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Rohit Khanna - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Capgemini
Real User
A cost-effective, reliable tool that saves time and improves accuracy
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a very easy and stable product."
  • "The user interface needs a little bit of improvement in terms of performance. Sometimes, it slows down, but it depends on the OS that you have. If you are running it on Microsoft Windows, it is slower than on macOS or Linux."

What is our primary use case?

It depends on the task that is assigned to me, but mainly, I'm using it for PDF automation and Java API-related automation. It is being used for extractions of PDFs and automation of the APIs to get a better and more rapid response.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath helps a lot in everything related to automation. We have lots of tasks, and we need to get accurate results. Our experience of automating using UiPath has been good. It is easy to get good information or good output from the data.

Its AI capabilities are very helpful for automating more processes. If we want to extract something, we can easily use it. Its AI capabilities make it easy to automate a process and get accurate results.

It works well with all languages, such as Python, Java, C++, etc. It also works with APIs. It is helpful to understand the APIs to extract the data. 

It enables us to implement end-to-end automation. 

It has improved productivity and reliability and saved a lot of time. It has also reduced human error. It has reduced human error by 30% to 50%, and it has freed up employee time by 40% to 60% depending on the task or use case of an employee.

It has reduced our on-premises footprint a little bit.

What is most valuable?

It is a very easy and stable product. 

It saves a lot of time. It increases our productivity, and it also helps with project reliability and scalability.

The courses available on UiPath Academy are helpful if we want to go deep into the UiPath scripts or tools. UiPath Academy is also helpful when we want to learn something new that is available in the new versions or improve our skills and knowledge.

What needs improvement?

The user interface needs a little bit of improvement in terms of performance. Sometimes, it slows down, but it depends on the OS that you have. If you are running it on Microsoft Windows, it is slower than on macOS or Linux.

Buyer's Guide
UiPath
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
825,609 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using UiPath for the last two to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. I would rate it a 10 out of 10 in terms of reliability. The tool is very secure. If a user wants to run it on a Mac, it works flawlessly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. I would rate it a 10 out of 10 for scalability.

We are using it for multiple departments. We have IT consultancy and IT services, as well as product teams. In my company, there are about 5K people. Some of them are end-users, some are developers, some are admins, and some are testers.

How are customer service and support?

For any issues, we can take the help of the UiPath customer support and the UiPath community.

When we have some issues with the deployment tasks and automation tasks, customer support helps a lot, and they always try to resolve issues in a short time. Their technical support is incredible. They are always ready to help with customer queries and they try to resolve them within hours, not days. Sometimes, they resolve them within 30 minutes, but it also depends on the issue or priority. I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

This is the first tool that I have been using for the last two to three years.

How was the initial setup?

It depends on the project size. If the project is complex, it takes time. In my opinion, it is straightforward if you know how to use it. If you don't know how to use this tool, it is very difficult. On average, it takes half an hour to one hour.

In terms of maintenance, it requires some maintenance, which is taken care of by the admin side. They have to make sure that it is up to date.

What was our ROI?

It is very cost-effective, and it gives an ROI. It saves a lot of time as well as money. It helps to build client relationships and improve customer feedback. There is a 20% to 30% saving on costs. It has saved $5,000 to $6,000 per year.

The time savings depend on the task and the size of the process. We can save 10% to 50%.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Its price is moderate. It is neither very expensive nor very cheap. Everything is good in terms of pricing.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend it to every developer or software engineer who wants to work on the automation review task. 

Overall, I would rate UiPath a 10 out of 10.

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.
PeerSpot user
Praveen_Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Developer at Capgemini
Real User
End-to-end automation is important for getting results very quickly and saving time
Pros and Cons
  • "It provides various services such as PDF automation and AI capabilities that help in creating accurate results. We are using the AI for chatbot integrations and handling customer interactions. It helps eliminate manual work."
  • "Sometimes it takes time to provide results."

What is our primary use case?

I'm using it for PDF automation.

How has it helped my organization?

It helps us save 60 to 70 percent of the time we used to take and provides accurate results. 

It also helps with increasing productivity. Now that work is automated, it has eliminated any manual work within these processes and reduced human error.

It also provides end-to-end automation, which is very important for getting results very quickly and saving time. We can use that saved time for other productive work. 

UiPath also helps us in reducing digital costs.

What is most valuable?

It provides various services such as PDF automation and AI capabilities that help in creating accurate results. We are using the AI for chatbot integrations and handling customer interactions. It helps eliminate manual work.

The email automations are also very valuable.

It also provides a user-friendly interface so that anyone can use it. 

What needs improvement?

Sometimes it takes time to provide results.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for almost a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable and provides accurate results for our organization.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very scalable, as more than 250 users in our organization use this tool, and we have not faced any issues with it.

How are customer service and support?

The customer support is very good and resolves our queries immediately. It has been very good for us.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

This is the first automation tool we have used.

How was the initial setup?

It requires IT support.

What was our ROI?

It's saving employee time, which helps with ROI, but the cost is higher. But the results it provides are enough for the tool to give us ROI.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's costly compared to other tools in the market. Other than that, it is very good.

What other advice do I have?

