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IBM Datacap vs Microsoft Power Automate comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Datacap
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (7th)
Microsoft Power Automate
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Amena Khidr - PeerSpot reviewer
The ability to connect this information with the appropriate database and recognize it irrespective of the format or source is an extremely valuable feature
The standout feature of this intelligent product is its remarkable capability. This project we're currently engaged in revolves around streamlining workflows within both our company and the customer's company. It entails handling information from various documents with diverse formats and types, even when they contain the same data. The ability to connect this information with the appropriate database and recognize it irrespective of the format or source is an extremely valuable feature. Moreover, leveraging machine learning is crucial since our customer deals with an extensive archive of over five million documents. Machine learning can significantly alleviate the backlog by becoming well-versed in various scenarios they might encounter during their work once we've completed our application.
Gowtham J - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides valuable integration with other Microsoft tools
The initial setup process involves three trigger points. One is a manual trigger, where users interact with a button or interface element to start the flow. The second is the recurrence trigger, which allows users to schedule automated maintenance at a specific time. Third is a data-driven trigger, where the flow is initiated based on an event in a database, such as creating a new line item in SharePoint database. Once triggered, the flow continues to execute, performing the configured actions and providing the results.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The administration of the application following an error is most valuable. We are able to know easily when something is stuck in the system."
"It reduces human error and saves time."
"Both Datacap Studio and Datacap Navigator are great features."
"The second thing that I like about Datacap is the fingerprint capture which is easy to configure on Datacap. From the form of the document, if a document is redundant in the same department, we can configure the capture based on the form of the documents"
"I like Datacap's integration with FileNet because financial companies use that export. The second part is web services integration, which is effortless to implement."
"There's something that's very unique about IBM DataCap. It provides me with a good solution for extracting, reading the QR codes, and scanning them. In this stage, we are working in a UIT phase before implementing this protocol in all our branches. From my initial observation, IBM DataCap is good, it is not working too fast, but in a good manner for us."
"The big thing these days is really the Insight Edition component and being able to build annotators to extract from literally unstructured content: paragraphs and information where there's no start anchor point to define where that data is located. There could be a number of entities in that which you have to draw information from. Being able to extract from them is really the differentiator today between that product and many of the other products..."
"While we are doing indexing, we tag the document type. It's programmed inside of Datacap to automatically detect the document based on a given template. It auto-indexes that document, which means that it automatically tags the correct document type to the scanned document."
"Power Automate has allowed us to simplify the business process and improve operational efficiency."
"The whole platform seamlessly integrates well."
"Good core applications."
"It's an intuitive product. It's not overly technical."
"In just in one click, we can see any documentation, etc., that we need. It makes it very easy to navigate."
"Automation is the best feature of the product."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the automation interface and the RPA automation."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Power Automate in the desktop version is web scraping because you can do a lot with it. I work in retail and you can study prices changes, which can give you a lot of information. The solution is no code which is a large advantage."
 

