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Buisness39d3 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
It allows my clients to scale their businesses quickly, but the interface is not intuitive for business users
Pros and Cons
  • "My clients have seen tremendous value when it comes to automating business processes. The robust nature of the application allows them to scale their business processes pretty quickly."
  • "The reporting capabilities are pretty nice."
  • "The interface is not intuitive for business users who are used to seeing the process on a flow chart, like a Visio workflow diagram. This may be because of the nature of the way the interface is structured and the way the functions are built in list type of format."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case is to automate business processes for a manufacturing company.

How has it helped my organization?

My clients have seen tremendous value when it comes to automating business processes. The robust nature of the application allows them to scale their business processes pretty quickly. They receive the benefits in around a quick 12-week period.

What is most valuable?

The reporting capabilities are pretty nice. 

The Excel component is valuable, when compared to other tools in the market.

What needs improvement?

From an ease of use point of view, on a scale of one to ten with ten being really easy, I would rate the tool a six. The interface is not intuitive for business users who are used to seeing the process on a flow chart, like a Visio workflow diagram. This may be because of the nature of the way the interface is structured and the way the functions are built in list type of format. I feel like there is a bit of a learning curve for anyone who is new to the program. As with everything, it takes time and you start to get better at it. 

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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

From pilot to production, we scaled our last bot in about nine weeks. It was a very interesting process because the building deployment can be done pretty quickly, but if you don't narrow down the scope early, you can face a lot of challenges. I don't think this necessarily has to do with the platform. It is more about understanding and narrowing down your scope from the beginning. It's okay to add more functionality later, but that adds delay to your overall timeline. However, being that it's very easy to configure the bot and add components to it, this is one of the benefits of building with Automation Anywhere. You can make changes pretty quickly.

With everything, you will have to be careful and not get caught up always making changes. You have to really narrow the scope down quickly and build it in very small components. Don't build everything end-to-end. Break down your processes, as much as possible, and deploy as little functionality as possible. This makes it way more easy to manage. It is also a much better way to build a bot.

How are customer service and support?

I did attempt to reach out to customer support a few times. I didn't really get any response. 

I would rate them a five out of ten. There is room for improvement.

How was the initial setup?

It does take a lot of space to install. However, you are installing a very powerful application which has very powerful components in it.

What other advice do I have?

Pay attention to what you're doing, and the following:

  1. Capabilities that you have in-house.
  2. Support down the line. 
  3. Handing over your solutions to someone else to pick up. 

You want to have this type of mindset. 

With any tools, you have to ensure you have the right capabilities in-house to be able to help build out and manage any solutions in the future, along with managing your army of bots in deployment. 

It is a good, powerful application. It can fit pretty much any use case, but that is one component to it. The other component is do you have the right in-house skills to help you manage the Automation Anywhere bots?

I took the RPA Advanced course for developers (entry-level) in Automation Anywhere University. I took it a while ago, and I don't know if it's changed now, but it was very informative, detailed, and intuitive. I came from automation tools, so it was a bit easier for me to pick up on the information because of my background. The course was pretty informational. I felt comfortable building an application, building a bot, and putting it into production after the course.

Building a bot can be pretty quick. If you understand what the problem is that the bot is trying to solve, then you can get it done pretty quickly since the process is easy and straightforward. However, if you are coming from other tools or are not an experienced developer, you might face a bit of a challenge in the beginning. Everything will eventually come pretty quickly, as you can build a bot in an hour, or even less than that.

I'm learning how to use the IQ Bot, which is a pretty good component of the application. I can see how it would be a really powerful feature for some of my clients.

I haven't used the Citrix feature yet.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
Specialist at Bancolombia
Real User
It has helped us a lot with our digitized work
Pros and Cons
  • "It has helped us a lot with our digitized work."
  • "The Automation Anywhere University courses have helped us, but it could improve some things, like how the courses are designed."

What is our primary use case?

It is our RPA platform. It is the main platform that we use for backups.

How has it helped my organization?

It has helped us a lot with our digitized work.

We have automated a lot of the bank's processes.

What needs improvement?

My team has taken courses through the Automation Anywhere University. The courses have been good. They have helped us, but it could improve some things, like how the courses are designed.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is pretty stable, but we have experience issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are working on scaling it now.

We use it with more than 17 applications. So, we work it on a very large scale.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is good. 

How was the initial setup?

It took us two years to scale it from the pilot it to our current number of bots. The process was too much work.

What was our ROI?

We have saved 53 minutes through automation.

What other advice do I have?

