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reviewer1593783 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager , Digital Transformation, Strategy & Transformation at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Scalable with good technical support and a great design studio
Pros and Cons
  • "Mostly we use the Design Studio to develop the automation. It's great. We put them into deployment and have the automated process running. It's essentially the Design Studio for Blue Prism and the entire methodology of delivery that is the most useful or valuable to us."
  • "It's not very easy to use. There is some learning curve that you need to manage as an individual."

What is our primary use case?

I work with an insurance organization and we are currently using it to automate our back-end office processes. For example, within insurance, you have claims and you have policy owner services, and you have different business units. We are looking at those processes and automating them through Blue Prism robotics.

What is most valuable?

Mostly we use the Design Studio to develop the automation. It's great. We put them into deployment and have the automated process running. It's essentially the Design Studio for Blue Prism and the entire methodology of delivery that is the most useful or valuable to us.

The solution can scale. 

Technical support is very helpful.

What needs improvement?

It's not very easy to use. There is some learning curve that you need to manage as an individual.

In the past we have had platform challenges with Blue Prism, like the scheduler functionality doesn't always work as expected and there are content downtimes as well. On the stability, I will probably rate it a little lower than medium.

If they could have process recording and task recording also in place, that will help expedite the delivery for the automation.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about six years. It's been a while. 

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability could be better. The scheduler functionality doesn't always work as expected and there is content downtime as well. It's okay, however, they could work on improving it. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is not an issue. Scalability is good. We are using it for around 500 robots, and the scalability is not an issue at all.

In terms of users, we have around 50 odd configurators that actually use Blue Prism on a daily basis. Within the technical team, there you have a few project managers and within each project team, you have a business analyst and a configurator and then, you have a setup process controller who manages the processes.

At this point, we do not intend to increase usage.

How are customer service and support?

Blue Prism provides us with the technical support we need. They even have a monthly catch-up with our team and we are able to raise our technical queries during that time if we have any. There are no issues at all. We've been very satisfied with their level of attention and assistance.

How was the initial setup?

I wouldn't know about the setup process. That's really more for the infrastructure team. I can't comment on it mostly due to the fact I wasn't a part of it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We have an enterprise-grade license with Blue Prism and it depends upon your requirements. We ask for additional production bots, which is the main parameter for the license cost.

What other advice do I have?

We're customers and end-users.

There are multiple tools in the market for RPA - Blue Prism, UiPath, Automation Anywhere, et cetera. I wouldn't rate it better than anyone else, and yet, I wouldn't rate it less either. It's as good as any other tool. Therefore, every company will need to do its own analysis and select the tool that makes the most sense for them.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user1383903 - PeerSpot reviewer
RPA Project Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Easy-to-use application modeler that integrates well, but it lacks in features
Pros and Cons
  • "It's quite easy to use and easy to understand the process studio."
  • "I don't like that it is so limited, anything that you do feels limited in your capabilities."

What is our primary use case?

The first automated processes were mainly backoffice procedures. Accordingly, unattended robots have been used to do the job. To me however, a big portion of the potential value added from RPA comes from attended automation, especially in a people-intensive professional services company like the one I`m working at. Typical examples for solutions desired by the staff are digital assistants taking care of the tedious and error-prone data transfer processes reaching from HR and Marketing to Finance.

How has it helped my organization?

Of course, Blue Prism is capable of improving one´s processes, especially in terms of efficiency. I´m not saying that it didn´t improve things at all at my company. However, my personal opinion is that improvement is behind what´s possible nowadays. As desribed before, attended automation and digital assistants keep becoming more important - if not crucial for a company´s RPA journey. And that´s exactly where Blue Prism in my opinion fails. Developing processes, you can feel that the solution is not made for attended automation. 

What is most valuable?

Valuable feature are for sure the modelers. They are quite easy to understand and use. I think they are what people mean when they say Blue Prism is a bit easier than UiPath. Whereas I definitely like the ease of use, this comes at a cost. In direct comparison to UiPath, the Studios feel like Kindergarden to me. Trying to make robot development accessible to people with limited technical understanding, they are taking away the endless possibilities resulting from the fact that a software robot is still a mature computer program. Not being able to insert code - or even complex expressions - is not a feature to me. Summing up, I like the ease of use of BP but to me, the sacrifice is too high.

What needs improvement?

When I am comparing Blue Prism to UiPath, it lacks many features. For example, I am missing all variable types that I am used to having in UiPath.

I don't like that it is so limited, anything that you do feels limited in your capabilities.

