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Ken Tyson - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. financial Systems Manager at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
An extremely stable solution that has saved us about 140,000 clicks, 250 hours, and hiring of 5 temps
Pros and Cons
  • "The GUI is valuable, and it's extremely stable. I've had six or seven Studios open at the same time working on different things and nothing has crashed on it."
  • "They say that everybody can do it, but not everybody can do it. You need to have some form of technological understanding about it, and just because we can automate something doesn't mean we should automate something. That's where I think there's a marketing thing. I understand where they're going with it, but it's not necessarily how real life is in my perspective."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for admissions policy and also for other financial items such as 1099 reporting from the IRS and things of that nature. There are some manual refreshes of systems and Excel documents that we have automated.

It is currently deployed on-prem, but we are looking at the cloud option. We are using version 2019, which is probably one of the oldest ones. It's pretty old. We're looking from a perspective of whether we upgrade it before we move to the cloud or whether we move to the cloud and upgrade.

How has it helped my organization?

We have seen quite a bit of benefit. We used to hire temp staff labor in order to do our admission policy, and now, we don't have to hire them. That would be five part-time people that would come in seasonally. For three or four months, we would have five people just cranking away the admission work. We don't need that anymore because of automation.

There have been time and financial savings. On the other side of the house, some of them are attended bots. We've saved the organization about 140,000 clicks. People don't have to click 140,000 times anymore. As a small estimate, we saved the organization about 250 hours last year. If everything goes to plan, this year, we're looking to save about 450 hours from the financial side of the house. We're only scratching the surface of it, and there is always room to grow.

We're still working through it. We recently stood up our system developer space. We have about 16 processes. We're still new at it and still in the beginning phases. We're really looking forward to pushing that envelope. Currently, we have a hybrid of attended and unattended automations. It's about an even split.

What is most valuable?

The GUI is valuable, and it's extremely stable. I've had six or seven Studios open at the same time working on different things and nothing has crashed on it. It's very stable software.

I love the community. The community is awesome. That has been very helpful. It provides value in terms of just being able to bounce ideas and understand. Sometimes, I try to do one thing, and I just want to know how to do one thing, but that's where the community can help broaden and look at it from a different perspective.

What needs improvement?

They say that everybody can do it, but not everybody can do it. You need to have some form of technological understanding about it, and just because we can automate something doesn't mean we should automate something. That's where I think there's a marketing thing. I understand where they're going with it, but it's not necessarily how real life is in my perspective.

I am not looking for any additional features. I haven't even used all the features. I'm still learning the platform as it stands and figuring out what's still available. 

Buyer's Guide
UiPath
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it since 2019.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

From a system perspective, it's stable on my end. It just works. That's the best part about it. It just works.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability gets a little bit sticky. That could be just because of where we sit in the organization, I don't manage that relationship of licenses. I only get so many licenses and I'm like, "Well, can I get more?" It's definitely a limiting factor, but I don't know if it's us limiting it from a cost perspective. 

How are customer service and support?

I haven't had to use their support. I go to the UiPath community for most of my questions. 

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

We used Microsoft Power Automate. It was okay. I totally prefer UiPath.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved in its initial setup. UiPath was not complex, but we, as an organization, made it complex. 

What about the implementation team?

We used a partner AKOA that got bought out by Roboyo not too long ago. So, we did use a partner to implement it. In terms of whether it was smooth or not, it was okay. Our school made it hard.

Our experience with them was good and helpful. It was a good way to go through it. Now that we know more, I would've changed the engagement slightly to get a little bit more consulting in the sense of the COE, governance, and other similar things around it. That's because for the most part, getting the system up and running was relatively simple, but now, with the whole other pieces of it, we're starting to feel some of that effect. It's now about how do we look at it from a different angle.

What was our ROI?

We definitely have a return on investment in terms of hours and soft cost perspective. We are saving 250 hours and don't have to hire five temps. I can't give the metrics for ROI, but from a time savings perspective, ROI is definitely huge.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did evaluate other options. We evaluated Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and UiPath. It was about a year-long evaluation period between all of them, and UiPath was clearly the winner. It was clearly out there as the leader in that space, and that's why we chose them. 

From our perspective, the GUI was really helpful and very different from the others. Automation Anywhere touted more of just invoicing, but we didn't want it for invoicing. We wanted it for multiple things. UiPath really showed the breadth of what you can expand across.

What other advice do I have?

To someone evaluating UiPath, I would definitely advise finding a partner. Find a partner with whom you can partner and who understands the use cases of what you're trying to do and achieve from an organizational perspective. Without that, you're not going to get an ROI. 

I would also advise managing expectations. It's fairly easy to use, but it still requires technical abilities. Don't think that it's something that you can just plug and play and do whatever you want. It's not going to work that way. It's more about the person and the change in mindset. If a person is open to an automation mindset, RPA is a really cool function, and UiPath solves that particular mindset. Without it, it's an uphill battle. Even from our perspective, from an education side of the house, getting our educators to be okay with automation is tricky.

We haven't yet used UiPath's AI functionality. We are definitely looking into it to see how we can start taking advantage of the AI pieces of it and advance that side of the house. Currently, we are trying to change the automation mindset. I'm a big RPA evangelist in our organization, and I am trying to promote things like automation. People are on board with the thought of it but not necessarily on board with the action of it. So, we really have to understand their process when we get into their process, and some people are apprehensive to share that information. It's the other parts of the piece that we have to deal with.

We have used UiPath Academy courses. It was useful to know the use of the product, the use of the GUI, understand how things move and change, where the checkmark boxes you need to check are, and all other uses. Now with the new versioning, it looks like a more curated function. It's a lot nicer. Previously, UiPath Academy was just a bunch of courses, and you didn't know where to start. The curation for developers or users is going to help people navigate through the UiPath Academy.

Overall, I would 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
RPA Specialist at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Great AI for business functions, reduces human errors, and makes it easy to deal with legacy applications
Pros and Cons
  • "The two reasons that we went with UiPath were, one, the learning curve, and, two, the community edition of UiPath, which had everything we needed to dig into the solution. Whereas with the other companies, there wasn't that option. With Blue Prism, for example, we had to buy a license in order to check whether the tool was going to work for us."
  • "There are a lot of cloud solutions that we already use in our organization. However, with UiPath, we have stayed on-prem out of concern for security. We don't have clarity on if cloud solution is going to work securely."

What is our primary use case?

We typically solve for any use cases that falls under different business functions within our company. That includes finance, supply chains, services, IT by itself, and a little bit of engineering.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath has improved the way our organization functions. The flexibility with which the business processes get changed is great.

