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reviewer2298921 - PeerSpot reviewer
RPA Developer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Is beneficial in the financial services industry, especially for security clearing divisions
Pros and Cons
  • "A lot of our back-office business is driven around emails right now, and there's no automation whatsoever around any of that at the moment. That's where we're really looking to go."
  • "The biggest struggle that we've had is understanding how to get in and properly set up all the architecture and orchestrate everything correctly from the get-go rather than trial and error and then fixing it as we go."

What is our primary use case?

The use cases have been really broad for us. We have been trying to go in a bunch of different directions. The use cases started out small with attended automation, trying to automate a bunch of reports for our operations departments. That's where we started just to prove the concept, and now we're branching out into some of the document understanding.

How has it helped my organization?

We're in the financial services industry. I work specifically for our security clearing division. I do stock trading, bonds, and all that kind of stuff. Our main objective was productivity, trying to prevent from having to hire so many people to run our ops department.

We have also done task mining. It has been really great for us. It's helped not only document what we're going to do for automation but also document processes in general. There are a lot of departments that just don't have any documentation. 

We've really been leveraging it in that way to try and get better documentation around all processes. 

What is most valuable?

The features we've used are somewhat limited at the moment. We've been doing a lot of basic reports. We automate daily reporting tasks. 

A lot of our back-office business is driven around emails right now, and there's no automation whatsoever around any of that at the moment. That's where we're really looking to go.

What needs improvement?

The biggest struggle that we've had is understanding how to get in and properly set up all the architecture and orchestrate everything correctly from the get-go rather than trial and error and then fixing it as we go.

Buyer's Guide
UiPath
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
830,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for a year. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't had any issues with stability. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have a very small team at the moment, so we're still trying to scale up.

Scalability is open to interpretation because it depends on how your environment is set up. 

Personally, we have to deploy a lot of our stuff on our own servers, behind our own firewall. It's left up to us to maintain the scalability, whereas other firms may be able to use more of the cloud robots and not have to worry about it as much. 

Scalability has been a little bit of an issue, but it's our own issue, not really UiPath's issue.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service and support are very responsive and helpful. We have run into a few issues where they haven't been able to give us a definitive solution.

For example, one of the biggest issues we've had is that we have a lot of integration issues with our Outlook. I don't know if it's how we set it up or issues with UiPath activities, but we've been struggling there and going back and forth with support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We use Microsoft Power Automate a little bit. Power Automate has a little bit of orchestration. UiPath is definitely a lot more sophisticated. That's definitely a big advantage at the moment.

Our use case for Power Automate has been very limited at the moment. Mainly, we've been targeting areas where we struggled with UiPath and using Power Automate, mostly in the Microsoft integrations where that works seamlessly out of the box. In contrast, we've run into some hurdles around certain Outlook and Teams-type activities with UiPath.

How was the initial setup?

We're using Cloud Orchestrators so the setup was pretty straightforward. We have its cloud Orchestration by all of our robots running on-prem servers.

What about the implementation team?

There were two people involved in the deployment process. 

Initially, nobody bought in on the idea of automation so we started building small tasks that we could show to people. It was mostly attended automation on desktops to let the users see how the program works and get comfortable with it. 

We started building a bunch of little automations that aren't huge time savers but demonstrate how UiPath can work for people. That was the implementation approach we took.  

Now we've got some buy-in. People understand who we're starting to reevaluate, try and scale the program, and do it the right way this time.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return on investment. We're mostly calculating the time saved at the moment. Now we're starting to get a little more into the cost-benefit analysis of things because we have a a program running. 

For this first year, our biggest metric has been showing upper management the time saved so that we can calculate the number of employees that we need.

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

The pricing is justified at the moment. It's definitely significantly more expensive than other competitors out there, but at the moment, its technology is good enough to where UiPath can justify it. It'll be interesting to see in the years to come, once Microsoft starts competing more, what the pricing ends up looking like.  

What other advice do I have?

