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reviewer1779444 - PeerSpot reviewer
Intelligent Automation Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Helps by freeing up people's time to focus on more value-added tasks
Pros and Cons
  • "It really does help by either freeing up people's time to focus on more value-added tasks or reducing headcount. We generally have other things that we can get people to do, helping make the employees' work more meaningful since they are not having to do the mundane stuff."
  • "I would like it if they provided a more detailed roadmap in terms of where they are going with the product. As we are trying to make decisions about the things that we are going to do to try to augment our capabilities, we could know whether they are thinking about the same things or not."

What is our primary use case?

We have done a number of different workflow automations and process automations, spanning a large number of different business units. We have created bots with RPA. 

We have done a little machine learning and AI work with the solution, but not a ton. I haven't found a lot of use cases for this. 

It has delivered pretty good value for RPA and workflow automation, but we haven't gotten as much out of the machine learning, data extraction, and classification stuff.

How has it helped my organization?

The automations that we built are massively important to us. We have seen significant improvements. 

Over the past few years since we have built this out, it has permeated the organization. As we go and meet more people, they see what we have done or what we are doing and it has changed the way people think. For example, I have a number of business areas where they will tap us almost constantly, saying, "Hey. I have another good idea for automation." We have business leaders, and even people on the floor who are hands-on, throwing ideas out there and trying to make things even more efficient.

It has definitely helped us improve our accuracy and compliance. We don't use it a ton in the highest risk areas, but we are using it in a financial area and a number of different solutions. 

We have some time-sensitive transactions that are very difficult. You either have to hire an army or automate. So, we have automated some of that stuff. For example, if you need a PO change made, then you might not be able to get it all done in a day. If you are doing it manually, then some stuff might get recorded the next day. Whereas, with automation, you don't have that problem anymore. Things are more accurate partly because we don't get errors. We can build validation into our solutions and part of it is more accurate simply because it is more timely.

What is most valuable?

The ability to stitch together distinct pieces of a process into a larger workflow is the most valuable feature. I could emulate grabbing input from a screen, from an application, database, or Excel or a CSV file, then take that information and do a ton of different manipulations to it using rules and code, as necessary. Then, I can touch multiple other systems and grab more data or enter data into them, whether it be databases or front-end applications. That flexibility is huge in enabling us to really make a good impact with our automation.

The document processing engine is capable. We have a small number of invoices. For the most part, it works pretty well to process a document, extract the information, and then make updates in our accounting software. Invoices by their nature are structured documents. We only use it for certain vendors, so we are not just throwing everything at it.

It is not bad for structured documents. We just don't use it enough to be able to cheerlead for it. However, where we have used the document processing engine for structured documents, it seems to do a good job. 

WorkFusion does a lot of different things. In terms of workspace and document tagging, it is not bad and pretty intuitive. With a little bit of training, people generally pick it up and are off to the races. Other than that, we don't generally let non-technical users touch it.

What needs improvement?

We had an issue where they had a subproduct called RPA Express. We rolled it out and called it a power user program, which is basically your citizen developers, business people, and people who build smaller bots for their areas. We chose the RPA Express version of WorkFusion as the platform for which these guys would build their bots. We built up a program and got a bunch of people trained, then WorkFusion discontinued the product. I am not so sure that they always give our goals consideration, even though we are supposed to be one of their better customers.

I would like it if they provided a more detailed roadmap in terms of where they are going with the product. As we are trying to make decisions about the things that we are going to do to try to augment our capabilities, we could know whether they are thinking about the same things or not.

Buyer's Guide
WorkFusion
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about WorkFusion. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it just shy of five years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is moderately scalable. The scalability in version 9.0 is both a benefit and a drawback. 

The big problem with version 9.0 is if it is not specifically RPA, then everything that is not RPA (in terms of processing) happens on the application server, which is also where the orchestration happens. So, if you have data-intensive processes that aren't being distributed, since RPA and machine learning are the only distributed processes, then you have a major single point of failure. We have had some significant issues with this piece of it.

The newest version solves these drawbacks. In version 10.0, those tasks and the orchestration, which is the application server and the processing of non-RPA tasks, will be separated. The non-RPA tasks will have their own distributed clusters that you can scale, which is a huge difference.

We are looking to upgrade this year. The newest version (10.0) has more scalability for back-end processing.

How are customer service and support?

They upgrade their product very often, but they don't offer enough time when supporting their existing product. I installed a new version of WorkFusion less than two years ago. They are now telling me it will be end-of-life this year. When you deal with most other enterprise software, the support period is like five to 10 years long. It puts a lot of strain on my entire group. We need to build up different environments and get all the infrastructure. The upgrade process is a nightmare.

