Automation Anywhere Reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The initial setup is complex.

We are doing everything in-house.

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

We spoke with a number of vendors.

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

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

We have not used the IQ Bot.

I have not taken any course on Automation Anywhere University.

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

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

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

The learning curve is no more than one month.

It integrates well with other tools.

Automation Anywhere saves us one month per year.

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

I have been using Automation Anywhere for 16 months.

Automation Anywhere is stable.

Automation Anywhere is scalable.

Automation Anywhere supports automation to scale.

The technical support is good.

Positive

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

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

Automation Anywhere is affordable.

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

Our clients use it for different things. One uses it for invoice processing and another for the aggregation of documents based on certain characters. Another uses it to automate processes for the admin department. That company has seasonal workers, and they have to create passes for those seasonal workers. Most of the document uploading and validation is done by Automation Anywhere. Most of those documents are issued by the federal government, and they have a standard format.

One thing I really like is the recorder where you can connect with multiple systems. The OCR is also good. In one case, we used a different OCR than Automation Anywhere, but in document processing, using the OCR engine is good.

And providing automation at scale is something I feel is a strength of Automation Anywhere compared to most tools. It depends on the segment we are dealing with. There are small organizations that might not need robust applications, but for mid-sized and large customers, we usually propose automation anywhere. It's quite robust, and the performance is good. When we are proposing a solution, the automation at scale makes it much easier for us, post-sales and post-implementation.

Also, the integration of the solution's bots with APIs and business applications is good. There are certain prebuilt integration APIs in Automation Anywhere. That's especially true when you're connecting with SAP. There are issues with SAP, but in general, they have connectors with most of the popular CRM tools. The API connectivity is much easier.

We only faced some problems when integrating it with SAP, and Oracle integration was a bit challenging, especially with Oracle Fusion. We had some issues when we were trying to connect some of the applications on the API level. But, in general, integration using Automation Anywhere is fine.

I have been working with Automation Anywhere since 2019, or about four years.

In the last year, the cloud has become bigger, but before that, it was implemented more on-prem only. 

From our side, the number of staff needed for an implementation depends on the number of processes we need to deploy. For the initial configuration, we may not need many people. But, for one of our customers, there are 70 processes that need to be developed over the next 18 months. Obviously, the number of people involved will be much greater than in a project where we're looking at 10 or 15 processes to be implemented. But on average, each process takes at least two to three resources, depending on the complexity.

Once you have deployed an application, you need to maintain it. Compared to other products, it takes slightly fewer people. Maintenance on the admin side requires one to two people. We always assign one FTE for this, at a minimum. Depending on other factors, we might go for two.

Automation Anywhere is more stable compared to some of the other tools on the market. And, post-implementation, we have very few issues with it compared to others. For me, it's all about post-implementation and why customers are happier with Automation Anywhere.

For small and medium-sized customers, we may not suggest Automation Anywhere because of the cost difference.

UiPath has gotten much better in the last two years. They have really grown in terms of overall performance and bot capabilities. There has been a huge improvement there.

As for non-technical users, it's not a low-code type of solution where you draw and drag and drop. Still, it's okay, to some extent, if they at least have some understanding of technology. Generally, it's easy to learn. If you have access to Automation Anywhere University, you can really learn it. But because I am from a technology background, it was much easier for me. We give our customers 13 or 14 sessions to bring them up to speed, and that might span over the period of a month to two months.

In the discussion about RPA versus API integration, one definite advantage of automation is that scheduling, bot management, and those kinds of things are automated. It's more about the customer and their perspective. With automation, you already have something cooked up, and you don't have to worry about much at a later stage. That makes automation much easier for them than using an API integration. You have to maintain an API integration, and there is the cost of maintaining it. With all those factors, automation becomes much easier for the customer.

We have been proposing Automation Anywhere to multiple customers. It's good. It's robust. But it's a bit expensive compared to other RPA tools on the market. Sometimes, it's too heavy for customers, especially if it's on-prem. Also, maintenance is slightly higher.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Positive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I would rate Automation Anywhere a seven out of ten.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Automation Anywhere (AA) is a stable solution.

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

Automation Anywhere (AA) has very good technical support.

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

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

We were able to evaluate Blue Prism and IBM RPA.

