Automation Anywhere Reviews

Our primary use cases are mainly around finance and accounting, so invoice processing, AP processing, those sorts of use cases. It's a quite wide use case but that's where we focus.

We work in the business process outsourcing arena, it has improved our organization mainly around freeing up people to do other things and that can be quite large numbers. It can be in the high tens, even hundreds of people that can be freed up to do other work.

The main processes that we have automated with this solution are order to cash, procure to pay and record to report. 

For us, it's about replacing repetitive dull tasks with technology, allowing users to be able to do more interesting aspects of their work that hold the most value. 

We work both attended and unattended bots amongst other automation so we very much look at the use case and see what's the best approach. Most of our solutions are a combination of the two.

We're in a digital world where everything's evolving. AI is coming out, so just looking at keeping moving, introducing new innovations into the product, nothing specific. The Automation Anywhere teams seem to know what the customers want.

Stability is good. I liken it to driving a Ferrari. If you drive a Ferrari down the freeway in second gear, it won't be very smooth and reliable, but if you know how to drive it properly, then you'll have a nice comfortable ride.

Scalability is about the right approach. It's not just about the technology, it's about the people, understanding the processes, putting everything in place to make sure you monitor and govern your bots. Scalability is not a problem as long as you're approaching it correctly.

We can scale from the bots to the pilot to the bots we're using very quickly. It can be a handful of weeks. Depends on the complexity of the process. We like to get things out there quickly because if it's going to take six months, then the business is going to go off and do other things. Our target is to get it done in a number of weeks.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's a great environment to use.

Our ROI is around productivity savings, agile headcount savings, but we also look at things like improvement in net promoter scores. Customer satisfaction is very important as well. There's no point necessarily just saving money if your customers aren't going to be any happier.

We have saved both time and money.

I'd give it a 10 out of 10.

You can automate the wrong process and you won't get any value. Make sure it's the right process and make sure it's a good process. Re-engineer, if you need to first.

The primary use case is from a compliance and regulatory standpoint.

We have been able to reduce our number of FTEs.

The ease of use is its most valuable feature.

While the ease of use for non-tech users is good, it could be improved.

I would like to see extensive OCR capabilities in the next release. That is a must.

They need to make the solution more robust.

The solution has been pretty stable.

It is pretty scalable, but it does depend on how you develop the bot.

The technical support is very good.

The initial setup is a little complex. For a person with a technical background, it is doable.

We have received 70 percent optimization using this solution.

I would recommend this solution. 

Look at the solution's capabilities and compare it to what your automation needs are.

It is leading the market from the automation standpoint.

We have several use cases for Automation Anywhere:

• Grab data from one site to another.
• We run all cache processes through it.
• We can get more information using IQ Bots.

The platform is easy to use, especially for business users.

I would like to see web and cloud-based platforms for future releases.

While it depends on the customer, it generally takes about two to two and a half months to scale up bots for production.

We are the integrator for deployment.

We have saved time and money using the solution.

Licensing costs range from $50,000 to $200,000.

There are five to six competitors in this market.

Make a list of all your processes before starting, then decide on two or three processes that you want to automate.

I have taken Automation Anywhere University courses. The new learning course model is more inviting and easier to use.

As a solution, RPA integrates well with other solutions.

It is very easy for us to work with the Citrix applications.

We mainly use it for development of finance operations, and it's been performing fairly well for the most part. We have 40 automations going right now and they run daily on the Bot Runner.

We've automated journal entries, bank reconciliations, different claims-accounting - a lot of finance processes. For example, we created a system where accountants can drop in journal entries and the journal entries will be read and posted to our system.

One of the processes we automated was that people who work in treasury would go into their email and download PDFs from their emails over and over. Sometimes there would be 200 or 300 emails that they would have to go through, and they would spend a whole day doing that. Now we have an automation that does it, and it only takes one or two hours, and it frees up their time too.

We have saved time or money using this solution, but I don't know how much. That information is tracked by my manager.

The most valuable feature of the product is the flexibility. There are so many features that you can use to develop; it can hit a lot of use cases.

In terms of the usability, the drag-and-drop, instead of being able to type, makes it hard for somebody with a programming background to get used to it. The drag-and-drop slows down development; I can't just keep my hands on my keyboard, I have to use my mouse as well.

The bot creation process is tedious. The solution has a lot of features, but since you have to drag down a lot of the commands, it can get tedious to use it. You end up having to use the mouse a lot more. You can't do it as fast as if, say, you just typed it out on a keyboard.

Since I do a lot of bot development, I'd like a different way to develop them, other than dragging the commands down. If there were a way to type out the commands, to make it a little bit easier or a little bit faster to create the automation, that would be good.

Integrating this solution with other applications is hit or miss, depending on the application. For some applications it's very easy and then sometimes, for others, it's very difficult. There are occasions when, the first time, the application doesn't work at all, so we have to use commands that are not as consistent.

The stability of the solution is hit or miss. It depends on what you're using it for. Sometimes it's very stable and you'll never have issues, but for some processes it may have issues, and you have to be able to fix them and develop it properly.

