Automation Anywhere Reviews

Our primary use cases with Automation Anywhere revolve around process discovery, where we've used that with many clients to identify areas of opportunity for automation, map those out, and build the core automation to drive the new modernized processes. We originally had done a fair amount of work with robotic process automation types of opportunities in and around revenue cycle with health system clients, ensuring that they get paid appropriately for the services they render.

One of the really interesting use cases that moving into agentic automation brings to the table are more complex use cases, where we can work with things such as medical necessity denials, where payers will deny or downgrade the payment that they provide to the health systems based on a set of medical necessity criteria. 

The introduction of the agentic capabilities allows us to ingest that denial letter, along with the criteria for medical necessity that's required to be met to be paid, and then work with the medical record itself, so the agent can scan the medical record to find out why it's denied matching to the criteria that's required to support it and determine if the criteria are met. If so, it can then draft a letter. 

Traditionally, that's been a highly manual process that requires a clinical resource, which tends to be very expensive, and they can do only about 10 a day or 50 a week. With this kind of automation, the draft letter is provided to them for review and confirmation, allowing them to increase productivity by multiples across the impact and giving them the opportunity to work more effectively in terms of the span of denials, because most health systems never even get to all of them, determining whether they'll take the time to do it based on labor intensity.

With all the things happening with AI in the market right now, one of the big challenges that clients have is ensuring the quality. There are fears around AI that people have about whether the AI will hallucinate and those kinds of things. Having a partner like Automation Anywhere, a company that is known in the industry, is a leader in the industry, brings a lot of credibility to how people look to solve those problems and drive that comfort level. 

Customers also are looking for the kinds of solutions that help enable their workforces to be more effective. Agentic capabilities bring a lot to that. If you think about not just the traditional labor savings, but how you can elevate the performance of the employees that will still be there, the agentic AI brings a lot to the table for those kinds of solutions as well.

Some of the really impactful features of working with Automation Anywhere are the ability to design and partner with their experts to come up with our solutions. Often, we're trying to push the envelope on how either a process has worked traditionally, and trying to see how the automation solutions can change the nature of that process. Automation Anywhere has been a fantastic partner to work through different ways and try different methods and approaches to solving those problems.

Document automation often comes up with our clients, where the processes we're working in still transfer faxes and other traditional documents that must be uploaded, with data extracted and input into a process, whether that's faxes for scheduling appointments or things such as benefit determination, sometimes following up on authorizations for services. Document automation is a really important feature and component to solving these problems.

In terms of areas for improvement and opportunity, Automation Anywhere has been a great partner for us. Many of our clients would want to see scalability in pricing, and while I could say cheaper, that's part of it. Finding creative and scalable pricing structures is important, especially with the move toward agentive automation, which presents challenges in getting clients on board. Clients are interested but reluctant, needing proofs of concept with minimal upfront cost or risk to demonstrate value. 

Additionally, there's potential for Automation Anywhere to integrate conversational types of tools and AI into their tool set, which would be really valuable.

We have been working with Automation Anywhere for several years and we are a partner with them, using them to support many of our solutions for clients, helping to modernize their workforce and bring the digital workforce concept to life with our clients.

In terms of reliability and stability, I have personally found Automation Anywhere to be a highly reliable and stable product, well-known in the market for that.

Many of our clients are just moving into automation, and one of the benefits with Automation Anywhere is the ability to scale and add processes as we improve concepts, helping them get comfortable with the technology while driving more value through expanded automations.

We've received great support from Automation Anywhere. We've developed some new innovative solutions with them requiring significant work from their engineering teams and their partner teams. They've been a great partner to gently vet our ideas, and they're willing to give them a try, which has been excellent.

Positive

Very few of our clients at this stage have agentic process automation in place, so in those cases, Automation Anywhere is our preferred partner. 

As we work with clients in identifying opportunities and positioning a solution, Automation Anywhere becomes an easy decision for them. In the traditional RPA space, while some clients may have other vendors, many do not have anything in place. We often work through how to move to the Automation Anywhere platform, which is made easier by their good job of facilitating the switch from other platforms.

The return on investment for our clients working with Automation Anywhere solutions typically shows at least three or four times in the first year and sometimes double that in outer years, arising from a combination of labor savings, improved quality, and reduction in process failures.

