Our communications company intends to use UiPath and AI to determine the best fit and time for commercials based on the customer's usage and payment for the spot. We haven't fully deployed AI, yet. It's becoming more critical to leadership, but we're still doing testing and researching
Our goal with AI is to significantly reduce the manual effort needed to determine where to place ads. We don't have enough human resources to place spots around the clock, so we want UiPath to fill in the gaps by augmenting existing staff without hiring people.
Our leaders and stakeholders are pleased with the RPA results and want to expand our usage. We're still waiting to implement AI.
Orchestrator is the most valuable feature.
UiPath could improve on-prem availability. I would like to see a load-testing feature, but that's coming.
We have been using UiPath for about three years.
We've never had any issues with stability.
We just keep adding bots and have not encountered any problems expanding.
I rate UiPath customer service nine out of 10. Overall, it's been great, but in a handful of cases, we've dealt with someone at support whose ability wasn't quite where we wanted it to be.
Positive
We previously used Pega, but our leaders decided to switch to UiPath
I can't quantify the amount of time we've saved with UiPath, but we've reduced our headcount by about 10 percent. We're not laying people off, but we can backfill employee positions with automation as they leave.
UiPath is perceived as more expensive, but it's pretty close when you break down the licensing model and look at how much competitors charge per connection. We've done the analysis.
I rate UiPath nine out of 10 because we can't use the cloud stuff yet. If we were on the cloud, I would give it a perfect 10.
Our team manages RPA licensing, including evaluating other tools besides UiPath. We consider factors like upcoming automation reports and license renewal costs when deciding between UiPath, Power Automate, or other options. By comparing features and licensing expenses, we make informed choices about which RPA tool best suits our needs.
UiPath handles our invoice processing and a variety of ERP tasks, including automating processes in SAP and Oracle. We also leverage it for some portal interactions and other invoice-related functionalities.
We use the UiPath orchestrator platform.
We recently migrated to UiPath's cloud-based Orchestrator, and the benefits have been tremendous. We receive frequent updates without any maintenance on our end thanks to UiPath managing everything. This ensures no downtime and access to all the latest features, which UiPath releases regularly throughout the year in response to user feedback. Additionally, our investment in premium support, including a dedicated Partner Account Manager and UiPath Advantage benefits, provides us with immediate assistance whenever needed.
Although UiPath is not as user-friendly as Microsoft Power Automate, it boasts a wider range of features. UiPath does require some coding knowledge for developers due to its drag-and-drop interface, but it provides a strong framework that simplifies development. Projects can often be completed within one to two months thanks to this ease of use, and the platform itself is constantly being improved.
UiPath offers end-to-end automation, replacing the need for multiple tools. It supports DLC and provides sample documents and maintenance guidance. Additionally, UiPath's built-in flowcharts eliminate the need for Visio, reducing costs. Furthermore, integration with Azure and pre-built templates minimizes the need for PowerShell scripting, streamlining the development process. Overall, UiPath simplifies automation by offering a comprehensive and user-friendly platform.
The UiPath User Community is a fantastic resource, offering a one-stop shop for all our UiPath inquiries where we can find answers and connect with other users.
UiPath has been a game-changer for us. Productivity has soared, security has been significantly bolstered, and the new features are proving incredibly versatile. We've even been able to reduce outsourcing by implementing UiPath automation, which have greatly simplified our monitoring processes.
Its ability to minimize on-premises infrastructure aligns perfectly with the current trend of companies prioritizing digitization to reduce their physical footprint. In other words, UiPath is a key tool for achieving this modern business goal.
Our vendors initially struggled to adapt to the cloud-based platform after migrating from on-premise software. To bridge this knowledge gap, we directed them to the UiPath Academy courses, which proved to be a valuable resource. However, the extensive course library made navigating and finding the most relevant content challenging. Fortunately, UiPath's supportive team provided us with the necessary links, allowing our team to get up to speed quickly.
It has helped speed up our digital transformation.
UiPath has significantly reduced human error in our finance department. Previously, manual processes resulted in numerous errors that often went unnoticed until the quarter's end. Now, automation minimizes errors and frees the finance team to handle any remaining manual tasks with greater ease.
UiPath has helped free up around 30 percent of our staff time and has significantly reduced our costs, and the KPI data we're maintaining confirms these substantial savings.
UiPath stands out for its robust SAP integration capabilities and a growing library of connectors that simplify connecting to various applications. Document Understanding has also seen significant improvement, making data extraction more accurate. Additionally, UiPath offers valuable process insights, providing a clear picture of automation utilization across machines, and giving us a powerful tool to optimize our workflows.
UiPath's cost can be prohibitive, and the sheer number of licensing options they offer makes it difficult to choose the right one, creating a confusing selection process.
Currently, UiPath doesn't provide automatic notifications for known bugs in new releases. This means we're left to discover and report them ourselves. Ideally, I'd like to receive updates on these known issues from UiPath to streamline the automation process.
UiPath implementing a feature like Microsoft's CoPilot would significantly enhance our development experience by offering assistance in building automation.
