IBM Datacap vs Microsoft Power Automate comparison

IBM and Microsoft are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Datacap and Microsoft Power Automate based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate

January 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Fortra's Automate

Featured Reviews

Anabel Marco

Account Director at Software Greenhouse

Can automate several processes with only one bot and is easy to implement, administer, and use

We have tried other RPA solutions like UiPath or Automation Anywhere. They are fantastic products but complex, and it's hard to understand everything. It would be best if you had a skilled developer or several. Automate is easy to implement, administer, and use. It's appropriate for us because our cases are simple and easy to automate. We don't need complicated tools with many features; We prefer to get a significant ROI quickly. We can automate several processes with only one bot, so it's much cheaper than other products where you need to buy additional licenses. We need a good value for our automation. The other solutions might be more robust, but Automate is perfect for us because we're not a large enterprise.

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DeekshithShetty

Software Development Senior Specialist at NTT Data

High-accuracy document processing with easy integration and good image enhancement

The OCR extractions are very good, almost 100% accurate now. The integration with other tools is very easy, with inbuilt actions to configure and directly export to multiple depositories. It is also good at image enhancement, including the removal of lines, which is helpful in processing and automation and ensures very little user intervention, thus saving time.

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Nilesh Pundkar

IVR Developer at Orange

Good for email routing and management features but additional costs for plug-ins

Power Automate has fewer features and more limitations in general. It's not as mature a product as some of the others, like UiPath or Automate Anywhere. One of the main issues I've found is that Power Automate struggles with accessing Excel or other Office documents on servers. Even though it's a Microsoft product, we often have to log in through remote systems, and syncing can be problematic due to the way we use servers. At the very least, they should provide access to Office 365 directly, without requiring additional logins on servers. Most people utilizing Power Automate are already working within the Office 365 environment. Any proof of concepts (POCs) using Power Automate would naturally be built on top of Office 365.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop interface, which is very Windows-like."

"I actually quite liked the no-coding functionality."

"The solution is continuously adding more integrations to help with workflows and bot and task creation."

"I find it very user-friendly. Our IT department and other departments can seamlessly collaborate without requiring extensive training. As a business department, we particularly value this aspect, as our team doesn't consist of many IT users. However, we couldn't solely rely on a drag-and-drop approach to implement and utilize the solution within our departments."

"We have tried other RPA solutions like UiPath or Automation Anywhere. They are fantastic products but complex, and it's hard to understand everything. It would be best if you had a skilled developer or several. Automate is easy to implement, administer, and use. It's appropriate for us because our cases are simple and easy to automate. We don't need complicated tools with many features; We prefer to get a significant ROI quickly."

"Fortra's Automate performs the job effectively and has the capability to alert us of any issues."

"It's very easy to use. That's a big selling point for it. It has got a drag-and-drop interface, so you can quickly deploy bots."

"It gives us a central place to schedule tasks and run them distributed."

More Fortra's Automate pros

"It helps companies figure out how to use advanced imaging techniques, processes, best practices, and other tools."

"At the forefront of my thoughts, 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."

"It's resiliency. There are multiple ways of identifying what you are looking for. There are multiple export formats."

"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..."

"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"

"The most valuable feature is its ability to capture data, which changes all the time into different formats."

"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."

"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."

More IBM Datacap pros

"There is an exhaustive amount of templates that users have access to."

"The solution helps automate manual tasks and interacts with multiple applications."

"Instead of manually triggering payments through the website, everything was done through robotic process automation (RPA), saving us a lot of time."

"It's an intuitive product. It's not overly technical."

"We use Power Automate for applicant tracking and automated around 80 percent of the process."

"The interface is user-friendly."

"It is a low-code platform. It is easy to use and good for automating small tasks such as expense approvals, timesheet approvals, etc."

"It helps with the feedback mechanism, where we need to determine the relevant team and obtain their email addresses."

More Microsoft Power Automate pros

Cons

"It would be an improvement if Automate had better stability tools, whether by recommending a certain amount of memory because it can be a memory hog at times."

"The workflow for variables could be better. The input and output of task-level variables could be made a little clearer in terms of passing those around from one task to another upon success, etc. Things like that could be a little easier potentially."

"Some companies have asked for voice integration. This is likely part of the roadmap."

"They do not encrypt passwords, so this is an issue with HIPAA compliance."

"The solution has a very weak knowledge base."