Some of the benefits that we've seen with our clients are substantial labor savings of 30% to 70%, depending on the processes that we often see in the ability to reduce labor costs. 

We see improved quality and the elimination of process failures, which can lead to multi-million dollar savings in things such as denials with our clients, addressing how much they're writing off that they can't collect from third parties. 

The elimination of process failures is a significant opportunity for savings, with typical savings being millions, if not tens of millions, for many of our clients due to areas such as insurance verifications, failure to get authorizations, and timely follow-ups on claims to ensure that we submit the required information to the payers.

With all the things happening with AI in the market right now, one of the big challenges that clients have is ensuring the quality, with fears about whether the AI will hallucinate, and those kinds of things. Having a partner like Automation Anywhere, which is known in the industry as a leader, brings a lot of credibility to how people look to solve those problems and drive comfort. They also seek solutions that help enable their workforces to be more effective, and agentive capabilities bring a lot to that. If you think about not just the traditional labor savings, but how to elevate the performance of employees that will still be there, agentive AI brings a lot to the table for those kinds of solutions as well.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Automation Anywhere an eight depending on the day. They've been a great partner for us in developing new solutions, and when we've deployed them, we see high reliability. The brand is well-respected in the market, making clients receptive to the name and bringing credibility to our solutions. Overall, I give them high marks and enjoy working with them.

I started with Automation Anywhere version 11, which was the desktop-based version. It was the most initial cloud version. There is also a 2019 cloud version of Automation Anywhere. With some modifications and improvements, 2019 led to A360, which was again a cloud version but an improved form of the 2019 version. A360 is the current and running version of Automation Anywhere.

Most of the problems we've worked to solve have been related to business process automation. We were able to automate email - including replying to email, and capturing data.

We've also used it for website automation. We can do object cloning in PRA terms.

We were able to automate several data systems. We've automated Excel, for example, and various backbones of process systems.

It releases humans from monotonous tasks. Automating helps a lot and gives us the ability to free people for more high-end activities.

Most of the problems we have solved are related to business process automation. Ideally, in RPA, around 80% of the problems are related to business process automation. 

Processes and tasks automated compared to a manual approach offers a lot of benefits. Any RPA tool will offer good time savings. When we have to do things manually, if there is a 20 or 30-step process, as a human, we may get confused and redraw information. We make mistakes. All of these things take time. Things can be very data-intensive and this takes time for a human. They need to look it up and validate, et cetera. and there are high chances of error. A human can misread or misunderstand, this could lead to losses. With RPA, we gain time savings, and we can make everything 100% error-free.

To train a non-technical employee, it might take a bit. They need to learn the basic foundations. It might take a month or two if they give time to learning every day.

It helps increase productivity by 20% to 30%.

I can integrate tools with Automation Anywhere. We've done Excel and database automation, web applications, data tables, FTTP tables, et cetera. 

Copilot is an area with a lot of scope for improvement. It's the number one thing to improve. It just gives us a structure. It doesn't automate the workflow. This is a major area of improvement. Currently, it's still evolving. The integrations in Automation Anywhere are evolving, and going forward, they could be more beneficial for end-to-end processes. It should not be just an add-on, but it should be very well integrated.

I have been using it for close to four to four and a half years now.

The stability is okay. I would rate it 8.5 out of ten.

I would rate the solution 8.5 out of ten. It is quite scalable. 

Power Automate is quite good, and gaining ground. With Automation Anywhere, you can log into the control room and work on it.

The deployment is on the cloud. The process depends on how straightforward it is. It depends on the number of steps. The deployment time doesn't take too long, however, they could improve a bit on the scheduling. It could be a bit more user-friendly if there is a new person coming in and using the solution for the first time.

Deployments tend to take a few days once all the approvals are in place.

The solution does require maintenance. Once you have developed and deployed a bot, there could be many things that may break the bot. We need to maintain them to keep them running as expected.

The ROI may be high. It depends on the process and the number of people involved.

It's not cheap. It's expensive. Power Automate is much cheaper.

First, I tried to automate the process for surface automation, and it was mainly in a Citrix environment. At that time, I think no proper solution or feature was available with Automation Anywhere. Then, I tried it for some web applications and Windows applications, and there it worked perfectly. 

