Automation Anywhere Reviews

We use AA for automating ServiceNow tickets in Caterpillar.

We get tickets for the configuration requests. Using AA, we auto-download the excel attached to it and do all the necessary cleanup and conversions. 

The entire process in steps as mentioned below:

1. A ServiceNow ticket is created by the client that needs a configuration request related to Caterpillar machines.

These machines are called lane 2 and lane 3 because they are manual configurations

2. Once we get the configuration we then try to match the configuration with all the parts and whether the configuration would be possible or not.

For that, we use SOAP where all our latest data is loaded.

This data is compared with the Excel sheet that client sends us.

The cleanup is done in Automation Anywhere, compared to end to end, and then output is thrown out. This output is then given back to the clients in the form of a ticket attachment to let them know if the configuration of the machine that they have requested is possible or not.

Automation Anywhere has saved us a lot of time, money & efforts by automating our ServiceNow tickets.

We expect to save more time by expanding to other verticals very soon. The other verticals include sending automated replies to the executives using the Power BI dashboards through alerts. We have not yet explored this aspect completely but sooner or later we have a lot of BI needs that will be catered by Automation Anywhere.

In the past, we have also done PoCs for the client that helped the executives run automated scripts every Monday using pre-built SQL commands in the data warehouse.

• Create automation tasks like recording keyboard strokes and mouse clicks.
• Distribute tasks to multiple computers.

Also, the document management processes that IQ Bot gives has very good functionality of how you can actually take unstructured data and make sense out of it, connecting inferences, then making the data available to the user. So, IQ Bot is one of the best tools that I can think of in that aspect. This solves the problem of various document structures, document formats, etc.

Hoping to see AA get more robust with time.

Handwritten documents are still a drawback to read.

Regarding the UI, once you're on some of the screens there are fixed dialogues, they are a set size, so there's a lot of horizontal scrolls and vertical scrolls. If I want to do something that is purely business-related and is somewhat complex to write or is nuanced, I sometimes have trouble implementing that inside of the Automation Anywhere script. I feel limited at times with some of the looping and some of the branching and some of the ways to make procedure calls when I have a complex business issue.

Also, there's a loss of overhead of the computing resources in Automation Anywhere. If you have an encrypted bot, the Automation Anywhere software has to read it first, decrypt it, and run it. So there is a potential that, if the logic of the bot isn't good enough, a lot of CPU and memory overload will happen. This is something that Automation Anywhere should look at because it takes a lot of computing resources. I have seen CPUs running at 100%.

I have been using AA for three years. 

Very good.

Very good.

Very good.

We have only used AA as AA has a partnership with Deloitte and Deloitte promotes using AA. 

We have liked AA very much.

The setup was straighforward.

In-house.

We have seen at least 30 % savings in time and 12% saving in costs.

We are not into advisory. We only use the tool.

We are waiting to see AA progress further with more robust solutions.

We mainly use it for Financial Documents processing to conduct payments to registered Vendors. Invoice reception via a central mailbox on the server; Extraction of said PDF invoices via the IQ Bot cognitive platform using the ABBY OCR, as it is by far the most effective for our processing requirement; Consolidation of each individually extracted file into a central Batch processing file; Upload of central batch processing file into a stand-alone approval system, developed on IBM Xpages; Approval of uploaded files, from a central batch file, for payment; Upload of each invoice record in a third-party processing system such as Sage Evolution / SAP. Payment is done via a batch file generated by a third-party payment application.

AA has enabled faster processing of a series of manual operations and/or procedures. Cognitive capabilities are severely reduced or highly inaccurate, the Cognitive platform requires major attention regarding how data is captured, retained for future extractions as well as how these extractions are validated. There is a somewhat problematic functionality for various commands within AA, these commands do not have a consistent functionality one execution within some external third-party software such as Sage Evolution, XBRL for CaseWare, and CaseClient.

The MetaBots are by far the most effective system within AA. Due to the fact that no scripting is required and only the passing of variables or values to get a definite result. IQ Bot with the ABBY OCR is a powerful component to do multiple extractions in the shortest possible timeframe in comparison to human execution of similarly identified tasks or operations. 

