Automation Anywhere Reviews

In one of my insurance domain processes, I need to extract the details of customers from an input Excel file and I need to update details like Address, DOB, and Names, all based on their requests in a web-based application.

With respect to our environment, we used Excel commands for doing operations and we faced a few Excel issues in production. Everything was fine in Dev and QA. Then we used Excel as a DB and it provided a permanent resolution.

This product has helped us a lot by improving and growing the business in different domains. Initially, when we have started RPA with AA, we implemented it for only one domain. Now, we are in a position to automate most of the processes across domains.

In V10 and V11, most of the Windows and web-based commands are helpful. We mostly use the Database commands in order to make the process faster and more secure, rather than using Excel or a CSV for reading the input files.

When we think from a business perspective, business applications are more compatible with their specific browsers. Let's say one of my customers is using Firefox, which is the most compatible browser for their application, when we try to automate that with AA, we don't get accurate and stable results. They need to make the AA stable across all browsers and I hope to see it fixed in the next version.

As I mentioned, if we don't close an Excel file in a safe manner, then when we try to open it or another Excel file in the same place, most of the time it will lead to issues. As we are working with unattended automation most of the time, no one will be available to take care of those issues when they happen

I have been working with Automation Anywhere for the past four and a half years. I have worked on versions 9, 10, and 11. Currently, I have started working hands-on with A2019. You are moving to A2019 very soon. 

AA is not stable across all different browsers.

RPA is what I have been working on since my career started. 

I can suggest Automation Anywhere.

I tried multiple options but I found that Automation Anywhere has better options when compared to all of the other tools.

We primarily use this product for Web Applications, Outlook, and Excel.

It helped to increase productivity in a commendable manner.

The most valuable feature is PDF automation, where we can automate templated PDFs with almost 100% accuracy.

DOMX path support for identifying the web elements is helpful.

The Control room features, such as pooling devices, Queues, and the secure environment, are also valuable.

Commands in Excel, Outlook, and Word automation are very limited and hence facing difficulties automating complex requirements for the above applications with V11 version. 

We have been using Automation Anywhere for two years.

Relatively the installation is complex compared to other competing technologies. Lot of things has to be worked around for Control room setup and for starting the bot development like user creation and specific roles getting assigned etc... 

I've installed it on my own using installation guide. But a lot more things are involved while installing

The ROI on major bots has been phenomenal.

Batch JOB processing and Monitoring which was a manual activity earlier.

We've done a lot of automation with the product in the last two years. We started with accounts receivable processes in finance. I would say the AR function is one of the most mature functions in the product right now because we almost automated all the aspects of accounts receivable. 

We have also started looking at automating the accounts payable process as well. I've only mentioned finance at this point, but we also have done a lot of automation with IT, as well as with procurement. Right now, the penetration is higher with the support functions but we are also looking at different ways to automate. For example, we would like to use automation technology in core engineering. We also want to be expansive and do projects beyond our current boundaries — outside of just India. We've already done a small PoC (proof of concept) with a company in China and we also automated three small processes with a U.S. entity. 

We use it daily and have done projects with support functions, such as financial services, IT, and procurement support. We have 50 to 60 processes that have been automated using RPA in all three areas put together. This is the breadth and extent of what we have automated. We are using the on-premise deployment model.

Automation Anywhere helps to automate much of the manual activity. There are already a few inbuild use case builds which we have used and expands for our convenience.

We use it to automate all kinds of business processes. The primary use case is the RPA platform, even though they have the cognitive platform and the analytics platform. We use it for so many different things it's hard to focus on one, but it's automating business processes in our banking system. We're interfacing a lot with Excel, our ERP systems, some legacy systems, the databases, file folders, text files, CSVs. It's hard to pin down one.

• Intelligent automation for business and IT tasks.
• Uses SMART Automation Technology

Bot Creator- Developers use desktop-based applications to create bots. Their dev licenses are checked with that configured in the control room. On authentication, the code of the bots they create is stored in the control room. Different developers may create individual tasks/bots. These bots could be merged and executed at once.

