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Software Developer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Meets all our needs, reduces errors, and saves costs and time
Pros and Cons
  • "The Orchestrator and the Studio are the features that I personally enjoy using."
  • "UiPath can probably work on improving the AI features. We tried UiPath's AI functionality in our automation program. We did some research on that, but right now, nothing is in production. When we did some research, we weren't getting the expected results. We weren't completely satisfied with the results, so we put it aside. It could be a drawback on our side in terms of learning the tool."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use UiPath for automation processes. One of the major use cases is the approval system that we have. Our system goes through a lot of approval and workflow steps, and we have automated the entire process using UiPath.

How has it helped my organization?

We are using UiPath for most of the automation processes. We have reduced a lot of resources that we previously had, and it has improved the efficiency of the operating model that we have. Earlier, if it took around a week, we are now able to achieve the same process within three days or so. It has basically cut the time in half.

It helps us to achieve end-to-end automation. If something involves manual intervention, it's always prone to human error. End-to-end automation completely removes all human errors and also saves a lot of time and manpower for a specific process or task. So, overall, we improve the efficiency of the processes that we implement.

It has reduced the time taken to develop something, as well as the error rate. Earlier, we used to have a lot of human errors because there was a manual intervention, but now, there are no errors, and everything operates smoothly.

We automated the complete approval workflow system. Every operation has a different set of child operations that occurs as a change reaction. UiPath helped a lot in implementing this in a completely automated way. With the flow chart wizard available within UiPath, we are able to achieve this pretty easily with less effort. It gives us more results with less effort.

It definitely reduced the costs of digital transformation because we have cut down a lot of resources that we had earlier. We were able to cut down the cost by half. There is definitely a reduction in price. Doing digital transformation didn't require expensive or complex application upgrades or IT application support.

It has reduced human error a lot. Previously, with our approval workflow, at every step, a human had to come, approve the request, and perform a lot of manual steps after the approval. All those steps are now automated, and everything happens within the expected time period. There is totally no human error because it follows a set of rules, and it always knows what to do during an approval operation. There is a 40% reduction in the errors that we had.

It has definitely freed up a lot of employee time. It has saved us 12 hours per week. There are cost savings and time savings. It has reduced the human resources required as well as the time consumption. We are now able to invest our time in other areas, and let UiPath take care of the heavy lifting.

What is most valuable?

The Orchestrator and the Studio are the features that I personally enjoy using.

It's pretty easy to build automations. Earlier, we had to do a lot of manual work, but with the introduction of UiPath, everything became very easy. The drag-and-drop components have made our lives much easier. Even non-technical teams are able to build an automation workflow within hours.

Their user community has been very good. For any questions that I post, I get the answers pretty quickly. They're friendly as well.

What needs improvement?

UiPath can probably work on improving the AI features. We tried UiPath's AI functionality in our automation program. We did some research on that, but right now, nothing is in production. When we did some research, we weren't getting the expected results. We weren't completely satisfied with the results, so we put it aside. It could be a drawback on our side in terms of learning the tool.

In terms of additional features, UiPath already has a plethora of options. All our needs are fulfilled by the features that are currently available.

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UiPath
February 2025
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
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For how long have I used the solution?

It has been 15 to 16 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

So far, we haven't faced any downtime in terms of using UiPath. It has always been up. It also has a plan for exposing multiple endpoints so that if one goes down, we're able to use the other one. So, the stability has definitely been great, and we haven't seen any downtime until now.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We use it as an internal application. There are around 500 to 800 members who use the tool in terms of the automation process. It has been good for our use case.

We have deployed everything in the cloud, and we also have the ability to integrate it with other AWS services. For the environment basically, we have different stages. One is the beta stage and the other is the production stage. In the beta stage, we do internal testing, and once it's ready, we deploy to the production environment where it communicates with other services like AWS.

We don't have any plans to increase the usage of UiPath at this time. If we need to expose anything to public-facing customers, we might think about it.

How are customer service and support?

Their technical support has been great. For any doubts we have, we reach out to them via email or via a personal contact for our organization. Whenever we need support, they are totally willing to help us out. I would rate their support a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We had an in-house solution that we developed, but it was not scalable, and there was a lot of maintenance work that we had to do to make it work. So, we migrated to UiPath. That was the only solution that we worked on. We did the research, and we found out that UiPath is a leading tool in the industry for RPA, so we hopped onto it.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in its setup. I was more involved in the development once it was set up.

We are using the UiPath's cloud version. We don't have any on-premise setup. If we had an on-premise setup, we would've had to maintain all the servers and make sure it's running all the time. Because we completely migrated to the cloud, the maintenance is not on us. UiPath takes care of that. It's definitely a big win for us because we migrated from the on-premise system to the cloud system.

It requires very minimal maintenance in comparison to the on-premise setup. In an on-premise setup, we have to maintain all the servers and make sure it's always running up, but with the cloud version, there is very less maintenance on our side. There is an IT team of around two to three people who maintain the systems.

What was our ROI?

We could see an ROI within a month. We were able to see the benefits of the automation processes within a month. There was a 25% increase after implementing UiPath. There is an increment on a year-by-year basis.

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

We are using its enterprise version. Its price seems okay, but I'm not sure because I'm not involved with the finance side. I'm more on the development side.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We didn't evaluate other options. We did some research, and we found UiPath to be a leader in the industry, and it also fitted our budget. So, we went for it and started using it.

What other advice do I have?

I would definitely recommend it to others. Automation is going to be a part of everything in the future. So, every company should start adopting UiPath for any internal or external needs. Automation is the best way to go ahead.

We used to do the entire process manually, and we found a lot of errors. It was a time-consuming process on the whole. With the introduction of UiPath, we definitely saw the benefits of automation and a smooth process with fewer errors.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. It's one of the best RPA solutions out there. I'm reducing one point for the AI features. Apart from that, I find it great.

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
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
    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.
    839,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Sushil Arya - PeerSpot reviewer
    Software developer at Fiserv
    Real User
    Top 10
    It saves time and increases productivity, and its drag-and-drop functionality and visualizations make it very easy to use
    Pros and Cons
    • "Its ease of use is valuable. For building an application, if I give this product to a newbie, he or she would be able to easily use it and build an application with minimum knowledge. No extra training is required. Its features are self-explanatory, and anyone can understand them, which is the main feature of this product."
    • "It can be improved in terms of platform integration. It is platform-independent, but it should be easy to integrate with different platforms, such as Windows, Linux, Cloud, etc. If I am using AWS for my server response, I should be able to integrate that into UiPath."

    What is our primary use case?

