Automation Anywhere Reviews

In one of my insurance domain processes, I need to extract the details of customers from an input Excel file and I need to update details like Address, DOB, and Names, all based on their requests in a web-based application.

With respect to our environment, we used Excel commands for doing operations and we faced a few Excel issues in production. Everything was fine in Dev and QA. Then we used Excel as a DB and it provided a permanent resolution.

This product has helped us a lot by improving and growing the business in different domains. Initially, when we have started RPA with AA, we implemented it for only one domain. Now, we are in a position to automate most of the processes across domains.

In V10 and V11, most of the Windows and web-based commands are helpful. We mostly use the Database commands in order to make the process faster and more secure, rather than using Excel or a CSV for reading the input files.

When we think from a business perspective, business applications are more compatible with their specific browsers. Let's say one of my customers is using Firefox, which is the most compatible browser for their application, when we try to automate that with AA, we don't get accurate and stable results. They need to make the AA stable across all browsers and I hope to see it fixed in the next version.

As I mentioned, if we don't close an Excel file in a safe manner, then when we try to open it or another Excel file in the same place, most of the time it will lead to issues. As we are working with unattended automation most of the time, no one will be available to take care of those issues when they happen

I have been working with Automation Anywhere for the past four and a half years. I have worked on versions 9, 10, and 11. Currently, I have started working hands-on with A2019. You are moving to A2019 very soon. 

AA is not stable across all different browsers.

RPA is what I have been working on since my career started. 

I can suggest Automation Anywhere.

I tried multiple options but I found that Automation Anywhere has better options when compared to all of the other tools.

Automate Business processes pertaining to various business units. We used Automation Anywhere Control room and different versions of AA 10.x and AA 11.x to deliver Robotic Process Automation Solutions for different clients. Automation Anywhere helped multiple clients to save a lot of data entry time and have automated almost every repetitive task. AA control room helped to manage the operations of both Attended and UnAttended automations and have helped a continuous run of the bots saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Automation Anywhere helped our organization to get our training and implementation needs successful by providing both community edition and partner edition. Automation Anywhere seamlessly handed off exceptions to employees from Automation Anywhere bots. It helped to better manage  Automation Anywhere bot capacity, as well as to reuse and repurpose the bots in the cloud. 

It helped in Monitoring Automation Anywhere bot progress and report on bot usage and value in the form of Insights provided instant details of the savings and work in detailed analytical charts.

A 2019 dual-mode is very useful and the Control room type of setup for use of A2019 Client is very useful as it eliminates disconnection issues. Also, the broad range of Commands and elimination of the need for Metabots is also very helpful in Automating the increased number of variable types cover an expanded range of web and window components. 

Bot insights and IQ bots are both valuable features if implemented in a cost-effective way for larger enterprises, Bot insights provide analytical details of the ROI that is generated by running bots and IQ bots help to automate document processing in an intelligent way minimizing the cost of document processing and hence saving a lot of employee time and money for any enterprise with a large volume of pdf data.

Version A2019, the Number data type variables should be available to display in "Message Box" command. This will help in debugging. At the present, a type conversion is needed to display it in the message box. There should be an efficient way to integrate AA 11.x. meta bots into AA2019.

Also, the Master certification should be provided free of cost for partners. More practical samples and examples of bots using new features in A2019 should be available in people Documentation. A2019 presentation material for proposing A2019 as an RPA choice should be provided to partners.

I have been using AA for six years.

Excellent

Straight Forward

7

We used AA for all of our healthcare clients for multiple use cases. We have automated most manual steps of Claim Adjudication, Claim Pre-Work Validation, Overpayment Recovery, Triaging, Quoting Census, etc.

In the front office side, we have automated Provider Calls as attended solution which helps Agents to take calls hassle-free while Bots gather the required information from multiple applications. We have automated KFI process where AA OCR identifies the CMS1500 form run it through IQ BOT and further post it on the target application.  

By automating most of our LOB's on the healthcare side and putting it on production, we have saved millions of dollars and were also able to achieve FTE benefits. It has improved our quality, AHT, and was also able to achieve target TAT and SLA. 

