Automation Anywhere Reviews

Cost savings.

Cost savings to the client and business transformation makes life easy. 

We have the Bot Store, and also we have contributed a lot of things into Bot Store. We have about 40 different bots in your Bot Store.

I think that one of the coolest features that what Automation Anywhere has come up with is AI Sense. I see an immense potential there. Using AI Sense, we can automate outside Citrix. That's going to remove the client dependency or overall automation journey, and that can give lot of optimization, cost saving, and the time to market.

Improvement areas will be there for everybody. I think one area which I would like to see improvement is in IQ Bot. Maybe it has improved a lot in version 11 X but I think that that's one area which definitely scope to improve.

Thumbs up both sides. Stability and scalability. I think these are the least spoken things with Automation Anywhere. It's been in the market for long and they have been proving this right from the start.

It's straightforward, easy going. Anybody can start that. Only thing is that the people should have common sense.

The first one is the FT savings. That's directly proportional to the cost, what client is going to spend. The second thing is, once again, time to market or the optimization and process delivery.

There are multiple use cases. Primarily, we are looking at finance and accounting. So, we have been deploying bots, specifically in the area of account payable and cash applications.

Bots add a lot of productivity and value to our business, because a robot can work for 24/7. They work a lot better, as compared to a human being, specifically for tasks which are repetitive in nature. Therefore, we are seeing a lot of business value being derived from these bots.

There have been a lot of challenges in terms of interfacing with the customer ERPs. So, we have been building tools and interfaces using bots to write back into these custom ERPs. Specifically, in the area where I work, this has been very helpful.

I have not seen bots working efficiently in the area of reporting.

The time it takes to scale bots depends process to process, how complex the process is and if you're talking about a specific process. It may takes anywhere from around three weeks to 15 weeks, depending upon the complexities, the number of bots which we are deploying, and the problem these bots are solving. 

My team is in touch with the technical support. I don't work directly with them.

Measuring ROI is a combination of multiple factors. It could be saving time, saving money, or getting controls into the systems. It's a combination of all this things.

I would recommend Automation Anywhere, as it is a known, leading solution in the market.

There are a lot of advantages which Automation Anywhere has over a lot of other vendors. Why we chose Automation Anywhere is because of the ease of scripting, the good support that they have, and we can deploy these bots for more customers, whose preference is also Automation Anywhere. 

Another thing that I have seen, with finance and accounting, Automation Anywhere is the better fit, as compared to some of the other vendors in the market.

Because of the ease in which we can deploy bots, along with the savings that it generates for our customers, Automation Anywhere definitely has an edge over other vendors.

When we started around two to two and a half years back, ease of use was a problem at the time. Right now, with the scripts and exposure that we have, I don't see a big challenge going forward.

My team has been trained through the Automation Anywhere University, so we do have a lot of people who have been trained on this tool. The training materials are good. The feedback that I have received on the University has been good, as I have not been personally trained through the University.

We have use cases in multiple groups: Supply chain, HR, and finance, which has three or four currently identified. We have already implemented a few use cases. E.g., we are automating the entire payment process for accounts receivable.

It helps to improve and optimize processes. It eliminates some of the manual tasks, so we can save costs.

It's eliminating the manual tasks that accounts receivable does.

It was pretty easy to get a new team of developers set up with the tool and using it. 

The bot creation process is reasonable simple. It was very easy for my team to pick up and start doing it.

We are still looking into some of its current capabilities, like IT Bot.

We are in our initial phase with a few bots live. So far, we have no major issues. Keeping our fingers crossed.

The architecture allows us to scale. We are still working to get it to a right level of scalability for our environment.

I haven't heard any complaints from the team about technical support. I haven't interacted directly with the technical support, but the team hasn't complained.

We did not previously use another automation solution. I heard about this solution through conventions. When we were looking at optimizing our processes, we talked to few vendors and eventually selected Automation Anywhere.

We started our evaluation about nine months back. In the last six months, we started the process, and now we have a few bots online.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We had an implementation partner who helped with the deployment.

We measure ROI based on the optimization that we have done and how much cost we can save.