What we're trying to figure out right now is how to scale this. That's where the hardware comes in. For the most part, scaling with the application is more a matter of building the infrastructure around it.

To scale from pilot to the point where we are now, where we're developing three or four bots every two weeks, it took us six months. A lot of that was trial and error, creating our standards, and hiring developers to whom we could pass the projects.

Sometimes technical support has been very helpful and they've solved a problem very quickly, while sometimes it takes a month or a few weeks to get a problem solved.

The setup was complex because we didn't want to just start making bots immediately. We needed to build the infrastructure around it so that, in the future, it would be a lot easier for us. Once we had a process for how to build bots, it was a lot easier for us, and we had proper standards.

We used Neuralify. They helped a lot in getting us set up and it's been a good experience working with them.

I'm not 100 percent sure how we measure the ROI of a process we automate because a lot of that is handled by my manager. From what I know, we measure it based on time returned to the employee. Instead of calculating how much time it takes for the automation, we calculate how much time the employee was spending on this task beforehand, and now that we've moved it to an automated process, how much we have saved them.

Overall, I think we have seen ROI, but I don't have specifics.

On the shortlist we had UiPath, Blue Prism, and Automation Anywhere. They ended up using Automation Anywhere because it was the most flexible and the easiest to use.

Instead of trying to build a bot immediately, first build the infrastructure for how you want to build the bots. That way, when you scale in the future, it's a lot easier than trying to figure that out after you've already made multiple bots.

I have taken courses at the Automation Anywhere University, but for the most part the courses have been very basic. I had prior training, but when taking it again in the University, a lot of it was just going over the basics of Automation Anywhere.

Automation Anywhere is used by our customers for automation support.

Developers can easily utilize Automation Anywhere. For individuals with no prior knowledge, there is a university website available for training, and I also provide assistance in training my customers.

Automation Anywhere has a short learning curve. It takes five days to train new users.

We have seen the benefits of Automation Anywhere right from the start.

Automation Anywhere ability to provide automation at scale is good.

Automation Anywhere can quickly and easily integrate with RPA bots, APIs, and business applications.

It has helped our organization increase automation consumption.

The dashboards are excellent.

The regional distribution in Turkey can be improved.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for six years.

We have two customers who use Automation Anywhere on the cloud and two customers who use it on-premises.

Automation Anywhere is highly stable.

Scaling Automation Anywhere on-premises is difficult, but in the cloud, it becomes easier.

The technical support team is extremely responsive.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment can be completed by one person within an hour.

The implementation is completed in-house.

The cost of Automation Anywhere is high in Turkey due to the weak economy.

I rate Automation Anywhere a ten out of ten. I recommend Automation Anywhere to others.

APIs are easy to connect, and I highly recommend integrating APIs over robot process automation.

Automation Anywhere is easy to maintain and update.

We maintain 50 bots, and each of them requires five minutes to install.

I have used AA to automate various business processes varying from HR and AR teams to Sales.

Starting with HR, we have automated various processes from auto-downloading the data and uploading it to a database without human intervention, to combining multiple file data into one.

For the AR team, we have automated the process to download data from the server and generate the AR report, then updating the dashboards for senior management.

For Sales, we created a form where the Bid Manager would update pursuit details and the tool would pull that data and then send the request to required teams for SPOC allocation.

For HR, the automated download and upload of data (every half hour) resulted in getting the latest performance data to the BPHRs in real-time, as per their access. This helped in saving the manual effort every time a report is asked for including the downloading and sharing of data, as per the access. This way, the BPHRs would directly log into the dashboard and see the data.

Similar effort savings were recorded in other processes as well. Automation of such tasks helped in clearing the bandwidth of the users and requestors alike and saved a lot of to and fro just asking for the latest data.

Automation also resulted in tracking, analytics, and defining a structure for the processes that would help in faster onboarding and easier handover.

Object cloning, Excel, web recorders, database, if-else, loops, and string are some of the most commonly used commands, by me.

Pulling data from web pages using Object Cloning has been an absolute delight. It is very accurate and runs flawlessly.

Up until v11, the Excel commands were very limited compared to what Excel has to offer. We had to use macros mostly, to cover up the gap and avoid using keystrokes. However, A2019 has Excel Advance, which has a lot more functions and covers that gap significantly. 

We are still exploring all the new features and functions of A2019, but one thing I noticed was that it has introduced variable type. While helpful at certain places, I miss the previous method, where one variable can handle any type include a string, numerical, or boolean value.

If the option were available to use the old generic-style variable type, it would be helpful. Now, I need to create one variable for holding a numerical value and convert it to a string value to display it on a message box, which is a little inconvenient. This is purely based on past experience. Once I get used to it, I might find it better and more convenient.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for the last three years. Started with v10 to exploring vA2019, AA has come a long way with excellent features and updates with A2019.

For the HR process, a macro script was created to download data. But the main requirement was that the screen should be locked. As in the working of the tool should not be visible to people around. Hence, the macro script was not working, on lock screen as expected. This is why we moved to AA.

