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Mikolaj Zielinski - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer in Intelligent Automation at Bayer
User
Top 10
Easy to set up, saves us time and reduces errors, and it has powerful debugging capabilities
Pros and Cons
  • "The most important part of Studio is the debugging feature. It gives you the ability to watch local variables, as well as highlight elements as it is moving through the process. The results of actions are displayed and indicate whether particular actions are performed successfully or not."
  • "It lacks something crucial, which is a map of the variables and arguments. When we are using a lot of variables and arguments, sometimes, we get lost. UiPath should create a map that connects different files and shows the connections between them."

What is our primary use case?

I am a UiPath developer and my role in the company is as an automation developer specialist. I'm working mainly in UiPath Studio, not Studio X, and I also work with Orchestrator. We are using attended automation.

We are automating the processes in our company, for example, in the finance department. One of the ones that are now automated is invoice coding determination, which no longer involves humans. At this time, 80% of our processes are completed by robots. The remaining 20% is approved by humans but I think that this will improve later. 

How has it helped my organization?

With respect to the ease of building automations using UiPath, from my experience, when you have a basic knowledge of programming, it is really easy for you to start your journey with the UiPath environment. You can do it without this knowledge but then, you will just need to spend a little more time learning the details.

I really like working in UiPath because the programming allows me to do whatever I want. I can declare any type of variable, I can check the locals, and I can add breakpoints whenever I need to check the states. For me, it's a very professional platform.

I really like that they offer the possibility to work with it from two sides. It can be operated from the full-programming side, as well as from the standpoint where you don't need this knowledge.

UiPath has helped to minimize our on-premises footprint, although I cannot estimate by how much because I am not responsible for that aspect.

UiPath has helped to reduce the cost of our digital transformation because it really speeds up the processes. When we compare the time it takes for a human, with perhaps a one-hour task, and it only takes 30 minutes for the robot to do it, we can see the savings. You just multiply this by the salary and we also see the reduction in cost.

UiPath has definitely reduced the number of issues arising from human error. We can confirm this with 100% certainty because we have compared it to when humans were completing processes on their own. I estimate that the error rate has been reduced by approximately 60%.

In my previous company, we managed to save about 20 FTE after our UiPath implementation. It was about two years of work. Thanks to the ease of access, as well as the fact that our employees did not require programming knowledge, we were able to show it to normal employees and explain the automation. After this, they were not afraid that they will be replaced by robots and instead, understand that they are co-working with them.

What is most valuable?

The most important part of Studio is the debugging feature. It gives you the ability to watch local variables, as well as highlight elements as it is moving through the process. The results of actions are displayed and indicate whether particular actions are performed successfully or not.

Outside of the company, I am using UiPath's AI functionality and it very much speeds up processes and improves accuracy for reading data. For example, the OCR is much better than Microsoft's solution. With UiPath, I was able to read handwriting samples but with Microsoft, I was unable to do it.

The AI functionality has allowed me to automate more processes in my own projects. It adds flexibility and improves process speed. I don't have to think about boundaries when I decide how to approach a project. 

What needs improvement?

It lacks something crucial, which is a map of the variables and arguments. When we are using a lot of variables and arguments, sometimes, we get lost. UiPath should create a map that connects different files and shows the connections between them. For example, from file A, we have variable B, and file C contains variable D. However, they are actually the same variable, but it's connected by argument and we don't know it. It is something that we have to remember explicitly. In this case, it would be really helpful for me, as a developer, to have this picture of the net. It would show me what is where and how it's connected to everything.

Buyer's Guide
UiPath
February 2025
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
839,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

For the on-premises solution, if we ignore any problems that may occur with the infrastructure, such as the network, then stability is very good and the platform works well.

In my experience with cloud-based deployment, I haven't faced any problems with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scaling UiPath is really easy. When you get to the point where you have to think about scalability, you use the UiPath Installer to extend the Orchestrator by another node. There is an option for it and you don't have to know much about the network to do it on your own.

I am part of a four-person development team that is working primarily with Studio. We have approximately ten processes at the moment, and it is difficult to estimate how many employees are affected by the automation. 

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is very professional and they work quickly. Usually, we are able to get responses in about two hours. Sometimes, it takes one day, but I have not faced a situation that took longer than two days.

The help from their site is also very professional, and well-described.

Overall, it is really easy to resolve errors.

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

Prior to UiPath, I used Selenium WebDriver. The problem with this product is that you have to know the Python programming language. You have to know everything inside Python, and there is a lot more typing. In UiPath, you have some clicking, and there is some decent orienting stuff, which you don't have to define. You already have some pieces of code that you can use, and this is a really nice feature.

I have also used Kryon RPA and the problem is that it's based on the OCR. This is something that I would never accept with an RPA tool unless the OCR is fully working. Right now, OCR is not a perfect technology and it causes many issues. UiPath allows us to use selectors, so we are able to track the exact area of the display in the program that we want to access.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is quite easy, although we faced a few issues. With the help of the UiPath service desk, we were able to quickly fix our problems. The deployment was completed in a few hours on one machine. This included checking everything to make sure that it was working fine.

We followed the documentation provided by UiPath, as well as their guidelines.

At this time, we are using the on-premises version. In the next few months, we plan to move to the cloud environment, so we are currently planning the transition.

In my previous company, I was responsible for moving to the new version of the UiPath, with the Apollo interface in the Orchestrator. Where I am now, this was already done. So, yeah. I was responsible for this transition. Right now, in this company where I'm working currently, the UiPath setup was already done but I helped with the optimization.

With respect to upgrades, once we knew what had to be done, it took about one hour to complete. Otherwise, there is no maintenance required.

What was our ROI?

I have calculated ROI for our project and it seems that we will reach our ROI point in approximately two years, which is quite good.

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

Price-wise, it is not the cheapest one on the market, but it provides the fastest automation and the best training that I have ever seen for RPA, through the UiPath Academy. It's really easy to set up a new developer in this environment. Everything considered, the pricing is very good.

There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are currently evaluating Kryon RPA.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anyone who is implementing UiPath is to always check the documentation before you try to look for answers on the forum. Another good point is that when you have a problem, there are plenty of people in the UiPath community that can help you in a few minutes. This is the perfect solution, in this case.

From the maintenance side, you have to remember to increase your database with the scaling up of the automation because it can really slow down your process.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using UiPath is to always create a backup copy of Orchestrator before you update it. This was a very big lesson for us because we had an issue with the installation. It is also really important to back up the related databases.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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
Director at RPA Box
Real User
Enables less mundane work to be done, there are fewer errors, better compliance, and better visibility
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is quick and easy to implement. It's fairly easy, and it means clients don't have to get IT involved."
  • "They should expand on workflow type items and take another step up from the long-running workflows to offer more visibility of business processes within Orchestrator."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is primarily used for invoice processing in combination with intelligent data captures. It's used for anything to do with lots of finance processes. Typically they go into lots of HR processes as well. They're the two main business functions that we work in.