It is a very good product.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
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Automation Anywhere
November 2024
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reviewer949524 - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
It Automates The Simple, Mundane Tasks That People Hate To Do

What is our primary use case?

Right now, we have about 15 to 18 use cases, from finance to project management assistance and business operations.

How has it helped my organization?

We are in the journey of fully embracing digital transformation, but still far from goal.

Even though we are saving some work hours, we face a new problem that is sort of a backwards problem: Now, we have the risk a person who used to do the job in eight hours taking six hours to produce the same amount of output, instead of producing more or working on new tasks.

What is most valuable?

It automates the simple, mundane tasks that people hate to do. This is pretty much the same with other RPA software. One differentiation point that we assumed against other competitive products was the ease of implementation, which we haven’t really validated. We have seen other tools, but we did not do any heavy investigation into what the reality was. So far, we are happy, or at least okay, with the way things work.

What needs improvement?

In terms of features to add, they seem to have good grip on the future to come, for example, they already have incorporated cognitive technology called IQ Bot which translates semi-structured data into structured data.  We have not tried it yet though.Working with this vendor can sometimes be challenging because their service quality on simple business operations like invoicing could be bad. I have received wrong invoices several times. Maybe this is a problem only with their new branch offices.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We’re having a problem with the maintenance. Failure reasons may vary, but a typical one is the timing difference of interacting systems. Sometimes, the interacting systems don’t respond fast enough to what the robot expects. If something is not good, it fails. We had to go through a large optimization phase where we had to find the right timing of how long the robot should wait. If you ask a person from Automation Anywhere, probably the right way to cope with this is to wait for a window to transition before moving on to next step, which you don’t want to do for every single step because that would put additional coding on our software. Therefore, that is a difficulty that we are having. When I discussed it with an Automation Anywhere representative, he said it is quite unusual having to spend so many resources on maintenance and troubleshooting. His recommendation was that they could do a code review for us, which is nice and hopefully it works. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are just in the path. This year, we are trying to do ten times more than last year. We are trying to do about 100 automated processes this year. I have confidence that the solution is able to cater our needs.

How is customer service and technical support?

We just started using their technical support. Up until now, we were working only through our IT partner. The technical support that we have received so far has been accurate and fast.

How was the initial setup?

We were not involved, so I’m not sure. I heard that it was fairly easy. 

We are right in the process of it. We are leaving it to the external IT partner who we used because they are the ones who programmed the previous bots. They would do the best job for migration.  

What was our ROI?

It is negative right now. What we are expecting, for one bot creation, is a six-month turnaround for getting ROI, but that is only the developer man-hour versus actual time saved. If we include all the licenses and launch activities that we have done, we are far from getting a ROI. It will probably take another one to two.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before we did the actual implementation, we ran some PoCs with a consulting firm and they recommended Automation Anywhere, which matches our business model and the way we wanted to progress. 

What other advice do I have?

It is not so much about the tool. It’s probably not even about the company, Automation Anywhere. It’s more of the internal issues that a colleague would encounter. There is only so little that can be solved by RPA. The real solution is in the BPR and other transformations that they need to go through. If they are expecting this to be a silver bullet for something, it’s not. They need to go through the due diligence of automating the right processes right.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Rahul Uppal - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Tevince
Real User
It saves time and effort, and it is easy to use
Pros and Cons
  • "It is easy to use. It helps to reduce your man-hours and manual effort."
  • "Excel automation or the activities for Excel is an area of improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We do the implementation of Automation Anywhere.

What is most valuable?

It is easy to use. It helps to reduce your man-hours and manual effort.

What needs improvement?

Excel automation or the activities for Excel is an area of improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

It has been about three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is quite stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is quite scalable.

What was our ROI?

We have definitely seen a return on investment with this product.

What other advice do I have?

It is a great product. Automation is the key, and Automation Anywhere is a good tool to use. It is great to have it.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
PeerSpot user
reviewer1165122 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Program Manager at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Bots easily free up employees from repetitive tasks, but still a few stability issues to resolve
Pros and Cons
  • "The feature of this solution that I like the most is that it is coding free - it is a coding free tool. It does not need much coding at all. For all the activities you just drag and drop. That is the best advantage of this tool."
  • "They could improve the environmental stabilizing issues. There are a lot of environmental issues when rolling over from one environment to another, higher environment. This is the one thing they definitely need to look into."

What is our primary use case?

We use Automation Anywhere to create robots. Basically, the purpose of this tool is if we have any employee doing daily repetitive work, where he does not have time to work on it but he still has to do it every day, we can automate those kinds of projects by using this tool, and we can reduce the burden on the employee. That is the basic use of the Automation Anywhere tool.