As I noted, sometimes it takes time to get the results, but it depends upon the query or task I'm using it for. Other than this, it's very good and I'm happy with this tool. It works well for me and I would recommend that others use it.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
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.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
UiPath
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
825,609 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1976400 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Process automation solution that has reduced our manual hours by 200,000 each year
Pros and Cons
  • "The automations that UiPath provide free up our team members for tasks and projects that they have always wanted to do but have not had time for. There has been a shift to more meaningful work and doing the work that hasn't been done before."
  • "To improve this solution, there could be increased transparency over licensing and consistency regarding what it costs for on-prem and what it costs for the cloud."

What is our primary use case?

We're in the supply chain industry and we use UiPath for automations for purchasing and selling and to make people's lives easier within the organization. We have 20,000 users in our organization. 

We do not currently use the AI functionality in our automation program but we have in the past. I've found Document Understanding in the AI Center valuable. In the past, the action center was slow compared to some competitors in the IDP sphere, which can be detrimental if you're dealing with millions of documents but this has since been improved.

We use unattended robot processes almost exclusively and this includes approximately 130 to 140 processes. We do have plans to increase this usage and create more core automations. Certain automations have a shelf life and need to be retired at a certain point. A lot of times we're working with systems that are eventually going to be replaced. The reason why we use UiPath over strictly APIs or something programmatic is that we don't have access to something programmatic. 

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath has improved our organization in the sense that it has reduced our manual hours by 200,000 hours per year. This is substantial especially given the size of the COE. We don't necessarily realize these benefits from a head count decrease perspective but we definitely realize it from a time-saving perspective. 

The automations that UiPath provide free up our team members for tasks and projects that they have always wanted to do but have not had time for. There has been a shift to more meaningful work and doing work that hasn't been done before.

What is most valuable?

The Orchestration feature has been valuable as well as Studio because it makes it easier for people to develop who don't necessarily have a coding background. The UI automation when using UiPath is the best in the field, as far as RPA goes.

What needs improvement?

UiPath will introduce new features and it appears as though there is an unspoken rule that what they have released is not where it needs to be, but it'll be there eventually. To improve this solution, there could be increased transparency over licensing and consistency regarding what it costs for on-prem and what it costs for the cloud. This would make it more enticing for people to switch from one to another. 

We have also experienced some difficulty with updates and making sure that everything runs consistently. Many times, new releases are not communicated and then are released. This is included in documentation but this documentation is not always stored in the same place. Having some clarity or upgrade assistance to highlight what we need to look out for would help a great deal. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a stable solution but stability is dependent on your configuration. If you configure your robots in such a way that every VDI that runs or every virtual machine that's able to run a bot has a backup, then it will be stable.

How are customer service and support?

UiPath's support is quite good. Whenever I've submitted a ticket, I have gotten relatively good responses within a couple of days. If you say that something is urgent and critical, they do get back to you sooner. Sometimes you get stuck between L1 and L2 support, which can be frustrating. 

I would rate the support for this solution an eight out of ten. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The complexity of the setup depends on what you're trying to deploy. If you're deploying only the orchestrator and setting up robots, it is pretty straightforward. If 10 is difficult and one is easy, I would rate the setup a three or four. 

The certificates needed to set up the orchestrator can be confusing and frustrating during setup. For the most part, what you need to do is straightforward. When it comes to installations that require a Linux virtual machine, Docker configuration, or Kubernetes, the setup is more complex. It is more complex to set up an on-premises configuration compared to a cloud configuration.

What was our ROI?

From what I've seen, organizations will have vastly different numbers as to how hours correspond to dollars. Our return on investment has been good, even from a conservative perspective.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The way that the licensing is structured is confusing for some because there is different licensing if you're on the cloud versus if you're on-prem. There are unattended licenses and then there are non-production licenses and people get confused by that.

There's a level of buy-in that's required that makes it difficult for people to get started. For example, "If we do this, we need to get this whole package" as opposed to, "Let's get a couple of licenses and see how it works for us." There's the community for these questions but if you want to do an on-premise installation, you can't really use the community in the same way to get clarity.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

As far as strictly RPA and UI-based automation solutions are concerned, UiPath really shines over its competition. The most similar comparisons would be Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism, and I don't think that they have the same level of ease when learning how to use their solutions. Not as many users in the market know how to use those solutions and they don't have the same level of orchestration which makes them more difficult to manage compared to UiPath. 

What other advice do I have?

The UiPath's user community, in terms of the value that you gain by being a part of it, is hit or miss. A lot of times there aren't responses to the high-level questions. There are a lot of responses to people who are just learning how to use it, but for more complex questions, there are no experts to field responses. It is possible to find these answers but they are not necessarily contained on UiPath's platforms. That being said, I did find the user community and academy very useful when I first started using this solution.  

I have done 16 courses from the academy and continue to review what is released to see if it would add value to me to stay up to date with the latest features. The academy provides the ability for more people to learn UiPath and learn RPA and this makes it easier to hire new team members as they can easily gain the necessary skillsets. They still do have to learn on the job to some extent, but there's a basic skillset that's pretty well established and there are certifications that are associated with that. 

I would advise others considering UiPath to start with some use cases in mind. I don't necessarily think that you're going to get value out of evaluating the solution if you don't have at least a few things to get you started. I would advise having someone with a technical skillset to assist in this regard. 

