Automation Anywhere Reviews

Our use cases are around finance processes and one business function that we have a lot of automation. We're an agriculture and supply chain company, so we also have a lot of processes that would deal more with order processing, order management, customer service, and those types of processes.

We also have a use case from a document processing standpoint. We have a use case where farmers in Asia, in the APAC region, would handwrite inventory of that particular product, send a photo of it, and then someone would manually take that information and put it into the system or put it into a spreadsheet. We've been able to automate that. It not only saves time, but the data is 85% to 90% accurate versus it used to be about 60% beforehand.

We're finding time savings as a benefit. One example would be a customer service rep might get a question about an order, usually through email. It can take a good three to seven business days to answer a customer's question about their order. When we automate it, it takes hours, if not minutes.

We also are building out a new model for our metrics. Our biggest challenge is because Cargill is an international traditional company, we work with many different regions that have to abide by certain local rules and regulations.

We don't have just one order management process at Cargill. We have over one hundred and trying to simplify those processes first before we automate it is our biggest challenge. 

We're in conversations with Automation Anywhere now about process discovery. We've just kicked off. We are installing a tool with process discovery that we still haven't figured out what the best practice for utilizing it with Automation Anywhere will be.

We have a federated model. We are a center of excellence. We own the platform, and we build out the governance framework. We also provide training and updated communications to all of the users.

The learning curve is small. It takes only about four hours to learn it, but hands-on experience is different. That's what takes a little bit longer. Some users sit within IT, and some of the users sit within the business. It's fairly easy to teach others to leverage it. They have to have an interest in learning it, but it's fairly easy. 

Overall, Automation Anywhere has helped us save time. But we're also looking at customer satisfaction. We track sustainability numbers, if that comes into place. So we have a lot of different metrics that we look at versus just time.

One of the reasons that we chose Automation Anywhere years ago was because of the security because we need to secure both our customer and our vendor data. 

We have a lot of confidential data that we work with every day. 

Automation Anywhere has an audit tracker feature. When you build a bot, it has a trail of how you went about developing that particular bot.

We integrate other tools within Automation Anywhere. Overall, it's fairly easy. We have about 265 bots in production today. We see bigger challenges on the business side if they change a template and then fail to tell us that we need to change the bot.

We leverage IQ BOT. We have another tool that we leverage as well for document processing called Intelligent Document Processing (IDP). 

I want to learn more about CoPilot and then the process discovery tool. 

We are part of the Pathfinder program. It's more of a program versus a tool, but we're working with people to learn how we can scale our whole program using Pathfinder.

We've been using Automation Anywhere for about five to six years and continue to scale about 50 bots per year.

I'm very comfortable with being able to scale, especially now that it's moving into the cloud.

We've had really good support with Automation Anywhere. 

We have weekly tech meetings with Automation Anywhere. I also have strategic meetings every week and quarterly strategy planning meetings. We have a really good support system.

Positive

UiPath was one of the competitors, and we did bring on UiPath specifically for the Chinese language. That program has not scaled as we expected so we really are an Automation Anywhere shop.

We're going through the 360 migration right now. The bots that we have in production are fairly complex. It hasn't been an easy migration. We're getting through it, and we have a lot of support to get through the migration. But it's really more of the complexity of our organization.

We wanted to put together a streamlined platform versus having puzzle pieces and taping them together using different vendors. 

I wanted us to be more streamlined so that we don't have glitches down the road with upgrades and version updates. That's one reason that I wanted to stay with Automation Anywhere. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. The only reason I wouldn't rate it higher is because a COE Manager still not getting the full benefit from it and because the premium is a little bit expensive. We don't necessarily have the budget to bring on a full new feature. Also, the process discovery tool is taking a little bit longer to implement than I thought it would.  

We get many banking and finance use cases e.g. reconciliation, accounts payable, etc. from banking clients which involves the extraction of unstructured data from various scanned and true PDF documents. Post this, the data needs to be validated and triaged before feeding it into SAP and Java-based applications. 