How has it helped my organization?

In terms of benefits to our company, with this tool we can release the employee from their routine work so that they can concentrate on their other work, like doing innovative things. They can get rid of the regular, routine work.

What is most valuable?

The feature of this solution that I like the most is that it is coding free - it is a coding free tool. It does not need much coding at all. For all the activities you just drag and drop. That is the best advantage of this tool.

What needs improvement?

In terms of what could be improved with Automation Anywhere, there are a few areas. They could improve the environmental stabilizing issues. There are a lot of environmental issues when rolling over from one environment to another, higher environment. This is the one thing they definitely need to look into. 

They also have to look into the document understanding process - the screen scraping of the documents, etc... 

In the next release, I would like to see, as I mentioned, better document understanding and screen scraping. There are a few more activities they have to include, like reading the particular column on the Excel operations. They can increase more activities like that.

Right now, there are a lot of complications and complexities involved when reading Excel - they could make that easier.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost two years.

We are not using the latest version. We are using 11.3.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of stability, when rolling from one environment, like the production environment or development into other environments, like mixed environments, the application will not open properly or it may take time to open the application. At that time, the tool is not stabilized. It is not able to wait or capture the proper information and application.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere is scalable

In our company, there are many developers using it and we rolled out around 149 bots, so I can't say the exact number. Different team members are using this tool, and they benefit from its use. Multi-projects are using this bot every single day.

How are customer service and support?

I have reached out to support. There is a website for all we need. We can raise a ticket and can contact them there.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. The Automation Anywhere company supported us for the installation process. They are good supporters.

In terms of how long it took, that part will be taken care of by our admin team. We are not part of that process at all.

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

I am not aware of costs, but for every bot we have a license. That is what I know.

What other advice do I have?

I can recommend Automation Anywhere. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say, given the existing process, Automation Anywhere is a seven. As I suggested, if they improve the stabilizing, the screen scraping, the document understanding and some other activities, then definitely they can go ahead with that tool.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Performance & Functional Automation Specialist at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Lot's of room for improvement; not customer-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "The technical support is good. We have not had any issues."
  • "The initial setup is difficult because Automation Anywhere does not have a GitHub integration. They need to build a patch for that."

What needs improvement?

Automation Anywhere has a lot of room for improvement. It is not customer-friendly. They are always rolling out patches. They have a lot of limitations.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Automation Anywhere for the past three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, Automation Anywhere is stable, but that is what an end solution should be. It should be user-friendly and accessible, particularly when it comes to automation.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good. We have not had any issues. 

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

Before Automation Anywhere, we were working on HP products, like QTP, and then LoadRunner.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is difficult because Automation Anywhere does not have a GitHub integration. They need to build a patch for that. From the end point users' point of view, it leaves a bad impression.

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

Automation Anywhere's price is a little expensive. Moreover, it comes on like a single/set license. It should come in perpetual licenses. If a license is not getting used, then it has to be switched over to some other process. In cases like this, Automation Anywhere does not come up. I think they lose a lot of business because they do not use a perpetual model.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1681449 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Powerful SAP application but not as easy to use as some competitors
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the SAP application and the DLLs that Automation Anywhere provides. These DLLs help automate the SAP application."
  • "Setting up Automation Anywhere is a bit complex."

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the SAP application and the DLLs that Automation Anywhere provides. These DLLs help automate the SAP application. In A360, the latest version of Automation Anywhere, they provide many connectors for the different frameworks, like Office 365 or any other APIs, so those connectors are useful.

What needs improvement?

They still need to improve the SAP application's ability to use the features it has. For example, we have been using a MetaBot to automate SAP applications. They have given the SAP the ability to command Automation Anywhere itself, but we have encountered some limitations. Microsoft Power Automate has so many connectors, like its connector with Microsoft Office and SharePoint. On the other end, I have found Power Automate to be overpowered compared to Automation Anywhere because they already have so many connectors with Office 365, Teams, and other APIs. There are even more if you consider the cloud flow of Power Automate, so it's easy to get triggered.

Automation Anywhere is not so easy to trigger. For example,  I can create an automation in Power Automate where the user provides input into a form, such as Microsoft Form, and that info gets pulled into SharePoint. In Automation Anywhere, we do not have some trigger like that. We have to keep one bot running 24/7 to get this data into SharePoint. Power Automate does not have anything like scheduling. Whenever you fill out the form, it gets triggered on its own, and the information is saved into SharePoint. So this is an advantage of Power Automate that Automation Anywhere does not have.

