Blue Prism Cloud Reviews

The corporate leverage is better with Blue Prism. Blue Prism just presents better in a large corporation. It's easier to sell suits and ties than it is sneakers and jeans in financial institutions. That's not really about the application per se; it's the perception.

I've considered other options because of how Blue Prism's product and its acquisition by ACM have shaped its direction. Blue Prism seems to be moving into a more confined space and may not be as open as UiPath.

In UiPath, the ecosystem just feels a lot broader, and there's a lot more innovation and commercial models.

With Blue Prism, everyone wants to charge for everything, whereas in UiPath, you know, the community guard. There's a lot of really good stuff and useful stuff coming out of the community guard that are solving problems because they need to be solved, not necessarily because there's a business model or a commercial model sitting behind it.

Blue Prism is definitely more about the seats and tires, whereas UiPath is for the sneakers and jeans guys.

If Blue Prism could integrate into Azure SQL because it's essentially an on-prem code, on infrastructure as a service. So, Blue Prism has moved the infrastructure into the cloud, but they haven't necessarily moved the application into cloud-native.

So, for now, integration with Azure SQL is one of the critical points for me.

Another area of improvement is pricing. The fundamental problem is that Blue Prism is essentially an on-prem solution that's been moved to the cloud by leveraging infrastructure as a service. Because Blue Prism has to license virtual machines and everything and deploy on virtual machines, which means within their cost structures, you get a little bit of benefits using virtual machines in the cloud, but you don't get the same cost benefit as if you make your software cloud-native. For example, the SQL server and its solutions are essentially using SQL instances, server instances, in the cloud. So, you essentially have to pay for the licensing of an SQL server. This is the licensing that would be associated with it. Therefore, the input costs change.

I have been using Blue Prism Cloud since 2017. We were early adopters of the cloud version. The cloud version is automatically updated, so we use the latest version.

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. The service is always available, no server issues.

We currently have four customers using this solution. However, a lot of customers are considering to switch to the cloud version. 

It is a scalable solution. 

There are about seven people on average who work on maintenance.

If you're in a first-world country, The pricing works. But if you're in an emerging economy, then the pricing is still an issue.

I would rate the pricing model a seven out of ten, where one is expensive and ten is affordable. 

If it aligns with your requirements, I would recommend using Blue Prism. So, if you need the perception of a more suit-and-tie cooperative kind of thing, then I would recommend using Blue Prism. 

Or, if you already have advanced skills and are using ABB Ability Document Capture for your other document intake and intelligent document needs, then Blue Prism Cloud would also be a good option.

However, if you are new to RPA and don't need a high-end product, then I would recommend another product, such as UiPath or Automation Anywhere. These products are less expensive and have a larger user community, which can be helpful for getting help and support.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Blue Prism Cloud is used hand in hand with the financial services application that we created on Appian BPM. We use it for process automation. We create the processes on Appian BPM and we automate using Blue Prism Cloud.

Blue Prism is well known for being used in banking and security organizations. Its security is superior compared to UiPath and other RPA tools. It is the best solution for financial services. For pharma or other domains, I prefer UiPath but it does depend on specific use cases. 

There are a few smart services that are not available in Blue Prism. For example,  Excel sheets that are converted into a CS sheet have limitations with the number of columns when imported. This could be improved. 

The intelligent document processing system has two limitations. The bot needs to be trained very well in order to be used effectively. 

I have been using this solution for three a half years.

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution. 

The initial setup is straightforward. It's not that difficult when you are using cloud. Well, it depends. If it's on premise, there are a few aspects to be considered. Our in-house team assisted with deployment.

Blue Prism comes at a higher price point compared to other solutions on the market. 

I have previously used UiPath and Automation Anywhere. Blue Prism Cloud offers a lot of security in terms of data. Blue Prism is a preferential RPA tool that our clients prefer. 

Blue Prism has its own suite that we have on our cloud setup. This setup could be a little more seamless. It depends on the speed of your internet. If you are using the cloud version and if you're loading the suite for the first time, it can get it saved in the browser memory. This would make this solution easier to use compared to Automation Anywhere and UiPath. 