I would rate UiPath a nine out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Zack Phelps - PeerSpot reviewer
RPA engineer at Sonic automotive, inc
Real User
Feature-rich, great support, and helpful community
Pros and Cons
  • "The way they stay on top of Orchestrator is really helpful because that has been the platform that controls everything. The dedication to that is pretty helpful. Every time there's a new release, it seems there are more and more features. It's also not hard to learn."
  • "One improvement that could be made is in terms of keeping the documentation updated. Some of the online documentation is outdated. Because things are always changing, it is understandable that information becomes outdated pretty quickly, but sometimes, when you want to go use something, deploy something, or troubleshoot something, the documentation says, "Do this," but what it says to do no longer exists."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for everything. We use it for very simple things, such as moving data around in Excel, and bigger things that include using more advanced technologies, APIs, and some of the newer stuff that UiPath has had, such as Action Center, etc.

We have not yet used its AI functionality in our automation program, but we plan to do that in the coming months.

How has it helped my organization?

The company is growing so fast, and we've been able to use automation to keep up with that pace. We've started rolling out to individual citizen developers. We're trying to change the whole company in terms of the way people work by using this technology.

What is most valuable?

The way they stay on top of Orchestrator is really helpful because that has been the platform that controls everything. The dedication to that is pretty helpful. Every time there's a new release, it seems there are more and more features. It's also not hard to learn.

When it comes to the UiPath Community, everybody is helpful. If you don't know how to do something or you want to learn about something, it's pretty easy to connect with other people or talk to people at UiPath to get that knowledge or learn how to do something. You can also just point somebody to UiPath Academy. They go from knowing nothing to being pretty good with things pretty quickly.

What needs improvement?

One improvement that could be made is in terms of keeping the documentation updated. Some of the online documentation is outdated. Because things are always changing, it is understandable that information becomes outdated pretty quickly, but sometimes, when you want to go use something, deploy something, or troubleshoot something, the documentation says, "Do this," but what it says to do no longer exists.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for a little over four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Its stability has been really good, especially lately. It has always been relatively stable, but as they've added things, it still seems to be pretty stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its scalability is pretty good. Orchestrator is able to handle whatever you're throwing into it. If you need to add a bunch of processes or jobs, it's pretty easy to do. The only thing that would slow that down is if you need new servers or something from IT. So, from the UiPath side, it's pretty easy, but there are other variables.

How are customer service and support?

They're pretty helpful. If you submit a ticket, somebody reaches out to you pretty fast, but usually, I'm able to just reach out to our account managers and get help within a few minutes. I'd give them high remarks. I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

UiPath was pretty involved with it. So, it was pretty straightforward. We're about to move to UiPath Cloud though, and our account managers are pretty involved in that, but it has been pretty turnkey and straightforward.

Our implementation strategy was to get a platform that works and start building things. I'm not sure of the overall strategy. Some of the decisions were made before I got here.

What about the implementation team?

We worked pretty closely with UiPath. They've been great and pretty helpful. 

What was our ROI?

We have definitely seen an ROI. I don't know any of the specific metrics per se, but I know the values out there. We're just getting hammered with use cases everywhere. We did something literally last week that took us three days to deploy, and it saved a team 100 hours of work.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I came to the company as they were just starting to use UiPath. I don't think they evaluated other options.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others evaluating the solution would be to compare what UiPath is doing to all its competitors, and none of the competitors would scratch the surface of what the offerings are.

I'd give it a 10 out of 10. I liked UiPath so much that I went to get a job strictly in RPA. That wasn't directly UiPath, but before I started where I am now, I was working with UiPath just a little bit, and then I was like, "I want to pursue that for long."

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Andres Da Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
Quality assurance engineer at ChenMed LLC
Real User
Enabled us to provide quick turnarounds instead of full-stack development, giving us quick ROI
Pros and Cons
  • "The UiPath community has been great. There are a lot of great mentorships, a lot of forums, and a lot of people who are very interested in growing the community. It's been very nice to work with them. Anybody who is in UiPath has been an amazing partner for us."

    What is our primary use case?

    My use cases are as a QA engineer. I mainly test automations that have already been built. I'm not part of the development side. We started small and some of the business processes we have used it for include onboarding, document processing, and payer processing. Our company is involved with healthcare and we're trying to grow the help we can give our healthcare workers.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We've gone through a lot of leadership and backend changes recently. UiPath has enabled us to provide quick turnarounds, as opposed to having to do full-stack development to do end-to-end automation. It's given us quick ROI with quick wins.

    In terms of using automation for a good cause, we are primarily a primary-care-physician company. We are helping less fortunate elderly people. We provide a lot of insurance benefits, so our work is mainly helping healthcare to be less expensive. Automation is allowing us to go through hyper-growth. It gives us the opportunity to get more seniors into our centers and have that affordable, great health service that we provide.

    What is most valuable?

    So far, we've only focused on UiPath Studio and the Orchestrator piece. It's been great and we are looking to expand it to the digital assistant platform soon.

    The UiPath community has been great. There are a lot of great mentorships, a lot of forums, and a lot of people who are very interested in growing the community. It's been very nice to work with them. Anybody who is in UiPath has been an amazing partner for us.

    We have also used UiPath's Academy courses and we have two members who are now UiPath Certified. It's a very easy training course to follow. It's low code and comes with a lot of resources and a lot of forum assistance. It enables people to learn without feeling the pressure of having to figure it out on their own.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    My company has been involved with UiPath for over three years. I switched to the team that is using it about a year and a half ago.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    As the platform grows, it's becoming a one-stop solution, but it also becomes difficult to integrate with your pre-existing IT solutions. It kind of lives in its own little bubble. Within that bubble, it has been self-sufficient and very reliable. We don't have issues with the bubble. It's a matter of integrating it with the rest of what we already use and are accustomed to.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We have it on-premises, but we know that we can grow our servers, and the Orchestrator has been amazing. So scalability is not an issue for us yet. But if we get into more hyper-growth, we might have to move onto the cloud. We've seen a lot of support for that, so I don't think there's going to be a concern.