• With the rebate processing automation that we did, it has provided us a savings of around an hour or two a person on a daily basis, which is quite a lot of savings. 
• With our accounts receivable process, we are still in the process of implementing it. Once it will be implemented, we are expecting about 30 to 40 hours a month in time saved.

We had a detailed analysis process on all the capabilities of Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and a third vendor. Based on their scores that they got in each area, we eventually ended up selecting Automation Anywhere.

I would recommend evaluating all the vendors in this category and seeing what best suits your needs before making a selection. 

It was reasonably simple to integrate. This was our first time with it, so we had learned our way through.

The Automation Anywhere University was useful and a good head start for my team. I haven't taken of its courses yet.

We are not using IQ Bot. We are evaluating it, but we haven't made a decision yet.

We don't use Citrix automation.

Our primary use case is to automate manual tasks to free up space for more value-added tasks.

Our first automation removed manual work from employees, so they are now able to more quickly product quality work.

The flexibility which has been built into it.

The support and user community need improvement. For example, it would be nice to have a place for those who create bots to have a place to share information and success stories.

It is very stable.

It is very scalable.

We're in the process of scaling currently. We started off with two pilot automations, then we needed an engagement strategy to get people excited about it and get their ideas. Then, we needed to prioritize those ideas and go deeper into the processes. But, we plan to start on the next phase soon.

The technical support is good. You create ticket on the website, then hear back from someone. I do wish they were a bit quicker with a solution.

It was a bit complex. You can contact support, and they will help you through it.

We measure our ROI as time savings per month returned back to the business. We are currently saving about 150 hours per month.

We evaluated Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Blue Prism. 

We chose Automation Anywhere because of its user-friendly interface. It is a well put together solution.

We don't currently use attended automation.

We are a service department which handles toys and games. Currently, we are at the phase of selecting a representative from HR, Administrative, Accounting, and IT to develop our day-to-day operations. We have not implemented the solution yet. 

We have done the RPA for the tasks. We have developed it, but haven’t reached the stage of implementation yet. The PoC is done, and now, we are in the development.

Automation can reduce tasks and actual working hours. It ensures accuracy. Humans errors are inevitable when humans do tasks, so this issue will disappear. 

We looked into three vendors originally, but we thought that a control room, or the control feature, would be the most important aspect. It is why we chose this vendor. 

Yes, the support from Automation Anywhere has room for improvement. Because we have contracts with Deloitte, and now that Automation Anywhere has its Japan office, things would be smoother if we could pose questions directly to their Japan office regarding “Bottasan” and FAQs.

As far as stability is concerned, it is fairly stable. However, it does stop occasionally, so there is some instability. 

We only have four machines for the development and actual work. Once we are done with the development, we will implement it in groups. At this point, we don’t know about its scalability yet.

We are getting technical support as a consulting service. Automation Anywhere Japan is doing the technical part of “Bottason” for us. We are receiving our support as such, but as far as the daily incremental technical issues, we ask Deloitte for help.

We received the manual, so our IT department set it up. I believe it was relatively easy.

We haven’t seen any returns yet.

I would rate this product as a five out of ten. It is partly because our process has not progressed much, and also what I said about the support. We get the support from the company we have a contract with, but I would like to see more worth in the new Automation Anywhere Japan.

It’s good as an RPA company. For an organization who is looking to do some business renovation, the solution can work well depending on its purpose and usage. You can also expect good scalability. However, I wouldn’t recommend it to those who just want to increase their number of bots.

Foreign Language: (Japanese)

この製品を主にどのように使用していますか？また、パフォーマンスはどうですか？

我々の会社自体が、グループのシェアードサービス部門を担当しています。

人事、総務、経理、ITとあり、それぞれの部門から代表者を選んで、それぞれの部門の業務を実際、AAで開発をしているという段階です。ただ、まだ実装はしていないです。

業務自体の開発はAAでしてるんですけど、実装には至ってないですね。

POCが終わって、開発を貯めてるということですね。

からの感想でもいいんですが、当ソリューションのどんな機能に最も価値があると思われましたか？ 

製品を選ぶ時にもともと3社ほど対象にしていました。将来の開発、実装を見据えた中でやっぱりコントロールルームというか統制機能ですよね、そこが重要になってくると考え、選択しました。。