The Automation Anywhere platform has always stood out from the rest of the solutions available on the market given we have IQ Bots and Bot Insights neatly integrated into the platform which enables us to develop rapidly and train the learning instances using pre-defined domains over the purchase orders, forms, invoices that need to be processed. Post extraction of the form and data fields from the documents we post them into SAP and Java-based applications. Automation Anywhere's ease of automation with these types of applications helps to deliver consistent and reliable automation in record time.

We are currently using AAE 11.3.5.1 Client with Control Room, IQBots, MetaBots, Bot Insights, and AA2019 capabilities.

Automation Anywhere has and continues to help us deliver multiple complex and very complex use cases in record time. With AA2019, this ease of development and rapid time to market has improved by a great margin as virtually no setups and configurations are required. Converting prospects into leads into opportunities has never been easier. AA2019 enables us to build POCs quickly without waiting for IT guys to install AAE client as no setups are needed to build BOTs. This enables us to give demos to clients at lighting speeds and gain client confidence in the capabilities and kind of automation we can execute as an Automation CoE.

1. IQ Bot: IQ Bot makes it a breeze to classify banking documents, purchase orders, and invoices. Also, intelligent OCR helps with accurate form field and text field data extraction from unstructured documents. The easy cloud training of the already existing domains and integration with task bots is the icing on the cake.

2. MetaBots - Metabots makes capturing and re-calibrating screen controls in (offline mode as well) really easy. This enables us to make changes to the UI Assets easy.

3. AA2019 helps us to rapidly try out POCs without going through the install cycle and setting up the control room. This is a very important and critical step given we can build automation rapidly and show to prospective clients helping foster confidence amongst the business enabling growth.

Points to Improve:

1. Control Room -> While exporting a package, an option to de-select all the depending/referenced files should be available. Currently, it only allows for selecting all the files. Also, the views should be re-sizable as they are currently fixed width. This would enable to view long file names easily eliminating any chances of exporting the wrong file.

Points to Add in next release(s):

1. Availability of actions for Date and time functions in task bots, meta bots logics editor like Date Addition, calendar functions, etc.

2. Addition of Assertions activities, that can help with conditional compilations

3. Option to copy multiple variables at the same time (as selected by the developer)

4. Option to close all the task bots files in the editor at a go

5. Option to check-out multiple files inside a folder structure in a go

6. List and array should be made dynamic, as in there must not be a requirement to specify at least 1 element in the list, etc.  

7. Deletion of multiple variables in one go (as selected by a developer)

I have been using Automation Anywhere for over three years.

The solution has been becoming better with every release. We have been reporting bugs and supporting the developer teams to make Automation Anywhere more stable and better. With AAE version 11.x.x.x most of the feedbacks are incorporated and solutions are stable and performant.

Scalability with Automation Anywhere has been great. BOT farms have helped rapidly and dynamically spawn up or down the BOT runners. 

We always get a prompt response from customer service and technical support. I really find the priority technical support the depth at which they go to help us find a solution to issues is simply amazing. I have not experienced this with any other solution vendor. A big thumbs up to you guys. 

Initial setup was a breeze and fairly straightforward with all the great support from Automation Anywhere customer service and various technical teams.

We have used vendor teams and in-house teams to implement various solutions. Vendor team people have good knowledge of the various components of Automation Anywhere and know how to design effective, performant solutions in record time.

Post implementing AA, ROI numbers have grown exponentially. Given the scalability and dynamics that Automation Anywhere platform supports.

1. Setup cost is minimal as AAE Control Room is hosted in the cloud. Also, with AAE no dedicated setups need to be run and installed

2. Licensing cost is relatively less compared to other solutions on the market

3. Pricing stands out well compared to other solutions 

I have evaluated UiPath and Blue Prism.

Automation Anywhere has been a significant step in our digital transformation. AA2019 addresses a lot of gaps that we previously had. This makes Automation Anywhere stands out in the market making it an obvious choice.

I am working specifically in the finance sector of every single business. Currently, I am collaborating with the finance department of a company to automate their reconciliation and other processes. It works well with ERP automation and similar tasks.

