Automation Anywhere Reviews

Its main use cases that we have implemented are across the firm for different business groups, including finance and accounting, HR, talent acquisition, risk management, and independence. 

Being an early adopter of Automation Anywhere puts us ahead in the transformation game. We have seen Automation Anywhere collaborating directly with us to solve complex problems that aren't easy to address out of the box, creating a significant impact.

Some of the key features of Automation Anywhere include the simplicity that enables developers to build bots very quickly in a standard delivery fashion. We have a framework developed that enables consistency irrespective of the person developing it, and our gated delivery model helps us meet those milestones and standards consistently. This helps, along with the great features that Automation Anywhere provides for self-review of code, making the development of bots easier and faster when it adheres to a particular pattern. Additionally, it gives us robust means to track metrics once the Automations are deployed into production so that we have a good handle on errors, receive feedback, remediate, and keep the bots and workflows running in production for our business.

We are part of a big transformation program within our firm, and what we have understood over the past several years is that our technology needs to evolve as the needs of the business do. The RPA aspect of Automation Anywhere's platform can only take us so far. Agentic is a game-changer due to the AI disruption that's happening, and Automation Anywhere has been at the forefront of incorporating the best of AI into the product.

Agentic AI can be used today out of the box with minimal configuration, and it now solves end-to-end processes compared to the standalone jobs that RPA could do previously. Consequently, we have faster, better solutions that we can deliver to our businesses. In the age of agentic AI, there are two key challenges we face. One is on the delivery side within our CoE, where there is a bit of a learning curve for upskilling our development team so they understand what this technology has to offer and how to best use it. Once they are aware, Automation Anywhere provides great resources, including a strong curriculum to help developers get upskilled.

The CoE plays a very critical role, as we want to establish a factory-like model that follows best practices and processes. The bots developed by the team provide consistent value and a very good business user experience. The CoE matures over time; it's not set up in a day, as we are constantly learning and evolving to meet challenges like introducing newer integrations or adapting to a changing organizational landscape.

One key feature for improvement I have been providing feedback on through the MVP program is enhancing natural language conversation to action. The Automation Anywhere product team is actively putting this feature into their roadmap, which I believe is crucial. Features such as UI agents and Orchestrator APIs will help alleviate the current bottlenecks we face. We foresee a future where deterministic rules don't need to be defined; rather, a process-specific skill should be laid out generally. I think the product team aligns with this vision, and these areas should be highlighted for the team to focus on, delivering features that drive tremendous value.

We have been using Automation Anywhere for more than five years now at the firm, and we continue to expand our implementation across various business groups.

Regarding stability, Automation Anywhere meets our expectations, as we haven't experienced any product-specific issues over the past several years. 

While some issues may arise on the network side, they are not specifically related to Automation Anywhere's platform. 

I haven't encountered any significant bugs on the product platform that led to production ecosystem failures. Therefore, from a stability and reliability perspective, we can remain confident that the product performs as an enterprise solution and meets expected standards.

From a scaling standpoint, we challenge ourselves with higher goals driving more impact while continuing at a rapid pace on our transformation journey fueled by agentic AI. 

We are confident in the product's capabilities and features, and the key lies in how we ramp up effectively. With a robust presence from our intake team driving demand, all we need to do is embrace it and start scaling, especially with the newly unlocked agentic use cases that come with additional features.

We have our footprint across the whole firm with approximately 250-plus Automations deployed in production as of today, and the program continues to build further.

Automation Anywhere's support has been outstanding, as we have a dedicated Technical Account Manager and Customer Success Manager who we engage with weekly. 

They are always available to address pressing needs and questions, and we haven't faced challenges in this area. This strong collaboration and regular communication allow us to make quick decisions, solve problems rapidly, and keep advancing. 

From a support standpoint, the strong ticket mechanism we can implement gives us the ability to raise severity, and even when we do so, we maintain direct contact with Automation Anywhere, receiving expedited assistance, which is invaluable for our collaboration.