I have been using UiPath for six years.
UiPath is stable.
UiPath is easy to scale up.
The technical support is amazing. They are available at any time.
Positive
We also have a signed license agreement with Microsoft because of UiPath's high cost.
UiPath offers a pre-built framework that tailors to our specific needs, along with a powerful orchestrator for centralized control. While Microsoft's automation platform is still evolving and lacks features like UiPath's orchestrator, it excels in native integrations with Microsoft products like Outlook and SharePoint. However, for SAP integrations, UiPath provides exclusive activities that are crucial for automating tasks within our system.
In 2018 when I first deployed UiPath I found it to be complex but now that I have more experience, the deployment is straightforward.
Our team created three AWS accounts, designating one of them. We then set up, launched, and deployed the orchestration tool on the first account. After performing a POC and gaining leadership approval, we spun up two additional accounts for QA with UiPath's ongoing support throughout the year. Finally, we deployed additional machines and established a Cloud Operating Validation environment.
In-house we required eight people for the deployment.
We initially developed the proof of concept ourselves, but after launching into production, we leveraged the expertise of multiple vendors to ensure successful implementation.
UiPath is expensive compared to other RPA tools.
I would rate UiPath eight out of ten.
We currently have around 130 active bots, though, in the past few years, we decommissioned a larger force of 300. We also boast a user base of over 80.
The maintenance is handled by UiPath.
For a successful RPA implementation, establish a strong framework and conduct a thorough analysis to guarantee the stability of your bots. In the long term, a well-run COE is invaluable. Additionally, explore the range of tools available to enhance your RPA capabilities.
We use the solution for robotic process automation. We use it across the value chain for our business. We've used it in accounts, including cash management, and in HR for management tasks and IT for password resetting.
The automation has been quite useful. It's been helpful in our journey towards transformation.
I've used this solution for a while and I utilize the whole tool and get a lot of benefits out of it.
It helps save time. We've had efforts that would take more than four hours a day, yet, when done through UiPath, it takes less than a minute.
The useability is very good - even for non-technical people. I'm an accountant by education and now I'm also an automation expert by profession. Its interface is user-friendly to those of us who are non-technical.
Anyone who wants to automate any task that is rule-based and repetitive can do it through UiPath.
We can use the solution for automation emails or notifications.
It enables end-to-end automation. We developed a use case where people from different business units have large amounts of data, Excel files, we've made it so that we can combine it and enter it into the ERP system. Everything can be checked via the rule book and can create the report and send back the information to the customer. It simplifies the data and organizes and compiles it for them. Users have gotten the benefit of five FTEs by using UiPath. It saved many man-hours.
I haven't used the UiPath Community too much. I often Google questions to find answers. It is a good place to go for development work, though.
It reduces our footprint. We historically did have many items on-prem. I like it on-prem and on the desktop.
It can reduce the cost of digital transformation. Where processes can have faster response times, UiPath helps with efficiency. However, if the response time of the application is slow, and we need to provide workarounds, it isn't helpful in that it hasn't efficiently helped us save time.
UiPath reduces human error by 100%. Whatever you give to the robot, it will do it correctly. That said, it needs to be programmed correctly - if it's programmed wrong, it will do it 100% wrong. If it's programmed right, it does it 100% right.
It's freed up human time. It's not well-utilized in that sense. It should be available to everyone so that they can find ways to save time by creating their own automation according to what they need.
There are a few shortcomings. For example, even in their latest version, there are still older features even though they've introduced new ones in parallel. They should do something where they update the solution and then close off the older version after a year or something like that. That might help with standardization.
Sometimes it is very useful for automation. However, sometimes it is really, really frustrating when it is unable to manage the more dynamic items. When an element is stable, it's great. When it comes to changes to IDs or the dynamics of the website, it lets us down in front of our customers. It needs to be better at handling volumes of data.
Automation on the cloud has had issues. It can be slower.
The Academy classes could be improved. There should be a portal for use cases. There should be more business examples.
They should offer different licensing tiers, especially for daily individual users.
I've been using the solution since 2016, more than five years.
It is a stable product. There were some issues while interacting with different applications. For example, with Microsoft, we have issues with One Drive. When UiPath is working on a file, it cannot quickly get to the file. We need to move the file to a local drive before processing the data. Microsoft applications seem to give it trouble.
We have multinational business units. Company-wide, maybe 500 people are using it. Where I am, there may be a team of ten people working with it and 50 to 60 automations. The solution is in multiple locations and departments.
The solution is scalable. It depends on how an organization wants to utilize it.
Technical support is very flexible, however, they do not respond quickly. Sometimes they just tell us "this is how it works" and we have to try to explain our framework.
Neutral
I have also tried Blue Prism. I didn't work with it much; I just studied it theoretically.
I also tried to work with Power Automate. Initially, it wasn't very good, however, later, it began to echo the style and functionality of UiPath.
UiPath is easy to use and easy to get started with.
The deployment was a long journey. I was one of the first people in Pakistan to use it. Now, once you get a license, you can deploy it in two weeks. However, it depends on the complexity of the processes in terms of deploying automation.