What is most valuable?

Orchestrator has valuable scheduling and being able to run things on demand and dynamically as well allocating the transaction, and the studio are good features. Nothing stands out in particular. Everything's kind of equal, it just depends on the task you need to complete.

With an unattended robot, you can schedule it and have it running autonomously.

The solution is quick and easy to implement. It's fairly easy, and it means clients don't have to get IT involved. If you get IT involved in anything there's always blockers and there are always other priorities. 

What needs improvement?

They should expand on workflow type items and take another step up from the long-running workflows to offer more visibility of business processes within Orchestrator.

The solution needs a better integration team, different versions of Orchestrator, and to make it easier to identify problems with versions, as well as to be able to fix those kinds of problems. It's hard if you don't keep up to date all the time as well, for example, to go from 2018 to 2019 versions. It's quite a big jump considering activities and things like that.

For how long have I used the solution?

less mundane work being done, fewer errors, better compliance, better visibility

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I'd rate the stability five out of five.


How are customer service and technical support?

When we were using technical support we were typically going directly to some people we knew in UiPath because we knew them very well. We haven't had that many instances that we needed to use the help though.

How was the initial setup?

In terms of ease of setup, I would rate the solution four out of five. From an IT perspective, it's pretty simple, but from a non-technical perspective, I think people will struggle.

They've brought us Studio X which is starting to increase that to a five out of five. From a business user perspective a lot of the sales teams will sell it as a very easy to mend product which isn't particularly helpful because when you go into a customer environment and you have to build via a complex process and then integrate it with IT and all of the business systems then obviously it's not a five minute job. It's not overly complicated but can take three to four weeks for some processes to be implemented successfully.

From the time the UiPath license is purchased to implementing it virtually takes about three weeks.

What was our ROI?

ROI depends on the process. Some customers are using their people badly and they literally have a person doing the job of processing invoices all day long. It's very quick to realize their ROI because it's a 30-40 thousand pound salary that they get to replace very, very quickly. More commonly, on a big project, it takes 6 to 12 months to get to an ROI. Even if you are just breaking even, in a year or two you'll start to get an ROI.

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

There's information online. There's actually a section where you can go through training online for licensing. There's some documentation available as well from the UiPath sales team. You can just ask them.

I've already struggled with licensing a little bit. It's never been super clear because you have the notion of a mode lock and concurrent users and things like that depending on whether you want it on one machine or whether you want the licenses to be able to float around different users. The wording around it can be improved. They communicate in a simpler way.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Usually, the client looks at UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and sometimes other smaller competitors but that's quite rare.

What other advice do I have?

We use Orchestrator, Studio, and unattended and attended robotics. We typically use more unattended than attended generally. Increasingly we're using attended robots. We use Orchestrator but at 1:1 per client, and Studio for development.

For the larger clients, they still go on-prem, but mid-tier customers start to use the cloud solution.

We try to encourage clients not to run automation within virtual environments like Citrix. UiPath does work through Citrix but it's only if clients really don't have control of that environment. We have done it, but where possible we always ask clients to install either the robot on the local machine or to install the major Citrix extension. By running within virtual premises everything's a little bit more or less stable so you have to add more checks, which means the development time takes a bit longer; and the data coming out is a little bit less reliable. But with the Citrix extension, everything has become a lot easier.

I used a web tool for the UiPath Academy RPA training. I did a lot of the training before there was an Academy, and then when it came out I did the certification. We always put our team through every stage of the training. I'd rate the Academy four out of five. It's easy to follow and get through. The only thing that's lacking a little bit is, it's just that you can't do 2 weeks worth of training and then become an expert. Another thing is that there is a further certification which is an advanced developer certificate which needs product experience as well, and for me, there's not been enough distinction between the 2-week online training vs that proper diploma. There's always some confusion, when people say, "Oh yeah, we've got this", many people say it doesn't mean as much as it could, or other software companies have a better distinction between levels of certification experience. They need to offer a solution architect type certification for someone who knows the infrastructure really well and can prove it. There needs to be a proper qualification for that.

In terms of reducing human error with the solution, I've always been an advocate of the software benefit that comes out of automation. AFT savings are great but I think a lot the other benefits include less mundane work being done, fewer errors, better compliance, better visibility. One of the things that hasn't been exploited that well is the additional data that you get from automation. Where humans previously were just doing a job, for example, we automate a lot of processes.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
UiPath
February 2025
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
839,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Smitha Setty - PeerSpot reviewer
RPA developer at Presbyterian Healthcare Services
Real User
Helps to generate reports with 100 percent accuracy
Pros and Cons
  • "I am a developer, and I love the tool's easiness with features like drag and drop. The tool is ready to use with some minor updates."
  • "I have had issues with the selectors. I face problems during image capture, and I need to update them. It is not something that I can rely on."

What is our primary use case?

We use UiPath for web scripting, data loading, data uploading, desktop application scripting, file uploading, and data downloading. 

What is most valuable?

I am a developer, and I love the tool's easiness with features like drag and drop. The tool is ready to use with some minor updates. 

What needs improvement?

I have had issues with the selectors. I face problems during image capture, and I need to update them. It is not something that I can rely on. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

UiPath is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product is scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

I contact the support whenever I am stuck, and they help me. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

My director explored a lot of RPA tools and selected UiPath. He convinced the organization that it was a good tool. 

How was the initial setup?

UiPath's upgrade is easy. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated WinAutomation and Blue Prism. 

What other advice do I have?

Our business objective for implementing AI-powered automation is to reduce manual work. 

UiPath has fundamentally changed what our organization was trying to achieve. 

The tool has helped us save 3,000 man-hours. 

UiPath has enhanced our accuracy. We do government reporting where we are given templates. The Excel files are locked, and we have to type the data. There are thousands of cells, and we must generate weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports. We have to assign a person for each report. 100-180 such reports have to be generated. We use bots to populate the cells, and there are no errors. We can see that there is 100 percent accuracy. 

I rate the product 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
Praveen Pallapothu - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Great user community and Academy courses but the AI functionality is still immature
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the reasons UiPath is so successful is the UiPath community. We have tremendous people in the community supporting each other in terms of development or community events."
  • "We've used AI functionality. On a real-time basis, we haven't seen many benefits from the AI center. It's not cost-effective to run models on it as of now."

What is our primary use case?

Most of my use cases are spread across all the business units. It's used in accounts payable or for receiving reconciliations. It is also used in directory management and the banking finance sector. 

What is most valuable?

UiPath has a lot of features and they have added a lot of things. The apps and document understanding are good. We use document understanding a lot, even though they may not be common for day-to-day processes.

