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Fernando Miranda - PeerSpot reviewer
RPA Capability Leader at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Automation software reduces manual effort significantly with user-friendly functionality
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the ease of use. It's very user-friendly."
  • "The automated regression testing could be better. I need to build my own testing suite, and I know other tools have built-in testing suites. That is an area that's very weak in this platform."

What is our primary use case?

I use it mainly as automation software. Any kind of processes that are manual, like data entry, for example, I definitely use it for those. Many legacy applications like Mainframe that don't have APIs or can't access the data to write out to that system are addressed mainly for those purposes.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the ease of use. It's very user-friendly. Someone with even basic technical prowess can jump in and learn it very quickly. The difference is night and day. With processes involving three or four people, having it full-time manually to address that, and once we implement the automation software on these processes, it effectively reduces eighty to ninety percent of the manual effort.

What needs improvement?

The automated regression testing could be better. I need to build my own testing suite, and I know other tools have built-in testing suites. That is an area that's very weak in this platform.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for about six years.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is pretty good. They are responsive. Just like with any software organization, they usually deal with tier one support, and nine times out of ten, I know more than they do. I get some good support when I advance beyond tier one support. When it gets escalated to the next level is when I receive some good responses and better support.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I think it's a little difficult to scale just because they don't have an automated regression testing suite. We currently have a bottleneck at quality control because of that. If I had to give it a number, I would say six.

How are customer service and support?

Their customer service is pretty good. They are responsive. Just like with any software organization, they usually deal with tier one support, and nine times out of ten, I know more than they do. I get some good support when I advance beyond tier one support. When it gets escalated to the next level is when I receive some good responses and better support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I have used UiPath, Blue Prism, OpenRPA, and NintexRPA. I've dabbled in a couple of others, and I can't even remember what they are because there are so many, but those are the main ones that I've used throughout my career.

How was the initial setup?

It was already in place when I got to my company.

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

I think the setup cost is comparable to the other solutions. I don't think it's anything out of the ordinary. I've been on platforms that are a lot more expensive, and this one is comparable.

What other advice do I have?

I would give them an eight out of ten. I definitely would make sure that you at least have some basic understanding of development, just basic principles, and then start training in Automation Software Anywhere Academy. Many like to think businesses can come in and build stuff, which they can, but sometimes they don't know basic software design principles. Once the volume increases or if they don't build it correctly, there are constant issues, and then we have to bring in the core team to help out. It's nice to say something, but in action, it's something that's not the same. Let's put it that way. You can build anything, as I said, you can build all kinds of things, but is it built correctly?

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
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AutoMan9843 - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation Manager - Nordic at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
MetaBot reusable code makes development much quicker and role-based access gives us security control
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the features that we have used the most is an action in the Workbench called Object Cloning. We find that very reliable and very useful for implementing different business processes."
  • "Security is a top priority for us. To be allowed to automate different processes, we need to have a good set of controls around who is allowed to do what, and what credentials people can and can't use. It allows us to manage access make sure that we have full control."
  • "The main things I've found that could be better are small things that can be annoying when you're using them a lot. I would recommend they add a feature where, if you mark the start of an "If" sentence it will highlight the end of the "If" sentence. That would make it easier to get a better overview."
  • "We would like to see more options for merging and un-merging PDFs. More flexibility there would be good. We've figured out ways around this and, using their software, we've been able to do everything we wanted to do. It just took a bit more time to do it. We were on version 10.5 and in their Bot Store they actually had a bot that did exactly what we wanted to do, but it was for Version 11.0."

What is our primary use case?

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

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

How has it helped my organization?

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

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

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

What is most valuable?

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

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

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

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

What needs improvement?

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

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

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

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

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

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

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

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

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

How are customer service and technical support?

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

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

How was the initial setup?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What about the implementation team?

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

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

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

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

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

What was our ROI?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Blue Prism at the time.

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

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

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

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

What other advice do I have?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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reviewer2644632 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer RPA at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Provides time savings and supports scalability and integrations very well
Pros and Cons
  • "We have multiple bots running. It saves time. If manual invoice processing in SAP takes two to three hours on a daily basis, a bot can do the same job in half an hour. We are saving more than 70% of the time."
  • "Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten."
  • "One improvement would be to implement a log mechanism within the workflow, similar to other automation tools. Currently, the log mechanism uses a text file. If we want to monitor a process, we need to check manually."
  • "One improvement would be to implement a log mechanism within the workflow, similar to other automation tools."

What is our primary use case?

We have multiple entities and businesses in our organization, which leads to various use cases. Specifically, there are numerous SAP use cases where we perform automation. Additionally, there are use cases with application automation and document automation.

By implementing Automation Anywhere, we wanted to automate repetitive tasks done on a daily or weekly basis and utilize the time saved for other tasks. We wanted to save time and costs.

How has it helped my organization?

It integrates well. We have SAP CRM and browser automations. We also have document automations. We also have API integration.

We have multiple bots running. It saves time. If manual invoice processing in SAP takes two to three hours on a daily basis, a bot can do the same job in half an hour. We are saving more than 70% of the time.

What is most valuable?

The feature that I currently like is Agentic AI process automation, where we use LLM models to automate our processes. I have heard a lot about it. I am eager to learn more about it and implement it in my organization.

It is very easy to use. You do not require any prior knowledge. Through Automation Anywhere University, you can learn it and implement your use case. A non-technical person can learn it within a month. For a technical person, it is easier to understand the loops, conditions, and workflows. A technical person needs only 10 to 15 days.