We have around ten people maintaining the solution. It requires a lot of maintenance. If anything needs to be changed in the target application, it needs to be incorporated into the robot.
Someone told us you do need three to five years before you get an ROI. However, in our first year, we were able to save more than 8,000 hours.
The solution is on the expensive side.
There should be standardized packages. If an organization already has a license with UiPath, UiPath should offer special licenses to each employee so that each employee has their own UiPath automation capabilities for each of their individual tasks.
There should be regional packages and costs. Different regions cannot necessarily afford UiPath. What is affordable in Europe may not be affordable somewhere else.
We're a UiPath customer. We serve internal customers with robots.
We do not use the UiPath AI functionality, however, we are on a journey towards building our own internal solution.
I'd like to see UiPath cut the cost of their license. For end-to-end automation, for developers, I understand why it needs to be expensive, however, for day-to-day users, it should be cheap.
I'd recommend the solution to new users.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's still the best out of all related products.
We started out with a lot of unattended use cases and then moved into using attended bots to help users. I've been with two separate companies. One was a financial services company. However, there was a lot of support for external clients. In the company now, we're doing a lot around the back office, HR, finance, and supply chain. UiPath just runs the gamut of all different kinds of use cases.
It's definitely made it easy to build automation. We have a team of about four or five developers. One of them was straight out of school, and they had never really had professional experience. We've also taken a couple of developers that were more into custom code and converted those over to using UiPath. It's interesting to see the level of excitement when you use a tool like UiPath from someone who is straight out of school and can convert over.
We enjoy the constant innovation. It's coming out with new things that we can use and new features all the time. RPA has been around for a while now; however, the fact that we're adding integration services, adding apps, and all these other features, makes it possible to expand our use case.
We use UiPath to automate processes that deal with a good environmental cause. For example, for the company, however, we get invoices for bulk fuel. Our company sends out a lot of trucks, and a lot of customer engineers to actually service equipment. All this was manual, and a lot of not knowing how much we were paying. We automated that, and then the next step of that process is, "Okay. Can we start figuring out exactly how much money we spend on fuel, now, let's try to figure out ways to lessen that?" I could see how that could be environmentally friendly as we're trying to reduce consumption.
The user community is interesting. I've met a couple of people here and had really good conversations. It's interesting in the virtual world that we live in now, where everybody's just a face on a screen.
We've used UiPath's Academy. Being a solution architect, I'm not hands-on with code every day. I got certified as an RPA associate so that I could better understand what the developers are working on and using. When I'm designing solutions, I have a better knowledge of what's possible. I've taken a lot of the courses on UiPath Academy.
We're actually looking into a document to understand the use case. It's essentially car titles, and we're struggling. We've used several different OCR engines to try to train the model and try to improve it. For us, a little more direction on how to actually achieve this would be useful. We've been struggling for a couple of months now trying to get it working and getting it to the level we need it.
I've been using the solution for five or six years.
The stability is great. I compare it to what I would think the best in class is. It's like Microsoft releasing patches. I've had fewer issues with UiPath updates than I do with my Office client on my computer. Therefore, it's very stable.
We've had it where we had an update, and it did break some of our robots, and we had to go and do some troubleshooting, yet that's only been one time. It's pretty good overall.
It remains scalable for us. We're not a huge shop yet as far as the number of bots, so it remains to be seen. It will be interesting when we try to reorganize our Orchestrator to make it more scalable. I can't really answer that one yet, as we haven't really tried to scale a lot.
Technical support is great. It's easy to reach out to them. It's easy to get feedback. As with any organization, a lot of times, the first answer is, "Go read the FAQ." I usually respond, "Well, I've already read the FAQ. That's why I'm asking." This is normal. Once you get past that, they're really ready to jump in and help.
Positive
I started out in 2016 looking at what was the best solution for the company. We looked at several of the top options. They're still the top ones today if you look at Gartner, Forrester, and publications like that. I used some of them. I've used Power Platform and other low-code tools like Pega and Appian. There are a lot of different tools in this space, and they all bleed into each other.
I've been with two companies that focus on UiPath. It's just the constant way they try to keep up and keep innovating has made them a bit different than other options.
I was not involved in the initial deployment of the platform. I came in about a year ago. Since then, we've done things like automating month-end close processes, automating a lot of manual processes from moving from an old legacy HR system to Workday, and integrating with Workday. There have also been several other different smaller use cases like that. That said, for the implementation of the main platform, I wasn't here for that part.
The deployment of automation depends on how it's built and how you structure your UiPath Orchestrator, which has changed a lot in the last one or two years. They've got this concept of modern folders now in UiPath.
It's taken a lot of effort to transform what we did previously into what we're trying to do today. We very much had one tenant for one automation or a group of automation. Now, we're trying to do more. We ended up with a lot of tenants. Now, we're trying to consolidate into fewer tenants with these modern folders and trying to understand how that all works.
We have definitely seen an ROI. The team has talked about a million hours returned back to the business for other activities. It took a few years to get there, however, now it's every year.