The Recorder functionality is extremely useful and relatively straightforward enough to use, albeit a bit restrictive in its functionality.

IQ Bot requires a significant improvement for its data detection and data retention, mainly from the previously trained documents: regarding the document's format, layout, data contained within the document, the type of data that needs to be extracted. Object cloning commands require a significant improvement in its functionality. It is far too inconsistent with execution within the same application. Plugins for web browsers should be a single plugin that allows for the connectivity and functionality of both the v11/v12 and A2019 software, or at best, allows for both the A2019 and v11/v12 plugins to run on the same client browser simultaneously.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for roughly two years.

The current solution is not very stable due to multiple developers working on the initial development, it would be far more efficient if a small group of developers had worked on this specific project.
The solution should be more stable with a limited number of developers working on the current project. The current project would become more accurate and efficient if the functionality of the current commands could be updated to function more effectively and not stop working on a bi-weekly basis. Soe days the commands work without any problems and some days these same commands stop working and breaks the current processing cycle.

Scalability in our current solution is low but has massive room for growth.

The technical is relatively fast to respond and guidance offered is oftentimes sufficient. Time-zone difference is a major issue as this delays the response from an available technician. No guaranteed solution for cases raised, oftentimes workarounds are the only suggested action with multiple of those resulting in no success on the issue raised.

No previous solution used, as a manual process previously.

The initial setup was extremely complex as no assistance or guidance could be found online for my system.

The setup was done through an in-house team consisting of the current developer and a single IT technician.

Know ahead of time what capabilities you are going to require and plan accordingly to determine the total number of user licenses and development licenses required.

Other options were considered such as Blue Prism and Ui Path, but the capabilities of AA far surpass those platforms based on cost.

Documentation online is severely lacking, have commented on this before in support cases. The online documentation is far too generic, with no linking to relevant or in-depth forums on similar topics.

I am a developer and I have developed bots mainly for insurance companies. Most insurance companies in my country usually have big problems trying to transfer data from one application to another, this hence has made it very difficult for them to be up to date with their entry. Usually, they are faced with a one month lag since they employ humans to do the work for them. 

In addition to this, the data transfer usually contains a series of errors, and in that area accuracy is very key. A slight mistake can end up ruining things big time .

Our company's reputation has made it easy to improve recently after beginning to offer RPA services to clients.

Before AA, the insurance companies used to do data manually from one app to another, but after introducing them to automation the speed and accuracy have been outstanding. They had a lot of workload hanging around. 

After automating the process, my company has been able to acquire new clients who are interested in automating their processes using automation anywhere. This hence means more work for us which is always a good thing.

1. I would say business analytics, it provides real-time data that's something other competing companies lack. It uses statistics and graphs to show the performance of the bots which processes are lagging behind and if you need to give priority to certain tasks. 

2. The control room and the bot creator - the control which is the brain is a powerful feature that allows administrators to be able to control how the bots work, create users, and be able to give roles to a user. 

The bot creator allows developers to be able to customize bots according to the client's needs 

Most clients use systems which use old Java versions, trying to automate on these systems is really difficult since most features/commands are not supported. Java earlier than 1.7 cannot work something and most firms I have interacted with their systems are old. Another thing according to Automation Anywhere, it's main aim is not to change the client's system but to be used on top of the existing one hence Automation Anywhere should consider those clients since in my country most of them use systems which date back to 2000, and they are not willing to spend another fortune to change them just so they can use Automation Anywhere.

Additional features: Automation Anywhere should add a couple of commands which will help most developers not to always use a script, a good example is in String operations.

I have been using AA for two years. 

This solution is stable, as of now, I can't complain about anything but more attempts to make it more stable would be okay maybe I haven't encountered one yet but I'm sure it's flawless when it comes to stability.

Definitely would like it, scalability means more new features.

Most customers we've interacted with at first are usually not certain about automation but immediately we do a proof of concept, they are eager to implement. 

I have only used Automation Anywhere and I love it.