We have successfully processed 10 million claims through unattended BOTs. We also saw significant improvement in Agent performance for provider calls where we deployed attended Bots. Overall, Automation Anywhere has been great for us and helped us in generating revenue as well. We had recognized by Automation Anywhere as Innovation Partner of the Year - 2020 in Payer Segment which helps us in selling our solutions to new healthcare clients.   

There are many features of Automation Anywhere that were found to be most valuable like WLM, PDF integration, Advanced Excel Commands, Terminal Emulator and its commands, Interactive Forms building features of A2019 which helped us in developing UI for our front office automation and integrate it with multiple rest APIs. The new features which were introduced in A2019 like Data Table, custom DLL, IBM Watson Speech to Text, IQ BOT, Document Extractor has been impressive. The option to use the Python Script has been very helpful.

We noticed slowness in a few of the commands like Object Cloning, Web Recorders, etc. on which Automation Anywhere can work to make it more robust. There are improvements required in the WLM solution provided by AA, which can make it a more robust queuing system and the system should retry by itself in case of failure due to system error. There should be the option of selecting credentials by passing variables and not just limit it to selection. Retry mechanism should be included in Enterprise 11.x version which helps developers to reduce the number of lines of code.

I have been using AA for 4.5 years.

Whatever product they launch they make sure that it is 99.9% stable. The stability of this solution is pretty high.

It is scalable for sure and has the capability of becoming the world's number one RPA tool.

It was nice interacting with CS/tech support. Most of the time they resolves issues within 24 hours.

Before AA, we tried a few other RPA tools but those have few challenges in terms of security and interaction feasibility after the AA worked for us nicely.

The initial setup is straightforward and does not necessarily requires technical knowledge.

In our case it was both. The level of expertise was 9 out of 10

We saved millions of dollars and had FTE benefits.

The licensing model and cost are very impressive. Now, you do not have to worry about infra setup cost like Server, Database as it comes free of cost with the A2019 cloud version.

We evaluated BP, UiPath, Pega,  etc.

One word for Automation Anywhere keeps shining and helps your customers/partners to automate & gain more.

We are using MS 2007 Windows OS mostly with IE and Excel operations. Anyone can write code with AA software with basic coding knowledge, we just need to know which command will help to build the next step. We had developed almost eight major processes and a few POCs for different clients. As we worked mostly with Web and Windows applications, we had used most of the commands related to Web and Windows applications. We can say bot accuracy was 95% in the final result. Bot consumes around 12 minutes to process 1 application, where if a human performs the same they would take a minimum of 18 minutes on average.

AA application is very good for running the application on a schedule. But a few times, the client requirements were 24/7 so it stops every few days. We found three drawbacks with the product in production:

1. For 24/7 running applications Bot Insights won't be generated.

2. For 24/7 running bot stops every few days, it might be an environmental issue or something.

3. the Same name of Mebabot cannot be uploaded to CR.

4. We tried to upgrade to 11.3.4 but there were few bugs while performing actions in Excel. (You may have fixed later stages).

WLM & Device Pool, where multiple devices perform the same thing parallel and complete the tasks at the same time. The Credential Manager for security is one of the most valuable features for storing credentials and providing security between the developer usage and future maintenance where passwords expire every 90 days. There is no need to touch the code and just update the CR locker section. CR UI is also user-friendly for creating deleting and updating users, roles, etc within the CR. The Audit Log section is also good for logging all the operations done in CR.

It would be better if they could extend the support for AA version 11 for a few more years, as most of the companies have tasks completed in AA version 11, and A2019 is much slower compared to AA 11. It keeps on downloading dependencies, and time-consuming while running the tasks. In AA version 11, if the bot stops uninterruptedly it's better if it could resolve itself and back to normal and process the applications.

You can give clients some more time to get used to A2019 and find and fix the concerns observed till then. That way you can add more features and easy to implement for the development team. If you ask all the clients to migrate to the latest version. Few are still thinking about the migration of code from the old to the new environment and various other factors.

Bot Insight for 24/7 tasks is limited in the AA 11 version. If this gets fixed a few more clients will renew this license as well.

I have been using AA for the past three years. 

We need to train the bot to handle all kinds of conditions. So it will behave accordingly when that situation occurs.