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

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

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

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

Our case was downloading the invoices from an Oracle Application.

It involved web and desktop applications and the setup was done in a Citrix, where the AA tool and required applications were installed in a secure environment.

Using Object Cloning for a web application, we extract a record of a company code for which all the invoices need to be extracted, based on month and year. When the company codes are available then all the invoices were extracted, applying the proper logic in the Oracle environment (Similar to SAP).

Proper logging and exceptional handling were supported.

Testing was done in the Dev and Test Environment and finally deployed to PROD.

The Bot was scheduled as per the customer requirements in the Control Room, to be executed as per the demand.

It has improved a lot by automating repetitive steps and hence saving a lot of quality time. 

It's very easy to use and all of the employees can easily get involved in the process, whether they are a developer, support, or have an HR background.

Almost all the easy and complex processes can be automated.

For each employee, the tool is useful if they have some redundant or repetitive tasks to perform on a daily or weekly basis, such as timesheet submission or shift allowance extra. It's a BOT BUDDY, as it is called in our organization.

It's very fast and takes no time to execute a lengthy process.

It's secure; all of the passwords and UN are secured.

The tool is simple and easy to debug and run.

The Automation Anywhere University is vast and we can easily get support from other community members.

Free certification and tutorial videos are readily available and are free of cost.

The Control room is valuable, as we can schedule the bot at any time and give access to anyone from anywhere.

The Recorder feature helps to automate without any effort and is very robust and precise.

The automation is very fast and in no time, it executes the process and hence increases the SLA by a vast margin as compared to other RPA tools.

IQ Bot is a very high niche tool and reads any kind of scanned copy and gives the output with more than 95% precision. It's very simple and supports Python and NLP for adding extra features.

Metabot helps to make reusable components and can be used as a function wherever needed.

It supports Dlls, VBScript, Python script, and macros.

Bot Insight helps to get the analytics in a more enhanced and visually attractive way.

The simplicity of the tool is a plus point, as it does not require one to be from coding background to work on it.

I would like the AA tool to be more proficient and a single entity tool that does not require DLLs or some script to be written separately where it is not capable. It should have more commands, which should remove the dependency on MetaBots or other scripts so that everything is available in the tool itself. This would save time.

All the time working on the tool requires internet connectivity, and it will be great if we can work offline. Offline development would be helpful.

More features like AI and ML should be included, as well as additional features to automate Citrix applications and mainframe applications.

I would like to see more Excel commands available.

Introduction to dictionaries and other data types should be included.

I would like to have a ready-made framework available so that less time is spent to develop the whole framework for the processes.

In terms of robustness, the bot should be efficient enough to deal with the code breakdowns. This could be done with more exception handling features and a ready-made framework.

More tutorials with complex scenarios and ILT training would be an improvement.

We have been using Automation Anywhere for two years.

The product is very stable and runs without delay, failures, or system hangs.

Logs are maintained both locally and at the server level.

The client and server connection is smooth.

Scalability is wonderful for AA, we can easily add the extra robots as per the transaction load without impacting the process.

The customer support and technical support are very helpful and service is available 24/7,  around the clock.

Communication is very good and their knowledge of the tool is in-depth.

Support teams are pro-active and they have a vast network of partners.

We did not use a different RPA solution before this one.

The initial setup was easy, as per the guidelines shared by AA, including the minimum system requirements such as OS level, RAM requirement, SQL Server, and .NET requirement. This information was shared via the documentation.

When finding any problem, their support team is very fast and cooperative in helping to resolve the issue ASAP.

Our company directly consulted with the Automation Product teams for RPA implementation and COE implementation in our organization.

ROI is high; usually, one process automation is equivalent to three FTEs in our organization.

It's cheapest among the competition, although bargaining is a must.

Different licenses are for Bot Runner and Bot Creator, which saves on the cost.

We evaluated UiPath and Automation Edge.

We found AA to be the best among the others in terms of pricing, licensing, support, and tool capability.

Our primary uses for this product are:

1. We are using Automation Anywhere to automate client processes.
2. The processes are ranging from SAP automation, Oracle automation, and mainframes like AS400. RPA has been implemented for a few of the legacy applications as well.
3. Both the Attended automation and Unattended automation have been implemented for many of our clients and they report satisfactory results.
4. We are using Automation Anywhere IQ Bot to scan documents for clients, as well as for internal processes.
5. The automation solutions provided to our clients them are running seamlessly.