The overall support could be much better. For example, when they say, "We are only going to support it for three years before you have to upgrade again," that is insane.

If I have something wrong with my environment and we create a ticket for WorkFusion, they get back to us pretty quick and are pretty helpful. They have certainly stepped up this piece lately. I would rate the technical support as eight out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The setup is extremely complex. Each time that we have upgraded, it has been extremely complex. This is part of my gripe. I am now doing my third upgrade in five years.

I came in during the initial deployment. That took a few months.

One upgrade took a year to do, from the first server being built to the last bot being migrated. This was because we had to migrate all our existing bots. This is the same process and time frame that we are expecting towards the upcoming upgrade. I will end up spending half a million dollars to do an upgrade.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI from using this solution. We saw value out of the solution very quickly. We saw it within a year. 

It really does help by either freeing up people's time to focus on more value-added tasks or reducing headcount. We generally have other things that we can get people to do, helping make the employees' work more meaningful since they are not having to do the mundane stuff.

What other advice do I have?

The document processing engine is decent, and certainly not bad when we have used it. We find it to be capable. The biggest issue is just finding the use cases. I don't know if that is the vendor, us, or a combination thereof. I know when they have brought ideas forward to us, we are like, "We already have solutions." So, we have solved some of those problems already in other ways.

If the document processing engine broke tomorrow, we would not lose a ton of sleep over it. It might upset a handful of people, but they will live.

The digital worker is like a prebuilt solution that will replicate the steps or some piece of what a person may do today. We don't use any of that stuff out-of-the-box. Now, it is early days for them to be pushing their digital workers solution, but I have seen some stuff in their newer versions that might be of use. Part of it is the software capability, but the bigger part of it is we just don't need a lot of that stuff. 

One of the big ones that they always push is invoice processing, "We can scan your invoices and obtain the information off of them, then automate." It is like, "Okay, cool, but we get almost all our invoices through EDI, so we don't need that. It doesn't do anything for us." 

I would rate this solution as seven out of 10.

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
reviewer1387212 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Intelligent Automation - Africa Regions at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Enables us to serve various automation needs as both tech and business users
Pros and Cons
  • "The Robotic Desktop Automation Express component allows us to do rapid development outside the normal, time-consuming processes."
  • "The product could do more to expand its 'codeless' coding options by adding drag-and-drop assistance in building bots for non-technical users."

What is our primary use case?

We are using WorkFusion as our enterprise RPA solution at this time to help us deploy some automation. It is a hybrid-based installation. Eventually, we are going to try to move everything to the cloud. Some of our customers are dealing with transactions, trader solutions, governance compliance needs, and other special cases so it is not totally possible to go totally on the cloud at this time. There are also clients who deal with things like a KYC (Know Your Customer) type solution, and then a few operational needs like ATM reconciliation and financial revenue reconciliation. The regulations sometimes preclude certain solutions in certain configurations.  

How has it helped my organization?

It helps us to provide some of the bot solutions we need to work with our customers.  

What is most valuable?

I suppose that the most useful feature in WorkFusion has been the desktop solution — also known as a desktop option. It is a type of RDA (Robotic Desktop Automation) express option because it allows us to do very quick developments outside of the normal BI (Business Intelligence) process. Even though the bigger enterprise is obviously more robust, there are a lot of small solutions that can solve pain points in our business at a particular moment that do not require more rigorous development.  

What needs improvement?

Obviously, the WorkFusion Enterprise product is very technical. You have got to be Java proficient and otherwise technically oriented. I guess what could be an improvement in the product is moving towards more "codeless" coding. That would be using things like a drag-and-drop interface to build solutions with premade components. These components would have set functions to simplify using the coding portion of the product for the business user. Instead of keeping the product in use with only the more technically inclined users, they might create a way for the business user to assemble what they need and enhance development opportunities.  

I think a move towards that sort of codeless coding would be a great step in creating more utility for more end users. Maybe API calls or other creative components could be worked in. The express version does not do API calls and the Enterprise version does not do codeless coding. It would be nice to have a solution somewhere in the middle. WorkFusion has got the very easy, light version covered and the very technical, heavy one covered. There seems to me to be a gray area or gap in the middle where a whole set of potential users is not addressed.  

For how long have I used the solution?

I think our organization has been using WorkFusion for three or maybe four years overall. With my group in the Africa regions, we have been using it for about two years.  