    We are working with automation, and it is very useful for my enterprise and our clients. We are using UiPath for building applications for automation purposes. Some of our clients are in the banking industry. They ask us to create applications to automate their processes, and we use UiPath for that.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Our overall productivity has increased because the bandwidth of our people has increased. Previously, when we were manually doing a particular task, it used to take us two hours, and after building the application with UiPath, the same task is taking around 10 seconds. From two hours, the time has come down to 10 seconds, which increases our bandwidth and productivity.

    We are moving into robotics, and in robotics, advanced NLP and AI are being used. As tasks move from being manual to being automated, it definitely reduces the effort and improves productivity. The saved time can be utilized in a better way.

    What is most valuable?

    Its ease of use is valuable. For building an application, if I give this product to a newbie, he or she would be able to easily use it and build an application with minimum knowledge. No extra training is required. Its features are self-explanatory, and anyone can understand them, which is the main feature of this product.

    I extensively work on the automation part, and I like the drag-and-drop functionality for workflows. Its graphical workspace or visualizations make it a unique product. It provides good visualizations, which are helpful in understanding the workflow. I am very impressed by its drag and drop functionality, and I would recommend it to everyone.

    What needs improvement?

    It can be improved in terms of platform integration. It is platform-independent, but it should be easy to integrate with different platforms, such as Windows, Linux, Cloud, etc. If I am using AWS for my server response, I should be able to integrate that into UiPath. 

    If I can get some manuals along with the product, it will be good to see all the features that are available in it.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using this solution for the last eight years. I have been in the software industry for about eight and a half years, and I have been using UiPath very regularly for my day-to-day work. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Its stability is good. In the last couple of years, I didn't have any problems. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of stability.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We have a team of 30 to 40 people who use this solution. At this time, we don't have plans to increase its usage. If the usage of this tool grows, it would definitely be better. It will increase productivity and more efficient use of our company.

    How are customer service and support?

    I would rate them a nine out of ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

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

    I have used Visual Studio previously to build applications. I switched to UiPath because I like its interface and the drag-and-drop functionality. When I am building an application using this, it's very easy to edit the flow. I am very impressed with UiPath.

    How was the initial setup?

    I'm involved in the development and deployment of applications. I have the knowledge, so for me, it is straightforward. Most of the features are self-explanatory, but there are certain features for which a newbie might have to refer to the manual.

    The duration varies from application to application. It can be anything from 30 minutes to six hours. For the development of applications, we use the SDLC model. When our testing is complete, we deploy the application. We have a team of six to eight people for implementation. They are from the product team and the support team. They are software developers at different levels.

    In terms of maintenance, it requires upgrades. It is a timely activity, and it happens once or twice a year. We do not have a separate team for maintenance. The same team involved in its deployment takes care of its maintenance.

    What was our ROI?

    We are able to build applications for our clients, and they are also buying them. So, we have definitely seen an ROI.

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

    We are an enterprise. So, its price is bearable for us,  but I am not sure about the small industry. It might be expensive for them.

    What other advice do I have?

    It is a promising tool. It is very helpful for my day-to-day work. For automation applications, this is the best solution. Its drag-and-drop functionality and visualizations make the work easy. It is a very good tool for me.

    I would rate it a nine out of ten because I'm very impressed with this tool.

    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?

    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
    reviewer1895613 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Process Automation Analyst at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    Replaces manual work, reduces human errors, and has helpful user community and learning courses
    Pros and Cons
    • "The UI Explorer in the UiPath Studio is valuable. We can get a unique and dynamic selector for every element in the UI, which is helpful for me in finding out a particular UI element. Most of my automations have had UI interactions. So, I found it the most helpful feature."
    • "When I started working with UiPath, there were no activities for SAP, but in the version that I'm using right now, there are SAP activities or SAP modules. Previously, I had to code everything from user login to user logout, but now, all the activities are available. I just have to drag and drop and give the username and password. I don't have to do it from scratch. It would be great if they can include activities for all of the most common CRMs and ERPs. They can integrate it with different activities for the most common systems."

    What is our primary use case?

    My previous company was in the banking sector, and we had done automation with websites, UI, SAP, Excel files, and PDF. In my current company, it is being used for finance and HR. We have ERP, CRM, chatbots, etc. We are using this solution to integrate different systems.

    I use UiPath Studio to develop the code, and I use UiPath Orchestrator to publish my work. We have our own UAT systems to test the code. We can install the UiPath in the test environment and find all the compilation errors in the debug mode and fix them. We also have version control. If we upload a version and it doesn't work, we can downgrade the version. Everything is tracked in UiPath Orchestrator.

    We are using it on-premise. In my previous company, it was on the cloud, and we accessed it through the cloud. 

    How has it helped my organization?

    UiPath Academy courses have been helpful for me. There were lots of activities that I didn't know about, and UiPath Academy was helpful for that. There are multiple ways to do an activity, and UiPath Academy helps you to find out those activities. When you start using it, you can find out which activity will work the best for you. The courses are interactive and not boring with just videos or PDFs. They have a mix of PDFs, videos, and interactions. It is fun and interesting if you have a passion for it.

    I found the UiPath community very helpful. At the beginning of my career, I had lots of doubts, and I posted them in the community. We had got an unknown error, and we posted our query there thinking that there must be at least one person who has had the same issue. They solved the issue quickly. It was a quick response. If you post a question, sometimes, you can also get a response within five minutes.

    I use attended automation, and it has helped to scale RPA benefits in our organization for processes that require human-robot collaboration. We have a process for reconciling bank statements. When the finance department is done with their files, they send them over to me by email, and I have to start the process manually from UiPath Orchestrator. It needs human interaction. It is a monthly process, and we don't want to automatically trigger based on something.

    We use its AI functionality a little bit. We have automation for processing invoices that are in different formats. We are using an ML model to train and replicate the output based on the incoming PDFs. We don't have to manually identify the PDF format and process it. Its AI is very helpful in the case of dynamic files where when a PDF is in one format, we want to process it in a certain way, and when it is in another format, we want to process it in a different way. We have automation to automatically identify the fields and then process the documents accordingly. It is helpful in the case of dynamic files. 

    It has reduced human errors. We have a process to send emails to the end-users based on the training they complete in our LMS. I did the automation, and the SME was very happy with that automation. She used to have lots of manual errors where she might miss one email id or put an incorrect email id. With the bot, we automated it and added exceptions, etc. It is more stable now, and there are fewer human errors. It is also very helpful for data entry work where there are lots of chances of human errors. All this can be avoided with a bot.

    It has freed up employee time. The time saved depends on the complexity and the length of the process. For our LMS use case, the SME used to take around one hour every morning, and now, she doesn't have to do that. Even if she is on leave, our bot is available 24/7/365. 

    What is most valuable?

