It's very scalable and it's easy to have control. There is a good audit log in the Control Room. And there is the ability to create your own roles and have strict, role-based access control where you say: This role is able to run this bot on this machine but it's not able to run another bot on the same machine. That's good from a security standpoint.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is really eager to close tickets as fast as possible, which is good. But as with any support, it can sometimes feel like it's slow because they have to do these standard checks to rule things out. Even though I say I've done them, they have to do them anyway. They have to be able to say, "Okay, this is checked off, this is checked off, this is checked off. Alright, now we can move to the actual issue." It can be a bit slow at the start, but they're always able to resolve our issues.

In general, I'm very happy with it and I can understand why they have to do those checks because if it's a stupid error, it's good to identify that early.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. I've actually done installations of Automation Anywhere and I have no IT background. I've been able to set it up on a server and some virtual machines and get everything working.

The deployment took some time for us, but that was due to a lack of a good environment on our side. To do a clean install would take some three or four hours to get everything up and running, depending on what kind of machines you have. If you have all the accesses you're supposed to have it can take a very short time. But, if you're installing it in an enterprise environment, it can take longer because you might not have all the accesses. At least for me, coming from the business side, I don't have all the administration accesses that I would need, but that's not Automation Anywhere. Overall, it's pretty straightforward and doesn't take a lot of time.

For our implementation strategy, we started out with a pilot, together with a consulting partner. We automated two processes and created a proposal for an operating model, governance, and a framework. After that, we just tried to pump out new automations as fast as possible to prove the value to upper management. After a while, we got some traction and we went from being just me in 2015 to between 12 and 15 people now. Some of them are not working full-time on it but we have at least 12 full-time employees working on RPA across our organization. We started out in Norway, but now we also have operations in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, with people working full-time on automation in all of those countries.

All the developers are doing some maintenance. We don't have anyone who is assigned to doing only maintenance because we all find that a bit boring. We share the responsibility among all the developers so that everyone has the chance to do new processes and maintenance when needed.

We have a two-pronged approach there. The processes that are important for business continuity, the business-critical processes, are often maintained proactively. We are notified that a change is coming to the system, so we need to test it out and make a new version that will work when the upgrade of the system is live. So we're proactive in those kinds of processes. Non-business-critical processes are maintained reactively. We try to do it in the most sensible way possible, but there's always room for improvement, obviously.

We put a lot of responsibility on the process owners. They're responsible for notifying the RPA team in case of any changes in the graphic user interface or changes to the process, because of new rules and regulations or any other reason. The process owner or someone in his or her team will always know if there is a change in the user interface or the process.

If there is an error in the code, it is the RPA team's responsibility to fix it and we do most of that ad-hoc, when it happens. We always have some resources available to do those kinds of things and that's taken into account when estimating how long we will spend on creating a new process. We know that something might happen during that week or those weeks, so we add some padding.

In addition to the developers, we have a lot more people using the Control Room to schedule the processes.

So we tried to run fast and then we took a step back and re-evaluated. We built an even better framework, redid the infrastructure, put more thought into the security aspect, and we have industrialized our implementation. We still have some issues when it comes to our operating environment, but that's not Automation Anywhere's fault; that's more in our IT department's hands.

What about the implementation team?

We used Accenture, they're our technology partner in Norway. We had good experiences with them, but I think it could have been better planned on both sides. We were not able to mirror their organization as we should. Ideally, we would have been more self-sufficient after those ten weeks, and it was only by chance that I had the time to be present during all ten weeks, every day, in the project. If we didn't have the people learning how to develop, how to do the business analysis side, and working closely with them, we would have been in some trouble going forward.

The project was a success either way, given where we're at right now. But they should have been a bit clearer on how much time people would need to spend and what was expected of us. It's always better to make the customer self-sufficient.

I think they also proposed a bit too-ambitious operating model with a bit too many people from the get-go. That was not that well received by our management. We're a larger organization right now than what they proposed, but I don't think that our management would ever have accepted or have had the guts to do the leap of faith and say, "Okay, we will have six people working full-time with RPA from today," in 2016. They didn't know the potential and didn't really see that we had that many manual processes.

These are small things. In general, we're happy with what they did. It's just that if I were to point my finger at something that could have been done better, those are the things that could have been done better.