UiPath is definitely the leader right now. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

If you have the resources, try UiPath. Get some consulting to set everything up properly from the get-go, so you don't have to go back and redo it the way that we've done. 

No matter what approach you take, you're going to see some benefit from using it.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PravinKumar1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer manager at First Horizon Bank
Real User
Comes with document processing and AI Center features that helps to automate business processes
Pros and Cons
  • "The tool's most valuable features are document processing and AI Center."
  • "I want a dashboard on pending and ongoing automation in Orchestrator. Currently, we have to check folder by folder to see them."

What is our primary use case?

We use UiPath to automate business processes. 

What is most valuable?

The tool's most valuable features are document processing and AI Center. 

What needs improvement?

I want a dashboard on pending and ongoing automation in Orchestrator. Currently, we have to check folder by folder to see them. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

UiPath is a stable product. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

The tool's tech support team is helpful. They will jump on a call immediately in case anything goes wrong. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

UiPath's pricing is expensive but reasonable for the quality of service that it provides. 

What other advice do I have?

We have saved more than 1000 hours with automation. We have around 100 automation. We save a lot of hours. 

I rate the product a nine out of ten. I recommend it to my friends and clients. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
UiPath
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
830,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2275326 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
MSP
Top 20
A reasonably priced solution that can be used to automate all activities and internal applications for businesses
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of UiPath are data entry, data reading, and some simple logical calculations."
  • "UiPath can improve its AI and optical character recognition or OCR."

What is our primary use case?

We have been using UiPath to automate regular activities for a business. I'm currently working for a vendor that has a contract with a business. We are using the UiPath solution to automate all the activities that they have been doing on a regular basis. These activities have simple functions, mostly with Excel data entry and some internal applications that the client needs.

So we use UiPath to take some input, and then we process the activities for the business. Then, we share our output with them as a report on a daily basis or a monthly basis.

How has it helped my organization?

There are multiple angles to look at this. UiPath has helped the senior level with cost savings it has done to them by just putting the licensing in a robot and using it for all the manual activities. From the mid-level management perspective, efficiency has improved, error has reduced, and transaction turnaround time has reduced. A robot can be available 24 hours a day, and it can be used at any moment. Human users can be available, but robots have proven to be more efficient.

Turnaround time has improved for this transaction, and errors have been reduced. A bank is a service provider, and its customers use its services. From the end user's or the customer's perspective, the turnaround time for each request has reduced, the errors have reduced, and everything has been going on faster. So, these are the multiple perspectives to look at, and everyone seems to be equally happy with the UiPath solution for automation.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of UiPath are data entry, data reading, and some simple logical calculations. Also, the solution's ability to use Excel and to read or add data to Excel has been very useful to us as a vendor. We have been proposing solutions to the clients through these good features that we utilize to the best.

What needs improvement?

UiPath can improve its AI and optical character recognition or OCR. Currently, reading digital images or PDF documents by UiPath is a huge challenge. I request UiPath to improve the OCR recognition.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using UiPath for around eight months. Earlier, I was using UiPath for personal uses, but I recently started using it professionally.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

UiPath is a pretty stable solution. We have never had any stability issues with UiPath. It's in excellent condition as of now.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

UiPath can be scalable. Currently, AI is being implemented in UiPath, and that's a huge boost to UiPath's features and what UiPath can do. It can be scaled to a bigger picture in multiple ways.

How are customer service and support?

I have never personally contacted UiPath's technical support, but my team members have been contacting them for support. From what I understand, their technical support is pretty good.

What about the implementation team?

I have overseen the deployment but wasn't involved in the deployment. From what I know, there will be a virtual machine, and bot licenses will be allocated. The UiPath automation will be installed on that virtual machine, and the bot will be allocated to that machine and run in a completely virtual environment. That's the only detail I'm aware of, but I was not involved with any process deployment.

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

From what I know, UiPath's licensing has a reasonable cost. Compared to the huge benefits the solution provides, it's still a huge saving to the organization even after the licensing cost.

What other advice do I have?

