Microsoft Power Automate vs SAP Intelligent RPA comparison

Microsoft and SAP are both solutions in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category. Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2, while SAP is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft holds a 20.7% mindshare in RPA, compared to SAP’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of SAP users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

SAP Intelligent RPA and Microsoft Power Automate offer robotic process automation solutions. SAP Intelligent RPA leads in customization, while Microsoft Power Automate stands out with its integration capabilities.

Features: SAP Intelligent RPA offers advanced automation for complex processes and a library of pre-built bots that simplify automation tasks. It also features flexible orchestration and job factory for seamless deployment. Microsoft Power Automate provides seamless integration with Microsoft's ecosystem and extensive connectors, supporting a wide range of applications. It also includes intuitive flow creation and the ability to automate office tasks.

Room for Improvement: SAP Intelligent RPA could enhance integration options beyond its current scope and simplify the initial setup process. It also needs better documentation to assist users. Microsoft Power Automate can improve in customization for complex automation scenarios, provide more robust automation features, and improve its user interface for more complex operations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Power Automate offers a straightforward setup due to its deep integration with the Microsoft suite, providing ease in operation across platforms. Its extensive customer support options aid smooth deployment. SAP Intelligent RPA's deployment can be more intricate, but it offers strong support structures for users dealing with complex automation scenarios.

Pricing and ROI: SAP Intelligent RPA generally requires a higher initial investment, with potential for significant ROI through optimization of complex tasks. Microsoft Power Automate offers a competitive pricing structure, which is appealing for businesses seeking cost-effective, scalable solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Power Automate vs. SAP Intelligent RPA Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power Automate vs. SAP Intelligent RPA

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

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, the mindshare of Fortra's Automate is 1.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power Automate is 20.7%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Intelligent RPA is 1.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Featured Reviews

Anabel Marco

Account Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Automates processes efficiently with cost-effective scaling and robust customer support

Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities. Another important feature for me is its compatibility with MBI, the Power that is ISEQUADO Centers. I appreciate the ability to scale and increase the number of bots or studios without additional expense. Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.

Read full review

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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Keerthana Jayathran

SAP BTP Developer at Wipro Limited

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

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

"The ability to connect to websites and pull data is the solution's most valuable feature."

"We are still in the process of rolling it to production and tweaking it (our AD groups are a mess), but the improvements are priceless. Having users ID's created the same way every time without human error is the best part. We don't need to worry about why groups were not added, user rights not set to folders or missing a private folder being created, typos or just even knowing when things are done and logged."

"I find the ease of use from a programming perspective very valuable."

"The interface is simple, user-friendly, and very intuitive."

"This tool has machine learning and voice recognition and computer vision, which are both quite useful aspects. These aren't available in other tools. It's a good addition to this tool and it gives the solution an edge on the market."

"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."

More Fortra's Automate pros

"It is easy to migrate from other tools to Power Automate."

"The best part is the automated workflow, which is quite good and easy. It is just drag-and-drop. We are able to create workflows quite quickly. We are able to directly integrate the data that it generates with Power BI dashboards. Its integration is quite good with other Microsoft tools, such as Power BI. The visualization of the data has become helpful for us."

"This product is the best in terms of price and capabilities."

"Power Automate is intuitive and easy to use."

"Its complete integration with Microsoft tools and the inclusion of the CRM are the most valuable features. It is embedded directly in the Office package, so clients have direct access to it. It has a lot more functionality than other standalone solutions, such as UiPath or Blue Prism."

"The most valuable features are that it is low-code and simple."

"The product is very stable."

"The most valuable features of Microsoft Power Automate are the ease of use and the templates that are provided. I no longer need to make the document from scratch. I can search for what template I want and then it only requires me to modify it a bit for my needs. Additionally, it's helped improve my productivity and efficiency, and at the same time, it's quicker."

More Microsoft Power Automate pros

"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."

"The most valuable feature of SAP Contextor is that everyone is in one place in the program that I need."

"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."

"It is remarkably easy to configure and code, and it doesn't require an extensive technical background or coding expertise."

"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."

"Scalability is fine. It is pretty nice."

"The standout features of SAP Intelligent RPA are its flexibility and integration capabilities."

"The initial setup of SAP Contextor is easy."

Cons

"Error messages should be better. For error status, there should be better documentation because a lot of times, error messages that you get are quite vague. For example, you get a message saying that the workflow has run into an unknown status, which is vague. It just tells you that it failed, but you don't know how or why it failed. It makes debugging difficult."

"I currently have three bugs open with them that I don't know if they are addressed in the new release."

"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."

"The documentation is not that great."

"We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal."

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

"It's possible that they could use a stronger community for seeking guidance and help."

"The technical support could be better. We suffer from language barriers, as we are in Argentina."

More Fortra's Automate cons

"There should be a comprehensive or enterprise level of application to provide the cognitive AI, and there should be orchestration so that I can control all the robots on one station. The other tools are currently providing these features."

"The OCR functionality needs to be improved."