Automation Anywhere has increased the overall standing of our company in the RPA market. Because of the successful automation for the client, we are getting more processes, which leads to more revenue.

Apart from the regular pricing model, the Gain-Sharing model provides a win-win situation for both WNS as well as its customers. This means that our customers will start getting the benefits up front, and leverage the benefits right from day one.

COE licensing is also beneficial, to reduce the effective cost of ownership 

All the features are very good, although what I like best is RPA-as-a-service. This drastically reduces the infrastructure setup time and, at the same time, it can be utilized for productive project work.

The multi-tenant and scalable architecture is the main advantage when you have a cloud service. While RPA is the cutting-edge technology to bring digital transformation, the RPA as a service will reduce costs and increase efficiency with ease of deployment, less maintenance, and cheaper upgrade costs.

Even our customers are happy with the RPA-as-a-service model.

Intelligent automation is currently a buzz and I would love to see more innovation in this segment. I am looking for artificial intelligence and machine learning to be tightly integrated into the cloud platform and I hope that they enhance this segment in the upcoming releases. 

Clients are eager to see AI and ML implemented, and thus leverage the technology to its maximum. We can bring more processes into automation, which is what I want to focus on. 

In a nutshell, more innovation in AI and ML will bring more potential and capabilities to the product.

We have been using Automation Anywhere since February 2018.

The solution is stable but again, it is dependant on the underlying client applications. I am confident the AA solution is very stable.

The RPA-as-a-service model helps to scale the solution beyond the limit. 

The customer service is excellent. Since we have a dedicated AA account manager for WNS, in case of any urgent issue or requirement, we can reach to the manager. So far, the help extended by the account manager is very good. 

Our main focus has been on using Automation Anywhere as the primary tool for RPA.

The initial setup is quite straightforward

We implemented it through our expert, in-house team.

Since I am not directly involved in the ROI calculation, I would not comment on this.

We generally follow the Gain-Sharing Pricing model, which enables the customer to start getting the RPA benefits right from day one of their implementation.

The other options that we evaluated were Blue Prism, UiPath, and others. 

I work in the Management Consulting domain and hence am working with huge amounts of data, using advanced Excel formulae and creating reports and dashboards for clients is a routine. I primarily used the RPA AA2019 to automate and streamline few weekly reports which track KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for few products. Also, I automated the process of Quality checks which we perform after creating the reports. Another use case that I have automated is sending a Zoom meeting invite through outlook. The user only needs to enter a few details like attendees, date, and the time of the meeting.

My organization i.e ZS has been a partner of AA for the past couple of years and this year the organization decided to reach the next level by introducing a pilot program wherein many associates are onboarded to the AA2019 tool and can implement robust and efficient solutions using the same thereby increasing productivity across the organization. This has been a success and we are planning to scale the program to a much wider audience within the organization. The saving of efforts within my project has been to the tune of 20% as of now and I am sure that it will improve as we explore the tool more and automate many more processes.

The Capture command has been a lifesaver for me in each of my use cases and the advanced Excel functionalities like running macro, reading and manipulating data, etc. It allows the bot creator to leverage the inbuilt functionalities that AA2019 has to offer to a great extent. Also, the functionality of designing child and parent bots help me to design the process in a modular way. Additionally, the error handling capabilities of the tool has really improved the troubleshooting experience when we encounter an error.

The AI Sense functionality is what I believe can be improved since when I tried to use it for automating a use case involving a Citrix Virtual Machine, it was unable to capture objects consistently. This feature can be made more intelligent and less bulky in terms of the downloadable package size of the code in the next release and also the VB/Python scripts which we can use in conjunction with the AA2019 functionalities is what I believe would help in automating many processes end to end.

I have been using the Automation Anywhere 2019 tool version for the past six months.

I would rate it an 8/10 since I believe if the AI Sense capability and handling MS power point functions is further enhanced with the next release, then it would make a much larger impact.

It is very much scalable in my opinion and should be used by big organizations lokoing to save costs and increase productivity.

The setup was a bit complex. There were many IT approvals that I needed to take.

I am currently able to save 2-3 hours of manual effort per week.