What needs improvement?

One improvement would be to implement a log mechanism within the workflow, similar to other automation tools. Currently, the log mechanism uses a text file. If we want to monitor a process, we need to check manually.

Another improvement would be to facilitate copying code blocks between projects, as currently, it is not possible to copy and paste them either locally or on the web.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have more than six years of experience as an RPA developer and have used other tools. I have been using Automation Anywhere for the past two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. I would rate it ten out of ten for scalability.

We have about 1,700 automation users. We are a big organization with multiple locations globally. We develop automation for multiple departments and multiple entities.

How are customer service and support?

Their technical support is good. I would rate it an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I have used UiPath and Automation Anywhere. Both are very good. Automation Anywhere is cost-effective compared to UiPath.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment is fine. It is very easy. 

It is completely on the web. We have our own licensing management tool. Anyone who has done internal training can request the license. A dedicated license is generated for you for a few hours or if needed, permanently. We have a dedicated portal for deploying our projects.

The upgrades are also easy. It does not require much maintenance.

What other advice do I have?

We have multiple communities for automation. We have citizen developers and we also have expert developers. To identify the use case, we approach the entities and ask them to identify any mundane, repetitive, or complex task. We have a perfect pipeline for automation use cases. When a use case enters the feasibility check, an expert assesses its feasibility based on multiple parameters. If feasible, we proceed with development, prepare documentation, and design all solution documents. Next, we prepare the architecture, and development commences. After development, we conduct several rounds of UAT. Before deployment, we conduct a pre-delivery check with a dedicated department, ensuring best practices and proper exception and error handling. Once approved, we proceed with deployment.

In our organization, we are the first ones to work closely with the Gen AI and AI topics. We have a few opportunities to use the Gen AI capabilities in automation.

Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
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reviewer2642832 - PeerSpot reviewer
Low Code Developer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Empowers business users to execute bots with AARI, and saves a lot of time for developers and users
Pros and Cons
  • "AARI allows business users to trigger the bot, so I do not have to schedule everything. This convenience allows users to utilize it as they need. I can set it up to provide users with a form to fill in all required information, and then the bot operates based on those specifications. AARI is very convenient, and that is their biggest selling point."
  • "AARI is very convenient, and that is their biggest selling point."
  • "I have found that Automation Anywhere is prone to bugs in handling Excel. It breaks and gives vague error messages. I have had a lot of experience with that and learned that it is better to write a Python script instead of using Automation Anywhere's package when dealing with Excel because it is buggy and tends to break, unfortunately."
  • "I have found that Automation Anywhere is prone to bugs in handling Excel. It breaks and gives vague error messages."

What is our primary use case?

I work for a company, and we mainly automate tasks that we deem necessary, which are often repetitive and mundane. Anything that can be automated to save costs, from the finance and manufacturing perspective, is automated.

We are currently considering how to use it for document automation so that we can read unstructured data, such as invoices, that is a little bit messy and hard for a standard rule-based OCR to understand. We are also looking at an AI solution that could do that for us.

In terms of integration, we use tools like SAP. That is a big one. We have integrated Python scripting a lot. We also use Active Directory.

How has it helped my organization?

The advantage of Automation Anywhere is that it automates the mundane jobs that are brainless or take up time out of people's day that they could use to do other tasks. That was the main challenge that we wanted to address by implementing Automation Anywhere. We wanted to free up time in other areas by automating jobs that would make good candidates to do so.

It is built keeping business users in mind. Every single human being who uses a computer uses a UI, so automating those clicks is not a very complicated thing. You are just telling the computer what to do. In that respect, they try to make it as simple as possible to use things like Excel, send emails with Outlook, and automate clicks on a computer. That part is done well.

Allowing business users to trigger the bot means that I do not have to worry about scheduling or triggering the bots. I can just give them the keys to the car and let them do whatever they want to do. It saves time. We spend less time micromanaging and more time developing.

I have heard from people who are using these bots that it is saving them hours every week, every day, or so. They start to see those time savings instantly.

What is most valuable?

AARI allows business users to trigger the bot, so I do not have to schedule everything. This convenience allows users to utilize it as they need. I can set it up to provide users with a form to fill in all required information, and then the bot operates based on those specifications. AARI is very convenient, and that is their biggest selling point.

What needs improvement?

I have found that Automation Anywhere is prone to bugs in handling Excel. It breaks and gives vague error messages. I have had a lot of experience with that and learned that it is better to write a Python script instead of using Automation Anywhere's package when dealing with Excel because it is buggy and tends to break, unfortunately.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have only been using it for about seven months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I do not remember having any problems. It usually does not lag or crash. Some packages, like Excel, can behave unpredictably, but I have never had any issues with the application itself.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I do not have much information about scalability. When use cases come, I just build them and move on.

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

Before Automation Anywhere, I used Power Automate by Microsoft. I prefer Automation Anywhere because it is more robust. It allows us to build more powerful applications. Power Automate was great for small-scale things, but it had its limitations.

How was the initial setup?

It was already deployed when I got here.

In terms of maintenance, the updates happen monthly. I do not have to do anything, but there is some maintenance when users want to get connected to run bots. There is a little bit of upkeep that happens there. Other developers sometimes do not have the necessary permissions. That process is not particularly painstaking. It is usually painless. There are two or three of us involved in the maintenance. We spend very little time on maintenance. It does not happen too often.

What other advice do I have?