It saves time. It has saved 4,000 to 5,000 hours for one large complex process. If we break it down, it has saved 1,000 hours per process. The time savings vary based on the complexity of the process.

It is simple to learn. It is straightforward. You can learn about Automation Anywhere from their university or YouTube. Lots of YouTube channels are there. They provide you with all the information you need. Non-technical employees would need one month to three months to learn it. It also depends on their grasping and learning skills.

With Oracle and ServiceNow, there seem to be challenges. With SAP, it worked very well. We first tried Automation Anywhere with Oracle but had to go for Blue Prism. With Oracle, Blue Prism was easier and a little bit more stable than Automation Anywhere. Even with ServiceNow, the automation was very unreliable. It did not work as expected.

Business users face difficulties with Automation Anywhere setup. As an administrator, even if I provide any license or features, they would not be able to use it on their local individual machines. The client sometimes does not work perfectly. There are difficulties when we install the Automation Anywhere client. It can be hard to know what is causing issues. They might have a different Java version or other software installed on their machines. Automation Anywhere clients sometimes need clean machines or virtual machines where we deploy the bots. Such difficulties are there, but it does not happen with just Automation Anywhere. I have also observed this problem with other solutions.

Automation Anywhere does not provide API integration. You have to design everything on your side. It does not have an inbuilt API tool like Postman. They do not provide a virtual interface to execute GET, PUT queries. It is very difficult in Automation Anywhere, but in other solutions, this feature is very good.

It is not stable with the Microsoft Edge browser. They have to develop or integrate lots of things. It used to work very well with Internet Explorer around five years ago, but Internet Explorer is gone now. People have moved to Microsoft Edge. If you are using Google Chrome, it is easy. With Microsoft Edge, sometimes processes fail, and you do not always know the reason. You have to debug it entirely.

I have been using it for a total of five years, but in between, I used other tools as well. Overall, it has been around two years with Automation Anywhere. I have used versions 10.2, 11.3, and 360, and a little bit of 2019 as well.

The product is overall stable. With lots of normal applications, you can use it without any issues. 

Automation Anywhere is 50% to 70% good in terms of scaling. For business users who want everything on their machines and do not want to use different virtual machines, it is not scalable. Management also worries about deployment costs.

I contacted their technical support. Their L1 support is just normal, and you can get that information on Google or YouTube. They do not have a solution a lot of times. Their L2 support is quite expert. They know how to address things that are happening, and they will try to understand and find the root cause.

Neutral

I am also using other RPA tools such as Blue Prism and UiPath, and I prefer them over Automation Anywhere. 

In API integrations, Automation Anywhere is way behind other tools because its interface is not simple to use for business users. If someone is using Automation Anywhere as the first RPA tool, they will understand it, but if they have used any other RPA tool in the market, they will feel the need to improve Automation Anywhere's UI and API integrations. Additionally, in the API integration part, companies are nowadays using scripting with SAP and others. Automation Anywhere can also improve in that area. 

UiPath's design structure is quite powerful and straightforward. It is easier to work with when you have a complex process with multiple load items. API integration is quite powerful. We can easily use that.

If you are deploying the client on a virtual machine, it is very simple and straightforward. If you are going to do it on a common machine for normal development purposes, it can be a bit complex if you are using other software on the same machine. 

Upgrading is easy. I have migrated some processes from versions 10 to 11, but the newer version requires some time and cost because sometimes the processes designed in the older versions cannot be migrated to the newer version. Instead of migrating, you can redesign the same process in the newer version. That would be better.

Usually, all developers are involved in the bot maintenance at a later stage. If only considering support and maintenance, you will require two people there. If your team has around ten to fifteen people, you will require two people for support.

Cost-wise, it is fine. A lot of medium businesses prefer Automation Anywhere. The development cost is also lower.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a seven out of ten.

I have experience using Automation Anywhere to automate various processes, primarily in the banking domain. I've worked on credit card reconciliation for Citibank in Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, as well as loan services and contract renewals for CIMB Malaysia. Additionally, I've utilized IQ Bot to analyze Twitter sentiment, identifying positive and negative comments to create service tickets. My experience includes working with ServiceNow, SAP, and mainframe environments, specifically IBM SQL Server.