The pricing changes every day, however, it's not unlike any other SaaS platform. Sometimes it's hard to understand. That said, I'm more on the technical side. Some of the big questions are unattended versus attended since there's a lot more cost to unattended. When we get into document understanding, it's the number of OCR models, and the models you use that increases cost.
I looked into the other two big ones in this space. One of them, and this was in 2016 or 2017, didn't have a concept of attended automation. They thought it should all be unattended and no one should touch it. It should just run. That was really a barrier for us since one of the big value propositions is just automating those small tasks that people do to free up more time. Attended automation eliminated them.
One of the other ones we looked at couldn't support us. It was a proof of value, proof of concept type exercise, and they couldn't give us the support we needed to execute it. It was pretty easy to disqualify them when they couldn't go through that pre-sales motion to really get us. Why would we want to sign a contract? Why would we want to move forward?
Potential new users should focus on the business driver or the business use case and find the best tool. UiPath lives in this space of RPA, low-code, AI/ML. There will probably always be three or four of these tools to choose from at any enterprise or sizable company. How do you pick the right one? It's really about what the business is trying to do.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Support is good, reliability is good, and innovation is great. There are just some things they could get better on to catch up with some of the other players in surrounding technologies. UiPath started as RPA. Other companies started as integration platforms. I know we're getting into connectors and things like that. It just keeps moving in that direction.
We use the tool for mostly attended and unattended automation.
UiPath's most valuable features are the UI library and object repository, which speed up the development.
The tool needs to have more documentation and change logs. Minor upgrades break a few things.
I have been using the product for four years.
UiPath is stable.
The solution is very scalable.
We get good support with the help of an account manager who escalates issues. We had to escalate issues only a few times.
Positive
We used Pega RPA and Microsoft Power Automate. We have high-volume workloads that are not feasible with Power Automate. We also have a lot of legacy applications that don't work well with product license applications. Pega RPA was not very user-friendly.
The tool's deployment is easy. We use Jenkins in the pipeline. We are still on-prem and most of our processes are deployed through the Orchestrator to the dev instance.
Our partner helped us with the deployment. We were also knowledgeable on the technical side.
We have saved 10 million dollars so far.
The solution's pricing is fair.
We use UiPath to save costs and man hours.
The tool has helped us improve accuracy on compliance and regulatory policies. The bots make it more consistent. We can document everything, which makes auditing easier.
Some of our processes were manual. Now, five robots do it. We have not hired anybody despite the workload being increased.
We used Task Capture for some documentation.
I rate it a ten out of ten.
We have many use cases, including 50 or more in the finance domain. This solution supports Robotic Process Automation, RPA, and I work with it for website automation. We use it with SAP and use it for Excel automation.
For example, we use it to download an EML file, and using a UiPath application, we extract PDFs using OCR activities and convert them to digital files. Once we've accepted all data from the PDF, we update all of the details digitally and send the particular data to the business via a consolidated business sheet.
The success rate is 80% to 90% using UiPath.
It's easy to build automation. It's a drag-and-drop activity. You don't need to code or write. All activities are available in the activity planner. We can build a bot and deploy it to VMs to use in production.
Even a person who has no coding knowledge can deploy a UiPath automation.
This solution enables us to implement end-to-end automation. It's a big part of the process. In UiPath, some setup of validation is there. It can get technical. Not each and every process needs to have automation. We use the validation to discover if it is zero, semi, or full automation. We'd look at the applications involved in the business process, like SAP. We'd mark it as what percentage is actually needing automation. The solution helps by selecting logical tasks. Some areas are only able to be done by humans. In that case, it's only semi-automated.
The user community is good. If you search for an answer, it's a way to find solutions.
UiPath Academy courses are great. I used them to complete my certification. The courses and videos make it easy to understand. There are Studio, Orchestrator, and Robot courses. There are courses from basic to advanced. Everyone can jump in and learn very easily.
The solution helps us speed up our digital transformation. We used to need seven to eight people for some processes like processing invoices and we were able to reduce it by two to three people.
Human input is prone to error, however, UiPath helps reduce human error. While UiPath does sometimes make errors, it would be due to errors in the creation or logic. That said, if created properly, it removes the need for human intervention and removes errors in general.
It's freed up employee time. If I need to check something every day or do validation, it would typically take two hours of my time. Now, I can use a bot to do that work. I no longer have to worry. It flags only what I need to action and I don't have to look at everything.
UiPath has saved us money. We reduced two to three full-time employees by automating tasks, we save that money in salary.
Sometimes we get some disconnection issues. This happens maybe 10% of the time.
We have trouble sometimes finding answers in the UiPath user community. Using the community portal can be difficult. However, how they give training is very good.
We've had an issue with the selector.
I've been using the solution for four to five years.
The solution is stable. There is no lagging application-wise. There might be unexpected pop-ups or Windows upgrades that may affect UiPath, otherwise, it is very reliable.
The solution is scalable and has a good scaling framework. You can scale your process at any time. In-house, we were able to build our own scaling framework without issues.