In our organization, there is a fairly steep learning curve because we have a very particular framework in terms of the way that we handle our bots and our processes. This is likely not the case with other organizations that do not have a similar framework. We like to break down our bots in a very particular way, and we like to control our bots' inputs with configuration files and use Python scripting to handle a lot of work rather than using Automation Anywhere's packages because it is more effective, but then there is a little bit of a steeper learning curve.

I never had to train somebody who is not technical on how to use Automation Anywhere, but you could teach someone how to make something super simple in 30 minutes, and then give them an hour. You can quickly teach them how to send themselves email reminders or do something similar, so you could get going pretty quickly.

Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten. It does what it does well.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Amahl Williams - PeerSpot reviewer
Hyperautomation Transformation & Strategy at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Reseller
It offers robust end-to-end capabilities within one platform
Pros and Cons
  • "Automation Anywhere's most valuable features include its end-to-end capabilities within a single platform. It offers desktop automation, unattended automation, a recorder for tasks, and advanced IDP capability, which means that I can handle everything from basic cutting and pasting to advanced use cases. With Automation Anywhere, I don't need multiple other tools to automate end-to-end processes. I only need one additional chatbot tool, assuming conversational AI is part of the solution. If I don't have chatbots, all the capabilities are built into the platform."
  • "The IQ Bots need more out-of-the-box models to lessen the time required for model training. Their competitors provide more built-in models, which enhance capabilities in document processing."

What is our primary use case?

I train new analysts and developers how to use Automation Anywhere, so my use cases are rudimentary. We automate many internal processes, such as our monthly reports, employee onboarding, and time cards. On the client side, we focus on finance and accounting use cases, such as order to cash, procure to pay, record to report, etc. I do a lot with revenue ops and revenue cycle automation.

You can create synthetic data to test automation capabilities without using real data. For every RPA delivery lifecycle, you can use synthetic data instead of production-grade data. If you need to beef up your artifacts or documentation, you can use Generative AI to have more complete or comprehensive artifacts as a part of your delivery artifacts.

Document Processing has been a higher priority for our clients this year. Automation Anywhere can meet that need in two areas: FortressIQ transactions and the IQ bot capability.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere has significantly improved efficiency within my organization. For instance, we reduced the time to enter orders from five to ten minutes to less than a minute in one use case. This has given full-time employees significant time and enabled us to process more orders. We save a ton of time using automation to onboard folks and for our time cards.  

What is most valuable?

Automation Anywhere's most valuable features include its end-to-end capabilities within a single platform. It offers desktop automation, unattended automation, a recorder for tasks, and advanced IDP capability, which means that I can handle everything from basic cutting and pasting to advanced use cases. With Automation Anywhere, I don't need multiple other tools to automate end-to-end processes. I only need one additional chatbot tool, assuming conversational AI is part of the solution. If I don't have chatbots, all the capabilities are built into the platform.

It's the second-easiest platform we use. Blue Prism is the easiest for non-technical users, but Automation Anywhere is also straightforward. It has a drag-and-drop interface that helps people who have used visual tools and a recorder for rudimentary task automation. If you're not a professional developer and haven't gone through the process yet, it's pretty easy to build a bot without much training.

When I took the training, I did 40 hours of basic and 100 hours of advanced. If I had learned it from scratch, my experience would be different. It was the last platform I learned out of the three. I had Blue Prism and UiPath under my belt before I learned it.

It takes 40 hours to train a non-technical user in basic automation. A process analyst only needs eight hours, but if you use the platform outside of Bot Insight, you need 40 hours to be proficient. 

Automation Anywhere is easy to integrate for all the standard use cases if you have an API. Otherwise, you'll need to build a custom plugin or use computer vision. You can integrate workflows, APIs, business applications, and documents. 

What needs improvement?

The IQ Bots need more out-of-the-box models to lessen the time required for model training. Their competitors provide more built-in models, which enhance capabilities in document processing.

Automation Anywhere white-labels the Shibumi platform and calls it COE Manager. They could expand on that platform to reduce the development time and manage robots in production. The COE tool could do more. I think that's another place where they can expand their capabilities.

For how long have I used the solution?

I started using Automation Anywhere in 2019, so I'm on my fourth year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability issues are typically avoidable. Proper infrastructure setup and understanding are crucial for robot processing speeds. Infrastructure is critical, and you must ensure you design these bots to identify all business exceptions In the bot hardening process and the RPA delivery lifecycle. System exceptions are unavoidable, so you need to fix them. But outside of that, there isn't an inherent latency based on legacy software or anything else.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere’s ability to provide automation at scale is on par with its competitors.

How are customer service and support?

I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of 10. It's on par with competitors, especially if you get the enterprise version. They're a leader in the cloud, with more cloud clients than any of their competitors. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I have used UiPath, Blue Prism, and Automation Anywhere. Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere are similarly easy to use. Automation Anywhere comes with all the digital capabilities you need right out of the box. They added those capabilities through acquisitions, but they own them outright. Blue Prism is easier to use but doesn't have all the same features.  They were late to market with their RDA capability, And I would say their IDP capability isn't as accurate, so it's not as highly rated.

How was the initial setup?

Given its web-based architecture, the initial setup is genuinely straightforward. The hardest thing is a hybrid setup because you have to remember the rules for each one. Depending on the web browser, you have to have a certain amount of power and bandwidth at your disposal. I don't know that I would manage the environment myself. I'd rather have hybrid to cloud so that AA could manage the upgrades for me.