Automation Anywhere has significantly transformed its platform. Previously, tasks were created and managed locally through the control room panel. However, with the introduction of cloud technology, users can now build and deploy tasks directly in the cloud. By installing a bot agent runner on their systems, tasks can be executed automatically. Furthermore, the platform now integrates with Git and Azure repositories, enabling version control and collaborative development. This means multiple users can work on a single project simultaneously, enhancing efficiency and promoting agile methodologies. Additionally, the platform offers automated code review capabilities, allowing users to track changes and identify contributors. The control room manager also receives email notifications for any modifications made. This transition to the cloud has been a gradual process, spanning two to three years, and has significantly improved the platform's accessibility and functionality.

Automation Anywhere has a two to three-month learning curve.

Integrating Copilot into our system is straightforward. From a chatbot perspective, we can use it for tasks like sending emails or completing daily assignments. By utilizing Automation Anywhere, we can build an agent that functions as a Copilot, automating tasks for us. Copilot is also integrated with machine learning models, providing prompts and responses that can be modified as needed. Its user-friendly interface and ability to integrate with existing applications make it a valuable tool for streamlining daily tasks and improving efficiency.

Copilot has helped to improve our productivity by up to 30 percent.

With the use of Automation Anywhere, the organization has seen improved efficiency, particularly with the introduction of IQ Bot and Metabot for tasks such as extracting data from invoices and purchase orders. The combination of RPA with AI and cloud solutions has considerably transformed our processes, allowing for intelligent document processing and seamless system integration, thus streamlining operations.

I use a variety of AI technologies for our research and development, including generative AI, custom bit models, GPT-4, and LaMDA. We've also built our own product for GPT-4 called Thor, which utilizes intelligent document processing to extract data from contracts, purchase orders, invoices, and receipts. This data is then integrated with our machine-learning models and downstream systems. Our focus is on transforming our processes using RPA, AI, and cloud technologies, migrating existing systems to the cloud and enhancing them with AI and ML capabilities.

I have integrated Automation Anywhere with numerous applications, including Salesforce, ServiceNow, ITSM, SAP including S4/HANA and Fusion, Oracle including Oracle Fusion, Java Technologies, .NET Platform, Maple's Web Platform, various databases including QLS with dual database configurations, and Power Platform. I am also familiar with backend systems like Data Lake.

I enjoy using applications and API integration tools to efficiently connect systems. Our organization favours API automation, so we developed an ML-based automation product. We prioritize API integration for all applications, leveraging our back-end team and custom APIs for seamless connectivity. While UI automation can be time-consuming, API integration, especially with back-end services, is significantly faster. Our strategy involves collaborating with IT business partners to prioritize API development.

Automation Anywhere helps us save at least 85 percent of our costs.

I find the terminal emulator feature very valuable, particularly in how it interacts with IBM mainframe automation. The Control Room and credential vault are also noteworthy features. Control Room ensures security and access management by keeping credentials within a secure vault. The variable panel, with its comprehensive variety list, array, Boolean, and string types, is quite efficient. Additionally, Metabot stands out as an efficient tool for applications that change frequently.

Automation Anywhere's Metabot and IQ Bot have become increasingly efficient tools for automating tasks. IQ Bot, in particular, has evolved significantly since its launch. Initially, it struggled to effectively extract data from various document types like invoices and purchase orders. However, with the integration of built-in machine learning models, IQ Bot now excels at data extraction and processing. Furthermore, users can build custom models to suit their specific needs, leveraging Automation Anywhere's pre-trained models and readily available tools. This continuous development has made IQ Bot far more user-friendly and efficient than its earlier versions.

There are improvements needed in error handling processes, as currently, they rely on start and end error commands. A more strategic approach could enhance efficiency. While the implementation of a structured development approach has been introduced, further enhancements could be made to accommodate non-technical users better, perhaps by making the platform more accessible and user-friendly through a flowchart or diagram-based setup.

Automation Anywhere can be moderately challenging for business users without technical skills. While the platform offers some drag-and-drop functionality, building automation requires a strong understanding of logical operations and scripting. To become proficient, users may need to invest time in learning basic coding concepts or pursuing relevant certifications. This learning curve can mean that users typically require a few months of training before they can effectively build and implement automation.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for approximately eight years.

I would rate the stability of Automation Anywhere as eight out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of Automation Anywhere as eight out of ten. Automation Anywhere is capable of scaling to automate multiple processes and tasks.