It was straightforward.

It was an in-house one.

Anything above 50%. Most clients cannot go for anything less.

I usually advise them not to worry about the overall cost since the outcome will be profitable.

Yes, I had considered UiPath.

I like the way Automation Anywhere has migrated from v11 to a2019 my concern is about bots in a2019, once you delete them it's impossible to get them back.

We primarily use the solution for universal scanning. As an example, the solution can take various service provider bills and will allow us to view all of them in Excel format. That's a very basic use case.

In SAP, there are many similar regular tasks that are done regularly. In human resources, we created several core SAP systems so that the basic users, in human resources can reduce redundancies by 10 times with very little cost. We actually didn't expect that outcome. It was a nice surprise.

It depends on the use case, however, I'd say the most valuable aspect of the solution is the IQ Bot. 

Normally, you just scan the invoice. However, what makes Automation Anywhere different from other services is machine learning, which includes AI. It's easier and more convenient. 

We can include Python programming language too for getting better results.

The solution provides a Community Edition to all the users. It's a great jumping-off point to learn about automation. There are some features that are reduced, however, it's still quite good.

The insights provided by the dashboard are excellent.

If I build a bot today and don't use it, however, in several months, someone tries to use it, there's a 30-40% change the bot will fail in one or two areas. I'm still trying to figure out why. It's on a ticket right now. It may be due to updates or changes to the environment. I'm not sure.

The solution lacks in the approval process area. They need to provide more solutions.

I've been using the solution for about two years.

The stability is pretty good. The only place it lags is if a bot is made and then not used for many months. Then there can be errors. Other than that, it's got excellent stability.

The solution is quite scalable, however, it all depends, from customer to customer and what their actual requirements are.

We have about ten to 15 people who use the solution regularly. We also have an administrator who oversees everything.

We plan to expand across both the enterprise and A2019 versions. Currently, we're just exploring its capabilities more and more.

The technical support is excellent. I'd rate it ten out of ten. At first, we did run into a lot of issues, and the support team was very kind. They were also very helpful and responsive. We're quite satisfied with their level of service.

I work with RPA technology and have knowledge of multiple companies including Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, Webpack, and multiple other vendors. However, in this company, we've only ever used Automation Anywhere.

I've worked with the free version of Blue Prism for tasks like sending email. It was fine and worked without issue.

The initial setup is not complex. It's also not straightforward.

If someone is an automation novice, for him to set everything up, he must be very clear and aware of the ports. It's advisable to meet the system requirements. If the system requirements fail, there may be challenges on the system and some features may not work or could potentially work if some adjustments also get made. There needs to be a mastery of the technical network like ports and servers.

If I implement it now, if I just install the automation in my server, then it's a one one-time installation

The deployment time isn't too long. It may just take two or three hours if someone is completely aware of what we are doing.

In order to deploy the solution, one person is enough. You don't need a whole big team.

I don't have any information about the pricing or licensing on offer. It's my understanding that there's different pricing, depending on how many licenses a client needs. It's very flexible. If a client just needs a certain aspect, they can just get a license for that.

Automation Anywhere has two different versions, or, rather, two different products. One is the Automation Anywhere Enterprise Edition which is only on-premise. Automation Anywhere also has another service that is called A2019, which can be deployed on-premise. 

One of the main differences between the Enterprise Edition of Automation Anywhere is the dollar policy shop. In there, they can't create or customize our own comment. With A2019, you have an option to create our own comments. A2019 is more flexible. I'd advise new users to go for that version, as opposed to the enterprise version.

Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We use the platform to help our customers by building automation solutions in order to solve their business problems. The use cases include AP processing, form data extraction, data collection, and Excel reporting.

We use a combination of RPA and IQ Bot to deal with semi-structured or unstructured data, such as documents and images. We also use Bot Insights for business process analytics and bot operation health checks.

The platform is deployed using an on-premise configuration and connected to multiple bot runners, running in virtualized environments. 