 Larger, multi-tenant deployments typically take three to five weeks, while a single device on a VM can be set up in two to three days. When we sell it and do it for infrastructure, we use senior consultants, so it's 1.5 resources. Depending on how complex the configuration is, we may need more senior consultants, but one architect plus a consultant is usually enough to get it done. 

Automation Anywhere requires some maintenance. We provide managed services to our clients for break-fix and business or system exceptions, but Automation Anywhere handles all the upgrades, patches, etc., as long as it's in the cloud. 

 It's difficult to say how much maintenance Automation Anywhere needs because it varies based on your environment. Sometimes, your environment isn't set up correctly, so the service crashes a lot, and you spend a lot of time resetting services and restarting processes.  

It also depends on the configuration and the number of automations. My largest client has 400 automations in production, so it's a full-time job. They say one person can manage that many, but I don't think that's a healthy number. It's more like 140, depending on the SLAs and use cases. An IT resource can fix most system exceptions, but business exceptions require somebody who's at least minimally basic-certified and ideally advanced-certified. 

In other cases, the automation wasn't built with the best practices in mind, so the process will time out and take longer than a human. Many things can cause maintenance and uptime to increase. Ideally, you want to do load management with the bot, so you're sharing the work. You want a utility available if the workload increases or a bot goes down. Lastly, you should ensure enough onboard memory and bandwidth for the automation to run.

What was our ROI?

The time to value varies depending on the size of your project and its objectives. It takes four to six weeks to produce a viable project if your goal is to prove that you can automate a process in your environment and realize value. Medium-to-large high-value automations might take six to 10 weeks or more. Once you have 10 processes in production, you'll see a return of two to five times the investment.

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

Complaints are generally about the cost of IQ Bot, which is higher than its competitors. The base model’s pricing is comparable to other platforms with attended, unattended, and IDP capabilities as well.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of 10. They're one of the leaders. I don't want to give a bad score, but no one is a 10 because there's always room for improvement. While the market share doesn't reflect it, they're tied for first place, in my opinion. 

I recommend doing the training before you purchase Automation Anywhere so you can understand the terminology, components, capabilities, and best practices. You should also get a partner to help you avoid all the hang-ups and pitfalls of adopting and monetizing new technology. About 70 percent of solo implementations fail.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
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Owner at Sun Creattica
Real User
It offers a low-code product, integrates seamlessly, and saves us time
Pros and Cons
  • "The stability of Automation Anywhere is not a concern when deployed on the cloud."
  • "Cognitive services and PDF file automation should be refined."

What is our primary use case?

Automation Anywhere is a leading global RPA solution provider. Its platform is used by companies worldwide, including many Fortune 500 enterprises. Automation Anywhere is known for its innovative approach to automation, offering both cloud-based and on-premises solutions. It specializes in developing bots to streamline operational and business processes, making it a prominent player in the RPA market.

Automation Anywhere can be deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid platform.

We implemented Automation Anywhere to streamline our operational processes and automate repetitive, mundane tasks. Our bots operate in both attended and unattended modes. In attended mode, bots collaborate with human operators; in unattended mode, they autonomously execute tasks from start to finish. These bots work 24/7 without human intervention. Automation Anywhere is particularly valuable in the BFSI and IT operations sectors, where it can significantly automate business processes. Our enterprise currently utilizes over 5,000 bots daily, resulting in substantial cost savings and improved efficiency. The cloud-based platform's seamless integration capabilities and regular product updates ensure its continued leadership in the automation market.

How has it helped my organization?

Due to data protection concerns, the financial services industry has not fully embraced cloud technology. However, the retail and healthcare sectors have migrated to the cloud and identified significant opportunities. Real estate, vertical healthcare, and smart city transportation are well-suited for cloud adoption. These industries often face a high risk of human error. Automating processes end-to-end with RPA bots can mitigate errors, enhance company value, and streamline human work. Cloud-based RPA allows for easy scaling of bots to meet fluctuating workloads, ensuring efficient and cost-effective operations, even during peak demand.

Automation Anywhere makes it easy for business users without coding skills. It offers a low-code product that allows citizen developers to create bots without writing a single line of code. These developers can drag and drop information to automate activities, streamlining tasks like financial operations and daily routines. By providing basic details about the properties they need to operate, citizen developers can quickly build bots that can be deployed to production and triggered manually or automatically. This technology empowers individuals to create multiple bots tailored to specific needs, such as HR bots or onboarding processes. In the financial industry, it facilitates daily validation activities and data transfers between servers.

The learning curve for creating basic bots is approximately one week for non-technical users. However, complex bot creation requires coding knowledge, typically in Python, C#, or DLL. For those with a background in backend coding, such as C# or Python, an additional month may be needed to understand the intricacies of RPA or Automation Anywhere fully. The learning time ranges from one week to one month, depending on the individual's skill level. 

Automation Anywhere's new version introduces Copilot, a feature that allows users to create a basic bot for a specific task. These bots can be deployed into a production environment with minimal adjustments, leveraging AI capabilities.

Copilot's seamless integration with our organization's daily applications will be valuable as we transition to an AI platform. This integration will significantly enhance productivity, accelerate our automation efforts, and reduce time to market. Additionally, Copilot will enable us to create a multitude of bots more efficiently.

Copilot can significantly reduce our staff's workload by generating templates for bots. These templates require only input parameters to be specified, saving up to 30 percent of their time.

