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Automation Anywhere vs SAP Intelligent RPA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
522
Ranking in other categories
Process Mining (1st)
SAP Intelligent RPA
Ranking in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
15th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Automation Anywhere is 11.9%, down from 15.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Intelligent RPA is 1.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Featured Reviews

Nelson F. Guerrero - PeerSpot reviewer
Saved us half a million dollars and 10,000 hours in the first year
There have been numerous improvements in the organization. We have saved hours and time and hard dollars. In the first year, we saved over half a million dollars. That was about six months of time. After that, we have done at least three million year over year, and we have increased that very much. As far as time saved, it is well over 10,000 hours in the first year alone, and we continue to grow. This year, we are projecting 30,000 manual hours saved. Prior to the implementation of Automation Anywhere, we had lots and lots of manual work. People would go into Excel and copy data from one master sheet to many sheets. They would compile data. They would take lots of time to do these things. Today, they can go in, press a button, and launch it. They can download hundreds and thousands of invoices, whereas previously, they used to do it manually. One of our use cases saved two people four days a week of time, which is 32 hours each. We now do that automatically in six hours. The learning curve is initially a little daunting, but after you are in there and you understand how it works, it is very seamless. It is very easy to pick up and very intuitive, and then from there, it is pretty much you go and get your hands dirty. The tools that we integrate with Automation Anywhere so far have been Python scripts and PowerShell. We have got Power Automate and Power Flows from Microsoft. We are starting to do some cognitive RPA. We are implementing OpenAI through Azure. We have got a lot of that going right now. The integration with all of the documents and APIs is very seamless. There are packages available in the store if you do not have the integration built-in out of the box. They are available to everyone. Everything that we have been able to use has been just drag and drop. We can just pop in our credentials and be done. Automation Anywhere has affected us in a positive way in terms of employee capacity and compliance. We have not had to backfill roles. We have not necessarily replaced people, and that is by intent. We did not want to replace people, but we also did not want to have to backfill people. We wanted people to focus on things that they value and be more productive instead of doing mind-numbing things that get no value, but they just have to do it. Our time and cost savings have been immense since the beginning. In our first year, after we started launching the bots in June or July of 2019, we saved half a million dollars and 10,000 man-hours. Since then, we have grown more than 70% year over year. This year, we are on track to go up to about 40,000 man-hours saved and more than three million hard dollars saved. They have been able to provide automation at scale pretty well. We fired up and started off with only three production machines. We are now up at five. Officially, we were going up to seven as of next week. We have heard about people here at the Imagine conference who, for example, have hundreds, so the point is proven, and the facts are there. They can scale up very quickly. The main Automation Anywhere Program offering we use is Pathfinder. We have not utilized our partner services or anything like that, but Pathfinder has been great. Their user groups have been great. To be able to focus and see the product launches beforehand has always been advantageous. The ability to see that has been good.
Keerthana Jayathran - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers integration of the document extraction service into SAP ALC, enabling the direct upload and extraction of details
I found that SAP Intelligent RPA can be somewhat unstable when using SAP GUI. When we upgraded from SAP GUI version 7.50 to version 7.70, we had to update our SAP Intelligent RPA screens even though the screens were the same. This was difficult and time-consuming. The one I would like to see is in context with the screens, if they are using the same SAP UI, and if it updates, it should not be changed. At least it should be able to identify the screen. There should be more of an error, like a proper error feature, in future releases. Sometimes, we don't understand why that automation is not learning what, like, where it is stuck, what the reason is, or what the criteria we are missing to add. A proper error message would be helpful.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"V.11 has three different recorders but A2019 Automation Anywhere created an all-in-one recorder called Universal recorder which more reliable to use."
"None of the commands are unique to Automation Anywhere, which allows beginners to leverage external knowledge."
"I implemented AA in different environments, the AA installation is the smoothest compared to other RPA software installs."
"Automation Anywhere's most valuable feature is its seamless integration into procurement software, allowing for the automation of purchase orders, billing, employee travel details, and other tasks."
"Since our implementation, I can vouch for the fact that it is very easy to use. You do not need to know a lot of coding, even the business users, who have virtually no idea of coding, can easily operate it. They can run their bots and have the analysis ready for higher management. This is something which provides a great ease of use, and also in part why it is scalable."
"Being able to connect with third-party tools is the best feature."
"It is easy to code. While you have developers, somebody with a development or workflow mindset can logically build a bot in Automation Anywhere by understanding how to put a process in a workflow. If you have that, then you can logically build a bot in Automation Anywhere. Even a non-IT or business user can just look at the bot language and understand what the bot is doing, and that's the easy part."
"The CyberArk integration and setup are really amazing and it helps us to win deals for new projects."
"The initial setup of SAP Contextor is easy."
"Contextor is a good solution for a Citrix environment. It's the first with this tool. Other tools provide the same functionality, but not with the Citrix environment."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Contextor is that everyone is in one place in the program that I need."
"The standout features of SAP Intelligent RPA are its flexibility and integration capabilities."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"Scalability is fine. It is pretty nice."
"Most of the details are already in the help portal and SAP notes are available. It is well documented as part of the product support."
"It is remarkably easy to configure and code, and it doesn't require an extensive technical background or coding expertise."
 