    The UI Explorer in the UiPath Studio is valuable. We can get a unique and dynamic selector for every element in the UI, which is helpful for me in finding out a particular UI element. Most of my automations have had UI interactions. So, I found it the most helpful feature.

    It is pretty easy to build automations. I am from an engineering background, but even if you don't have much coding or programming knowledge, you can easily learn and use this tool. I used UiPath Academy to learn about this tool, and they have got a detailed explanation about everything. So, even if you don't have prior experience, you can easily use this tool.

    They give updates every year. Before the new features go live, they put them out in the Community edition. When the features are stable, they release them. They have got a helpful community forum. If you have any roadblocks, you can post your question there and you will get a response, sometimes even within five minutes, depending on the complexity of the question.

    What needs improvement?

    When I started working with UiPath, there were no activities for SAP, but in the version that I'm using right now, there are SAP activities or SAP modules. Previously, I had to code everything from user login to user logout, but now, all the activities are available. I just have to drag and drop and give the username and password. I don't have to do it from scratch. It would be great if they can include activities for all of the most common CRMs and ERPs. They can integrate it with different activities for the most common systems.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using this solution for around five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It is mostly stable. We recently upgraded our UiPath Orchestrator, and we stopped receiving the emails that we used to receive in the morning about the status of our bots and jobs. I created a ticket, and they said that the particular version or update that I had wasn't stable. They provided me with a different version that was stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It is great. In my previous company, one single bot was doing all the processes. In this company, we have six bots, and every day, around 50 processes are running. So, it is scalable.

    How are customer service and support?

    For the email issue that we had, we created a ticket, and they responded the next day. The response time was less, and they also provided me with the correct solution.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

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

    When I started my career, I started working in Python and website development with Django. When I heard about UiPath and RPA, I felt that it is going to be the future. So, I switched to RPA. UiPath is the first tool I used, and I'm still using it.

    I have used Power Automate from Microsoft, but I found UiPath much better because it has a single package with UiPath Orchestrator, Studio, etc. It has everything in a complete package.

    I have also used Blue Prism. Blue Prism is more expensive. I used its Community Edition recently because I wanted to explore other tools, and I felt that its UI is not as good as UiPath Studio. They both have drag-and-drop functionality, but Blue Prism is not as user-friendly as UiPath. I have never used Automation Anywhere, but I have heard from my peers who are from the same background that it needs programming knowledge.

    How was the initial setup?

    It was a bit complex because we have two virtual machines, and each one had three robots in it. We had to do remote desktop on the virtual machine to run the automation. We have recently improved all the processes in our company. They are now dynamic, and they can run in the background. Even if the virtual machine is closed, they will run.

    What about the implementation team?

    It was implemented in-house.

    What was our ROI?

    We have definitely seen an ROI. It replaces the manual work and allows us to do other productive tasks rather than doing repetitive and manual tasks every day. If someone costs $50 per hour, and we are able to save one hour of manual work every day for that person, it is a substantial saving.

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

    It is a bit expensive, but it is cheaper than Blue Prism. We have six robots in total. There are no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

    What other advice do I have?

    I love this tool. They have been improving it every year based on the user experience, or they have been releasing a stable version for any bugs.

    I would rate it a ten 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
    Senior Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Orchestrator Cloud Review
    Pros and Cons
    • "It is a single point of truth. There is no discrepancy or ambiguity. We can go to the leadership team, and say, "This is what it saves us on costs, man-hours, and effort that we used to do manually versus what we are doing now using the bots.""
    • "To provide detailed analysis, there has to be some improvements so we can provide drill-down data to developers showing, "Hey, this has gone wrong." If they could also incorporate that as part of the reports, then it would be very quick to view on the dashboards."

    What is our primary use case?

    I have multiple use cases as part of this solution, since I work in different domains with different technologies and applications. We use attended and unattended bots.

    One use case was for a credit-based client where we worked on the UI automation of the application. We were using UiPath Automation Cloud because our team is spread across different geographical locations, like the U.S, APAC and EMEA regions. We had different RPA developers who are developing the script simultaneously and putting it on the system, and our business case was that we wanted to automate the UI applications. Since there were different developers in different geographical regions, they created the bots on their system. Due to the cloud offering, we were able to move the bots to production using a click of a button. There is also an Orchestrator offering as part of the cloud, which is hosted. Once we had a thorough peer review of the bots being developed, we pushed it to our production-ready cloud-based Orchestrator. From there, we use it to run the script. That is an unattended bot, which is also one of the features. Since it is a credit-based UI automation, there are some instances where manual intervention is required in order to see whatever data is sent out to the client, if it is in the correct order or not. That is why we use the unattended offering of UiPath. Both these technologies help us a lot in creating our production-ready implementation. 

    For another use case, we did an implementation in the SAP application. It was a procure-to-payment (P2P) cycle, where a third party sends out the invoices which get fed into the SAP application, then it gets verified and goes out to the payroll team. Once that is verified by the payroll team, the payment is released to the concerned vendors. All these points of entry were being done manually: the third-party invoices entered into the SAP application, SAP verification, and the payroll team verification. Since it involved a lot of financial data, people were very hesitant to get it automated. However, since we had this UiPath offering, that initial hesitation was turned into a very good implementation of whatever we wanted to achieve as part of this UiPath automation. We were using the unattended bot as part of the cloud offering. We ran the processes at night from Orchestrator, so people working from home didn't need to stay up late in order to run the processes. Since we were using the cloud unattended bot service of UiPath, we were able to trigger the whole process in a single click of a button, which is amazing.

    As part of the UiPath offering, we have three offerings: Studio, StudioX, and Studio Pro. These three offerings are provided via cloud on a single system and installed on our laptops or desktops.

    I am working as a senior analyst. As part of this particular role, I have to cater to the client's needs if they want to get a UiPath implementation. Then, I do the consulting as part of the implementation. I also get involved in the PoC development and how we should use the cloud offering, e.g., what benefits are there.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We were able to move prototypes, which were in PoC stages to production very quickly, which helped us a lot. There has been more collaboration happening because of the cloud implementation. Because we have different geographical locations where in RPA bots are getting developed, at the end of the day, everything is pushed into Orchestrator Cloud. From there, we can execute it. In terms of collaboration, this has been very helpful. 

    UiPath Automation Cloud has helped us to minimize our on-prem footprint. We were able to get our prototypes into production very quickly. In turn, this helped us to get stuff minimized quickly because we were able to move the prototype as part of the PoC into production faster. We were also able to scale. For example, if we had new people joining the team, we could easily move them into the cloud offering and add a new tenant. We have added two or three new members who could readily go ahead and use the solution to develop RPA bots.

    It is a single point of truth. There is no discrepancy or ambiguity. We can go to the leadership team, and say, "This is what it saves us on costs, man-hours, and effort that we used to do manually versus what we are doing now using the bots."