We've contacted technical support twice. We were migrating from classic to modern architecture. Our team is pretty technical and capable, so we haven't needed much help. When we reached out, they were good. However, sometimes they took a while to respond.
Neutral
We also use Blue Prism. I'm also aware of Power Automate. The simplicity, ease of development, and consistency made us move to UiPath. However, now the market is changing, and our company is considering moving to Power Automate as it is cheaper. Still, at this time, UiPath is better than Power Automate.
We use the solution on VMs and Azure. We are also using continuous deployment, CI/CD.
I was involved in the deployment and we started the process for the company. We take care of the deployment, development, and maintenance. Now, everything is stabilized.
It's easy to deploy. We can easily publish through UiPath Studio or get a packet and deploy it where we want. We have one release manager that handles the process deployment.
Without maintenance, a UiPath bot cannot run well. You need to handle updates, et cetera, to make sure bots don't fail.
The pricing and licensing costs differ depending on what you use. Comparatively, Power Automate is cheaper. However, UiPath is cheaper than Blue Prism or Automation Anywhere.
We're an official UiPath partner.
I have no experience with their AI functionality.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. If the pricing was less, it would be ideal. Other than that, it's a great product.
Our primary use case for UiPath is robotic process automation and automation fabric with document understanding AI.
Usually, after six to twelve months, our customers start implementing end-to-end processing with UiPath but they often start off with small tasks.
There is a clear value in being part of the UiPath community. We get money from UiPath for discounted licenses. Our customers hire us to implement their professional visions, and we're paid by the hour.
UiPath improves our customers' organizations. The effects of this growth usually start small. For example, we may notice that specific records are transferred in less time or with less manpower. Then, as the growth continues, those people become more involved in all aspects of the company.
The solution has a large impact on minimizing the on-premises footprint for our customers.
The Academic courses are vast. It provides our clients with the opportunity to start on their own and become somewhat independent. We use the courses as a huge resource to train our customers.
Usually, after six to 12 months, we start introducing our clients to more complex processes where the document understanding or AI fabric capabilities of UiPath are useful.
UiPath speeds up the digital transformation for our clients.
It helps reduce human error. This is mostly seen after UiPath has been implemented because people are not usually willing to admit their mistakes.
UiPath definitely frees up on average three to five percent of employee time per month. We have had small instances where the solution replaced a full SE with only one process.
The solution can reduce costs in retraining people on old or mundane processes, and it can also reduce costs by automating certain processes. This in turn can free up resources so that we don't have to invest in retraining people to do those same processes again. Automation eliminates the need to hire new people to do the job or carry out the process. After 18 to 24 months, many of our clients find that they don't need to hire more people to keep up with their growing business.
The simplicity of creating automation from a low code level is the most valuable feature of the solution.
UiPath's built-in automation is very easy to use. Our organization educates and provides lessons on how to use its automation and the feedback is that UiPath is easy once the introduction is complete. The solution is comparable to other software in this market.
There has been a huge improvement in Linux, Microsoft, and Mac support recently. However, we still struggle with the implementation in Citrix environments. The solution works with Citrix, but there is room for improvement.
UiPath releases a lot of new features multiple times throughout the year causing our customers to fall behind. It would be fine if there was only one release a year.
I have been using UiPath for six years.
We are a technical partner, so we have direct support. If we post the questions well formed to the support team, we get a quick answer from them.
Positive
We use Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, Power Automate, and our own products during the typical analysis quadrants. UiPath is the solution we use 95 percent of the time.
The main difference between UiPath and other RPA tools is the vision. While other tools focus on automating tasks, UiPath focuses on developing citizens who can automate tasks. This means that UiPath is the best tool for organizations that want to invest in their employees' skills.
The initial setup is straightforward. I give the ease of deployment a ten out of ten.
The implementation is completed in-house.
UiPath is not the cheapest solution, it's more or less the most expensive one, but we get what we pay for. I give the pricing an eight out of ten for its competitiveness.
I give the solution a ten out of ten.
We use it for handling processes that involve human effort savings. We are currently focusing on processes and problems that our users are facing in their day-to-day activities. It is used for the automation of business problems that are repetitive and error-oriented with a huge number of users working on them. We list down a set of processes where users are spending a lot of time, then we verify whether the use case is valid for automation using RPA. Once that is complete, we start programming the bot based on the requirements given by the user. We try to mimic each and every action performed by a human being by using UiPath Studio. It replicates what a human being does.
In terms of setup, the development happens in Studio that's on-premise, but the deployment of the robots is done on the cloud. They have their own cloud service called Orchestrator. UiPath hosts that, and it is available at cloud.uipath.com. It is basically the UiPath Cloud. The interface is completely handled by UiPath.
The biggest benefit is that before implementing automation, the users were spending a lot of time doing mundane and manual activities. Implementing the robotic process automation for processes that they were involved in helped them to avoid doing these manual activities and focus on more value-added processes. On the whole, it has helped the users to spend their time more wisely and also get more benefits for the same time spent. It helps us to improve user satisfaction by improving their working methodology because they are only doing things that are value-adding.