AI currently offers a variety of APIs that can be combined to create customized strategies tailored to specific customer needs for service provision and operations. By leveraging generative AI and advanced tools like generative AI bots or Copilots, businesses can develop and deploy automated processes to streamline daily activities. By carefully identifying non-automatable processes, generative AI can assist in addressing these challenges and improving overall efficiency.

Automation Anywhere's versatility allows for seamless integration with various tools and applications. It can effectively communicate with any system, and APIs can be developed to facilitate communication with any desired tool. There are no limitations to its integration capabilities. Its user-friendly interface and well-maintained documentation make it easy to follow and create bots for automation on any platform. CI/CD pipelines can be used to deploy these bots efficiently.

Automation Anywhere offers packages that can seamlessly integrate automation into our workflows, APIs, business applications, and documents. By extracting operational activities and pushing them to databases, we can enhance bot productivity and improve overall business efficiency.

What needs improvement?

Cognitive services and PDF file automation should be refined. The integration process should be simplified, perhaps using API-based activities. If a response comes in JSON format, these features should be readily available, allowing for easy information extension. This will enable developers to perform tasks and view accurate results quickly.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of Automation Anywhere is not a concern when deployed on the cloud. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere's ability to scale automation is impressive. We will begin by identifying business processes and then involve subject matter experts to determine the number of bots required and their priorities. This will guide our automation journey, which can commence immediately. Licensing and deployment will be swift, especially if cloud-based. On-premises deployment depends on our infrastructure. The entire bot facility can be ready within a week. For development, a dedicated center of excellence team can prioritize bots and commence activities accordingly.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment complexity largely depends on the integration process. If integration is straightforward, a citizen developer can acquire the necessary skills within one to seven days and begin developing. For complex analyses, prior knowledge of external environments, such as C# or Python programming languages, can significantly reduce the required code length within the Automation Anywhere platform. While Automation Anywhere doesn't offer a traditional coding structure, it supports integrating other languages and components, enabling activities with fewer lines of code.

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

Automation Anywhere offers a subscription-based licensing model for cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments. A single license allows for 24/7 bot execution, whether performing a single task or multiple tasks at various times on a single machine.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten. It is one of the top three RPA solutions.

Users need at least two years of experience in a specific coding language for complex automation scenarios. This is a requirement. They will primarily work on integration, as Automation Anywhere bots do not handle this completely. Writing code to call external APIs or web services requires thorough knowledge. Users can create Python code to add to bots for triggers. For complex bots, at least four years of experience is needed, not just in automation but also in other areas. This knowledge helps with architecture, bot execution, and future scaling. To create reusable structures and portions, users should start by drilling down and identifying them. These reusable components can be used in multiple bots or processes. This approach can simplify complex scenarios by breaking them down into smaller, repeatable tasks. To handle such complexity, users should have at least four years of experience in a typical development environment.

There are two distinct approaches to upgrading Automation Anywhere. Automation Anywhere handles the upgrade process for its cloud-based solution whenever a new release becomes available. However, on-premises upgrades require scheduling a call with Automation Anywhere to plan the process. It's crucial to have a well-defined disaster recovery plan in place for on-premises upgrades. This plan allows Automation Anywhere to maintain a single active platform for upgrades while ensuring the other platform remains available for production. Once the upgrade is complete, the other platform can then be upgraded. In contrast, cloud-based customers can rely on Automation Anywhere to manage the upgrade process without additional effort.

Every day, technology evolves. Maintenance is necessary when components change, or new versions are released because specific code segments may become obsolete. We must closely monitor the entire ecosystem for errors and swiftly resolve them. Bugs can sometimes arise due to technical coding, so we must address these issues or share detailed platform information with Automation Anywhere for their analysis. If a core issue is identified, they will take the necessary steps to resolve it. They may request that clients modify their environment, application, or component handling for technology or third-party matters.

The maintenance requirements for Automation Anywhere vary depending on the situation. Minor issues can be quickly identified and reported to Automation Anywhere, who will respond within 24-48 hours based on the purchased services. Our system administrator can resolve minor issues. Audits may be conducted in a development environment, where estimates for time and effort can be determined. Cost and time estimates are not fixed and depend on the specific issue.

The bots are maintained daily.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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Vaishnavi Suresh - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr automation development at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 10
Streamlines processes, reduces manual work, and is user-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "It is very user-friendly. The AI capability that nowadays I am seeing in Automation Anywhere is very good. They have plug-and-play AI solutions."
  • "Automation Anywhere courses are a little bit complex to understand. You need a little bit more time, and accessibility is also a little bit of an issue."

What is our primary use case?

I was working for an airline client that had their processes in the mainframe. The application Sabre that they had was all terminal-based. It was very difficult to navigate and capture everything. We automated a lot of tasks related to validation. For example, when someone booked a flight ticket and tried to cancel it, they needed to give some reason. We had rule-based validation, so we had to validate the reasons and assess them. Previously, it was all manual and terminal-based, and then we used Automation Anywhere to automate.

We also used Automation Anywhere to do a lot of PO manipulation. It was done in an application called Coupa. We used to do that automation with APIs. API automation was very easy with Automation Anywhere. We used it to automate such tasks.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere was introduced as an RPA tool to facilitate the digital transformation journey of the client organization. They wanted to eliminate a lot of manual tasks and provide quality work for their employees rather than them doing manual activities. They also wanted to make sure that a process was in place. They wanted a very low code or no code automation so that even business people could upscale themselves and automate. They wanted to free up their employees from such manual tasks and have a lot of bandwidth to do some other research.

