What is our primary use case?
Here at the bank, there's a fraud investigation unit team. If they discover fraud on an account, they have to put restrictions on the banking account and/or credit cards, depending on what type of fraud it is. They also alert the end-user (or our associates) that there's a fraud on the account. After that, transfer calls are made to FIU. From our end, alerts would be sent out to different systems including the banking deposit and the credit card system as well as our main CRM. Restrictions and alerts would be set up on the accounts to make sure everyone knows there was fraud detected.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspect for myself was access to the .net framework. If I couldn't figure something out using the objects that they had provided, I could bring in the .net objects and do so using similar logic that I would in a .net or C sharp coding language. Having that familiarity was helpful.
What needs improvement?
Pega's main drawback was that you have to go and install their platform and their platform is meant to be their main selling point with robotics just a small part of what they do. It's the platform and the overhead that requires so much extra training and costs. In contrast, Automation Anywhere is just simple to control and all about the bots.
Pega has a no-code low-code environment. We do everything based on established rules. You kind-of have to learn how all their rules work and how it works for robotics before you can use the solution effectively.
If Pega built out the robot manager side a little bit more (so you didn't have to learn the ins and outs of their Pega rules) that would be ideal. They have this robot manager application that sits on top of the Pega platform and it does most of what you need it to do. However, there are some initial steps that do need to be set up inside of the solution, or even inside workflow items. That way, I'm just learning how to use the space.
For how long have I used the solution?
We started the contract with Pega in March of 2019.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is rather stable. I didn't run into any issues where I couldn't automate anything. In terms of automating the solution, I think they do a great job. Once we got the platform up and running, we didn't have any issues. There were no bugs and glitches. There were no crashes. It was reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The ability to scale really depends on how you build it. It's my understanding that you can build them in a scalable way. You can do that for most of these RPA technologies, however, how you build it depends on how scalable they are.
How are customer service and technical support?
We had the most issues with the platform side of the solution. If it was regarding a technical issue or if I had issues related to automating something, technical support was pretty good, but on the platform side, I would say they were not the best.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Technically, we are using both Pega and Automation Anywhere as we work through company mergers.
Pega never made it through to production. We're trying to get everything regarding AA set up, which has been a little bit tricky at the moment because we're trying to use the other company's control room. Due to this, we're on a different domain since we're technically two different companies and they don't necessarily set up with two different companies. We're working on getting access to everything on the other company's side, and getting through the firewall and tasks of that nature. We're chipping away at a bunch of different issues.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is a bit complex.
The deployment took a while to execute. It wasn't as simple as some of the other options that we had been looking at.
What about the implementation team?
We handled the implementation ourselves, although we did originally was to have someone assist. Our funding was cut, and we didn't get outside assistance, which hurt us during implementation.
What other advice do I have?
In the past, we had an RPA solution set up with Pega. Then our company got bought out. The other company was using Automation Anywhere, so we are in the midst of transitioning Automation Anywhere. We have platforms paid for by the different entities right now. Before we could get Pega really started, the company that bought us kind of squashed it. We got it up and running and installed. However, I haven't developed an entire solution on it yet due to the changes in our organization.
With Pega, there are two different parts: the platform and the actual automation software. In terms of the versions we're using, I believe the automation software is called OpenSpan and is 19.1 and the platform is 8.1.
In terms of advice, I would give to users considering using Pega, I'd caution to make sure you get an outside contractor that knows what they're doing. We had something on the books for that. Then, due to budget cuts, there was a hiring freeze, so that never got implemented. That definitely hurt the implementation of the project.
I would give the solution a seven out of ten. It wasn't bad at automating. It was just a little complicated to implement.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.