We are automating all the manual activities that can be successfully handled by the robots. So, the users are really happy, and we are getting good feedback from the users in terms of time savings. We are also achieving 100% accuracy in the output, which was not the case when the users were performing these actions. When they were performing the actions, the users had to validate the outputs, and the outputs were not as per the requirement. There used to be an error rate of at least 10% to 15%, but with automation, the error rate has been reduced to zero. So, the removal of manual activity and the reduction of the error rate to zero are two of the main benefits.
We are using it in our finance operations for our accounts payable process to process invoices. For this process, we were receiving invoices at a rate of more than 50 per day, and having humans perform those actions was not sustainable in the long run. So, we developed a robot that would automatically process invoices that we received through email. It extracts and updates the data into our ERP, and then, it sends an email to the users telling them that the invoice has been received, verified, and uploaded into our ERP. Now, we have a process that saves approximately two hours for five or more users on a daily basis. At an annual rate, we can save approximately 10,000 hours. We develop the bot in UiPath Studio and then deploy it in cloud Orchestrator via an unattended bot, which is a bot that runs on a predefined schedule. We have a particular time when invoices arrive in our inboxes. We set the robot to run at that particular time, and then the robot is able to process those invoices and proceed to the next action.
We focus only on processes that can be automated end-to-end, completely eliminating human activity. UiPath is flexible, and it allows us to build robots that prevent human intervention right from the start and all the way to the end. Then, we are able to deploy it on the cloud by using the Orchestrator solution. From start to finish, we have completely eliminated human effort, supporting our mission of end-to-end automation. For process analysis, we use a UiPath tool called Task Capture to understand the business case and draw a flow diagram for the steps involved in a process. UiPath has all the solutions required to implement end-to-end automation, and we are successfully using them for all our business problems.
This end-to-end coverage is important. Basically, we select processes where we can avoid human intervention. End-to-end automation is one of the key KPIs that we check before we even start automating a process. It is the first thing that we look for because we prefer no human intervention at all, be it for any kind of input, validating the output, or checking the logs of a process. All of these are predetermined and handled by the robot.
It is cloud-based. So, we do not have any infrastructure costs for maintaining the servers, etc. That is a big advantage. Also, Studio updates for development are pushed automatically. We receive the updates and just click on them, and Studio is updated. Overall, it saves a lot of time for the IT team because there isn't any involvement from IT resources after we deploy or install Studio on our system. From there on, there is literally no involvement of the IT department. That is how beautifully they have designed the tool for the updates as well as overall maintenance.
We went for the cloud to avoid any on-premises server costs that we might need to take care of on a recurring basis. The cloud was a big advantage for us. We are able to save approximately 15 lakh Indian Rupees, which would be $10,000 to $15,000, by not going for the on-premises setup. We were able to save that sort of investment in server costs by going for a cloud-based tool.
We were able to synthesize the value of this solution right from the inception. As soon as we deployed the bots, we were getting actual analytics for the run rate of the process and the total time of bot execution. Indirectly, the time during which the bot executes is literally the time that is saved from human effort. We get proper metrics of the time being saved by using Orchestrator. The other important thing is logs. In case a process fails, from the logs, we are able to derive insights about when exactly a process is failing. We are then able to develop a solution to handle these failures and re-implement them. So, overall the cloud solution gives us insights. It adds value to even developers' time by giving us an overall metric of the time saved as well as utilizing the logs for insights about the process runtime, et cetera. Overall, the cloud functionality is a great value addition.
It affects our ability to scale up automation. When we develop and deploy a process, other users in different departments take a look at the processes, and they are getting confident about the fact that this can solve their problems. We have been receiving requirements, and in that way, we are able to scale up the automation. On top of that, we develop the robots in a way that is modular in nature so that when we implement a process, we have reusable components that can be plugged and played into the new process. This improves the speed at which we can automate processes.
It has indirectly brought innovation from the users' perspective and developers' perspective. The users are saving time, and they are getting innovative in their day-to-day activities. In terms of development, we are on a constant learning path. When the vendor releases new software updates, we are able to effectively utilize those and implement them into our processes on an immediate basis, which improves the speed of delivering a process and the quality of output.
We can scale automation without having to pay attention to the infrastructure for doing so. We don't have to be worried about the cost involved with the on-premises setup. It is a cloud-based solution. So, when a requirement comes up and a bot is developed, only then we need to apply for the license and procure a bot. It has been beneficial because we don't need to pay any upfront cost until the bot is developed and ready to be deployed, and because the bots are delivered completely through the software service, that also indirectly proved very beneficial for global deployments and scaling of processes.
Its AI functionality is helpful to learn from the existing use cases and then implement the learnings on the new and upcoming test cases. As a developer, we need not spend any time developing templates for the extraction, etc. The AI module in itself has the capability to understand new forms of data. It can then accordingly extract and plug in the data to our templates without much effort. So, AI functionality has saved a lot of our time in developing a solution as compared to doing it the manual way.