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I do not think we have ever had issues with stability. It seems to be very good from my personal experience. It is more likely that something in the solution will be affected by the environment changing than it just breaking down. The question becomes can an RPA solution adapt to changing architecture through various upgrades and version changes and remain compatible with the environment.  

The stability of the product itself is something we have not had issues with.  

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would say there are probably just less than 100 users currently working with WorkFusion at our company. I am not sure what the total number is, but probably less than 100. Within the African group, we have probably got about 15 to 20 total users.  

Most of the people using the product are using it on a daily basis. The processes created as bots are obviously running in real-time all the time. The developers are either busy with deployments or they get involved from an analysis and design perspective. But working directly with the product consumes a high percentage of the users' time.  

Our scaling is simply replication across countries and geography. There are always new projects and configurations that need to take place to augment the system, but it is pretty easy to scale usage of completed bots.  

How are customer service and technical support?

I do not ever have the need to contact the WorkFusion tech support directly. We have got a Center of Excellence that supports us from a group perspective. We deal with them and they deal with the vendor if anything needs to be resolved.  

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

This solution is actually the first RPA I have used. Maybe it is not so surprising considering the technology is not very old.  

I joined the team after all of the internal architectural decisions, choices, and implementations were completed. Because of that, I can not really comment on the evaluation process. I have just been making use of the system that was in place after its adoption, and I can not really complain.  

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial installation as it happened before I arrived. I can only say that I have not heard anything about the issues that may have occurred.  

It does require maintenance and there is ongoing support from a technical training standpoint. Then the bots themselves require maintenance and updates. That is, if there is anything that changes in the environment or any process changes, the bots may need to be reconfigured — or even replaced — to work with the changes.  

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

WorkFusion is cheaper than quite a few of the potential solutions, but we have also heard some complaints that it is a more expensive solution than others. It is certainly not the cheapest solution. I think Help Automate came in as quite a bit less expensive. Obviously, we have to have an enterprise solution with a company of our size and there is an opportunity to negotiate to potentially work out a volume discount. That would make the cost less significant in the choice of what we continue to use.  

As far as I know, all other services are included in the license as a single point of pay without any additional fees.  

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

While we have got WorkFusion as a solution at the moment, we continue going through due diligence. We actively check and evaluate the alternatives that are available. We consider it an ongoing or proactive review of our current toolkit. We currently use mostly WorkFusion, but we also use Python for some of the other automation. We are looking at other important products like UiPath, Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, and Help Automate. Those are the tools that we are pulling in to use for our comparisons. One of them may solve potential pain points the current solutions do not.  

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would recommend this solution to other users. I have got nothing against UiPath or Blue Prism or any of those other products, and I think there are other options like Python people can make use of. But from my experience with this product, I certainly recommend it.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate WorkFusion about an eight. Between a seven and an eight but on the high end of that range.  

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
WorkFusion
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about WorkFusion. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2287197 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deputy OFAC Officer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Helps increase our efficiency, speed, and decisiveness
Pros and Cons
  • "We have been very pleased with the speed and decisiveness of WorkFusion, which is able to quickly provide a disposition note or escalate to a human for additional review."
  • "I would like WorkFusion to improve the automation rate when evaluating unstructured text."

What is our primary use case?

We use the WorkFusion Tara Digital Worker to assist with level one screening of real-time payments.

We deployed WorkFusion in the cloud and it is integrated with our screening solution.

How has it helped my organization?

We use machine learning-powered AI-based digital workers, which are very important to our core business process. This allows us to work at scale without increasing headcount and to focus our existing headcount on more critical work that requires human attention.

It is important for institutions to evaluate the opportunity to implement AI in areas where experience and consistency are key, understanding that it requires a strong governance program and continuous monitoring to prevent people from treating it as a black box and ignoring its potential risks.

We have seen an increase in efficiency, which has allowed our existing resources to be more focused on mission-critical items that are more relevant to subject-matter experts, enabling them to do important work without eliminating essential tasks, given the nature of false positives associated with payment screens.

AI helps our organization scale. Based on the automation rate, I see that our institution has been performing well. I believe that the benefit of WorkFusion is their willingness to work with the customer to continuously evaluate the product and strive for higher automation rates through ongoing releases and enhancements.

We do not use WorkFusion's document processing engine very often. We are considering using them to evaluate introduction alerts and real-time payments. They would compare a paper payment to a populated alert. The documentation they have provided has been excellent. Once we had an executed agreement, they provided very good article documentation related to model validation, which has allowed us to implement a strong governance program.