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature (as part of the cloud offering) is Orchestrator. Even if we have the RPA developers spread across different geographical locations, we are able to get the bot ready and pushed into Orchestrator, where any non-technical guy can come in and run the process. When I say non-technical guy, I mean any person from the business or leadership who just wants to see how it works. They can go ahead and log into Orchestrator and execute the process.

    The Orchestrator portal is very intuitive, so you don't have to run around and talk to anyone. It is so intuitive because it is like using a web-based application. For example, nobody has to train us to go and do whatever they want us to do. It is so intuitive that we can figure out, "Hey, this is what I need to click in order to add new tenants. This is what I need to click in order to change the geography from India to APAC or any other location. In terms of execution, whatever bots are in execution right now will be shown there. Also, whatever bots are not running, they will be displayed as part of the dashboard as well as the failures.

    UiPath provides granular, role-based access control and management, which is very important as part of the monitoring. When we want to drill down on why there is a failure, we need to do a root cause analysis as part of understanding on why this particular bot failed and what could be the reason: 

    • Is it because of some kind of data issue? 
    • Is it because of an issue from the product? Then, we need to reach out to their support teams. 
    • Is it because of an incorrect implementation of the bot or feature that we want to get implemented as part of the solution?

    What needs improvement?

    We are moving from single sign-on to no password sign-on. As we are moving ahead with technological advancement, maybe that feature can be added. This totally depends on how that technology is accepted by the people. If people in big enterprises are not willing to switch and don't want to move away from the single sign-on, then it will be very difficult to digest this. However, whenever there is a change, it is very difficult to digest. Eventually, people will like it. I believe if it is implemented as part of UiPath, who is a technological leader in terms of RPA and new stuff when they roll out every release, then this would be a good area that they can look into for enhancement.

    They could add more features in order to get that dashboard more intuitive, e.g., how easily can we visualize everything being reported. I believe this should be improved as part of our Orchestrator offering. Now, we have different visualization tools being used, like Power BI. The data gets flooded into those kinds of tools and the dashboard is easy to understand. So, someone with a non-technical background can see the dashboard and understand what has happened. However, to provide detailed analysis, there has to be some improvements so we can provide drill-down data to developers showing, "Hey, this has gone wrong." If they could also incorporate that as part of the reports, then it would be very quick to view on the dashboards.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using it for two years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    UiPath has a number of offerings: on-prem Orchestrator, Automation Cloud, Automation Hub, Cloud Orchestrator, Task Mining, Task Capture, etc. Sometimes, it feels like other new areas are getting more focus compared to areas, like dashboard Insights, which should be more relevant. They should focus on these other areas to make the cloud offering more robust. Though, they are working towards it and releasing updates. Therefore, eventually, they will look into it, work on it, and iron out any kind of discrepancy.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It was very easy to scale up. Since we started getting a lot of data from the client which was getting filled as part of the UI-logged application, we were able to push in data as part of the UI. So, we were able to reduce replies to clients significantly.

    We find the solution to be scalable. Since this RPA technology is now widely accepted as part of our enterprise solution, businesses are coming in. Once the business team is onboarded, we can easily onboard the people who have technical expertise to create the bots, analyze them, and provide logic on how we need to design the bots. As part of the initial stages, we only have a business person, a solution architect, and a tool expert. First, we create the credentials for them, then we provide the solution to the business as part of a PoC. After that, if we are using any other traditional system, then it will take a lot of time to get 10 or 15 people onboarded in order to develop the solution in a fully-fledged manner. However, since we have the orchestration capabilities, we can just go in that particular Orchestrator dashboard and create our tenant with a few clicks. We can also move in and out between different geographies. For example, if I want to go and look into what is happening in the Indian service line, I can just go and click on that particular service line, which is already configured as part of Orchestrator.

    Initially, when we were going with the idea of creating an RPA bot, the first thing was to get a nod from the business to make sure about how scalable the solution is. At times, what happens is once we get the business sign off, then it takes around a month or two in order to get the team onboarded with all the necessary accesses. Once they get all the accesses, they will start working on the solution. However, in this particular case, as part of this Automation Cloud offering, we didn't have to waste any time after we got the business nod, saying, "Hey, you guys can go ahead and implement this full-fledged solution." Since the orchestration capabilities are there, the moment we received an email from the business, we shot out an email, "Hey, we are getting these pieces and have already created the credentials. Tomorrow, you can get the ball rolling in terms of solution development."

    How are customer service and technical support?

    There are multiple channels where we can reach out to them. One of those channels is the Community Forum, which is being constantly monitored for any issues. So, if anybody has already faced it, they go ahead and have it answered. Or, if nobody has seen it before, then the forum moderator comes in, and says, "Hey, why don't you go ahead and reach out to the IT support?" So, this is a channel that gets a response and has faster ways to directly approach the support team managing the servers.

    The UiPath Community Forum is worldwide. It is being monitored by community moderators. I have seen feedback being put through to the IT support team, then that is put through to the right channels to get addressed. They really listen to the customer feedback, which is what I appreciate about them. 

    The support is responsive at resolving any kind of tickets or issues when we reach out for help. This is one of the primary factors for going with Automation Cloud versus other cloud offerings, like Automation Anywhere and ElectroNeek. UiPath support is very much available and provides a solution. Even if they don't have the solution, they tell the affiliate, "This is how much time it will take," or "It will be released in the next update."

    We don't need any IT support in order to maintain this particular solution. Since it is a cloud offering, everything is taken care of by the URL.

    In case of any issues for the setup and updates, we reach out to the UiPath support team.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is very easy. It is like installing an app on your iPhone. That is how simple it is. Basically, it is not an installation at all. It is just signing into a cloud account. As part of the cloud offering, we are provided with a URL, which gives us access to the Orchestrator instantly. There is no setup whatsoever. You don't have to go and download any EXP or MSA file on your system, then double click it and a number of forms are popping up. It is nothing of that sort. It is a single URL, where you can log in with your credentials, and that is one time activity. After that, it is a single sign-on the moment that you access that particular URL.

    The implementation was frictionless with the single sign-on feature.

    By using the Automation Cloud version, when there is a new version pushed out, then I do not have to do a reinstallation again in order to get all the newest features. Since I am using the SaaS offering, the new functionalities being pushed out as part of the newest version will be easily accessible to me without doing an uninstall or installation. This is a good part of the offering.

    What was our ROI?

    We are seeing a good ROI.

    The maintenance work has been reduced because of the bots. Initially, the time that we invested in order to zero in on this particular product was 60 to 70 percent of the job data. This helped us a lot when we were deploying it.