We had one process where we had to use AI functionality, and we were able to eliminate any manual efforts. Previously, we had somebody who was verifying the output of the bot and after that only processing went to the next step, but with AI, we got the confidence that the bot has the ability to complete the action without manual intervention. That is one great example where AI helped to eliminate manual effort and improve the quality of the output.
It has significantly reduced human errors. Bots have quite a high performance rate with minimal or zero errors. The errors only occur because we haven't updated the business case in the bot. Once the business cases are updated in the robot, we do not see any errors. The bots follow all the steps as programmed and do not deviate from the set of rules defined while developing them. This reduction in human error has had a positive impact on users. The users had been feeling more comfortable using the robot output rather than relying on their own output, which sometimes had errors. So, overall the confidence level has improved and the lead time in delivering the output has also improved. The time they were earlier spending on the validation of their output has reduced.
It has freed a lot of time. We only automate processes where we find huge time savings. We count it as full-time (FT) employee benefits. We only pick processes that have three or four cumulated FT benefits. With automation, we are saving at least three or four hours on a daily basis. This time is being utilized by business users in completing any other backlog work, focusing on other important things, improving their own work skills, etc.
Excel automation is extremely reliable. Excel integration is one of the top features that I have been using. We also have a feature called Document Understanding for processing the PDF format of an invoice by a bot. It has the capability to scan an invoice and then pick out the required fields, such as the name of the vendor, the details of the products being sent, or the cost of the product. There is an AI functionality that allows a user to program the required fields to be extracted, and the bot automatically follows those rules and extracts the data. Therefore, the AI functionality of Document Understanding is another important attribute that I personally like about UiPath.
I also like the Computer Vision functionality, where UiPath provides image processing abilities for robotic process automation. This provides a big advantage because images can be automatically processed without involving any additional tools. With an API, we can automatically link the Computer Vision engine and start extracting and processing images at a quick rate.
UiPath is a low-code platform, or mostly no-code platform, where coding is minimal. We can drag and drop all the required steps and then develop a bot in very less time. I am good at programming, but even a user who doesn't know programming can easily pick up the tool. The ease at which anybody can learn it is quite high. Overall, it is a 10 out of 10 in terms of usability. It is really easy to use with the tutorials that they have in place. Everything about it is quite simple.
We use Orchestrator to keep a track of all the robots that are deployed, monitor the logs, and deploy the robots on the runner machines. We use Orchestrator to upload the bots from Studio to the cloud and then deploy them to runner machines across our virtual machines. Once a bot executes, we get the logs, and if needed, we can monitor them to check that the processes are coming in smoothly. In case of any failures, Orchestrator also has the functionality to re-execute the process. So, we are utilizing the cloud to a greater extent for managing our robots.
The UiPath community is wonderful. It is one of the best communities where we can get a solution for any question that we post in a matter of minutes or hours. Whenever we post a question about any doubt or a bug, someone from the UiPath support team or community replies. Their knowledge is useful for other users who might face the same problem in the future. They have an MVP promotion where if I answer more than 100 questions, they provide us freebies or maybe certification vouchers. That's a good thing that they're doing to grow the community. I'm really enjoying the community members' involvement as well as their support shown during any problems that we face. I have also used Power Automate, and the community support of Power Automate is not that great, but the community of UiPath is very responsive.
It is expensive. Its licensing structure should be improved. They can introduce a license structure where they charge you on a per-minute basis rather than a full upfront payment.
In UiPath Academy, the certification that they provide at the end of every course can serve as a good motivating factor for somebody who's learning it. That is a good thing, but one of the negatives is that previously, the certification program was free of cost, which helped a lot of developers to become certified developers, but recently, they introduced a paid certification course. I wasn't expecting that move from them. I would like them to go back to their initial certification method which was free of cost.
Sometimes, we do find that the bots misbehave or there are bugs that prevent the bot from executing even when the business cases are completely listed out. It could be that the cloud Orchestrator doesn't send the trigger to the runner systems to start the process because of small internet fluctuation. Sometimes, we find that the processes are killing the execution themselves and going into a halt state without any errors in the program. So, we do see some reliability issues, but these happen once in 20 or 30 instances. They are not on a regular basis. However, when that happens, it does create panic, and we have to immediately rectify it. If they can focus on that, it would be good.
I have been using UiPath for three years.
It is great. We are able to scale at a rate faster than what we had thought of because of the way we are able to develop our processes. UiPath literally automates most of the processes that business users are doing. So far, we haven't had any use cases that cannot be handled with UiPath, which helps in scaling implementation at a faster pace.
We have about a four-member team with analysts as well as developers who work with it, but the developers basically handle all the IT-related tasks.
We are a manufacturing company, and we have deployed our solutions in almost every department. We have finance, planning, control, human resources, sales, and supply chain. We have 15 to 20 in each of the departments, and they are saving close to three hours individually. Overall, our estimated time savings are upwards of 100,000 hours annually.