We have evaluated several competitors in the market. Automation Anywhere stands out due to the value, feature set, and price point, which aligns with our firm's legal and compliance reasons for our decision. 

Automation Anywhere consistently ranks at the top, matching our vision and strategy for implementing transformative solutions. Although there are various platforms available, such as the Microsoft ecosystem focused on personal productivity, we often have to engage in hybrid implementations using different tools for end-to-end solutions. However, Automation Anywhere remains our chosen platform.

We have an on-prem primary setup, however, we also have cloud-based integrations for some of their advanced features, like document automation. We are currently in the process of going full cloud via migration. That's on our roadmap. And once we get there, since we know the strategy and vision with agentic, we want to prioritize as a firm to get to that model quickly and then just have one pattern to support.

In the past five years, we have deployed hundreds of bots, with our numbers continuing to grow by 100%. 

We are effectively doubling the bots deployed to production each year, and the savings are easily in the range of 150 to 200,000 hours annually, which we give back to our businesses for more meaningful work. 

However, the impact extends beyond just those numbers, as we are not only saving time for our resources on repetitive tasks, we are also considering indirect savings and accuracy improvements. Therefore, the return on investment is quite high based on what we have observed.

The pricing is fair given the current advancements in AI, which involve a substantial amount of research.

On a scale of one to ten, this solution rates a nine.

I would highly recommend checking out their product website to explore the features and the commitment they have to the agentic enhancements. 

Automation Anywhere isn't just a product or platform vendor; it embodies a whole community. They offer excellent engagement resources, including programs such as MVP and Pathfinder, along with numerous initiatives for learning.

I have worked on automation for several clients and organizations. In my previous organization, we automated several business processes related to governance. Currently, I am working with Nokia. Here at Nokia, we are performing data reconciliations, including financial data, procurement data, and asset-related data. To achieve this, we fetch data from systems like SAP and custom applications. Instead of manually navigating multiple screens in SAP, we use the RPA Automation tool to handle these activities. We are essentially automating these processes.

We are exploring an automated system that can help our production support system resolve tickets more efficiently. We have the data of or the history of multiple incidents raised in the past two or three years. We would like to utilize this data to resolve new tickets and provide the steps for resolution. When a ticket is there, the automated system can identify the solutions and automatically implement those suggestions to fix the ticket. We have not implemented it yet.

At the moment, we do not have any use cases for Generative AI, but we are looking into it. 

Automation Anywhere has helped us with efficiency and accuracy. We cannot achieve the same level of efficiency and accuracy through manual tasks. There are also cost savings. Manually performed tasks are financially demanding.

Automation Anywhere is easy to learn. People who are not technical can also get started with this tool. They can explore and slowly adapt to the tool. They do not need too much expertise, but having technical expertise can be an advantage. Overall, Automation Anywhere is fairly good for non-technical people.

We have integrated SAP and web applications with Automation Anywhere. We have also automated using the APIs. Its integration is good and has improved over time. It is evolving and getting easier for us to integrate with external applications.

We have had a lot of time savings. We have 40 to 50 bots.

The best aspect is the user interface. It is very user-friendly and snappy, responding quickly compared to other available tools. It is easy to learn, and the community support is good for asking questions and getting answers. Training camps are provided by Automation Anywhere. I recently attended the document automation training camp. In 2025, we are going to attend the AI agent training camp. The community and the training around the tool have been beneficial.

In Automation Anywhere, the logging process is manual. We have to manually log each instance where the bot fails or the progress of a task. Automating this through a new feature would help developers simplify their development process. That is my suggestion.

About a year or two ago, debugging was challenging in Automation Anywhere. If you had multiple task bots with a parent task and a child task, there were issues during debugging. Automation Anywhere took the feedback and fixed it in the next releases.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for over five years.

Most of the time, I do not encounter problems with the control room. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it a nine, but I have had issues with IQ Bot. I would rate IQ Bot's stability an eight out of ten due to some service instability. For example, it sometimes fails to communicate with RabbitMQ. Automation Anywhere's control room is very stable.