A lot of times we know the method of operation, however, certainly it'll not be the same after a few months, a few years, or longer. Our dependent script or whatever is in place (that is dependent on that business process) has to be adjusted. The flexibility with this tool has enabled us to adjust those workflows quickly and deploy them so that our business can continue using those applications or the workflows that we’ve been using before, even after changes to the underlying system.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable aspect has been the workflows. They have helped to deal with legacy applications. We have a lot of legacy applications in place, which we cannot get rid of. The processes around these legacy applications are something that cannot be automated in a typical way. The RPA is helping us to automate the business processes that have to work with legacy applications.

The ease of building automation using the solution is great as it is a low-code solution.

I'm able to create workflows. By the time I'm familiar with one process, I'll be able to automate the next one. This is the case especially with tools like task capture; I'm just working through the process. In the end, it will be a skeleton workflow and it can be used for deployment once we are done with the cleaning. It has reduced the development life cycle by about 30%. It’s done this by making use of the features that are enabled by task capture and certain other features within the Studio.

Overall, we’ve seen the solution has saved costs. That is our value realization.

Our first target metric is to bring up the number of processes that we can save. We have a formula to convert inter-dollar values in terms of the user experience we are benefitting from. That’s the user experience that is enabled by automation. Those are direct savings which can be calculated by multiplying the number of dollars that we have spent for one resource per hour. Indirect monetary benefits can also be calculated by looking into the user experience factors and adding them when we do the value realization. In the last four years, we would've saved $3 million.

The human error rate has been reduced. Initially, when we targeted some of the business use cases, they were straightforward. They were linear in nature and there the accuracy had the upper hand 99.9% of the time. The reason is that the process by itself is quite linear. It doesn't have multiple branches or exceptional routes that it has to take to complete a particular transaction. We have good accuracy, however, we have had challenges with the accuracy when the business processes get complex. If there is any human intervention or if the quality of the data is not proper, or if the user errors are low, that is where the accuracy rate used to be low. It's better now.

Due to the fact that all these are role-based bots, if there is something that is getting changed, the bot will fail. Down the line, I can see that, for linear processes, accuracy will be great. However, when it comes to some of the complex processes, that is where we have challenges that we are facing with accuracy and we are continuously fine-tuning the process in such a way so that the accuracy can get better. It's great we can continuously tweak.

The solution does free up employee time and allows for the employees to focus on higher-value work. We have a lot of examples within our organizations where they have to deal with some kind of manually intensive task, such as just reading something from the document and putting that into the financial system.

We normally take up the customization portion that comes directly from customers. Those kinds of customizations have to be updated back into the financial system in order to make sure that they are appropriate. These updates take a while as they have to do with talking to the customer, understanding what changes are needed for a given order, or based on specific correspondence from the customers. With automation, employees can focus on talking to the customer to understand what changes they have to incorporate. And they can offload all the data entry tasks to a robot. This way, they can focus on how they can engage more with users to understand the pain points faced by the customer rather than spending time taking all those inputs and then doing the data entry job. They can be more client-facing.

I’m not sure exactly how much time is saved with automation. I could say that we have around 150 purchase processes that we have automated. We don't trace back how it has replaced a team or member of a team. We always go with the number of hours saved. We go the route of checking and saying “okay, so we have done this, but it needs a constant involvement from them in order to make sure that someone is owning the process.” We still own only the work.

We have started to use the solution's AI functionality in our automation. We started it recently and we have finished the proof of concept on document understanding, which involves AI, of course.

In terms of AI automation, we will be leveraging this tool for all business functions. There is no limit with any of the business folk that we talk to. Whatever the process is, as long as we feel that it is feasible to automate, and there is a value in automating it,  or as long as we feel that we are automating the right processes, we will just take that up into our pipeline.

AI does help us handle complex and involved processes. We include a lot of use cases where the sole core RPA capability would not suffice as a purely role-based automation. We often encounter a lot of use cases where they say, "Hey, this is something where there is no logic in doing it." If there’s analysis or natural language processing, et cetera, we are making use of AI. However, the process isn’t in use yet. We’re just starting.

We have used UiPath’s Academy courses and we are also encouraging our implementation partners to refer to those materials so that they can be approved.

It’s kept us up to speed with the solution. We refer to the Academy daily. Of course, we get help from UiPath whenever we face any hiccups; we normally ask them questions and they're able to sort it out for us. That said, the materials are great for trying to sort out issues or problems on our own.

What needs improvement?

It's been four years of practice and we've matured with the traditional RPA candidates. We have a strong foundation with what we have showcased to our business folks, and we are good with the healthy background that we are building. However, when it comes to the roadmap of what's next, that is where we are not clear. While we get the concepts, bringing them to reality is looking to be quite a challenge. We are unsure as to if UiPath can actually bring our vision to life.

UiPath is very clear in defining items such as this is what the high automation needs, this is what the process planning needs. We are getting clarity into those concepts and we are able to explain that and take that back into leadership to get other approvals. They are able to understand what UiPath is talking about within these different concepts. Really, it's just figuring out whether we have the right arrangement at this point and if UiPath can get us there.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I'm impressed with the version that we have today. 2019.10 is a version that is quite stable, compared to how we did with 2018. A lot of pieces that are enabled as part of the new version, 2019, are stabilized. We have zero downtime with the tool.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Today, ith X number of bots, if we want to reuse the same solution, and if there is an appetite for consuming those kinds of robotic solutions, of course, buying more bots is going to solve the problem.

If you think in terms of scaling this platform by itself or the other business functions, that is where the discovery piece will come into play. We have to constantly talk to businesses to understand where the opportunities are to scale in the correct manner.

Scalability is possible in terms of reusing existing automations. It's related to the number of bots that we are going to purchase. When it comes to the number of business processes that we are automating, during the discovery process, twe have to engage with our customers and constantly follow up with them. When we understand more about how they're doing business, we're able to locate the kinds of tools that are going to help them.

Currently, we have eight bots in production and 150 processes are automated. I’m not sure how many users are actually on UiPath currently.

We always follow up with our business to build our pipeline. That goes hand in hand with the implementation. We off-load all automation ideas and requirements to the pipeline, to our implementation partners, so that they will be able to implement our vision.

How are customer service and support?

Traditional support for the RPA is great. In terms of the help that we are getting, if we end up with some issues, running operational issues, it could be better if they can propose some fixes. It's not that automation is going to solve every other problem that the underlying system is having. However, we expect some kind of expertise from the tech support when we face issues that are related to the system. We need to understand if there's an ERP error, if it has to do with the underlying system, or if automation has to solve the issue. Often, technical support will say "Okay, so this is your error, go and solve it." Yet, due to the fact that support has seen more issues like this, they should have more insights and they need to be able to share those inputs in a way that is going to help us.

