What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for legacy data transfer, UI automation, CRM and ITSM automation, and call centers. Specifically, in call centers, using UiPath forms and form render has been really helpful.
What is most valuable?
I love developing in Studio. For my clients, the approachability of the orchestrator is really valuable. It takes a little bit to learn the licensing structure and layout at first, however, once they get it, it's pretty smooth sailing from there. The modern folders have become a great thing for any enterprise that's looking to automate using an orchestrator as a server.
I like to automate in Studio as I'm familiar with it. I honestly just like the platform so I like automating with Studio.
I really enjoy Document Understanding. I like how it all integrates together. Some of the stuff I've seen now with just the connectors and the way you can scale implementations is really exciting. While I do like Studio, I also like how it works with the rest of the platform.
We most recently built an unintended bot that saves them about $500,000 a year worth of GS 14 labor.
UiPath saves costs for our customers’ organizations. That would just be the cost savings from RPA bots. I haven't really dug into the cost savings of the ancillary products, however. I know that one of my clients is using the test suite now after I had built a proof of concept for it, and they've fully implemented it. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of cost savings there as well.
In terms of ease of building automation, it depends on the process. For anything that's ultra-low or a low-level complexity, it's very simple. Once you start getting sprawled out into larger automation that very much becomes object-oriented programming and is basically making a workflow. That's when you really need to take hold of programmatic concepts. You need to be a strong scriptor to be able to make the best RPA bots.
Our clients have reduced human error. That's one of the things that I tend to talk about the most. The bots can get work done faster, however, the reduction of human error is probably more valuable in some cases than just speeding up work.
In terms of UiPath Academy, everybody's used it. I've used it myself. My entire team has used it. All of our engineers are some sort of Pearson VUE certified now. Most of us have the Advanced Developer. A few of our younger junior developers have the associate, the RPA associate, however, they're working on getting the Advanced Developer and they lean on the Academy pretty heavily.
The biggest value in the Academy is the videos, which are pretty helpful. Sometimes you have to slow it down, however, for the most part, the way it goes through concepts, especially for somebody that doesn't have much programming experience, the videos tend to go through some of the more elementary things like variables arguments. That can get a little bit boring for programmers since they've been through that 100 different times. That said, that’s really where the strength lies as it does target a large group of different employees. As an engineer, I might pass by some of the boring stuff, however, I will still find things later on in the training where I'm like, wow, I actually never knew that.
What needs improvement?
The license model changing every year can be a little bit frustrating. It's hard sometimes when things go from being robot-based to being runtime-based.
Some federal users are still on the 2019 orchestrator or even a 2018 orchestrator. However, by being on them, they can't take advantage of modern folders. This issue is, once they get upgraded to 2020, and they start using modern folders, essentially you shouldn't really be using plastic folders anymore. Some of their frustrations aren't really long-term frustrations. Orchestrators have gotten really popular over the last few years. There are certain things that have made it so much better. That said, we're still in that transition where clients have been using classic folders and then they upgrade and they're going to have to change everything. Hopefully, they don't have to do it more than when they upgrade past 2020.
One of my clients upgraded their production environment from the 2019 orchestrator to the 2020 and everything was in plastic folders and I advised them to switch to modern folders and it was a pain. Once it was taken care of, it was great. It's just that it took a lot of convincing to tell them why it was better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's pretty stable. The biggest issue is just that more companies need to really adopt a change management system, whether that's through Service Now or is built-in change management, those alerts need to be going to the RPA center of excellence.
There are things that will change or break the UiPath bot sometimes. They're very stable and they've become more stable if there's a change management system. Automated testing can make it so you can catch things that have changed with applications with RPA testing before they've occurred and then you can fix things quickly.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability was tough a few years ago, however, now it's exponentially easier with modern folders and the orchestrator.
How are customer service and support?
I've worked with UiPath support. I would put them at a seven out of ten as they need to be a little bit more timely. There have been issues with a client where support has taken a really long time to get back to us or they haven't updated our support ticket, even though we've advanced. Maybe it was an isolated incident. I have worked with support before where that hasn't happened. I felt like I got in a bad run of working with the support folks and the client was definitely not pleased.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I actually don't have experience with other RPA solutions. I came from a web development background and I went straight into UiPath and now the way that it's scaled out and now that I work in the federal government, UiPath has such a large piece of the market share. I've never really seen a need to learn any other automation solutions. I may learn Power Automate at some point, however, I would really prefer to stick with UiPath.
How was the initial setup?
The solution is pretty straightforward. I've run through complex issues, mostly the NuGet package and it's different with every customer. As far as the UiPath platform goes, it's pretty straightforward to deploy bots. It all depends on how an agency has its group policies set up for security and sometimes that causes issues. It's just about learning new ways to solve different problems that may be unique to an agency or may not be.
In the government, deployment takes a little longer. I would like to think development usually doesn't take that long, however, it's like going through ATO, especially if it's an unintended bot. Sometimes it can take like a few months. It just depends if they've got a center of excellence stood up or not. For example, if they've got an CI/CD pipeline or just a standard development life cycle, a lot of people don't have that set up and then it ends up taking longer as they have to go through ATO. It’s variable. Unfortunately, it's just a lot slower to get them deployed than in the private sector I think.
That’s no fault of UiPath. It's usually group policy security systems and things like that. I've had to talk to a lot of security folks and help walk them through things that need to be changed.
What about the implementation team?
We've been implementing our UiPath as well.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't really have too much to offer about the pricing part of it. I don't really work on that side of the business. I would say my only gripe about the pricing would be something like a Studio Pro license being more expensive than a Studio license, just to essentially get something that links Test Manager. Some people might've found that a little bit hard to swallow. From what I've heard, Studio Pro is going away and Test Manager is just going to come into Studio. That would be the only thing I've noticed that I thought was a little silly. Everything else is typically not really my side of the business.
What other advice do I have?
We have everything on-prem in our demo environment and the customers I work with typically have the on-prem offerings as well.
I have used UI path apps in our demo environment. I do not have any clients that are using it.
We have an AI center in our demo environment, however, I don't have any clients that are using it. I do have a client that's actually in the process of installing it right now and getting it through their governance model. That's as close as it would've come for our customers using the AI center.
To those considering UiPath, I would say, just go ahead and do it. RPA is pretty awesome. It's easy to get solutions out. There still needs to be a good bit of work done on the Citizen Developer Model, however, at the same time, as far as getting a team of engineers in there to automate things, if you get good RPA developers, you can get things automated really quickly. People can help you with your standard development life cycle. You just need to jump in.
I would rate UiPath solutions at a nine out of ten. The only reason I wouldn't give it a 10 is that, in terms of the installation of the product, sometimes the documentation leaves a lot to be desired. Sometimes it's tough to work through installation issues without actually contacting support. I do wish that was a little bit more streamlined.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner