Automation Anywhere Reviews

We have an ITMS Service Desk that has a lot of tickets coming to it. As an enterprise, there are too many applications there, which are being used by employees. This service desk enables them to address all the issues which they are facing, whether it is on the application, infrastructure, etc. There is a group who manages all these tickets coming through ServiceNow. These numbers are huge. To manage these services or change requests, we use Automation Anywhere when it is not possible to use either an API or do scripting.

My company is using the latest version.

I have one application that does not publish any APIs. However, there is one activity where every employee needs to be registered in that particular application. Now, we use Automation Anywhere for this. So, we get the data from the source data using the front-end of that application through the Automation Anywhere script. Then, we do registration of the employees into that application. Previously, this was being done by people on our service desk. Now, we are using Automation Anywhere to do this activity. This has saved a lot of time. 

Just for this use case, we had around 300 tickets coming in every month. We went live last month and the tickets went down to around 80 as of August 20th. While it might touch around 100, over a period of around six months it will become zero because we have not removed all the legacy data. We are just doing it from the go date of when we went live. The target is that it will be zero after three months. So, it's working well.

A work in progress is a request which came in from employees using ServiceNow to create a VPN account for them. Today, this is a manual process where the service desk people have to raise a ticket to another team who create the VPN account for the employees. This is why we are currently automating this process.

I like that it can login to any system as a robot and do the work that humans can.

Automation Anywhere is unable to connect to the database directly. What we are doing now is directly writing the PL/SQL scripts and trying to push the data from the database into Automation Anywhere. This feature is available in UiPath, but not in Automation Anywhere.

I am unaware if Automation Anywhere is able to read unstructured data, build some intelligence around it, and then push it into the application. We do have some requirements in our organization where invoices are scanned, and based on the data, hard copies of the data are fed into some applications. Today, we are using different tools for these features, but if it is available in the tool, then that would be good.

We are a midsize company in the Indian market running one or two bots. 

From a scalability perspective, I don't think there will be any issues. It is pretty good.

Support-wise, it is great. 

We installed this on a cloud infrastructure and had a lot of challenges. However, there was a dedicated support person who was helping us to do the installation.

The initial setup was definitely complex. Layman people cannot do it. People with a bit of knowledge need some help from Automation Anywhere.

It took a month and a half to do the basic installation of this software along with some internal processes related to our firewalls.

We had a dedicated person from Automation Anywhere who was supporting us at the time of the initial installation.

While our Automation Anywhere's implementation is in a premature stage, it has really decrease the workload on our service desk. We are looking to decrease the ticket counts too. I definitely see this solution helping us in the future.

Our tickets have decreased. We have more than 40 uses cases. We definitely see some ROI in the future from this product.

In the Indian market, I feel that for mid-size companies, such as ourselves, that having multiple bots costs a lot. If Automation Anywhere wants to expand in the Indian market, they will need to look at their pricing.

One of the major reasons that we went for Automation Anywhere was a global MSA, which our company has with Automation Anywhere. They wanted us to use this particular tool for our end customers too. 

I am part of an internal CIO team, where our customers are our employees. However, as an organization, we had a global agreement with Automation Anywhere where they wanted to deliver this tool to the end customer as part of their solutions. Because of that agreement, we went with Automation Anywhere.

My team (who uses both Automation Anywhere and UiPath) says that UiPath has better modules and functionality than Automation Anywhere.

I'm seeing some results in the use case for whatever we are trying to automate. So, it has been really helpful.

Don't use an RPA tool for any problem statement. I've seen people use any RPA tool available for their problem statement just to say that they are using some type of RPA. E.g., We had a use case where we had to read information from an Excel table and generate a report, so people started using Automation Anywhere. However, it would have been better in this scenario to use Power BI by creating scripts.

We use this solution for automating tasks such as:

• Manual journal entries on monthly closing
• Travel and expense claims processing
• Net sales monthly closing checks
• Logistics master data maintenance for every new shipment
• Vendor creation on master data for every new demand
• Order confirmation reminders automated for vendors 

We are just using it as one of the automation technologies. The major automation has already happened over SAP on the backend since the whole company globally runs on a single ERP. However, where conventional methods or basic solutions don't work, it definitely helps to use AA software.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the SMART Recorder.

