Automation Anywhere Reviews

We have been using RPA for the past seven years and have dealt with a lot of other RPA vendors. We have many use cases across all of the verticals like technology, HR, Finance, Mortgage, Insurance, etc.

The current one, on which we are focusing is Mortgage use cases. We have proven experience in all of the verticals with different use cases. Especially when it comes to the environment, there are no restrictions in that regard because it's all based on the client's requirements and their expectations as well. There are a few clients that came with a Citrix gateway, others use the VDI based approach, and still, others bring their own operating systems.

One thing that I want to highlight AA for is their security standards. It's an easy win situation when we present this to our clients. The CyberArk integration and setup are really amazing and it helps us to win deals for new projects.

Especially on the Cognitive capabilities, AA enables us to adopt third-party extensions and products, which is very useful to accommodate more use cases and push the RPA practice to the next level.

The most valuable features are the IQ Bot and Process Discovery.

1. IQ Bot - In earlier days, everyone started with RPA by mimicking the users' actions and achieved some automation expectations. But nowadays, apart from the basic action, there is a need for intelligence like Machine earning, Deep learning, and Artificial Intelligence. The IQ Bot accommodates such expectations. There are a lot of pre-trained workflows available and a lot of capabilities to involve users to train the model.
   
2. Process Discovery - The next trend is Process discovery and it involves automating the identification of process requirements for activities and then automatically developing the workflow.

The dedicated BPM from AA should help to cover more use cases. I would strongly say that AA should have a more advanced BPM tool to support the process/use cases attempted in the project. Instead of depending on other open-source BPM products, AA should provide their own BPM for attended automations.

We have been using Automation Anywhere for two years.

Stability-wise, this product is excellent.

The scalability of AA is excellent.

Technical support is excellent.

We have more than seven years of experience in RPA and with different vendors and a lot of different tools. We used the same approach but the recent updates and growth of AA have helped us decide to make use of it

The initial setup is straightforward.

We implemented in-house, with the help of vendor support documents.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Automation Anywhere is that 

It's not always necessary to tie up or utilize unattended bots or achieve 100 % automation. A lot of opportunities are there with the ratio of 80:20 (80% automation and 20% manual intervention) or 70:30.

My primary use case starts with downloading an inventory file in IE and then storing it in the database. This uses DB variables that interact with the banking application.

Through its automating system of generating quotations, it is much easier for us to track back the same customer data. It is giving us a real-time capability for generating reports.

Automation anywhere has equipped us with amazing tools including Bot Insight, IQ Bot, Discovery Bot, etc. The Discovery Bot is used to search the entire task in the system that can be automated. It keeps much value in our organization.

Extracting PDFs is very easy using Automation Anywhere. Its strong points are that it is easy to use, easy to deploy, easy to share, and has multi-user support. Different devices can be used to execute the bot.

The Bot Store provides some utilities for free, which can then be integrated into my workflows easily.

Using automation has reduced between five and eight FTE in our inventory download and update task. This is more generic to the RPA space than AA specifically, but we tried to automate a large, high FTE, end-to-end process as a POC.

AA is user friendly.

The most valuable features are the web recorder, which is used to extract structured table data, the Metabot to handle smart process automation (SPA), Object Cloning, variable assignment, and Message boxes.

IQ Bot is a unique offering from AA that allows you to extract information from semi-structured documents like PDF invoices, using built-in ML. The ability to train documents and easily review any that fall outside of the model is excellent.

AA has good coverage in terms of out-of-the-box functionality for bot development and management. A2019 has some great new features that take this further, such as the ability to create custom commands for your organization, which helps code reuse and development.

Comparing the code from dev to QA or production should be in some easier way.

Pausing the bot and resuming it in Metabot should be easier.

The Control room audit logs should be moved to an archive for those that are more than six months old.

The error handling capability is good but we are facing difficulties when there are multiple tasks in the same project. I want to be able to handle errors that occur in sub-tasks and it would be better to introduce a global error handler so that we can debug all of the relevant tasks.