The Orchestrator is amazing. It provides a huge benefit including data security and data storage.

We can add a huge number of activities and can input code right into the platform.

While there might be companies that use the product to do automation for good cause, however, so far, in my experience, I have yet to do much of those use cases. I’m more on the business process side.

The product enables us to implement end-to-end automation. When they first launched, people used to have some sort of hiccups, however, now you don’t need different tools to manage your entire automation journey. With UiPath, from the discovery phase on, you have everything you need. We can understand the ROI clearly and can see what we’ve invested and what we’ve received.

The user community is valuable. It has the biggest community. Everyone knows it. One of the reasons UiPath is so successful is the UiPath community. We have tremendous people in the community supporting each other in terms of development or community events. People from different organizations can explain different pain point areas or explain good use cases and share learning and feedback.

We use both cloud and on-prem services. Most companies prefer on-prem over the cloud. From our perspective, we’re working to convert users to the cloud to reduce the footprint. Still, many want to maintain that on-prem segment.

We use the UiPath Academy courses. Since the beginning of my career, I’ve used it. Whenever there are new products that are launched, they will release certain courses for training purposes. I've gone through training at the Academy. I found a certified trainer also to provide training. Overall, having the training available really helps new people who want to kick-start their careers using the app.

They've also implemented community collaboration. If someone from the community has developed something, they will add training based on the community. The user has larger visual data now, compared to what happened previously.

The solution has allowed us to manage digital transformation and reduce the cost around it. Automation really helps boost digital transformation. We've seen cost reduction around resource use and the cost of operations as well. 

We've been able to reduce human error using UiPath. Of course, it depends on the people developing it. However, as long as the people have good implementation experience, we can really minimize errors.

It's helped free up employee time. However, it is not a major amount across every project. Comparatively, it can save a number of hours versus manual labor. 

We have saved money and that's calculated on the number of hours saved in terms of man hours. We haven't cut staff; they are now working on different tasks instead.  

What needs improvement?

We've used AI functionality. On a real-time basis, we haven't seen many benefits from the AI center. It's not cost-effective to run models on it as of now. We haven't been able to automate more processes. Some projects don't require AI at all. If it gets more cost-effective and has more use cases, that might change. 

The tool continuously redefines itself. They release three major versions every year and target one major feature once a year, like AI, et cetera. However, there are a few features at an early stage and not quite mature yet.

The initial tools are good enough compared to other vendors, however, they are still refining and need to change a lot of things, especially in the AI center, which is not that flexible when it comes to deployment. This is the same for UiPath apps. In most cases, nobody wants to invest a lot of money in attended bots. They need to work on that.

We'd like to see them work towards more stable outcomes to minimize hiccups. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for more than six years. I started in 2017.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Previously, we haven't noticed stability issues. In the past year, we have noted issues with stability. There have been some hiccups. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability depends on the way a company implements it. From a cloud perspective, the scalability is good. That said, the flexibility is there to scale.

How are customer service and support?

We've had issues in the past where products were not working as expected and we've reached out to support. The experience has been mixed. Sometimes it is good. Sometimes solutions are delayed. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

I did not use a different solution previously. However, I have used Automation Anywhere, Power Automate, recently, and also Intellibot and Blue Prism.

Power Automate is still quite young. There are still items missing as it's new. 

UiPath excels in the Orchestrator. The flexibility is great as well.

How was the initial setup?

We've worked with both cloud and on-prem deployments. However, people seem to prefer on-prem. Almost all of our clients are maintaining their own cloud and then running UiPath into the cloud from on-prem.

I was involved with the deployment. The setup is straightforward. For the governance and audit security principles, we do need to add in a bit more. We might add, for example, a CI/CD pipeline. 

We tend to have three to five people, part of the support team, to help with the deployment.

There is some maintenance required. We need to monitor our VMs and understand if the robot is failing and if so what is the root cause. We have an interior support team for maintenance services.  

What about the implementation team?

We did not use an outside vendor for the setup. Only people in the department are allowed to handle the deployments due to compliance. 

What was our ROI?

We cannot calculate an overall ROI. However, if something isn't getting 150% or more, people tend to not want to implement it. So far, we've seen a very good ROI. 

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

The costs have gone up recently. The pricing seems to be a bit higher for the end user. 

What other advice do I have?

We are UiPath partners. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. The most recent tools are not as impressive compared to what is happening in the market. 

As long as others don't need additional tools like Apps or document understanding, I'd recommend it. There are a lot of features and functionality to try. However, if you need document understanding and apps, I'd advise users to look at their use case, do a POC, and figure out if it's a perfect fit. 

From the perspective of pure automation, UiPath is excellent. However, if a company is looking for AI functionality, they really need to see what else is out there and what is best for them. 

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. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer2267991 - PeerSpot reviewer
RPA UiPath Developer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
An easy-to-deploy solution that saves time and money and enables users to build automation easily
Pros and Cons
  • "The user interface guide helps speed up automation development for customers."
  • "The tool has some bugs, and it doesn’t respond sometimes."

What is our primary use case?

We use UiPath to create automation for our clients. The best use cases are the ones where we automate an old system. We had instances where we migrated one customer's data over to another. Until that migration occurred to the new system, we could get an automated solution using the old system.

How has it helped my organization?

The product provides better customer service and builds better customer relationships. Customers receive statuses and reports in a timely manner. Instead of somebody constantly sending out emails to customers, automation is doing it for us.

What is most valuable?

I was doing automation development before UiPath and did everything typically by code. It had its own functionalities. However, when navigating older systems, we can use the solution's user interface to tell the cursor to go to a specific location on a screen. Another functionality also supported by the product is the ability to select the selectors, where we can define a specific attribute to a button and ensure the cursor clicks it. The user interface guide helps speed up automation development for customers. We can also use background code, so we have coding capabilities and a user interface to navigate some of the older systems.

What needs improvement?

UiPath provides Cloud Robots functionality but they should provide more Cloud Robot integrations. I feel that Cloud Robots must have a very, very strong integration with AWS or some type of cloud service where that integration is almost seamless.

We use a lot of virtual machines. It would be nice if UiPath checks the virtual machines and ensures they perform well. We have run into some performance issues. The product must have better performance checks to determine whether a virtual machine fits the functionality or if something is missing. It would be great to know if we will run into some issues. We will be able to think ahead of it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for more than three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The tool has some bugs, and it doesn’t respond sometimes. However, it’s no more unstable than Windows. It is fairly stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We’re new to the tool. Around five people are using it in our department. The product must improve its scalability. Our security team hasn't approved the Cloud Robots functionality in some cases. I've noticed that our time gap is getting smaller, and we may need additional virtual environments. That is why I wanted better integration with the cloud. It will allow us to be able to launch virtual environments immediately. We would love it if the product could provide the same scalability that AWS provides. We would love the same type of scalability when integrating cloud functionalities with UiPath. If it needs another environment, another environment must shoot up right away so that we can immediately start working on it.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't used the technical support. When we contacted the other department connected to technical support, we got responses and workarounds within a few days. The support has been decent. The team replies pretty quickly.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is deployed on the cloud. The deployment was straightforward. The deployment was pretty quick. It was done within a few minutes. For my current organization, we need one person to deploy the product. My organization has multiple departments, but I only operate on one.