WorkFusion is easy for non-technical users to start using.

It allows us to scale our real-time payment screening process so that we can handle an increase in alerts caused by changes to watchlists or the environment. Digital workers can process the equivalent of a very large number of full-time teammates, so we can treat them as the first set of eyes in a four-eye review process. A second human subject matter expert can then evaluate the digital worker's performance and give a final sign-off. This process is more efficient and has a faster turnaround time than a fully manual process.

Although we had no issues with accuracy or compliance before implementing WorkFusion, it has helped us maintain a strong level of compliance by providing consistent outcomes and notes as part of its review of payment alerts.

WorkFusion has been an excellent partner, providing clear and concise communication to understand our needs, helping us to integrate or work with our existing systems expeditiously, assisting with user acceptance testing, and providing a very strong customer support base when we have identified challenges or requested further enhancements. I appreciate WorkFusion's partnership in this regard.

What is most valuable?

We have been very pleased with the speed and decisiveness of WorkFusion, which is able to quickly provide a disposition note or escalate to a human for additional review. We are also very pleased with the quality of WorkFusion's dispositions.

What needs improvement?

I would like WorkFusion to improve the automation rate when evaluating unstructured text.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using WorkFusion for just over six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

WorkFusion has been very stable even when we've faced challenges. WorkFusion has been a great partner in identifying, fixing, and implementing solutions in a very reasonable amount of time.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability has been good so far, but we haven't had a massive increase to truly test it. Based on our observations of the dynamic nature of functions, lists, enhancements, and additions or subtractions, WorkFusion has met our demands so far, which is great.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good and responsive. They communicate the status of issues well, which I appreciate. We don't have to call them; we can simply report an issue, and they will provide regular updates. We've never had an issue linger for too long, which is great. Overall, our experience with technical support has been positive.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward and a very good experience. The WorkFusion team worked seamlessly with our sanction screening vendor to turn it around quickly and easily from our hardware end.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house. The digital worker that we use works as though it is a human within our screen system.

What was our ROI?

Given that we do not generate income, it is difficult to quantify a return on investment. However, I would say that it has been a significant cost savings, allowing us to meet our demands without having to increase our headcount by multiple teammates.

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

The pricing is fair because WorkFusion's out-of-the-box solution is appealing.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated a few different automation vendors, but we felt that the WorkFusion product was more directly designed to meet our needs; it did not require a custom build by another vendor.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate WorkFusion eight out of ten. The product offers opportunities for improvement, particularly in terms of customer-based comfort with the level of automation, whether to manage it, monitor it, or trust it to run fully automated.

We have a small number of endpoint users who use WorkFusion. These are our level-one analysts who interact with it. We currently use our level-one and level-two analysts to handle escalations from WorkFusion and to evaluate the false positives that WorkFusion identifies, in order to confirm that they agree with the disposition note.

No maintenance is required.

For those considering WorkFusion but already using an RPA tool, I would like to know about their RPA experience and whether they felt it was tailored to the specific needs of the financial crime compliance industry. I have personally found that WorkFusion's explicit definition of what its digital workers can and cannot do, and its application of this to the financial crimes industry, really sets it apart from other vendors. This is because other vendors require a significant amount of customer input to design a product that meets their needs, and then require further customer maintenance to ensure that those needs are still being met.

Make sure to discuss the willingness to work with other vendors to share their model documentation and provide support for model validation. Artificial intelligence-based solutions are a very hot topic, so I think people need to be cautious about how they select a vendor. Make sure that the vendor is able to provide their own model documentation and model governance so that they understand that the risk of any errors and all liability rests with the institution. AI can be a great tool, but only when it is governed and monitored appropriately.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
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
reviewer1373997 - PeerSpot reviewer
Analyst, Intelligent Automation at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Its ability to scale across multiple geographies with limited impact on additional IT Hardware requirements has enabled the scaling of Robotics capabilities
Pros and Cons
  • "WorkFusion's RPA Express's ability to scale across multiple geographies with limited impact on additional IT Hardware requirements. This has enabled the scaling of Robotics capabilities and solutions across all our entities."
  • "The product needs to be "simple and easy" to use. A good example of this is the use of Python code to perform automations. It is free and the skills transfer is able to happen quickly and the operation and initiation of the completed automation is easy to execute."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for desktop automation for smaller solutions that stand outside the development on the core operating systems.

We also use it for building robotics capabilities and skills in all of our geographies across fourteen countries in Africa.

Automations have been done over several operating environments and include solutions in the following areas.