    How are customer service and support?

    I haven't had to reach out to their technical support or work with them. But during the research that I needed to do, looking at the forums was great. The website, the documentation, and the forums have been super easy to use.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    What was our ROI?

    We already have positive ROI. We're in hyper-growth and management wants to see hyper-growth ROI as well. It's meeting that expectation now.

    We mainly look at how many hours it takes to do a manual process, and how many transactions there are in that process. If it's something that is going to require us to continually hire people to do it, so that we can keep growing, it becomes one of our main targets for automation.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    An area for improvement comes down to licensing. We need to sell UiPath to our company first and the biggest hurdle is: How do we convince the company that this is going to add more value? We see a lot of potential for adding more technology to what we do, but it comes with the price of adding new licenses and seeing if that's going to add value to the company.

    If we could have more of a trial period, since we're already licensed with Studio, and go through a trial period for key applications to see if they can benefit us, that would be helpful.

    The pricing is more of a topic for our C-level and there is a little bit of pushback on the pricing. I think the pricing is fair, based on the ROI that we have already provided with some quick wins. But when it comes to moving into the other applications, that's where there is some pushback. That's where the concern comes in.

    What other advice do I have?

    Definitely look at it, not just as a tool but as a change to your company. Your company has to be willing to adopt automation and not just for solving one problem. It needs to be, "We want to fix business solutions overall."

    It's a 10 out of 10 because of how easy it is to adapt and grow into it. The challenge is due to the fact that I am at a low level in the QA world. Pitching it to the C-level has been the only kind of pushback I've had. But personally, my own experience working with the application is that it has been one of my favorite technologies to work with so far.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Software Engineering Director at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Great RPA capabilities that frees up employee time and has helpful training
    Pros and Cons
    • "The solution has improved our organization, specifically around all the operational aspects of the bot. Once we deploy them through the orchestrator we use insights to see how the bots are performing, what errors are referring, and just the general health insights would be the biggest lift that we've gotten out of the solution. Building the automation is a little bit easier and quicker on the platform than where we were at before."
    • "With all the different tools that they have in their arsenal, sometimes it's hard to know how we can get the most out of them."

    What is our primary use case?

    It's widely used across the bank. Some are dealing with regulatory issues, for example, taking documents out of one system, moving them into another. Others are opening new accounts for clients. Some are doing payment transactions and that involves looking at emails that come in and determining what type of document that is so it gets routed and processed correctly. We've touched every line of business within the bank.

    How has it helped my organization?

    The solution has improved our organization, specifically around all the operational aspects of the bot. Once we deploy them through the orchestrator we use insights to see how the bots are performing, what errors are referring to, and just the general health insights would be the biggest lift that we've gotten out of the solution. Building the automation is a little bit easier and quicker on the platform than where we were before.

    What is most valuable?

    The RPA is the most valuable aspect of the solution.

    We are really getting into using AI Center and we use Insights.

    The solution saved costs for our organization. That said, I can't quantify it.

    UiPath has reduced human error.

    In the initial automation that we're doing, we're migrating the ones that have run on another platform. Therefore, we already know how valuable they are to the bank. Sometime in 2022, we'll really be getting into new opportunities.

    UiPath has freed up employee time. In my specific job, I’m responsible for the running of the platform, making sure it's up and available. The other teams actually take care of the delivery and are more in tune with the business side and can speak more to the freeing of time in quantitative terms. I’m a degree away from that. I'm aware of what's going on over there, however, I don't track it so closely.

    We’ve used the UiPath Academy courses. The Academy is a really good platform to start training on. It really gets you into the platform and allows you to start exploring other things. Generally, they're really good courses.

    The number of courses and the variety of the topics all seem to touch on whatever aspect you're looking to do with the platform.

    What needs improvement?

    With all the different tools that they have in their arsenal, sometimes it's hard to know how we can get the most out of them. We see it as a kid going into a candy store. There are all sorts of choices. However, we don't necessarily understand, you would take this, but not that? You seem to need to mix and match certain things. We don't necessarily understand that. We need them to be more clear in saying, for example, "if you want to do process mining, great, however, these are its strengths and these are its limitations." If we know the pros and cons, then we can make a decision about what we need to adjust in terms of how we go after new opportunities. Basically, we are seeking better guidance on how to use the suite of the products together.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using the solution for a year. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The solution is very stable. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability is good. 

    We have a team collectively between developers and product owners and general users, so the users are comprised of roughly 100 different people. At different points, our in-orchestrator has 30 or so developers across several teams. In general, in terms of human people using it, it's likely 80 to 100 users or somewhere in there.

    We are looking to increase the usage.

    How are customer service and support?

    Technical support is okay. They have some gaps that they need to close. I know some of their folks from firsthand experience aren't necessarily used to using the new modern folders. Therefore, when we get on the phone and say "Hey, we're having this problem". The support staff will say "Oh, well you're a modern folder set up. I mostly work with classic." That doesn't matter from my perspective. I still need help.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We used to use Blue Prism. Blue Prism only does RPA. Our goal was to consolidate, to have one platform for automation as a long-term solution for the bank. We went through a selection process and UiPath came out on top.