What about the implementation team?

The solution does require maintenance. While dealing with our websites, some changes or updates are done, and then we make changes to the code.

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

I chose UiPath because it offered UiPath Community, where I could learn UiPath on my own without a business license. I like the idea that there's community support for UiPath. We can learn and teach ourselves. I like UiPath Enterprise, too. Since they have a community version, it makes learning UiPath much better and easier.

What other advice do I have?

Building automation using the product is pretty easy. Over time, we get better and better through experience and create it more efficiently. Some of the additional functionality released by UiPath helps us enhance our automation. The solution speeds up digital transformation. We transitioned to a brand-new system. As we transitioned, we spent a lot of money on this new system and found there were limitations to the system. We used UiPath to mitigate that cost tremendously.

UiPath enables companies to implement end-to-end automation. Currently, we do not have end-to-end automation. Our company is going through a strong transformation. The processes are still a bit archaic. We use digital transformation to help us do our jobs first. Eventually, this will lead to automating new processes rather than someone else doing it. A bot doing 24/7 automation is better than someone assigned to do it 24/7.

We are not using the product's AI functionality yet. However, we are looking into incorporating AI functionality. The product has freed up a lot of employee time. The solution has saved us more than $ 400 a month in the current project. The solution has reduced human error. A lot of the work that the bots do is tedious, like sending a hundred emails to customers or consolidating reports from five different sources. Mistakes can happen in these processes. The solution has reduced human error in our organization by at least 80%.

I have used UiPath Academy courses. We have also provided our business personnel with the courses so they can see it from the business side to learn UiPath. I like the user community. There are a lot of forums where people post questions and help each other. There are YouTube videos where people share their experiences with certain issues. The community is strong.

The massive improvement from DBA to RPA is the user interface interactions. UiPath has a free community version. I would recommend the solution to others. I've taken training on Automation Anywhere, but I've never been able to touch it because my previous organization decided to keep it only in one department, and our department never received it. I could never use what I studied in Automation Anywhere because it requires business licensing. There was no community version. On the other hand, we can start working on Uipath on our personal computers. We can also use UiPath Academy.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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
Software Developer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Makes automation easy, saves time and money, and has helpful community and support
Pros and Cons
  • "One feature that is particularly very likable is the My Workspace option under the Orchestrator menu. We can easily arrange and/or segregate all the folders there. The My Workspace option has been a very big positive for me. I've been able to streamline my work and do structured work with this My Workspace option."
  • "We used AI to predict the data modeling and report structure, but it wasn't accurate all the time. It's an evolving functionality, and I hope that it gets corrected over the course of time. The basic functionality is on par with any other software in the market, but it's not helpful for simplifying complex workflows and modules."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is creating automation for day-to-day activities for our internal use, especially for performance management and reporting. Apart from that, we create some automation applications for our clients as they're using UiPath. That's another use case.

How has it helped my organization?

We prepare database reports where a lot of product data is consumed. Creating reports or reporting used to take a lot of time and effort for us. UiPath has been very helpful for us in quickening this process and making it efficient.

It enables us to implement end-to-end automation. With our data and reporting tasks, there were a lot of repetitive tasks that needed to be done, which sometimes can be irritating. UiPath has completely taken over this process. So, right from the input of data to the extraction of reports, the complete end-to-end process is covered by UiPath. I don't have any complaints.

With UiPath, our automations are getting better and better. UiPath is driving performance, innovation, and growth across our entire organization. With report automation being our main use case, we saved a lot of hours, and we have also reduced a lot of overhead costs with UiPath. With automated data processing, errors are minimal. The error rate is almost zero, and the time taken is pretty quick. Our efficiency has improved, and that has been a major benefit for us.

We have been using the cloud version of UiPath. So, our on-premises footprint has definitely been reduced.

It has helped us move a lot closer to 100% digital transformation. Our reporting is automated, and we are almost 100% digital now. There is also an overall reduction in the cost and employee time.

It has reduced human error. The error rate is minimal or nearly zero. It's 100% smooth for us. In the past, we would have overlooked or missed certain data points, and during our final report collaboration, a mismatch would happen, but that is completely reduced with UiPath. 

It has freed up a lot of employee time. It has also made our work much more efficient. Earlier, if seven employees were doing a particular task, only three employees are required now to do that task. So, other employees can focus on something else now. 

It has saved about two working days or 16 hours a week. With the amount of data that we work with for reporting, it was a very hectic task for us. We had a lot of data sheets, Excel files, etc. UiPath has saved us two days of manual work per week.

It has saved costs. We were a team of seven who were handling reporting. We were taking reports and consolidating everything, whereas now, only three of us are required to do that. The remaining four can focus on something else. That much time and cost have been saved. This has resulted in us focusing on some other aspects of our business and bringing in more revenue for us. These are some of the overheads that have been completely saved by UiPath.

What is most valuable?

One feature that is particularly very likable is the My Workspace option under the Orchestrator menu. We can easily arrange and/or segregate all the folders there. The My Workspace option has been a very big positive for me. I've been able to streamline my work and do structured work with this My Workspace option. It's one of my favorite features. Apart from that, I like the integration services offered by UiPath. There is also the Studio option with good features, but I have used Studio very less. It's basically used to design specific automations and applications.

UiPath is very straightforward for creating automation. Especially in the UiPath Orchestrator and UiPath Studio, you can just drag and drop items to create an automation flow. It's that easy. For example, for the reporting automation, I designed the automation flow by using the in-built features. I did not type any command or code. I just picked a feature and dragged and dropped it to create and implement the flow. It was that easy for me.

The UiPath community is very vast, which is a very major plus for us. Whatever doubts we have and whatever knowledge transfer needs to happen can happen pretty quickly with the UiPath community. I find it very useful. Apart from the UiPath community, there is an Academy option where we can take up some courses, and we can do some certifications. That is also very good. I have personally not taken any courses, but I'm aware there are courses because my teammates did the certification courses. So, in terms of value, UiPath is an all-rounder for us because apart from doing automation, we get a whole lot of other things. It's very good.

What needs improvement?

They can improve the in-app guides and in-app tutorials. One instance where I faced a challenge with UiPath was during the initial week of using UiPath. It can be a little complex to understand at first. The in-app guides or the in-app tutorials could be much more elaborate and detailed. That would have made my entire journey smooth, but that did not happen.