Bot Runner - The Bot Runner is the machine where you run the bot. You could have multiple bots running in parallel. You only need the Run License to run the bots. The bots report back the execution logs/pass/fail status back to the control room.

Autosuggestion of existing use cases based on the problem statement could use improvement. 

My primary use cases are where I'm dealing with a lot of raw data extraction and transformation so that the data can be used by other systems. An example would be getting the data out of PDF files, transforming it from semi-structured to structured, and putting it into an extra-stable system like Excel or a CSV so that it can be used by other systems. Listed are low hanging fruits and will boost the confidence of the stakeholders in the RPA deployment, recommend to look at such use cases when looking at Automation Anywhere and its implementation.

• Native cognitive automation for unstructured data
• Bot Store—Jumpstart your RPA with verified, ready to use bots
• 24/7 global support
• Business users can build bots to automate their processes
• 1 bot—20,000 bots
  From pilot to enterprise-scale, at your pace
• Embedded real-time analytics—
  No integration, No delays
  
• Better customer support

It's a great product, timely support, and guidance.

IBM Robotic Process Automation.

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.  

I work as an RPA developer where I use the Automation Anywhere software.

We work with many clients, wherein we automate their processes. We get positive feedback from the client regarding the processes that we have developed. It saves a lot of their manual time and most of their work is done by the bot, without any human intervention. So far, we have all positive views.

IQ Bot is the most important feature and it has been extensively used by our clients. With all of the new features of IQ bot, I feel it is the most utilized component of Automation Anywhere.

The scheduling/triggering of the bots from the CR, without going to the actual environment and starting the bot, is an interesting feature.

I feel A2019 is still not completely ready and the discontinuing of version 11 is a negative impact for all of the users and clients. I feel version 11 should still be continued and it should be the client's choice whether they want to buy version 11 or A2019.

I have been using automation anywhere for the past two and a half years.

I have not used another RPA, although I have worked on several versions of Automation Anywhere. I have developed in version 10, version 11, and currently on A2019.

Although I'm new to the A2019 version, I find that version 11 was the most user-friendly version of all.

The price of this product is good.

We did not evaluate other options before choosing Automation Anywhere.

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.

The primary use case is for generating letters. Most of the use cases are HR-based.

The company we work for is the Mahindra Group. When an employee requests letters, they go through the HR department instead of requesting the letter from the bot, Genie, that is already in place. Going through the HR Department creates a manual process across the group.

We have completed a POC directly from Genie. We implemented the RPA so that once the request is received from the employee, the letter is generated and sent to the person through email.

This reduces the tedious manual work required.

With the completed POC, we have an RPA that we have showcased. When you request a letter directly from Genie, within a minute or two you will receive an email with an attachment of your requested letter.

This solution allows for the letter generation to take place within seconds, improving the experience for the employees. When they request something, they've got it.

Generating the letters through Genie is an extremely valuable feature.

This solution reduced the manual work that is required by the HR department.

This solution is easy to use and generates a quick response.

Looking at the POC's requirements and use cases, our customers are asking us for the OCRing of handwritten documents. This is a feature we would like to see included in the next release.

We would like a web-based product for implementation in the cloud.

The licensing needs to be made simpler or shortened. You need to be able to bundle the licenses for clients. Instead of asking for three licenses, which sometimes causes the customer to panic, I would like to have one bundle with three licenses contained within it. It is essentially the same thing but would make more sense to the customer. It is just a different mindset.

I am not able to comment much in terms of stability because we have only completed a POC.

This solution will tremendously reduce the cost in terms of manual work that HR is doing.

The licensing needs to be made simpler or shortened.

My advice to anybody who is researching this solution is to explore it. Try out the solution and its capabilities. Until you do so, you won't know exactly what it is capable of. To now, I have not even explored it one-hundred percent.

We are looking for a web-based product because most of the things we do, and most of the products that we work with, are on the cloud. Once we get a web-based system, we will have more interest and we will be more confident about it. We understand that the web-based system will be released soon.

The product is good, no doubt about it, but we need the OCR for handwritten documents, the web-based solution, and the licensing has to be improved.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.