BotFarm Reviews

We have some processes in HR and finance that we are automating. Examples of this are finding bills and then creating bonus reports for employees. Another example is invoice processing.

The most valuable feature is the user-friendliness.

The ability to drag and drop various components and the customizability are good features.

The web interface that was introduced in the recent version helps because you are not dependent on any particular system. You can just open it on the website and work on the application.

I would like to be able to access BotForm using a mobile app.

I think that customization can be further improved.

IQ Bot, used by BotFarm, needs to be improved with respect to being able to read handwritten documents using the OCR. An example of this is reading signatures.

We have been using BotFarm for the past year.

BotFarm is relatively stable.

This solution is easy to scale. We have four people who are using it on an occasional basis. It is usually run weekly or bi-weekly. This usage will increase as we include more processes.

We have not been in touch with technical support since the installation.

We did not use another RPA solution prior to this one.

The initial setup was of medium complexity. I would say it took us some time to get started because we had to first satisfy the hardware requires such as RAM. It took at least a week to install and deploy because our system was not compliant with the requirements, and necessitated upgrading it first.

We did the implementation ourselves, although we sought some help from Automation Anywhere. We had some consultation over the phone.

There are a couple of developers here who were working on it during the installation, but one person is sufficient to maintain it. Either a developer or an engineer can take care of the maintenance.

Our licensing costs are approximately $3,000 USD annually. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

We also evaluated UiPath, but ultimately chose to use Automation Anywhere and BotFarm.

This is a product that I recommend and we will be moving to the cloud version in the future.

My advice to anybody who is considering this solution is to first check your prerequisites in terms of hardware and system requirements that are needed for the installation. This is important.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use BotFarm to mimic human actions because in our organization, there are certain tasks which are time consuming and require a lot of precision with the data. There are repetitive tasks which are automated through BotFarm, so we've set the schedule depending on the requirement, and there are also schedules that are 24/7, based on the requirement and information available. For example, members of the operations team have to pull the data from a website, select the data, input the data, then process the data. All these tasks are now automated through BotFarm.

What I like most about BotFarm is that it's one of the leading RPA products in the market. Very few products focus on robotics today, so I like that BotFarm offers a lot in terms of what general customers expect it to do.

An area for improvement in BotFarm is that the communication between the Control Room and the Bot Client Missions isn't utilized well.

There's also the issue with PCI DSS compliance or certain regulations that require a set of configurations that are not fully supported by BotFarm. The product should be certified or designed according to the required regulations in the finance industry to make it better.

I've been working with BotFarm for four years now.

The latest version of BotFarm is quite stable, and it didn't give us many issues. The previous version of BotFarm had issues, particularly with jobs being triggered but not starting at the scheduled time. Sometimes a job starts, but it's not deployed to the Client Mission, so scheduling in the previous version of the tool isn't as reliable, but with the latest BotFarm version, my team had a better experience.

BotFarm is a scalable solution.

We had some day-to-day issues with BotFarm, so we contacted technical support, and they provided solutions. On a scale of one to ten, I'm rating the technical support for BotFarm an eight.

Positive

We didn't use a different RPA solution apart from BotFarm. We stuck to it because of its pricing and the level of commitment and training that we received from Automation Anywhere.

The initial setup for BotFarm is a little complex because of the two components, Control Room and IQ Bot. It's pretty straightforward to set up Control Room, but it's not the same case with IQ Bot. It only takes around one to one and a half hours for setting up Control Room with proper planning, while setting up IQ Bot takes up to two hours.

An in-house team deployed BotFarm.

I don't have information on how much a BotFarm subscription costs.

I currently work with BotFarm. My company also uses IQ Bot, but it's still in the exploration stage.

I'm an end-user or customer of BotFarm.

Right now, five thousand two hundred people use BotFarm within the company.

The solution isn't that difficult to maintain.

My advice to anyone looking into using BotFarm is that it's the same with other products, and it all boils down to whether you can afford the solution or not.

My rating for BotFarm, particularly its latest version, is nine out of ten.

We primarily have different use cases within finance and HR as well as in IT operations.

The solution's dashboards are very helpful to us.

We find the analytics aspect of the solution to be excellent.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

We've had a few issues with the APIs.

We have connectivity and integration with pretty much every single tech stack across the table that we have in the world, and there are a few areas that they don't do that well yet. I'd be looking for some improvement there, in terms of their integration with certain products.

I've only been using the solution for six to eight months. It's been less than a year. It hasn't been too long.