In the use case related to the cancellation of a ticket, a lot of things have to be handled. When you cancel a ticket, the airline has to make an update at a lot of places. Only then you would get the refund. It involves a lot of processes. They could be related to the meal or something else. Even if you have not subscribed to any add-ons, all the checkboxes have to be ticked, and only after everything is cleared, you get your refund. Before automation, the refund process was very tedious. When they were doing it manually, any mistake could lead to incorrect transactions. For example, they might end up transferring a different amount. It was a very tedious process, and it was handled with the Sabre application, which was not very user-friendly. It was mostly a terminal-based mainframe application. It had a user interface, but a person with good experience was required for it. A fresher or somebody less experienced could not do it. You needed to know where exactly to go, and there were a lot of things that you had to learn to do this process. It was always done by an experienced engineer, and it was very manual involving navigating different screens. During COVID-19 times, there was a shortage of employees, and the airline was handling a lot of regulations, so this manual process became more problematic. At that time, we introduced Automation Anywhere. We were targeting only 50% automation, but we were able to automate 80% to 90%. It significantly improved the time to process a request and reduced the dependency on a senior engineer for the process. The robot could handle the process. We had programmed the robot. It was a very good experience. It helped the client navigate through tough times.

When you decide to automate a process, you try to understand the process in and out. You try to understand the exception scenarios and how to solve them. You prepare a process discovery document. While doing this documentation, you try to streamline the process because Automation Anywhere, as a tool, needs to be configured to automate that process. It forces us to ask a lot of questions, such as what if the file to be downloaded is not there. You come across all such things at the initial phase. That helps a person to restructure the process and fine-tune it more strategically. It saves a lot of time. It has plenty of features to do Excel operations. It has a lot of capability for querying. You can read data from Excel and process it using a query. You do not have to do Excel operations one by one. It is very quick. If a person is taking 30 minutes to do the operation, it takes only seconds or minutes to finish it. It provides a lot of efficiency.

You also have a lot of traceability. You have a lot of logs. You can see what happened after a process. When you have an audit, you have some traceability. A person doing a task does not always document each and every step. He or she would just do the task and finish it off. When you automate the process with Automation Anywhere, because the robot is doing the tasks, you get a lot of logs and a lot of traceability for auditing.

At the initial stages of automation, you also redefine and optimize a process. Instead of downloading 4 Excel files at different places, you try to standardize it. You give a standard name and a standard path. Everything is standardized, and a lot of focus is put on security and data privacy. We are very conscious of not saving it at any location that is accessible to anybody else. Subconsciously, we do all these checks. It improves the security and data privacy aspects. It also leads to process optimization. Like any RPA tool, it saves a lot of time, and it is efficient, and then logs are there as a good source of tracking.

Automation Anywhere is easy. It takes one to two weeks to introduce a non-technical person to this solution. They already have good domain knowledge, and they just need to know how to work with the tool. In about a week, we will be able to train them in basics. We can show them the interface. We can show them what goes where, but they will not be able to develop full automation or know about full RPA coding. They can get the basic knowledge in one to two weeks. Full training will require building a use case. It could be a small use case. If a developer would take four weeks, which includes development, testing, and other things, a non-technical person would require eight weeks. Only then a person will be able to learn completely and become a very good developer.

In terms of integration, there was SAP integration and Sabre integration. There was one more application. I worked only with these applications. If there is a component available, the integration goes smoothly. When you want to go for something customized and you try to build an integration, it is very challenging, but that is common with all the tools. When you try an out-of-the-box integration, it is very easy because they would have already tested that it is working. When you try to build something or customize it, that is when the challenges come. I have seen plenty of challenges with Automation Anywhere when you go for something that is not there in the package. You need a lot of support from the team and a lot of effort. The security restrictions from the organization were also stopping the integration. It was not happening. A lot of errors came, and we had to reach out to the network team and the security team. There were networking and security issues that had to be resolved.

Automation Anywhere has saved time and costs, but I do not have the metrics.

What is most valuable?

I have not used the recent versions, but it provides a great way to automate. Excel automation is quite valuable. Initially, it was only there in Automation Anywhere. It was not very popular with other automation tools. Excel automation is a very good feature. A lot of back-office activities happen in Excel. It is a very needed feature that Automation Anywhere provides.

In 2021, Automation Anywhere switched from on-premises to cloud. They renamed it as A360. They brought the required changes with this version. Before that, they used to have a line-by-line code view. They did not have a flowchart diagram, but it was very much needed. Because it was low code, a pictorial representation of the code was something that was missing in Automation Anywhere. It was there in UiPath and Power Automate at the time. Automation Anywhere then introduced two views. That gave people the option to use the view that they were comfortable with. That was a very brilliant move. Having two options made it very accessible.

It is very user-friendly. The AI capability that nowadays I am seeing in Automation Anywhere is very good. They have plug-and-play AI solutions. You do not need to know a lot about coding or AI to implement AI in your automation. You can just use their plug-and-play solutions. That is where its real strength is.

What needs improvement?

Automation Anywhere is easy, but the Automation Anywhere courses are not so easy. All RPA tools have their own academy where business users can go and learn the solution and do things themselves. Automation Anywhere courses are a little bit complex to understand. You need a little bit more time, and accessibility is also a little bit of an issue. They should focus a bit more on the academy and learning materials on their portal. The content should be easy to understand. It is not easy to grasp for a non-technical person. It should be easy for citizen developers. Also, their certification is very costly.

