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Reviews from AWS customer

34 AWS reviews

External reviews

5,697 reviews
from and

External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.


    Vatsal Shah

It's easy to scale bots and implementation is simple

  • September 22, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We have automated PO processing, PO-to-order booking, and various website flows, such as ticket generation, timely uploads of files on the website, and report generation. We have also automated report delivery to all end-users.

How has it helped my organization?

Manual efforts have been reduced and the accuracy has increased. In the processes I have done, the accuracy has reached 100 percent, and manual load and time has been reduced.

What is most valuable?

Object cloning and Excel operations are what we use most.

The ability of Automation Anywhere to provide automation at scale, on a scale of one to 10, is a nine. Integration of its RPA bots using APIs is an eight out of 10.

What needs improvement?

More and more innovation is going on, and they'll have to keep adding features to keep up with the market. They have generative AI on their platform, but that's a new part. They are working on it. It's not 100 percent foolproof, but eventually it will get better. They need to work on their AI capabilities.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Automation Anywhere for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The new version is stable now. When we first started, the platform was not stable, but it became stable when we shifted to A360.

How are customer service and support?

If we are stuck anywhere, their technical team is always available. We have raised one or two issues with them and they were able to help us out and turn them around.

We haven't required them very much, but they are available if we need them.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I've worked with Microsoft Power Automate, but at a very basic level.

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment is easy. The documentation is clear. Implementing A360 on-premises, a complete end-to-end installation, takes four hours. We just need the server team for administrator passwords.

I had already tested and tried it on a development server, so I had all the steps written that I had to follow for deployment to production. It didn't take much time. I read the installation guidelines and documentation from Automation Anywhere and it was easy for me to do it.

We have about 25 end-users of the solution in our organization, and three of us take care of maintenance. In terms of bot maintenance, not much time is spent unless and until there's a change in the process or the environment.

For business users who do not have technical skills, it is easy to use the product. They understand what is possible with the tool over time. Within a year, they understood what needed to be automated and what not. Training non-technical employees on Automation Anywhere usage takes three to six months.

What about the implementation team?

I did it myself.

What was our ROI?

It's an ongoing process. I have done more than 400 processes for our client over a four-year period. The time a process takes to automate depends on the complexity of the process. Within three or four weeks, a process is generally completely done, from development to production.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We tried UiPath at the time, but Automation Anywhere was more promising. It was easy to scale the bots in Automation Anywhere, and the implementation using Automation Anywhere was simpler compared to UiPath. However, I've heard from people working with UiPath that it's faster compared to Automation Anywhere. The execution time for Automation Anywhere might be 10 seconds, whereas with UiPath it might take six seconds.

What other advice do I have?

If someone is considering an API integration instead of an RPA solution, that means the API has to be available. Using Automation Anywhere, you can automate any process completely, end-to-end. It doesn't need an API. We can automate front-end, Excel, Word—anything. That is more helpful compared to an API integration.


    reviewer2278983

Provides a lot of ways to automate processes and integrates well with our applications

  • September 18, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

I am working with an integrated resort. It is a hotel with a casino in Singapore. There are about 130 manual processes that we have automated touching the front office, call center, back of the house, finance, facilities, and casino areas as well. We have automated scheduling and workforce planning.

My business is divided into what we call gaming and non-gaming space. It is an integrated resort. We started out by automating use cases from the non-gaming area. In the third year, we started venturing out a little bit into the gaming area. We did not go into the heavy gaming areas such as on the casino floor. We went for support processes at the back of the house, which included scheduling and things like that. We are also doing reporting.

Most of what we have is for attended and unattended bots. We have just started to use Co-Pilot or what used to be known as AARI. It is something new for us, and we have only one process using that. It is a pilot project. It is something new that we started now in our fifth year.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation consumption. It has helped the business address some of the pain points. It has helped the business understand that there are other ways of doing things and getting out of the manual processing. We come from a heavily people-oriented industry. We are into hospitality where you need the human touch for our business. We are not a bank. We are not a financial institution. The mindset change that I have seen with my business stakeholders because of the automations that we are doing for them is a plus. It is a game changer. In our first year of doing this, we started out very small. I had a team of myself and one developer, and now, in our fifth year, we have over 130 bots touching over 40 business units. I now have a team of four people, so we have grown. We now have a culture or ecosystem where the business stakeholders know that if they are still doing something heavily manual and highly repetitive, and it is not adding any real value to the time of the team member, there is a team within the organization that they can approach. This team will help with whatever pain point they have or take that task out of their day-to-day work so that they can concentrate on higher-value activities. This whole mindset or this whole culture or ecosystem is now there in the company. Automation Anywhere has helped elevate the consciousness of the organization by realizing that there is an automation world out there, and we can bring solutions to the table for their problems and use cases.