The solution is quite stable and very reliable. We haven't had any negative experiences in relation to stability. If doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches.

We haven't tried to scale the solution just yet. Therefore, I can't speak to how easy or difficult scaling the product may be.

From the perspective of business processes, the product is being used in at least eight to nine different business process areas so far.

We don't have plans to increase usage. I would say from what we had originally anticipated, we are about 20% to 30% usage. It's got a lot of scope for improvement still.

We didn't previously use a different solution.

We didn't find the implementation to be too complex. For us, the setup was simple and straightforward. We really didn't face any issues in that regard.

The deployment itself was also very quick, which was nice.

I maintain the solution myself. You don't need a lot of staff to maintain it.

We actually had Automation Anywhere handle the setup for us. They were quite helpful and very knowledgeable.

I don't have any details in relation to the licensing of the cost of the solution. It's not an aspect of the product I take care of.

I personally did not evaluate other solutions, however, an internal team did. They looked at UiPath, however, they decided on this product instead.

We're just customers. We're using the latest version of the solution right now.

I would recommend the solution to other companies if they are looking at an extensive integration across the tech stack within their organization. I would advise that if a company seriously considers the product, that they speak really clearly with Automation Anywhere. They need to ensure that their company will have the support they need, and if they do, they should consider proceeding. 

Overall, we've been happy with the solution. I would rate it at a nine out of ten.

I have used BotFarm to automate web applications and Microsoft products. I have also automated mainframe applications for a healthcare product. I automated around five to six processes for them. All together I have automated more than fifteen processes with this solution that we have deployed in-house.

The task bots are good features. I also like enabling the IQ bots to read PDF documents and automate PDF projects and invoices. Because we employ so many people, it is very useful to automate any processes compatible with Automation Anywhere.

We are not permitted to use web applications, so we find ourselves using Object Cloning and web control commands instead. Sometimes I feel like it doesn't work properly and we are not able to provide the dexterity needed. Also, on multiple occasions, the service bot deactivates without reason and Automation Anywhere will not function properly until it is reactivated.

In general, everything is fine but they should remove the unattended or attended bot feature. This can be confusing to customers because an unattended bot license costs around $5,000, whereas an attended bot license costs roughly $1,500, which can cause customers to think: “why should I purchase an expensive unattended bot license when I can purchase an attend bot license for much cheaper?” Also, if I want to install my runner license on another machine, for example: if you install your license on a specific machine and a second vendor (like we did), you’re now installed on machine B but you can’t log in on machine B with your credentials from machine A. This is meant to be a security feature, but it makes things very difficult for customers and clients.

I've been working with BotFarm for the last four years. I started with version 10.10 and currently, I am exploring A2019 which was just launched by Automation Anywhere.

Scheduling bots has been an issue. For example, if you want to schedule automation and it’s set for 5:00 pm, it means that you would need to execute it on the client’s machine every day at 5:00 pm. The issue though, is that it fails a lot because I could have it scheduled but sometimes the bots don’t get involved. That’s an issue that has been a struggle.

The scalability is good. We have a team that uses Automation Anywhere on a daily basis, automating processes.

In terms of customer support, they are very good. I am an Automation Anywhere vendor and if I have a problem, I can create a ticket on their portal, they will call or set up a Zoom or WebEx meeting within half an hour, and they always provide a solution. 

They give very active support and will definitely help you and provide the solution to the issue you are experiencing. They are very, very good.

I used to use UiPath, Kofax and Blue Prism. Automation Anywhere is great for people who are not very "techie". For example, the code can easily be read and understood, line by line, by anyone with or without a technical background.

Automation Anywhere provides and facilitates cloud service, which means you can access your license from anywhere, easily executing and developing your bots from anywhere in the world.  

Any RPA tool provides the commands to automate any process, but what is the difference between them? How can you understand a new product? Automation Anywhere provides a very flexible UI. It allows you to easily read and build code.

Depending on the system that you are installing, the setup can be complex. Installation time is not predictable and you may have to pay customer support for help with the installation procedure.

If I am installing on five machines but one is taking too long, then they all will take a long time, but if all five machines are installing at the same time, then the procedure can be done within five minutes. These ongoing issues make it very complicated to predict how long the installation will take. Someone has to create a ticket with Automation Anywhere customer support and pay for service personnel to help. Installing Automation Anywhere is complex.

In regards to deployment, it's quite simple. Anyone can deploy a bot on a client's machine after one or two days of training.