Before Automation Anywhere, we had Python automation packages. The challenging part about that was it required a lot of coding and error handling. That becomes very complicated, whereas in Automation Anywhere, we already have the framework. We just need to put the logic and all the error handling is done by the Automation Anywhere framework. It is quite good. The availability of frameworks for error handling allowing users to insert logic without additional handling is valuable.

They have an AI platform with GenAI implemented to help us generate anything that is necessary for automation.

Co-Pilot is an interface between a human and a bot. It helps us to give basic instructions or human-related intelligence to a particular bot to complete certain processes. It is quite an important part of automation when we need a human to decide what to do.

It definitely increases productivity. If a human takes six to seven hours to complete a process, a bot can do it within two to three hours with the help of a human if we include Co-Pilot.

When it comes to integration, I have integrated Automation Anywhere with Microsoft Dynamics, Excel, SAP, and Salesforce. All business and enterprise applications are pretty compatible with Automation Anywhere.

The benefits of Automation Anywhere can be seen immediately.

Automation Anywhere has a drag-and-drop feature eliminating the need for extensive coding.

It has a large supportive community. They support you at every single step. Their Apeople community is similar to the GitHub community. They are immensely helpful in developing automation bots.

One area requiring improvement is the debugging process. When I use a multi-structure with conditions to switch from one bot to another, successful debugging of the entire process is not feasible. Each bot has to be debugged individually.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost four and a half years.

The stability of the automation depends on the applications being automated. For very old or legacy applications, there may be crashes. However, with the latest applications, there are no significant issues like freezing or crashing.

It is quite flexible. For cloud-based applications, there is the option of APIs. For Windows-based applications, it provides UI interface automation, which enhances its scalability.

Technical support is quite good, offering silver, gold, and diamond levels depending on the license. I have had instances of contacting support for compatibility issues, and they provide solutions such as patches. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the support as eight.

Positive

I have used Microsoft's Power Automate, which is excellent for automation processes within Microsoft-related products. However, it lacks efficacy with other applications such as SAP, Salesforce, and others.

The setup varies with the deployment type. Cloud deployment is straightforward with only a few steps. Dealing with on-premises can be more complex due to customization for specific organizational needs.

The upgrades are quite easy. You just need to select the appropriate version suitable for your business. You need to contact Automation Anywhere, and they will do it for you. There are no hidden charges.

It requires maintenance. If you update your basic application, you also need to update Automation Anywhere to that level. If your application is old or not compatible with Automation Anywhere, they can create some sort of patch to link those applications together.

A single person can manage the deployment if they are purchasing the correct license with support. Alternatively, without direct support, an organization might need at least one professional and one developer.

For business users, there is a separate dashboard and UI to help automate their process. If you are very new to Automation Anywhere but have a basic knowledge of your processes, you can directly automate with Automation Anywhere. If you have basic knowledge of any programming language, it is easy. You can also go to Automation Anywhere University and go through some basic videos. A new person can get started with it within 15 days.

I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten overall.

We mainly use Automation Anywhere to automate or mimic manual business processes. We use Automation Anywhere to develop bots that mimic human interventions in business applications such as SAP and web report applications. We use Automation Anywhere to automate human actions in the applications.

By implementing Automation Anywhere, we mainly wanted to automate business processes.

I am a developer, and I am using Automation Anywhere to develop automated tasks for business users. I am not a business user. Before automation, business users were manually updating the data into the portals or desktop applications. The business required more time and resources.

Automation Anywhere helps save time and resources for the business. For example, an e-commerce website wants to create purchase orders for its client orders. They get the information regarding the clients in an Excel form, and the bot picks up the data one by one and updates it in the desktop or web application. They get hundreds of records daily, so updating the data manually can take more than a week. The business would require at least two to four resources. To save time and resources, we automate such tasks. With a bot, the process is done within minutes.

We are a service provider for business people. So far, our business people are very satisfied with our bots. They are getting huge outputs as per their expectations. It is beneficial for our clients.