The AI functionality could be improved. We used its AI functionality as a base for our reporting automation. It's not 100% perfect. It's still evolving. We used AI to predict the data modeling and report structure, but it wasn't accurate all the time. It's an evolving functionality, and I hope that it gets corrected over the course of time. The basic functionality is on par with any other software in the market, but it's not helpful for simplifying complex workflows and modules. The AI functionality has also not been helpful in increasing the number of automation, but UiPath, in general, has been very easy to use and helpful for doing more automation.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for about eight or nine months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't faced any issues so far. It has been smooth. I would rate it a 10 out of 10 in terms of stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I believe that any automation software, including UiPath, is scalable. It's a cloud-based solution, so it's definitely scalable for us. With UiPath, we have been able to do more automation and reduce our overall manual work. Our manual work now is very limited. It has definitely helped us scale up in terms of revenue, efficiency, and performance.

How are customer service and support?

They're definitely very knowledgeable. Until now, I haven't had any complaints about them. Whenever we have any doubts, we just email them our queries with certain documentation, if needed. They get back to us immediately. They are also patient. It's not like they're in a hurry. They're very patient. They make sure that our query is completely resolved before moving on. I would rate them a 9 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

In my previous organization, they used a software called Freshworks. It was for automating our reports and sales processes, but I personally did not like that software because it was a little bit complex for me, and it was also costly. There were very few integrations that were offered in that particular software. We were not able to get the results that we needed. So, we looked into different solutions, and that's when I recommended UiPath to my team.

In terms of performance, UiPath has been very reliable. It's a complete cloud solution. The Freshworks software was not a cloud solution. We used it on-premises, but UiPath is a complete cloud solution for us. It's a very reliable and stable solution. We hardly face any downtime, server errors, or something like that with UiPath. That has been a very noticeable difference for me. Apart from that, in terms of complexity, UiPath is not at all complex. It's a structured solution. You choose A, and you can come to B, and you can come to C. It's very structured, which is something that was lacking in Freshworks.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved in its implementation. It was not a complex process. It just required me to sit with the UiPath team and get it implemented. We did not need an elaborate team or effort. Within 15 to 20 days approximately, we were able to set up everything and get it running completely. The implementation process was very smooth.

Its maintenance is also very easy because it's a cloud-based solution. We just need to keep it updated all the time. That's the only thing. We have employed just one person to take care of the maintenance.

What about the implementation team?

It was a combination of the in-house team and UiPath specialists. Their initial training team was very knowledgeable, and they were very pleasant in addressing all our queries with respect to how to design applications, how to create automation, and things like that.

What was our ROI?

We have definitely seen an ROI. Four employees are now not needed to do reporting. We have been able to transfer them to other projects. It has given some returns within four to five months. We have reduced our overall work time by around 30%. We have been able to use that saved time for other things helpful to bring in more sales, automation, etc.

Our inbound revenue is going up. We have seen a 20% increase in our overall revenue after the introduction of UiPath, but I cannot directly pinpoint that to UiPath because there are other factors as well.

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

I was not involved in the pricing negotiations, but as far as I understand, my team was happy with the pricing. So, I assume that its price is moderate and competitive. It isn't highly-priced.

What other advice do I have?

To anyone looking into getting this solution, I would advise getting UiPath instantly and integrating it with your business to proceed further. If not UiPath, I would definitely recommend trying any other automation solution because that is the need of the hour. We are humans after all. Manual work is prone to error and less efficient. An automation solution can definitely help you scale your business quickly. UiPath is one of the top ones when it comes to automation. It's a tried, tested, and trusted solution. So, I would suggest going with UiPath, but if you have any concerns about it, you can definitely try other solutions.

Considering the UiPath community, UiPath Academy, and UiPath's all-around capabilities, I would rate it a 9 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

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

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
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
Senior Software Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Reduced the cost of our automation operations and is compatible with other solutions
Pros and Cons
  • "The product has reduced the cost of our automation operations."
  • "When the Orchestrator got upgraded and UiPath didn't get upgraded, we started getting errors regarding the managed packages; the packages were not getting upgraded."

What is our primary use case?

Our use case is mainly for PDF automation for invoicing. Specific data from the invoice needs to be gathered, entered into, and compared within the SAP application we use. We face challenges as the formats of the invoices change and can range in length from a single page to up to 100 pages. 

We've integrated a tool called ABBYY FlexiCapture and ABBYY will help format and be used as the source of input for the UiPath bot. This bot in turn will process each and every necessary customer detail to the SAP application. If everything is correct, and the data meets the parameters, an email will be sent to the customer, attaching the necessary invoice. If there's an exception, we'll be able to look at that too.

There are some other sets of use cases as well, which include SAP or Hyperautomation. However, we also do generic workflows where we have data from multiple domains and will need to build our XML output. The XML output will contain a lot of data (such as the date, time or name of the customer) which will keep changing and is not fixed. I built a bot using UiPath that I host on Orchestrator which can monitor this data.

Another use case is placing job descriptions into an analyzing tool to search for keywords. Depending on the sort of description which we have pasted in, it will throw out a certain set of outputs, such as if the word is feminine, masculine, how many details it contains, how long it's going to take to complete the description, et cetera. This part has been done using an API key, and therefore it's not a normal cut and paste job. 

How has it helped my organization?

There are a lot of processes that are, even today, done manually. I can take a simple process in, for example, ServiceNow, where issues are made into tickets and put into queues. Previously, a person would have to pick up the ticket and then assign it to a variety of people, but first, before even doing that, they would have to check in on those team members and figure out who had the most or least workload to be able to address the ticket.

This process is automated now. There's no human intervention in assigning tickets. The bot will monitor the queue and when a person raises a ticket and can monitor which person is working on which ticket number, and who should get the next ticket. The turnaround tie has been reduced by a lot and is also saving us costs when you look at it in relation to the entire project as a whole. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the API.

It's really compatible with other solutions and it got integrated when I was working with ABBYY. There is no dependency. I just need to trigger my bot and that's it. I didn't need to go and separately trigger to work on every part of it. It is really good when we talk about the integration of UiPath with any other tools.

I am currently working through the documentation to help with understanding the solution and it is really great.

From a studio perspective, I really like the feature of debugging.

It’s making automation really feasible and ensures that it takes less time.

The ease of building automation using UiPathis great, even if a person doesn’t have a development background. Just by going to the UiPath Academy and doing the basic certification, any user can start to understand the process and begin automating.

In my first organization, there were two or three developers including me, and our challenge was that we had a lot of projects. We had certain process analysts that would run on different sets of processes. We were able to train them and make sure that they understood the processes and could start developing. We saw a lot of progress in them, and, due to the fact that the tool was really easy to use and didn’t require a lot of coding, they were able to do a lot just by drag and drop functionality.