It is scalable. Scalability also depends on how we code or develop the bots. We have 45 different use cases, and most of them are multi-bot, so I do not see any issues with the scalability. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. Most of the time, when I raise cases for help with the Automation Anywhere vendor, I receive good help at the right time. However, sometimes I receive automated responses, which are not helpful and cause delays. Despite this, I generally get good support, so I can rate customer service an eight out of ten, but there is room for improvement.

Positive

I have used Blue Prism and Power Automate as well. In Blue Prism, logging is simple because it is automatic. Automation Anywhere is more snappy and faster in response. It also has inbuilt document automation, whereas Blue Prism does not have the inbuilt OCR capability. Overall, Automation Anywhere is a better solution than Blue Prism.

Power Automate is a very slow tool. If you have to open any flow, it takes a lot of time to load. This issue is not there in Automation Anywhere. It is more capable than Power Automate.

Currently, we have two control rooms. One is an on-prem control room, and the other one is a SaaS or cloud control room. We are using both.

The SaaS option is evidently easier because we do not need to manage servers, issues, or restart services. We prefer SaaS for these reasons.

In terms of maintenance, the platform upgrade from one version to another version is not difficult. We started with version 21 of A360, and we are currently on version 35. Most of the updates in the SaaS environment are automatic and happen during the night hours. Most of the time, we have not seen any issues. They went smoothly, but sometimes, there were some terminations and other issues. If those issues are also taken care of, it will be very smooth.

For the SaaS control room, there is not much maintenance. We are doing maintenance only in terms of the code. In terms of platform, we do not need any maintenance for the SaaS control room. For the on-prem control room, there is a lot of maintenance. Sometimes, the services go down, or the communication between the application and database server has problems.

We have seven to eight developers and three to four production support resources. Building a bot is not an easy process. It is a lengthy process. The duration depends on the use case. It can take from one month to three to four months to develop one automation.

We have a separate platform team that helps us in terms of the platform issues. We have a development team, and we have a production support team. So everyone has their own responsibilities and roles. 

We have about 45 use cases deployed in production.

I would definitely recommend Automation Anywhere. I have been using it for the last five years, and it is one of the leading RPA tools in the market.

Their community support is excellent. If we encounter challenges, we can rely on the community for help. There are ample training programs and an Automation Anywhere university to facilitate learning. The solution is reliable.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten. Some features, such as automatic logging, could be improved. It has the potential to become the best tool.

We have several use cases for Automation Anywhere. We have several processes developed for HR, finance, and our automotive business, so we found use cases for everyone. Finance would be the major focus right now. We have this GPS center where we are trying to build many automations because we are dealing with cash allocations and processing invoices.

The main challenge I was looking to solve with a GenAI process automation was finding the GenAI solutions that were presented, and it has a combination that allows integration with the GenAI process automation with test bots. I found it very useful to have a centralized place where everyone can go. Instead of opening multiple applications, we have someone just opening a single app, making the prompt, and all the work starts to be done there. We have many opportunities, especially in accounts payable.

Currently, we are using Document Automation with Automation Anywhere. We are still not using AARI, which is something we are working on. I just started using it, but we are already using Doc Automation. We have processes using GenAI to extract information from unstructured documents. We have been having huge results in a short amount of time, which is incredible. Document Automation has had a significant impact on efficiency and productivity for us. The project I was mentioning was completed in two weeks. Our DSO was being impacted because of the backlog. In a short amount of time, we were able to reduce it by 38%, which was incredible.

What I appreciate most about Automation Anywhere is the cloud version. It was a huge change and it's very friendly, very easy to use, even for citizen developers. We have a group of citizen developers and I find it very easy to teach and use. These features are actually now in the front of the line and releasing these features. Last year when AARI was announced for the first time, and now, what we are seeing, putting everything together, seeing everything together, it's a huge change.