There are multiple features. About three to four years ago, they introduced IQ Bot which helps to get data from documents with different structures. We receive bills, invoices, or purchase orders from different vendors in multiple formats. Each vendor uses a different format. IQ Bot automatically scans all the documents, extracts the required data from all unstructured documents or PDF files, and provides it to the business user. It is a very helpful feature of Automation Anywhere. They have recently introduced Automation Co-pilot which is very helpful for developers doing automation or automating the business process. Automation Co-pilot is very useful to create tasks.

Its user interface is very understandable. Even a non-technical person can understand it. Everything in the user interface is self-explanatory. It is quite good.

To use Automation Anywhere, no technical knowledge is required because it is simply a drag-and-drop type of tool. Each and every action is available in the tool, and we can easily automate a task. Business people can also easily run the created bot and monitor a particular task. They can easily monitor the results based on their business criteria. Automation Anywhere is a very good tool. It is easier than UiPath. A non-technical person can learn it very quickly.

I have experienced the issues of UI getting stuck. There seems to be an issue with server stability. This is something that can be better.

At times, the created tasks start failing randomly or intermittently which affects the business. They are failing at the runtime because of the bot launch crash issue. Business people are impacted a lot because of these failures at the run time.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for four years.

We sometimes have issues with server stability. There are also run-time failures of bots. I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability.

For scalability, I would rate it a ten out of ten. Automation Anywhere is moving with the current technologies. It is scaling day by day. 

We are a large organization.

We have used UiPath. It needs technical knowledge. You must know the C programming language to automate with UiPath. As compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere is better. A non-technical person can easily understand Automation Anywhere.

We are also learning Power Automate. As a service provider, we need to learn the latest technology. We are looking into Power Automate. Our business people are interested in Power Automate because it comes along with Microsoft Office.

Automation Anywhere also keeps on introducing the latest technologies. In the future, there will be good competition between Automation Anywhere and Power Automate.

Previously, it was on-premises, but now, everything is on the cloud.

Its deployment is very easy. Because it is a cloud platform, you just need to install a single file. It does not take more than two minutes to download. Within two minutes, the cloud license will appear. One person is enough for the deployment.

It gets updated automatically because it is a cloud version. There is no need to update it manually. Everything is done automatically. If auto-update is not working, we can update it manually, but that also does not take more than five minutes.

In terms of maintenance, regular maintenance is required because there are issues related to stability and tasks failing at the runtime because of unknown reasons. These things need to be fixed, so regular management is required for Automation Anywhere at the backend.

I am a service provider for business people. Business people will have a better idea about the ROI. From what I understand, there are time savings. 

My understanding is that the license cost of Automation Anywhere is more reasonable than UiPath and Blue Prism.

I would recommend Automation Anywhere for all business people. Automating a business process is easy with Automation Anywhere.

We have not yet used Automation Co-pilot. From what I know, if we are reading from an Excel file, it helps to generate each and every action for a task. What usually developers do is done by Automation Co-pilot automatically based on the information that we give it. Automation Co-pilot will improve productivity for a repetitive task. It will save 40% to 50% work for developers. We are currently not using the AI capabilities of Automation Anywhere.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a ten out of ten.

Our clients' use cases for Automation Anywhere are primarily finance and accounting, including accounts receivable, payable, reconciliation, and invoice processing. They also use it for supply chain and HR processes, IT, and contact center functions, among others.

Four or five years back, clients were looking to gain more accuracy and efficiency. Later on, they became more informed and educated about RPA technologies, and in the past couple of years, they have wanted one-stop solutions. They do not want multiple technologies or to deal with multiple vendors. They want a vendor or an OEM that can provide multiple technologies. That means not only RPA but something to handle integration document processing. They also want analytics and contact center solutions. 

It started with a technology through which a customer would gain efficiency and accuracy. Later on, the paradigm shifted and they wanted to deal with vendors who could provide all sorts of solutions to them.

The number-one feature is that Automation Anywhere can interact or integrate with all sorts of business applications.

The next most important feature is the cloud. That has been a game-changer. Currently, everyone wants to experiment more and more with cloud offerings. They don't want to spend money on setting up their internal hardware infrastructure. Automation Anywhere is the only tool that provides a pure cloud to customers. That is one of the key features. In the past couple of years, 70 to 80 percent of the deals I have closed have been for the cloud.

