We work with the government on HR-related data and banking reconciliation. We use the solution in the insurance industry for claims management.
We use the product in different use cases. We use it for automating repetitive tasks, email and document parsing, and posting data from different systems to centralized systems. In most cases, we use it to compare different Excel sheets for reconciliation and updating the master system.
The tool helps us to envision the automation processes and gives us an edge in offering our solutions to the customer. UiPath keeps innovating new technologies. It also localizes technologies like OCR for extracting data from documents to the regional market. The reporting tools are fantastic. It also helps us calculate ROI and manage bugs.
UiPath Document Understanding and Task Mining are valuable features. I am satisfied with the product overall.
Saudi has two calendars. UiPath does not support the Hijri date. They should add it in future releases. We also face regular issues while parsing from right to left and left to right. The Arabic language is not related to the platform. We have Arabic scripts which are sometimes difficult to understand. Also, the license is complicated.
The add-ons are not well documented. When we offer and pitch to the customer, sometimes we get confused about which one to offer based on the third-party tools. The solution must focus on microservices and web-based platform building. It would be fantastic if they could produce web applications connected automatically to UiPath.
OutSystems is a low-code platform for building web-based and mobile applications. If such features are available in UiPath, it will eliminate the need to integrate with different applications. We can directly build applications using UiPath.
I have been using the solution for the last four or five years.
The product is very stable. When we deploy it in the cloud, there is no need for maintenance. UiPath manages everything. Maintenance of the configuration has to be done by us.
The solution is scalable.
When we need a technical team member's support, they join the call and try to guide us. I rate the technical support a seven or eight out of ten.
I have worked with Automation Anywhere. It is a good solution but not on par with UiPath. Automation Anywhere has a lot of features, which is very nice. However, UiPath exceeds our expectations.
UiPath has better support, resources, and scalability. UiPath provides very good vendor support. Automation Anywhere allowed users to download preconfigured processes already deployed elsewhere so that we could just fine-tune and use them.
The product can be deployed both on-premise and on the cloud. I worked as a solution architect. So, I get involved in the conversation if there is any conflict in the deliverables. The tool is easy to deploy. The time taken for deployment depends on the complexity of the processes. It takes two to four weeks for simple processes. For complex processes, it takes six to ten weeks for deployment. After the project's completion, our engineers are on standby to resolve any issues on the project's go-live date.
We focus on high-value solutions and look at the repetitive processes we can use. The HR initiative we did is on-demand in our region due to the regulations. We can develop the process once and deploy it multiple times with zero or minimal adjustments. We focus on the high return to the organizations, the shortest ROI, and the highest value to the business so that the customer would realize the importance of such technologies. When we build trust with the customer, we have very big upsell opportunities and referrals from them.
We need one or two people to deploy the product for a small project. For large projects, we need a team of six or seven. Our team has 10 to 15 people, including developers, solution architects, and support personnel. The tool requires maintenance. Our support people are responsible for different services. Around 10% of the resources in our company are involved in maintenance.
UiPath gives pretty good discounts.
The ease of building automation using the product is fantastic. The product speeds up and reduces the cost of digital transformation. I haven't seen many major upgrades to the customer's infrastructure or applications. I design and modernize the processes. If we can’t extract the data from databases, the customer will put that data in a flat file or Excel sheet and add it to a folder. We pick them up and do the processing.
We are not supposed to touch the core system in the banking industry. So we may get it with APIs. Sometimes, APIs are not available when we do the implementation. It takes some time for the banks to build those APIs. UiPath is equipped with different integration tools, whether it is native or not.
The solution has helped to minimize our on-premise footprint. It is very important to many of our customers. To minimize the cost and provide more streamlined processes across different customers, we have created a shared pool Orchestrator to connect multiple customers to the same Orchestrator. They pretty much share the same processes, but they have different system endpoints. We can clone the processes and modify the endpoint interactions and input data. Sometimes, they use flat files. We change the configuration minimally. The rest of the processes are cloned, enhanced, and supported.
The solution enables us to implement end-to-end automation. We can automate end-to-end based on the scope, expenses, and processes. The implementation could be lengthy or short, based on the processes involved. End-to-end automation provides an edge to us as a consulting company to provide our customers with very advanced automation tools. We have different services and products that we can integrate UiPath with.
We have a content management system. When we use Document Understanding, we relieve the users from indexing documents. UiPath would do the indexing using Document Understanding and archived document repositories. We sometimes do integrations with archives, too. It depends on the context of the implementation. Sometimes, we can automate 60% of the process because some are not UiPath-targeted processes, but we can automate the other process with other systems.
We do not use AI much. We rely on Document Understanding, which is part of AI. In the next couple of years, because of AI's popularity, I believe UiPath will provide more features and enhancements related to AI. The tool has freed up employee time by 70 to 80%. UiPath has saved costs for our organization.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a case about HR contracts in the Ministry of Labour in Saudi. By the end of this year, they want to digitize their contracts and link them to their official portal, where employee contracts are issued. They currently rely on Excel sheets to do the entry. UiPath processes that we support have proven that there are zero percent errors in them compared to human data entry errors.
The as-is process was that an HR personnel must log in to the platform and do the data entry so the contract would be issued and sent to the employee. The HR personnel would interact with four or five pages and provide data like employee ID, mobile number, date of birth, position, salary, and increments. If there is an error in the data, it has a negative impact on the company. It's an official contract that is issued to the employee. If there are any discrepancies, they would have to rectify the whole process again. Besides, it would affect the company's reputation in the market.
For example, if the HR personnel enters 50,000 instead of 5,000, the employee can claim that money. To avoid this, companies can export the HR master data into Excel sheets and put it in a folder. We can program UiPath to pick all the information and paste it into the Ministry of Labour portal. We can verify the data, do a quality check, and post it to the system. This process used to take three to five days to finish, along with an error margin. With the help of UiPath, we shorten the time by 80% with zero error margin.
We have subscribed to UiPath Academy. All our engineers are certified in different UiPath certifications. I am a solution architect. I have done a lot of courses and certifications. In addition to the certification courses, UiPath Academy provides us with resources, information, built-in demos, and process standards. We deal with all the stakeholders in the customers' company.
The product must empower localization. People who want to use UiPath must ensure that the processes they are targeting to automate are fulfilling the conditions for automation. Sometimes, a customer would expect to automate everything. We need to ensure the processes we are targeting to automate are repetitive. We also need highly skilled people to manage the automation. We must automate the high-value processes of the organization to see the results and recognize the return on investment immediately.
Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.