We are using a virtual machine and running the UiPath bots on that virtual machine. A little bit of cloud is involved, but mostly, it's on-premises because it's a sensitive environment.

From my end, UiPath does require some maintenance. A dedicated team oversees all the existing processes that are running live. In some cases, there will be some maintenance required.

For example, if the bot's accuracy level has reduced because of some internal applications being updated or changed, the bot has to be recalibrated to adapt to the new environment. In some cases, the bot will stop, and it has to be monitored and fixed. A dedicated team is monitoring and maintaining the bots as of now.

I advise users to consider the environment where the solution will be used, the features of UiPath, and the challenges. They should consider how much UiPath would benefit that environment and how much benefit the end user will receive by implementing UiPath. UiPath has its own challenges and benefits. Do the proper research, and if you believe UiPath will be a good solution, go for it by all means.

I will say it's fairly easy to do the automation. It's fairly straightforward and easy to use. Everything is simplified to the basic ground level. Everything is in the UI elements, and using those automation tools in UiPath is quite simple.

I believe UiPath can do some automation for a good cause. Since most transactions running today are digitized, UiPath can automate all those transactions and activities, usually in an efficient environment and workflow. That would, in turn, have a huge impact on everything around it, like the environment or supporting NGOs and other organizations. UiPath can be used in such situations and will be very productive.

Since we are a UiPath vendor, we have been doing all those end-to-end automation for our clients. We have been implementing end-to-end automation for a long time now. For each case, we are supporting businesses to move from a manual workforce to a digital workforce. I can share a few live scenarios where we implement the automation for the client.

Currently, there are some cases where the customer has to replenish an ATM for a banking corporation. We are automating it end-to-end, starting from the request to replenish the ATM until the replenishment has been done. Then, the data has to be reflected in the internal application related to the bank.

We start with taking the request, passing it to a third-party vendor who will do the replenishment, and we'll take the reports from them. Then, we'll do the data entry in the internal application, which will, in turn, be stored in the organization's back end. It's a huge database where all the data is monitored closely. So, we have implemented this solution of automating their ATM replenishment.

Another use case is fraud calls, which some clients receive from outsiders. We are helping the bank mitigate all the risks and reduce the damages caused by those fraudsters by automating all their required actions, as proposed by the bank's policy, in dealing with all these fraudsters. I cannot disclose more since there is an NDA between me and my clients.

The UiPath's user community is very helpful. There is the forum, and there is the UiPath support. Most of the time, we reach out to the UiPath support for any concern we have related to the UiPath's functionality. The forums are also a great help. They have many topics, and a lot of knowledge can be gained from those forums, with everyone sharing their knowledge.

So, both have different uses and different scenarios to reach them. One is the support, and one is the forum, but both are very helpful in everything they provide.

As a vendor, we are supposed to develop and maintain the solutions we provide, including UiPath. The on-prem footprint is increasing as we implement more automation. However, the on-prem footprint has been reduced from a manual workforce because everything is automated and fully digitalized. So, there are two different angles to this. The on-prem footprint is increasing from the vendor side and reducing from the manual workforce side.

We have been using UiPath Academy courses for different roles. As a vendor, we are required to take these courses as and when they are available or updated. So, my team members and I take those courses on a frequent basis, at least once a year.

UiPath's AI functionality is something we are exploring now as a vendor. We have not implemented it in any client-side projects, but we are exploring that angle to see the possibilities of combining UiPath and AI. We plan to use AI along with UiPath in the foreseeable future.

UiPath does increase the speed of digital transformation because we are digitalizing the workforce and all the transactions carried out internally in the bank. It incurs a cost, but I wouldn't be able to answer whether it has increased or reduced the cost of digitalization. A mid-level to senior-level management employee will be able to answer it. As of now, I'm a consultant, but we are not aware of such commercialization details.

UiPath has greatly helped reduce human error by a huge margin, up to 80% to 100%.

One of the huge advantages of UiPath is that it frees up a lot of employee time by taking a huge workload from the employee and passing it to the bot. The main aim of implementing UiPath automation on any project is to reduce the workload on human users.