Automation Anywhere has helped us deal with these challenges. In Doc Automation, we have this project where we had a huge backlog. As we were closing our fiscal year, we had this huge backlog that we needed to clean up. The business was preparing to hire 12 people to do that, and even though they were not sure they could handle it, we built the process to extract and do the entire process just in two weeks. We were able with a single person to clean the entire backlog, which gave us huge benefits.

In the age of GenAI, the biggest challenges for my company include changing the entire mindset. Users need to trust the solution and what is being asked of us is that we need to be able to show the value it is bringing. It's not just a matter of trusting the technology, we need to be able to show exactly what we are going to achieve by using this technology. 

For that, we need to have a proper framework that tracks all the benefits we are extracting from automations and shows them that this will actually take us to the next level. We are working with Automation Anywhere's value engineering team, and they are helping us build this framework, so we can show our leadership that this is the right move for starting to adopt this technology.

Automation Anywhere can be improved by working on the next step with GenAI process automation and the agents. This all deals with information we are receiving and acting upon. The next step would be more predictive, having predictive analysis and being more proactive in the way we are taking our actions. Instead of having an agent trying to look at where the best price is when I receive a request to buy something, we could have an agent that could use historical information to predict the best time to buy that product. In that way, we could have some predictability and start anticipating the right time to take actions for profit and lower cost reduction.

I've been using the solution since 2019.

We were using another solution before choosing Automation Anywhere. It was not actually an RPA per se; it was more a ticketing tool that allowed building some automations. The company had previously tried UiPath but found some issues in managing and supporting the tool. They chose Automation Anywhere, which was a perfect fit in the environment we were building internally. For citizen developers, the learning curve is much faster compared to other tools.

We could have a better integration. We have our development environment, and then we need to export that and then import it to the client. So this is a manual process. We would like to have a more automated process, integrated process, where we could have a pipeline where we could, from the production environment, push the version that we want to deploy to production. 

In terms of version control, there are some improvements that can be done there. It would be nice to have more actions and more tools that allow us to have a better release control and showing all the features that were launched on it. 

Having AI right now, it would be nice if we could also automate part of the documentation process. That's something that is possible. Nowadays, we can send a quote to AI and just ask it to explain this or build me a document explaining this code. There is some work that can be done there that can improve the deployment that we are doing through production to ensure that we have everything documented, and have all the version control in place. 

Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, we don't have the license for the enterprise that allows us to build the agents. This is something we need to work on. The first version would double our cost. 

We need to work with our business, which is why I'm working with the value engineering team. To get that type of cost approved, we need to be able to show all the benefits we are seeing from our automation. Automation Anywhere could try to come up with a better solution for having this framework that's easy to implement and maybe integrate into their own products so we can easily extract all the values from the automations. We need to be able to show data at four different levels because every level of leadership wants to see the data differently as they have different goals.

Regarding API, we are not using it currently with Automation Anywhere as we don't have a license yet, so it's still a work in progress. We found many opportunities and just need to work with the business, build a POC, and then work on having access to it.

AI governance is very important in our company. We need to take care about securing our own information as we are a private company, so there are many aspects we need to address. We have an AI council in our company that ensures we are using the proper tools and have contracts signed to ensure data privacy and security.

We received a presentation of the COE Manager. We found it was not filling all the gaps we were looking for, so we are not using it currently. We have another solution. We have been using the information we are extracting from our automations and bot metrics. We are extracting that into a simple database and crossing it with control room APIs to get information about our executions. We built this lake house with a model that automatically extracts this information and builds our Power BI reports.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

I use it for a variety of shared service applications. It helps manage the volume of processing and handle many incoming ticket requests. I also utilize it for invoice processing, aiding AR collections, and some reporting. There is quite a variety of applications for Automation Anywhere.

I like the web-based development and the control room interface, which is robust and works well. Importantly, I experience fewer errors with finding screen elements to interact with when compared to other automation software. 

Automation Anywhere presents fewer maintenance issues. 