The overall developer client has an easy-to-use UI.

The Control Room, scheduling features, and client repository are really good features that make day-to-day bot development and enhancement quite quick and easy.

The PDF Integration feature is also quite helpful, as well as the Send email command that helps us skip a lot of Outlook-based steps that are not necessary.

More support required to be embedded in the SMART Recorder for SAP objects.

IQ Bot should be available embedded as a feature on the developer client and not as a separate product.

Some NLP AI is required to work in combination with RPA, especially for reading unstructured emails. 

This solution is quite stable. We get one or two tickets in the whole year due to any downtime and that is never due to AA.

AA is the easiest and the best when it comes to scalability.

Technical support for this solution is the quickest and the best. I always get a response within the same day and their support matches our SLAs.

It was a little complex due to the IIS Manager and a lot of other features but with version 11 and beyond it is much easier to install and configure.

We performed the implementation in-house.

While calculating the setup cost you should account for the server, virtual machines, product licenses, maintenance costs, and running costs.

Before choosing this solution we evaluated UiPath and Blue Prism.

Be careful with the installation of this solution. It is better to do it with support from the vendor at first.

We use this solution to automate the following task:

• Open MS-Excel-File from Folder
• Update the data with keystroke-command
• Wait for calculation of the result
• Save the file
• Loop the command above for each file in the folder
• Send email-notification to the task owner
• Send Quality Check to task owner (.pdf-command)
  
• Error handling (where applicable)

This solution gives us greater employee satisfaction because manual recurring work has been reduced. We also have a savings of manpower, independently of office-hours thanks to bot scheduling.

We redesigned tasks before the implementation of bots, and have higher stability through standardized Bot Runner.

We find several functions valuable, including:

• The Files/Folder command makes it easy to work off each file in a folder. I don't know how else to do this command.
• The Variable Operation makes it easy to work with variables. The system variables catalogue is helpful.
• The Send eMail Command helps with the flow of information.

In the Microsoft Excel features, it needs a command to wait for a calculation to complete.

In Microsoft Excel, why isn't it possible to share a session in different tasks? It's complicated to program all of the commands in the same tasks (loss of overview).

The Filter function only supports four commands (Mouse/Key/Delay).

In the Optical Overview for the Loop command, an if/else would be helpful.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

It takes a lot of effort to build up the internal infrastructure/topics like Virtual Machine/Security/development-Governance/Usecase-Management.

I would rate it an eight out of ten.

In our banking center, we are using Automation Anywhere for loan settlements, credit card transactions, and reconciliation forms. It has been easy to use.

I like working with most of the commands in Automation Anywhere, such as object cloning commands.  I like MetaBot for automating Citrix.

They need to improve the speed. It runs too slowly.

There are some setup limitations:

• There is no direct passing mechanism to manipulate adjacent data and send it back to the server. 
• There is not one task that lets you debug everything.

Version 11.3 already has a lot of things that we want: quickness, ease, bigger, and more functions.

It is 90 percent stable. 

10 percent is due to network issues, slow performance of the application, or failed bots. These happen infrequently though. We implemented some fallback mechanisms around the network issues.

Scalability is fantastic. We can build anything out of the application. Though in some places, there are limitations. Fixing those would be good.

We are deployed in five different regions.

We are using the technical support. They are fantastic, but sometimes we aren't getting the expected outcome that we want from the tech support team. We would like to see this improve.

The initial setup is not that complex. We just download the software. Anyone can go and download it. It can be downloaded with two-way server. Then, the next step is to get a license for development and other things. Once development is done and it has been move to product, the client can use it.

I would recommend using this product. It is very useful. We can automate anything through it. There is much flexibility. It provides a robust mechanism, which is good.

We look at process which are feasible for automation on a case-by-case basis.

Our use case is spread across multiple areas: 

1. We are using it in finance: automating the month-end process. 
2. There are a lot of review processes that happen every week. We are in the middle of that.
3. We have a product lifecycle management process that when we close the books on a product, information needs to go into multiple systems. We have another bot in system for this.

These are the three things that we have in production right now.