Overall, I 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. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Ahmed ElMissiry. - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Sales at inovasys
Real User
Top 5
Is easy to use, configure, and integrate
Pros and Cons
  • "I rate the scalability of UiPath, ten out of ten."
  • "UiPath can improve by enabling us to target specific use cases based on the departments within an industry, rather than just focusing on the industry itself."

What is our primary use case?

We use UiPath to automate data entries for ERP and CRM.

How has it helped my organization?

Building automation using UiPath is straightforward.

UiPath has helped automate the processes of start-ups and newly constructed systems and offers a significant discount on licenses, prices, and service mandates. Our operations were upgraded by 60 to 70 percent.

UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation, which is of great importance.

UiPath's user community is valuable.

UiPath has helped minimize our on-premises footprint. We have deployed our UiPath license in the cloud using Microsoft Azure, but we can also utilize any other cloud provider. As a result, we no longer need to wait for weeks for hardware to arrive.

We can enhance our employees' skills by utilizing UiPath Academy courses.

The AI's ability to automate processes that are more complex or involved has helped with our proposals and use case scenarios.

UiPath's AI functionality enables us to automate a greater number of processes overall. This has contributed to achieving end-to-end automation in our organization.

UiPath helps accelerate digital transformation and reduce its costs.

UiPath helps reduce human errors, which is one of its significant advantages. The operations for our HR team, sales team, marketing team, and technical use cases have become faster and error-free.

UiPath has freed up approximately 50 percent of our employees' time.

UiPath has saved approximately 35 percent of the costs for our organization.

What is most valuable?

UiPath is easy to use, configure, and integrate.

What needs improvement?

UiPath can improve by enabling us to target specific use cases based on the departments within an industry, rather than just focusing on the industry itself.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the stability of UiPath, eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the scalability of UiPath, ten out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support team is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We previously used Microsoft Power Automate but switched to UiPath because it is easier to use and does not have the same limitations.

How was the initial setup?

The complexity of the deployment was moderate.

What was our ROI?

We have witnessed approximately a 35 percent return on investment.

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

UiPath is slightly more expensive than Automation Anywhere and Microsoft Power Automate.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I evaluated Automation Anywhere, but based on the reviews and business experience of multiple friends, UiPath appears to be less complex than Automation Anywhere.

What other advice do I have?

I rate UiPath a ten out of ten.

We have a team of 20 people who are responsible for maintenance support.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

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

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Sunilkumar Venugopal - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of RPA Team at Olam International
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Bridges the gap between multiple systems, does good web-scraping, and improves accuracy
Pros and Cons
  • "It's easy to build automation with UiPath. It's very stable in terms of having controls captured and putting some environment. It's a very stable environment for automation."
  • "Its price is high compared to many other tools. When we go for any additional capability, everything comes at additional pricing. As a package, they can provide something that helps with scalability in terms of bot addition."

What is our primary use case?

We automate transactional processes such as sales order creation and PO creation for UiPath automation.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation. It's a very good tool. It helps us to automate from input processing to output, which is very important for us.

We have been doing automation for the last four or five years, and we were able to achieve efficiency. We were able to reduce our workload and improve employee morale. We were able to eliminate human error, and we were able to improve process efficiency. From the payback standpoint, it took eight to twelve months. That's also because, after the implementation, we take about a month or so to make the solution more stable.

It hasn't helped to reduce our on-premises footprint because we are still doing most of the automation from the on-premises solution. We still rely upon certain ERPs, but it bridges the gap between multiple systems. It plays a huge role in terms of bridging the gap between applications.

It has reduced the challenges that we faced with digital transformation. We were able to achieve a lot through UiPath.

It has definitely reduced human error. We are able to get more mature processes.

It has freed up employees' time.

What is most valuable?

We mostly run things on ERP, so predominantly, the SAP model is used. Some of the features, such as web-scraping, are also very good in UiPath.

It's easy to build automation with UiPath. It's very stable in terms of having controls captured and putting some environment. It's a very stable environment for automation. 