1. Operations

2. Compliance and Risk (Regulation driven requirements)

3. Credit solutions and integration with decision systems

The primary focus is delivering solutions that enable better customer experience.

How has it helped my organization?

WorkFusion's SPA capability, although powerful, is somewhat restrictive as it requires a considerable infrastructure investment and would require considerable network and bandwidth capabilities to function from a central site without the deployment of local instances.

Their proposed Cloud solution should resolve many of these issues and enable multiple geographic areas to benefit from the solution's capabilities.

Their RPA Express solution is free and provides a way to expand the Robotics footprint.

What is most valuable?

WorkFusion's RPA Express's ability to scale across multiple geographies with limited impact on additional IT Hardware requirements. This has enabled the scaling of Robotics capabilities and solutions across all our entities.

The RPA Express solution is a free addition to the current Enterprise Agreement the Group has with WorkFusion and provides an excellent entry point into Robotics for new "Intelligent Automation Practitioners". 

Training has been standardized and formalized Academies have been set up.

What needs improvement?

The product needs to be "simple and easy" to use. 

A good example of this is the use of Python code to perform automations. It is free and the skills transfer is able to happen quickly and the operation and initiation of the completed automation are easy to execute. 

The primary focus of the Robotics Process Automation software should be to enable business users to perform "codeless" automations that will still fall within the strict governance and compliance structures within which we are required to operate.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using WorkFusion for 24+ months.

A formal training programme has been initiated with the objective to create an Academy.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The Group has built up a sound knowledge and experience base with the technology.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The SPA is not so good.

RPA Express is very good.

How are customer service and technical support?

This expertise has grown considerably and continues to do so.

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

We also do use Python to develop automation solutions.

How was the initial setup?

Setup - Unable to comment

Support - Support has grown and continues to expand

What about the implementation team?

We implemented using both an in-house team and a vendor team.

The Vendor Team is very proficient.

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

These is primary drivers that will determine the selection of a solution as there are currently huge pressures on overheads given the decrease in revenue following Covid-19.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are currently reviewing alternative, scalable solutions.

What other advice do I have?

  • Simple to use (business user, not IT reliant)
  • Cost-effective
  • Easy to support and integrate with current IT Architecture 

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: My company has an Enterprise Agreement with WorkFusion
PeerSpot user
RPA SME at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Automation has significantly reduced our card fraud investigation time
Pros and Cons
  • "The Control Tower enables us to create and use workflows. It helps us run processes. There are a lot of small features, but the Control Tower is a very good feature, wherein we can create bots and schedule them as well as create different instances of them to run in different regions."
  • "WorkFusion comes packed with certain libraries and .jars. At times, you understand that you're using a system in which a library or .jar is outdated and you need to upgrade it... They need to better manage quickly making changes in WorkFusion to accommodate a situation where other technologies are not supporting the platform."

What is our primary use case?

WorkFusion is an RPA solution that we use to automate things. We have multiple use cases. We use it to help prevent card fraud, as well as for fraud investigation, credit, and new-account opening. It is used across the bank for multiple purposes.

The purpose is to automate trivial and mundane tasks and make them less dependent on humans, as well as to make them much faster and more efficient than when done by humans.

How has it helped my organization?

The whole purpose of RPA is to minimize and automate the mundane tasks that go on in any organization. In our case let's take the example of card fraud. When someone here in South Africa suddenly gets an SMS on their phone saying that 1,000 South African rands were debited on their credit card, and they realize they didn't do the transaction, they'll report fraud to the bank. Before automation, when someone reported fraud, the case had to be logged and an investigation would take place to look into whether the customer had actually been a victim of fraud. That process included pulling SMS and ATM logs and it took seven to 10 days for a case to be finalized.

With automation, we have some pretty new solutions wherein, as soon as a card fraud is reported to the bank using any of the usual channels, whether it's through the app, an SMS, visiting a branch, or contacting a call center, a case is logged and flows into the robotic system. Then, based on the customer's card number, his details are fetched from the bank systems, including his SMS and ATM logs. When an investigator sees that the customer was a fraud victim, he puts it into the refund queue and the bot reverses the amount. If it is the first time a customer is a victim of fraud, he gets a refund within 10 to 15 minutes.

We already have a lot of compliance and governance systems in the bank, but they were all manual. If someone who was doing compliance and reporting was sick for two or three days, that job would be pending or maybe someone would need to take over. With automation, the level of reporting has increased because we are doing all the user reporting more frequently. WorkFusion has increased the level of compliance by not delaying it.

What is most valuable?