The technical support team were very responsive, they were available 24/7 and for severity 1 issue's for the production part they used to reply or communicate with us in maximum 45 minutes.

Other than the CR set up with the database will take little time. Client installation and configuration was straightforward.

We are a vendor team and worked with the client's environment along with their in-house team. Our clients are always happy with the product and its performance. There are few scenario's due to system instability they used to complain, we used to check and revert back to them what is the problem.

I don't remember the exact number, in one of my bot runner I had seen a $5million change.

Pricing depends upon the number of licenses required by the company. They can implement using the community version. If their business can be automated based upon the business process workload they can decide a number of Bot runner and Developer licenses are required.

To use other tools you need to have knowledge with VB script. But using AA no need of that.

Automation Anywhere Enterprise RPA was used in conjunction with Automation Anywhere IQ Bot and Automation Anywhere Bot Insights to reduce the time taken to process a mortgage application by automatically verifying the applicants, the address, title, and scheduling a settlement meeting. The automation solution extracted information from or entered data into more than six applications including four major bank web applications. The environment included a Control Room server, an IQ Bot server, a bot runner machine, all running windows server 2012.

Automation Anywhere is stellar and the pre-built bots on the bot store help reduce the development time and effort. The IQ Bot solution can read from scanned images and documents which has hugely benefited the mortgage processing team.

The professional services team at Automation Anywhere helped in designing and architecting the solution effectively and their modular approach to the solution meant, the solution could be tested for user acceptance in stages. It helped the team provide early feedback and suggest changes to optimize the automation solution.

There are several valuable features : 

(1) Validate the data extracted from digital and scanned documents.

(2) Schedule the bots to run at specified intervals and report on the execution status.

(3) Ability to resume automation from intermediate states in case of exceptions.

(4) Ability to introduce human in loop for making decisions without requiring the mortgage application to be started again.

(5) Reporting on straight through processing, exceptions and failure.

(6) Business user friendly interface, easy-to-learn tools and availability of on-demand training for free.

There are some areas that the product can be improved : 

(1) Better exception handling mechanism.

(2) Parallel processing of branches to improve execution time.

(3) IQ Bot: An easier way to tag the document's source after extracting information from the document. (Which group does the document or a transaction belong to).

(4) Better integration with external data sources for Bot Insights.

(5) Advocating and encouraging use of queues and device pools by providing implementation details with success rate and support from services for the same.

I have been using AA for 1.5 years.

V11 is very stable. 

A2019's stability is yet to be determined but most usecases would not have any trouble being automated in A2019. It is more robust in terms of feature availability and bot code maintenance.

Highly Scalable.

Stellar.

We used UiPath and Kofax Kapow.

Not quite straightforward. Required support from Automation Anywhere Support team but that was made available at no cost.

Vendor team and Automation Anywhere's Professional Services.

>80%

Calculate the IQ Bot page count and usage.

Factor in the development as well as training time required for IQ Bot training and validation. The effort is easily underestimated.

We evaluated UiPath but Automation Anywhere's IQ Bot solution was the only fit for our use case at that moment. (UiPath was yet to unveil their "Document Understanding" product suite).

The learning curve is less steeper compared to other automation products in the market. 

We primarily use this product for Web Applications, Outlook, and Excel.

It helped to increase productivity in a commendable manner.

The most valuable feature is PDF automation, where we can automate templated PDFs with almost 100% accuracy.

DOMX path support for identifying the web elements is helpful.

The Control room features, such as pooling devices, Queues, and the secure environment, are also valuable.

Commands in Excel, Outlook, and Word automation are very limited and hence facing difficulties automating complex requirements for the above applications with V11 version. 

We have been using Automation Anywhere for two years.

Relatively the installation is complex compared to other competing technologies. Lot of things has to be worked around for Control room setup and for starting the bot development like user creation and specific roles getting assigned etc... 

I've installed it on my own using installation guide. But a lot more things are involved while installing

The ROI on major bots has been phenomenal.

I have used AA to automate window-based applications like SAP, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Database, Microsoft Office (Excel, Access), CSV/TXT file, folders based operations, etc. When it comes to web-based applications, AA really shines. Automation applications Share-point, Blackline Reconciliation, Agile point submissions, and Web-based reporting exercises are in real-time.