"I believe we need to test various OCR tools that assist in evaluating, let's say, six different customer resyncs. We analyze their spending patterns and documentations, but current OCR support has limitations, requiring highly standardized documents, which isn't always the case. With a more advanced OCR system, we could improve processes related to credit risk management and legal matters. We're exploring how to integrate Fortra's Automate with our CRM platform, taking cues from instances where Salesforce seamlessly merged with Automate. However, we use a different CRM, Insight for New Enterprise, and we're seeking ways to connect the automation process within our CRM. We aim for the automation to continue smoothly, even in instances where traditional automation methods might face hurdles."

"The OCR for Hebrew text needs to be improved."

"Fortra's Automate is not as reliable as I would like it to be."

More Fortra's Automate cons

"The IBM Datacap site actually is on the newer inside. They will give it as a plugin only."

"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."

"One of the things that we wished for was to have an easier way to carry out the customizations. Currently, if you want to customize data, you need to have a developer with C# knowledge. If IBM could implement a no-code or low-code platform for Datacap, it would be easier to adjust it without needing a developer, which was always the most difficult part."

"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."

"I would like to see the product have the ability to process more documents in parallel. Right now, it is a single queue. Therefore, if you want to really test the load and stress test it, having multiple instances and the ability to scale it up would be great."

"I give the scalability of the solution a six out of ten."

"I would like better ease of use and more support options."

"Speed of OCR is one issue. It's a challenge because we have customers that have millions and millions of pages that they want this solution to crank through. In order to do that you have to have a large infrastructure in place, and that directly impacts licensing based on the core count."

More IBM Datacap cons

"It should work better for Angular websites, as it has a lot of problems."

"The solution is not actually satisfying the complex programs that we want to execute."

"Sometimes, Microsoft changes the game rules, and the free tools are no longer free, which makes it too hard to explain to customers. It is a SaaS service, so the cost is calculated based on the execution hours. However, we don't know the background of this cost because we cannot touch the infrastructure. They can be more open to developers or customers about this. The infrastructure part must be open for the customers."

"I was working on it for around three days and then took a break of about two days. When I went back to it, all of the Excel, and all the Excel functions, just disappeared. Completely vanished. When I looked up the help, it said that sometimes that happens when you're not connected to the internet."

"From an improvement perspective, Microsoft just needs to make sure that they have a real enterprise RPA tool. PowerApps and Power Automate are still not at the level of UiPath and Automation Anywhere. It could be because Automation Anywhere and UiPath have been in the market for quite some time. It's just about Microsoft increasing their focus in terms of product reviews and development and making them competitive products that one can consider at an enterprise level. Right now, their use cases are limited as compared to what one would consider doing with UiPath and Automation Anywhere."

"Tech support could be more hands-on. Right now, they simply direct users to documentation instead of directly dealing with issues."

"We expect Microsoft Power Automate to work like any other RPA software, but at present, it is fairly lax, especially in the RPA space. We have a very limited set of use cases today for Microsoft Power Automate. Microsoft should make it a full-featured RPA product like other solutions that we use, such as Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and UiPath. This is predominantly the area that they need to improve on. Microsoft Power Automate is quite complex to use as well, especially if you want to do advanced workflows or advanced automation. The regular simple workflows are quite easy and straightforward, but the moment you want to do something complex, it is almost impossible for one of our employees to work on it."

"The licensing model could be improved to make it easier to understand and follow, as it is difficult to determine if the embedded license provides all functionalities or if additional licenses are needed."

More Microsoft Power Automate cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While solutions like UiPath and Blue Prism cost around $11,000-$12,000 for each license, this product costs around $7,000 and you can keep it forever."

"I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."

"I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."

"Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help."

"I believe the price falls within a reasonable range, which significantly influenced our decision regarding the product. This aspect is crucial for any technological solution, especially in our country where enterprises might be hesitant to invest heavily in something untested or uncertain about its practicality and potential returns."

"Compared to other products, the pricing model for this solution is much more convenient, flexible, and adaptable to the Portuguese reality."

"It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."

"From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."

More Fortra's Automate pricing and cost advice

"Pricing depends on how much we use it. We pay per bulk quantity. We pay as you go. Therefore, it sort of depends on our usage of it."

"Pricing needs to stay competitive."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More IBM Datacap pricing and cost advice

"I am not aware of the recent pricing model, but during the time that I was using this solution is was reasonable."

"The solution is $150 per month for the unattended add-on, and the normal Power Automate comes with an E3 license."

"Its licensing cost is comparatively less as compared to Automation Anywhere. We have bought a two-year license agreement."

"We use Office 365 and this solution is free for me to use with the package we have. We have plans to increase the usage of Microsoft Power Automate."

"Power Automate is comparatively less costly than UiPath."

"Power Automate is a much less expensive product than the competition."

"The licensing price should be more cost-effective."