The Control Tower enables us to create and use workflows. It helps us run processes. There are a lot of small features, but the Control Tower is a very good feature, wherein we can create bots and schedule them as well as create different instances of them to run in different regions.

The "human task" feature is also important. It allows us to handle scenarios that might be causing a process to fail. We can catch a process that has not finished and take action on it.

When we develop bots, WorkFusion is heavily integrated and built on top of Selenium. We get to use the Selenium capabilities, which is also nice.

What needs improvement?

I've not worked with the OCR feature, but from what I hear, its accuracy is not that high. It depends on the type of documents you're processing, because if they are handwritten documents, it's very difficult to do optical character recognition. Maybe it is a matter of using the AI/ML features of the WorkFusion platform, which we haven't explored. But document processing with respect to OCR can be made better.

Also, WorkFusion comes packed with certain libraries and .jars. At times, you understand that you're using a system in which a library or .jar is outdated and you need to upgrade it. At that moment there is a problem because the WorkFusion guys say that you cannot tinker with their basic product, despite the fact that we have encountered an issue with an existing library or .jar being either outdated or having some serious issues. And because of that, we are failing. They need to better manage quickly making changes in WorkFusion to accommodate a situation where other technologies are not supporting the platform.

For example, WorkFusion uses a protocol for a file transfer protocol server. Now, some other systems we are using WorkFusion with have migrated to a higher protocol. WorkFusion doesn't support that higher protocol and the other technology doesn't support the lower protocol. We are in a Catch-22 situation. But if we were to go to WorkFusion, they would say we won't allow you to change our product. They can do better in managing changes customers need to make because of certain situations.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using WorkFusion for about four and a half years.

I actually never worked on RPA before I started working here. I had knowledge of Java so I was hired by the organization. There was a lack of WorkFusion people available in the market five or six years back. Even now, it's not one of the most popular or prevalent technologies for RPA in the market. So there are fewer people to work on it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is pretty stable. At times we have problems wherein our platform team needs to restart their services or server. But I would assume that it is because a lot of teams deploy to that server. So if they're not managing their processes in a smarter way, at times it gives them problems. But otherwise, the platform is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We haven't scaled it on a dynamic basis, in real time, as you might do with Amazon Web Services or cloud services. But if we have a bot working on four machines, and we need to handle more loads, the very simple way of doing it is to add more machines or VDIs. Another option is to make them run for more hours so that they can complete the load. We are able to manage our loads with our design and the way how we implemented the solution. We haven't had challenges.

Currently, we have version 9 which is on-prem. From version 10 it is on the cloud. It's a big move from on-prem to cloud. So a lot of people have to learn the basics of the cloud. Then the whole program can move to the cloud. There are discussions going on and the next move is to the cloud.

There are a lot of people using the solution within our company. Some are technical people who are developing and deploying solutions. Others are on the platform team and they are managing the end product. Some people are analysts who have different levels of access. And some are on the business teams in the bank, who actually run the bots. There are six or seven teams involved with a total of about 100 people using it.

How are customer service and support?

Sometimes, when we report an issue such as a possible bug in the WorkFusion platform, and we need answers or a solution, we think WorkFusion can do better. Most of the time, there is a lot of back-and-forth communications and then they will say, "We will log a ticket and it will be in our queue and we will investigate it." Many times it's a burning issue for us. The support from the WorkFusion team is slower than what is expected by their customers.

There could be many reasons for it. They develop a lot of features and they have to integrate improvements into their solution, and they have to roll out patches. But, when all is said and done, it would be better if they were faster and more nimble to accommodate changes.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

In our organization there is a platform team that manages all the technical aspects of installing, managing, and restarting services.

Maintenance of the product is typically handled by that team as well, which has five or six staff members. There are two senior guys and three or four very junior guys who just joined out of college. But obviously, their job is not only to maintain WorkFusion, that's one of their jobs. We don't need a team of five to maintain WorkFusion, but we have a team that does the job.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

It competes with other solutions in the RPA domain, such as UiPath, Blue Prism, and Automation Anywhere.

What other advice do I have?

We haven't used the AI and ML features in production that much. The OCR features are reasonably good, not very good, but reasonably good, and they get some use.

If you're an analyst or an end-user, it's not very easy, but it's worth developing some abilities based on basic certification or training. It's not that complex because there are so many facilities available, but if non-technical users are not aware, they may only be able to use it to a lesser extent. It is not really easy for non-technical users, that's what I hear, but it is worth it. It gives you results if you learn it. And for a technical person, it is Java-oriented technology, so you need to have good skills to develop bots.

