Automation Anywhere Reviews

We are working with our clients using this solution. Often, they are automating some of their retail and marketing processes, including the generation of bills and statements in finance.

Our clients are using a hybrid cloud, with their own VM environment.

One of the recent projects that I worked on was for a complex financial process in a bank. It involved automating several manual processes. The data had to be retrieved from SAP by means of a file and then imported into an Excel worksheet. My suggestion included implementing an SQL server and then automating the process using this solution. Instead of the series of manual tasks, they now only have to verify the final result, and it makes life much easier.

We are assisting our clients by improving the way they do things. This is a great platform, and we are implementing the logic into the bots that they are using to automate.

The user interface and tools are good.

In the next release of this solution, I would like to see more OCR agents included.

My customers would like to use the IQ Bot without having to invest more money in purchasing another license. If it is not possible to include IQ Bot in the basic package then, at least, the OCR features and the TaskBot can be enhanced. This would allow us to include small-scale industry, as well as large organizations.

There is an issue with security where users can see the values in the credential vault. Because of this, we don't see the point in creating values inside the vault.

This system should be able to handle situations with very there are very large volumes of data in Excel.

Stability depends on your skillset, and how you have written the code in terms of logic and handling errors. If you have built the code properly, in a systematic way as it requires, then it will definitely be stable. If instead you randomly do things that you needed to be done today, I don't think the stability of the bot will be very good.

Stability is good now, although we have had problems in the past. For example, when we were processing very large amounts of data in Excel, Automation Anywhere failed. The volume was in the millions of rows of data.

The scalability of this solution is good compared to others.

We have not used technical support for this solution.

In addition to this solution, I have good knowledge of Blue Prism and UiPath.

Initially, I found the setup of this solution to be complex.

Before getting started we had to install the SQL server and perform the migration. Then, it involved user accounts. You have to create a new user and add the details, which is quite complex. Then, whenever you are installing the Enterprise Edition, you have to perform setup that includes the IIS settings. Overall, it was quite hectic, and some of the people were not able to do it.

The implementation of this solution is something that we assist our clients with, but it depends on the situation. Different organizations have different ways of implementing. For the most part, I create the packages and give my work to the COA teams, and they finish it themselves. When they are not able to do that, we help them further.

We are using MetaBots as well as TaskBots.

There are lots of features that are still not there in version 11. I know that version 12 is coming, but I do not know much about it.

This is a solution that I recommend. We began with the free license, but if you are going to use Automation Anywhere then you have to purchase the license. It's an investment. With UiPath, the development license is free, so it depends on the situation. In general, if the client is ready for automation then I suggest this solution.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Automation Anywhere is removing the boring, repetitive tasks from the workforce.

I've worked on different models over different frameworks. 

I do the coding as well as the deployment side. I prepare documents and the user ID. Sometimes, if the user ID is not prepared, then I jump into the process to get it done. With the technical feasibility of the document, I take the technical feasibility and do an estimation to code the bot. I configure the bot, then code it according to the entity and get it reviewed from the client. Then, I run the bot through the Hapi port, as well as different scenarios which might come up.

Once the client is happy, we have a couple of rounds of testing. We have a "You Ready" phase where we code for a few days and the client provides data. We run through the data and this give them the technical results. When they're happy, then we finally move the code over.

One of the clients that I worked with to automate their process received invoices from 12 different companies and different regions. These are the process steps that we automated:

1. We could get the data from PDFs (the invoices were in a PDF format).
2. We accepted the data, uploaded it, and filtered out some of the data. 
3. Once we extracted the data, we use it to search data on particular websites for a particular invoice number to be processed. 
   
4. We used the invoice number to process the invoice.
5. We got approval for the invoice. 

I worked on another process where it generated offer letters for different people with templates. We would get the data in a dump. We would take that data put it into a template, and then into a Word file.

With another client, we used to receive around a million files. Per day, we would have to process around 70,000 to 80,000 records, uploading data where the volume was huge. We deployed the process in multiple bots, using about 20 bots to get the process done. For this client, every second used mattered. We had to code the bot in such a way that we could save every second for them. We had to figure out how much time the bot took and the cost savings for any particular data. We used the workload feature of Automation Anywhere get it done. The manual process took around 30 to 40 people around five to six hours a day, where the bot finishes between one to one a half hours. This was a huge time savings for the client.