When it comes to integration, we have been lucky so far. We use many applications. The processes that we have automated touch 30 to 40 applications that we have in-house. It is seamless. It is fine, but some of the third-party applications that we are trying to integrate with are not necessarily very automation-friendly. The objects of those third-party applications are always changing, and therefore, we constantly have to rescript, but that is not necessarily Automation Anywhere's problem. That is just the nature of the other third-party applications that may not necessarily want you to be automating or layering on top of their systems and get behind their applications. I have been lucky so far. We have not had to go back to a business and say that we cannot automate their process because Automation Anywhere cannot integrate with a particular application. I have not had that experience as of now.

The learning curve of Automation Anywhere for my own team was pretty good. If you are a full-on developer, it is one of the easier tools to learn in the market. It is pretty good as long as this is something that you are using regularly. If you are a dedicated person doing the development and working with the tool, it is very easy to use. As far as my developers are concerned, it is very easy. We are able to turn around projects or use cases in three to four weeks. For even complex ones, there is a fairly good turnaround time in terms of delivering to our stakeholders. We do not train nontechnical people on its use. Businesses only receive automation from us, so they are not trained on it. If they are going to be trained on it, it is only on how to run their bots, and that is a part of our production development checklist or lifecycle that we give them. It just takes a day or two because we only teach them how to run their bots. It is delivered to them. We do all the installation on their machines. We set up their machines, and then we teach them how to run the bots.

When we first engaged with them, we thought that we could easily go into what we refer to as a citizen developer type of framework, but that did not go too well. We rely heavily on the CoE team, which is my team, to do automation. We have a build and support model for our business users. Business users are only taught how to run their bots. We do not teach our business users how to build a bot. We tried that and did some training with some key business stakeholders. It was a three-day training, but it did not prove to be too successful. After the training, they go back to their business units, and if it is not the core or what they do on a day-to-day basis, it is very hard to sustain, so the main building and the heavy lifting came back to the CoE team. Our team delivers to business units. From that perspective, I would rate Automation Anywhere a three out of five. Business users cannot just go ahead and build their own bots without really learning and understanding the tool.

What is most valuable?

The whole suite of RPA modules that they have is very good. They have three environments in which you can do your automation. You have development, staging, and production environments. These are run by licenses as well, which is very good. There are a lot of ways of automating processes with this application. I am not a developer. I run the RPA CoE team. I have a team that does the actual development, so I cannot speak of features per se, but the whole RPA module that they have is one of the best in class.

It is easy to use. When you need to make changes to your automation, it is quite quick. You do not need to go through the whole script. You can do it in modules or subtasks.

What needs improvement?

There are several things. They can improve their billing. I have had issues with their billing.

Their license model needs to be improved. The biggest issue for me is that the license is tied to a person, and it is not something that I can pass if I want to use it for the first five hours and pass it on to you for the next five hours and so on. When we automate, the license is tied to me, and if you or somebody else needs to use that license, as a COE administrator, I need to transfer the license from person A to person B. This is something that I have always told them that should not be this way because you want to utilize your licenses effectively. You want to ensure that your utilization of licenses is maximized throughout the organization because you are paying on a per-license basis. If it is tied to a person or to an AD account, how can you pass on that license to others to use if they are from other departments? If there is one big thing that they could change in terms of the subscription model for a license, it would be that it should be concurrent and not tied to a user.

In terms of the product, they can improve the upgrades. They are in A360, which is the cloud version. They went from version 11 to A360, and there are new updates and features all the time. Sometimes, these upgrades break other things that were working previously. We have found out that there are some bugs that are going on with the updates. Because they are on the cloud now, they do every quarter some kind of upgrade or patch.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Automation Anywhere for the past five years. We started out in 2018. I was scouting around the market for an RPA vendor. I am based in Singapore, and after doing a study of top vendors at that time, I decided to go with Automation Anywhere. We are now in our fifth year of engagement with them.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere is very good at providing automation at scale. We have about 130 bots. They absolutely have the ability to scale for me. Their platform is geared towards that. It is all license-driven, and it is quite easy to scale using this tool. The infrastructure is dependent on us as a company, and making sure that our environment is ready for all the builds that we need to do, the development that we need to do, and the rollouts that we need to do, so there is a handshake between the company and the tool. It is not very complicated once you get the rhythm and once you get your governance going. It is quite good.

How are customer service and support?

I contacted their technical support when some of the functionality broke because of an upgrade or the functionality did not seem correct. In some of those cases, as a client, we were the ones who told them about an issue or a bug in a particular feature. We appreciate that they came back and said that it is correct, they are aware of it, and it is going to be fixed in the next release. We have had a couple of those kinds of instances.

I would rate their support a seven out of ten because we had issues with them in terms of response and in terms of trying to get to the root cause of a problem. We had just migrated to A360. We were on version 11, and we had to switch over because it was going to be end-of-life or end-of-support. They were pushing all their clients to move to A360. In the beginning, my team had to tell their team that these are some of the issues that their A360 tool has and these are some of the bugs. They were a bit slow to react and get to a resolution or root cause.

Also, in the beginning, we were communicating with so many people. There was no continuity in terms of the person handling the ticket. They might have been changing shifts, but when you leave clients to repeat themselves to a new set of people they are talking to overseas, it gets a little bit annoying. I did highlight this point to their management team, and ever since I did that, their support team started handling the account a little bit better, but that is the reason why I am giving them a seven out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

We were not using any other solution previously. It was our first foray into robotic space. We have been with Automation Anywhere ever since.

How was the initial setup?

Our setup is hybrid. Our control rooms are on the cloud. We are on A360, so our control rooms are on the cloud, but our bots runners are on-premises.

I was involved in its deployment. When we did this at the initial stage in 2018, it was pretty straightforward. They provided great support. We started out by doing eight processes as a pilot.

Their team provided the developers because I had no developers on my end at that time. Their team did it remotely. They were probably doing it from India. They gave us the requirements. They educated us on what was needed and how we needed to set it up so that they could connect to whatever systems they needed for the eight processes or use cases that I had chosen. They did deliver all those processes within two weeks, so it was pretty straightforward.

Their professional services team was top-grade. They knew what they were talking about, and the people that they gave me in Singapore at that time were very good.

In terms of maintenance, it does not require any maintenance from my end. They do a quarterly patch of it. They announce that they are doing a patch, and it gets done. There is no maintenance on my end for the tool. What I need to maintain are the bots that we have built for the business. That is where the maintenance is, but that is more on our end. That is mostly because the bots break because of the change in third-party applications.

What about the implementation team?

They had about two or three developers doing the work remotely. There was a salesperson who was based in Singapore, and then they had sent two people from India to come over to Singapore to handle the account in terms of education. We had a program manager as well as a solution architect.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Five years ago, we looked at UiPath, Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, and WorkFusion. We did the scoping in terms of SWOT analysis, and we found Automation Anywhere to be a better partner to work with and a more stable one in 2018.

What other advice do I have?

To those evaluating Automation Anywhere, I would say that make sure they give you somebody who really knows the tool and they explain the RDLC and the delivery method to you clearly in terms of what you need to set up within your company before you engage. You need to ask the questions because it sounds simple, but it is not that simple, so you need to ask what are the things that you need to have in place in your own organization so that it is a successful rollout.

I was sold on the idea that it is an easy tool to use. Anybody can do it. They do not need to be full-stack developers. Our regular team members can pick it up, but as I got into it, I realized that is not true. Not everybody can do this. You need to have a developer mindset. You need to know how to code. It is not something that anyone can do. That was one thing that I had to learn the hard way. I realized that this model is not going to work for my company, so you need to ask questions. Understand the tool, and make them do a deeper demo in terms of how to build a bot or a complicated process. Do not go with a simple and easy process. If it is of medium complexity, find out how a regular person would do that. Ask them, for instance, what would you need to get this going. Understand the tool and spend more time with the tool before committing.

To someone who wants to use an API integration instead of a robotic process automation (RPA) solution, I would say that if you are doing it through API calls, it is a better way to go. It is more stable because you are doing it from the backend. You are getting connections there rather than using RPA from a front-end perspective.

Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.


    reviewer2272665

Easy to use, has a short learning curve, and helps increase automation consumption

  • September 15, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use Automation Anywhere to automate websites and extract data from them.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation Anywhere helped us automate human tasks.

The learning curve is quite shallow.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization by working around the clock, allowing us to rely on robots instead of humans. We no longer have errors, or if we do have some problems, we are informed. It is easy to implement and monitor the processing part of the software.

Cloud-based Automation Anywhere provides automation at scale with ease.

The integration of RPA bots, APIs, business applications, and documents in Automation Anywhere is good.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase our automation consumption.

What is most valuable?

The best features are the ease of use, the short learning curve, and the good support from our local partner.

What needs improvement?

The quality and speed of Automation Anywhere's support needs significant improvement. We are not satisfied with the quality of support.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Automation Anywhere for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Automation Anywhere is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is not good. They are slow and the level of support is poor.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

We tried using Blue Prism for one of our projects but ran into a lot of complications when we tried to implement it ourselves. We found Automation Anywhere much easier to implement.

How was the initial setup?

We had an enablement package, which we could start using because Automation Anywhere turned it on automatically. We did not need to set it up ourselves, as it was only for bots running in our environment. It was not difficult.

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

The price for Automation Anywhere is reasonable.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also evaluated UiPath, which has similar quality and features to Automation Anywhere. However, we chose Automation Anywhere because we had someone in our organization who was familiar with it. Blue Prism is significantly inferior to both UiPath and Automation Anywhere.

What other advice do I have?

I would give Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

API is our first choice whenever possible, but it is not always feasible, depending on the use case. Sometimes, we need to perform additional process steps beyond simply calling an API. In such cases, we may consider using an RPA tool, such as Automation Anywhere, especially if we do not have an API.

Typical maintenance is required. If we get new versions of bots, we need to update Automation Anywhere. However, the cloud services are maintained by Automation Anywhere itself, so we don't have to worry about that.

I recommend looking at IQ Bots, a very good and easy-to-use intelligent document-processing feature. I also advise taking the quick training available online and trying to build a simple but real process on their own. There is also a community edition that anyone can use, so it's easy to start with that to try out Automation Anywhere.


    Bharathidasan Dhanapani

Improves accuracy and reduces manpower

  • September 08, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We are a biotechnology company. We are in healthcare. We receive samples, and we need to do some of the entries. We did a PoC through Automation Anywhere. Our objective was to improve accuracy and reduce manpower.

How has it helped my organization?

We were able to 100% achieve our objectives. There was an increase in accuracy, and there was also a reduction in manpower. The bot reduced the manpower required. We could reduce nearly 40 members through this project in Automation Anywhere.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation consumption. Earlier, we did not have any automation for the labs to increase accuracy and reduce manpower. We have now achieved the same with Automation Anywhere. We have done about 60% automation. We have used it only for the lab. We are planning to use it for the marketing team, call center, and all other departments.

What is most valuable?

It improves accuracy and reduces manpower. It is easy to learn. We trained our lab people, and they were able to achieve accuracy with the technical knowledge.

What needs improvement?

I would like it to have AI and ML capabilities.

The support can also be better. It can be faster.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Automation Anywhere for the past two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There is 99.5% stability. It is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. With a robust infrastructure, if the sample size increases, we can scale on an on-demand basis.

We plan to increase its usage. We are planning for the lab expansion. During the lab expansion, we will also increase the licenses.

How are customer service and support?

After the execution, we need to have service and support. Sometimes, there is a lag in the support. We are running labs 24/7, but when we raise a ticket, they are able to call and fix the same only on the next business day. For this reason, we have planned high availability for the RPA bots in the case of any incident. We are managing through that, and we have also highlighted the concern about the service and support. They also plan to work on it.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

We did not use any other solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was handled by the business owner and IT. It was done by our partner. It requires technical skills. We need to have a workflow. If we have a clear workflow, we can easily implement the same with the partner.

We provided hands-on training for Automation Anywhere through our partner. In the first phase, it took us at least three months to train the lab operations team and other teams supporting the project. We parallelly created a document for the initial phase. All the people who are now being onboarded use that document. They are able to support the bots without any additional training.

What about the implementation team?

We did the implementation with the help of our partner. They first understood the workflow of the healthcare sector and our architecture. After that, they planned the solution for us. It took them a minimum of one month to understand all those things, and then we did the PoC.