What needs improvement?

Its price is high compared to many other tools. When we go for any additional capability, everything comes at additional pricing. As a package, they can provide something that helps with scalability in terms of bot addition.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using UiPath for the last four to five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable. We plan to increase its usage in the future. We have a centralized CCOE for the management of licenses and monitoring, and we have around four developers. 

From the licensing standpoint, we are still at a very early stage. We have only 40 to 50 bots. We are increasing the number of bots every year, and we will go for additional licenses every year.

How are customer service and support?

We are a part of UiPath's community, but we also used their support for understanding some of the features. I'd rate them an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We still have Automation Anywhere. From the capability standpoint, both tools are equally competitive. However, when we go for a thin client application, UiPath is better than Automation Anywhere. Whenever we access an application outside the environment, there is a feature in UiPath called Citrix plugin to be able to capture controls. We see that feature as an advantage.

UiPath has all the features that Automation Anywhere has. There's nothing that Automation Anywhere has but it's not there in UiPath. 

We took two tools as our adoption strategy, so we have Automation Anywhere as well as UiPath. We tried these two tools against some of the functions with various levels of complexity. We did a mapping of certain functions with Automation Anywhere, and we had certain functions with UiPath. We picked up a few processes, mostly the low-hanging fruit, and we were able to quickly implement those processes for process automation. It gave us a lot of confidence.

How was the initial setup?

We started with a very old version. Five years ago, the version was different. We didn't face many challenges. Now, we are doing the migration year by year. It isn't a challenge.

What about the implementation team?

Initially, we took some support from the professional services team, but we did everything in-house. 

Generally, we have two people for each tool. In total, we have four people. They are senior developers.

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI. We are able to get an ROI through better processes. Apart from the infra cost, we have saved around 200K.

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

The price of both UiPath and Automation Anywhere is high. 

The basic package is included in the price, but in case you require any professional or golden package, you have to pay a higher price. 

What other advice do I have?

I'm currently not using UiPath Academy, but we have different roles, and people who join our team use UiPath Academy. For example, business analysts who join our team use UiPath Academy to understand all the tool capabilities.

Overall, I'd rate UiPath a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1607040 - PeerSpot reviewer
Intelligent Automation Program Leader at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
It has an excellent GUI, and it's an easy platform to develop on
Pros and Cons
  • "UiPath has an excellent GUI. It's an easy platform to develop on. They have lots of existing code that you can download and use. UiPath is strongly oriented toward intelligent automation, which is where we need to be. Their roadmap looks promising."
  • "One of my biggest frustrations with UiPath is that they're constantly changing the underlying technology and adding features, so you're not always in a stable state. You're looking at the next shiny thing, and that distracts us from our initiative. Because we work with the government, we must go through the security assessment process each time they change something. We have to pay the costs associated with reviewing their infrastructure."

What is our primary use case?

UiPath is one of three automation products that we use to build solutions for Canadian federal departments. We use it for several automations based on the client's requests and tie it with an NLP AI to query a large database of documents and auto-generate responses to thousands of clients.

We have to surrender certain documents to the public, but the documents have to be deduped. We use UiPath to collect those and perform deduplication with another system. 

I tend to use what UiPath offers, but I also have a full AI shop and Microsoft, so we've been using more of our solutions. Their document understanding features have helped a lot. We haven't used any of what I'd call their "Black Box" AI because explainability is super important. You need to understand what's going on under the hood. You can't always fully understand because it's their proprietary technology. We run into issues because we're with the Canadian government and we cannot allow services that are based in the United States.

How has it helped my organization?

It's too early to tell from the perspective of digital transformation. We tend to take on projects where we can realize value immediately. UiPath is fairly expensive, and the cost grows as you scale it. On the other hand, it's cheaper than employees and reduces backlogs. It frees up a lot of employee time if implemented properly. UiPath also reduces human error in most cases, particularly transactional data that is hand-typed by people.

When it comes to developing and deploying technology like this, there's a fair amount of planning, organizing, and putting all kinds of people in place. Building a project to scale involves a large upfront cost, so we need a little more time and automations to see that benefit.

Organizations should never underestimate the need to adjust their management strategy and implement a center of excellence. You need to educate your staff and bring in good use cases that demonstrate that value. All of this takes time, effort, and talent, which are seldom factored into the cost of automation.

If I eliminate seven full-time employees at $100,000 a year, so I've saved $700,000. However, if I'm spending $700,000 to implement and run processes, then it's net neutral. I need more time to start realizing those tangible benefits. I believe we will see some cost savings, but we have to stay focused. 

One of my biggest frustrations with UiPath is that they're constantly changing the underlying technology and adding features, so you're not always in a stable state. You're looking at the next shiny thing, and that distracts us from our initiative. Because we work with the government, we must go through the security assessment process each time they change something. We have to pay the costs associated with reviewing their infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

UiPath has an excellent GUI. It's an easy platform to develop on. They have lots of existing code that you can download and use. UiPath is strongly oriented toward intelligent automation, which is where we need to be. Their roadmap looks promising. 

They also have solid training and education resources. As a leader, I find UiPath Academy useful. I can send my new staff there to get up to speed quickly. It's a terrific way to introduce people to the platform so they can hit the ground running. Their user community is also helpful.  

For how long have I used the solution?

We have used UiPath for three years.

How are customer service and support?

I rate UiPath's support a seven and a half out of ten. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

I'd love to see UiPath's pricing align better with the product maturity life cycle. UiPath's licensing model drives the cost up rapidly, whereas their competition has been cutting prices and bundling more. It's hard to stick with the technology when they're significantly more expensive. This segment is being flooded with new products. 

UiPath will have a hard time competing if they don't drop their prices. On the other hand, all of the things that give them an advantage cost money, like UiPath Academy, their excellent technical support team, marketing, etc. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate UiPath an eight and a half out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager-Networks at Amrita
Real User
Top 10
Helped us reduce the number of people handling sensitive data, and saves us considerable time
Pros and Cons
  • "The option to record processes is the most important feature of UiPath. We can use it to record every action automatically and it is then converted to a workflow. This workflow defines the complete set of processes so that we can automate every requirement."
  • "We have used it with Windows and it has been perfect. But recently, we tried it with Linux and we faced some issues regarding this automation. The auto-recording didn't happen as much as in other operating systems. They need to add more user-friendly automation and templates for that. They don't have many templates for other operating systems."

What is our primary use case?

We were looking for robotic process automation and we have been trying the UiPath Community Edition. We mainly need to automate day-to-day activities related to wireless connections, such as our WiFi device registration process. We currently have three to four employees currently doing this process and it is really time-consuming. We want a bot to do these repetitive procedures.

We will be doing the same procedure for server-side configurations as well for repetitive Windows-based processes. We are looking to save most of the system admin headaches.

How has it helped my organization?

We have three system admins and had three to four data entry people. These people uploaded our WiFi registration information daily for the university. After this implementation, we saw a drastic change in the time this process takes. People were taking five to eight hours to do everything, but now, the task hardly takes one hour or less for a bot to do. We don't need dynamic data entry operators anymore because the robots are easily handling all the dynamic data, updating it to the server in minutes.

End-to-end automation also means a lot to us as an educational organization that is concerned about security. We prefer to have fewer people involved on the operations side. By using bots we can reduce the number of people handling sensitive data. With the implementation of the bot, it now takes only one person, the UiPath administrator, for these tasks to get done. He is the only one required. He just needs to review the activities. We have been able to considerably reduce our staff costs.

Also, RPA software does not need a break. It can operate 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. In most cases, a single RPA robot can replace two to five full-time workers. Robots can do the same amount of work in less time.

It's really a cost-effective solution. There are minimal operating costs and we can make more efficient use of IT resources. In that way, we are saving a considerable amount of our yearly budget. We can spend much more money on other productivity items, rather than giving tedious tasks to employees. Overall, UiPath has reduced our costs by about 40 percent.