    How was the initial setup?

    I wasn't directly part of the setup team, however, from the outside looking in, it seems it was a little more involved than we had initially thought.

    Some of it may have been internal. Bank processes and having to have so many different people involved to install a server and configure it on the network and all that could have added difficulty.

    The deployment was probably close to three or four months. We have four environments. Over the course of about three months, all four environments eventually got stood up. The first took the longest. We noted what went right and wrong and went from there. 

    What was our ROI?

    We probably have seen an ROI, based on the initial cost to stand it up. That pricing structure is increasing now from the initial offering, however, overall, we're probably seeing some benefit out of it.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The pricing is pretty fair for the size per the number of licenses. It's my understanding that part of that was influenced by the fact that they won their business from one of their competitors, Blue Prism. That probably helped.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We looked at Automation Anywhere. They had recently upgraded from their desktop to a web-based client. In the meantime, they dropped functions in the conversion and when I used it on the desktop, I noticed that there were certain functions that they didn't bring over onto the web version yet, which kind of surprised me. As far as just overall usability, integration with other technologies, whether it's Python or writing .net custom code, UiPath just kind of seamlessly works within the platform.

    What other advice do I have?

    We are not yet utilizing AI.

    I'd advise potential new users to do the due diligence and don't expect that UiPath is going to always outline the best ways to use it. A company just has to understand there's a lot there and try to be as specific in what they want to do. 

    On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate the solution at a nine.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Vice President, IT Analyst Robotic Process Automation at DA Davidson
    Real User
    Has the ability to bridge various applications that users are using
    Pros and Cons
    • "It's definitely saving time for employees. One of our most successful automations frees them up from doing an entire task. Their quality of life has had a big improvement. It also happens to save a lot of hours. It saves a little over 2,000 hours annually."
    • "Insights is a little clumsy. StudioX is a great start but needs more functionality. They should bring the document understanding into StudioX and make it go a little bit further. There's a pretty clear point at which you really need to switch over to Studio, but in the case of some of our citizen developers, they'd like to stay in StudioX. They just need more features."

    What is our primary use case?

    We're in the financial services industry, so we target the operations. We use it in finance but we're also going after our wealth management group, capital markets group, and fixed income capital markets group.

    In one year we've done 17 automations in about 3,500 hours. We're just getting started. 

    We use mostly unattended automation, but we do have both.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It's still early for us so we're selecting specific areas and items to automate based on areas that we believe will provide strategic importance for us.

    We're now going to start expanding that and going after some of the larger jobs that we want to try to tackle, now that we've got some experience under our belt.

    We have saved costs in terms of employee hours saved. There are definitely going to be costs associated with that. Some of those are pretty high net worth individuals that UiPath is doing tasks that they just didn't need to do.

    It's definitely saving time for employees. One of our most successful automations frees them up from doing an entire task. Their quality of life has had a big improvement. It also happens to save a lot of hours. It saves a little over 2,000 hours annually.

    We are still learning how to build automations but I'm a fan of the RA framework. We use StudioX to help with citizen developers to help fill our pipeline. The tools are pretty good and evolving.

    What is most valuable?

    The ability to bridge various applications that users are using is the most valuable feature. If we have a process that's entered in multiple locations, we can send a robot to do one of those processes on behalf of the person. We've had good success there.

    Everybody on the team goes through Academy courses and continues to go back there for continuing education. Citizen developers are directed in that location as well. So we try to get them to complete StudioX. We like its ability to extend the life and the usability of some applications that by themselves can be a little cumbersome to use. I would like to make those apps and those experiences better for the user. And actually do more with them by extending parts through APIs that are passed to other applications.

    We're looking to start to modify the meat of the process and then tag on pieces to the beginning and ends. 

    What needs improvement?

    Insights is a little clumsy. StudioX is a great start but needs more functionality. They should bring the document understanding into StudioX and make it go a little bit further. There's a pretty clear point at which you really need to switch over to Studio, but in the case of some of our citizen developers, they'd like to stay in StudioX. They just need more features. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have been using UiPath for a year. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It's been very stable. The only problem we had were some digital certificates and those aren't UiPath's fault. It's partly our fault and how we manage them. One of those got in the way and shut some stuff down. It's not really the UiPath platform. That really hasn't gone down on us at all. It was the certificates. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We're only at 17 automations now. We have a lot of headroom in the bots that we currently own and the licensing that we have. We're getting ready to put the necessary pieces in place so that we can scale it up.

    How are customer service and support?

    The technical advisor is very good. 

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

     We have plenty of solutions that fall in the surrounding area, like various CTL things, automated software, and the types of things that are primarily used by IT.

    How was the initial setup?

    We had a strategic partner help us with the setup because we knew nothing about it. They helped set up our COE and the basic frameworks that we were going to be using within IT. I came in about four or five months into the project as an analyst so I wasn't there when they did it. 

    What about the implementation team?

    The strategic partner we used was very good.  They got us up and running and got our initial test trial into play.

    The setup process was not straightforward. They purposely gave them some things that were a bit of a challenge. 

    We are happy with what we got as a result.