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

While I didn't use a different solution previously, the finance team has used Blue Prism before. They implemented Blue Prism and they engaged Blue Prism to automate the processes that they have added for automation. Now, we have aligned on a single platform. It is UiPath now, however, they initially had around 50 processes that they automated using Blue Prism.

We proposed UiPath as the one solution based on Gartner ratings.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was quite straightforward as we understand how RPA works and we understand how UiPath is going to help, how UiPath is a tool to help us to automate things. It's quite straightforward in terms of that. Whenever we are doing some kind of initiative, like document understanding or data capture, it is quite straightforward.

However, with process planning, we didn't understand the documentation right away. That is where we used to get help from UiPath.

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

The pricing was great at the start, and so, down the line, we have been enhancing all these features. We are seeing that, as we are looking for opportunities to grow, the number of robots that we need to purchase and the software cost is going to go up.

UiPath has increased the cost. We feel that it's good, however, based on all the new features, which we are pursuing. That said, we expect that whatever robots that we have purchased or whatever the standard platform that we have from UiPath should continue with the pricing that they had earlier.

There will be an offset, however, when it comes to the existing platform like Orchestrator or robots, and we are expecting that the margin should be less.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Back in 2017, we evaluated three to four products. Blue Prism was already used by the finance team, however, we evaluated WorkFusion, UiPath, and Automation Anywhere.

Of those other three, we evaluated WorkFusion and UiPath extensively.

The two reasons that we went with UiPath were, one, the learning curve, and, two, the community edition of UiPath, which had everything we needed to dig into the solution. Whereas with the other companies, there wasn't that option. With Blue Prism, for example, we had to buy a license in order to check whether the tool was going to work for us. In 2017, we were not sure whether this was going to work or not. At that stage, UiPath was the only company that gave us the entire set of tools to try and it worked really well.

What other advice do I have?

We are customers and end-users.

While we're using the on-premises deployment, we are open to moving to the cloud. There are a lot of cloud solutions that we already use in our organization. However, with UiPath, we have stayed on-prem out of concern for security. We don't have clarity on if a cloud solution is going to work securely.

The other concern is around how we are augmenting the capabilities of core RPA. We know that process mining is going to help us, however, whether process mining is already added into the RPA, do we have any solid use cases that we can start with.

I'd rate the solution at an eight 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
Buyer's Guide
UiPath
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Works at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Integrates with many solutions and saves costs
Pros and Cons
  • "We have various automations in various applications like desktop, mainframe-based, and SAP-based applications. I work with almost all of the applications. I see good progress no matter what we do. The most valuable feature is that UiPath works with all these solutions."
  • "When we raise a ticket, they'll ask a number of questions to analyze the problem. It would be better if they connected quickly and it was a call so they can understand the issue and then schedule a follow-up call."

What is our primary use case?

My company has multiple processes across various lines of businesses like finance, contact center, HR, tax, etc. Our use cases are based on the business corporation. They have to agree with the use case and what they want to automate. They have to provide the business details about the exact process. The developer or the lead will design the solution accordingly.

For example, in the revenue accounting area, we have around 5,000 to 15,000 requests in a day. It's all based on the number of sales that they made. We have implemented a multi-board approach, where the process can simultaneously run in almost 15 to 30 missions, whenever there is a requirement. We can increase the number of licenses based on the requirements.

We use Automation Cloud and Task Capture. They're trying to implement Task Capture with a couple of lines of businesses right now. We did not implement it completely, but it's in process.

How has it helped my organization?

If a person is spending eight hours in a day on a job, we can automate that process. He can validate it in an hour and the rest of the time he can spend doing other things. Our overall experience is good with automation. There are a couple of businesses that are really happy with our support on their daily tasks. 

If revenue accounting wants to do their responsibilities, they need 100 employees. Automation made their life easy and they can now validate quickly with 5 or 10 agents and get it done.

UiPath has saved costs.

What is most valuable?

We use the Apps feature. It helped to reduce the workload of our IT department by enabling end-users to create apps.

The Automation Cloud offering will help to decrease the solution's total cost of ownership, by taking care of things like infrastructure and maintenance. We are on-prem now. We are going to migrate this year.

We have various automations in various applications like desktop, mainframe-based, and SAP-based applications. I work with almost all of the applications. I see good progress no matter what we do. The most valuable feature is that UiPath works with all these solutions.

Building automations is easy based on whatever automation you develop, just drag and drop. It's easy to maintain.

We use the Academy. If you don't know anything about UiPath, you can go to the UiPath Academy and start using it. It will give you an overall idea of what is what. 

The greatest value from the Academy is that I don't have to go to a person for learning. I can learn on my own time, night or day. The portal is also good. 

What needs improvement?

They're planning to look into machine learning. They have a vision; they have a plan.

When we raise a ticket, they'll ask a number of questions to analyze the problem. It would be better if they connected quickly and it was a call so they can understand the issue and then schedule a follow-up call. 

We can't explain each and every thing. When it's on a call, we can explain it in a few minutes. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good, but when we migrate to a newer version a few issues can emerge. We just have to do our best and make sure everything is up and running. Overall, the stability is okay.

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

We previously used Blue Prism. It is process automation. The user interface is different. How we interact with the development environment and how we manage the solutions is different. Overall, Blue Prism and UiPath are both good. 

How was the initial setup?

I wouldn't say the setup is difficult. We need to work with various teams to get everything going.

The time it takes to deploy depends on the complexity. If it is complex, based on the developer and urgency, we'll split it into two parts, test it, and quickly deploy it. We have deployed on an emergency basis in one to two days. It's a complex process, but there are five or six developers who work without any sleep around the clock.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate UiPath a nine out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
QMS Program Director at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Easy to use with great training and has excellent unattended automation capabilities
Pros and Cons
  • "When COVID hit, and we needed to manage 200,000 samples a day and figure out where they were in the world. It would take humans about half a day to get an answer. Within a week, we put together automation that pulled data within 30 seconds from every single information system across our network."
  • "The pricing of particularly on the bot licenses is placed to maximize revenue forUiPath and is not in the best interests of the customer. For example, if I have 150 robots, our utilization of that is about 27% as my demands come in spikes. Most of the robots sit there doing nothing, and I paid for them."

What is our primary use case?

Our use cases are all across our enterprise, from HR to finance, to customer service, to laboratory operations, to logistics, to compliance, to medical, et cetera.

What is most valuable?

The unattended automation is the most valuable aspect of the solution. 

When COVID hit, and we needed to manage 200,000 samples a day and figure out where they were in the world. It would take humans about half a day to get an answer. Within a week, we put together automation that pulled data within 30 seconds from every single information system across our network.