A project that we automated: A person used to spend about eight to twelve hours every week to finish the process. The bot finishes it in half an hour. Now, the person just reviews it, then passes along the information. This has helped our organization because originally EMEA and APAC would not receive the files the same day that they were processed. But because the bot only takes a half an hour, everyone can now receive the files on the same day.

We know the process. It doesn't deviate.

Speed: A process that would take two days for a person every month to do is now completed within two hours.

Right now, the audit trail sits in file systems. I would prefer it to be in a database where it is queryable and searchable. 

Another major downside is an upgrade. If I have to switch over from single sign-on to non-single sign-on, etc., then it's a complete reinstall. When I do a complete reinstall, I lose a lot of information because it's a new instance. I'm not able to bring information from the old instance and my metrics are all gone. I basically have to reset the whole infrastructure. I would like to see an option to switch over to single sign-on post-installation. It should not have to be a reinstall. It should be part of the installation or configuration.

I wanted to see a cloud version and mobile app but those will be available in the A2019 version.

I would like the bots to be more automatic without having to check emails, which is how we have our tool setup. Going forward, the bots should be more interactive.

So far, the stability has been pretty good.

We did have some issues when our database server sort of crashed. A lot of processes went uncommitted, so we had to engage the Automation Anywhere support team. They came in to clean up the database and bring the server back up. Otherwise, we have seen pretty good stability.

So far, the technical support has been really helpful. We were even able to engage the customer success team when we needed them. They have helped us solve our problems, which is very good.

We had a major issue when it came to single sign-on. We couldn't get it working. There was a bug in Automation Anywhere that eventually got solved just a few weeks back. However, we have not implemented it. We have had hiccups with the single sign-on, but otherwise it was a smooth setup. We are not using single sign-on because of this bug.

We used our implementation partner for the deployment and implementing the bots. Our experience with them was good. Most of them are good developers. They have been able to solve a lot of issues and build a lot of processes.

We have seen ROI on two out of our three bot processes. We see ROI from hours returned back to us.

It is a lot easier to debug Automation Anywhere than UiPath because of the code. Our clients like Automation Anywhere which is another reason that we picked it.

Automate several smaller processes within departments. Show the benefit there before implementing an end-to-end solution. This will get people excited about the solution and kick start the process.

We got our workloads for issues and our bugs fixed, which is why I rated the product a 10 out of 10.

We primarily deal with a SAP business model. We use Automation Anywhere for logging into websites, entering data, moving information around, and sending emails to end users.

We are currently using a cloud deployment model.

The product has saved us a lot of time by reducing manually tasks, like entering data into Excel.

The object cloning strategy feature is the most valuable feature.

I would like the product to have more capabilities going forward.

We are not getting consistent behavior from the tool We would like to see this improved and the product more stable.

I would rate the technical support as an eight out of ten.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It did not take more than a few minutes.

I would definitely recommend Automation Anywhere.

We use it for the mail merge process, specifically for renewals. Each month, it could be a tedious process to check all the documents and PDFs for each iteration. The creation of a bot for these task leads to better than expected results.

We can use the current manuals to make sure the bots are working at 100 percent before the next release.

It is user-friendly. Everything is under a single dashboard. 

We can access it anywhere. E.g., I can access dashboard from my Control Room on my mobile app using Automation Anywhere. 

From a QA and development perspective, we would like to communicate with the tech support through email and have that put in the dashboard. This would let us better track the ticket and make it easier for us to communicate with Automation Anywhere.

They recently integrate Oracle and SQL. I would like to have more integration and feature going forward.

The stability is good. 

The scalability is good.

Automation Anywhere team is ready to support us if we encounter any issues.

We recently encountered some issues in the navigation controls that our dashboards were unable to change. So, we contacted the Automation Anywhere team and they helped us to get it rectified.

It is easy to set up. You can do it from anywhere using the Control Room. It is not a tedious process. 

I am used to these types of setups as an SQL engineer.

We save time with the solution, so we have more time to reuse and spend on our clients. 

Talk to your manager and try to procure an automation license for training. This will allow you to train people, so you can move to automation.

If we try to use another product, there are additional product costs. Automation Anywhere uses a single dashboard that you can access anywhere. It also provides more insights versus other products, which is an advantage of using Automation Anywhere.

I have recently gone through the Automation Anywhere training to receive some certifications.