I would like to have a project sharing hub like GitHub, inside of the tool, which will help to consolidate project files post-deployment.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for the past four years.

We experienced continuous bot disconnections in our environment. Once we validated it with the AA support team, they suggest for version upgrade and it solved our problem.

The technical support team has good knowledge of the product. They understand problems well and then provide solutions. 

My recommendation would be to start with some simpler processes. This will build your capability and understanding far more quickly. Automating processes that utilize a lot of different web applications can be tricky without additional input/error checking. Be sure that your code is resilient enough to ensure inputs get transcribed accurately and pages/content are loaded before executing more lines of code.

My primary use case is the automation of manual tasks involved in Order to Cash and Procure to Pay.

During the digital transformation of a company, the number of internal portals and applications increases leading to an increased number of data silos.

TCPL has successfully implemented a bot to synchronize data flow (including document files viz. docs, pdfs, images) between its in-house developed install portal and Microsoft Navision ERP.

TCPL has automated the AWB tracking of all outbound shipments to get latest updates on all our shipment movements, take timely corrective measures to ensure our customers receive shipments on time. This helps in ensuring timely order deliveries which results in higher customer satisfaction and lower DSO as we can collect on time only if we deliver on time.

Other bots are:

Vendor Invoice Processing and Data Entry

Accounts Receivables Data Entry

• AA RPA has drastically reduced speed of execution and thus turn around time of processes, ensuring all service level agreements are met and our customers get a great experience.
• Savings of fives Full-time Equivalent or 160 manhours.
• Lower Daily Sales Outstanding as we now meet SLAs and can collect all payments in time.
• Reduction in errors as bots never do wrong calculations or get distracted
• Higher Employee productivity as they are now free from the repetitive mundane work
• Important financial decisions based on updated and accurate information in-hand.

I find the graphic user interface and ease of usability to be the most valuable feature.

The wide range of functions and drag and drop workflow designer makes it easy to learn and work on, for both developers and business users. Being completely web-based makes it even easier and more comfortable to work on, for everyone. From a personal experience, I could learn and start building RPA bots using automation anywhere community edition in less than one month due to the good quality training material available at AA university and the use of usability.

Though IQ Bot is the most powerful and effective cognitive OCR platform for data extraction in the market, still, there is a lot of scope for improvement as there are a lot of non-standard documents which do not give a high straight-through processing rate and accuracy.

Additional features to be included in the next release should be the option to develop basic web portals through which business users can view and run required bots on demand. Secondly, some features of BPM should also be included in the RPA platform itself so that business workflows can be defined and automated easily.

I have been using AA for eight months.

It is primarily used for automating manual processes in Project. Automation was carried out in a two-way process, downloading files from client email and scanning values from PDF file. Post these values were compared with thresholds and return mail is sent. Most of the process is carried out in the Windows environment and the Gmail suite is used as the target output location. It also included SAP application BEx for downloading the file as an Excel sheet and sent as an attachment to an email. This was all implemented in AA, and saved a few man-hours in Project.

It was helpful in managing manual task automations and innovative ways to be introduced to projects. It most benefitted us in converting daily routine tasks into automated processes at minimal cost with available infrastructure. This was the most valuable use, that it didn't cost clients infrastructure. Also, a daily status update of the process is sent through an email easily, updating all stakeholders with daily status. The overall features proved a profitable deal in implementing AA in Project.

AA control room is one central system to manage our tasks. We found it excellent to administrate. It was used for easy scheduling of process/task in Remote desktop. This helped to avoid manual intervention to trigger tasks. 

Also, various features like easy email and file reading eg: PDF, XML, etc were innovatively helpful to scan out values and use as variables in code. 

Another helpful feature is the easy command sidebar provided, where we can easily drag and drop a required command.

The accuracy in Web Recorder needs to be improved, defective outputs found most of the time(not sure if is a website side issue). 

You cannot add dynamic variables in PDF scanned values, hopefully, this can be added as a new feature in future.