Building automation using the solution is very easy. It's super, super easy. We have a citizen developer model where I've got 60 citizen developers trained. I've got people who started out answering the phone in customer service who are generating millions of dollars of value in automation.

Overall, this solution has saved costs for our organization by as much as $10 million.

While the solution is reducing human errors, I don’t have specifics on that.

The solution has freed up employee time. It’s hard to ballpark as what we're doing mostly is consolidating time and not back-filling from there. If you had the same amount of people as before, you didn’t really save, unless you were able to have more revenue with the same number of people.

It's been incredibly instrumental in a number of brand new business paradigms that popped up over COVID. For example, pre-COVID, if you had a respiratory tract infection, you would go to the hospital to get care, however, during COVID, the hospital wouldn’t even let you in the door. Our business model went completely upside down. The average general practitioner has 2000 patients. Our order entries went up by 500 fold. There was a backlog of testing. Automation helped manage that.

We use the UiPath Academy courses. They have been extremely helpful for us due to the fact that UiPath actually allowed us to host the fundamentals foundation training on our training platform. Now, I can assign it. I can track it. And I can reward it. The advanced developers class has been great. Getting users through that is very helpful. I take all my citizen developers through advanced training. No Studio X, no halfways. They have to really know how to do it.

What needs improvement?

The pricing particularly on the bot licenses is placed to maximize revenue for UiPath and is not in the best interests of the customer. For example, if I have 150 robots, our utilization of that is about 27% as my demands come in spikes. Most of the robots sit there doing nothing, and I paid for them.

I'd say I need better error handling capabilities, however, the updated 2020 is going to give me a better interface, so that's already there. 

If I were going to wave a magic wand, I would like to see tighter integration of task capture through the PDD generation. That process is not quite as smooth as I would like right now. I haven't really deployed it as widely as I would like as I don't want issues surrounding the document. I've got the template built up, however, we have had trouble deploying it the right way. If the integration were better, the process wouldn't be such a concern.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability has been good so far. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is fantastic. We learned that during COVID. Suddenly, we have to set up accounts differently. We were doing 15 to 20 a day. When I said "Oh, by the way, schools are going to start doing testing, and I need to be able to set up a hundred accounts a day" we got to a hundred.

We have 75 users currently on the solution. We do plan to increase usage. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. The deployment took about six weeks.

We had the infrastructure in play in December 2019 and were functional by April 2020.

We had pieces set up already, however, we had people running orchestrators on boxes hidden in closets. We decided to centralize. Now, everything is in the data center and going on the virtual machine. Everything's under that control. Therefore, in total, it took about four months to have it properly set up.

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

I am extremely unhappy with the pricing model. I want a model similar to an electricity meter, whereby if I use more I am charged more. That's the ultimate model. They should also make the Studio free due to the fact that they should want developers developing. You want to maximize that capability. Why charge for that? Charge me for the Orchestrator. Charge me more for licensing if you want, however, UiPath should be maximizing my ability to create automation.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We had some experience with Automation Anywhere, Softomotive, and Blue Prism.  When we got serious about it, we did a runoff and selected a single vendor.

What set UiPath apart was their handling and selectors. The selector was head and shoulders above anyone else. We had a lot of experience with automation platforms that did not do well. Screen coordinates and scraping and control methods to move to a script, for example, were not reliable methodology.

What other advice do I have?

While we are currently on version 2019.10.2, we are upgrading the 2020.10.2 version this month.

We’re just starting to use the solution’s AI functionality in our automation program. It’s a bit too early to comment too much on it.

I'd advise new users to get their governance together early.

I'd rate the solution at a ten 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
RPA Assistant Manager at PwC India
Real User
Increases employee satisfaction by having them do value-added work instead of static tasks
Pros and Cons
  • "At my previous company, in the best scenario, we removed almost 200 hours per month of client usage, making it automated with almost zero errors. So, about 32 employees were freed up from their work per month, and now there are only two. This has enabled employees to focus on higher-value work that involves human-base interaction. This saved the client money and provided a recruitment benefit."
  • "When it comes to debugging, there is some improvement needed for UiPath compared to other RPA tools. There are features to edit the workflow or content of the automation file while we are debugging. For example, we have 10,000 lines of code that we have integrated by 10 different users. So, there is one integrated code and you are debugging it. After some time, you might find a line which is not an error. You may have forgotten to remove it or change the value to your desired criteria. It is really a pain to stop the entire debug session and just edit it, then start again at zero. It will do the same steps again just to reach that level or step where you were actually stuck previously. Whereas, in different automation tools, whether you are on the findings step or in-between a debug session, you can actually edit that information. This is good because sometimes the developer also forgets to add or remove certain values in-between a long code. I think this should be improved in UiPath. This should already be in consideration because I have been in touch with UiPath a couple of times because of this."

What is our primary use case?

We are an auditing firm who has a certain level of tasks that are open for automating. These are complete steps, which can be performed by anyone, standardized, and do not involve any human intelligence. These are just basic human tasks. It is a long process, where in-between there are certain validation and verification steps as well as certain steps that involve a lot of documentation to go through. The organization is targeting all these tasks, which are completely static and can be automated, so they can get rid of them. Then, employees can work on something more useful as well as more productivity-oriented tasks.

Currently, I am dealing with our internal COE, providing RPA solutions to internal and external clients. UiPath is a driving force in our COE.

It is on-prem. There are a couple of discussions going around upgrading UiPath because there has been so much advancement with the solution.

How has it helped my organization?

Document Understanding was a game-changer. One of our clients has manual billing that needs to be processed. With the help of Document Understanding and UiPath Action Center, we created an excellent workflow for our client. It also gives us better accuracy. Now, there are hardly any exceptions in the client's billing documents that are being processed.

In my previous role, I presented some clients the end-to-end installation design of UiPath, e.g., building a PDD using Task Capture, going to UiPath Studio to build the actual solution, and then later going to post-production Insights. 

UiPath has helped to minimize our on-prem footprint. Most organizations prefer on-prem because it reduces the risk of compliance issues.

Attended robots have been very beneficial for our users. UiPath saves one robot for every user. We have a couple of clients who are using attended automation for their day-to-day tasks.

What is most valuable?

From an organizational point of view, the most used feature is Orchestrator because that is how we manage more than 100 users. When there are more than 100 users, it is important, and probably better, to have some place to manage them. Orchestrator is doing that for us very well. 

The most exciting new feature is UiPath Apps. I have explored it in-depth to get a better understanding. I think this product will be a game-changer for my organization as well as for my clients. It will revolutionize the way that we are providing licensing and proper access to a user. It also revolutionizes the way people are using it. Everything will be on the cloud, which I think is the most interesting feature of UiPath Apps.