    This solution has reduced business costs. For example, products and bots that we designed for UI automation were also deployed for back-end services.

    The setup cost is minimized drastically since it is a cloud-based offering. We don't need to have a dedicated person or team to monitor it. We just subscribe to the services, get the URL, login, and the next moment, we are creating tenants and the service line. Then, "Boom!," we are ready for executing the bots from our test check.

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

    Our license cost is reduced since we don't require any IT support. 

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I used the free versions of other vendors when we were trying to zero in on the solution that we wanted to use. We used a few other competitors of UiPath as when we were doing the PoC, and the features that we liked the most and made us lean towards UiPath were its intuitiveness and ease of use. We liked how Orchestrator can be used by the business or by anyone with a non-technical background. That is what helped us to make our decision in favor of UiPath. 

    With other tools, we had some issues with their support where they were frequently not reachable. They were not able to set up any discovery calls, such as, "Hey, this is how it is going to work." They also don't have very active community forums. 

    Instead of talking to the support or sales teams, we investigated on our own. We went to the UiPath Academy, which is readily available, and looked into its documents, which were highly detailed. We also monitored their Community Forum, which is being moderated properly. Then, we read some reviews on IT Central Station, seeing how people are reviewing it and why they are paying for it. For example, if their whole community is coming out with good words, then there has to be something which they are doing well. That is what made us make the decision to zero in on UiPath Automation Cloud.

    When comparing UiPath with different vendors offering RPA,like Automation Anywhere or ElectroNeek, we initially thought that Automation Anywhere was ahead of the game and UiPath was playing a catch-up. A few weeks back, UiPath had a good investor round, then they went all guns blazing out in the market. There is a lot of community awareness in terms of UiPath implementation. So, I believe the road ahead for UiPath is very good. 

    What other advice do I have?

    One of the newest upgrades that we had was in respect to payments getting added. New functionalities are getting added. They also work on the feedback that they get from interviews conducted by sites, like IT Central Station, who take unbiased reviews. They work off this feedback, which is why they are upgrading their products out in the market.

    I haven't used the AI Fabric solution as of yet because we don't have a business case for it as of now.

    If you are ready with your own business process that you want to get automated, then I would recommend UiPath for its intuitiveness. You should consider the intuitiveness of the UiPath as one of the parameters in your solution decision. For example, if you have the business process ready, then that is half the job done. The other half will be taken care of by your RPA developers or solution architect. So, if you are using UiPath, the learning curve is very small. You don't need to invest a lot of time. 

    They have their UiPath Academy learning website, where you can go in as well as ask your team members to learn based on their roles. There are different series of educational videos based on job roles and how that particular role should look at UiPath as a solution. For example, as a manager, if I'm going in and looking into the UiPath, I do not want to be bothered about how I'm going to pull in activities and develop the automation bot. As a manager, I am going into Orchestrator to see how many bots have executed successfully or failed. If I was a solution architect, then I need to know how to design the service lines if they are located in different geographical regions. 

    Everybody is really looking for some kind of solution that eases our life since we are working from home. It takes a toll when we are working from home. When we have these RPA bots coming to our rescue, then it makes a difference in our day-to-day life. Then, we can spend more time with our loved ones rather than spending more time in front of our laptop screens.

    I would like to rate it as nine (out of 10) because I believe no one is perfect and all the bots are being developed by humans. Going forward, I read on a forum that UiPath is developing an AI feature where the bot will autoheal itself. Once the autohealing feature is implemented, I would rate the solution as 10 (out of 10) because there would be no manual intervention.

    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
    Sr. Associate Technologies L2 at Publicis Groupe
    Real User
    Customizable forms, saves time, improves accuracy, and helps us build trust with customers
    Pros and Cons
    • "Being able to customize this is extremely helpful for us because we have other attended automation processes, and they can each be tailored to the needs of the business."
    • "Simply put, a stronger collaboration between Microsoft and UiPath in a lot of areas would be helpful because it would ease the development process for us."

    What is our primary use case?

    We have a use case that involves an invoice billing process, where vendors from an external organization submit their details for the invoice. This automation works as expected, independently of anything else. It is also a good example of how we were able to scale RPA benefits in the company with the automation of a specific process that requires human-robot collaboration.

    Our internal tools include the database where all of this information is stored, and we have a second automation that is used by the billers in our organization to tally the data that includes details such as what each vendor has submitted to get their payments.

    We built a third automation in UiPath, which basically compares these first two. But, due to the complexity and the nature of the tally that has to occur, we require some human input in between certain steps.

    For these particular steps, we have developed a four-bot configuration. These are four separate bots that run and a couple of them have an attended automation part, where a human can intervene. It's a verification step, where the human can decide whether or not something is okay. Specifically, the bot compares two fields and if they match, then it's great, but if not, it triggers a request to a human user for manual verification. If they approve then it is marked as a successful verification.

    Because we use technologies like OCR, there are details that cannot always be interpreted properly. This is where we need an additional check, which is the reason that we have humans in the loop as part of the process.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We have saved a lot of time by using UiPath. We have also improved a lot in terms of accuracy and reducing errors in a lot of projects. In fact, in one of the projects, we automated the entire job, which involves coaching people on what has to be done end-to-end, by the robots. It was built on UiPath and on this project, we had a savings of more than €100,000 euros. That was a big saving for us, and it's continuing right now.

    More importantly, a lot of the clients had complained about the end-user, which is outside of the organization, with respect to the accuracy of the data. There were errors. When we deployed robots based on UiPath, the accuracy has vastly improved and the clients are very happy with the results. They no longer have to keep coming back to our billers and telling them that things were not done properly. The robot functions like it has been programmed every single time. So, it's been perfect for that purpose as well. The customer trusts us more because of our deployments in robots.

    UiPath definitely allows employees to delegate mundane tasks to their personal automations, saving them time. A major reason for a lot of our automation cases is because most people are not 100% involved in certain tasks. For example, if you spend two hours on a particular process, and then over the next four or five hours, you're supposed to be working on more complicated processes, but what happens during the first two hours is that things get complicated and the day is ruined dealing with small tasks. Now, suppose that the two-hour allotment for the smaller process is automated using UiPath, the person is free to dedicatedly perform more important functions. In the entirety of our automation effort, this has been a primary driver for all of the new use cases. It's a huge plus for us.

    With respect to employee satisfaction, it has been a mixed result for us. In certain cases, it's been a huge boon because there was a heavy workload on the employees and UiPath really helped them cope with it. This was especially true during COVID when the workload increased exponentially, and people could not go into the office. However, there were times in the past when people were no longer required because UiPath was doing their jobs perfectly, making them redundant. As they were no longer required, they left the company.