Our current usage of it is 30% to 40%. We still have a lot more potential to tap. We are still on the journey to reach 100% of user involvement where everybody is aware of the process. We are yet to hold the discovery workshops with all the users so that they're aware of the process. Right now, it is limited to a few people within the departments, but its usage will increase with time as we continue to automate processes at this rate.
We use UiPath Academy for the certification or onboarding of new members. When we onboard new members, we tell them to go through the UiPath Academy to get an understanding of the tool. It is free of cost, and it covers all the required modules for becoming an RPA developer. We use it extensively during the initial days as a developer, and over time and with experience, we learn directly from the tool.
They have a very responsive community. Sometimes, within minutes, we get a response to our query. We are quickly able to understand the solution that they provided and implement it. If it is a complicated problem, sometimes, the UiPath moderator from the UiPath company responds to the query and resolves it. If it is not resolved, we can directly contact their customer support. We are enterprise users, and we get quick responses to the queries that we raise. I would rate their support a 9 out of 10.
Positive
In between, we used Power Automate just to see the functionality, but we did not find it as intuitive as UiPath. We gave up on Power Automate, and we are now full-time users of UiPath.
I was around when it was set up. I had personally taken care of the installation. I found it easy and not at all time-consuming. I was done with the process in a couple of hours. In about four or five hours, I was done with the installation and setup of Studio and Orchestrator, listing the licensed accounts, and deployment of the random bots. Everything was completed in a matter of no time. I am not directly related to the IT department. I am just a developer, but I was able to handle it with no external support.
We did it in-house. We only contacted UiPath. They delivered the license keys, and we just keyed in the license keys, and it started working. That's it. Nothing else.
It is lightweight in terms of maintenance. There's no maintenance at all. It automatically handles all the upgrades via the cloud. There are no issues. It requires zero effort from IT.
Overall, you don't have a lot of savings because of expensive licenses. The licenses are quite expensive, and they are not cheap. It saves money but not significantly. However, we are not focusing so much on the monetary benefits. We are focusing more on the quality of output and time savings.
It does reduce the cost of digital transformation, but that happens after a year or two from deployment. Immediate benefits are not evident, but within a period of one to three years, we are able to make a huge amount of savings in terms of time.
This digital transformation doesn't require expensive or complex application upgrades or IT application support. We didn't have any issues, and we never needed IT to support the UiPath tool. We have been directly using it as it is without making any changes. The impact of this digital transformation on our infrastructure was zero. There were no costs involved. It was used as it is without any changes in the infrastructure.
During the initial two years, we hadn't reached a breakeven point. When the development was going on, we had both costs. On one side, the manual effort was going on, and on the other, there was the licensing cost. So, we didn't have cost savings. After the bot was implemented or after about one and a half years, we were able to receive proper monetary benefits or what we call a breakeven point. So, when we started eliminating human activity, that got converted to cost savings. The accuracy of the process also indirectly improved our customer satisfaction. All in all, we were at a breakeven point, after a two-year period. That would be the general thumb rule for most organizations. So, at an immediate level, we did not receive monetary benefits, but after a period of about two years, we received monetary benefits or savings.
We rely on UiPath Academy for knowledge during the initial days, and it saves a lot of time. We don't have any monetary spending for setting up training because it is available for free. So, we have made some savings. It has saved us time and money, and it has been helpful in getting employees up to speed on the solution.
It is expensive. Every product or component is built separately. All the components have a separate fee. UiPath Studio has a license cost. The cloud has a license cost, and bots have a license cost. These costs are recurring on a yearly basis. So, every product or component has to be licensed for a year, and on expiry, you have to renew it.
Their licensing structure should be improved. The cost of a bot is a lot. It is more expensive as compared to some of the competitors. It is probably $8,000 for an unattended bot. When I did a search on the internet, I found that other vendors offer much better plans. I would like UiPath to introduce some flexibility in the licenses. Instead of a full license, they can maybe introduce a license structure where they charge you on a per-minute basis rather than a full $8,000 upfront payment. If I'm just spending eight hours on the bot, the bot should only be charged for that time. There could be a per-hour rate. A plan like that would be beneficial.
Initially, it will be expensive, and it also won't be as per the initial thoughts that it is going to be a quick solution that saves a lot of time. With time, you can achieve cost savings but not immediately.
We had our eyes on UiPath from the beginning. We did not focus on others.
My advice would be to not use RPA as the only solution. You also have to use other complementing features, such as optical character recognition, so that the overall solution is usable. Just RPA can't solve all the problems.
There should be proper change management to bring awareness about the impact of RPA. A lot of time, people misunderstand and take it in the wrong sense that they might lose their jobs. The fact is that RPA can't automate everything, and skilled people will still be required for doing activities. We can only automate a certain set of manual activities.
I would also advise taking one step at a time. Automate a few solutions, check the user feedback, and then start scaling up rather than immediately scaling up without getting the user feedback.
I would rate UiPath an 8 out of 10. Overall, I have no complaints. Studio, Orchestrator, and all the other tools are top-notch. They are being updated with new features on a daily basis. The product is extremely good, and I have no complaints regarding that, but the license is something they can focus on. They can introduce some innovative plans for procuring the license.