"Good price-quality relationship. Its features for its price were the best fit for our company."

More Microsoft Power Automate pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

15%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

13%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HelpSystems AutoMate?

We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for HelpSystems AutoMate?

We used the platform primarily for task automation, including transmitting EDR files. Additionally, we've utilized it...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra Automate?

The starter pack was all we needed and was reasonable. Others were either more expensive or didn't do all that I want...

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What do you like most about IBM Datacap?

The installation of the solution is very simple.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Datacap?

This solution is the most expensive in the market.

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What needs improvement with IBM Datacap?

When a client's requirement is not available in Datacap, out-of-the-box actions should be simpler to implement and no...

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RPA that Bots can run without centralized control?

Yes, Attended Bots which can run without centralized control Module. RPA Tools like Automation Anywhere, uiPath ,Pow...

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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 ‌...

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How is Automation Anywhere compared to Microsoft Power Automate?

‌Neither‌ ‌solution‌ ‌requires‌ ‌any‌ ‌coding‌ ‌experience,‌ ‌and‌ ‌both‌ ‌are‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌use‌ ‌and‌ ‌have‌ ‌great...

See all answers

Comparisons

UiPath vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 36% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 7% of the time

Blue Prism vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 4% of the time

MOVEit vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 4% of the time

More Fortra's Automate Competitors

ABBYY Vantage vs IBM Datacap

Compared 34% of the time

Tungsten TotalAgility vs IBM Datacap

Compared 17% of the time

Amazon Textract vs IBM Datacap

Compared 17% of the time

OpenText Intelligent Capture vs IBM Datacap

Compared 9% of the time

HyperScience vs IBM Datacap

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM Datacap Competitors

UiPath vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 34% of the time

Blue Prism vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 19% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 17% of the time

Python RPA vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 3% of the time

Pega Robotic Process Automation vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power Automate Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortra's Automate

January 2025

Download Fortra's Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap

January 2025

Download IBM Datacap product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power Automate

January 2025

Download Microsoft Power Automate product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

Datacap

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

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Fortra

IBM

Microsoft

Overview

Fortra's Automate is predominantly used in HR and operational departments for automating reports, file manipulation, and data processing. Key uses include automating repetitive tasks, integrating PDFs and emails, running scripts, processing large data sets, transforming file formats, synchronizing databases, managing job schedules, and transferring files.

Users commend Fortra's Automate for its ease of implementation and user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, which requires minimal technical skills for efficient bot deployment. The software is appreciated for its effective scheduling tools, reliable integration capabilities, and a wide range of functions such as file interaction, secure file transfers, and extensive automation without the need for coding. Businesses achieve significant time savings and simplified processes, bolstered by continuous updates and robust customer support.

What are the key features?

Scheduling Tools: Enables precise control and timing for automation tasks
Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly connects with various systems and software
File Interaction: Comprehensive functions for file manipulation and transfer
Secure Transfers: Ensures data safety during file transfers
User-Friendly: Minimal technical skills needed for deployment and use

What benefits should you look for in reviews?

Ease of Implementation: Fast and simple setup process
Time Savings: Reduces time spent on repetitive tasks
Process Simplification: Streamlines complex workflows
Customer Support: Access to continuous support and updates

In various industries such as healthcare, transportation, and payroll, Fortra's Automate automates workflows like invoice generation, data retrieval, data uploading, and insurance eligibility checks, enhancing efficiency and accuracy for HR and operational tasks.

IBM Datacap helps you streamline the capture, recognition and classification of business documents and extract important information. Datacap supports multiple-channel capture by processing paper documents on scanners, mobile devices, multi-function peripherals and fax. It uses natural language processing, text analytics and machine learning technologies, like those in IBM Watson, to automatically identify, classify and extract content from unstructured or variable documents. The software can reduce labor and paper costs, deliver meaningful information and support faster decision making.

Microsoft Power Automate is a powerful tool that streamlines and automates tasks within an organization.

It is used for workflow automation, data integration, and creating automated notifications and approvals.

Power Automate connects different applications and services, such as SharePoint, Excel, and Outlook, to automate data transfer and synchronization.

Sample Customers

Aldergrove Financial Group, Preferred Health Professionals, Mindbeam Technologies, First Credit Union in British Columbia, Vestcom International, Prime Liberty Benefits, University of Tampa, CNLBancshares, World Precision Instruments, BJ's Restaurants, Globe Pequot Press, Accudata Technologies, Norton Healthcare, Pacific Toxicology Laboratories

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate

January 2025

Free Report: IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM Datacap vs. Microsoft Power Automate report.

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