For the client with 70,000 to 80,000, we created an SQL database to maintain all their records using bots. E.g., if a bot failed, then another bot would retry using the same information. In the "You Ready" phase, this process was 95 to 98 percent successful. When we finally moved it to production, we had between 99 to 100 percent accuracy. This took us around one and a half months to set up. Two development levels were involved along with an architect who was guiding us.

The most valuable feature is the object cloning. If you compare it to the other RPA tools, object cloning in Automation Anywhere is the most valuable. Mainly for web application, object cloning comes in very handy. Most processes are built as either a website or as a desktop application. Out of 800 commands, around 150 to 200 will be cloned through object cloning. In Automation Anywhere object cloning, there is a special feature called DOMXPATH, where we can customize it to any level. If IDs getting changed, which happens in some cases, then we find out the pattern. Based on the pattern, we come to the particular text box and button. Then, we can use bots along with parent-sibling relationships to get things done. 

I like that it has PGP Command and it is able to connect to a Citrix environment. 

We have the MetaBot feature, which is valuable because we can read reusable components in the MetaBot, then use them as a framework.

The training and resources for this tool are very good. They are so simple that anyone can easily learn it. One of the tool values is its ease of use.

The Excel part needs improvement because we use it as a database. Right now, we are using UiPath for this feature, as that RPA tool allows us to sort, search, and filter in Excel databases. 

The IQ Bot is pretty immature, in regards to AI and machine learning. I would like them to add additional logic.

I have been using it for almost two years now.

Automation Anywhere is quite reliable and stable, especially compared to the other RPA tools. E.g., with UiPath, code that was working yesterday might not work today.

We have experience minor issues with Automation Anywhere, such as with the object cloning, where it required us to restart the machine. Once the machine was rebooted, the solution worked fine.

It takes one or two people to handle the daily maintenance of this solution.

We code our bots with tasks and subtasks in such a way that we can easily combine them when new features come up.

The initial setup is pretty simple and fast. It can be done from the web Control Room, which can be done easily.

For coding, we are keeping the information in XLS or XML files. We use MetaBot to retrieve the data. We keep our URLs in an Excel file, so when we go to our production environment that it will automatically take the URLs and implement them.

One or two people can deploy the solution easily if they understand the requirements.

In most of the cases, the product value is very good. If the infrastructure, implementation, and framework are good, then generally, the client can get a good return on investment. However, getting good resources is tough since most people have limited experience in RPA products who struggle a lot to use these tools.

The coding for Automation Anywhere is a lot easier than for UiPath and Blue Prism. I have about a year and half of experience with UiPath. Compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere is easy to use and bot development is faster. If you try to develop the same bots in UiPath, development of the same bots in Automation Anywhere will be faster. If the client wants the bots to be developed very quickly, we will do it Automation Anywhere. However, if they give us time, then we will us UiPath. If the process is huge and complex, then we go with Blue Prism.

Another key advantage of Automation Anywhere is the object drawing feature. This comes in very handy. Whereas, if we use UiPath, we have to use the .NET code and commands versus Automation Anywhere where can use scripts or create MetaBots. 

Companies need to do feasibility testing to avoid trying to automate processes which are not right for automation. Then, they should examine which vendor is the right one for the automation process, e.g., Automation Anywhere or UiPath. They need to establish the proper infrastructure for the RPA product, like licenses and an RPA team. The RPA can be a mixture of trained professionals and people who are learning as they go from the training provided by the tool.

Version 11.3 updated a lot of features that were previously not there, like workload automation and analytics dashboards.

I am always learning new things with this tool.

We have a lot of use cases, mostly for repetitive processes. We have automated processes for loans, moving money across accounts, and transferring money between our institution to another.

It has helped us look at how our processes are organized.

The ease of use is the most valuable feature.

The object cloning that exists cannot capture 80 percent of the objects that we need it to capture.

We are running the old 10.5 version. Sometimes, we get stuck with it.

With our current version, we are experiencing issues with the access of the Control Room. Therefore, at the moment, we cannot really scale.

The person who is working on our architecture is not always available.

We have only ever used Automation Anywhere.

We are having issues with setting up the newest version. It doesn't install, and there are not a lot of things to do with it.

We used a consulting agency, who did not have good knowledge about the product and bots, such as basic principles of coding and error handling. This was surprising, as these were IT personnel. We felt that sometimes we were training the consultants from the agency on how to implement the product.

We looked at Automation Anywhere and UiPath. Blue Prism also approach us. This was to do the PoC. 

Automation Anywhere was the simplest solution, and it offered us immediate support.