Support for Automation Anywhere includes L1, L2, and L3 tiers, which respectively handle various levels of issues from preliminary checks to development challenges.

Neutral

I have used various other automation solutions including UiPath, Blue Prism, and NICE. Each of them offers different strengths, but Automation Anywhere stands out for its terminal emulator and credential vault.

The initial deployment of Automation Anywhere is straightforward, conducted through the Control Room, where understanding task scheduling is vital for effectiveness. While verifying production readiness takes one day, the actual transition to production is a simple switch.

The implementation of Automation Anywhere has yielded substantial financial and time savings, effectively reducing the workforce by approximately 16 full-time equivalents within six months.

Automation Anywhere's pricing falls within the mid-range, but the long-term benefits outweigh the initial investment. After a year, significant cost savings and efficiency gains become apparent, justifying the expense.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a seven out of ten. The process of building a script is difficult due to the lack of clarity in identifying the problematic stages. While the code highlights issues, the studio's interface is not user-friendly, especially for those unfamiliar with scripting languages. This lack of intuitive design can make it challenging to utilize the solution effectively.

I started using Automation Anywhere during its beta version and continue to use the latest version for both cloud and desktop deployments. One challenge I faced was the extensive number of default commands, 545 in scripting, 2,565 in web and the need for scripting knowledge, particularly when interacting with other services or adjusting system settings. While Automation Anywhere promotes itself as scriptless, understanding coding concepts is beneficial, especially for tasks like connection manipulation. Although the platform offers a vast array of pre-built commands and drag-and-drop functionality, creating custom activities requires building DLLs, which can be complex. Overall, despite some tricky aspects, Automation Anywhere remains a robust tool for both scripting and scriptless automation development.

Upgrading Automation Anywhere can be complex because its products rely on the .NET framework. When namespaces, components, or libraries within the framework are updated, the entire system isn't always fully adjusted to these changes. This necessitates careful analysis of the specific modifications and their impact on the overall system, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the upgrade's effects.

Our organization has over 45 users of Automation Anywhere.

Automation Anywhere requires monthly maintenance. While patching the virtual machines only requires a reboot with minimal impact on the production environment, any changes to the environment itself, such as modifications to personal systems or processes, will significantly impact production.

The time spent on bot maintenance varies based on the complexity of the tasks. Simple cloud server or production changes require minimal time, approximately two to three hours. Application changes are more involved, with L3 or L2 tickets potentially taking three to four days depending on the service level agreement and impact. Minor L1 tickets, such as troubleshooting malfunctioning ML or server downtime, can involve either small or large changes. Migrating environments, like transitioning from on-premise to cloud, constitutes a major change that can take a month or even a couple of months.

Automation Anywhere offers a robust infrastructure with advanced features like Metabot, IQ Bot, and seamless integration capabilities with AI technologies, making it a commendable choice for automation needs. However, users should have some technical knowledge before using the platform.

We are using it for backend office processes for FinanceOps.

By implementing this solution, we mainly focused on automating manual tasks such as invoice processing, reconciliations, and data entry, which are very rule-based. The automation worked effectively.

The core RPA capability is valuable. We have completed many automations. Removing manual tasks has been beneficial. It works effectively. We are still trying to determine how things will change after the GenAI introduction. It saves time and costs.

They should improve process discovery features.

They advertise that they do UI automation and things will be stable. However, when we performed user interface automation, things were not very stable. They need to make API integration much simpler with the target application so that automations are more scalable and stable.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for nine years.

Stability depends on multiple factors including developer expertise. Some automations have been very stable while others were not, possibly due to developer implementation or target application issues. The platform is not very smart to perform self-maintenance.

Scalability is good. If you create a good solution, you can scale effectively. However, scalability is very dependent on the developer's skill, not just the platform's capabilities.

In the earlier version, when we reached out with problems, they would often respond that features were not yet implemented or acknowledge known bugs that would be revised in the next upgrade. We hope this has changed in the Cloud version.

Neutral

It was already deployed when I joined the company. 

The upgrade was extremely challenging. Moving from version 11 to Cloud took considerable time. The migration from V10 to V11 was difficult, and V11 to Cloud was even more challenging. We hope the Cloud version will make future transitions easier since it's not on-premises.