There should be more visibility as an RPA product. Every organization is trying to stick with certain tools. I like Automation Anywhere, and I would like to work with it, but I am not getting an opportunity. Automation Anywhere is not promoting itself to other organizations. Organizations are moving towards Power Automate and UiPath. It could be because Automation Anywhere is not reaching out to companies.

Their community events are also less. There are not many developer events in the cities where IT is there. In Bangalore, India, most of the IT companies are there, so we get to go to a lot of conferences. We get to hear a lot from other vendors, but Automation Anywhere's events are very limited. They should take care of their presence in the community and companies.

They should introduce videos for the new features. They should promote new features. They should be known to people. They should be accessible to people. Only then developers or companies will know about it. Only then, it will get used. There are probably plenty of good features, but they are not known or explored.

For how long have I used the solution?

I worked with Automation Anywhere for 2 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable product. I would rate it a 7 out of 10 for stability. It is not a perfect product, but it is improving every day.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is not very scalable. I would rate it a 6 out of 10. After you have built your robot, if you want to make some changes, you can do that, but if you built a robot and you want to make it an AI-enabled robot, it is quite a challenging task.

There were many users of this solution. I was a part of the Center of Excellence. The finance team and HR team were also trying to use it. There were more than 50 people for this solution.

How are customer service and support?

I was getting good support from them. I would rate them a 9 out of 10. They were always very helpful to me. My colleagues have had a bit of a bad experience, but I did not. I have raised a few tickets, and every time, the person was attentive and helped me out. They were very patient. They were straight to the point. They knew the technology.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I am working with UiPath and Power Automate. Automation Anywhere has got its own benefits and its own strong points, and the same is applicable to other vendors. It is just about which one your organization is aligned with and which one your organization has chosen to go forward with. However, other vendors are better in terms of reach. Even if I am not working on Power Automate for six to seven months, I get to learn about it. I see a lot of things on LinkedIn. There are communities where I can go to learn and keep myself updated, whereas, about Automation Anywhere, I do not see much information. I have to exclusively go and spend a lot of time to find the information. That is where I see the difference.

How was the initial setup?

It was on-prem before, and then we migrated to A360. It was already deployed when I joined, so I do not know about it, but migration took 4 to 5 months.

There were 4 people mainly focusing on migration. It was a bit complex because it was new, and there was not a lot of material available online. It was a little complex, but later, it became smooth. We reported a lot of bugs, and other people also reported them. It was very smooth.

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

It is cost-efficient in terms of licensing. I found their support good when I was working for the airline client. However, I hear from my managers here that the support price for Tier 3 or premium is a little higher. That is why we are not going for Automation Anywhere. Its price was okay for our client, but for us, it seems expensive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Automation Anywhere was a tool that was decided by our client. They were very much satisfied with how work was progressing. It gave them faster results, and it helped them navigate through the Covid-19 situation.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Automation Anywhere. It is a very solid product. I have always vouched for it. I see a lot of potential because it is very easy and it was a stable product when I was working with it. They were very careful about their releases. They were not releasing a lot of things, which is something I see in other products. With Automation Anywhere, each release is very carefully tested.

They introduce new features, but I have noticed that in India, the market for Automation Anywhere is not very big. I am not getting to work on Automation Anywhere because companies are moving to Power Automate and UiPath, so I am not able to learn it more. It is difficult to get hold of this solution.

In terms of our organization’s perspective when it comes to automation and AI, specifically Generative AI (GenAI), we want about 50% of the income coming from IT and services. Automation and AI are placed at the top of the strategy. We are moving towards RPA plus AI and ML. It is almost like hyperautomation or intelligent automation. This is one focus area, and another one is Pure Generative AI and data. The data part is handled by a different organization. We are looking into how to drive insights from data analytics and how to leverage the GenAI technology outside and derive value from it. These are highly focused areas.

I would rate Automation Anywhere an 8 out of 10. I liked working with it.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Ana MarijaBarisic - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead at Studenac market
Real User
Top 10
It is compatible with most platforms, integrates well, and is maintenance free on our end.
Pros and Cons
  • "By implementing processes using Automation Anywhere, we can save up to 3,000 euros within two weeks of development."
  • "The help Automation Anywhere offers during setup isn't great for smaller companies like ours."

What is our primary use case?

In the retail industry where I work, we need to track our working hours every Sunday. This is because some Sundays have work restrictions in our country, with exceptions. We record these hours to ensure our national system can verify the accuracy of our payroll.

For example, we use Automation Anywhere to automate tasks. It takes changes from an Excel spreadsheet and updates two different systems. Another process involves checking discrepancies between the quantity of items received and those paid for. For our back-office bonus processing, we use automation for transactions in our ERP system, ensuring all necessary data is entered.

We implemented Automation Anywhere to reduce the amount of manual operational work currently required in our company. This decision comes as we are experiencing significant growth, with new stores opening and a corresponding increase in back-office workload. Additionally, Automation Anywhere will help us improve data quality and minimize errors, ultimately reducing costs.

How has it helped my organization?

Since implementing Automation Anywhere, our processes are much better documented. Previously, we lacked process documentation in our company. Now, not only do we have it, but it's also created quickly and accurately. Additionally, we have more control over logs. This means if a robot encounters an issue, it can automatically escalate the task to the responsible individuals. Furthermore, we now benefit from reporting capabilities that were previously unavailable.