Another important aspect is that it is highly secure. There is absolutely no risk of information leakage from one component to another, because each only performs a single task. Access is strictly monitored, making it highly secure.

We have been on the path of digital transformation for the last three or four years. We have purchased many new technologies to move forward. UiPath has significantly reduced the cost of this process. We don't require further hardware to automate something. It is completely a software-based solution. Even with Community Edition, we are able to use all the features of the product. The limitation is the bot count. We can only use three or four robots. Still, it is the best solution.

In addition, we were prone to many human errors and this resulted in complex issues with our clients. Regarding our WiFi infrastructure, we faced hundreds of issues daily with misconfigurations. With the UiPath implementation, these errors have been reduced considerably because everything is automated. We need much less human intervention. Errors are now negligible.

What is most valuable?

The option to record processes is the most important feature of UiPath. We can use it to record every action automatically and it is then converted to a workflow. This workflow defines the complete set of processes so that we can automate every requirement.

A related feature that is one of the highlights is the AI. We have used many other scraping solutions, but none of them was effective. UiPath, however, can easily scrape data from webpages and applications and it works flawlessly with any program including .NET, PDF, legacy, and SAP.

UiPath has three components, UiPath Studio, the robots, and UiPath Orchestrator. UiPath Orchestrator is a web-based application for deploying, monitoring, and scheduling bots. With Orchestrator we can manage everything regarding the bots. We can customize the actions, but there are also templates. For example, one of the templates enables you to upload to OneDrive from Excel sheets. We just add the parameters and the automations are done.

We have used a few of the UiPath Academy courses, basic classes, because we use the Community Edition. When we move to the more advanced version of UiPath we'll be doing more of the classes. The Academy is very user-friendly. We don't require any further lectures or other sources for learning. A user can watch these videos and start operating the next day. All the actions and features, everything, is clearly demonstrated in the videos. It has proved to be very informative for us.

What needs improvement?

We have used it with Windows and it has been perfect. But recently, we tried it with Linux and we faced some issues regarding this automation. The auto-recording didn't happen as much as in other operating systems. They need to add more user-friendly automation and templates for that. They don't have many templates for other operating systems.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is extremely stable. We can actually trust the bots more than humans because it is completely error-free.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We currently have the Community Edition but we are moving to the other version so that we can deploy more bots. As a testing phase, we have limited it to only the IT department of the university. We have about 25 users of UiPath in that department.

The Community Edition is not that scalable, but the Enterprise Edition is completely scalable.

How are customer service and support?

We haven't had to contact them for technical help.

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

This is the first automation tool we are using.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very simple. It only required a few clicks. After the implementation, to configure it, we required more advanced help and guidance.

It doesn't require attention for maintenance or updates. The updates work flawlessly.

What was our ROI?

We have no other product with this much return on investment. We are able to save money and time. No other product guarantees saving both at the same time. Sometimes you need to compromise on money to save more time. But in the case of UiPath, we definitely save on both. 

And UiPath has features that can enhance our server team. They can actually move into becoming UiPath administrators after getting used to this product. So the return on investment is huge in terms of time, cost, and exposure.

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

The Community Edition is free for everyone and you get all the features, but there is a limitation on the number of bots. The Enterprise Edition is a bit costly for the advanced features.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not look at any other tools. We were not even planning on going for UiPath, but a friend, a peer from a different organization, suggested that I check into it. We became very interested in it after testing it.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend UiPath for IT-related implementations because it can save a huge amount of time. Whether you are a small business or a large enterprise, all kinds of companies can use it for automation. It reduces costs and helps with efficiency. If you are considering any other AI-based solutions, I would still prefer the UiPath Community Edition. It has a large set of features and is free. If you like it and it suits your organization, you can then go for the paid version.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Anthony Tarantino - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Analyst at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP
Real User
Has courses to help you learn and grow within the platform
Pros and Cons
  • "I do all my developing in Studio. I develop and publish into the orchestrator cloud, and then I try and run everything unattended. So, Studio is a very valuable feature for me."
  • "I would like to see ongoing integrations with different applications. For example, we have UKG, which is an HRIS or HCM system. I'd love to see if there could be some sort of connection there because there are definitely some HR stuff from onboarding and offboarding that we do in the HCM that I'd love to have UiPath help with."