With the cloud platform, we don’t require much maintenance. However, the bots we create do need significant maintenance. The time required for maintenance varies. Some automations are very stable, while others may not be due to issues with the developer’s execution or the quality of the target application. It's not Automation Anywhere's fault, but the platform itself isn't very adept at performing self-maintenance.

There was no return on investment in the last year. The year before that showed a significant return on investment, primarily because we automated many manual processes. Once the low-hanging fruits were completed, finding a return on investment became more difficult.

The solution is costly and the licensing is very confusing.

Earlier, the pricing structure was much simpler. A developer license cost a specific amount, and a runtime license had a separate price. Now, there are only two main figures to consider, in addition to distinct costs for cloud platform maintenance and other services. However, with the introduction of tools like Co-Pilot, things have become more complicated. If you use Co-Pilot, there’s an additional cost associated with it. Moreover, if you utilize AI features within Co-Pilot, there are AI token costs that differ from the standard licensing fees. Therefore, when you're creating a use case that involves Co-Pilot, a runtime license, and GenAI, it can get quite confusing.

The platform is moderately complex - not very complex but not super easy. Building scalable solutions requires significant time investment. The platform is not very user-friendly for people without technical experience. We don't encourage business users to develop anything on Automation Anywhere. 

I appreciate the core RPA capability, but the additional platforms they are adding currently are not mature enough. 

I would rate Automation Anywhere a seven out of ten.

Our use cases for Automation Anywhere are numerous; we have KYC use cases, onboarding in some parts, credit analyzing, and in operations, we have some automated processes.

It helped with company culture. Sometimes, people are afraid the technology will replace them. However, it makes their job easier. It doesn't replace them. 

What I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is the analyzer. The analyzer acts as a hub; this robot analyses and then assigns different persons to perform deeper analysis of every customer. 

Automation Anywhere improves my company by providing about $5,000 USD per year in benefits. Automation Anywhere contributes to helping me achieve my goals by improving customer experience and accelerating the process of delivering audits and related processes.

In the age of agentic AI, the biggest challenges for my company are the need for a significant cultural change and managing information security. Automation Anywhere helps me overcome those challenges in part since it empowers people to focus on value-added activities instead of repetitive tasks that hold no value. I hope that Automation Anywhere continues to help me achieve my automation goals.

My impression of the impact on visibility in the automation lifecycle is that we help to standardize the process and become more productive in those activities and visibility. The cloud-based nature of Automation Anywhere COE Manager in managing my automation pipeline is beneficial. Using the cloud accelerates upgrades and allows us to benefit from AI with different partners OpenAI or Copilot.

With APA, the customer experience is improving. We can also accelerate the delivery of certain processes. 

We are presenting a business case related to document automation in our current process. Document automation impacts both efficiency and productivity. Document automation impacts my company because the credit analysis requires reviewing every digital document from customers, and with this implementation, we aim to be faster instead of reviewing each document individually. I have not measured the time saved by using document automation in document processing.

Automation Anywhere can be improved by reducing the time of the processes and enhancing the efficiency of people. I would prefer them to reduce the time of the process.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for six years.

I have not used another similar solution before Automation Anywhere.

My experience with the deployment of the solution is positive; it's fast, and we have not encountered any problems related to that.

Automation Anywhere improves my company by providing about $5,000 USD per year in benefits.

The pricing is good; the business case we are working on shows that it is a good price.

At the beginning, about six years ago, I reviewed UiPath, Blue Prism, and those three competed for the RFP that we did, with Automation Anywhere being the winner. Automation Anywhere was chosen because of its simplicity, the interface, the platform, the customer reviews we showed, and the price as well.

I am not currently utilizing the AI Agent Studio in my automation process. My impression of AI governance in general is positive; I really appreciate the monitoring that we have and believe it represents good governance, and the insights we can gain from the platform are great. I do not use the autopilot capability of Automation Anywhere currently. I utilize the Automation Anywhere Center of Excellence, or COE.

We are currently on-premises with Automation Anywhere. 

While there is always some space to improve and nobody's perfect, I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten overall.

In my company, we're using Automation Anywhere to send statements to customers and then we're also using it to reach out to our vendors if their promised dates go past due, so we can get updated ones and keep that active in our system.

From using Automation Anywhere, my company has seen that with the statements going out, it's helped substantially with getting cash in. Before, we had to manually send emails or make phone calls to customers when their AR went past due. The bot executing every single day really helped with reliability. We saw increased cash flows almost instantly.