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
reviewer1830315 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Automation at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Real User
Takes care of simple tasks so users can focus more on exceptions than on regular use cases, but the pricing could be lower for maintaining servers
Pros and Cons
  • "It takes care of simple tasks so users can focus more on exceptions than on regular use cases. They only focus on orders where they need to handle an exception, some information was not given, or there is an issue that they had to focus on. The rest of it goes straight through without human touch. We want to see our employees as engineers, wherein they think and solve problems, not necessarily have to do repetitive tasks. I think WorkFusion helps with avoiding repetitive tasks."
  • "We had some issues in the past, but it is fairly stable now. From what I hear, it is more stable in the later versions. With version 10.1.4, there were some issues relating to load distribution. However, it is good now."

What is our primary use case?

It is related to order entry and customs processing. At a high level, it is automatically reading from emails, processing attachments, OCR, and machine learning.

We use it for our important use cases. We are a transportation company. We take orders, then we fulfill those orders. So, if we do not take the orders, then we have nothing to work on.

We also do cross-border freight. We move freight from the US to Canada and Canada to the US. We need government clearance before we can move the freight. For that, WorkFusion is also important.

It is on the cloud utilizing AWS. We are working on changing it to the SaaS model from this year onwards.

How has it helped my organization?

It takes care of simple tasks so users can focus more on exceptions than on regular use cases. They only focus on orders where they need to handle an exception, some information was not given, or there is an issue that they had to focus on. The rest of it goes straight through without human touch. We want to see our employees as engineers, wherein they think and solve problems, not necessarily have to do repetitive tasks. I think WorkFusion helps with avoiding repetitive tasks.

We have a retry queue. Therefore, if some information is not correct the first time, then you put it in the retry queue, the users can correct any mistakes. So, it has certainly helped with accuracy. From a capacity and scaling perspective, it has also helped by taking away our repetitive tasks. It is helpful in that sense.

What is most valuable?

It is flexible in handling different types of use cases. It allows users to customize the solution, if they know how to code. 

It has the ability to handle big use cases because it is scalable. So, it can handle complicated use cases.

We have had no issues with the document processing engine. It has been good. There are some documents that it edits out, but for the most part, they go through. We use it for mostly unstructured documents. Its machine learning is good when the amount of data to be extracted is within reason. However, if there are too many data points, then we have to get creative and maybe focus on the top 10 customers or top 80% of the volume. We might have to focus on that. But, if it is within a certain number of fields, then it is okay.

What needs improvement?

Its ability to read handwriting has room for improvement. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with WorkFusion since 2016.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

If WorkFusion goes down, it is a big problem. If it is not accurate, then we will have issues as well. We need to get the right freight and clear the right freight. The robots have helped increase the rate of efficiency by 75% to 80% from a customer perspective and 30% from an order entry perspective.

We had some issues in the past, but it is fairly stable now. From what I hear, it is more stable in the later versions. With version 10.1.4, there were some issues relating to load distribution. However, it is good now. Their support and infrastructure teams have been able to help fix those issues. We have had some downtimes in the past, but their support team has been fast to help out with them.

The solution requires a DBA to clean up the database, reindex, and update the statistics in the database. It requires maintenance there. There is also the monitoring of the AWS service in general.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is used extensively as a big part of our organization. We use it for our two main use cases: order audit entry and customs. We are using it heavily and rely on it. If it goes down, it is a big problem.

How are customer service and support?

From time to time, I have posted in their community. Nowadays, I primarily work with their support team who is excellent. They are very fast to respond and knowledgeable. I would rate them as 10 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

Before WorkFusion, we used Kofax RPA. When our use cases got complex, we felt doing that with Kofax RPA was not a good option at that time and wanted to use WorkFusion instead.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. We did not have too many issues, just with the number of servers and the cost of hosting it full-time. 

It took about three to four weeks to implement their machine learning models for OCR and Intelligent Document Processing. The main timeframe was with document tagging and the training data. Our SMEs, data engineers, data scientists, and data analysts were involved in implementing this functionality.

What about the implementation team?

We engaged their engineers to do the setup. We didn't do it on our own. That made a difference.

Similar to their support, their infrastructure engineers are also very good and knowledgeable. It was a very good experience.

For somebody new trying to figure it out on their own, it could take time. However, if you are going through WorkFusion, then the setup is not bad.

What was our ROI?