Automation Anywhere should add the same feature that Power Automate has, so whenever I create a flow, there is a trigger given by Automation Anywhere. Instead of scheduling that bot on CR, there should be something running in the background constantly, so I do not have to schedule the bot or trigger the bot manually. The trigger should be integrated into Automation Anywhere. Also, if I am creating one variable in one module, I have to make the same variable in another subtask, then I have to create a mapping between those two. If Automation Anywhere were to come out with a feature like Power Automate's environment variables, then that variable could be created globally and used throughout the process. That would be better. 

Another feature I would like to have in Automation Anywhere is "Go To Line." When we are writing the code, it sometimes extends 500 to 600 lines. If I want to go to some line numbers — say, the bot has failed on line number 120 — I have to go manually to line 120. If Automation Anywhere provided something like a "Go To Line" feature, that would be useful for us. For example, if you face an error at line number 500 and your code is 1,000 lines, you have to scroll so far down to get to line number 500. 

Furthermore, in Automation Anywhere, you have to write a DLL separately when you want to have something from a .NET perspective. In UiPath and some other tools, there are direct call functions available. It would be nice if Automation Anywhere came up with something like that, where you can directly have the method called.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Automation Anywhere for around four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere is quite stable. It has been around for many years now and has undergone several updates.  

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

To some extent, I can say Automation Anywhere is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support by Automation Anywhere is quite good. Whenever we have an issue, we create a ticket on the Automation Anywhere support site, and the support from their side is quite extensive.

How was the initial setup?

Setting up Automation Anywhere is a bit complex. When I entered into the RPA industry, Automation Anywhere had just been launched. Automation Anywhere was first released in 2014 or thereabouts, and I started working on it in 2017. I was just a novice when I began my journey with RPA, and it was a whole new concept in my organization as well. When we were setting up the control room server and the client, it was a bit daunting. We had to do so much in the background database and then the client. It is pretty complicated to set up the Automation Anywhere control room and the high availability clusters. 

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

I'm not too sure about the pricing part, because our organizers handle that. I'm just a developer. We get the software already installed on our machine. 

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Automation Anywhere seven out of 10. It is a simple tool to learn, and with A360, they have gone way beyond. They also have an intelligent bot. However, I would suggest going with Microsoft Power Automate ranter than Automation Anywhere because Power Automate's cloud flow is easier to use. In addition, you can use Power Automate with very minimal coding. With Automation Anywhere, you need extensive knowledge of SQL and .NET. You have to learn so many things before implementing Automation Anywhere. 

I have worked on Automation Anywhere for four years and also UiPath. Between these two, I have found Automation Anywhere easier to work on. Also, it's stable because I have delivered around 20 plus automations on Automation Anywhere to date. Based on my experience, I have found Automation Anywhere to be more stable and accessible. I prefer Automation Anywhere. 

In my previous organization, I had worked on UiPath, but I haven't worked on UiPath much for the last two-plus years. So I only have six to eight months of experience on UiPath. I find the Orchestrator feature quite complex and difficult to understand. When I was working on UiPath, they had just introduced their advanced features in Orchestrator, so I found UiPath much more valuable from the .NET perspective. But if we're talking about how easy it is to program, Automation Anywhere is more straightforward. For the past one or two months, I have started getting my hands on Power Automate. In terms of cloud flows, I find Power Automate more useful. Every tool has its pros and cons. After working on Automation Anywhere for around four years, I do find it easy and scalable. But now, now that I've been introduced to Power Automate, I find that I like it because of built-in connectors and templates.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1468944 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers
Real User
Good training material, and the cognitive features are easy to apply
Pros and Cons
  • "Training videos are very good and include detailed examples, which is really helpful for beginners."
  • "I would like to see them continue building out documentation with more video-aides."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is assisting clients in automating redundant, repetitive tasks to drive value and efficiency.

How has it helped my organization?

Working with the Automation Anywhere application is very easy in our environment. It has allowed us to win more work and prove value to our clients. 

What is most valuable?

 AI and ML integrations are also easy to apply, as well as cognitive features.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see them continue building out documentation with more video-aides.

Training is good and interactive, although the final certification exam is very tough and requires practical, in-depth knowledge. The certification exam for AA is not as per the training videos, as the questions are more scenario-based. This makes it very hard for beginners to clear the exam after just tutorial knowledge.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Automation Anywhere is a good RPA tool, but not so good if we compare it with UiPath. 

The drag-and-drop feature is quite similar to that of UiPath.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Automation Anywhere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
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Download our free Automation Anywhere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.