    So, we have had both scenarios, but moving forward, instead of telling people that they're no longer required, we have retasked them to other projects. Essentially, we have reabsorbed them and in turn, have simplified the hiring process. In this regard, we have adjusted.

    What is most valuable?

    The new UiPath assistant is very good.

    The customizable forms that UiPath has recently launched allow us to give the user an exact input that they can provide. Being able to customize this is extremely helpful for us because we have other attended automation processes, and they can each be tailored to the needs of the business.

    We use the selector technology for automating processes with dynamic interfaces on a daily basis in almost all of our projects. Our extensive use of this feature includes all of the different kinds of selectors that UiPath allows. We have the flexibility to modify these selectors as per our need. This functionality gives UiPath a big edge over its competitors and I know this because I've personally used products by other vendors. The selection-making process is much simpler with UiPath, with improved accuracy and reliability.

    This feature is important because a lot of the processes are Citrix-based or remote desktop applications. Because the robot would not have a direct connection to the application, we have to use Citrix technology. All of the applications are different in nature, so having the flexibility to switch between different kinds of selectors and select our activities allows us to build the perfect solution for remote applications. Even the performance, in my experience, has been the best, especially for Citrix-based automations or remote desktop-based automations.

    What needs improvement?

    There are a few features that could be improved, and one of them is good integration with the Microsoft ecosystem. For example, Microsoft launched Power Apps as its platform, and even though its capabilities are not as good as UiPath, it has the advantage of being so well-integrated with Excel Online, Word, and everything else. We don't have to perform a lot of development work, and it's pre-approved in our organization. Applications like SharePoint are another example of pre-approved solutions. But with UiPath, we have to prove that it's a secure process. Simply put, a stronger collaboration between Microsoft and UiPath in a lot of areas would be helpful because it would ease the development process for us.

    Another example is with the Automation Hub. At this time, Automation Hub does not allow you a direct login process or single sign-on option using Azure Active Directory. This means that you're limited to going through either Gmail or something else. This is true for the on-premises solution, not the cloud one. Although we had decided to purchase the Automation Hub license, this lack of functionality held things up because we did not want to manually go in to update all of the new users again and again. We wanted the information to be picked directly from Active Directory whenever a user wanted to sign up for it.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using UiPath Attended Automation for approximately three and a half years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    In the past, stability has been great. However, more recently I have been facing some issues, and I'm hoping for some resolution. For example, we recently upgraded to the new orchestrator in Studio, and we had to upgrade a few packages also, In particular, the UiPath automation packages.

    Some of our GUI activities, which are not fully backward compatible, have been facing some issues. Consequently, some of our bots have been impacted. We have already raised the issue and we are in discussion to find a resolution. This was the first time we actually faced an issue in terms of reliability with UiPath.

    Our past experience has been very good, and I cannot say that we have any complaints regarding the reliability of UiPath solutions.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Scalability-wise, it is very good. It is easily scalable and we have a lot of options for expanding and configuring as per our requirements. It is also customizable.

    We have a team of between 20 and 30 people, which includes approximately 10 developers, 5 team leads, two architects, two production managers, and one overall manager. We have some contractual workers, as well.

    We have approximately 35 automations that are in production right now. From a process perspective, we have pretty much worked on all verticals including finance, healthcare, internal IT processes that needed automation, and more. An example is ServiceNow, where jobs like creating user accounts, deploying new machines, and other administrative tasks have also been automated. HR processes, including onboarding, have been automated.

    It is a very large organization, and there are lots of processes, so I expect that our usage will grow.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    The technical support is excellent in our experience. Whenever we have had a problem, they've always been there to support us and help us with the problem. I don't have any complaints, as they've always made the effort. Even if things have taken longer than we had hoped or expected, they've always come back with the best resolution they can offer.

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

    I have worked with Blue Prism and in my experience, UiPath does a much better job, both in terms of dev and listening to the community. For example, Blue Prism is a very closed community and very limited. They have improved, I would say, based on the success of UiPath, but it's not very open-source or open-natured.

    The biggest advantage that I have noticed is with Citrix-based automations or remote desktop automations. There are cases where Blue Prism did not work, but UiPath was very good. I did not have to spend too much time with UiPath before it worked perfectly. The reliability was also great.

    More importantly, UiPath listens to the customers as well as the developer community, and in turn, they implement features that make their lives easier. They constantly reach out for feedback and it's a good process because it helps to know that the customer is happy. If I am speaking about myself, I'm happy that if I have a need, or I'm facing some challenges, I put it in the pipeline for UiPath and within six months, I will see that feature live in production.

    How was the initial setup?

    We started with a disaster recovery scenario, where we have one live production orchestrator, as well as one backup orchestrator and a load balancer installed. This is a high availability disaster recovery (HADR) configuration, where all of our live bots are on the main orchestrator. In the case that the live orchestrator goes down, we have the backup orchestrator kick in.

    The overall deployment and installation process was simple. However, we did face some issues with the Redis part. Configuring Redis was one of our pain points, and we reached out to UiPath about it.

    Although it was resolved, it took a lot of time and effort, from our end as well. That was the only experience that stood out as a problem for us. But overall, it was a smooth process.

    It took about a week to set everything up, although we had constraints from our own internal infrastructure team. The delay was not related to UiPath issues.

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

    The licensing is close to optimum; however, there is room for improvement in both the cost and flexibility of the licenses. It isn't the best pricing in the market but it's pretty close.

    What other advice do I have?

    For developing our attended automation, we began by coding the bot to our requirements, and then made modifications to it for attended automation.

    My advice for anybody who is considering UiPath is to be sure of what your needs are regarding an RPA product. If you're looking for something very small-scale, very easy, then there are a lot of options. But if you're looking for a long-term, feature-rich solution, which has access to third-party integrations, then choose UiPath.

    You will require a development team, at least to some level. UiPath is now simpler with the Studio X products, but in the past, it was a bit more challenging to dive deep into UiPath directly. It required some training but now, things have definitely improved.

    One of the major lessons that I have learned from using UiPath is to make sure that everything is documented well. There is a lot that needs to be tested before bots are put into production because a lot of things that work on your local machine may not work on another. It can vary from machine to machine and where something works on one, a change in environment for another may cause it to fail. This means that you should change from machine to machine during the testing phase.

    Overall, I feel as if now UiPath is on the right path with its competitors. It is a very good long-term solution.

