What is our primary use case?
As a developer, I manage a process mining team and have a development team reporting to me.
We use UiPath Process Mining for over-the-counter, code-to-invoice, and purchase-to-pay processes.
In over-the-counter processing, there is a process called accounts payable. Within accounts payable, there is a process called three-way matching. Three-way matching involves matching three things: the purchase order number, quantity, and price; the goods receipt quantity and price; and the invoice quantity and price. These three things must be matched based on a set of rules. We were able to identify areas where all three-way matching could be automated using process mining. This significantly reduced our lead time by around four to five hours.
How has it helped my organization?
We wanted transparency in our development process. Our large organization is spread across 18 different regions, and each region performs the same process in its own way. UiPath Process Mining gives us transparency into how these processes perform. We can also compare each region to the others. The level of transparency is very high with this tool. This helps us to identify and implement best practices. For example, if EMEA performs better than APAC one week, we can replicate its practices in APAC. UiPath Process Mining can help us achieve transparency and identify best practices.
From a development perspective, UiPath provides connectors that allow us to connect to source systems, such as SAP and Salesforce. UiPath Process Mining also provides certain connectors, which are essentially customized API configurations. Once we connect a source system directly to UiPath Process Mining, all of the necessary configuration is automatically imported, so minimal development is required.
The end-to-end visibility is great. When we connect to UiPath Process Mining, we can use the dashboards to see a process map that is readily available. We have multiple data sets that are actually stored in another room. Once we connect all of the digital footprints to UiPath Process Mining, provided they have the necessary connectors, we can see the complete process map in a list format. We can also immediately see certain analyses that have been automatically generated, such as the lead time, where the lead time is high, which vendors are causing the high lead time, and which customers are using the process. This information is populated automatically when we connect to UiPath Process Mining. This is one of the strengths of UiPath Process Mining.
UiPath Process Mining can help us turn raw data into actionable information for standard systems. However, it can be difficult to use for systems that require customization, due to the lack of connectors.
It helps us identify and remove bottlenecks in a wide range of processes. Its transparency gives us visibility into where bottlenecks occur in the process, and we can see the lead times for each step. This allows us to immediately focus our efforts on reducing lead times, whether at the auto management stage, factory, warehouse, or last-mile delivery. Once we have a complete process map, we can clearly see where our efforts need to be directed to reduce overall lead times. We can achieve this through automation, following best practices, or training users to follow certain protocols to prevent spills or core leakage in the process. UiPath Process Mining makes all of this possible to some extent.
We have actually achieved hard savings of approximately two million euros this year, exclusively using UiPath Process Mining for the O2C process alone. However, this is just for O2C. There is still a lot of room for improvement. We could actually save much more. The technology itself is great, so there is a lot of potential for savings, both hard savings and soft savings. As of now, we have actually saved two million euros for O2C. For B2B, the approval process is still ongoing, so I cannot provide an update on the numbers. I really don't know the numbers right now, but it will also be close to one million euros. So we can conservatively estimate that we have saved around three million euros using UiPath Process Mining this year alone.
UiPath Process Mining empowers employee decision-making based on each person's role. For example, it gives other managers access to data so they can clearly understand what is going wrong. We also talk to them and provide them with information on the hub feed, allowing them to see which hubs are performing much better than theirs. They have the same data, regardless of their management group or product. We also provide them with the product category, and we bucket products together. For example, we bucket MR machines and CD machines together. We do this by setting criteria. We also see how well the computers are performing and how well we are giving orders at the right time. UiPath Process Mining helps us make informed decisions based on this data.
The savings we predicted of three million euros were primarily in FTEs. We were able to reduce a large number of FTEs using UiPath Process Mining. This is a double-edged sword because we can either free up FTEs for other tasks or remove employees from the organization altogether. In our organization, we have chosen to free up approximately 200 FTEs in the Latin America region. None of these FTEs were terminated; they were instead reassigned to other useful tasks. UiPath Process Mining has therefore been very helpful.
What is most valuable?
UiPath Process Mining's conformance feature allows us to upload our standard processes and compare how well our actual processes deviate from them. This reveals all of the variants in our processes. UiPath Process Mining also has a feature called tags, which allows us to create our own tags or filters to identify violations in the process. I haven't seen any other process mining tool on the market that does this. Other tools have their own ways of identifying violations, but UiPath's conformance feature with its Tag Analysis Console provides a better user interface. We can immediately click on violations to see all of the instances of those violations in the process.
What needs improvement?
UiPath Process Mining should focus more on developing connectors to source systems. In fact, I worked on an interesting consulting project for UiPath Process Mining when I was in another service industry. This was when they acquired the process mining tool Process Code in 2019 and rebranded it as Way Beyond Process Mining. They came to us because they wanted to compare their tool to the top five process mining tools on the market. We conducted a consolidation project and presented our findings on the strengths and weaknesses of UiPath Process Mining. UiPath Process Mining has come a long way since then, but I believe there is still room for significant improvement.
UiPath Process Mining has not been adding new API connectors as frequently in recent years. As of now, there are only around ten to twelve source connectors available. In contrast, other market tools, such as Celonis, offer much more extensive connector libraries. This means that UiPath Process Mining can only connect to a limited number of systems, even though it can connect to standard systems like SAP and Salesforce. If we need to connect to a new or less common system, we will need to develop a connector from scratch, which can be time-consuming.