UiPath Apps will definitely help to reduce the workload of our IT department by enabling end users to create apps. If you are creating an app and sharing it over the cloud, that removes the dependency of having UiPath installed with the correct version as well as Internet connectivity. Or, you might have a global server in the background that is not functioning very well. There are multiple issues related to connectivity of the UiPath robot when deploying it on a user's machine. 

If you are giving access to a group of users and adding Azure container or any other container provided by UiPath, then this reduces 10 to 15 hours of work from the IT or support guys who are manually doing all these things by themselves. Not every user must have the new step of getting the UiPath license and software installed, it is really static. You are eliminating that task completely by having UiPath Apps on the cloud. This is definitely convenient for users to use.

We are not using UiPath Apps in my current organization. About two to three months ago, I created UiPath when I was at TCS. It was there that we demonstrated the power of UiPath Apps versus normal, conventional methods. It reduced our work through scalability. It helped us to easily scale and was more convenient, because giving new or temporary access can be a pain. 

It is very easy to share UiPath Apps. When you want to start or remove it, you can do it with a simple click within the cloud. It is not that complicated. Also, the usage is better in UiPath Apps compared to the conventional UiPath robot. In UiPath Assistant, you can access the portal and simply run it over there. Therefore, you will not have a problem with the background functioning of the UiPath robot or even connectivity issues. Scalability and ease of use are favorable for users when they are using UiPath Apps.

Recently, I have been exploring Automation Hub. Its idea to pipeline a feature will be very useful for our guys managing RPA products on a large scale. 

What needs improvement?

When it comes to debugging, there is some improvement needed for UiPath compared to other RPA tools. There are features to edit the workflow or content of the automation file while we are debugging. For example, we have 10,000 lines of code that we have integrated by 10 different users. So, there is one integrated code and you are debugging it. After some time, you might find a line which is not an error. You may have forgotten to remove it or change the value to your desired criteria. It is really a pain to stop the entire debug session and just edit it, then start again at zero. It will do the same steps again just to reach that level or step where you were actually stuck previously. Whereas, in different automation tools, whether you are on the findings step or in-between a debug session, you can actually edit that information. This is good because sometimes the developer also forgets to add or remove certain values in-between a long code. I think this should be improved in UiPath. This should already be in consideration because I have been in touch with UiPath a couple of times because of this.

My current company is currently looking at the end-to-end solution. However, Insights and Task Capture are major concerns. Task Capture will give you a skeleton of the PDD, then you have to edit it. The skeleton is only there for simple automation, and we have complex scenarios. It is so complicated that the PDD generation using Task Capture will not give you even 20% of the output. While Task Capture is something promising, people are looking at it with greater expectations than it provides. People are not using Task Capture or Insight because of their limitations. These features could use improvements and enhancements.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for three years. I recently switched companies. I worked with Capgemini and TCS prior to this company, where I was in their COEs and providing solutions to clients. This is the first time that I have been on a project for PwC. Since the start of 2018, I have worked mainly in COEs and have interacted with around 30 clients up until now.

PwC, as a firm, has been using this technology for four to five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have been using UiPath on a different powerful system that has high-end RAM. Sometimes, it crashes due to the use of multiple components at once. For example, when I was using Druid with data service and another UiPath product. Developing was quite easy. However, when debugging, sometimes it would freeze. I don't know whether it was because of my system and its compatibility, my system's configuration, or the fact that we were using so many high-end tools and products at once. 

The robustness of the tool, when it comes to using high-end products, is something that I am currently exploring. This is something that is currently a bit of concern for other developers as well. I have been interacting with a lot of developers around the globe. As a part of that, I tend to share my experiences. They have shared that it will sometimes freeze, even with simple automation. Because we are using new features or products all at once, it freezes. I think this should not be the case. If you are using long, heavy code, and it gets frozen at one point, I can understand that. However, 10 simple lines of code, while using three or four products at once, is getting frozen. That should be taken care of or improved.

To troubleshoot the system crashing, we contacted UiPath. They were kind enough to reply and have a discussion. They are working on this and trying to make it more convenient so future releases will solve this problem.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

As a part of a COE, we get clients who expect us to present the entire proof of concept as well as a PPT or presentation. For example, why they need to go with UiPath, what are the advantages/disadvantages, if any, and why we should not go with another tool or solution as a whole, not just RPA. The main point for us when presenting UiPath is the ease of usability and scalability. We don't need major infrastructure changes, just two or three URLs to be widely fitted. Then, they need to decide if they want unattended or attended robots. The scalability is the major driving force which excites our clients and us, because there isn't a need to have media-heavy software or heavy processes changes.

Clients don't want every user in their organization who joins to have a long process to get through the start up. Automation Cloud is something they were very much interested in exploring because of the scalability. They find it very easy to use and scale, because not all the clients have a certain set of users using robots. 

I have seen user usage explode from zero to a bigger audience of 22 users.

UiPath is used extensively in my current organization on a large scale. There is also a plan to scale it to more users.

How are customer service and technical support?

PwC has their internal teams providing a "help center" sort of infrastructure to them. If there was a need for any help, or some basic doubt, it is solved internally. PwC's internal help center exists already. However, for major issues, we reach out to UiPath, as a customer, so that we can receive a response and clarity on issues.

The technical support is really great. I have been in touch with all sorts of UiPath support because I was in the COE and our clients were completely global until my latest assignment. I think UiPath India, France, Belgium, and Canada are timely. They provide a very precise support experience. They were kind enough to let us know the actual reason, because just saying that it is a bug is not something that we can comfortably accept or digest. Also, they have been kind enough to follow back up on updates and bugs that we have reported.

As a whole, I have reported more than 25 bugs across all their products. They were kind enough to reach out to the same forum where we raised the ticket. They were kind enough to reply that these are the updates that they will roll out in the next version. It is good to have this interaction as well as a heads-up regarding your bug reports. I think the technical support is on the mark and doing their job really well.

The learning tools and support are really great. They have the most engaging forum across the globe, compared to other RPA tools. The learning and engagement are really up to the mark. That also brings confidence to our clients and us. We are a part of their global community forum, which is a benefit for us. 

Their marketplace has grown tenfold in the last year. It is because of the developer's involvement as well as involvement from people in the community. UiPath is creating their own statements and usable components, which adds value to our presentation. The tool is growing, and developers and community members are growing with them. 

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

My previous companies migrated from other RPA solutions, like Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and NICE Robotic Automation, to UiPath because of the value of its features and the quality of the overall solution. I migrated my clients from those companies so they could have a better ROI and reduce the cost of maintenance. We also migrated from scheduling tools, like AutoSys, to provide better accuracy and ease of use.