Regarding the number of people involved in the deployment, from Accenture's side there were two developers, two business analysts, and one project leader. On our side, we had a project leader and seven or eight other people, but eventually, it was just me and the project leader who spent our full time on the project, while it was going on. Everyone else was also doing their day-to-day jobs. And with all those people, it was still too few.

What was our ROI?

We have triple-digit returns, in percentage. I feel it's worth every dollar we paid for it. We have seen a lot of the returns in operations and back office because we had so many manual tasks there.

A good example is a process that we automated where, on that specific process, the return on investment is above 30,000 percent. The total cost of ownership is around $1,000 and the return is something like $400,000 in direct cost savings. And that's still increasing. It's an ad-hoc cleaning job that we're doing, but for every contract we change, we save about half-a-dollar per month, per letter we're sending. It amounts to a lot.

We spent one day creating that process and four days running it so the cost of ownership is really low. Those kinds of processes are unicorns. You won't find them in every business and you have to have the right people and the best ideas. But we were lucky to find that process and, by itself, it has paid for a lot of the license cost.

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

We just did a round of price comparison on a global scale and found it's so hard to compare the license prices. But, Automation Anywhere, in general, is on the same price level as the other vendors, a bit lower in some cases. 

If we're thinking about the list prices, the Enterprise platform license fee is quite high. If you have five Bot Runner licenses, five bot creator licenses, a Control Room, and an Enterprise License fee, Automation Anywhere is much more expensive than the others. But if you have a global agreement with them, the Enterprise platform fee is shared between all the entities that are using Automation Anywhere. In that scenario, it would be a lot cheaper. The prices are quite okay.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Blue Prism at the time.

We did the assessment together with Accenture and I think they actually recommended Blue Prism vs Automation Anywhere. I find that a lot of the consultants in our region are recommending Blue Prism or UiPath because they have generous compensation and incentive packages for the consultants who sell their products. I'm not sure if Accenture would recommend Blue Prism if they didn't have some interest in it. If they were totally agnostic, I'm not sure if they would have done the assessment the same way. But it's hard for me to say.

If I were going to do a new evaluation today, I would evaluate Automation Anywhere vs UiPath, but I would still choose Automation Anywhere. I've seen demos of both Blue Prism and UiPath and I think the basic capabilities are the same - they're all based on the .NET framework and you can kind of do a lot of the same things with them. But when it comes to the scalability, security, etc., I think Automation Anywhere is superior.

Another major factor that played a role in why we chose Automation Anywhere was their prompt replies to any questions or issues.

I'm not sure how this part is with the other main providers, but Automation Anywhere has a really good customer success program. I have a customer success manager that I'm in contact with daily. He helps us elevate our issues to the correct people and makes sure that, if we have any action points that are pending on someone at Automation Anywhere, they are resolved as quickly as possible. The follow-up from Automation Anywhere's side has been fantastic. They give us information about what's in the roadmap and what's to come, and if we need any additional information for our IT teams or our management team - anything to would help us with information - they are available to do calls and presentations.

What other advice do I have?

My advice is to get started and get help. It's very useful to have consultants come in to help you get started. That will kick-start your implementation journey. Also, look at it as a journey. You won't get to an end-state where you will say, "Alright, now I'm done," because you will have to improve your implementation at all times, keep progressing, moving towards AI.

In my opinion, the vendor you choose in the first year is kind of irrelevant. But when you come to a point where you're about to scale up, then it's important to be associated with the best vendors out there. For us, being a customer of Automation Anywhere puts us in a really good place to keep progressing and keep scaling up.

It's important to remember that we are not doing a full integration here, we are doing RPA. It's okay to do 80 percent of a process - the high volumes - and then do all the exceptions manually. You won't necessarily get a good enough return on spending an extra month to do all the exceptions. You want to go live with the volume that represents the 70 or 80 or 90 percent, as soon as possible. Then see if it makes sense to handle all the exceptions, the last ten to 30 percent. It's important for us to be able to deliver fast, as well as securely and controlled, and with the MetaBot and the other tools that we have through Automation Anywhere we are able to do that.

We have automated in excess of 60 processes running on 17 Bot Runners, which are like machines we can operate 24/7. We have 15 bot developers and we are closing in on capacity so we would have to expand the number of licenses soon. 

Our plans for ramping up are about pumping out new processes every other week. We're working Agile with the RPA so we try to do short sprints and deliver something every week. The usage increases every week actually. I'm not sure if we are planning to have even more developers because we don't want to be in a position where people don't have things to do. We would rather have some backlog rather than having to fire five developers.

We are planning to continue on the same pace and ramp up the number of bots, rather than the number of developers. We did a proof of concept last year with Automation Anywhere's IQ Bot which was very successful. We did not, however, have time or resources available to implement that last year. Hopefully, this year we will have time and we will make the purchase of the IQ Bot license and start using their cognitive platform. We're thinking about implementing their analytics platform as well, because that's very useful for keeping track of our progress.

I would rate Automation Anywhere at nine out of ten. There's always room for improvement and, of course, we would want cheaper licenses and would want them to add even more things that we haven't thought about to their product. Still, we're really happy with the software provider that we're using.

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.
PeerSpot user
Data Science Specialist at Dextco
Real User
Helps us save time, is user-friendly, and practical
Pros and Cons
  • "Automated data processing is the most valuable feature of Automation Anywhere."

    What is our primary use case?

    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.

    How has it helped my organization?

    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.

    What is most valuable?

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

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Automation Anywhere for 16 months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Automation Anywhere is stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Automation Anywhere is scalable.

    Automation Anywhere supports automation to scale.

    How are customer service and support?

    The technical support is good.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    How was the initial setup?

    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.

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

    Automation Anywhere is affordable.

    What other advice do I have?

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

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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    PeerSpot user
    ChristianTorres - PeerSpot reviewer
    Sales Consultant at Evertec
    Consultant
    Top 20
    Helps to automate a lot of processes, but should work consistently with web applications
    Pros and Cons
    • "Workbench, which is a development tool, is very friendly. It is complete. Compared to Power Automate, Automation Anywhere is much more comprehensive and easy to understand."
    • "Automation Anywhere is a technical application. It is not so easy for a regular user. It requires technical knowledge."

    What is our primary use case?

    We have automated some data entry scenarios. We also have automation for system monitoring. It is being used for data entry, system monitoring, and data exchange with other systems.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We found a lot of processes to automate. We currently have about 80 processes that we have automated. 

    Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation consumption, but we are a little short of RPA developers. We are acquiring new talent and new resources for that group, and we are on the right path. We have a lot of work. 

    What is most valuable?

    Workbench, which is a development tool, is very friendly. It is complete. Compared to Power Automate, Automation Anywhere is much more comprehensive and easy to understand.

    We use APIs for some bots. It is not too common, but we use APIs in some processes. The integration at the moment is easy.

    What needs improvement?

    We work with version 11, and we have some problems with some applications. Automation Anywhere's software does not recognize them properly. The recognition of web applications is not good. The software does not consistently recognize all the controls and objects. We are in the process of migrating to a new version. We are migrating to Automation Anywhere 360, and I hope that in the latest version, the recognition model can be better. On the Internet and various forums, many people say that Automation Anywhere 360 appears to be much better, but we have not implemented it yet. I hope it is better and consistent. The main problem is consistency. If I make a bot today and tomorrow if the application changes, the bot stops working.

    Similarly, in terms of the ability to provide automation at scale, the new version is more focused on that. The version that we have is not that capable. The development is not too easy. We need to put in too much effort, but Automation 360 appears to be easier. Development takes less time.

    Automation Anywhere is a technical application. It is not so easy for a regular user. It requires technical knowledge. The new version is more user-friendly from an ease-of-use perspective. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using this solution for three to four years.

    How are customer service and support?

    I would rate their technical support a nine out of ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

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

    We are still using Power Automate, but we are not using their RPA model. We only use Power Automate for other automations. When we chose our RPA tool, Microsoft had not released the RPA tool for Power Automate. Microsoft released it a year or two years later.

    What was our ROI?

    We have some processes to analyze the ROI, but right now, we are not focusing on knowing that information. Our main need is automation. ROI is important, but it is not critical at the moment. We are still automating projects in the company.

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

    It is expensive. I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten in terms of pricing. 

    They bill for every IQ bot that you have. We do not use IQ Bot, but we have a license, and they bill for every thousand pages. 

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We evaluated one or two other options, but I was not a part of the evaluation.

    We did a little bit of research, and we found that Automation Anywhere was recommended at that time. It had better reviews on the Gartner website, so we decided to go with it.

    What other advice do I have?