UiPath enabled us to implement end-to-end automation, starting with process analysis, then robot building, and finally monitoring automation. It really supports the end-to-end deployment of any project or any task and makes it very easy.

The Automation Cloud has helped decrease time to value. If there was no Automation Cloud, we would need to run the bot from the studio all of the time, or we would need to create an upgraded file and trigger it via a third-party application, like VBScript or something like that. It has reduced a lot of time. It also makes deployment really easy. For example, if I am working in a development environment, I publish to the cloud, it will start reflecting in the Orchestrator and I just need to push the package. From the Orchestrator itself, I can trigger that particular package to any other machine. That makes life a lot easier - just publishing the package and testing in any other system and understanding how the UAT is going.

The deployment in production is really easy. I have tested Orchestrator and production Orchestrator and I just need to copy the package from the studio and download the package and push it back to the Studio or Orchestrator production, and the work is done. I don't need to manually copy and paste the packages again and again.

Automation Cloud, in a way, helps decrease UiPath's total cost of ownership by taking care of things such as infrastructure, maintenance, and updates. There’s no need, for example, to host on different servers or a defined cloud. It has definitely reduced a lot of costs due to the fact that, instead of going for a different set of applications for a different set of projects, now we are relying on UiPath for most of our work. Whether it’s invoicing, finance, or an HR process, we can rely on UiPath to automate a particular process instead of going back and forth across multiple tools.

Automation Cloud allows us to also effectively scale up automation. It is very easy to monitor any process which is running correctly, and, with automation, you don't need to have any separate application downloaded into your system. It is just an URL. You just need to have a URL and you just need to enter the URL and you can monitor from any system and easily understand how the process is performing.

On top of that, with Automation Cloud, suppose you have 10 licenses. You can see how many licenses have been consumed by how many processes and what the outcome of the processes was.

Moreover, you can integrate your cloud with other tools and create a dashboard. With a UiPath dashboard you can see, for example, the percentage of success rates, the failure rate, and how many processes have been successfully done or what quality. From the management side, we don't need to go to the logs and check what has run. We can directly look into a dashboard and we'll come to understand how many processes are running successfully and what are the outcomes, and how many licenses have been consumed.

It is important that we can scale automation without having to pay attention to infrastructure. I’d rate the level of importance at an 8.5 out of ten. It is helping a lot.

When we talk about automating a web application or we need to work on a different set of applications, we used to get integrations and we needed to have, for example, a PowerShell scripting application license. Now everything is being replaced by UiPath, or most of it is. It does not require you to have a license for a different set of tools all the time. If you have UiPath it is easy to integrate with any third-party tool and it is easy to automate a web application or desktop application or even code. If I know the coding, I can just do coding right in UiPath itself. Instead of going for multiple tools, for multiple projects, it's just a single tool for multiple projects.

We can use the infrastructure and we can also host it. Suppose there are two users who are accessing the same VM over a different time zone. They can rely on the same VM and they can use the same UiPath tool and do not necessarily need to have a separate licensing for it.

UiPath has helped minimize our on-premise footprint. Mostly now, everything is on the cloud instead of on-premise and it is making life easy. For example, suppose a person who is working on-premise, if he logs out, then the other person can log in and cross-verify the work he has done. With the cloud, now the transfer of files is easy. If a person falls sick or something happens that he's unable to make it then the other person who has a login or credentials with him can just directly go in and start working. If a code is being published in the cloud, we can just copy or download the code and cross-verify how it's working.

We do use attended automation. We use it relatively less compared to unattended. However, in certain cases, where the project is too critical and we do need to run all the time, it’s nice to have that option. Attended automation helps scale RPA and benefits our organization by automating specific processes that require human, robot collaboration. There are certain processes where you can't automate end-to-end. We have to rely on a human being occasionally, and it’s nice to have automation we can collaborate on. At the same time, we do largely take advantage of automatons where no human intervention is required.

We use UiPath AI functionality, although not much is being used in any of the projects which I have worked on. I’m just looking forward to it, as I am currently working on documentation understanding before diving in.

UiPath speeds up the cost of digital transformation and has also reduced costs. I started with Blue Prism and then I got my hands on UiPath. Now, I can see the transformation which is happening and I can see the comfort which we have with the tool. I can also see how it’s a lot easier to deploy the tools.

The solution has helped our company reduce human error by a significant amount. For example, when I automated the complete process and I put everything in GPL step by step and automated using UiPath, the best thing that happened is that there was one invoice that got stuck and I could see that the bot didn't process it. The bot has sworn an exception stating that there is a certain set of values that a bot should not process, if it is not matching, the quality is not matching, then the bot cannot process it. When the customer logged into the particular invoice and they saw that, okay, the value which is being mentioned in the invoice is below the threshold critical value. For the first time in over a period of 13 or 14 years, they came across a particular invoice that got stuck with this particular amount, which was below the threshold level. The bot captured something that needed to be dealt with, and the client was so happy it was caught as it saved the company a lot of money - around $1 billion. After catching that threshold, they have monitored all the invoices for the past 13 or 14 years and they came across a lot of differences. It has played a major role in saving a lot of money.

UiPath has freed up employee time. The faster you deploy, the better. We look at months instead of weeks when calculating time. If a ticket, end-to-end, takes 24 hours to resolve, for example, with automation, we’ve managed to reduce that time down to seven to ten hours. It will keep following up and sending emails until there is a resolution, and those reminders are quite helpful in moving the process forward. It’s definitely allowed employees to focus on more important tasks and there’s less time spent on follow-up.

In terms of employee satisfaction, when we are developing something and we have a proper outcome, it makes life easier.

The product has reduced the cost of our automation operations. Not for all the processes, however. If the process is really simple, just like 10 pages or 20 sequences or 10 activities, then the cost is high for a particular license, for a particular process. That said, when you talk about the complex process, where the process takes 48 hours or 90 hours to process a particular activity manually versus what the bot can do in just five to ten minutes, it impacts the cost. Now, a single bot is taking care of that and there is only one person instead of many who monitor the process. Likely, it has reduced costs a lot, roughly 50 or up to 70%. Overall UiPath has saved costs for our organization. Processes that needed five people can now run with just one or two running things with a bot.

What needs improvement?

When the Orchestrator got upgraded and UiPath didn't get upgraded, we started getting errors regarding the managed packages, the packages were not getting upgraded. There are little things like that where we’ve had trouble. We have just made sure that if the company is upgrading and they have a license to upgrade Orchestrator and the Studio, they do it simultaneously instead of waiting for a week or two weeks or one month. If they have upgraded the Orchestrator, and they have not upgraded the studio, it will impact the developers.

In terms of the upgrading of the on-premise orchestrator, there are organizations that are upgrading their developing environment but they're not upgrading the production environment. Therefore, now, when the bot or the particular package will move from a higher-end environment to lower activities, it is not working well and it needs to get downgraded.