What I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is that it's reliable. It executes every day and works consistently. We set up a schedule and everything is easy to add to the queue. Reliability is definitely the biggest advantage because we experimented with Power Automate, and it was buggy. It wasn't nearly as reliable as Automation Anywhere.

Automation Anywhere is helping with automation adoption. It's proven to increase our revenue stream.

One aspect I don't appreciate about Automation Anywhere is the way variables are handled. Many things seem to become a string, which makes it hard to code and keep track of items when everything's a string. Different variable types and making the variables more simple to establish and use would be really helpful. That's my main concern regarding how the variables are handled.

To make Automation Anywhere a perfect ten, the variable management could be simpler. Additionally, more direct plugins would be beneficial. We use Business Central. Currently, we're using Great Plains as our ERP, moving to Business Central. I've noticed there aren't any direct plugins for Business Central, as there are for Workday. That would be beneficial to have.

I've been using Automation Anywhere for two years.

I didn't use another solution before choosing Automation Anywhere. We went directly to Automation Anywhere. We experimented with Power Automate, but it was buggy, and we didn't proceed far with that. I jumped into Automation Anywhere almost immediately.

My experience with the deployment of Automation Anywhere was good. I have no complaints there. It was very straightforward.

With the cash flow generated just on the one bot we had operating, it's paid for itself in the first month. It's reasonable for what it provides since hiring someone to do that job would cost more than that in a year. It's cheaper than an employee and more reliable.

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Automation Anywhere is that it's reasonable. We were paying approximately $30,000 for a year license.

I've looked at UiPath as a consideration but didn't explore it extensively. The differences I've noticed between UiPath and Automation Anywhere is that UiPath was a bit less user-friendly from a development standpoint. I didn't examine it too deeply, which might be because it's a more powerful tool. We already had Automation Anywhere at that point. I was just trying to compare what development looks on both sides.

I'm still determining what the main challenge I am looking to solve with an agentic process automation. We have many areas that still need to be covered.

In the age of agentic AI, the biggest challenges for me and my company are adoption and implementation costs. It's expensive for licensing and development. We definitely want to implement these things, however, we need to do it piece by piece. We're trying to address low-hanging fruit to create revenue that will pay for future bots and agentic AI.

I haven't utilized the AI Agent Studio. 

AI governance is important for my company, however, we haven't implemented anything with AI yet. When we get there, it will be of high importance. Still, there's nothing formal currently. 

I don't utilize Automation Anywhere COE or Center of Excellence Manager directly. 

I don't utilize document automation in my current processes, although I'd want to.

I rate Automation Anywhere an 8 out of 10.

My use case involves day-to-day work automation in document handling, as I am from an organization where most of the work relates to documents, specifically unstructured data. We are utilizing this document automation feature in Automation Anywhere predominantly for handling this unstructured data. That's one kind of use case for me. 

Secondly, report generation is crucial since the finance team needs to generate lots of reports in a day or week, which involves integration with SAP as well as Salesforce. These integrations also have automation in place, but work mainly happens in Salesforce and SAP, and at the end of the process, a report is pushed to their department head for further validation. 

The use case of document handling is complemented by a dedicated help desk team that manages customer support using an engineering ticketing tool, where they use Automation Anywhere for logging tickets and updating the status on a timely basis. So, those are the main use cases for us of Automation Anywhere.

Document automation has notably reduced manual effort. In a day, we process at least 100 to 150 documents, so manual effort would take a day or half a day. However, since implementing Automation Anywhere, the amount of manual effort required has significantly decreased. There are validations to perform, but they only need to spend a maximum of one or two hours on validations. If there's no validation needed, it could take zero time. Thus, in terms of time savings, we consider this a significant improvement. 

Regarding cost savings, we had a dedicated help desk team that initially had 10 to 15 employees, but after implementing automation, almost all ticket logging and updates have become automated, reducing the need for manpower for these activities.

The improvement I have seen with Automation Anywhere particularly stems from the transition from IQ Bot to DA, which was a significant step in unstructured document handling. The amount of processing and accuracy has increased significantly with the introduction of document automation. Furthermore, the newly introduced agent-based automation feature holds promise, although we have not directly worked on that as a project yet.