With the current version that we have, I cannot rate the solution more than a six out of a ten.

The primary use case is for automating our mortgage and loan origination processes. 

We brought onshore a lot of what we were doing offshore, saving our company close to $20 million.

Centralized automation is its most valuable feature.

The bot creation process is relatively simple.

It is reasonably useful for developers. It can be a challenge for a developer, as it limits what they can do.

I would like centralized orchestration and better exception handling in the next release.

Because of the stability of the application and how it interacts with some of our legacy applications, it does cause difficulties.

The stability of the solution is getting better. We have had some issues with the Control Room stability, which makes it harder for us to manage the bots. This is in recent versions.

We are scaling up, but I don't think that we are scaling correctly.

The technical support is solid. They are pretty responsive.

The setup is mostly straightforward.

We used Ernest & Young for the deployment. They helped us get a lot of the work done.

We measure ROI through time and labor savings (FTEs). 

We save time through our reduction in cycle time: 30 to 35 days.

We looked at Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism.

Have your business plan well-developed.

The solution is reasonably wide open, so it integrates quite well with other solutions.

The IQ Bots are of limited use to us right now.

We don't use AISense, and the version of the application that we use isn't capable with Citrix.

We are automating repetitive, manual processes that don't add value to people's work. Also, we want to improve our risk management through quality and efficiency.

We have an automation that we just put in production where we are doing a double-blind quality review. The bot is comparing the two entries and kicking out a large number of exceptions for human review. We have saved a large number of hours every day by not having humans look at things that match.

The ability to build automation without coding is its most valuable feature.

We have had some quirkiness happen when integrating the Automation Anywhere with other solutions, such as weird Excel issues or temperamental legacy system issues.

Our division took a couple of months to scale up our bots, when we were expecting it to take weeks. However, what we did was fairly complicated.

I have not had a lot of experience with their technical support.

We measure ROI by comparing hours saved to the cost of FTEs.

We have found the product useful. We are using it and have implement it. However, it is not perfect, and we have found that there are some frustrations.

The developers who work for me find the solution fairly easy to use. Though, I do have developers who prefer typing stuff in rather than dragging and dropping. Generally, they picked up the solution quickly.

For the bot creation process, we ask the end user, "Don't tell me how you do something, show me what you do." Then, as IT personnel, we build it.

We have not taken any courses through Automation Anywhere University yet.

We have been creating a lot of bots for the finance department. At this time, we are trying to use the TaskBots and MetaBots, not IQ Bots. 

As of now, we have automated processes from the finance, accounting, treasury, and tax departments.

An example of how it has saved time: I know 10 to 12 accountants who were doing a lot of day-to-day manual tasks. Once we implemented the Automation Anywhere into my company, we freed up a lot of their time, so they could work on other processes. 

I like the OCR feature, where we can capture information from PDFs.

The commands provides by Automation Anywhere make the tool easy to use.

I know Automation Anywhere is available for front-end applications, but I don't know how it deals with the back-end. If they are sending technology which comes through to the back-end, that would be a big evolution in the industry.

Citrix is only in the development stage. Automation Anywhere could put some time into improving this more.

The stability is good.

We started with zero bots. In our first cycle, we developed around eight bots. In our second cycle, we created around five or six bots. Now, we are on our third bot cycle.

The technical support is good. They try to get back to us within one to two days. Once they do respond, everything is good.

The initial setup was complex.

Initially, we used an implementer for the deployment. Now, we do everything on our own.

We measure ROI by how much we are saving for our internal people.

Compared to the other competitors' tools that I have been experienced with for bot creation, Automation Anywhere is user-friendly.

I have taken Automation Anywhere University courses. They are simple and detailed. The courses include videos and quiz questions.

We want to learn more about IQ Bots going forward.

Right now, we have two business units which use it for automation, mostly for:

• Back office
• Shared services automation
• Accounts payable
• Accounts receivable
• Most finance functions.

We have two different business units which have already begun their journey. One has been doing it for two years, and another one for one year. We have another two business units which will be beginning their journeys this Summer. Certainly, the value of it has been proven already in the business units which have already started their journeys. They have seen the value in terms of automating some of their redundant, important processes. This has allowed some of their users to move onto more value-added activities.

The most valuable feature is that it is intuitive. It is designed so business users can use it with a drag and drop functionality to develop automation of business processes. Since they are the experts on business processes, there are probably the best ones to create the automation.