It's also very easy to use for non-technical business users.

Automation co-pilot integrates pretty seamlessly with day-to-day applications. The Automation Anywhere folks have added some advancements to that technology. I'm currently working on a couple of deals and we are using it as a solid unique selling proposition against other tools. For large organizations such as contact centers, automation co-pilot is going to fly for sure. It has already helped organizations increase productivity in the range of 30 to 40 percent, as a bare minimum.

Automation co-pilot has definitely helped to free up staff to work on other projects. That's one of the focus areas: Let computers do what they are supposed to do and what they are good at doing so that employees, associates, and analysts can focus on the things that they are good at doing.

In addition, the integration of RPA bots, APIs, business applications and documents in Automation Anywhere is seamless; it's very smooth.

They are already working on this: The boom of generative AI, the next-gen technologies, including advanced AI and ML technologies, are in the roadmap. I would like to see more and more AI integration and a bit more analytics. That would be great.

I have been working with Automation Anywhere for about six years. I am a reseller of the solution now, but prior to that, I was with Automation Anywhere.

The stability is a 10 out of 10.

It is definitely a very good technology. Automation Anywhere is a fantastic tool. But you need to have the right skill sets or the right partners to scale the journey. It's like having a Rolls Royce or a Mercedes. If you know how to drive it, of course, it is very easy to use it, but having an expert partner is crucial.

In terms of providing automation at scale, back in 2018 or 2019, the top five or top 10 customers of Automation Anywhere had more than 3,000 to 4,000 bots running in production. I don't think any other OEM had that sort of success story. Scaling up the journey with Automation Anywhere is pretty robust and a tested and proven technology.

Our customers deploy it in multiple locations and multiple departments. There are all sorts of models. I would rate its scalability at nine out of 10.

Their technical support is good.

Positive

I have worked on UiPath, Blue Prism, and a couple of projects on Power Automate as well. The number-one advantage of Automation Anywhere is ease of use. Number two is the success stories. Number three is that it is a mature overall ecosystem.

Deploying it is very straightforward, although I am not too involved in the nitty-gritty of implementation. My job is to prospect customers and work with them until the deal has closed. After that, I let my delivery team handle it.

We have a maximum of two people involved in deploying it. There is not much maintenance involved.

For technical employees, it takes about six weeks, and not more than that, to be trained to use Automation Anywhere. For a person without a tech background, it takes a couple of months, max. The learning curve is pretty steep for Automation Anywhere.

I have dealt with all sorts of customers, from small and medium-scale enterprises to large conglomerates. Across all of them, one commonality is that after the first year, they have all doubled their license count. 

They get a return on their investment very quickly, probably within six months the majority of customers get their ROI. After that, it is just a mushrooming effect. 

It is not only about cost savings. This technology impacts the top line as well as the bottom line of a company's P&L and balance sheets. Once they also realize its value, they come up with more asks and we scale up the journey.

Initially, they charged a premium, but now the rest of the vendors have increased their overall pricing and Automation Anywhere is not that high at this time. It's pretty viable.

I work in APAC, India and Asia Pacific countries, and customers here are very price-conscious. Every time I get a chance to work with Automation Anywhere, I tell them that I want a starter pack at a relatively low cost so that the customer can get started. But for customers based in Europe, The Middle East, or North America, Automation Anywhere is pretty competitive.

A couple of hours ago, I had a meeting with the group CEO of a multi-national corporation and he asked why he should use RPA when he can do automation using APIs and Python. That can definitely be done. If a customer has only a couple of processes to automate, I'll be the first person to tell them they don't have to invest in RPA. They can use scripting technology or API integration. But when we talk about scale, API automation with Python or any other type of scripting automation will not be the right choice. The reason is that it consumes a lot of time and is not that agile. That approach also becomes "person-dependent", meaning you have to keep the guy who developed that script around. If he is gone, your automation journey goes for a toss. When a customer wants to scale, they need a mature, solid, RPA platform such as Automation Anywhere.