The best features in Automation Anywhere include document automation, which has replaced IQ Bot, which was challenging to manage. We recently switched to document automation that comes with the bundle. It is a good feature because earlier, we needed to purchase a separate license for IQ Bot, but now the enterprise license includes the DA license. This eliminates the need for an additional license for document automation. 

Additionally, there is enhanced integration with AI and ML, leading to significant reductions in the workload for processing unstructured documents. The time taken and accuracy have improved greatly with DA, and the recent introduction of agent-based automation allows us to develop our own LLM or any agent that can integrate AI with standard automation, making decisions autonomously and yielding better results instead of relying on a time-consuming manual effort.

Even a non-technical person can easily understand what the features do and how to utilize them. I am not talking about going to the core level of automation, just being a citizen developer kind of thing. People can understand the features more easily, and as compared to others, Automation Anywhere has a better user experience.

In Automation Anywhere, while the user interface is top-notch and doesn't require improvements, the main issue I identify is that the cost of the enterprise-scale license and add-ons can be a barrier for small businesses. 

Additionally, users sometimes report performance challenges with large datasets and stability concerns due to frequent version updates. 

The basic features are acceptable, but advanced tools often require deeper technical expertise, which can slow adoption. Additionally, some users experience delays in customer support for complex issues. Despite these challenges, Automation Anywhere remains a robust platform for organizations seeking scalable and intelligent automation, and refining these aspects could further enhance its accessibility and reliability.

I have been working with Automation Anywhere since 2021, so it has been four years.

I would rate stability an eight out of ten.

Regarding scalability, I would rate it an eight out of ten. It is being used in multiple departments.

Maintaining bots is an ongoing process, as creating a bot doesn't mean it's finished; we need to make improvements as processes change. Generally, this maintenance occurs quarterly or twice a month.

I evaluate their technical support as the best in the industry. However, there have been instances of delays in getting responses or proper resolutions. Nonetheless, they have the best technical support team, and we have not faced significant issues in this area aside from a few small instances.

Neutral

Currently, I mainly work with two tools: Power Automate and Automation Anywhere, and I see a significant difference in the user interface between them. Power Automate is more challenging to understand the features. Functionality-wise, there are big differences, but understanding the nature of the tool, how it works, what features it has, and finding specific actions for particular tasks is much easier with Automation Anywhere. It comes with many good features, though it does come with a price. Nevertheless, I find Automation Anywhere is a better option in terms of features compared to others. There are performance mismatches, especially concerning execution time, when comparing with other platforms. 

From our experience in POCs, we noted that document processing works better in UiPath with limited time, whereas Automation Anywhere has a longer execution time despite similar accuracy. This marked difference resonates when comparing these two industry-leading RPA platforms, where, while performance might differ, the features of Automation Anywhere appear unmatched.

Its deployment is complex on-premises. We need to have our own database. Cloud deployment is straightforward. Everything is handled by Automation Anywhere, so you don't need to worry at all. 

On-premises setup requires maintenance, whereas cloud deployments don't require maintenance. You don't have to worry about upgrades with cloud deployments, whereas an on-premises setup requires a few things. You need to consider hardware maintenance, especially if it's a bare metal infrastructure. In cloud scenarios, you only need to consider licensing and database maintenance.

Bot maintenance depends on the changes in the process.

In terms of pricing, it's not at all cheap, and that's a concern. The licensing cost is very high. While I don't know the exact prices of other tools, Microsoft offers the lowest pricing for its RPA platform compared to UiPath and Automation Anywhere.

The Co-Pilot helps increase productivity to some extent, as it functions similarly to an LLM. If we provide an input, it processes that and gives an output. To create automation, we simply need to tell Co-Pilot our requirements, expected input, and desired output. We can provide a use case or just a skeleton of an automation, and it essentially creates an end-to-end flow. However, we must customize it since we cannot straightaway use that automation and expect accurate results. We need to perform some adjustments before a proper end-to-end execution. I don't consider it a tool to rely on extensively at the moment, but it's an interesting tool.

I would recommend Automation Anywhere. It's the best in the industry in terms of functionality as well as user experience. The only drawback is the cost. It's not ideal for a small business. From the functionality, features, and scalability aspects, it is great. 

Overall, I would rate the solution as an eight out of ten.