Also, Automation Anywhere now provides the facility for cloud service, because of this, you can access your license from anywhere. For example, if you are in London and you are heading to another country, you can easily access your license and execute and develop your bots from anywhere. In 2011, this was a desktop application and the client’s version was based on a desktop, but right now it’s not based on a desktop, which is a good thing. The main reason to choose Automation Anywhere is because no one else is providing cloud service.

I purchased a package from Automation Anywhere that included one control room, two developer licenses, and two bot-runner licenses. I think payment can vary but it's a re-occurring fee that needs to be paid every year. 

In RPA, we have so many products available to choose from which we can use to automate any applications. I have used Blue Prism, UiPath and other third-party applications. I have used all of these tools to automate various processes under RPA technology.

It’s hard to give any advice without seeing the project you are working with. If you want to purchase any RPA tool, then I’d have to check the project or your process so that I can identify the requirement and I can see which product will completely fulfill your requirement. Make sure to choose your solution based completely on the project you wish to automate. In other words, I can’t give you any direct answer. If you’re automating a web application, then I would use UiPath. If you’re also automating their applications but you have to automate PDFs as well, then I would definitely choose Automation Anywhere, but the selection of the tool is completely based on the project you wish to automate.

I am rating Automation Anywhere 7.5 out of 10 in terms of their activity. Sometimes, when I am in the middle of something, I experience issues or my work gets stuck. This rating is based on my three years of experience with Automation Anywhere. Although they give very good support, I still wasted a lot of time because of the above mentioned issues. So, for this reason, I am giving Automation Anywhere a rating of 7.5 out of 10.

We used the solution primarily for reconciliations. As a service, it requires matching the debit and credit information for the fund, so it's basically a combination of a custom-built application, integrating with Outlook and with Excel. It functions on the Windows 10 platform.

From a solution standpoint, screen capture and tight integration with Outlook are valuable features. We tried the same TOC with Blue Prism but it was more complicated.

From a simplified perspective, in terms of improvement, we use the bot for the maker position, not for the checker. It's about how well the bot can be utilized. For now, it's not utilized 24/7 because only business clients use it. I would definitely be wanting to see OCR features for improving the solution.

A human brain can easily distinguish between red and blue by looking at the screen. If there's an easy way for the bot to differentiate between the colors without being sequential that would be great.

More integrations with third-party applications would be a great additional feature. 

We've been using BotFarm for the past 18 months. 

It's a stable solution. 

The solution is definitely scalable. The bot is not utilized. We need more business sponsorship to make sure that we can have more projects with bots. We have close to 50 bots in production. And you can just scale it up to what is required. We have between 25-30 projects in the pipeline that we can carry out using Automation Anywhere.

I've been in touch with Automation Anywhere technical support. They've been handy. And they're pretty good when it comes to helping us. I'm satisfied.

We previously used another solution but it was not a fully automated process solution. It required a lot of manual intervention.

I am aware of the initial setup process - we set it up ourselves. It's pretty straightforward. I don't think there's any complexity in the architecture from a UI point of view, sometimes there are slight differences but the setup is straightforward.

We carried out the deployment by ourselves. We also had the robotics process monitoring team setup nearby. The assistance we required related more to the documenting and business process flows.

We evaluated other tools like WorkFusion. 

From a technical standpoint, you need to be careful with the UI application. There might be issues with it in cases where object recognition is going to be tougher. I would definitely look at what the UI interface needs in order to be automated from a UI perspective. Be careful with what you choose. 

I would rate this product a nine out of 10. 

Lots of different use cases, such as front office customer experience, repetitive tasks, multi-login screens, document processing, and screen notification.

We have been solving a lot of our productivity issues in different areas. And of course, in the core business. Productivity increased far more than thirty percent.

I can not think of just one the whole solution is very good. Maybe because it is user-friendly.

The discovery suite that they just acquired could be included. The more I think, maybe it's going to be targeted to be integrated with the process discovery piece, after the acquisition of FortressIQ.

I have been using BotFarm for the past five years.

BotFarm is very stable from our experience.

The has been proven to be effective and we are building bots every day now.

The initial setup it was simple and deployed in less than two months.

We have seen a return on investment in less than six months from the time we started using it.

I would recommend BotFarm an eight out of ten.

There are numerous use cases for the solution for various departments, including weight inspection, or trade ops, or compliance. It's often used for document processing. For example, we receive annual reports from lots of companies that are listed on the stock exchange. To check those reports, there has to be some specific tables and keywords that should be in the annual report of a company. For manually processing thousands of documents, it is not feasible. This solution makes it possible and it happens fast. 