While delivering or providing the license, we need to explain to clients that this particular product, if you are working on a development and production environment, they have to keep them on the same packages or they have to keep your production higher, so that if they move the packages, it won't impact anything.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for the past five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. I have not faced any difficulties at all. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Until now, it hasn't scaled a lot. From 2018 to 2021, the tool, the overview, the look and feel of the tool have been scaled a lot. It has scalability, definitely. We haven't scaled it a lot. 

In our organization, we have between 100 and 150 users on the solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

The vendors are really helpful. Whenever we have a concern regarding any of the issues, including if there is an issue with upgrading, it gets resolved well. For example, when we upgraded the studio and didn't upgrade UiPath’s Orchestrator, there were some issues. The board was not connecting to Orchestrator. We had to raise a ticket to our support team and it got resolved. 

I'd rate them at an eight out of ten, as we've gotten a good response overall.

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

In the last five years, I have worked in two to three organizations. All of them have started exploring automation tools. I've used Blue Prism as the very first tool, then I got the opportunity to work with UiPath and explore the different sets of opportunities with it. 

At this company, WinAutomation was previously used. That was four years ago.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. It's not too complex. 

We have a server we implemented the solution on. We installed the certificate to have the application installed with the Orchestrator URL.

The deployment took around two days of full-time work for us. There were multiple servers involved.

The implementation strategy was very simple. We got onto a call with the UiPath team and they had a lot of data with them, including all of the details regarding the applications. We wanted our certificates to get installed and we had our internal team involved as well. Between the two teams, it was working properly and it got installed in less than the expected amount of time. 

We have a team of 25 to 30 people that can handle deployment and maintenance. Maintenance would be, for example, if you have certain packages missing, someone would have to deal with that. Or if something wasn't working as required. Another example of maintenance might be if we are accessing multiple applications, or if we are accessing SAP, and there were tools that the bot accessed, the maintenance team would need to go and check the particular environment on which the bot is going to get deployed.

What about the implementation team?

From the very first organization, I have implemented UiPath end-to-end.

We don't use a third party for deployment now. We have our own team. There's an internal team within our current organization which deploys everything.

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

I don't have any details in regards to the pricing.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did POCs in the past with WinAutomation and we also looked at Automation Anywhere. At the time, we were looking to deploy more on the cloud, which is why we went with UiPath instead.

What other advice do I have?

I am just an end-user of the product.

I'm not sure if the version we are on now is the latest. It likely isn't. We are in StudioPro currently.

I'm not sure about the infrastructure side of things, in relation to the cloud, as I'm more on the side of developing and deploying the project. We have an internal team that looks into cloud deployment and other stuff. While we were working on and purchasing the license from UiPath, the very first instance, then definitely the team got integrated with the UiPath team, however, after that, the internal team is capable of handling the end-to-end part of it.

We don't use UiPath as a SaaS solution and we do not yet use UiPath apps.

In the process of UiPath, speeding up and reducing the cost of digital transformation, I have never required expensive or complex application upgrades or IT application support, however, we have a different set of teams that work on the licensing part and the management side of it. They likely worked with UiPath to get their issues resolved. I do not have much knowledge regarding this.

A person who's starting on UiPath can also up-skill himself with the tool as well as it is easy to learn. 

The best part about UiPath is that they provide a trial version. Any organization or any individual or any business looking for automation solutions can give it a try. There are a lot of things which you can explore and you have a lot of integration. If we have a module that is already running, which has been designed in almost any language, you can just integrate that in UiPath and keep that running.

It is reducing a lot of dependencies on other tools and it's making sure that our lives get easier from the deployment and monitoring perspective. From the licensing and the cost perspective, there are a lot of items that are really helpful. In terms of integration with third-party tools, they have a lot of packages which are available on the internet. You can download the packages and integrate it with any other tool. It really makes UiPath a better solution for organizations compared to any other tool.

The biggest lesson I have learned from  UiPath is that if a single step of the solution is not working, you have to keep trying. There are other ways of doing things. You have options. There are a lot of ways by which a user can understand and explore.

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

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.
PeerSpot user
RPA Technical Solution Lead at AG Consultancy & Apps. Lt.
Real User
Reduces human error, saves time, and is easy to use
Pros and Cons
  • "It has a lot of features, but the ones that I'm really interested in and focused on are the Automation Hub and the Task Capture tool that they have created. Automation Hub helps you in gathering a lot of ideas, and Task Capture helps subject matter experts in capturing the step-by-step processes. It helps them build their SOPs or a document system wherever it is not already available."
  • "Licensing is one area where UiPath could do better and can be more competitive. It is a little expensive. Their bundling of products is a bit confusing. For instance, if we want the UiPath Apps license, it is bundled with Action Center, so you also have to procure the Action Center license. These bundles are not tailored as per our company's requirements. If we reach out to the UiPath partners who deal with the accounts, they usually take your request into consideration and see what best they can do, but it is still not easily customizable."

What is our primary use case?

UiPath was used in-house in my first company for automating processes. We had deployed it on-premise. In my current company, we are giving UiPath automation as a service. We help companies with automation. We set up UiPath from scratch and help them achieve their automation goals or strategies. As a service, we have done on-premises and cloud deployments.

From a service perspective, we deal with a lot of clients who are predominantly in the oil and gas sector and energy sector. They have SAP systems for their ERP, and their use cases mostly revolve around automating SAP processes such as invoice automation, joint venture reconciliation, balance sheet reconciliation, and intercompany netting. So, the use cases usually revolve around the finance tasks, but sometimes, we have also seen use cases related to the supply chain and planned maintenance, such as purchase order closures, work order closures, and comparison of the work order plan with the deviations. 

In terms of the version, we always have the latest version. I've also used 19.4 and 20.4 on-premise versions.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation, starting with process analysis, then robot building, and finally monitoring all of our automation. They have created a platform to handle everything from process analysis to deployment. If you just had UiPath Studio, you would have to procure something for your attended or unattended robots. You would also need a tool to capture the process or task itself. Similarly, you would need a tool to collect the ideas from subject matter experts. If you don't have a platform that covers end-to-end automation, it becomes very challenging, and you'll have to find ways to procure those applications. With UiPath, you don't have that headache.

It has reduced human error and saved time. These two are probably the best things that we achieved from automation. We recently did a deployment for a customer who had purchase orders and other stagnant stuff from 2011 onwards. These purchase orders were not closed even though they have been receipted and invoiced completely. We did robotic process automation to takes care of these purchase orders. It is a recurring job that takes care of all POs that were created in the last one year and closes them automatically. It used to take 5 to 10 minutes for the customer to close one purchase order and recheck everything. There were probably 22,000 to 23,000 purchase orders every year. The business benefit that the customer got was close to 1,200 hours in a year, which is a massive saving.