Usually, you have dropdown menus with 10 choices but if you need that 11th or 12th one it is so difficult to work around it. 

For me, I feel that it is lacking in features.

It consists of simple actions that work quite well together, and the integration is good but the scope of things that you can do is too narrow.

The interface could be brought to a more modern state of the art interface. It still has this gray Windows 95 style, which is outdated.

The way that humans interact with robots is a feature that is very poor in Blue Prism. 

The focus is on the unattended automation, for example, robots running in the background at some bank. If you have more digital assistance, assisting humans in their daily work is something that is very difficult and I would like to see this improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Blue Prism for two months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is quite good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This solution is scalable, but I don't have a lot of experience with this area. I am basing this only on what I have heard.

We have approximately 500 end-users.

Due to the limitations, we don't have plans to increase our usage. We are considering a change.

How are customer service and technical support?

I don't have a lot of experience with technical support. At this time, I cannot say anything good or bad.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, I was using UiPath and because of a change in job, I started using Blue Prism.

How was the initial setup?

This solution was already in place when I joined the company. 

The setup and deployment were already complete.

We have a team of five to maintain this solution.

What about the implementation team?

We did the implementation internally.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We have a three-year contract that is paid on a yearly basis.

To my knowledge, there are no additional costs other than the standard licensing fee.

What other advice do I have?

I don't think that I could recommend this solution. I prefer working with UiPath.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Buyer's Guide
Blue Prism
February 2025
Learn what your peers think about Blue Prism. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
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reviewer1797198 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Transformation at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Excellent support, priced well, and effective autonomous bot
Pros and Cons
  • "Blue Prism is a great enterprise and it has offered the solutions that I have been needing in order to give my organization an RPA."
  • "Blue Prism is a little behind Automation Anywhere in the topics related to maintenance and report building."

What is our primary use case?

I am using Blue Prism for my RPA enterprise project. I haven't used the cloud version, because I work from a financial institution and we are very strict about the confidentiality and the security of the data of our clients.

What is most valuable?

Blue Prism is a great enterprise and it has offered the solutions that I have been needing in order to give my organization an RPA.

The most valuable features of Blue Prism are the Control Room, autonomous bot, unattended, attended bot, and Decipher. I have been using the decipher functionality recently, and I want to explore the Capture functionality in other works that I have.

Blue Prism has given me the features that I need.

What needs improvement?

Blue Prism is a little behind Automation Anywhere in the topics related to maintenance and report building.

The report in Blue Prism could improve. I am in version 6 and they are already in version 7. The features or changes I need could have already been resolved in the newer version.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Blue Prism for approximately three years.

How are customer service and support?

They have a call every three months with me to understand what are my needs at that moment. If they can adjust something in our contract, they have been very kind and very friendly. That has allowed us to adjust our agreement, functions, and training that my team needs in order to boost Blue Prism in my organization.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I chose Blue Prism because it is priced well. The pricing was right for me at that moment even though Automation Anywhere is better in other aspects.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Blue Prism a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Chief Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Immediately lowers the average handling time by 20-40%
Pros and Cons
  • "With Blue Prism, you automate the back-end processes. Blue Prism is more like service-side automation. It is not off-circuit automation. It is more like attended automation."
  • "They cannot do assisted automation. That is a drawback because that technology is very old now."

What is our primary use case?

We implemented Blue Prism some time back. I'm not using it right now. 

I get most involved during the evaluation and the deployment phase.

With Blue Prism, we automated back-end processes. Blue Prism is more like service-side automation. It is not good for attended automation.

How has it helped my organization?

Blue Prism can lower the average handling time immediately by 20-40%.

You also need to look at what is the long term goal. A long term goal could be that you want to keep, not integrate, with anything else. 

Blue Prism has a long learning curve because the coding is complicated. You need to be a very highly skilled developer. Blue Prism has a high coding skill and certification requirement that hinders your ability to automate quickly. 

Blue Prism moves out new versions very fast and their back-up compatibility is not good as compared to their competition. Essentially, this means you spend a lot of money just upgrading the bots.

What is most valuable?

Blue Prism is quite stable. It has the interactive client that is really good. The licensing model is very simple as well.

What needs improvement?

The user interface is okay. I don't think there is much of a problem.They need to also have a better capability in attended automation. Blue Prism has not invested enough in AI development.