My current company was not previously using an RPA solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup and implementation are standard, simple, and user-friendly. UiPath just requires basic adjustment, then it is plug and play. It is very easy for everyone to understand, e.g., non-technical clients can understand what has been changed.

If the deployment is done properly, you will see better data accuracy with UiPath than manual entry. If the deployment is done by someone without much experience, it will affect the quality of the solution due to bad coding. You can't just leave it to the tool.

Using Automation Cloud makes it easier to deploy.

What about the implementation team?

It takes almost two weeks for us to implement from scratch because we must understand the client's infrastructure, create a solution design, and then present it to them.

We present our clients with a PoC, including a document that justifies the work and costs. We also give them a standard robot that we created for demo purposes. This way, they can visualize how it will be implemented and mapped in their organization.

For deployment, one or two people are sufficient: one from an infrastructure background and another from a technical background. Sometimes, it is complex or hard to understand the client's needs when it comes to the deployment of Azure, Nvidia, or AWS servers on their VPN connection.

The amount of staff needed for maintenance depends on the size of the solution, e.g., the bigger solutions will need more people. However, the maintenance and support activities can also be automated and that reduces the need for support and maintenance. Three or four support team members are enough with the help of a robot.

What was our ROI?

The last ROI calculation that we did for a client showed that they saved 25% of their time by automating a manual task with an unattended robot for a single machine.

Overall, the cost remains the same to the client and us, when using Automation Cloud, because of the amount of money spent on the cloud migration and cloud usage.

At my previous company, in the best scenario, we removed almost 200 hours per month of client usage, making it automated with almost zero errors. So, about 32 employees were freed up from their work per month, and now there are only two. This has enabled employees to focus on higher-value work that involves human-base interaction. This saved the client money and provided a recruitment benefit.

UiPath has been useful for improving employee satisfaction. Employees are now spending time on more value-add work instead of something static, whether it is boring or hectic, that they have been working on for ages. This gives employees a sense of advancement.

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

I would rate the pricing as seven out of 10, where 10 is the most expensive. The pricing increased with the latest release. It used to be cheap. Now, it is expensive. However, it does come with supported features, which almost justify its cost.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Building automations is very easy. I have used multiple RPA tools. Developing automation with UiPath is very convenient compared to other tools. 

Development is very easy. I have been exploring certain markets based on the marketplace component and its native integrations with ServicesNow for the chatbot. I think development is where UiPath stands out as a winner compared to other tools because starting to automate is very easy.

Compared to other RPA tools, UiPath is leading with new feature additions every quarter. Obviously, all the new features will not be incorporated into the solution or be helpful for the client. We see the organization putting in efforts to grow at a rapid pace, including ML, scaling, and everything on the cloud, like data servers. UiPath gives us the confidence to present a tool that can be relied on because it is constantly growing. It constantly has certain new features added which can be beneficial.

With UiPath, not everyone needs to understand the code, which is great. This makes it superior over other tools because it is easy to understand. This contributes to profits because clients prefer UiPath over something else because they have more confidence using it.

Blue Prism has the ability to edit in the middle of a debug. As far as I have explored, Blue Prism is leading on the debugging front and stands out against UiPath. Debugging in Blue Prism gives users a lot of usability to edit the workflow. This makes it easier for developers to run things once and get things done. Otherwise, debugging multiple times can sometimes be a pain.

People migrate to NICE Robotic Automation because they were having difficulty maintaining their software with a limited number of staff. 

It is easier to become more proficient with UiPath than other RPA tools, especially Blue Prism. Training can be done at almost no cost.

What other advice do I have?

I would suggest automating a policy that is not a requirement and follows a process. As an RPA user, it is your responsibility to get things done in an efficient way. If a user is doing A, B, C, D, it might not be required that the robot do the same thing. There might be a shorthand that can take you from A to D directly using the robot. For example, it can go directly to a page and not have to click 10 things like a human.

If you use it properly and consciously, it can increase accuracy and reduce error. If you don't, then it will be the other way around.

As features are concerned, it is reasonably priced compared to any other heavyweight tools in the market.

It is beneficial that there is a SaaS option because this offers a diversified cloud environment. If we expand and explore more cloud options, then having a SaaS solution for UiPath will be beneficial for us. Right now, SaaS comes with a certain amount of compliance issues for my company. 

UiPath AI Center is very useful. I think it is a game-changer when it comes to better usage. However, I haven't had much of a chance to explore it on an enterprise level. Not many clients are using it because of the exposure risk. Once a lot of developers start exploring and developing on it, then more companies will have the confidence to say, "Yes, we can push to that," which will increase the usage of UiPath AI Center.

Everything on the UIPath Cloud is a template. It is just a starting point. You have to dig into it and do more exploration to make it better.

Using Automation Cloud would be very beneficial for us, as a COE, because we are getting rid of the mundane tasks of infrastructure, maintenance, and upgrades, which we do not think are our primary job.

Biggest lesson learnt: UiPath has the fastest growing community with the quickest learning tools. It is easy to automate. It requires basic understanding and effort to get started. 

I would rate UiPath as 9.5 out of 10. I have concerns about the debugging capability, where if I need to edit something while debugging, I can't do it right away without stopping the process.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Director of Shared Services Automation and AI at Virign Media Business
Real User
Scheduling features prioritize work and queuing systems to make sure they're at the right points in time
Pros and Cons
  • "The main value within Orchestrator is definitely the scheduling aspect. That includes the way you can prioritize work and use queuing systems to make sure they're at the right points in time, as well as whether they'd be long term related, especially if we're looking at finance."
  • "One of the issues is with the acquisition of new types of software and new companies. It's important to introduce process documentation and make sure that it's not just making it look like UiPath products, but making it feel and act like one to us. They need to make sure it's embedded and the integration is seamless. They should just keep improving how easy it is to use. I think it's very good already, but there's always room for improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We use UiPath primarily to drive efficiency within the company and introduce a new technology, which is only going to become more popular and more prevalent in the industry in the next few years.

At the moment, we use Orchestrator, Studio, and unattended robots.

We invested in an RPA solution because competitors were doing it. They do it because it's the next wave of this industry, the fourth industrial revolution. Everyone's saying that you can't escape it. It's also because our company, in the shared services department, is thinking about how to challenge our existing models. Traditionally, you chose whether to take the processes onboard or streamline them offshore, but robotics and automation are a competitive alternative to outsourcing. It's very easy. We are challenging the status quo and making sure we're evaluating all our options effectively.

How has it helped my organization?

We had a process that was very manual and repetitive and took a team of 14 people, all keying in manually. Now, we've managed to automate it and save 14 employees worth of effort, which amounts to around 14,000 hours to date.

We run our automations in a virtual environment as well. We do Citrix environments when we're working with our offshore partner. We do it on Citrix when working locally. Both work well. I know UiPath has developed a lot on the Citrix platform lately, so it's getting better and easier to do.