We found that RPA with additional AI capabilities, such as machine learning and Computer Vision, can enable the organization to augment existing business operations by creating efficiencies and improving the accuracy of data to be processed, without changing too much of the existing system.

This will reduce the change cost and help business units to elevate their existing teams, processes, and systems so that they can focus on higher-value tasks that require creativity to perform.

The handwriting recognition capability in IQ Bot is particularly interesting, as we can see a high level of accuracy in extracting handwritten texts. 

The IQ Bot component has enabled the business to quickly identify the different documents and provide the ability to integrate with in-house or external AI functions. This enables us to extend the initial document extraction facility to transform the information into key decision-making attributes. The document training facility has made it easy to identify select-extract the components on the documents and it is also capable to recognize handwriting context with the help of pre-configured Azure AI services. 

The improvements that we could see would be the increased stability of each A2019 releases and reduce the likely impact on existing features. We are also looking to see improvements in the upgrade and bot deployment processes to make them easier and less interaction with back end servers. 

We are also to see more features to be added to seamlessly transition between human and bot tasks in the long-running process. We are also keen to see the new AARI feature develop into a voice-enabled command activation to run the bot process. 

We have been using Automation Anywhere for more than a year, ever since its release in 2019. 

The A2019 in early releases had been quite unstable to our experience. However, since A2019.14 there seem to be improvements in this area and so far we haven’t seen any major issues that impact the existing features we are using. For any of the new features, we suggest to always check on the release notes and understand the limitations of the features before using them in your solution. 

The technical support team has been prompt and helpful in addressing issues coming out of the platform. There is a limitation in having multiple admin accounts to view the same ticket information but we were told that a new improved system will be implemented to address this limitation. 

We use a process-based workflow automation solution and we actually still use them to deal with long-running processes as they have more extensive features to deal with workflow-based problems. However, we see RPA can help in complementing the process by automating the mundane tasks of the process and getting greater efficiency for the business as well as reducing the likelihood of human errors. 

The installation is quite straightforward as they provide us with an installer package that guides you through using wizards. But the pre and post-installation process can be quite complex and laborious depending on what features you need to enable. In some cases, these feature configurations require the underlying services to be restarted from the server backend. When using virtualized environments in the cloud connecting on an internal network domain, there would be extra care needed on the network configurations to ensure communication channels between the machines are properly connected.

We deployed in-house. 

You need to be mindful about the initial server costs if you go with an on-premise deployment model as the specification can surprise some of your stakeholders. For licensing, always try to get through reselling partners for getting more customized and better prices.

We observed all major players in the RPA space such as UiPath, BluePrism, and WorkFusion. There are also some companies that operate in a specific market that we looked at.  

Earlier, our payroll process required a lot of human intervention or human dependency as we have Biometric Application and Payroll Application separately. To complete the payroll, we first need to manually fetch the attendance from the Biometric application and manually upload it to the Payroll Application.

We have used it for an HR use case, wherein the BOT automatically fetched attendance from a Biometric application and it uploads it in the Payroll system, and calculates payroll automatically. It also sends emails to all respective employees with their respective payslips. 

It has saved our HR department time since this process automatically happens without anybody's intervention. Our HR department is able to devote their time to more productive work or activities. It has also saved a lot of costs since every employee in the HR department is involved in the attendance and payroll process. Second, the process is now no more human dependent.

Earlier, we used to all work manually and the chances of errors were higher since it was a sensitive process as it involves finance. However, this tool has helped us to automate our payroll process.

The most useful features of this tool are that this tool has less coding activity as compared to other tools, it has drag menus. Most Excel/VBA coding is automated in the AA tool, since, in Excel or VBA we need to do manual coding.

The following features are very valuable to us :

• Web Recorder
• Smart Recorder
• Work Bench Command Library
• Object Cloning Command
• Business Analytics
• Meta bot Designer
• File or Folder Command
• Error Handling Command
• Control Room Administrator
• Integrating PDF Using the PDF Command

As long as we are using this tool, it includes all features required from a process automation perspective. As of now, we are not looking for any additional features. 