What is our primary use case?

Our biggest use case right now is around business development. We use UiPath to run reports that we get off of the internet against our internal databases to try and find anyone who is a client because we're a law firm.

Most of my development right now has been on the business development side. We're helping clients with their cases, whether it's a litigation case, a bankruptcy case, or a real estate case. I use UiPath to help identify potential clients or current clients so that we can help them in their legal space.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath has helped to alleviate some of the workload of our paralegals, assistants, and secretaries. They were going through large files of cell rows, and it was taking up many hours of their day. Using UiPath, I was able to automate a lot of it so that they don't have to spend that time. Now, it's more of a review process as opposed to a daily, mundane process of going through Excel files.

On one of the other processes that I developed, a marketing assistant had to take another daily report, and check to see if any of the companies that were filing for litigation on that report were clients or prospects. It took three hours of her day every day, and it's done five days a week. Now with UiPath, I have it unattended and running at 5:00 a.m. so that when she gets in, all she has to do is review the report that I generate for her. That's a consolidation of what comes off the website, what we have in our internal systems, and anything that matches.

What is most valuable?

I do all my developing in Studio. I develop and publish into the orchestrator cloud, and then I try and run everything unattended. So, Studio is a very valuable feature for me.

Another feature that I've been using a lot is the new integration app with Microsoft that triggers emails.

The UiPath Academy courses are great because when there are things that you don't know right off the bat, it helps you develop, learn, and grow within the platform. I've done a few courses and plan on doing more. It's definitely helpful for me being someone that didn't come from a development background. I taught myself UiPath in the beginning, and now that I know how expansive the Academy is, I'm definitely going to take more classes so that I can learn exactly how much I can do with UiPath.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see ongoing integrations with different applications. For example, we have UKG, which is an HRIS or HCM system. I'd love to see if there could be some sort of connection there because there are definitely some HR tasks from onboarding and offboarding that we do in the HCM that I'd love to have UiPath help with.

I like that UiPath is a platform for more than just one specific product. So, I'd like to see continued expansion of the platform and have different APIs connected to it. Different integrations sitting on top of it are just going to make it more beneficial because you'll be able to have everything come into one spot instead of having to buy four or five different products.

For how long have I used the solution?

My firm has had it since 2019, and I've personally used it for about a year and a half. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We're in the cloud and not on-premises, and I think the cloud runs pretty well. Up until last week, the stability was great. 

Last week, I had an issue with one of my licenses falling off of the unattended robot. I was surprised that it happened. I don't really know why it happened, and I'm working on getting it fixed.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is great. There's definitely a lot of potential for it to scale, especially in our environment.

How are customer service and support?

They support infrastructure and not development, which at first was a little bit of a bummer for me. Their tech support has been great when it does revolve around infrastructure, and I'd rate them at eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What was our ROI?

We found a couple of clients using the UiPath processes with respect to business development.

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

I think the pricing is reasonable. I don't think it's too much of a stretch, and I think it's where it should be.

What other advice do I have?

If you have a lot of paper processes or routine processes that are weighing down your employees, then UiPath and automation, in general, are the way to go. There's fear that it's going to take over the human role, which it just doesn't. From a 500 foot view it kind of makes sense, but when you're developing and working on the automations, you realize that you really can't get rid of the human aspect of it. This is because there are always going to be some sort of checks and balances as well as things that the robot can't do and decisions it can't make. So, don't have that fear and push away from automation or UiPath. They go well together, and you should definitely consider it.

Overall and considering the usability of UiPath, I'd give it a nine out of ten. I think there's a lot of documentation out there with the forums and with partners that support as well. UiPath does a really great job, and I'm happy that my firm decided to purchase its product.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.