They need to have a Bot store. If they can introduce AI bots that will automatically diagnose why something failed and keep sending data back to admins, it would be an improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the Blue Prism RPA ( /categories/robotic-process-automation-rpa ) solution for almost one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Blue Prism is quite stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

When you need to run more processes, you buy more licenses, but you will spin up more VM. Scaling not is a problem for Blue Prism.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We started with Blue Prism.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Blue Prism is standard and not difficult. The instructions are very clear and easy. It doesn't take long to implement. The setup is not difficult.

Changing the board and getting it deployed didn't take too long. The deployment into production and moving to the environment took somewhere between eight to ten weeks. It could have been a little less.

What was our ROI?

reduction of Operations effort

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

These prices are deal-specific, it will probably not be right to review negotiations with the vendor. Currently, there are no new licensing agreement changes for us.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Automation Anywhere.

What other advice do I have?

If you need only server-side back-end process automation, use Blue Prism. If you need assisted automation or services automation, use Automation Anywhere or UiPath. On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate Blue Prism with an 8.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
PeerSpot user
Debharshi Bhattacharya - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Consultant at a performing arts with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
A stable and scalable solution with intuitive interface
Pros and Cons
  • "The tool's user interface is very intuitive."
  • "The solution is pretty high priced. The tool's support also needs to be better."

What is most valuable?

The tool's user interface is very intuitive. 

What needs improvement?

The solution is pretty high priced. The tool's support also needs to be better. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the tool's stability a nine out of ten. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the product's scalability a nine out of ten. 

How was the initial setup?

I would rate the product's setup an eight out of ten. 

What was our ROI?

I would rate the product's ROI an eight out of ten. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I would rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten. 

What other advice do I have?

The end users are happy about the solution.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1782987 - PeerSpot reviewer
Specialist-Configurator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Implementation led to huge savings cost and saved time in our organization, but security could be better
Pros and Cons
  • "As a developer, I liked the layout and UI, specifically referring to testing. I was able to watch the process through stages."
  • "Security could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

The solution was deployed on-prem. We have about 100 users.

We were partners with Blue Prism.

How has it helped my organization?

There has been a huge amount of cost savings and freeing up. Employees got more vacation time allotted. That was a direct result of the time saved by RPA.

What is most valuable?

As a developer, I liked the layout and UI, specifically when it came to testing. Dragging and dropping stages and actions made development quick and easy to learn. The UI, allows you to watch as the bot moves through each step of the process at the same time it launches, interacts and closes applications, which really aids development and troubleshooting, unlike with AA and UiPath.  

What needs improvement?

I don't have an suggestions for improvement, at this time.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used Blue Prism for five years. The last time I used it was a year ago.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution was stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability was easy.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support wasn't great. On a scale of 1 to 5, I would give it a 3.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup was straightforward. On a scale of 1 to 5, I would rate the difficulty of setup a 4.

Deployment took a couple of months from development to publishing it into production. We didn't have an implementation strategy. 

We had 25 developers for deployment and maintenance. We had about a dozen in production for support.

What about the implementation team?

Deployment was done in-house.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution 7 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1141743 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Architekt at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Straightforward installation, stable, and helpful in closing the technical gaps between applications and saving time
Pros and Cons
  • "RPA processes are helpful when we need interaction with different applications and close the technical gaps between them. In one of the use cases that we evaluated, there was a single Excel template from a vendor. The Excel file has 7,000 objects, and it included information about the part numbers, prices, and some of the details about each object of the aircraft. This file had to be input to SAP, so a human had to enter these 7,000 objects one by one, which is a pretty mechanical and uninteresting task. The RPA bot was easily able to import this file. Without RPA, this import had to be done by a person who had to do the same task 7,000 times just to import one contract."
  • "There are some security issues in Blue Prism. The German vendor Servicetrace is way better. This is also reflected in the Gartner report where Servicetrace is mentioned as the tool of choice in high-security environments. So, security, particularly in terms of administration, needs to be improved. We must have the possibility to prevent the administration from taking a look at the ongoing process. When we have restricted data flow, the operations team should not be able to take a look at the data that is processed."

What is our primary use case?

In one of the use cases, we import Excel tables. We extract the Excel data from the output of a proprietary application. This application produces Excel tables as an output, and we then create PDFs for certificates for the people who are flying. They have to do training, flying hours, and things like this. In this project, we closed the gap between the proprietary application, provided by a different team, and the HR application.

It is deployed on-premises. Due to security issues, we are not allowed to use cloud services. We only have centralized application servers that are operated by the central operations team. It is not on users' desktops, which is possible, but it is not our focus.

What is most valuable?