Within my immediate team, I have eight people and we can also involve the other operational teams. Including everyone who's related to automation across IT and ops and us, you're probably looking about 20 or 30 people.

What is most valuable?

The main value within Orchestrator is definitely the scheduling aspect. That includes the way you can prioritize work and use queuing systems to make sure they're at the right points in time, as well as whether they'd be long term related, especially if we're looking at finance.

In terms of Studio, it's just getting easier to use. Studio X is basically the embodiment of that. Even at this point in time with the current Studio version, anyone could pick this up and run with it to develop simpler automations.

The best feature about unattended robots is that they do exactly what you ask them to do. They are as reliable as the code that you provide them with. I think as long as you've got the right governance in place, such as IDs you have created, and you looped in the right teams, the robots are just the shell that will do exactly what you ask them to do.

What needs improvement?

I'd rate the ease of use of automating our processes at three and a half out of five at this point in time. That is because we've been on a journey over the past year or so and it's not been smooth sailing. There have been issues. I'm not saying that UiPath's support hasn't been great. It has been, but there is still a lot of work to do. It's still a relatively new product in terms of the grander scene of the industry. There's still a lot of work to do there to make sure that the integrations with existing software providers as well as new ones and API connectivities are as they should be. Often, you'll find yourselves using the workarounds in order to address issues that they haven't quite solved yet. I know that's constantly being improved, but that is the journey that we've been on.

One of the issues is with the acquisition of new types of software and new companies. It's important to introduce process documentation and make sure that it's not just making it look like UiPath products, but making it feel and act like one to us. They need to make sure it's embedded and the integration is seamless. They should just keep improving how easy it is to use. I think it's very good already, but there's always room for improvement.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the product's stability as three and a half, based on our experience. This relates directly back to where we've had challenges. Some of the integration with more mainstream products, like Excel, for example, has been questionable at times. It's just striking that balance between the fact that we want it to be democratized and easy to use by everyone, while we don't want to be in a position where we're forced out of the route to use macros necessarily within Excel. We want the UiPath software to be just as quick and easy to use as that more technical solution. Otherwise, we lose the benefit of having it. It shouldn't be technically inhibited.

How are customer service and technical support?

I think their support offerings are good. They're very responsive. I think the challenge that they face though, is that they don't always have the answer. They don't always know what the real root cause is. Unfortunately, that's where the real crap piece comes in, which is both a blessing and a curse. It gives me some way of getting around it but it doesn't give me confidence that the issue will be addressed.

How was the initial setup?

It probably took us about nine months to deploy, from the initial UiPath license to implementing the first robot in production. The reason for that is the learning curve of the team as well as the education across the operational teams to bring them up to speed and make sure that everyone's on the same journey. We were also working very closely with IT to make sure that we've got the right infrastructure in place, as well as support models, governance frameworks, etc. Without it, you can't really get anything done. It's a new technology and it was a new concept for everyone. Needing a robot ID, for example, was something that was never discussed before. Lengthy conversations had to be had to make sure that we weren't putting anything at risk with data privacy, for example.

The setup was both straightforward and complex, really. Some bits we're quite straightforward, but other parts were more complex. Especially the infrastructure we're still dealing with now one year on still has some complexities. We're still thinking about credential management versus the use of virtual machines and whether we should be using high density or not. There is also the matter of all the different types of offerings. There's a matrix that you have to abide by and I don't think UiPath is even aware of all the conflicts between the different options. That's something that we're still working through right now, but I'm sure they're going to address it.

What about the implementation team?

We outsourced the implementation.

What was our ROI?

The performance benefits usually you would see instantly. We had a realization that there were some process changes that we probably needed to make, which we hadn't done prior to going live. I think it took us probably three months before we really saw the benefit coming through.

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

It's the same as what you would see on any of their list prices. There is also a corporate discount because of scale. Overall, we think it was a competitive price offering. They were the cheapest out of the three, so that's why we went with them.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked across the big three: Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, and UiPath. We did have a few others we considered, such as Kofax and Pegasystems. However, they're not dedicated RPA tools. That narrows you down immediately to probably select one of the top three dedicated RPA providers.

UiPath is a very unique example of being very technology-based from its history, but also its culture is very different to the other two. They're trying to be humble. UiPath has a different background and cultural fit, which is very much like our company. That was definitely one of the reasons we chose them. The other reason was the views. We just find it easier to use. The strategy, especially at the point in time when it was announced where the product was headed, was very much that they're trying to push this out to a robot for every person. We want everyone to be able to access it, too.

What other advice do I have?

Do what you would normally do with any vendor. Check out the competition and see what is right for your company. I'll be shocked if you don't think that UiPath is the best because there's a reason why it's at the top of the Gartner reports all over the shop. It's got great user feedback on places like IT Central Station and other review boards. There is absolutely a reason for that. Also, assess the other values that you place importance on. It's not all about costs. Cultural fit was a massive deal for us. What would you envision your company looking like with the uptake of automation? Is it a cultural thing? Is it purely about efficiency or do you want everyone to be up-skilled for what the workforce in the future will look like? That means that actually having everyone being able to access the tools is very important.

I would rate UiPath as eight out of ten.

I have used the UiPath Academy RPA training, although not completed it. I am a bit busy doing a few of the bits, but a lot of my team have completed level one and some completed level three. I have one member of my team who just completed all the training available online. He's done every single module that you have available, including obviously the RPA Advanced Developers training. I think there is a wealth of knowledge there. It's incredible, but it's the same training material that's used internally for UiPath as well as other companies. I think as long as they stay on top of it and make sure that it never gets overlooked, it's a great resource for anyone to get, in order to up-skill in the new technology. If they constantly talk about the democratization of RPA, this is fundamental to that.

The training has helped my team get up to speed, apply best practices, and make sure that we're not wasting time. We were trying to work it out for ourselves in a bit of a haphazard manner. It also forces standardization, of course. Anyone else who decides to get qualified can use it. If you're thinking about doing attended automations, I think it's the right way to do it. Everyone has the same set of standards and rules to build off of.

I would rate the training as four and a half out of five because there's always room for improvement. However, I think it's very thorough and they've covered all the aspects, both technical and not technical. It is very impressive.