    The first deployment took quite a while. If you're considering standing up a whole COE in all those environments, they did that fairly quickly. I believe it was in about three months. It has then continued to evolve from there. That was the learning experience. If you look at our development, that first automation, there's a long flat line. Then it started to ramp up pretty significantly in the back half of the year.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Pricing is working for what we have right now. We set up two Orchestrator environments and we're unable to use our single license of the analytics on both. That's a bit of a problem. We'd like to see a dev environment for us that is free of licensing. It's development versus production. Charge us for production, don't charge us for dev. That's about the only complaint I would have.

    What other advice do I have?

    Don't be afraid to jump in. Get the IT department involved early, get the security department at the table. As long as you have top-down management that's there to mandate and make sure everybody does what they should be doing, the proper sponsorship, and the proper buy-in from the people that have to execute.

    I would rate it a ten out of ten. 

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer1642377 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Senior RPA Developer at a marketing services firm with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Reduces costs, frees up employees, and makes building automations easy
    Pros and Cons
    • "We had a cost reduction of approximately 20% in our operations."
    • "If I can get a little bit more data and a little bit more customization on Orchestrator, that would be really great."

    What is our primary use case?

    We have automated tasks within our organization and are automating our marketing applications. Internally, we have automated in-person and webinar event creation for Microsoft. Whenever there is a request for creating an event that is covered on, for example, either on Jira or the Dynamics 365 application, the task makes an API and pulls data from both sources. It then creates an event on Marketo. It runs totally unattended. We have actually saved the build time that was previously around 45 minutes and we have reduced it to just four minutes.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Previously, we had a build time of around 45 minutes just to process one request. This was kind of a disaster because even in 45 minutes of build time, and this is the average build time, people were making mistakes. When these errors happened, the company had to actually pay money to the client. For example, if a company has an event at 3:00 PM on September 1st, and due to time zone issues, someone manually wrote \ 4:00 PM then people would arrive at 4:00 PM, whereas the event had started at 3:00 PM. Mistakes like that could become a very, very big issue.

    Using UiPath, we were able to reduce these kinds of errors. We were also able to reduce the time by more than 90%, just by deploying the bot that could do API calls in order to complete a specific point of data gathering.

    For the portion that we automated, the errors that were happening were reduced to 0% and the efficiency was up to 90%.

    What is most valuable?

    We've found the usability of Studio very easy. It's simple to understand everything. It's very simple to just start developing within UiPath. 

    The Orchestrator is fantastic in terms of usability as all you have to do is just need to deploy your bot there. It gives you several options of how to schedule it, how to monitor it, and it also gives you the dashboard that allows you to see the performance of your bot.

    I really like the fact that we have a cloud model, where we can actually go ahead and use their cloud to run our bot. That is a very good kind of feature. 

    I really like AI fabric and the documented understanding model, as that actually allows us to do a couple of very complex POCs. They went very well and right now, those prefaces are currently in the pipeline. Hopefully, they will get started with them next month.

    The ease of building automation using UiPath is very easy. When it comes to comparing it against other tools, UiPath might be the easiest one. It's totally subjective, of course. That said, there are scenarios where automating certain kinds of scenarios with UiPath is not that easy. Overall, it's pretty good at automating all kinds of stuff.

    UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation. End-to-end coverage is very important. While working with clients like Microsoft and Google, we have to actually go ahead and make sure that you're actually providing all of these kinds of services. With services such as documentation you also need to be on top of the latest market trends. UiPath actually provides us with not only the ability to handle all of this but to also document all of these kinds of things. That is available, either as a part of some other products or is embedded within the Studio itself as a part of an extension. That is something that I really like as that actually reduces the time that I invest in the creation of the documents. That, and the client actually requires all of these documents before even we can go ahead with the contract, makes having them on hand so important. 

    The Automation cloud has helped decrease time to value. Earlier, the deployment of an on-prem Orchestrator took around two to three days for proper configuration and for making sure that there's a disaster recovery mechanism. Automation cloud has everything built already within it, which makes things faster and easier. This reduces the amount of time that is required by us to deliver. Within our area of work, within marketing, time is everything. Once you have taken on the project, the client expects you to deliver it as soon as possible. The requirements that you're getting from the client are very, very time-sensitive. If you're essentially not delivering it on time, that is going to be an issue. Automation Cloud actually helps us to do that without thinking about other things. It actually goes ahead and does a couple of things for us that we don't have to worry about, such as deploying the Orchestrator on the cloud, making sure that everything is properly set up, and making sure that the disaster recovery option is there. These kinds of things actually save us days of time for installation, if not days of debugging time. 

    It's very important for our company to scale up automation without having to pay attention to infrastructure. There are a couple of projects that we have where we don't really care about the infrastructure. If it is handled by UiPath, it's absolutely fine. However, for example, in the case of some of our elite clients, what happens is that they actually need to know the details and how data is being propagated amongst different servers. If we're not controlling the environment, if we're not handling the entire knowledge, we won't be able to give them the same thing and the project might go away just because of this fact. Therefore, I'm not saying it's not very important. It's actually very, very important. That's why we use both services that are provided by UiPath - both on-prem and cloud. That said, if we have projects where we don't need to worry about it, it's nice to have the option not to.

    UiPath has helped us minimize our on-premise footprint. Their customer service has actually helped us reduce that. UiPath was released in 2015. There are experts on this particular thing in the market, and most of those experts are found via UiPath only. When help is provided by UiPath themselves, that can actually resolve the issue in a matter of hours rather than days.