Integration with most-used email applications eg: Gmail, Outlook, etc for ease in sending mails without any configuration of port or hostname. This could help to concentrate on actual problems, instead of spending time to figure out port and hostname for sending or receiving emails.

I have been using AA for the last five months. 

Recognizable stability observed in tool with various tasks performed in parallel.

Scalability may vary situation with each situation. According to me, most of the time we will get expected results with substantial capacity of computation in the process.

Customer and technical support both were supportive and were able to provide solutions quickly.

We used Blue Prism and the reason we switched was because we found more ease in using features and less documentation required compared to Blue Prism.

Complex, since there are multiple applications involved, SAP, EMail through Gmail suite. Setting up an application in remote desktop with access to SAP and emails. 

In-house.

Our ROI is 22.81%.

License for AA, before investing in infrastructure list out and analyze the current setup, since AA can be implemented at a minimal cost as well without extra infra/setup.

We previously used Blue Prism.

We had been handling various daily reports that need manual Excel work. We have now automated those daily tasks using Automation Anywhere, saving an enormous amount of time on the manual effort. It is now human-error-free.

The Screen Recorder feature is the feature that I like the most, as it can automate anything on your desktop screen by recording your actions or the cursor movement. This makes it easy to learn and configure for any type of environment when it comes to automating regular tasks. 

We implemented Automation Anywhere as one of the primary tools for automating various tasks within our organization. We have implemented this tool for various customers as well.

By providing the companies with such a useful and productive tool, they save a lot of time and money on tasks that can be performed by small bots.

It an easy, simple, and user-friendly tool that can be accessed through the mobile application as well. You can control and monitor your bot through mobile apps, which creates flexibility in handling the software. 

The Automation Anywhere Screen Recorder feature allows us to do things very easily. It's easy to automate regular and routine tasks. It can automate anything on your desktop screen by recording your actions or the cursor movement, so it is easy to learn and configure for any type of environment.

There are three features by which you can automate things. You also do have the console window to monitor each action the tool is performing. You can correct the code if you feel it captured some wrong action. 

I would like to have a simple bot dashboard window for admins to manage things easily. This is important when an organization has a huge number of tasks to be automated because managing tasks can be complex.

It would be very helpful if the bot dashboard were simplified for admins.

The mobile application can be improved by adding more functions and capabilities abuse right now, only a few features are enabled for mobile users. 

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

It is quite stable and we do receive a lot of updates that enhance and add more features. 

It is a highly scalable application.

So far, it's good and responsive customer support.

We do use other RPA solutions, although I don't want to mention the names. The simplicity of this application makes it a win. 

The initial setup is straightforward.

We implemented it through a vendor team.

I don't deal have cost specifics but I can say it is a tool that provides value for the money.

Before choosing Automation Anywhere, we also evaluated Blue Prism.

In summary, I feel that Automation Anywhere is heading in the right direction. 

The problem statement is to automate data reconciliation between three systems, namely SAP, Ariba, and manually-updated Excel. Supplier and Purchase data flows in from different systems and separately, which sometimes results in data inconsistency.

In the current scenario, two people spend two days per week to verify and reconcile this data and then save it. This is a big cost and investment for the client. The ask from Automation Anywhere is to automate this process, including a re-upload of the data back to the systems with results of reconciliation. This way, there is no manual effort spent. 

As mentioned above in the problem statement, the task is to automate the data reconciliation effort between SAP, Ariba, and Excel sheets from SharePoint. The developer team was able to create four bots as a PoC to automate these steps and additionally upload the data back to systems with reconciliation results. This brought consistency in data.

What we were also able to do for the client is to schedule these bots at a specific time every day, which helped remove any kind of dependency or human intervention. This also improved accuracy.

The solution was a mix of recorded runs and scripting. The developer team had a basic understanding of the tool, which made their job quite easy.

Features like reusing each and every piece of code for things such as login scripts, data extraction scripts, etc, helped us to speed up the implementation of PoC for the client.

Another valuable feature was the one-place control-all type mechanism, which helped to have a center point of control for bots running on multiple systems.