I think there are different perks to using one type of robot as opposed to another. The unattended robot cost is higher, therefore the need to make sure the utilization rate is high is paramount to getting your value out of it. I think that makes it challenging but worthwhile. There are different types of processes you will end up pushing towards with an unattended automation profile, whereas an attended profile, which we're starting to move into now, leads to other types of automation opportunities. Attended robots are cheaper, which means it is easier to achieve ROI, but you can almost expect less utilization because it won't be people's full-time jobs. They won't get back all the time and there will be licenses to honor which are being consumed. That has to be baked into the business case. I think you will end up with a portfolio of both. The big opportunities probably sit within an unattended fashion.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Leon Chen - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager, Data & Analytics at Soliant Health
Real User
Top 20
It improves the efficiency of our operational and analytical work without the need to hire more staff
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable thing is the whole automation suite that helps develop automation processes. In the future, we might further explore Communications Mining and Process Mining."
  • "There's a push for cloud-based operations, but I prefer to develop things on the desktop. I'd appreciate the ability to develop things on the desktop and roll them out concurrently on the cloud."

What is our primary use case?

We are considering implementing AI as we are a healthcare staffing company in the education sector. Our use case focuses on processing a large number of emails and resumes. We aim to mine resumes to determine which are best for rapid and successful placements. On the communication side, we wish to perform sentiment analysis to assess how well our salespeople respond to clients.

How has it helped my organization?

We want to mine, structure, and analyze data using data science methods. We also hope to use generative AI and large language models to perform some of the data analysis, saving us lots of time. My company tripled in size in the last three years, so we have a lot more people, but the backend operations haven't grown at the same pace as the number of salespeople. 

Automation helps us with operational and analytical work because we lack enough talent for that. By using AI, we can do the same amount of work without hiring more people, so we save money and improve productivity. Generative AI is part of our discussion. We had to decide whether to develop our own model or use existing software like UiPath to get things done faster and easier.

We have about 15,000 consultants working for us during the school year, and to fill those positions, we may need to interview five times that many. A lot of them might drop out by the time school starts. Using UiPath and AI, we can speed up processing and onboarding because that might be why people quit. They might leave for another job if we don't onboard them fast enough. We can save more candidates and prevent revenue loss from a potential placement by making the processing time faster.

After implementing UiPath, we automated many manual tasks. We save a lot of time, and those people who used to do manual work are doing more knowledge work. A lot of them now see what bots can do, so they're more open to the idea of developing bots. That set the stage for them to trust AI-powered bots in the future. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable featire is the whole automation suite that helps develop automation processes. In the future, we might further explore Communications Mining and Process Mining. 

What needs improvement?

There's a push for cloud-based operations, but I prefer to develop things on the desktop. I'd appreciate the ability to develop things on the desktop and roll them out concurrently on the cloud. 

For how long have I used the solution?

My company has used UiPath for about two years, but I've used it for about a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

UiPath is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

UiPath has kept up with our growth. However, there's a limitation with licensing.

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

I previously used Blue Prism in a different company. However, for the current company, they had no prior automation solution.

What about the implementation team?

Our IT support company, Coretelligence's parent company, helped with the initial implementation. There were renewal delays prompting a desire to work directly with UiPath.

What was our ROI?

From a cost-saving perspective, we are seeing a lot of returns, including internal staffing cost savings and HR bot efficiencies.

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

UiPath's licensing could be cheaper and more dynamic. The licensing can sometimes feel high, especially for smaller companies, but generally, the pricing is reasonable when considering the time saved and corresponding costs.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I wasn't the decision maker, but my CFO considered industry leaders and attended the Forward Conference. He was impressed and chose UiPath. One thing that he liked was that it was easy to learn and use. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate UiPath eight out of 10. I enjoy working with it, and it seems to have everything we need. They're adding new features at a reasonable rate while not deprecating old stuff too fast. It's a smooth transition from classic to modern activities.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Solution architect at Incite corp
Real User
Top 10
The prompt-based workflow-building feature, where you can use natural language to build workflows, is impressive
Pros and Cons
  • "I appreciate the orchestration capabilities and document processing integrations."
  • "Sometimes, it takes a while to open and launch workflows, and this speed issue could be addressed."

What is our primary use case?

We have been using UiPath for almost the last five years in the industry, where a lot of research development, and clinical trials are happening. Many of the processes are centered around clinical trials, especially around translation. 

Being a global company, we conduct a lot of clinical research involving various languages and regulations. Earlier, we were outsourcing translation services, which presented security and timing challenges. 

With UiPath, we built bots that collect clinical trial documents from various sources and translate them into the desired language, ensuring security and faster delivery. We no longer need to outsource, and translations are now super fast, sometimes within hours.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath has significantly helped our organization by providing solutions that save time and enhance efficiency. It has automated many tasks, allowing our staff to focus on other projects. 

We've built attended bots for research analysts who can now complete tasks while attending meetings. These bots save 5,000 to 8,000 hours yearly, contributing to our overall efficiency and allowing us to save a lot of money. UiPath has also enabled us to achieve outcomes like speed, scalability, security, productivity, and quality.

What is most valuable?

The user experience that UiPath offers, particularly the ease of use with the Studio's drag-and-drop feature, speeds up development significantly. 

The connectors available in integration services are helpful for quickly connecting with applications like Salesforce and ServiceNow

I appreciate the orchestration capabilities and document processing integrations. 

Additionally, the prompt-based workflow-building feature, where you can use natural language to build workflows, is quite impressive.

What needs improvement?

While UiPath is exceeding my expectations, there is room for improvement, particularly in the studio's performance. Sometimes, it takes a while to open and launch workflows, and this speed issue could be addressed. Additionally, the support could be improved, especially regarding the availability and expertise of support engineers.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using UiPath for almost the last five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

UiPath is very stable. I have never experienced any bugs in the product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

UiPath has always met our expectations in terms of scalability, as we can scale it across the global enterprise level.

How are customer service and support?

Support is one area that could always use improvement. There have been challenges in getting timely support, especially during emergencies, and sometimes we don't get experienced engineers to solve problems.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

In my career in digital transformation over the last fifteen years, I have used tools like Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere. However, UiPath has proven to be superior because of its ease of use and continuous improvement.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of UiPath was straightforward and very quick. It took only a couple of hours to set up the environment.

What about the implementation team?

I handled the implementation in-house with the support of UiPath and have been involved in every phase of the development life cycle, from infrastructure setup to discovery and deployment.

What was our ROI?

We are saving almost five million dollars every year. Our bots save about 5,000 to 8,000 hours yearly, equating to roughly $5 million to $7 million dollars in savings annually.

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

The pricing could be reduced as Microsoft Power Automate is becoming a strong competitor. There is a significant difference in cost between UiPath and Power Automate, with Power Automate being more affordable for some automations.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

In the past, I have worked with Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere. I find UiPath to be superior due to its user-friendliness and innovative features.

What other advice do I have?

Always explore using AI first, as it is often a cost-effective and simple solution. UiPath's integration of AI workflows in a user-friendly way brings a lot of potential for automation.

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.
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: October 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.