It helps to free up our staff to work on value-add projects. It has saved their effort. With the automation of their project, a task that would have previously taken ten hours can now be done within four hours. We can then have them on other projects where more resources are required. They can utilize that time.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation consumption. In the last three years, we have used Automation Anywhere excessively, and in terms of cost, we have saved up to 50,000 to 60,000 dollars in three years.

I have used Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Blue Prism. The licensing cost of Automation Anywhere is better than UiPath and Blue Prism.

Features such as MetaBot and IQ Bot are very advanced and capable as compared to reading PDFs using OCR.

It is very easy for me to use, but for non-technical users, Automation Anywhere is a little bit challenging. If you have previously worked with any other tool, such as Blue Prism, it is a little bit difficult to understand because the nomenclature and terminologies are a little bit tricky. After you have hands-on experience with it for six to seven months, it is quite easy to understand. 

Automation Anywhere's UI is difficult. Its user interface can be improved.

They can improve their community so that if any help is required or if we face any issues, we can easily go there and get the help needed. In the case of both UiPath and Blue Prism, the community is very good. Everything is mentioned in the community. We just need to type a keyword, and we get the solution we need. It would be great if Automation Anywhere could improve their community.

In terms of additional features, there could be support for the cloud-based technology so that, similar to Orchestrator, we can use the control center from the cloud. It should be on-premises because a lot of financial institutes use automation, and they cannot upload their data or transfer their data to a third-party cloud. It would be good if they could host the system on the organization's premises.

I have been using this solution for the last five to six years. I am not using its latest version.

It is not as stable as UiPath and Blue Prism. There are some software crashes.

It is scalable but they need to enhance their product so that when any huge load of data comes, it does not crash. If we have to work on a million records of Excel data, it would crash.

They have a support channel where we can raise our concerns. If we cannot understand something or we do not have a solution for something, we can raise our concerns and requests in their support channel, and they provide the response or solution. We just need to create a ticket. I would rate their support an eight out of ten. Their support is good.

Positive

I have been working in the automation field for the last 11 years. I started my journey with Automation Anywhere, version 10.7. After that, I started working with UiPath and Blue Prism. I work with all three RPA solutions. I am an expert in all these three solutions, and I am also certified in these three solutions.

We utilize a solution as per the requirement or process. UiPath and Blue Prism are easier to learn than Automation Anywhere. In terms of performance, if you use heavy logic or complex logic, Automation Anywhere isn't as stable as compared to UiPath and Blue Prism. Blue Prism is very stable if you build any process or do automation of any process, whereas in the case of Automation Anywhere, your application or your process can break. However, Automation Anywhere is quite fast. The setup is quite easy. You can easily set it up on your system. The UI is very fast. There is no lag.

I installed it on my personal laptop, and it was straightforward, but for the production environment, the Infra team takes care of the installation. It takes them a maximum of two to three hours.

It is on a cloud. It is hosted in the Citrix environment, and it is being used by multiple departments. We need to log in to Citrix to utilize it.

Its maintenance is handled by our Infra team. If there is a patch release with a feature or fix that we need, the Infra team updates its version. Otherwise, we keep utilizing the same version. Our Infra team has access to the Citrix environment. They can create and close the Citrix environment, and that is why they do the maintenance. Any maintenance activities are done over weekends so that none of the in-progress processes get affected. Generally, they happen over weekends. They usually start on Saturday and then the activities are complete by Monday morning.

We are investing a lot in the licensing cost. If there was no ROI, our organization would not invest in it. We calculate the efficiency in terms of the effort saved by our full-time employees, which could vary depending on the processes. There could be 2% or 5% savings monthly, and based on that, we calculate the annual savings. Overall, there could be a 10% to 12% improvement in efficiency.

Automation Anywhere's licensing cost is better than UiPath and Blue Prism. The licensing cost is a big factor because you might have 50 or more bots, and the per-bot license cost is about $5,000. That is the amount that you need to invest.

We have explored various RPA solutions such as Kofax. We generally go for solutions like Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Blue Prism because of their capabilities. Our clients also want the best and the most cost-effective technology.