    We use attended automation. We usually use attended automation within the HR department. Basically, we're using it for onboarding, for monthly salary management. It's great for automating some of the basic SAP projects as these are the places where we require human interaction, either to handle the credential part or to provide some inputs. This actually helps bring confidence into the process and also phases out the work of a particular human. Automation has integrated with some human day-to-day jobs so well that now when employees come in, the primary thing that they have to do is just to trigger the bot and start providing input. Work that they used to do for the first half of the day, is completed in the first hour of the day. That's the kind of benefit that is being provided by attended automation.

    There is good AI functionality and we use it for some proof of concept projects. That said, we haven't yet used it for more complex or involved automation or processes just yet. We have one project in the pipeline that we have to start working on this month. 

    We use UiPath Apps. We use UiPath Apps as a form. Essentially, we have created UiPath Apps in such a way that helps HR people to onboard individuals. For example, whenever someone has to get onboarded, they have to actually provide some details in terms of who they are, their previous company, and some other basic details. Also, HR will need to provide some extra details, in terms of who will be the individual's manager, et cetera. Finally, IT has to assign some kind of role. What we have actually done, is we have created an app where a user or a new individual has to actually provide all the information. Then, HR just needs to select the particular role. Everything is pre-configured. We automatically assign specific roles. In terms of IT, we can now automatically assign specific resources such as laptops, monitors, or headsets to that particular person. Since everything is automated, within a couple of minutes of registration the person receives his new ID password and details. Instead of waiting for an entire day, it happens in just a matter of one or two minutes.

    UiPath Apps has increased the number of automation we can create while reducing the time it takes to create them. Earlier, we used to create automation, in terms of forms. Those automations were types of attended automation. A person had to have specific access to that particular computer before doing this kind of work. In this scenario, the issue we had was that every time it was not possible to handle manual steps if we were onboarding ten people at a time. Everyone had to wait for their turn and that was not very efficient. What we have done is we have actually deployed UiPath Apps whose links can actually get loaded onto an individual's mobile. One just needs to open it on their mobile and get started. That's it. Everything executes parallelly. We have also made our system scalable so that multiple VMs can learn the process at the same time.

    UiPath speeds up and reduces the cost of digital transformation. Doing so does not require expensive or complex application upgrades or IT support.

    We have found that UiPath has reduced human error. We were getting some human errors related to time zone issues and some of the other issues such as daylight savings. There were several other issues related to accidental typing or of people not focusing properly, even after several integrations. That's part of the reason we went ahead and automated processes. Obviously, a bot only follows what you have programmed it, what you have programmed within it. The errors are literally reduced to zero within that specific section.

    UiPath has freed up employee time. We have actually retrained the freed-up employees into UiPath to act as support engineers. As a rough guess, I would say that we have saved around 120 hours a week just by deploying UiPath.

    The additional time enabled employees to focus on more essential work. For people who were actually acting as build personnel, we have re-deployed them as a person who actually interacts directly with clients or who does QA work. This is a higher position that comes with a higher salary as well. There have been promotions simply due to implementing UiPath.

    Employees are pretty happy. Initially, everyone was scared that they might lose their jobs. However, but adopting UiPath methods and retraining people, some are even getting promoted and we find that they are actually encouraging automation processes so that new work can come in and the remaining people could also get on better.

    The product has reduced the cost of our automation operations. In terms of marketing operations, for example, it has reduced the cost. Along with the help of similar investments, we need fewer people and more bots currently. That's definitely a big thing for us. We had a cost reduction of approximately 20% in our operations. This is just a ballpark. That said, overall, UiPath has saved our organization a lot of costs. I cannot speak to exact savings, as that requires business knowledge, which I do not have complete access to. 

    What needs improvement?

    The AI Center area could definitely improve. The StudioX model could also improve just a little bit so that the introduction of variables is better and would make it possible to pass on a similar kind of data in between multiple activities. This is a very simple concept, however, this kind of feature is not available within UiPath. 

    From the business perspective, a little bit more insight on the dashboard that is currently available in Orchestrator would be ideal. I agree with UiPath having a dedicated tool for insights, however, right now, it's a paid tool. 

    If I can get a little bit more data and a little bit more customization on Orchestrator, that would be really great.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using UiPath for three years and eight months. I've used it for the same amount of time the company has used it.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The product is quite stable now. There are certainly some places where UiPath has to work, specifically in terms of actual stability, where there are still some unknown errors that are coming in. 

    In terms of Orchestrator, I have noticed there are some places where there are glitches. Things are not very clear at first as everything is changing quite quickly, I'll say that. Even in the enterprise version, everyone wants to be on the very latest version. However, there is a drastic change between the versions themselves.

    For example, 2019, 2020, and 2021 versions, all three are drastically different amongst themselves. This kind of change is definitely good for the provider in that they are doing something better. However, as a consumer, I don't really want to go ahead and go through an entire learning curve all over again along with handling my current job of handling all the work, just so that I can cope up with what changes the product team has made. It should not be necessary to go through this level of adjustment for each and every release. At this point, I have been through three to four migrations and in each migration, I have gone through some kind of a learning curve.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Automation Cloud actually helps us to rapidly scale up. We don't have to invest time now in configuring Orchestrator, or the cloud version of UiPath. All we have to do is we just need to basically request for a particular package and, maybe, either with the help of a package or with the help of the UiPath team, it is pre-configured for us. That way, we just need to utilize it. Therefore, scaling is simple.