When it comes to the database AA also works pretty well with SQL and Oracle by executing CRUD queries.

Automation Anywhere has improved my organization by automating many rule-based and nonjudgmental processes in domains like telecommunications, human resources, financial services, and daily or monthly reporting. The deployed bots/automation helped the organization in terms of errorless progress, meeting SLAs in time, 24/7 working hours, reducing dependencies from the human workforce, and FTE realization.

The realized FTE was deployed in more of a complex process and the employee utilization also improved. 

Out of all the features from Automation Anywhere version 11, IQ Bot, is the most valuable feature because it helps us in the conversion of semi or unstructured data to structured data which made it possible to automate a lot of complex processes.

Other than the IQ Bot, the below commands in the task bot also shine in a very useful and reliable way:

Excel Spreadsheet Commands, Database Commands, API Integration, Credential locker management feature and Workload management feature.

The Automation Anywhere Control room component features can be improved, as of now it contains too many roles and rules which makes it confusing to use it.

They should make it more simple because a lot of times I have to go through the user manual while dealing with the Automation Anywhere Control Room.

I always wanted a python and javascript editing console in version 11, which I later found in A2019. Earlier, only Run script command was there to directly run the scripts which somehow creates one additional dependency to the solution.

I am using AA v11 for three years and A2019 for the last two months.

Its pretty nice actually. AA is very stable with Windows-based applications.

When it comes to scalability, the mini bots comes into the picture and helps us to scale the automation. 

It was very satisfying.

I have used Blue Prism as a primary automation tool but due to the limitation of commands/stages the organization considered AA as a primary tool. 

It was very easy to install since it automatically validates if all required files are installed in the machine or not.

My organization is partners with Automation Anywhere.

I am just a developer so I have no idea about ROI.

I do not have that much knowledge about cost/pricing or licensing details.

I worked with Blue Prism also.

I am pretty impressed with the A 2019 version.

We use Automation Anywhere to implement robotic process automation solutions for complex and time-consuming scenarios, especially legacy systems, SAP, & mainframes.

I have recently used Automation Anywhere successfully for a system that is very old, and didn't even have API support. In fact, the creators are no longer providing support for their product, but we successfully implemented the solution and helped the client to reach their customers.

The other use case we have implemented is for invoice processing, where there are a number of templates available. 

AA helped our clients to achieve their goals faster and more efficiently, also reaching ROI very quickly. We, as an organization, now have a very positive image from our clients' perspective by suggesting Automation Anywhere instead of their competitors. This product has helped them to implement RPA in their organization.

In addition to providing services to our clients, we have used AA in HR management and the payroll processes, where it helped our employees to get rid of tedious and repetitive work. Our employees are engaged in better and more productive tasks compared to the past.

Automating Mainframes, Legacy systems, SAP applications, IQ Bot, & Natural language processing abilities are its strong points. By using its AI & ML capabilities, we have solved many problems for our clients.

No other tool is as stable as Automation Anywhere, considering the ML & AI capabilities & ease of use.

Automation Anywhere's interface is pretty awesome and easy to use, even for a business user. The dashboard & Bot analytics are very clear, even for a guy without any technical knowledge. 

I still believe there is a long way to go when it comes to ML & AI capabilities, though Automation Anywhere is the leader here in the market.

A2019 is awesome with its features but I don't find it as stable as v11.

I suggest having more ways to perform string manipulations and string operations, instead of just what is pre-defined in the V11 tool. 

I would like to have a buffer-type thing where the bot should throw an exception to the production support team when it is looping through a record.

Date operations can be improved without using VS script. 

I have been using Automation Anywhere for the past four years.

The solution is pretty stable but A2019 can be improved. 

The scalability is the best of all the RPA tools that I have seen.

Their technical support is the best. I always find the best solutions in the customer portal.

I did not switch from another tool. Instead, I select AA as per my client's requirements. That said, my choice is Automation Anywhere any day.

The initial setup is very simple and straight forward.

We implemented using our in-house team. 

Our ROI is 70% annually.

The pricing is reasonable and one can achieve ROI faster when compared to other tools.

Automation Anywhere is your best choice if you want to implement RPA.