I would recommend Automation Anywhere, but it also depends on the cost. If you get a good discount on the license, go for it.

Automation Anywhere is easy to learn if you have experience with automation tools. If you are starting from the beginning, you will have to invest more time compared to the other RPA tools. It could be a bit difficult for non-technical users. You at least need to know what data variables do and what strings do. All these things are technical. You would also need to write VB or C# code, so non-technical people cannot work on these things.

Any integration completely depends on the application support. We have integrated ServiceNow API with Automation Anywhere. If the API is already provided by the organization or the development team, it is quite easy, but if we have to design the API or it is not available, it is a little bit difficult to integrate the application with the automation tool.

To someone who wants to use API integration instead of an RPA solution, I would say that based on my understanding, API integration is completely different from RPA. RPA is an end-to-end solution. It can automate your desktop applications. It can automate your browser-based application. API and web services are also included in RPA, so RPA is a complete ecosystem. API is just one part of it. Only through API, you cannot do automation. Through API, you can get values, and you can put values. You can modify values. You can generate a request or an incident, but creating a report via that data and replacing that data is not possible through API. You have to do it manually, or you have to open it in Tableau or Power BI and create a dashboard. By using an RPA tool, you can download data. You can change the request. You can get the request. You can modify those values and manipulate them according to your requirement. You can then create a dashboard. 

Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere a seven out of ten because of the stability and the terminology used in the product. The terminology they use is not for the layman. If I have to showcase it to my leadership, they would not be able to understand what MetaBot and IQ Bot are and why we use them. I have to make them understand in layman's language.

We have used AA for telecom industry repetitive processes, public retirement firms processes, and financial bank processes. The development has been with local developer desktops, remote VDIs, EC2s, as well as RDP clients of sorts for the individual company preferences.

We are currently building an Azure environment for our A2019 solution internally, with a VDI as our developer/UAT environment. Production will be a separate VDI operating from our main control room instance, as we create Bot Runner agents out of those VDIs for production.

I also deal with many federated lines of business, as they often develop locally and use attended automation as their source of RPA for their lines of business. Others utilize EC2s as their developer and UAT environments and have a separate production import process that keeps the separation of duties intact. Though this is not as productive as that team expected, they use it temporarily until their control room can be migrated and upgraded into A2019 instance as part of another line of business currently building out a sandbox environment for the remainder of 2020.

I am a consultant and our RPA practice on a personal level has improved the efficiency of the payroll, PTO, and timecard submission process within our company. It has taken time-consuming daily mundane tasks off the plates of our talented finance teams and allowed them to dedicate more productive time to working with more thought-heavy and human-centric activities.

Outside of our company, as we work with clientele, several improvement instances have been evident for those. One company had a very tedious process of monitoring an email inbox for several business units to send emails notifying that their daily database update process was completed. This took many hours of monitoring after hours, but in place of that, the RPA bot was able to perform the monitoring for them of that inbox, perform the necessary follow-up or escalation emails needed, and finalize the process once all was complete. This was unattended automation, saving them precious time, improving morale, and accurately informing everyone of the completion. 

Both v11 and A2019 have their strengths but the cloud-based forms with Excel, Microsoft applications, scripts integration, and functionality of A2019 have really stood out above the way v11 can do those things.

It takes far less code to work with A2019 than v11 for the tasks we have in place. In v11, the Metabot features have proven a tremendous help to work with smaller tasks such as file and folder operations, datetime operations, as well as credential management operations.

I'd say the most impactful and heavily or commonly used ability of v11 and A2019 has been the ability to integrate other code types and operations within the process. For example, if someone needed a heavy data comparison process to take place, utilizing AA could work but often takes a good bit of time to work through a large Excel or CSV file. Instead, activating a pre-developed or partner-developed Python script would be my choice because of the speed and efficiency of that language. I currently use this method and it's a major time saver.

In terms of improvement, usually, I have found is not as general as people think. Specifically, as a use case, I am excited to see improvements in having an A2019 cloud control room working and improved on the Lenox environments. A good bit of our finance infrastructure for web-based applications is built in that environment.