Cons

"I feel a lack of convenience when I try to scale it."
"They should consider being more multi-platform."
"The solution should include an analytics dashboard. As the space is maturing, many vendors sell functionalities as separate components so this is not unique to the solution."
"We run these bots in multiple environments from staging to development to production. We find usually in the production environment when we run the bots for them to be stable for a week or two. After a week or two, we see some glitches here and there, though the application doesn't change much. This is one feature which I want Automation Anywhere to work on: Increasing stability."
"You could improve the tools for reading CSV/Excel, also providing wizards or detailed guides, otherwise, it is quite complex to use them, especially at the beginning."
"On the cognitive side, some of their competitors, when we were originally shopping, were a little more advanced in that space. Making use of probabilistic outcomes and presenting them to a business user is a feature that, at the time of our evaluation, did not feel like a strong, mature solution for Automation Anywhere. Nevertheless, they won our business. That is one feature where I feel they are trying to make investments to address those gaps."
"It does not easily integrate with customized solutions."
"The biggest issue was that the new license required upgraded hardware infrastructure so we were getting all new tech stuff procured which meant that we were getting updated RAMs and things like that. Getting the licenses was easier but building the infrastructure which was required to support the new version was difficult."
"The initial setup is of medium complexity. It is neither too hard nor too simple. You need some background in SAP and an understanding of it."
"SAP Contextor could improve by automating some processes."
"One way SAP Intelligent RPA could improve is by integrating built-in DI services for document processing."
"The tool's licensing has been kind of a challenge...At the moment, the tool does not offer different licensing models to users."
"I found that the SAP scripting of a program is easier than SAP Contextor."
"For potential features or improvements, one aspect I would suggest enhancing is the flexibility of the extraction process."
"I would like to see a better capacity for unstructured data, for example, PDF, or text within images."
"There should be more of an error, like a proper error feature, in future releases. Sometimes, we don't understand why that automation is not learning what, like, where it is stuck, or what is the reason like, or what is the criteria we are missing to add. So a proper error message would be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We're on a license package with Automation Anywhere (AA), paid yearly. What would be better is for them to have different packages for different types of organization."
"Its price is competitive with all other products in the market."
"It depends. For example, for my group, we are centralizing the infrastructure in Paris. Our contract is signed with Automation Anywhere in France. The currency and the pricing of Automation Anywhere in France can appear beneficial and interesting for Germany and Scandinavian countries, but when we share our infra and are internally charging other countries such as Poland, Brazil, or some other country with a lower currency value as compared to Euro, it becomes less beneficial. They would prefer to sign the contract directly with Automation Anywhere because they will benefit from a price that is as per their local market."
"We have seen a return of investment because it takes less time to market in our current process. I would estimate a times savings between 20 to 30 percent."
"Pricing is a bit high when compared to other available tools; however, the tool is worth the cost."
"It is one of the most affordable RPA solutions, and as for licensing, they offer a community edition that greatly helps anyone who aspires to learn about the product before buying the enterprise solution."
"Automation Anywhere offers a subscription-based licensing model for cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments."
"We paid separately for the Runner and Creater components. The final cost depends on the structure of your environment."
"This is not a tool or software with a license as others are. The SaaS model is based on the usage of the tool."
"The pricing is not that expensive. It is manageable."
"It all comes with a bundle right now. Having advanced features, it is competitively priced."
"The initial cost might seem higher, but over time, with continued use over five or ten years, the cost tends to decrease, making it a more economical choice."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
5%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is very good in certain situations but lacks in others. For me, it's more the team tha...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applications that AA has limitations for, such as the Oracle. For web-based applicatio...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
What do you like most about SAP Contextor?
The standout features of SAP Intelligent RPA are its flexibility and integration capabilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Contextor?
The pricing for SAP Intelligent RPA operates on a model that considers power usage and transactions per job. It is adaptable based on the number of cases and the specific needs of our business. The...
What needs improvement with SAP Contextor?
The tool's licensing has been kind of a challenge. If the tool can bring up a usage-based licensing model, it would be really good. Even a flat rate kind of licensing model would be good, where, fo...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise
SAP Contextor, Contextor
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, Kabel Deutschland, Orange, Carrefour
Find out what your peers are saying about Automation Anywhere vs. SAP Intelligent RPA and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.