We able to able to replicate the downloading of files and uploading it to database using object cloning and database functions provided by AA.

Most of our ROIs were calculated based on the FTE hours saved since the teams were internal. for some projects it was around 4 hours weekly to 13 hours weekly for others.

The Sales team would take care about pricing, since other teams were also using AA. Licensing was modified based on the runners needed as per the projects. Number of developer licenses were fixed.

We had somebody to teach us about AA, so we directly started with it.

We use automation for a tax invoice process, finance process, and human resource process.

In the tax process, it collects all tax invoices from a folder, then AA reads a QR code on the document to confirm, then extracts it to an Excel sheet for the success process and failed process.

For finance, AA calculates the tax type on each project. After that, AA inputs the data into the ERP system for further processing.

For the HR department, AA will shortlist the candidates on the portal. It will then send an email to qualified candidates to follow further instructions for testing. Then, AA will collect the results of the test and send them to the HR staff to process further.

On the tax, finance, and HR processes, AA will automate collecting documents, then extract them into an Excel file, and also do the confirmation using a QR code. In the past, these processes were completed by three or four staff over one to two days. Using automation, these processes are completed in between one and two hours, using one robot. With these savings in time, the staff can do more in other areas. 

These advantages improve staff productivity and creativity. It also means that they do not need more overtime. As a result, it will impact positively on the company overall. 

It's a cloud-based solution, so we do not need any on-premises server. Having a cloud-based deployment provides more flexibility because we just need an internet connection for connecting the agent into the AA cloud.

For a few workflow processes that need credentials, AA provides more security for this. Their encryption is to ensure that our credentials are always secure and cannot be accessed by unauthorized people.

The dashboard can be accessed by several roles. User monitoring, for example, can view the dashboard, watch how many robots have failed, and other stats, but they cannot change how the robot works.

For the short term, in this pandemic era, they should have a feature to write and save directly into Word documents, Office 365, or Google Docs. As it is now, it can only save to Excel files.

In the long term, in the cloud era, it would be great if they had an API or connection into other cloud services, such as SaaS, IaaS, or PaaS. This would mean that their automation ecosystem would be more complex, helping to improve our productivity and creativity.

We have been using Automation Anywhere for about a year.

Stability-wise, this is a good product.

The scalability is good.

We have not yet tried to contact technical support.

Before AA, all of our processes were done manually.

The initial setup is straightforward, as this is a cloud-based deployment.

We implemented using an in-house team.

Our ROI is approximately USD $40k to $50k.

The cost of this solution is a little bit high, but it is worth the price.

We evaluated UiPath before choosing Automation Anywhere.

So far, all the features and services match today's technology, and we expect it will remain current for at least the next two to three years. I hope that they keep this great work on RPA.

The primary use case of this solution is that we are automating repetitive processes such as daily currency calculation, data entry in the EPR system, email reading and sorting data, extracting data from webpages, and extracting data from invoices.

We also use automation for data massaging on Excel data, database connectivity, PDF data extraction, scheduling bots, and the validation of extracted data from webpage or invoices.

We use error handling to point out which of the bots are failing. 

We are using v11, A2019, and IQ Bot. 

With the help of Automation Anywhere, our organizational efficiency has increased. We have automated HR-related tasks such as CV shortlisting and salary slip generation processes. This has decreased our time consumption for these tasks.

We have also improved our clients' organizations by automating repetitive processes. With this, the ROI has increased and the overall time consumed by processes is reduced. We now use this manpower for other important tasks.

Human intervention is not required for most of the processes and also, they are auto-scheduled.

The most valuable features are data extraction and entry into webpages, extracting data from unstructured invoices, email sorting and attachment downloading, Excel actions, database connectivity, IQ Bot for extracting data from invoices, connectivity with ERP applications, as the REST and SOAP web services.

With the help of these features, we can automatically fetch data from invoices and websites, which is followed by the automated data entry into the webpage and ERP system.

Excel actions help us for automating work on Excel workbooks.

The A2019 Community version does not fully support Mozilla Firefox, as it has problems when you try to capture data from the Firefox window. 

I would like to see more features added in the Community editions to improve developer hands-on practice. 

When you try to capture an error snapshot in A2019, it's not capturing the proper data compared to V11. 

The Recorder action in the A2019 Community edition is not supported. 

If we refresh the window then it does not show the Chrome window title in the list. This only works on Internet Explorer.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for the last two years.

The technical support team was helpful at the time of installation and setup. Whenever we are stuck, the support team's help is very important.

I haven't used an RPA solution other than Automation Anywhere.

The initial setup was straightforward. With help of the Automation Anywhere technical support team, it is easy to set up.

We implemented using the vendor team. The level of expertise is very good, and they help very well.

The setup cost for this is onetime and licensing is based on your choice of product.

We evaluated Blue Prism and UiPath before choosing Automation Anywhere.

Overall, the product is very good where the repetitive tasks are more in manufacturing industries and the finance department. It is the best solution for any type of industry to automate their repetitive process, leading to increased ROI and reduced time consumption.