We started with finance use cases. Some of our biggest success stories have been with collection correspondence strategy around AR and the cash application. We also focus a lot on the financial close process to the month-end processes. These are the biggest areas of focus. We are starting to look at AP in finance. Beyond finance, we're also trying to look at the sales processes. 

Finance was sort of a pilot. We are now looking at sales processes starting from the customer order handling to services, and how we can enrich the experience. Our goal is to enhance the customer experience.

We have a suite of technology products. Most of the time, there is communication between various products. We get a number of emails from our customers that we send out. E.g., our system is based on some criteria that sends emails out to customers. Therefore, there is a lot of user interface level interaction. However, we always look at the problem statement and work through that.

We are a B2B company. We have a lot of communication with our customers in terms of collection correspondence, such as payment reminders. We started with the problem: Should we be a company focused on heavily calling as all companies traditionally are? Or, change that using Automation Anywhere, but how do we communicate with customer using the tool as it is more interactive and individual-driven. We created personalized emails using a digital correspondence strategy. This is an areas where we have delivered results. 

It is easy to code. While you have developers, somebody with a development or workflow mindset can logically build a bot in Automation Anywhere by understanding how to put a process in a workflow. If you have that, then you can logically build a bot in Automation Anywhere. Even a non-IT or business user can just look at the bot language and understand what the bot is doing, and that's the easy part. This is an interesting part of the product that we are trying to capitalize on.

They consistently endeavor to improve the customer experience. Customer success is their motto. The organization clearly knows who they are and what they stand for. 

We are one of the smaller startups in the area so we experience a lot of issues. Most of the issues have been: 

• How do you build up your platforms? 
• Automation Anywhere is more geared toward how humans work, and a bot works differently.

These are the specific challenges that we have seen.

Some small issues:

• A bot will be working and the the screen will lock out.
• The app has a password change policy every few days.
• One day, there will be a message box saying that the application is down or not available on a weekend. The instructions will say read the information and click, "Okay." But a bot doesn't understand the instructions because it is not the IQ system.
  

There are a lot of initiatives going on. E.g., there is one for the Excel part where they are building a plugin in Excel. Those type of plugins would help if they were built in various applications for integration across applications. I would like more plugins overall. It would be nice to have a plugin for all applications, like PowerPoint or any PDF to text converter, to make the tool easier to work with.

On the user side, we have seen issues with user training.

The product still requires programming knowledge. We would like it to become easy enough to use where anyone in the organization can utilize the tool and use the bots. The usability should be at the same level as a Microsoft Suite product. This is on Automation Anywhere's roadmap to evolve toward this.

It is an evolving platform, but it's fairly stable.

They have frequent upgrades. 

Scalability is dependent on the organization and customer size, but it's a stable platform.

We have not faced issues as we have scaled up.

They have a good 24/7 support system. Even if there is an issue, we are able to solve it.

The ticketing system: You create a ticket and can get support 24/7. That's already a big thing for us. We have had good reviews on it.

The initial setup was fairly straightforward. Automation Anywhere did a lot of hand-holding through it

We used Automation Anywhere as our initial service provider.

Our return on investment has more been based on improving things which we could not do earlier. There were some aspects of processes which we had to outsource because we were not able to do these in-house. Our return on investment is based on bringing these outsourced services and processes back in-house. In addition, ROI is based on doing things to improve the customer experience.

We have also seen ROI based on employee experience. Quantification is not easy. We cannot quantify it, but we have millennials coming into the workforce who don't want to do "boring" activities. If you tell them that the organizations has a digital workforce concept, this is a driver for them to think that the organization is the way that it should be. This is bigger than dollars when quantifying value.

Automation Anywhere presented a pitch for the IT solutions that we have. 

We considered the top three vendors. We chose Automation Anywhere because of the customer engagement drives and their integrated services team. The other vendors didn't have this. Automation Anywhere's service team stands out.

If you're starting out and a smaller organization, their arrangement of products helps. Product-wise, there are some pluses and minus in everything

Think of what is the best fit for your organization in terms of a technology platform. Also, have goals in mind, like improving the customer experience, not reducing the FTEs in your organization.

Going forward, there will be new releases on the cloud.