どのようなメリットがあるとお感じですか？特に御社の業務処理がどう改善できるとお考えですか？

自動化によって業務短縮ができること、時間的には拘束が減るっていうのと、あとは正確性のところです。業務を人がやるとどうしてもミスが出てしまうところは、その辺はなくなってくるかなと思います。

当ソリューションの安定性に関して、どのような印象をお持ちですか？

安定的だとは思います。たまには、止まったりっていうところがあったりするので、その辺で一部不安定なところがあるかなと思っています。

当ソリューションの拡張性に関してはまだ印象はおありでないですね？

今はまだです。開発機で4台とか、実機で4台なので、もう少し自分たちの業務がきっちり開発出来てからグループ内で展開しようと思っています。今の段階では見えてないですね、そこまで。

テクニカルサポートを利用したことはありますか？ある場合は、サポートをどのように評価しますか？

テクニカルサポートという…そうですね、コンサルティングは受けてます。テクニカルなところでもAutomation Anywhereジャパンから”ボッタソン”を提供頂いたりしています。

そういうサポートを受けてますが、日々の細かいテクニカルなことは、パートナー企業に訊いていますね。

初期セットアップには御社も関わってされましたか？セットアップは簡単、それとも複雑でしたか？どういった意味で簡単、あるいは複雑でしたか？

セットアップは一応マニュアルを貰って、弊社のITがセットアップをしたというところで、そうですね、比較的簡単な方だったと思います。

たまに止まるという安全性では改善が必要かと思いますが、将来他にも改善して欲しい点や欲しい機能などはありますか？

そうですね、Automation Anywhereからのサポートという所で、契約しているパートナー企業がありますが、－今AAジャパンが出来たので、そこでも”ボッタソン”以外の質問とかFAQとかそういうのは受けてもらえるとより、スムーズに運用できると思っています。直取引ではありませんが、我々は将来、AAの台数拡大したいという思い、目的はAAジャパンとも一緒だと思いますので。

ここまでで投資対効果っていうのはどうでしょう？

投資対効果はほぼないですね。残念ながら。

ベンダーをお選びになる際、最も重要だと思われる条件は何ですか？

今はやっぱり運用と育成の所ですかね。運用体制を我々できっちりやらないといけないのですけど、そこに関わって来るガイドラインとかも紐づいて来ると思いますし、あとは育成のところもどんどん数を増やしていかないといけないかなと思いますので。

他のベンダーは検討されましたか？最終的に当ソリューションを選択した理由は何ですか？

やっぱりコントロール機能というか、統制機能というか、そこが将来的に重要になってくるかなと思ったので、そこでAAが一番しっかりしていたと考えたからです。

このソリューションに1から10の評価（10＝最高）を付けるとしたら、どのように評価しますか？

5自分達がなかなか進めてないというのがあるんですけど、サポートの所ですかね。今は契約先とはあるんですけど、Automation Anywhereジャパンができたことによるメリットを強調したい。

このソリューションあるいは同様なソリューションを探している、同社あるいは他社の同僚の方に、どんなアドバイスをなさいますか？

RPAの企業としては非常にいいと思ってるんですけど、あとその目的というか、使い道とで業務改革を伴うような企業であれば、非常に有効性もあるだろうし、将来的な拡張性も期待できると思います。ただ単に、ボットを一杯作りたいという所に対しては勧められないかなと。

RPAs are often used in administrative processes, but we have applied it to our master data management for manufacturing. At manufacturing plants, there are not a lot of administrative processes. However, there are many tasks dealing with what we call our master data, so that’s where we have implemented RPA, to collect, search, as well as register the data.

In our efforts to efficiently manage the master data at our factories, the biggest benefit is the fact that we have been able to rein in what was an increasing number of engineers who were needed. We have been able to do so on the order of some 100 people, so that’s a major result.

The most valuable feature is the ability to define the RPA tasks automatically. There is a major benefit in the fact that it can be done without human effort. As long as the instructions are error-free, the bots will make sure it gets done. That’s where we see a big advantage.

I have submitted requests to Automation Anywhere regarding feature expansion. There are two major issues. The first is that I would like to see functionality that will improve development efficiency.  The second is to be able to schedule the management of bots. I asked for functionality that would reinforce the scheduling.