However in IQ Bot if the following features can be added then I would be very grateful: The recognition of Voice /Audio

As of now IQ Bot only takes/fetches the record of the places that we have marked. e.g. Invoices fields that are dynamic in nature are very difficult to fetch the data from the scan copy. If this feature gets added, it will save a lot of time for developers.

We have been using AA 2019 for the last year and we have been using Version-11 for the last three years. 

It is an absolutely stable tool.

It is very scalable.

Support is good. We received timely support from AA.

No, we did not use a different solution, since we were doing the process manually.

The setup is straightforward.

It was implemented by our internal team members.

It has saved us a lot of time and money.

It is a very effective tool since it requires less coding and one can easily get trained on this tool with little knowledge of coding.

No, we have not evaluated any other tools.

I am a platform architect for the RPA so I deal with all 3 major RPA vendors. I build the Infra for all big setups. I have immense experience plan, design, and building the setup on cloud, on-prem and with different configurations.

I implemented AA in different environments, the AA installation is the smoothest compared to other RPA software installs.

Migration is a little challenging since it requires direct integration with DB, credential vault and all that. Since multiple credentials are involved, it is a challenge to get all the credentials, it should be easier if only the control room credential was required. Versioning migration is still a challenge.

My company uses AA extensively for internal BPO work as well as we refer and deploy it to the customer as a RPaaS model. It helps in increasing productivity, reducing the cost of the whole operation. It makes fewer errors and in the COVID situation proves to be a reliable workhorse.

We implemented a lot of new environments recently. v10 expiry and COVID situation accelerated the implementations. Compared to older days now all implementation of infra bot happened pretty quickly.

Bot with Citrix integration may require a lot of improvement but having any extra feature really helps in complex implementation.

The cloud templates for implementation helped greatly and it helps us in pushing the software fast.

• The OCR integration came a long way. They have intelligence inbuilt into it.
• Ease of deploying and the KB article really help people to just read and deploy different 3rd part components as well(svn, DB, LB, etc) .
• Nowadays, the screen scraping techniques evolved in RPA and it is good to see they are in play which was not the case couple of years ago.
• HBC is most suitable for COVID times. 
• The RPaas offering will help customer to use it for less number of bots.
• AD security group integration is a good feature
  
• AI sense is good too.
  

They need to concentrate lot on a nonpersistent RPA model. Integrate IQ bot with AA instead of making it as a separate component, since nowadays intelligent bots need to be integrated into RPA core. Instead of bot agents getting installed on the machines, concentrate on making it independent of the system and only as a plugin in the browser.

It doesn't have an independent small install for developers and always requires to be fully installed.

Bringing a DevOps model for bot implementation integrated through private bot store might be a good idea to improve the tool.

I being using it since couple of years, i am impressed by the transformation from v10 to v11 and v11 to A2019. 

The solution is pretty stable, we didn't face many issues. Once the instalation is done the control room core architecture wont face many issues.there are quick fixes like service restart if anything goes off. but most of the time we hear AA support suggesting us to reinstall with the new version of software for performance issues, but with my experiance i hardly see that making huge differnce in fixing the actual issue.

 Monitoring can be done through email alerts for the core infrastructure. Issues mainly in HA(High Availability) with cluster sync issues still not monitored at the dashboard level, which might be a concern if the cluster goes out of sync. At the bot implementation lot of things are dependent on the way we code so it's additional work for the developer to get the code keeping in mind all the events which might happen. I would have been impressed if the solution had framework at the control room level to keep track of the overal execution and transactions, hope they can bring that feature in future releases

We never faced any issues with scalability for AA. sometime it takes high CPU on CR, but that is expected. one of the frequent questions we encouter with HA setups is the single point failure of repository storages, i understand that this needs to be taken care by storage fault tolerance, however most organization might not use cloud for RPA and if we are doing on prem install they might not have a high resillenace storage. SQL availability group still needs a SQL expert to get that right and DR solution totally depends on the underlaying infra we work on (there may be lot of alternative solution and its a big discussion to be honest :-)   )

Hence HA and DR solution really require a expert like us who have extensive knowledge on RPA, cloud, infra, windows and SQL  

They offer excellent customer service. No complaints except that every time they ask for a software upgrade as soon as they hear about an issue, which is not actually a good solution. Otherwise, they have very good knowledge of most of the issues. 