It has freed up employees' time. It has definitely reduced the time for our clients. The time saved varies based on the project. It has saved the time of associates in completing their tasks, and they can focus on a lot of other things. In one of the use cases, an employee was spending 10 hours every month to complete a process, which is 120 hours in a year, whereas the robot takes just one hour every month. So, the robot takes 12 hours as compared to 120 hours taken by a human, which is one-tenth of their effort. It has reduced around 90% of their time for this project. For the purchase order closure project, the robot has saved close to 1,200 hours in a year. That's a huge saving.

There are other use cases where savings were not huge in terms of the efforts or hours, but the robot was very much compliant with a company's processes. It eliminated any sort of human errors that could have occurred. For instance, balance sheet reconciliations always had some sort of issues and were prone to errors. The robot completely eliminated all those issues.

We use attended and unattended automation. We have a couple of robots on the finance team's laptops, and they trigger the process as and when required, such as for month-end clearing, which is a process where the end-users have to do some kind of clearing task in the SAP system. They can trigger it as and when required. This attended automation has helped in scaling RPA benefits. The overall benefit was in terms of the efficiency with which the robot gave them the mismatches. At the end of the day, it is giving the end-user satisfaction. They don't have to repeatedly do the same steps for every company code and intercompany code. It has definitely saved a lot of time for the end-user and provided satisfaction with the process.

With cloud offerings, UiPath handles infrastructure maintenance and updates, which saves our time as well as our clients' time. The clients do not want to worry about the infrastructure and other such aspects. We are generally the ones who provide services to the clients and deal with these things. When they use the automation cloud, it is definitely time-saving because we don't have to install patches and other things. If there is a new service that they introduced, such as data service, we don't have to install anything new on the automation cloud. It is all taken care of pre-default. We just have to enable it or disable it as per our need. That definitely saves some time for us.

Their automation cloud offering helps in decreasing time-to-value. It definitely reduces time as compared to on-premise because all that you need to do is procure an automation cloud and the licenses for the UiPath team and enable them. With the on-premises setup, there is an overhead of installation of orchestrator on the virtual machine. In this aspect, an automation cloud is better than installing everything on-premise for the client and setting up the orchestrator and things like that. The automation cloud doesn't have any other thing that reduces your time. Other solutions, such as Blue Prism, provide the same benefit when you use a cloud-based orchestrator.

What is most valuable?

It has a lot of features, but the ones that I'm really interested in and focused on are the Automation Hub and the Task Capture tool that they have created. Automation Hub helps you in gathering a lot of ideas, and Task Capture helps subject matter experts in capturing the step-by-step processes. It helps them build their SOPs or a document system wherever it is not already available. 

The Uipath Document Understanding framework is also very nice in comparison to Abbyy and similar sorts of OCR technologies. 

In terms of the ease of use, I would rate UiPath very high. If you have some kind of coding background in C#, .Net, or VBA, the development in UiPath is very easy. You can customize it as per a customer's requirements. It has an easy-to-use Studio where you can build complex automation. On the Citizen Developer side, people without much technical knowledge and coding expertise can also automate their basic processes. We have done some training internally within our management, and they found StudioX very easy to use for their developments. 

What needs improvement?

Licensing is one area where UiPath could do better and can be more competitive. It is a little expensive. Their bundling of products is a bit confusing. For instance, if we want the UiPath Apps license, it is bundled with Action Center, so you also have to procure the Action Center license. These bundles are not tailored as per our company's requirements. If we reach out to the UiPath partners who deal with the accounts, they usually take your request into consideration and see what best they can do, but it is still not easily customizable.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using UiPath since the beginning of 2018. It has been three and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has been reliable. We haven't had any reliability issues as such. Only the automation that we create could have inherent issues based on how a developer develops it. All of the out-of-the-box functionalities available in UiPath work as expected.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have seen customers starting with PoCs and scaling up to have running production bots. There are around seven to eight bots per client, which is good. From a scalability perspective, UiPath enables you to scale things quickly. We could quickly procure all things and deploy an attended or an unattended robot from a PoC to production. So, its scalability is very high.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have used their support. Most of the time, we reach out to the usual support logins that they have given. We also have a partner whom we keep in the loop if there is something very urgent. The support team has its own defined SLAs. If it is a priority one case, they get back within 24 hours or something like that.

We've always got a resolution for our issues, and they've always been helpful in that regard. They have got some technical guys who joined us over the phone and helped us solve some of the issues.

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

I have used Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere at the PoC level and the initial setup level. I've not developed any enterprise-level robot using these. So, I'm not qualified to tell the differences between these solutions.

How was the initial setup?

When new clients ask us to implement UiPath for them, the implementation is almost always straightforward. We know whether they have a cloud of their own, and what they need to procure. We have that very neatly outlined, and UiPath has also given us step-by-step instructions that are readily available on their documentation portal. So, if you want to install anything, everything is very well documented. It is very easy to follow the steps and install it.

If you have everything in hand, it would take a couple of days. If your virtual machine is ready, we just have to install the orchestrator. We also have to install Studio on the machines of the developers. It definitely takes a couple of days.

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

Its price is on the higher side as compared to the other players in the market. They are tying up with a lot of other products such as Druid, but they are independently also very expensive. That's what the customers say when we start giving them options of UiPath.

What other advice do I have?

Apart from the FKUs or the licensing that UiPath provides, if you are implementing an on-premise kind of solution for a client, you have to look at all the things that would be required, such as the virtual machines and the user IDs that the robot might use. We mostly deal with SAP, and if you are using SAP, the robot would have to log into the SAP system to get some data. So, the username that you would create within SAP is also licensed. There are a lot of other costs and related things that you need to focus on. There are a lot of things around UiPath that you need to deal with.

I would also advise using best practices while implementing the solution. Every developer has his or her own way of developing automation. A lot of times, we have seen a gap in the understanding and the kind of deliveries that teams do. So, it is very helpful to understand the skills and capabilities of a developer and see how that could impact the final deliveries from an automation perspective.

We provide solutions depending on our customers' use cases. For on-premise or cloud deployment, we follow the same sort of process and project plan. There is no huge difference in whether we use cloud automation or on-premise automation. At the end of the day, a robot has to do what is expected as per the objectives.

We don't use UiPath's AI functionality in our automation program. So far, we haven't seen any use case where we had to use any sort of intelligence or incorporate any sort of machine learning. We haven't had a necessity for that.

We are going to use UiPath apps in a new project that is coming up. We haven't used it so far. We did a PoC to see if we can connect the cloud apps to an on-premise orchestrator and if it is feasible, but that's about it. It is going to be implemented soon.

I would rate UiPath a nine 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. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Gold Partner
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Buyer's Guide
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Updated: February 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.