One of the characteristics of RPA - and it really can’t be helped - is that it is easily influenced by the application that works along with it. This is something we need to be aware of. For example, we had an occurrence where it stopped due to an error because the application it works with had been changed and there was a lack of communication with the IT department.

The capabilities for developing similar tasks are there and it's relatively easy to do. However, to accomplish that we’d need a group of IT engineers. That’s where we are not up to par.

We do utilize Automation Anywhere’s technical support via our partner. Since Automation Anywhere's Japan office was only recently opened, it seems the support has not been as good as support for other package applications. I feel that we haven’t been able to fully take advantage of the support yet.

It’s important not to just implement bots just for the sake of implementing them but to think about how bots can be used to make processes more efficient.

The reason we chose Automation Anywhere is that it’s easy to develop with it. It also covers the widest range of functionality and it is enterprise oriented. Furthermore, a group in Toshiba started using it too, which made it possible for us to share information with one another. That’s why we decided on Automation Anywhere.

The setup itself did not take that much time and effort. In general, members of our IT staff do the actual setup, so we had no issues with it.

We do see ROI in the sense of staff reductions. However, if we are to apply it to the general administrative area, I think it’s not as easy to get a real ROI.

In our line of work, we don't have that many simple administrative processes. I’m sure companies like banks have enormous numbers of such processes, but in our company, our staff would spend less than an hour per day on delivery slips. If we got RPA and a bot, that would end up being more expensive. 

Foreign Language: (Japanese)

この製品を主にどのように使用していますか？また、パフォーマンスはどうですか？

一般的にRPAと言われると事務処理に使われるところなんですけど、我々は製造のマスター管理と言われているところに適用しました。製造業で実際の工場の運営ではですね、事務処理的な要素は非常に少ないんですね。ただ、マスターと呼ばれているデータを扱う業務は非常に多くあって、そこでのデータの収集検索だとか登録という業務のところにRPAを適用しました。

当ソリューションはどんな点において最も役に立ちますか？

RPAのタスクと呼ばれている部分ですけれど、その定義が自動でできる、人の手をかけずに自動でできるという所に大きな効果を感じています。で、さらに指示する情報さえ間違えなければ、ロボットが確実にこなすという所でも、大きな効果を得ています。

当ソリューションを使用するとどのようなメリットがありますか？御社が機能する上でどのような改善をもたらしましたか？

工場の先ほどのマスターデータの運用の効率化という意味では、エンジニアの増員抑制ですね。百人規模の増員抑制が可能となったと言うことが一番大きいと思います。

当ソリューションの安定性に関して、どのような印象をお持ちですか？

安定性ですか？RPAの特徴と言うか、構造上やむを得ないんですけど、相手のアプリケーションの影響を受けやすいというところではその注意が必要だなと感じています。

そういったアプリケーション側の影響で安定性の問題が発生したことがあるということですか？

IT部門で連携が不十分で相手アプリケーションの変更があったのが情報がなかったりすると、エラーをして止まるということがありました。

当ソリューションの拡張性に関して、どのような印象をお持ちですか？

考え方だとか、類似作業への展開は比較的容易だと思います。ただ、それを実現する上でITのエンジニアの部隊を育成していくと、そこがちょっと今の所、なかなかうまくできていないところかなと思っています。

このソリューションにテクニカルサポートを利用したことはありますか？ある場合は、サポートをどのように評価しますか？

パートナーさんを経由してAutomation Anywhereのテクニカルサポートを受けているんですけれども、日本法人がまだ立ち上がったばかりということもあって、若干他のパッケージアプリケーションに比べると、まだ弱いのかなというのは感じています。

感じているというか、まだ十分、我々も利用できていないんじゃないかなとは感じています。

初期セットアップには関与されましたか？セットアップは簡単、それとも複雑でしたか？

セットアップ自身はそんなに手間がかかったとは思ってないです。基本、我々のITのメンバーがセットアップを実施していますので、さほど問題はなく、セットアップはできました。