If you want to use the Blue Prism updated version on Azure, you have to make sure that the Windows version that you are using is compatible. This is because there are some features in Blue Prism Cloud that do not allow you to work with the latest Windows functionality. 

I would recommend others to understand what different RPA tools there are in the market and how compatible they are with different domains. Blue Prism is a good option for those looking for good security. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. 

In general, we have primarily used the solution to automate a few processes related to payments, accounts payable, and account queries. 

The user performance is the most valuable feature. 

The ease of deployment is great.

The solution needs to simplify the user interface. It could be much better and much more appealing.

The cost is a bit high. Other tools are much cheaper.

I've been using the solution for two years.

The solution is quite stable. We haven't faced any problems with it yet and have not run into any bugs or glitches.

We haven't yet scaled extensively, but the solution allows for enough scalability to meet our needs.

We have about 15-20 people currently using the solution. Most are admins, engineers or developers.

I've never personally been in touch with technical support, but my team has been. Since I haven't been directly in touch myself, I cannot speak about any direct experience.

We didn't previously use a different solution. This is the first product we've implemented.

The initial setup is straightforward. However, those setting up the solution are required to have some a bit of knowledge on the product itself. Deployment took about four months because our use case was quite complicated.

We handled the implementation ourselves with the help of some people on our team.

We pay about $15,000 per quarter in licensing costs. We don't have to pay for any other extra costs. There isn't, for example, an extra cost for technical support. We just pay the licensing.

We evaluated a lot of other solutions before deciding on this solution. We evaluated, for example, Automation Anywhere and UiPath.

I can't remember the version we're currently using.

If you are a company that is looking for a solution that is easy to deploy, this would be the perfect solution for you. There are other options to look at as well, so it might be good to compare before choosing one.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use Blue Prism Cloud to scan the documents.

Blue Prism Cloud is easy to use. It helps with data scanning and analysis. Its AI features allow customers to find specific documents via an index.

The product’s pricing needs improvement.

It is a stable product.

It is a scalable product. We have one or two executives using it.

We have used UiPath before.

Blue Prism Cloud’s pricing is fine for commercial usage. However, other companies can’t afford to pay for five years of licensing at a one-time cost.

I recommend Blue Prism Cloud and rate it a nine out of ten. It provides document scanning as well as indexing.

We use the product for automated processes for operational activities.

The platform is user-friendly and easy to learn in a low-code environment.

The product’s licensing cost is expensive compared to other tools in the market.

We have been using Blue Prism Cloud for two years now.

It is a stable platform.

It is a scalable product.

The technical support team responds to the queries quickly.

Positive

The initial setup process is straightforward as we take help from a company with several years of experience. It takes a few weeks to complete.

I rate the platform’s pricing a seven out of ten.

We did evaluate some other tools before. Later, we went for Blue Prism Cloud for ease of use and automation features.

I rate Blue Prism Cloud a nine out of ten. It is a stable platform. We haven't encountered many problems with it. Also, we can resolve the issues quickly, if any.

Initially we had a partnership with a cloud provider and we were using their cloud infrastructure to use Blue Prism and to provide Blue Prism resources in the cloud. My company is one of the Blue Prism partners globally and I am responsible for the technical aspects including delivery, developing robots, implementing the license and configuring some of the servers. 

One of our customers is from the telecommunication industry and they have more than 500 runtime resources and a lot of clusters configured, not only for the production environment but also in staging. 

Most of our clients utilize their own private cloud to run the robots and architecture and we are a certified provider with the responsibility to deliver the best we can from the product to our clients. We help them to achieve their goals, implement the COE and deliver financial return and ROI. 

Decipher has been a valuable feature that many of our clients use to extract information from documents. 

The version control could be improved and made consistent. There is a discrepancy between the versions on premise and the cloud versions.

There has not been any upgrades to the UI of this solution for some time. Blue Prism seem to be falling behind in this regard compared to other solutions on the market. 

In a future release, we would also like to the option to integrate with Github. 

I have been working with RDAs for more than four years now.

This is one of the most stable solutions I have used. 