There are three scenarios where AI could significantly improve our efficiency. Firstly, we deal with weekly discounts. We offer reduced prices on certain items and advertise them in flyers. Unfortunately, sometimes the printed flyer prices don't match the prices in the original digital tables. This inconsistency is problematic because our stores operate independently, carrying different products and offering varying discounts based on location. Consequently, we create multiple flyer versions for different cities. Currently, this process is entirely manual. Back-office staff print the flyers and then meticulously compare prices with the digital tables. We believe artificial intelligence coupled with advanced OCR could automate price verification on flyers before printing. AI could analyze the flyer images or scans and ensure they match the original data. Secondly, we encounter discrepancies between product names in vendor data and the names we use internally. AI could streamline this process by matching equivalent products and eliminating the need for manual data entry.

Automation Anywhere offers an academy that is helpful for non-technical users to learn the platform. Learning the basics typically takes up to three months.

We implemented Automation Anywhere about a month ago and developed a comprehensive solution for our office. We've already observed a significant increase in satisfaction among back-office workers who previously performed these tasks manually. Automation Anywhere has freed them from repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on more strategic activities like report oversight. Management is also very pleased with the results, rating their satisfaction at eight out of ten. Additionally, Automation Anywhere has helped us improve both speed and accuracy by significantly reducing errors in this process.

In the first year of implementation, we have identified 20-30 processes that could benefit from automation to help us manage our growing volume of office tasks. We are considering incorporating AI as early as this year-end, depending on the success of our current implementation and any unforeseen challenges. Additionally, we see potential in generative AI to improve efficiency for both our clients and back-office staff. We've identified ten HR processes in particular that could be streamlined with this technology.

We have integrated several internally developed HR applications with Automation Anywhere to manage timesheets and vacation planning, and also integrated retail applications for checking product quantities.

I've been using Automation Anywhere for a few years now, and it's addressed most of the issues we had with previous versions. It runs smoothly, especially since our company uses Google Workspace. Overall, I've had a positive experience with Automation Anywhere. It's worked well for me, and I haven't encountered any problems so far. In the past, I also used Microsoft Workspace, and Automation Anywhere functioned well with that too. In my experience, it seems to be compatible with most platforms.

Automation Anywhere has helped save us costs and almost 40 hours per week.

What is most valuable?

In terms of development, we've been relying on the provided operations so far. However, I haven't yet explored Copilot for the discovery phase. I believe it could be a very helpful tool for us moving forward, and I think it's a great feature.

What needs improvement?

The help Automation Anywhere offers during setup isn't great for smaller companies like ours. It could be improved.

Many users in my country lack, for example, advanced Excel skills. This makes using Automation Anywhere a significant challenge for them.

The Automation Anywhere community doesn't seem very active. Additionally, navigating their site can be quite difficult when encountering problems. As a developer and engineer, I found it challenging to locate information. Support could also be improved. For example, I had trouble connecting my Google account, and finding help was nearly impossible.

In terms of variable initialization, I prefer the previous enterprise version. It was simpler and required less code. Object access could also be improved in the current version. Ideally, there would be an easier and more precise way to retrieve objects.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Automation Anywhere for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere does a good job of providing automation at scale. 

How are customer service and support?

It is difficult to get proper help from the technical support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

Deploying cloud solutions can be relatively straightforward. Therefore, I don't anticipate the initial deployment of Automation Anywhere being particularly complex. It seems the Automation Anywhere salespeople provided excellent information to facilitate the implementation process. In total, three people were involved in the deployment.

What was our ROI?

By implementing processes using Automation Anywhere, we can save up to 3,000 euros within two weeks of development.

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

The pricing is fair and allows for scalability. This means we only pay for what we need, and if our needs increase, we can easily upgrade our plan.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Upon joining the organization, I discovered they were already using Automation Anywhere. However, before implementing this solution, they had evaluated UiPath, Blue Prism, and Microsoft Power Automate. Ultimately, Automation Anywhere won them over due to its competitive pricing, fast implementation speed, and responsive support.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Automation Anywhere nine out of ten.

Understanding the trade-offs between different solutions can be challenging for higher management. While some local RPA solutions offer free or cheap services initially, they may not be as efficient, especially as automation needs grow. It can be difficult to explain to the board that maintaining such solutions becomes increasingly complex as automation demands increase. Additionally, limited vendor support during implementation can be another hurdle.

Upgrading the solution is easy because it is cloud-based so it is all done by Automation Anywhere's people.

Currently, three departments are contributing to the development of automation solutions. We anticipate even more involvement this year. On the personnel side, ten individuals are currently involved in developing Automation Anywhere. Additionally, two people utilize the tool – one developer and one business user. We are experiencing a growth phase and are actively hiring additional staff to develop new processes.

Since it's a cloud solution, maintenance is handled by Automation Anywhere. Our team maintains the custom software and processes we've developed.

I recommend Automation Anywhere, but before implementing it, every user should first identify the processes they have that are suitable for automation. Be critical and optimize everything that can be streamlined without RPA. This is important because automation requires well-defined tasks to plan resource allocation effectively. When nominating a process for automation, evaluate the time it currently takes for a human to complete it. For example, a four-hour manual process won't become instantaneous with RPA, but it will certainly be faster. The goal is to understand the time savings and resource allocation needed for the robot. This includes determining how frequently the robot should run and on what schedule.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
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Updated: February 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Automation Anywhere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.