They designed the bot creation process where we can drag and drop and all of the commands are available to us on the left side of the screen, but in some ways, it can be overwhelming. There is a lot at a developer's fingertips to do their development process.

I would like the ability to extract the code. You can go line by line, then open up each line of code and dig into the details, but it would be nice to extract all of the lines of code and all of the details into a document so we could read through everything. Right now, there is no way to really consume all of the code at once, except line by line, which can be fairly time consuming if we don't really know what we are looking for.

As we deploy more solutions and take advantage of some of the features, like the Credential Vault, where we are introducing new administrative processes, we continue to have to go in and change passwords on a monthly basis. Tools that would make these administrative tasks more streamlined is an area where Automation Anywhere could really add value.

I love the new features that they're offering and the direction that they're going. We've tried to deploy some of them. Sometimes, we're running into some bugs in different things, so they haven't worked out all of the kinks yet. Hopefully, they can get some of these things resolved and continue introducing new features like they have been.

Our first business unit who started their journey two years ago went from one bot initially to about 55 over a two-year period. Typically, they were averaging a new bot about every two to three weeks. That was with a team of five to six people sort of dedicated to the process. We have had consistent growth with our numbers over that time.

We have been pleased with the technical support. Their response times, capabilities, and patience when working with us, taking the time to understand the issues, and helping us to resolve them. This has improved over time. We are encouraging our users to use them as a resource when they do have questions or problems.

I was involved in setting up our upgraded environment for the new version. The documentation that they provided us was very thorough. We chose to go back to our integrator (our consulting company) to help us build our new environment, just so we would have ready resources available if we ran into questions. However, in this situation, we were able, from start to finish, to build the new environment without many problems, by just following the documentation.

We did initially use an integrator (consulting company) to do our training. That was a very important part of the process, and it helped us be successful.

Automation Anywhere is a great tool. I have been in IT for 30 years, and am amazed at how far we have come with technology and tools to help us do our jobs. The ease of use and the power which the product offers you in a matter of minutes, if not just an hour, and what you can create with it.

It integrations really well with other applications, as long as you have access from the same computer which you're running the software on to your other systems. Then, it can interact with those other systems just as if you were any user who is on that same computer. From this aspect, it is more powerful than other tools which I am familiar with.

We are just starting to look into the solution's cognitive document processing by doing a proof of concept.

Early on, I did try a few of the Automation Anywhere University courses, mainly to get familiar with what was available, so I could guide others to the website for training. At this point, there hadn't been much there that I needed for myself. However, we have looked at the courses, and we are encouraging a lot of our business users to take advantage of the tools.

The important thing about any RPA tool is it has to be a collaborative effort between IT and the business. It needs to be driven by the business, or it won't be successful. An important overall goal or strategy to have as you start your journey: Have good buy-in and ownership from the business. They have to want to do this and take advantage of this new tool.

We use it for multiple internal processes across multiple functions.

We work with good people who have very defined goals and very defined approaches of how to execute and achieve their goals.

Automation Anywhere takes a lot of mundane, competitive work out of the hands of people, increasing the quality, because it is consistent. It also enables us to have patience with these manual processes.

It has the ability to tag different components within the automation. We built it to track the ROI and stability of the product.

I find attended automation useful.

The product is not the best that it could be. There is always room to improve it a bit more. They are heading in the right direction with their innovations. 

It is very stable. The stability of the solution also has to do with how good the developers are from Automation Anywhere and on the user side. So, we've seen an increase in stability, not from the tool, but from the level of the people which are working on it. As our people work with Automation Anywhere, they learn from past mistakes. They have been able to configure the bots better, which then fail less, making them more stable.

It is definitely scalable. What we found worked for us to make it scalable was it has to be programmed by an architect, as opposed to letting it just be in the hands of the masses trying to solve it. This has been our approach. 

It took us eight months to a year to scale from zero bots to 100.

We mostly use our own technical support. 

When we do escalate issues to Automation Anywhere, we have a good relationship with them.

We did not switch from what we previously had.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We did the deployment.

We measure our ROI through money and time saved. That's how we measure the product's value. We look at the hours performed by humans, and those hours have a cost associated with them. We multiply our transactions by the number of hours it used to take by humans.

Time-wise: We have saved hundreds of thousands of hours.

We chose Automation Anywhere because they are best in class.

Do your research thoroughly.

We are still using people who can figure our bots as their profession. We have not release the product from the ground up.

We don't use the Bot Store.