RPA processes are helpful when we need interaction with different applications and close the technical gaps between them. In one of the use cases that we evaluated, there was a single Excel template from a vendor. The Excel file has 7,000 objects, and it included information about the part numbers, prices, and some of the details about each object of a complex maschine. This file had to be input to SAP, so a human had to enter these 7,000 objects one by one, which is a pretty mechanical and uninteresting task. The RPA bot was easily able to import this file. Without RPA, this import had to be done by a person who had to do the same task 7,000 times just to import one contract. This is where RPA processes and RPA tools are very helpful. RPA tools have the possibility to close media gaps. RPA tools are like macros on steroids. They now have got the maturity level for big data centers.

What needs improvement?

We see some security issues in Blue Prism. The German vendor Servicetrace is better at this point. This is also reflected in the Gartner report where Servicetrace is mentioned as the tool of choice in high-security environments. So, security, particularly in terms of administration, needs to be improved. We must have the possibility to prevent the administration from taking a look at the ongoing process. When we have restricted data flow, the operations team should not be able to take a look at the data that is processed.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has been pretty stable. Most errors are human errors in the input files. When we have issues, they are usually because of the content of the input file. There are no technical issues with the product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is not currently an issue on our side because the company has pretty strong and fast machines. Because these machines do only RPA and nothing else, they can handle the work of a lot of employees and do a great job with that.

How are customer service and support?

I'm not sure if our contractor has many tasks to handle with the vendor itself. During the software evaluation, we had discussions with the vendor about product details, but the support is taken care of by the contractors, and I'm not sure how often it is required.

How was the initial setup?

The installation itself was pretty straightforward. The installation of the software is pretty easy, but it can get tricky when you go into bot development and have to close the gaps between different applications. The most complex use case took us about two and a half years.

What about the implementation team?

We have a project team of five to six people for implementation. Operations are handled by three people. The project team is extended by external persons or contractors. The basic operations are done internally.

What was our ROI?

We definitely save money by using RPA.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Due to our financial structure, we need fixed costs. So, a license based on the usage would not be feasible. If we have a license model that is based on tasks per year or something else, it could create a very dynamic range of costs. Due to our public financial input, we have to know what it will cost. So, we have licenses per server. This helps us in planning, and we know exactly when we need additional servers. We can then request additional money for them.

What other advice do I have?

It is a pretty good solution. I would rate it an eight out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Srikanth RB - PeerSpot reviewer
BA Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
Very accurate with good automation and an easy setup
Pros and Cons
  • "The automation on offer is great."
  • "Everyone uses Workday and Salesforce and all that stuff. If they had specific plugins to interact with these enterprise tools, that would be very helpful."

What is our primary use case?

We've primarily used the solution for financial purposes. We have payroll management and a lot of manual processes. With this, we can run automated reports. There are about 15 to 18 interfaces where we get the information. We can consolidate emails, PDFs, and Excel. There's automation to pick everything up and understand all the sources and different kinds of data. We can input raw data, consolidate it and then handle calculations. We can download data and save it in folders.

What is most valuable?

The solution offers very good accuracy.

The automation on offer is great.

Whenever we used to have issues, the developers used to follow up with the technical team. They're good.

The initial setup is simple and straightforward. 

The solution can scale.

We have found the product to be stable. 

What needs improvement?

Everything on offer is great. We could hardly find any procedural issues at all. All the processes are really quite good. 

They should come up with these open-ended certifications, like UiPath, where people can just go ahead and get the certification. That way, people can evaluate and pick up certifications easily to make it easy to learn.

Everyone uses Workday and Salesforce and all that stuff. If they had specific plugins to interact with these enterprise tools, that would be very helpful. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've used the solution over the last 12 months. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable and reliable. it's problem-free. there aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable, it depends on the requirements. At this moment, it is scalable. In terms of enterprise scalability, I'm not sure. However, it does scale from one particular area to many areas, including accounting, treasury, payroll, et cetera.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good. they are helpful and responsive.

From my understanding, the team never had issues in terms of reaching out to the Blue Prism support team and getting solutions. They were all fine.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not complex at all. It was very, very easy. Initially, there were very few hiccups. Once we got up and running, it's amazing, it's perfect. There's not a problem at all.

What about the implementation team?

We have our own center of excellence. I hired employees and contractors to help as needed. We were the business architects and we got the requirements and came up with the process design.

What was our ROI?

We have definitely seen an ROI.

What other advice do I have?

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Blue Prism Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: February 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Blue Prism Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.