The built-in features, such as the connector builder and AI development tools, are easily accessible, keeping the software up-to-date. 

Before joining, I observed it to be a robust program with immediate visible benefits. I had fifty bots running, effectively demonstrating their workload. The hard parts, like recognizing ROI, building a backlog, and setting up internal infrastructure and governance, were already completed. Having done this elsewhere, I appreciate these accomplishments.

There are a lot of good built-in features like the connector builder. The AI aspects are very good. The software is keeping up with the times and I appreciate the new features they add.

It's easy for new users with no experience. You can learn quickly. You can also use pre-built packages that allow you to build a bot without much experience. There's Automation Anywhere University to assist as well. All of the tools are there to build a very robust robot. There is a learning curve within development. However, if you already have basic programming skills or a basic understanding of how computer science works, then it's fairly easy to build the bots that you need and can incorporate advanced logic, looping, variables, and things like that. If you understand those concepts, then it's not hard at all.

We have integrated other tools or applications with Automation Anywhere. That's one of the things that RPA is really good at. I couldn't say I've integrated other applications with Automation Anywhere so much as Automation Anywhere with other applications. We're using a lot of external vendors and automating processes for those external vendors that were problematic since they didn't integrate well with others.

The main request I have for Automation Anywhere is to focus more on technical demonstrations. They do extensive marketing and explanations of new technologies, which are great - however, often less technically focused. Common use cases are frequently repeated, such as loan processing and order fulfillment. I would like to see better and more technical use cases for the AI features, showing how to build them instead of repeated general examples.

I have used the solution for one year.

It is rock solid. Stability is great. I have never had any concerns about downtime or other issues.

The software is very capable. I am small compared to others, however, as a higher education institution, I'm probably one of the largest as a whole. The software can scale as far as I need, with no limit other than the investment of money, development time, and effort.

Initially, it took me some time to reach the right team for help, however, the support was knowledgeable and resolved the problem fairly quickly. Although it took a little over a week due to the tricky nature of the issue, I am generally satisfied with the support and have no significant concerns.

Neutral

I have used UiPath previously. I like Automation Anywhere better.

The initial setup was easy. It took me about a week or two to understand how to use it, and that's being generous. The concepts are straightforward and it's very similar to UiPath, beyond a few differences.

We haven't needed to update to a new version. The major update from on-prem to cloud was done before I came. 

The more minor upgrades were painful, yet not at all due to Automation Anywhere. ERP updates and things like that required us to test every bot. None of that was a fault or a problem with our Automation Anywhere. The rest was relatively smooth and straightforward, and the control room updates were relatively smooth and straightforward. This last update, we had a little bit of a hiccup. However, working through support, we got a workaround until the fix can get into place.

There is some maintenance needed on the bots. That's not the software's fault. The maintenance effort is quite low compared to what I was used to. 

Pricing is fine. Renegotiating our contract was challenging, however, I have a new salesperson, and I am excited about working with him.

I'm an Automation Anywhere customer. 

I have spent the last year getting a handle on Automation Anywhere, bringing five years of experience with its main competitor, UiPath. The opportunities for AI are boundless, and I am working heavily with the hospital to identify use cases. I am incorporating AI in invoice processing to extract data correctly and for image preprocessing. 

Benefits form transactions, like enrollment forms for healthcare and dependent change forms, are the next focus. 

I have yet to use Copilot, although I do have a use case that I'm hoping to build out.

In terms of seeing the benefits to Automation Anywhere, this particular job had already been using it for five years before I came. So the benefit had already been realized, and it was already a fairly robust program. I could see the benefit the first day I started. We already had 50 bots running, and it was very easy to see all of the work that they were doing. The hard part had already been completed in terms of recognizing ROI and building out a backlog of work, and having the infrastructure and the governance internally set up was already huge. I've done all those things before in other employers, and that takes significant time, a couple of years, to do it properly. Since that was already done, I could just hit the ground running, and we could just build more bots and make the bots that we had more robust.

I rate the product eight out of ten.

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.