"It is mostly integrated with the Microsoft environment. Unlike UiPath, we cannot really use external tools with Microsoft Power Automate. There should be a possibility to integrate it with external tools or systems."

"During their merger, some key functions were eliminated which no longer allows it to run independently from the cloud as a standalone for other companies. For example, options to schedule and trigger have been removed. It would be nice to have these capabilities back. The flow and the connectivity between databases and so on is a bit complex as well."

"Enhancing Power Automate to work synchronously instead of asynchronously would eliminate the need for additional coding, saving time in project implementation."

"They've already improved it, but I guess a testing suite would be nice to be able to test your automations in real time."

"The tool must be more stable."

"Microsoft could offer more AI education and training."

More Microsoft Power Automate cons

"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."

"For potential features or improvements, one aspect I would suggest enhancing is the flexibility of the extraction process."

"I found that the SAP scripting of a program is easier than SAP Contextor."

"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."

"I would like to see a better capacity for unstructured data, for example, PDF, or text within images."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The pricing is quite reasonable. We can run the process with one bot. The limitation is at the server level because they have some resources, and sometimes that is enough. It isn't too expensive, so you can get a good return off of one, and you can also have a pack of five bots that is quite competitive."

"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."

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

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

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

"From a distributor's side, one of the biggest selling points is its price point. Without going into any numbers, compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, we're significantly cheaper. The main difference is that other competitors usually charge you per process. However, in Automate's case, it's priced per bot. So, a bot can run multiple processes at the same time, but you are only priced for a single bot."

More Fortra's Automate pricing and cost advice

"You can have two types of licenses, one is user-based, and the other is app-based in the Power Platform."

"This solution is bundled with our Office 365, so there is no additional licensing fee."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"The price of the solution is reasonable. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"They have the community edition that people can use for free, and they also have the enterprise edition. My company uses the enterprise edition, and I don't know how much they pay."

"At the moment, from our experience with the two, Power Automate is a lot more expensive solution than Automation Anywhere, but it is also a far more reliable solution. With the price increases and with the current pandemic situation going on worldwide, a lot of the prices have fluctuated, but the packages and the all-encompassing features you get with the Microsoft package far outweigh the benefits from the Automation Anywhere side. Each package on the Automation Anywhere side is cheaper, but we need to continuously purchase subsequent packages to continue with our automation to the extent that we require. So, the Power Automate solution is a bit more pricey, but it does offer us a far better range of capabilities."

"It depends and varies a lot according to the licensing terms. There is no cost to maintain if we have less than 10 forms. Microsoft only charges if there are more than 10 forms. So, most of the companies can survive without paying anything extra. It is included in the Office 365 licensing."

"The licensing cost for us at this time is between $8 and $20 per user, per month."

More Microsoft Power Automate pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is not that expensive. It is manageable."

"This is not a tool or software with a license as others are. The SaaS model is based on the usage of the tool."

"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%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Energy/Utilities Company

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ‌...

See all answers

How is Automation Anywhere compared to Microsoft Power Automate?

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

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What do you like most about SAP Contextor?

The standout features of SAP Intelligent RPA are its flexibility and integration capabilities.

See all answers

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 ad...

See all answers

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 b...

See all answers

Comparisons

UiPath vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 37% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 8% of the time

Blue Prism vs Fortra's Automate

Compared 4% of the time

More Fortra's Automate Competitors

UiPath vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 32% of the time

Blue Prism vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 18% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 17% of the time

IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 4% of the time

ServiceNow Automation Engine vs Microsoft Power Automate

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power Automate Competitors

UiPath vs SAP Intelligent RPA

Compared 42% of the time

Automation Anywhere vs SAP Intelligent RPA

Compared 23% of the time

Blue Prism Cloud vs SAP Intelligent RPA

Compared 10% of the time

SAP Build Process Automation vs SAP Intelligent RPA

Compared 5% of the time

Blue Prism vs SAP Intelligent RPA

Compared 4% of the time

More SAP Intelligent RPA Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortra's Automate

February 2025

Download Fortra's Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power Automate

February 2025

Download Microsoft Power Automate product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP Intelligent RPA

January 2025

Download SAP Intelligent RPA product report

Also Known As

HelpSystems Automate, Automate

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

SAP Contextor, Contextor

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.

Fortra

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.

Microsoft

SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation lets you automate enterprise business processes. Design process automations within the Cloud Studio by creating end-to-end workflows. Generate packages from these automations into the Cloud Factory powered by SAP BTP to configure and execute these packages with Agents. Agents running on workstations can work as a digital assistant (attended automation) or as a digital worker (unattended automation).

SAP Intelligent RPA enables business users and technologists to become citizen developers. With powerful yet intuitive low-code and no-code capabilities, the solution supports you in driving automation by tapping into the expertise of citizen developers.

SAP

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

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

BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, Kabel Deutschland, Orange, Carrefour

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power Automate vs. SAP Intelligent RPA

January 2025

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