Yes, this is a scalable solution. We have some clients with hundreds of robots running.

The customer support team for this solution are very good. They have fast response times. 

I would rate them a ten out of ten. 

Positive

The initial set is very easy. For deployment and maintenance, we usually work with one developer per process. Each developer is responsible for the end-to-end solution.

Yes, we have experienced ROI and use spreadsheets to calculate the benefits of automation of certain processes. 

The price is very competitive when you are comparing to other providers. 

This is a very stable solution. It does not require too much knowledge on programming because it has a bunch of native features that work consistently. 

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten because it provides everything we need in every phase. Blue Prism does not only focus on RPA solutions but also on the different areas that a process could be analyzed from including from a business, technical and financial perspective. 

We primarily use Blue Prism for the automation of Google Sheets. We were helping our finance department in automating their processes that include Google Sheets, email, and web-based applications.

The latest version, 6.6, has introduced a lot of new features that are helping to make our lives easier.

The most valuable feature is the ability to write custom code. This makes it more helpful than Automation Anywhere or other RPA tools.

The control room is good.

In the latest update, the Google Sheets automation works well. In the prior five versions, this was not user-friendly and did not work well.

The visualizations for different automations are good.

I would like to see a web-based control room, rather than the one that is in-built with the desktop version.

Integration with different databases would be an improvement because there are certain things that are not compatible with Blue Prism.

The is much improvement needed in the hyper-automation components, such as insights.

We would like to have more reusable components from different vendors, as it would make things easier for us. For example, drag-and-drop downloads that can be used within our automations.

We have been using Blue Prism for more than three years.

We are using both Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism for automating our processes. The ability to write custom code in Blue Prism makes it more helpful than Automation Anywhere.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use cases are fairly generic and relate to any type of use case where there is a lot of repetitive activity, what we call "swivel seat" processing, where you might be looking at one application and then you swivel around and enter information from the first application into the second application. A company doesn't necessarily have the manpower or money to integrate the two applications programming-wise, so they hire people to look up information in one application and enter it into another. It's applicable to insurance companies where claim information is transferred from one application into another, or quotes for customers that come in via one system and then needs to be manually entered into another system. We see a lot of financial application type use cases, whether it's vendor creation, vendor invoicing, bank reconciliations or general ledger end-of-month reconciliations. 

The most valuable feature would be the ability to see the blueprint of the design executed alongside the actual process.

Improvement could be made with training and access to an ecosystem and developer's forum. I would suggest building out the ecosystem for developers to obtain training on the tool without having to make a heavy investment in licenses. For additional features, there's always a huge need to deal with unstructured input with RPA and I'd love to see built-in intelligence automation tools to deal with unstructured inputs.

It's a pretty stable solution. 

I think the scalability capabilities are quite high. 

The technical support is average. 

Initial setup was quite complex, it's not a simple installation and takes a fair amount of high-level infrastructure and architectural knowledge to be able to complete the installation. Deployment took a couple of days. 

Implementation usually requires at least one developer, one BA, an infrastructure engineer, a solution architect, and some assistance during deployment. Then you'd need somebody monitoring the virtual workforce. There are probably seven or eight different roles, some with heavier reliance, throughout the implementation cycle.

Annual licensing costs were somewhere between $5,000 - $10,000 for the development tool. For the control tower, I think fees were about $50,000 annually.

In terms of advice, I'd say that if you have the technical expertise, it's a good tool, however, it's difficult to get training without being involved in a project. So it's kind of hard to break into it, as opposed to some of the competitors' tools where anybody can download the tool and get working and learning without having to actually be on a project. It helps to have access to free training and tools and community additions of the tool which unfortunately doesn't really come from Blue Prism. 

It's a very sound tool with a good reputation for having a good security model, which is important to a lot of companies and it's got more of an object-oriented design flavor to it. Deployment is a mix of private, public and hybrid cloud. There is about a 50/50 split between Azure and AWS.

I would rate the product an eight out of 10. I will likely give it a higher rating when there is easier access for people who want to learn how to use the tool. I think that's what's holding us back.