Cons

"Currently, when you are entering invoices, you have to enter multiple rows. In Captiva the multiple rows will be dynamically added. This would be a beneficial feature for IBM to add."
"The user interfaces for exception processing can be tweaked. I commonly find that we try to tweak and customize some of those components to more of what the industry standard is. The product is still trying to play catch-up a little bit in those areas."
"Reporting and analytics seem to often be something of an afterthought. With Datacap, they've started building out some dashboards, but one thing we hear from our clients a lot is, "Well, gee, we really love reports. What Datacap has is not really helpful. We'd like something better. We'd like more dashboards." That's one area where we've seen some feedback that the product could do better."
"The technical support is horrible. They have downsized the support teams too much. They've outsourced some of them along with some of the development, and they're just stretched too thin."
"What could be improved in IBM Datacap from a technical perspective is having everything together all in one place, rather than having several different interfaces. The addition of cloud-based OCR technology would also make this solution better. There's also room for improvement for their technical support."
"Its weaknesses are primarily tied to the lack of available resources and expertise in the market to effectively support and provide solutions and services to each customer for seamless implementation. Expertise in this specific product is rare throughout the market. One key reason is the product's limited downloads. Additionally, archiving solutions are often perceived as complex and challenging, dissuading many companies from venturing into this domain. Consequently, partners who specialize in archiving solutions are always seeking straightforward, uncomplicated options that are easy to manage and meet customer expectations."
"The reading efficiency of the solution needs to be improved."
"I would like better ease of use and more support options."
"When comparing with Automation Anywhere, there are a couple of things that this product doesn't have. One of the major things is the key management system. It would be great if they improve this. Its documentation can also be improved."
"Their OCR capabilities are not as evolved as the other tools."
"The licensing model is difficult to understand and is something that should be improved."
"The solution is not actually satisfying the complex programs that we want to execute."
"Tech support could be more hands-on. Right now, they simply direct users to documentation instead of directly dealing with issues."
"It can have customizations like enterprise solutions. In the approval section, there should be an option to reassign approval to some other employee. It would be good if we are able to create custom tables by linking to an item, and there is an integration with the HTML table through HTTP calls or Swagger connectors."
"The downside is the lack of orchestration and supplemental tools such as capturing existing processes and using them to build out."
"It would be great if you could integrate outside of Microsoft environments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You save a lot of time and money, but the benefit is you have people who are able to run the systems, check to see if there are any errors at all, and there are a lot less errors than a human system."
"This solution offers seamless integration with other enterprise products, which is my area of responsibility, focusing on government sector projects. Larger enterprise projects don't pose problems. It might be suitable for small businesses as well."
"If you want IBM Datacap on cloud, which is a service run by IBM, the price can be quite expensive, but if you want to just purchase the licenses and own those yourself, then the price is very competitive."
"This solution is the most expensive in the market."
"It varies, and it depends on the client's requirements and negotiations. Nowadays, Datacap is also included in the IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation."
"We were using the User Value Unit licensing, which means we get charged per active user of the system, and if I'm not mistaken, we also had it for the rule runner service. They had a PVU license model, which is a processor value unit. For each process that we have in our system, we pay a certain amount of money. We found the pricing to be quite steep. It was really an expensive solution in comparison to Kofax, which had a different licensing model and was actually cheaper overall because they charge per page and not per user and per process."
"In Egypt, we have exchange rates that change year to year, and currently, we're facing an increase in the exchange rate between our Egyptian pound and the dollar. Since we have been using IBM DataCap two years ago we had a good price, it was not expensive. However, I cannot say now if it is expensive or not because of the exchange rate. Additionally, I don't have the data of other competitors and I don't know the prices."
"IBM could offer more competitive pricing. This would allow them to attain more users. Some of our clients are considering moving to a different solution called Encapture which is similar but offers more competitive pricing."
"The licensing model is flexible in that you can pay per automation or per user. My client receives a discount because of the large number of users and pays approximately $15 for each one."
"This is the cheapest option among competitors. You can choose to have the RPA with attendance at $40/month with add-on's totaling about $190. There are standalone options that require someone to run the process and there are fully automated options that are integrated within the cloud."
"Good price-quality relationship. Its features for its price were the best fit for our company."
"I give the cost a three out of ten."
"It costs us nothing because we use it on the built-in cost that is a part of our existing license for 365. To use it more extensively, there are different pricing models. Its licensing is complex. It is complex to evaluate the cost in advance. As a result, people don't use it because they don't know what overall cost they are going to incur. There are too many criteria to figure out how much it is going to cost you to use the product to its full extent. Its licensing model should be improved, and the pricing should be more visible and transparent."
"It had by far the fairest licensing on the market. For the money, you got a very good value."
"Comparatively, WinAutomation is cheaper than the other automation tools. When we purchased the license, it was around $50 or $60 per user most probably per month."
"The pricing is reasonable and the western license is fantastic."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Datacap?
The installation of the solution is very simple.
What needs improvement with IBM Datacap?
IBM Datacap cannot fetch unstructured data properly; it always gives you wrong information, so no one uses this solution for unstructured data. Even for structured data, sometimes the administrator...
RPA that Bots can run without centralized control?
Yes, Attended Bots which can run without centralized control Module. RPA Tools like Automation Anywhere, uiPath ,Power Automation they do support this.
How do I choose between UiPath and Microsoft Power Automate?
Microsoft‌ ‌Power‌ ‌Automate‌ ‌is‌ ‌intuitive‌ ‌and‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌integrate‌ ‌and‌ ‌use.‌ ‌I‌ ‌like‌ ‌that‌ ‌there‌ ‌is‌ ‌no‌ ‌coding‌ ‌experience‌ ‌necessary,‌ ‌and‌ ‌appreciate‌ ‌the‌ ‌automated‌...
How is Automation Anywhere compared to Microsoft Power Automate?
‌Neither‌ ‌solution‌ ‌requires‌ ‌any‌ ‌coding‌ ‌experience,‌ ‌and‌ ‌both‌ ‌are‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌use‌ ‌and‌ ‌have‌ ‌great‌ ‌drag-and‌ ‌drop‌ ‌functionality.‌ ‌The‌ ‌training‌ ‌and‌ ‌resources‌ ‌for‌ ‌A...
 

Also Known As

Datacap
Power Automate, Microsoft Flow, MS Power Automate, WinAutomation by Softomotive, ProcessRobot by Softomotive, Minit
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Turkcell, PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, Central Nacional Unimed, Conqord Oil
1. Coca-Cola 2. General Electric 3. Siemens 4. Accenture 5. Deloitte 6. Johnson & Johnson 7. Ford 8. Nestle 9. Procter & Gamble 10. IBM 11. Amazon 12. Google 13. Microsoft 14. Adobe 15. Cisco 16. Oracle 17. SAP 18. Intel 19. HP 20. Dell 21. Verizon 22. AT&T 23. T-Mobile 24. Walmart 25. Target 26. Home Depot 27. McDonald's 28. Starbucks 29. Nike 30. Apple 31. Facebook 32. Twitter
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.