I've created an app for conversions and exchange rates. Every day I need the exchange rate of a certain currency and I use the API free exchange and UiPath.
It's also used for the reconciliation of invoices.
I've used it for the creation of an onboarding bot for employees to be onboarded onto a website with a remote system. I used AWS and a virtual machine and created a Google Form from there, and used UiPath's computer vision to do onboarding activities and extract data from files. PDF files can then be entered into the remote system. UiPath can be used to fill the forms.
It can be used for web extraction tasks as well, for example, for booking flights, where you can extract the flight details for particular search criteria and place them into an Excel sheet.
It can also be used to extract data from invoices in order to populate an Excel sheet, for a portable format. I've created a process that used documents as a learning model and extracted the invoices, using logic to output the transactions.
Another use case I tried was extracting data from Amazon based on exact data. The same can be done on Linkedin using the Linkedin API. I'm fine-tuning and extracting data, putting the outputs on Google Sheets.
I've experimented with many use cases and automated many processes.
It's low code/no code which makes it very easy to work with.
Building automation using UiPath is easy. If I see a video or some instructions, I can do it. Things are doable. You learn. If there are use cases or there is information online, you can replicate the process.
Adding activities is easy. All of these partners are integrated into UiPath now - including AWS and G-suite. You have activities already built right into UiPath and they are working to make everything as low-cost as possible.
Then you have OCRs which offer the Document Understanding. I can do a PDF extraction using just OCR in a normal way.
I love the Document Understanding. You can see whether a document is valid or not. You can accept or reject. I came up with a .NET background. I used to write so many lines of code for doing a certain thing. Here, you have a for a loop. You don’t need so much code.
I remember when I used to work for a UK client, a gas utility, and at that time we used a read-through data driver, and got the Excel data, and again validated everything. However, for that, we used to write around two, three pages of code. Now, using UiPath, you just do a real Excel activity and you get the entire sheet. Automation has made our lives easier.
I can scale automation without having to pay attention to infrastructure. Now, since the cloud has come into the picture, everyone is going to the cloud and everything is easier but with the new cloud partners like Google, AWS, Azure, and Oracle. A company may not have its own on-premise orchestrator.
Earlier, you needed three servers for production, testing, and development. Since UiPath has both cloud orchestrated and on-premise, it's easier for organizations to use less physical space. For smaller organizations, they can go to the cloud. For larger they can have their on-premise orchestrator. It’s flexible.
UiPath enables me to implement end-to-end automation starting with process analysis and then robot building and finally monitoring of automation. There are many process mining tasks, capture tasks, mining, et cetera. More things have to be automated - such as deploying, managing, and enhancing for continual improvement. It has all the components.
For a beginner, end-to-end coverage may not be essential. When we talk about automation, we should know what can be automated so that we ease our lives and that doesn't mean we have to remove the resources. You don’t have to involve the employees. You just need to simplify the task so that there is continual improvement. Users should consider not only, how to automate but what needs to be automated. If it is automated, how it can be improved gradually and what are the returns? Sometimes that doesn’t necessarily mean you need end-to-end. You just need simplicity.
I do use the attended automation. For some processes, I use the attended automation for testing purposes. I use the attended if I'm using UiPath assistant, otherwise, it's normally background processes that are unattended.
Attended automation will be for Document Understanding when I'm training a robot, for example, for what is the format or validating the time I'm using attended one. If I'm asking a user for particular search criteria, or for currency exchange it's mixed but mostly unattended.
Both attended and unattended work together - the human as well as the robot. However, it depends on the scenario. Unattended means you are not dependent on any human resources.
The orchestrated cloud, which is a SaaS, it's quite helpful. If I just want to install UiPath studio in my system and I'm least bothered about what environment it should be, what infrastructure should be, where I'm going to deploy, it is quite useful and quite easy when there is a SaaS option available.
I’ve used the AI functionality for sentiment analysis such as getting reviews from the websites about a particular product or service.
UiPath offers great object detection where you have a magistrate and you can detect whether you want to detect the people. If you want to extract how many people are there in that image, for example, during a social distancing sort of event, that can be used for object detection. I've used object detection for images in terms of extracting a number of people.
I’ve trained the system to read different types of invoice formats. I've used the email or Document Understanding that can read separate invoices, receipts, utilities, et cetera. I’ve used the solution to create processes for invoice reconciliation.
The AI functionality is quite easy to use. For tollgates, for example, when they charge for tolls, the solution can be utilized for seeing the number plate, and through the image, get the data, extract the number of data from the numbers plate, use the driver information from the number plate of the car, et cetera. It becomes a very easy AI model. Without any type of knowledge in AI, you can use those out-of-the-box functionalities.
The more training you do with machine learning, the better results you get in the end.
I use the automation cloud feature.
We are not bothered about any patches or any work that has to be done to maintain the infrastructure; the vendor does it.
The automation cloud offering has helped decrease time to value, however, since I have not deployed real-time projects, I cannot give exact numbers on the decrease. That said, from my experience, I feel that it is true.
It’s my understanding that the automation cloud offering helps to decrease UiPath's overall cost of ownership, however, at this time, I just use the free version.
The solution enables you to be better and better with cloud features that are quite accessible.
In terms of UiPath Apps, I have used them, however, just for my own purposes, for my own training purposes, as I was learning. It is easy to use and pretty much drag and drop. For the basic things, the user can do a lot with minimal training. You can do everything with low code and less coding knowledge as well. A person may not be technically sound, however, even with minimum knowledge, they can create apps using UiPath apps. That's the interesting part of UiPath apps.
UiPath reduces the cost of digital transformation. It does not require expensive or complex application upgrades or IT support.
UiPath has reduced human error. For example, let's say I'm filling a form using a document. Typos, errors, spelling mismatches, et cetera, are reduced when it is handled by automation. When we automate this process, the robot minimizes the error since a human is not involved in this case of data entry. It will extract whatever data there is in that document and it will fill in the form. Similarly, for calculating Excel data, we can avoid calculation errors.
More videos are required. There are basic videos that can help you learn about the product, however, there need to be more in-depth videos to help you through certain tasks. For example, I was trying to use an API for conversion. I was doing it for a single transaction, one by one. There can be cases where it will not go for a simple conversion or simple transaction, and it will be a bulk action. In that case, I may need to upload a file. I was searching for an upload control however, I could not find anything to assist me. It would have been helpful to find some sort of instructional video for this task. The file upload, where you upload a file and select a file so that you can extract data all those things based on that file is a commonly used feature - and yet, that was missing.
UiPath apps may be able to increase the number of automation I can create while reducing the time it takes to create them. However, they need to elaborate on the process. I need more articles on that. From the point of view of the person developing the automation, I need more details on writing the correct code or doing the automation, which I hope will be coming in the next releases.
They require an improvement in the IEP. I don't know whether it's a bug or something. I find that, with drag and drop, you have to drag it in a particular fashion.
When they add new features, they should offer some in-depth sessions on them to help people get comfortable with the changes.
It would always be helpful to have new partnerships between UiPath and different cloud vendors.
The initial setup is straightforward.
You just go to UiPath.com and register with your user ID or any email ID. From there, you install the UiPath Studio and you set your workflows. Once you publish, you get it in your orchestrator, attach the process, create a job. And then you run it.
It's quite easy to create a workflow, publish it, and deploy it in the orchestrator. Next, you have to tag the correct robot, the correct machine, and the correct sponsor. In any environment you want.
For small processes, the deployment would hardly take a few minutes to deploy.
Maintenance is light for the cloud instances and really does not need much. The cloud vendors do the work, however, users need to pay for the services which they use.
I can't speak to the exact pricing of the product as I am using a free version of it right now. I'm not paying any licensing fees to UiPath.
I shouldn't say you need licenses for many things for today, however, for working on Visual Studio, if you want to automate something, you need a license, which costs you around 5,000 to 6,000 Rupees. If you want to do some extra Microsoft office activities. You need the maximum office license, which is 70,000 Rupees. That said, with UiPath, you need not have Microsoft Office installed. You can still read the data and extract the data in an Excel format. You can then share the data from those automation activities with no third-party license cost and no software licenses.
UiPath can help save costs in an organization. There are so many legacy systems wherein you have so much data migration, and many things which are done manually can be automated and you can save resources while doing something new.
I'm just an end-user.
My first experience with automation was, "Okay, which product to learn?". After all the reviews and reading, I decided to start with UiPath. My previous background was .NET web development. I was a full-stack web developer with seven-plus years of experience and I found that I really like when a product is built on a .NET framework. I realized that "Okay, it's better to do something, learn something and I have a background of the platform so let's start from there".
When I started using this product, I found the academy was quite open, and in the forum, there were people who were training as well. I found that while I may not get 100% of the answers I need, 85% to 90% of the time the answer is there if you search.
Many people do not know RP automation, and it's great that they have these free resources - which is rare for such a product. Each region has a chapter where people working in this area come and share their knowledge and experiences.
Currently, I'm using the 2019 version of the solution. It's not the latest, however, it's not much older. I'm using the enterprise as well, which is free for 60 days. I started using UiPath apps as well. I'm learning so I use the cloud orchestrator to deploy my processors.
I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.