テクニカルサポートと安定性の改善点以外に、当ソリューションの次のリリースに含まれていたらいいなと思うのはどのような機能ですか？

先ほどの発表でもちょっと最後に付け加えましたが、Automation Anywhereに対するさらなる機能の拡張をお願いしたいです。そこは大きく2つほどあって、開発効率を上げるための工夫が欲しいと、いうようなことと、あとボットのスケジュール管理ですね。スケージューラじゃなくて、スケジューリングをしたいというところを機能として強化して欲しいということをお願いしました。

RPAをお使いになって投資対効果は見られていますか？

先ほどの省人化という意味では非常に効果があったという風にみています。ただ、一般の事務職的なところに、投資してやろうとすると、なかなか投資対効果で良い結果を得られるのは難しい状況もあります。

事務関係では難しいのはどうしてですか？

我々の会社の社員がやっている業務は単純な事務処理っていうのが少ないんですよね。証券会社や銀行だったりすると、膨大な事務処理があると思うんですけど、例えばスタッフの調達部門であっても、調達の伝票の処理をするのは、本当に一日のうち、一時間もないくらいなんですよね。その作業をRPAに1台、ボットに1台にしたら、ボットの方が高くついちゃうとかですね。

Automation Anywhereの前に別のソリューションをお使いでしたか？

RPAを導入する上では、代表的な5つのパッケージの検討を合わせて行いました。

Automation Anywhereを選ばれた理由は何ですか？

Automation Anywhereを選んだ理由はですね、開発する上での容易性が結構高かったということと、あとエンタープライズ志向と言われることで、機能的に網羅している範囲が広かったなというところ、でさらに、東芝、会社のグループの中で導入を始めたところがあったので、情報を共有しながら進められるかな、という点でAutomation Anywhereに決めました。

ベンダーを選ぶ上で最も重要な条件は何ですか？

機能とサポート体制、この2つが大きな…

実際に導入をしてやっていくと、サポート体制はまだまだ。これはRPA全体ですけど。

このソリューションに1から10の評価（10＝最高）を付けるとしたら、どのように評価しますか？そしてその理由は何ですか？

8ぐらいですかね。

サポート体制の強化というところと、もう少し機能が欲しい、先ほど言ったような。

このソリューションあるいは同様なソリューションを探している、同社あるいは他社の同僚の方に、どんなアドバイスをなさいますか？

RPAを、ロボットを導入するということでなくて、業務の効率化にロボットをどう使うかということを考えて進めることが大事だなと思います。

I highly depend on the product for automation processes on most of our organization systems. 

It has been able to simplify most of the tasks and projects from the creation of bots that perform most duties. Our team members have focused on more productive duties that require human input leaving less operative duties to robots. 

Service delivery has improved and our customers are very happy since they can be served at faster speeds by robots. It has created a conducive working environment that has overseen our workforce team increasing production.

Automation Anywhere has led to faster growth in our organization. We have increased our sales volume and ensured that the current international threshold. We have created robots to undertake critical roles and left some duties under the labor force team. It has streamlined workflow infrastructure and sped things up in our company. The deployment cost of Automation Anywhere is relatively low when compared to other RPA platforms. It has secured our data and given us very effective cloud services. An increase in production has enabled our teams to focus more on quality and fulfilling customer demands.

The Robotic Process Automation tool is very powerful and most useful in our organization. It has enabled our system management teams to design robots that fit most programs. Cloud operation features are very convenient and have lead to faster deployment processes. It has created a conducive collaboration feature that has led to better teamwork among our team members. The creation of most applications in our company has been done from the programming interface and they have been very effective in running our business programs.

The current version is very effective and I have no recommendation for improvement. Since we deployed Automation Anywhere is has never failed in functionality. It has led to faster growth of our enterprise and lead to increased productivity. 

Automation of most services has led to faster service delivery and given our organization an opportunity to win over many customers. 

The next version could have more data storage capacity that can be customized to sustain different workloads. I am satisfied with most features overall and I am very proud of this Software.

I've used the solution for two years.

This platform has has highly increased performance across the entire organization. Production has increased leading to faster growth.

The customer support team has been very supportive since we deployed it.

Positive

I have not used a different solution.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We implemented through a vendor and they were very supportive and had a high level of experience.

It has contributed to a positive ROI.

The setup cost is relatively low and is affordable while offering a quick ROI. 

I explored other options, such as UiPath, but have settled on Automation Anywhere.

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.