We have implemented solutions where we can extract the text using OCR tools and match all the relevant data that we need to find to prepare a report and forward it to that company. This makes the process a lot faster, and it can be deployed on multiple machines. That way, rather than having a lot of people who work on the same tool, I can just divide the operation on multiple machines and it will be done in less time. Therefore, it offers efficient processing.

The Excel processing is very useful to us. The tool that I'm using has all be Excel functions, however, in the current version that is Automation 360, there are a lot of options. They have Excel basic packages where you can open and just do crude operations, like create, update, delete, or, in a higher package, there are lots of functions that offer filters, macros, clips, whatever you want to run. The version that I'm using, 11.3, has a limited Excel functionality. It still works, however, the new version that they have deployed, A2019, and the latest one, Automation 360, have a lot of functions.

They have proper logging mechanism and also we can check whatever we are doing and they enable and disable list debugging feature. 

It is very easy, simple. You're working on a notepad, and you don't need to know programming to work on this.

The dashboards are quite good, especially on the latest versions.

The solution can scale.

Technical support is quite helpful.

For the most part, the initial setup is straightforward.

We've found the solution to be stable.

The version that I'm using, the Excel command, is a bit limited. 

The OCR tool, the optical character recognition tool, could be more efficient. It should be monitored thoroughly due to the fact that the OCR tool we have we have to manually check even if there are only a few characters missing, the processing might go wrong. In general we wish that the OCR of that product would be more efficient.

You do have to make sure your system will be compatible with the product.

I've been using this solution since September 2019. I've used it for more than a year at this point.

The solution is reliable. It has been working pretty well for us for the past few years. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

We have attempted to scale and we've found it is possible. Some of the operations require a certain level of scalability, and it has been pretty reliable for that.

While we are a company of around 10,000 employees, I'd say roughly a thousand people have been using this product. Our users are scattered through multiple departments, and every department needs processes to be automated. Therefore, there are lots of users.

We do plan to increase usage.

With every financial year, there are lots of processes coming in. Every department says that we have less manpower and the processes are quite repetitive. Likely there are lots of processes every year, around 23 processes scattered through departments. As the word spreads that some users are able to automate a lot of the processes effectively, others come to us and say they need their own efficiencies. Therefore, we're constantly expanding.

Technical support has been good so far. They have a separate portal for assistance. We have raised a few tickets, and based on the priority, they respond to us. They also ask us the expected time, by what time we need them to call, and they have follow-ups every now and then. It is pretty good. We are satisfied with their level of support.

The initial setup's relative ease of setup depends on various versions. In the version that I used, 11.3, the setup was pretty easy. You have to download and install two machines. One is the client developer. However, the new version that they have, is for a cloud-based deployment. You don't need to install a developer. You just need to log into the control room on any webpage and you have to work from there. For deployment, they have a specific installation, and it's my understanding that there are lots of user rights issues. They have made it easy for installation, however, it can grow in complexity depending on your needs.

Licensing is something that management handles. I don't have any visibility on the costs or the licensing arrangements.

We have evaluated UiPath and it was really good. However, the approach was very different from Automation Anywhere. In Automation Anywhere, you just had a command-line view where each line you add new commands. In UiPath there was a flow-chart view. That was more creative, however, that was two years ago. Now, Automation Anywhere has those features, and it is also a web-based platform, so you don't have the burden to install the developer on your system and you don't need an office PC to do that. You just need to have the right access and credentials and you can work from anywhere.

We're partners.

I started off with version 11, and currently, I'm working on 11.3.3. There's a new solution, RPA A2019. That's the new version. I have that certification, however, I have no projects for now on that.

I'd recommend the solution. Automation Anywhere is a very good solution if you're looking to expand all your work areas. There are lots of businesses out there that say that they don't require this, however, once the solution is implemented using RPA, businesses themselves have a lot of time and resources to expand their research areas. The growth increases exponentially.

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

We have several bots in Colombia. We can't anticipate how many bot runners we need to use to solve one use case. This is what BotFarm is used for.

The most valuable feature of BotFarm is the fact that we can use escalations when we need more computer power to fulfill all embargo that we receive in one day.

Normally we need to monitor the solution using an AWS console and the control room. We would like to have a standardized dashboard to see all the information in one place. 

I have been using this solution for three years. 

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.