We keep switching between RPA software for a number of reasons. We prefer AA for the following reasons:

• Low cost for run licenses compare to other RPA solutions
• A high number of certified developers help in bring efficient automation compared to others, they in turn promote the RPA software that they know of.
• Easy to program, no prior experience of programming required.
• Easy to use compared to other RPA.

The initial setup was straightforward, even a complex setup can be set up in 20 mins if you have all prerequisites.setup can be complex if there is a HA , DR implementation, as a architects we need to factor in lot of variables. some are target application access,  MFA for the application or windows authentication, credential management, data accessibility, network reachability , underlaying hardware, PaaS offering in cloud(depends on the cloud) , VDI or VM template to choose (Makes huge difference in performance and costing), citrix or native application . Overall simple install, but huge planning to figure out the overall feasibility and effectiveness of implementation

We implemented in-house. I implement it within Accenture and for customers as well. I rate my self pretty high for implementation. I have solid experiance (AA master) as well as cloud certification. I have 12 years experiance in infra, so expect a good solid backgroup on both AA and infra.

ROI is important for the business case. ROI is good if you are going for long run, year on year. i never stayed on a project till we start getting the actual values, i see nowadays ROI is shrinking due to RPA vendors raising thier license costs , additional cost added to get the complex RPA solutions to be implemented

The setup cost for AA is always fixed since the configuration won't change much for the different number of bots, the license cost is lower in AA,

We usually evaluate Blue Prism and UiPath along with AA for implementation. We decide based on the requirements.

In the digitization space, Automation Anywhere has some of the new bots, which are really good. This is making the invoice digitization as a use case quite helpful. The user interface is very interactive and easy to use. At the same time, for giving results, it looks very impressive. That is the use case that we are working on currently. That is one of the best use cases that I have dealt with from Automation Anywhere.

I think most of the keystroke level activities that users used to do in probably the last five years is now taken care completely by Automation Anywhere and similar RPA providers. They are now getting into the next segment of AI. I deal personally with a lot of AI tools in my company, which has got a lot of use cases in this industry. I see Automation Anywhere now getting into this particular segment, and it's very good for the industry

The Bot Store is something very impressive because it is one place where you find a lot of free bots that you can test and try different bots. At the same time, you have developers who can create different bots and put them into that marketplace so multiple people can use those bots. It is a win-win situation both for the developers, Automation Anywhere, and even the customers.

Some things that I do not see as of today are interactive chat or video interface. These are things that I will look for in future. I saw something like picture recognition, but something like a video or voice recognition is something that I'm looking for in the Automation Anywhere platform as an end user and even as a reseller.

5 years

Stability is great from what I hear from the users. As I'm the sales division, I get this feedback from my operations team. Even the technology support that Automation Anywhere provides is very good. At the same time, they have a lot of good B2B services at very low costs which helps in the end-to-end development, deployment, and successful implementations.

Scalability is one of the best things about most of the RPA bots. Once you create one, scalability is just about multiplying them. We've not had challenges with scalability, given we provide the right infrastructure.

As mentioned above this support has been good and we always look forward for continued support here

As a service provider company we have worked in alternate service provider. This is client specific

Straight forward

We are the vendor team here

6 Months to 1.6 years depending on the process we looking to automate

may not be able to comment here.

UI path and AA are the ones on top when we compare

I would surely rate it as a 10 (out of 10). There are other RPA providers as well in this good range, but I think AA is in the top three. I would rate it ten along with another competitor as well who's doing well for us.

If you are new to automation, do try Automation Anywhere or a similar partner. Once you do that, then there's a lot more in the market to explore, e.g., you have the big players, like IBM Watson, Azzure, AWS etc. and one place stop will be a company like Wipro which can help you chose a mix. If you're not started anywhere, then I would recommend to start with Automation Anywhere for RPA.