    The scalability is great. It has actually allowed us to schedule the bots or maintain the bots in multiple VMs without having any worries about how to utilize licenses, or how to actually go ahead and deploy the bots manually or install the bots manually on certain VMs. Everything is automated within the UiPath environment.

    If we talk about attended users, right now, we have more than 10 people using attended bots. Their roles are essentially from the recruitment team, from HR. Some of the marketing staff are also using it in analyst positions. 

    We definitely plan to increase usage and we're using UiPath pretty extensively. We have a couple of projects in the pipeline and currently, we're also working on some of the more complex projects within the team.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    All the projects are having a specific date of delivery. Everything is running parallel as we also follow an Agile method. In this Agile method, if something is stuck, it will eventually impact the date of delivery. And we really don't want that. UiPath actually helps us a lot by providing 24-hour support and it helps us in setting a lot of the items we need to use. They do it quite easily and quickly.

    On the scale of one to ten, it's definitely a ten. Whenever I have a doubt, they are always there. They even offer to get on a call with them and actually go ahead and resolve the issue themselves, if they know how to do it. 

    Many times, there have been scenarios where the issue was unique to us. They actually presented us with some debugging steps that we can do on our end. Most of the time, those debugging steps actually helped us to resolve the issue. When none of these options work, they were very keen to figure out how they could actually improve the experience and what could be implemented by the developers within those specific parts of the product in order to resolve the issue. We have given them feedback in the past and in a couple of future versions, we were able to see those ideas implemented.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We were using AutoHotkey before this product, as well as Selenium. However, after implementing UiPath, we have not used anything along with it.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was straightforward. The installation of the Studio was quite straightforward. We just had to go through all the legal terms and everything. Once we went through those, we just had to install it. The same thing is true for Orchestrator as the on-prem installation of Orchestrator is pretty straightforward. You just have to get the setup, link it with the skilled server, and then install it. 

    Apart from that, the configuration within Orchestrator was very simple as there is only one file that allows us to log on to everything. It made it pretty obvious.

    The deployment took somewhere around two days for the entire setup. 

    In terms of the implementation strategy, firstly, we decided to set up all the databases and all the dashboard-related services such as Power BI. We decided to do this first due to the fact that the dashboards and databases are the base of any application. 

    We decided to implement it first in Azure. On the same day, we decided to get the cloud version of the Orchestrator as well. It was quite easy in terms of Azure. There's a three-way plugin that is available there. We just had to install that on the specific VM and we were done. Finally, on the second day, we went ahead and installed all of the Studio. Once Orchestrator is up, we could install Studios and link them to Orchestrator in order to get the license. That was our strategy and our approach.

    We essentially have one dedicated resource for maintaining all the deployments and to watch if anything goes wrong. We have three dedicated resources for maintaining all the bots that are currently running as well. We don't need a big team to maintain everything. 

    What about the implementation team?

    In one of our projects, we actually used Azure Cloud for the deployment of Orchestrator and the deployment of packages. The experience is quite good. Azure provides the DevOps side of our service that allows us to set up the pipeline and automatically deploy any kind of project to the Orchestrator as soon as it is committed.

    What was our ROI?

    While the company has likely been looking at ROI, I don't directly deal with those details.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    A couple of our clients cannot actually go ahead with the initial investment of Orchestrator as it costs quite a lot. The thing is that we don't need that much of a license in order to automate our processes. Having a free version of a cloud or having a cheaper version of Orchestrator has actually helped a lot.

    Automation Cloud helps decrease UiPath's total cost of ownership. However, overall, if we talk about scalability, once the number of licenses that I need increases, ultimately, Automation Cloud might be a bit expensive. It depends upon the version you're using. Yet, since the license cost is increasing, what happens is if you go ahead and buy more than five licenses, then essentially you would have been in better shape if you would've actually bought the paid version of Automation Cloud and installed it on-prem. That would've been a cheaper option. It's subjective. Our scenario is just that we need two unattended licenses to do the job.

    Some of the clients do consider the initial investment of UiPath to be expensive. It's seen as expensive specifically from the cost of getting a licensing for an on-premises setup. For some projects, UiPath can be overkill. However, it is the best software a company can invest in for automation purposes. 

    I cannot speak to the exact cost, as I don't handle licensing directly.

    It's paid per year. We get licenses not directly from UiPath. Rather, we get them from a vendor.

    There are additional costs as well. For example, the cost of an SQL server is one. We are definitely using the Azure product suite as well. We had to actually invest quite a lot in SQL Server in terms of database management, just to make sure that everything gets logged properly and that the Orchestrator is functioning properly. 

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We switched to UiPath after we compared multiple tools. We looked at certain parameters such as the ability to automate marketing tools, the ability to automate quickly, and how user-friendly it was. Out of all these three parameters, UiPath stood on top.

    We looked at Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and PEGA.

    What other advice do I have?

    I specifically have been using the community version of UiPath. The company has been using the enterprise version.

    We do use the Automation Cloud offering.

    We do not use the SaaS version of the solution. 

    I'd advise users to give it a try. I started my career in UiPath and since then I've been loving it. I became a UiPath MVP as I really enjoy working with the product so much.

    That automation does not need to be very complex, so you don't need very complex tools to automate any software. Tools like UiPath can do most of your job.

    I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Private Cloud

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Microsoft Azure
    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.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: December 2024
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.