UiPath's UI and assets could be improved. Celonis performs better in terms of UI, even though it uses fewer colors. However, UiPath's process maps are congested. While I understand that organizational reasons may require complex processes, I believe that Celonis provides better visibility in this regard. Therefore, I recommend that UiPath improve its process maps along these lines.
The number of file formats that can be uploaded should be increased. For example, the BPMN file format is very important, but it is not currently supported by UiPath Process Mining.
Multiple users with different access levels need to use UiPath Process Mining. For example, if I develop a UiPath Process Mining dashboard for the leadership team, they need a certain level of access that allows them to view the dashboard without seeing all of the details. I also need to provide access to end users who are auto managers, but who may not be technically proficient enough to navigate the tool. Therefore, the current number and types of user profiles available in UiPath are not sufficient. We need more flexibility in providing user profiles to meet the needs of different users.
Buyer's Guide
UiPath Process Mining
November 2024
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using UiPath Process Mining for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
UiPath Process Mining is generally stable. We rarely experience issues. If there is any downtime, we are notified well in advance. Downtime is very rare, perhaps once every six months, which is equivalent to two or three times per year at most.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
UiPath Process Mining is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I use a variety of other process mining tools in my team. If we take a single process and mine it using Celonis Process Mining, which is the current market leader, I always rate Celonis better than UiPath. In 2019, 2020, and 2021, I would have ranked UiPath second, but SAP Signavio Process Intelligence has since surpassed it. According to Gartner reports, a number of other tools have also surpassed UiPath Process Mining, which was previously ranked second. As a result, I believe UiPath will need to step up its game to compete with these rivals.
How was the initial setup?
We have two servers. We have the UiPath Process Mining server deployed for us, and we make sure that we have different instances of it: one for acceptance testing and one for production. We ask the owner of the request to test any development in the acceptance instance before we deploy it to production. We use Azure DevOps to log issues and complaints, and we then take action on them.
The initial deployment was complex, but the complexity was in the process, not in the tool. The tool is good, and of course, it has the standard connectors for the source systems that we already had. This is why our UiPath Process Mining is top-notch.
From a development perspective, the implementation strategy was to start with a small part of the process and then gradually add more processes. The initial setup of UiPath Process Mining involved a project manager from UiPath, who still has a dedicated team for our organization. UiPath's team consisted of three people, and our team consisted of four or five people. We also needed experts from UiPath who had already connected to our source systems. We all came together to work on the project. Once we received all the necessary approvals, it took us about four months to get the bandwidth we needed. Once we had the bandwidth, we began connecting to the systems one by one and adding the different layers of the process. There are six layers to the process, so we added one layer at a time. We then expanded the implementation to two more processes.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented the solution in-house.
What was our ROI?
The return on investment of process mining depends on the size of the process. For very large processes with high cardinality and granularity, the ROI can take significantly longer to realize. However, in pilot projects with small processes, the ROI can typically be realized within two to three months. For larger processes, the ROI will depend on the specific size and complexity of the process. In general, it can take one to two years to realize the ROI for large processes.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing costs for UiPath are very reasonable, in my opinion. This is because most companies already have a UiPath ecosystem in place, meaning they have deployed UiPath bots. UiPath offers both process mining and task mining capabilities, which are relevant to any automation team that uses UiPath RPA bots. Compared to other players in the market, UiPath's licensing costs are very reasonable. I would not say that UiPath is very cheap, but it is a good value for the price.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We tried comparing the top five market leaders and ended up choosing UiPath since our automation ecosystem is heavily dependent on UiPath. They provide us with the capability to connect process mining with an automation hub.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate UiPath Process Mining a seven out of ten.
Before automating any processes, they must perform process mining. If a process is inefficient and we try to automate it on top of that inefficiency, our automation will obviously be inefficient as well. We will not realize the return on investment. This is why we need to start with process mining. We can use UiPath Process Mining or any other tool on the market, but we need to understand what our process really is, see it end-to-end, visualize it, and then decide which areas to automate. This is the best way to do it, and if we do it this way, we will definitely realize the value.
For maintenance, we have an agreement with UiPath. We have monthly calls with UiPath, where they discuss new features and initiatives, and we discuss the challenges we faced that month. They also have quarterly calls to share their vision for the quarter and how we can leverage their offerings. There is a maintenance cost associated with this support, but I am not aware of it. I think it is low because the licensing cost is also low. We also have a bandwidth for acceptance and protection services. We own, maintain, and deploy these services on a monthly basis, loading the full data each month. We do all maintenance in-house. However, if we encounter any issues with the cloud-hosted services, we go to the UiPath team for assistance, and they try to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
First, we need to ensure that UiPath has connectors available for all of the source systems. Before starting the process mining exercise with UiPath, we need to sit down with UiPath and understand the process itself. Then, we need to define the process using certain metrics before proceeding with the mining process. Finally, we may not see a good return on investment because there could be multiple challenges in the process. We may need to stay with the process for other reasons. Therefore, we need to decide whether the process is suitable for mining. If the process is suitable, we need to get the potential return on assets from UiPath and verify the process.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.