    It takes about three to four months to learn it. Some of the things are easy, but because we are trying to do automations, we need to make sure that we understand the application properly. We need to know how it works internally in the structure of the code because sometimes, we make a programming change that works today but stops working tomorrow. That is because the application can change, so we need to understand how the controls work between the changes and have the logic that allows a bot to run smoothly irrespective of the application changes. It is challenging to analyze the changes in the application and find a way to program the bot to recognize the changes.

    To someone who wants to use API integration instead of an RPA solution, I would say that API integration is more recommended, but sometimes there are issues with this type of integration, so we have to finish the project in Automation Anywhere. The first option that we always try is to create our own integration between the systems with APIs. The RPA tool is the last option for integration.

    In terms of maintenance, we need to install the updates or patches. Our infrastructure team is in charge of that. We have technicians to install patches. We have people with different roles. They are technical leaders or system administrators. We also have an information security team, and we have a network team, as well as an operating system team. Every department makes a little contribution to the whole environment.

    For managing the bots, we have only three people. Maintenance of bots is different because we have bots scheduled all day, so we still need to monitor them on a daily basis, but the update process is monthly. We verify what is pending. Overall, the maintenance takes about eight hours a month.

    I would rate Automation Anywhere a seven out of ten.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Aliu Balogun - PeerSpot reviewer
    Head, Digital Business and Innovation (BSc/MSc Computer Science, CISA) at ActivEdge
    Real User
    RPA solution that offers functionality, stability, and scalability; its technical support is good
    Pros and Cons
    • "This RPA solution really stands out because of its functionality, scalability, and stability. It also offers very good technical support, and is always innovating with new features that speak to various operational use cases."
    • "The ease of use and user experience for this solution could be improved."

    What is our primary use case?

    Here's a use case of Automation Anywhere (AA): In a bank, you have an account opening process. The customers go into the bank, then apply for account opening. They will go to a portal, fill out the form, then put their documents. All the data that had been entered and all the documents that are being uploaded will go into a document repository.

    With Automation Anywhere (AA), you have a data capture solution that extracts the data, and will put the data extracted into a case management solution, instead of having somebody just taking data and doing manual data entry into the CRM platform or core banking platform. This solution can take the data extracted from the upload, log into the CRM platform, and key in the data one after the other, in that same order on the CRM or the core banking platform, instead of having a human doing that repetitive task of data entry. You can use this RPA solution to handle the document repository, extract the data from it, log into the CRM portal automatically, then key in the data as an automated data entry into the CRM.

    What is most valuable?

    There are other competitive solutions, e.g. Blue Prism and IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and those are very good ones, but if you asked me, Automation Anywhere (AA) really, really stands out.

    One of the things I like about this solution is its functionality. It's highly functional, aside from it being stable and scalable.

    I also like that the Automation Anywhere (AA) team is always innovating, e.g. they're always coming up with new features that would speak to various operational use cases.

    What needs improvement?

    Improving on the ease of use and user experience of Automation Anywhere (AA) could help.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We've been providing Automation Anywhere (AA) to our customers for 10 years now.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Automation Anywhere (AA) is a stable solution.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Automation Anywhere (AA) is scalable. It's one of the best you can have in the market.

    How are customer service and support?

    Automation Anywhere (AA) has very good technical support.

    How was the initial setup?

    Installing Automation Anywhere (AA) is not a complicated process. How long the installation takes will depend on the client environment. For the cloud version of this solution, you just need to configure it to the use cases of the customers. For the on-premises version, you have to set it up within the client data center environment, and even that doesn't take time. Installation is straightforward.

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

    Our customers pay for the Automation Anywhere (AA) license yearly, for the cloud version.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We were able to evaluate Blue Prism and IBM RPA.

    What other advice do I have?

    We currently have three customers using Automation Anywhere (AA). We have three people handling the deployment and maintenance of this solution: the system administrator, the developer, and the solution architect.

    The advice I would give to other people who want to start using Automation Anywhere (AA) is that the most important thing is for them to understand their use cases before even embarking on the journey, so they can be sure their use cases are RPA related and can be taken cared of by this solution. Automation Anywhere (AA) cannot cater to all automation use cases, as it's mainly focused on clearly defined manual repetitive tasks.

    The customers can decide whether they want to have this solution deployed on cloud or on-premises.

    I'll give Automation Anywhere (AA) a rating of eight out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Hybrid Cloud
    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
    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.