The scheduling feature allows for scheduling of the bots to a specific time every day, which helped remove the dependency on humans completely.

We were also able to get the results sent via email.

One area where I can see room for improvement is the training material that is available. I am aware that the Automation Anywhere university has a lot of training content, and even better, all of it is categorized with respect to the user's role in development. I took the training course related to architecture. This course and content were nice but the videos had a digital voice over, which made it non-engaging for me. After certain videos, you cannot concentrate much.

The other point that is relative to my experience is that for a completely new person to RPA, Automation Anywhere may come with a small learning curve.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for between ten months and a year.

The stability will mostly depend on the system under automation.

Qe started with four bots and now there are going to be only more. The target is for approximately 25 bots to be deployed.

I did not need to reach out to the service team myself, but the development team seemed to have no complaints.

This is my first encounter with an actual implementation for RPA. Automation Anywhere seemed to fit our requirements.

The initial setup is mostly straightforward, although there was some initial confusion with the right version of the tool to be used.

Deployment was done by our in-house development team.

On a very high level, I can say that we saved two days for two people per week with this automation.

My only suggestion in terms of pricing is very generic and that is to consider that as much as RPA saves cost and does automation, please get a realistic estimation done on whether you are really achieving any ROI over your investment with RPA. Once you are sure about it, go for it.

The other tool in consideration was Blue Prism; however, the internal development team advocated for Automation Anywhere as a better fit for the requirements, which is why we implemented it.

The tool comes in with a lot of capabilities, however, you are the best judge to use only what is needed.

The primary use case is for day-to-day activities. We are also automating the activities that the SMEs are doing.

We are an agriculture-based company. We have automated finance, HR and MDM for B2B. We have automated more than 300 processors within a year and a half. 

Human errors have been rectified due to bot usage.

• We can easily use the drag and drop.
• We can connect to the OCR capabilities. 
• We use the MetaBot and IQ Bot. 

We could use more accuracy with IQ Bot.

We want to automate fully with Citrix. However, we are only able to do this at 70 to 80 percent.

The stability is good. We have not had any downtime.

Everyone uses it.

The technical support is great and responsive. Whatever issues we face in the production or our environment, the support team will help us within a short amount time. This is helpful to us when automating all our processes.

Last week we had some issues with our current version, the technical support rectified the issues with a day.

We went with RPA to reduce human errors.

It's easy to set up.

We install the Automation Anywhere Control Room and VMWare on our clients' machines.

Our customers have seen ROI.

Customers chose Automation Anywhere because it is good to use. Security-wise, it matches the competition in the market.

I would definitely recommend Automation Anywhere. From a technical perspective, developers can easily create bots and get things done with this tool.

Day-to-day, the Automation Anywhere improvements have been good.

The primary use case is to automate complex processes without using a development team.

We have had a lot of issues using Automation Anywhere and find ourselves stuck. We have an open ticket and are still working with them to resolve this. 

We got the solution because of its ease of use with the API call, avoiding the use of developers.

It is a difficult solution to use for back-end processes.

We can automate easily, but we have to use more functions. We would like to see more GUI-based automation instead.

They do not include the basic functionality of column headers in Excel worksheets. This is missing, and we need it.

We cannot currently copy data and send it on an email.

The technical support is good. When we open tickets, we immediately receive a response. 

In some cases, we make suggestions, and they tell us that they can't make the fix. This is okay, too.

The initial setup was easy. First, we create a bot. Then, we send the business an approval. Once they have verified everything, then we need to open a ticket. Finally, the bot is deployed to production.

We deployed in-house.

We are using Bot Insight to measure our ROI.

We are not receiving the right information about their features, e.g. Automation Anywhere University, or anything that they are selling. They need to improve their documentation.

Search all industry-designed RPA tools and choose the best one for your process.

I completed my advanced certification through Automation Anywhere University. While the courses are good, what you learn in the courses and what is in the real world are two different things. The documentation in the University does not have the proper documentation and cannot provide help, when necessary.