    I would rate UiPath a nine 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
    Lead Consultant at Konexo
    Consultant
    Enables us to shift activity nobody enjoys onto a robot and lets staff focus on the stuff they've been trained to do
    Pros and Cons
    • "The most valuable aspect of UiPath is the fact that it's a low-code platform. Being able to use a low-code platform really lowers the barrier entry of introducing automation. Normally, you fill in a request to go to IT to get a development resource allocated, and then you spend six months trying to do a project. Because UiPath is a bit of a platform, you can quickly, within weeks, start to knock off automation and get it checked and then successfully deployed. The low-code development environment is key for us."
    • "As things become more and more data-heavy and accessing other people's products and managing things, like obtaining the data through APIs, it feels like there could be a lot more for them to do, to make interacting with data or manipulating simple things like text strings. You need quite a strong development background or a reasonable level of understanding to achieve that. I think that could be made a little bit more achievable."

    What is our primary use case?

    Originally, we were using UiPath to draft documents and send emails on mass to where we had large communication exercises. We used a robot instead of a small army of paralegals to generate the documentation and draft up the emails where we had to communicate with 2,000 to 3,000 people. It was a little bit more involved than just doing a standard mail merge, but we were able to use UiPath to create a number of documents and email it to an individual customer, all through a central email address.

    Fast forward to where we are now, we have a few of these things focusing in on what we call post-completion activity, like the things you do after you sign a contract. So, it may be you're uploading it to the client's contract management system, applying stamps, or registering the contracts in an official register. The robot is able to do that for us post-completion. Those are our primary use cases at the moment. We're looking at more data integrity type stuff, like comparing our internal data sources against public record.

    How has it helped my organization?

    The ability to displace some activity that was traditionally on our paralegal team has improved my organization. We're an outsourced managed legal services provider. We're primarily a people-based business and UiPath displaces some activity off those paralegals and brings in automation. For me, it becomes an additional type of resource. The long and short of it is that we are able to move work that was traditionally done by people and would be charged at a rate, off to automation where we can bring the costs down. It enables us to reduce our running costs of our clients. A single bot running post-completion has saved as two FTEs.

    UiPath has helped to speed up case resolutions in a couple of ways. It's focused on doing particular jobs, so it achieves the job faster. People don't need to complete an entire task end to end. They can stop at a certain point and the robot takes over. That allows a person to get through more work. Also, the fact that the robots are able to do this stuff overnight 24/7, means that we have more capacity to do stuff.

    It gives us the ability to respond to clients. It gives us an option in how we're going to automate work for clients. It's hard to say if it has reduced the cost of our digital transformation because we deal with all the people. I suspect it hasn't done it internally, but suspect that has made some things cheaper for our clients. It enables us to deliver digital services cheaper for our clients. 

    UiPath had an effect on our legal staff. It takes work that people don't want to do at the moment, having to download the document, take some details off the top and the bottom of the document, apply a stamp, and then re-upload, it's not what our paralegals and new trainees want to be doing on a day-to-day basis. So we are able to shift activity nobody enjoys onto a robot and let them focus on the stuff they've been trained to do.

    In terms of how much it has reduced the processing times, the task itself still takes as long but we've got a robot doing it instead of a human. I don't think that the impact isn't that dramatic on-site processing times. At the moment, humans are only involved in 80% of the transaction and 20% has been held by robots.

    These automations have decreased errors but it's hard to quantify by how much. They've inserted 20,000 transactions a year. I have no doubt that the error rates improved. It's just a hard thing to quantify.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable aspect of UiPath is the fact that it's a low-code platform. Being able to use a low-code platform really lowers the barrier entry of introducing automation. Normally, you fill in a request to go to IT to get a development resource allocated, and then you spend six months trying to do a project. Because UiPath is a bit of a platform, you can quickly, within weeks, start to knock off automation and get it checked and then successfully deployed. The low-code development environment is key for us.

    Now that we're scaling up and taking advantage of Cloud stuff, it's become a lot easier to use. When we started our journey, we just bought a couple of bots and had them sit around on machines. It was a bit chaotic and we thought that if we take advantage of their wider platform, the orchestrator environment, it would make life a lot easier because we have all the monitoring and management. We have access to that in one platform rather than having to watch the individual robots, which is where we started.

    We're going to use the solution's AI-enhanced document understanding feature. It's something we're looking at to help us with invoices and incoming bills that come in. It's on the backlog. We haven't got to it yet.

    UiPath enables me to free up capacity for people to work on new work because they are involved, they're less accessible. At the moment, the majority of our staff is focused towards the end time making sure that things are filed correctly. It's more about focusing resources rather than being more responsive.

    What needs improvement?

    As things become more and more data-heavy and accessing other people's products and managing things, like obtaining the data through APIs, it feels like there could be a lot more for them to do, to make interacting with data or manipulating simple things like text strings. You need quite a strong development background or a reasonable level of understanding to achieve that. I think that could be made a little bit more achievable.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    Three years ago we started using UiPath relatively small and we are looking to scale up significantly this year. Originally we started on-prem and as we're scaling up, we're going to move towards the cloud instance.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    So far the stability has been good. With all of the low code platforms, it's actually more of a problem of what we've developed and deployed. It's how well we make our own software so that the platform will provide. It seems to stand up very, very well. I have not really had an issue. Anytime we have encountered a bug or whatnot, it's something we've introduced to ourselves, but thankfully there's a strong community where we can post questions and queries to get a response within a couple of hours.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I don't see scalability as being too much of a challenge. If we need more capacity on the robots, we're able to buy more licenses and additional VMs on the machine. If we need to expand or scale, it's just about deploying more machines. I don't feel it's that complicated. I suspect there are some constraints on how you build your applications, but that's more of an internal decision rather than UiPath's.

    There are three people who are responsible for how to put a source of business analysis as well as development. Their role is to work with SMEs or people within our business units to understand a customer's process, get them deployed, and work with them to do it. The stuff we've taken on tends to be the easier, quick wins. We have three internal developers who were able to break down processes. We're a large organization. We have a large IT function that helped us with virtual machines and data centers, etc. We're not directly involved with them.

    It's very easy to build an automation and just let it run. One of the key lessons we learned is the fact that you have to keep an eye on these things and that things change in the environment. Passwords run out and expire, folders may move as people move things around the network and a robot is just as susceptible to everything else that our user is. In terms of when you're designing any solutions, you have to pay a little extra attention to things that may cause you problems in six months' time. The simple fact that a password that you were using has been reset or is expired or something else, could cause the robot to failover. While the robot can tell you it's got a problem, you still have maintenance effort to keep an eye on. There is a maintenance commitment that you need for everything that is put on it. You need to spend a bit of extra time detailing exactly how you are going to respond to those things. Just because it's easy to deploy stuff, it doesn't do away with the fact that you have to keep an eye on it.