We have certainly seen ROI, especially with our custom's process. We are able to achieve a lot of straight-through processing. In fact, if it goes down, it takes our users at least five times more time to finish what they need to finish. So, we have certainly seen ROI there. We have able to repurpose employees to do different things. The ROI could always be better. It is a work progress.

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

The overall cost could come down a bit in terms of maintaining the servers. Because it can handle complicated things in big use cases, the infrastructure is also correspondingly big. It would be nice to bring that cost down. 

We would like it to be cheaper. The licensing that we got was unlimited, insofar as we are on-prem. We are not SaaS-based. In that sense, it is good. At the same time, it would be nice if the pricing comes down a little bit.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We checked a few things, then we went with WorkFusion. We liked the flexibility with WorkFusion to handle complex use cases. That was the main reason why we went with WorkFusion. I was also going to say their AutoML seemed advanced compared to other tools.

What other advice do I have?

If it is used for simple things, it is definitely easy. If you want to get complicated and do your coding, then you need some technical knowledge. It depends on the use case.

To someone who is looking into WorkFusion but already has an RPA tool in place, I would say, "Take an evaluation of your current RPA in terms of your ML statistics, extraction rate, or KPIs from the current RPA environment. Then, possibly do a PoC with WorkFusion in terms of how WorkFusion can match those KPIs or make them better, and slowly transition from the other RPA to WorkFusion if the results are better."

Version 10.1.4 might not be the best option since there are some known bugs that can cause load distribution issues. Maybe go with a later version. A PoC would be good. In general, do a good evaluation, then pick the right version and move forward with that.

We have evaluated WorkFusion Network's library of prebuilt components, but we have not used them so far.

I would rate this solution as seven out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

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

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
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
Deepak Thomas - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Standard Bank South Africa
Real User
Top 20
Exceptional customization ability, great customer support, and install simple
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is stable, we have not had any glitches or problems."
  • "We have had some problems in the past with the Inspector tool that looks at the elements on the screen. Replacing it or improving it is needed."

How has it helped my organization?

The solution is not just about playing recordings, dragging and dropping them onto the platform. It does more, it allows your business to have more use cases. When you are using the framework it allows you the ablility to customize the Java code according to business requirements. This is what makes it easier for us.

I think from a business point of view, we have accomplished what we wanted to. From a skills perspective, there is still a lot of upskilling that is required because our next step is machine learning.

What is most valuable?

The solution is customizable, you can create new APIs according to your requirements.

What needs improvement?

We have had some problems in the past with the Inspector tool that looks at the elements on the screen. Replacing it or improving it is needed.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable, we have not had any glitches or problems. I would say currently the stability is approximately 95%.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The version we are using has been able to scale fine since we have done it already. I would like to see how the scalability is of version 10, which we are waiting to do.

How are customer service and technical support?

The customer service uses tickets for tracking support. Their turn around time is very good, we typically get a response within a day.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was time-consuming but simple. We had the skills and resources to complete it without a problem.

What about the implementation team?

The whole implementation took approximately two months. We had different environments and hardware which can add up to more time for the process. Typically, the more changes that are required the more time it can take.

What other advice do I have?

I do not have high-level experience with platforms that offer similar robotic process automation currently. The capability is there in this solution, the platform has a lot of features and capabilities. The onus is of the user to utilize all of those capabilities that WorkFusion has. 

If you have a small business there might be a better solution out there for you but if you have a large organisation, I definitely recommend it.

I rate WorkFusion an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Banking RPA Senior Engineer at a financial services firm
Real User
We can implement complex workflows, but it is slow in production
Pros and Cons
  • "We need to analyze documents in order to understand them. We don't need to dedicate much time to this because WorkFusion's machine learning capabilities are very good. We can easily extract information and classify these documents. The document processing engine is very important to our organization because it is the center for many use cases, as we need to control the information contained in documents."
  • "We have executed our robots thousands of times in our enterprise environment. However, in an enterprise environment, WorkFusion has performance problems. It is slow in production."

What is our primary use case?

We use WF on banking use cases

How has it helped my organization?

It has helped us create new opportunities. 

What is most valuable?

WorkFusion has the capability to implement complex workflows, which is useful. ML capabilities are very powerfull as well

What needs improvement?

Non-code and further ML capabilities would be usefull.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Platform is very scalable with the exception of Control Tower. Some improvements could be usefull on this component.

How are customer service and support?

A spanish customer service would be appreciated. I would rate the technical support as 9 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

WorkFusion's implementation is very easy. The biggest issue is analyzing the documents internally.

The implementation time depends on the project and use case.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

WorkFusion is leader on IDP.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend WorkFusion as a very flexible tool.

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