There is a good bit of dashboard-type development going on in this type of environment already, so the ability to integrate some of the functionality, as well as keep the synchronicity of everything within it, would be a major benefit.

Having fewer connection instances would make it more secure, more simple to troubleshoot, and possibly more flexible with the type of applications in use.  

I have been using the AA desktop application versions since 2014 (v09-v11), approximately six years, and A2019 for about four months.

I've not had any instability issues but only environmental stability issues that come down to the company that created the environment. 

I find it very scalable, especially with smaller automations, as they can often grow once proven to businesses that the processes work. 

The technical support was very knowledgeable, very easy to understand mostly, their ability to work with us to meet the needs and being patient was a huge help. 

I did not previously use different versions but currently use both. I do know that going forward with v11 sunsetting in 2021, we are migrating and going through a learning phase of A2019 to fully adapt to that application. 

The A2019 setup was straightforward for the applications themselves. The environments in which they are set up is a different story but, that again is on a per-company basis and often lends itself to the expertise of the DevOps teams. Sometimes, those folks are not familiar with RPA or A2019.  

We implemented through AA directly. The availability of their support was very good. Several meetings and work with their folks went well. 

Our ROI has ranged from thousands to hundreds of thousands, depending on the type of process being automated.

I really enjoy the pricing options with Automation Anywhere, as they are able to flex their ability to adapt to the needs of the customer really well. I am sure the specifics for some pricing are on a partner-by-partner basis but providing the ability to scale the licenses, setup, and pricing to the customer is a huge benefit with Automation Anywhere.

Their technical support system and response times directly to a partner are really good.

We did review UiPath, Blue Prism, and Power Automate. 

I'd say, fully go headfirst into learning the A2019 platform and all it can do for a business. There is something for everyone in that platform. Large or small scale automations, migration processes from v11 is already in place and tested, and there is no more need for Metabots because they are now "packages" that can be made or modified by a seasoned developer, and a plethora of other benefits are evident. Just jump in!! 

We primarily automate tasks in the financial area, including invoice processing. We can automate audits and do onboarding and offboarding as well, among other tasks. 

Automation Anywhere is simplifying processes. It is helping us create better customer experiences. 

The Co-Pilot feature is one of the features we really like. It's helped accelerate automation adoption more broadly across our organization. There are a lot of use cases for it. Co-Pilot has helped us increase productivity. Automation Anywhere in general makes tasks faster. We can do jobs in a couple of minutes versus hours or days.

We can do automation for some complex issues.

Before the processes were automated, there were a lot of gaps and places where human error could occur. Processes that took days and days of time are streamlined and reduced significantly.

Even for users who don't have technical knowledge, there are drag-and-drop features that help them create automation. They don't need to be technical. 

It's helped us free up staff time to work on other tasks. All of the people who were initially part of the job processes can be moved off to other things. The automation handles the tasks. 

We have other tools integrated into Automation Anywhere, including Microsft Programs. 

The integration of automation into workflows and business applications has been good. It's been easy to adopt.

It's positively affected our business. We've been able to apply it to broader jobs and save time. It's enhanced user and customer experiences and ensures we have on-time interactions with customers. 

We've been able to save on time and cost. We've witnessed a lot of savings. We're able to spend a few minutes on tasks instead of hours or days. 

It can provide automation at scale. We've been able to develop programs that engage teams effectively.

We can go online and learn about what we learn about Automation Anywhere. There is AI training on the roadmap, and we're excited to see how much AI will enhance the solution in the future. 

We'd like to see more AI features.

Technical support was okay. They have been able to supply patches to us for issues. 

Positive

We did not previously use a different solution.

The setup process was easy. We were able to leverage some time savings during the deployment. We didn't have too much downtime.

We initially began the deployment with a reseller. 

The pricing and licensing are reasonable. We were able to get what we needed. The vendor understand what we wanted and offered certain pricing based on what we wanted. As we scale up, the pricing will change according to how we use it. 

We did evaluate other options and decided not to move forward. 

I'd rate the solution at nine out of ten.