    There are three analysts who are respondents to book fixes, etc. We have people in the business who we work with to automate these processes. They take a level of responsibility and keeping an eye on anything we try to automate. They're the first line of support. If anything's going wrong or something they can keep an eye on it and then if it is a technical book fix or something that needs to be resolved, that's then escalated to one of those three developers.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    I only had one issue which was to do with the proxy setting when deploying some of the software. I raised the ticket on the website, got a response within half a day and it explained what I needed to do to fix it. That's my only experience of having to deal with them. I raised a ticket, I got the answer, and it worked. My experience so far has been fairly good.

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

    We decided to use UiPath three years ago when RPA was starting to become a bit of a buzzword. We took a look at it and realized that it would be a very, very good solution for the right project by allowing us to automate mass activity all at once. One of those projects came around and we had to communicate it to a large audience. The process once agreed upon and nailed down could be very heavily scripted. We looked at a way that we would communicate it to the 30,000 people, all with documents that are pretty much the same but with a slight variation. We knew we wanted to try an RPA solution. UiPath was a very strong contender in those days and it was easy to access. That's why we ended up with it. We're able to achieve something with a single bot. All of those things make the software easy to test out. And then from there, you're able to make a decision.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was really straightforward. In such a large law firm that has high data security obligations, we set these things up, appoint the orchestrator, and it just works. I have not encountered too many problems. 

    It doesn't feel like a heavyweight ERP system or some larger workflow tool. These things are deployed onto a desktop and they speak to a server. It's not heavy. It doesn't feel like a piece of software with a heavy footprint.

    The deployment took a week. It took us longer to end-to-end to get the invoice approved.

    We've taken advantage of the architecture. Our IT team set some ground rules about where the virtual machines need to be hosted and deployed, but it's not that heavyweight. We increase some standards with IT and then install the software on those machines. We're using the Cloud version so there's not a lot to worry about.

    What about the implementation team?

    We were able to do the deployment internally. 

    What was our ROI?

    Some of our ROI is quite dramatic. We have to email lots of stuff out to different people and our projector will require this to have a team of six or seven staff working solidly for a couple of weeks. The robot was able to get it done after a couple of weeks of configuration. This thing was able to pay for itself in a matter of hours once it was done. One of our post-completion robots took a week or two to develop and get stable enough to deploy. It's able to offset seven or eight hours a day. If we target the use cases correctly, we are able to get a return on the automation we deploy.

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

    Take advantage of the Cloud-based implementation. You'll have to handle the Orchestrator licensing costs. It's obviously different for every organization. It's beneficial to get away from the on-premise installation. Also make sure that your business case justifies whatever the license cost is for an unattended or attended bot. 

    Show your business case and that the automation will help you to exceed the license cost. You want to look at things that are going to give you a return on investment in about six months' time. Take advantage of the Cloud-hosted version so as not to pay the cost for Orchestrator. Then for your bots, make sure you will see a six months ROI in terms of how much automation you've gotten and how much you can get the robot to get done.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We also looked at BluePrism and Automation Anywhere. We took a quick look over the top three solutions at the time. UiPath seemed to be one of the leaders in the area.

    We partnered with an organization to help us deliver it. We got some consultants in and sorted out what they were comfortable with using and what they recommended. For us, it was the size of the platform. We were looking at Automation Anywhere or BluePrism. It just felt like it would be a bigger project to implement when in reality all we wanted was one robot to do one job for us at the start of the project. It was more about the barriers of entry to getting started.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate UiPath an eight out of ten. It feels like nothing deserves a 10, and I highly recommend every organization has a handle on RPA. There are still a huge amount of features we're still yet to explore.

    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
    reviewer1214574 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Intuitive and logical solution that has some of the best training available
    Pros and Cons
    • "We're able to handle some of our tax and HR processes, the volumes of the documents or new hires at a tremendous speed compared to how we used to do it manually in the past."
    • "I think in the Studio, as in building automations, it takes a lot of clicks and there's a lot of options and I think sometimes there's just too much. It should be more simplified on the user interface."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use Studio and Orchestrator. I personally use unattended bots but we're releasing one of the largest attended implementations right now.  

    For the most part, it's still in the back office, finance, and accounting, that's typically where we've been starting. That's where for me, as an inexperienced developer, is easier for me to get started.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We're able to handle some of our tax and HR processes, the volumes of the documents or new hires at a tremendous speed compared to how we used to do it manually in the past.

    What is most valuable?

    I like the layout and design of the Studio using the RPA framework. It makes sense to me. It's very easy to get started. I've been a fan of the current debugger. I know that UiPath is releasing an updating debugger but I think that's been very intuitive for me as well.

    I would rate the ease of use of the platform for automating my company’s processes a four out of five because, for me, there's still a lot of clicks and keystrokes I need to do for development. I know that UiPath is releasing StudioX, which is something that is needed, for people like me who aren't super technical.

    I would rate UiPath Academy RPA training a five out of five. It's one of the best. Compared to its competitors, it's intuitive and it's robust.

    It's everything that UiPath is moving forward towards, intelligent, machine learning, and AI. I embrace the fact that the direction it's going especially for me personally.

    What needs improvement?

    I think in the Studio, as in building automations, it takes a lot of clicks and there's a lot of options and I think sometimes there's just too much. It should be more simplified on the user interface.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    As far as our practice, we have over 150 consultants in the States and over 350 in India. We also have a team in Europe. Overall, we have over 3,000 RPA consultants. UiPath is probably close to about a third that would be UiPath competent.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    I haven't had to contact their technical support. I go through my SMEs. 

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

    We're always challenging ourselves to be more efficient and effective in the workforce. We also recognized that some of our businesses needed to do things better, faster and cheaper. RPA was a natural solution. For us, as a large organization, we want to learn about all of the top competitor solutions. UiPath is in the top-ranked quadrant regularly so it is an obvious choice.

    Because of the market demands of Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism and UiPath, we had to invest in learning all three equally. I don't know the exact reason we went with UiPath, I can ask our clients. 

    How was the initial setup?

    The implementation process was easier than the competitors.

    What was our ROI?

    We have seen a 100% ROI. We do automation to deliver a faster ROI than traditional software. As a firm, we saved over 2 million dollars a year now from using RPA.

    What other advice do I have?

    Regarding both attended and unattended bots, I think there are places for both and it comes back to the purpose of what you're automating. I think attended is going to be great for the casual users of applications. It's a lot of the call centers and even some of the system developers. The unattended are places where you can really find those scaling volumes and processes. Typically back-office functions are unattended.

    I would rate it a nine out of ten. There's always room for improvement. For me, it's very intuitive and logical. I grew up with a little bit more of a technical background so for me, it fits in well with my needs.

    I would encourage someone considering this solution to use UiPath, especially if they're automated and especially with UiPath's new one-click cloud solution. It's so fast for them to get started. I would encourage them to be up and running in the same database to try it out.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
    PeerSpot user
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    Updated: February 2025
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