They have also done the integration with the lab software. It took them nearly four to six months for integration and report generation.

What was our ROI?

In the first year, we got 20% to 30% ROI. In the second or third year, we got the complete amount that we invested. There is also an improvement in the business because of data accuracy.

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

It is not cheap, but we are able to get an ROI. I would rate it a seven out of ten in terms of pricing.

There are no costs in addition to licensing, but we had to pay our partner for one-time implementation.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also did a PoC with UiPath and other solutions. We chose Automation Anywhere because we could get significant ROI with Automation Anywhere. Its accuracy and costs were better than others. We have purchased the bot with Orchestrator.

What other advice do I have?

You need to have a good partner to assess the performance and get the best solution.

Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.


    Krishnakumar Maurya

Is fully configurable, includes many connectors, and reduces human presence

  • September 08, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We are the implementer and sales partner of Automation Anywhere. We have implemented hundreds of business processes for clients in the banking, insurance, and manufacturing sectors. We use Automation Anywhere to help our clients automate routine tasks.

Automation Anywhere can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises based on the client's requirements.

How has it helped my organization?

Programmers with good logical thinking will find the learning curve of Automation Anywhere to be relatively easy. Non-programmers can also learn to automate parameter configurations with relative ease, but they may find it more difficult to automate tasks that require customization or workflows.

Automation Anywhere has helped our clients' organizations during the lockdown period in the last two years, from 2020 to 2021. Our clients who were using automation were very happy because the bots could run while the people were away. We were able to control the bots remotely and scale their businesses. In fact, there are several use cases where we implemented solutions solely for scaling purposes. Our clients used to receive millions of records that needed to be processed within a defined time frame, which was not possible manually. This is where the RPA solution using Automation Anywhere came in. It allowed them to scale up their businesses. One particular use case that I still remember is the insurance for farmers' crops. Farmers need to be issued crop insurance policies within a given time frame, as the crop cycle is typically three to six months. This needs to be done well in advance, and India is a large agricultural industry with millions of partners. The scale of this process is huge. There were some complications involved in this process. For example, we had to connect to bank accounts to verify whether payments had been received, and then connect to the insurance system to issue the policies. Even though I am simplifying it, there were many complexities involved.

It can provide our clients with scalable automation to a certain extent. However, as the processes become larger, the optimization decreases and the performance suffers. This is because of the scaling and the processing that needs to be done. To address this, we also use open-source programming to do the processing outside of the RPA tool and then call those libraries from within Automation Anywhere.

It has many connectors, so we can easily integrate with other applications.

Automation Anywhere has helped our clients increase their automation consumption. For one of our banking clients, we automated 85 percent of their processes, significantly reducing the amount of human involvement and only requiring human interaction in the approval process.

What is most valuable?

Automation Anywhere is fully configurable. It has several commands that can be used to configure the parameters, and it is easy to use.

What needs improvement?

Novice users are able to automate basic applications using Automation Anywhere. Business processes are more complex and require experts to be brought in to automate. The automation process can be made more user-friendly.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Automation Anywhere for eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I give the stability of Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I give the scalability of Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good. They stay within their SLAs.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We have used Automation Anywhere and UiPath, and in one place, we have also used Power Automate. We find Automation Anywhere and UiPath to be very easy to implement. Both products have a lot of features and are configurable. We can connect to any specific data source, such as Oracle Finance or Salesforce, through an API, or we can do desktop automation using either tool. Power Automate also allows us to connect to various data sources for automation. However, it is mostly cloud-based, which is not ideal for our banking and insurance clients. They prefer on-premise solutions. Power Automate does offer an on-premise solution, but it only supports desktop automation. For workflows, we need to use the cloud-based solution. This is a limitation of Power Automate. In terms of cost, Power Automate is much cheaper than Automation Anywhere and UiPath.

How was the initial setup?

Assuming that the infrastructure is in place, the deployment of the Automation Anywhere components, which include the controller, parts, and studios, can be completed within a maximum of five days.

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

Automation Anywhere is generally more expensive than Power Automate, but they may offer a better price for large volume consumption.

On a scale of one to ten with ten being the most expensive, I rate the price of Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Automation Anywhere ten out of ten.

API integration is a good thing. However, it takes longer to implement than RPA. Once implemented, API integration can execute tasks faster. The cost of API automation is higher than RPA because it requires specific programming by experts.

Automation Anywhere itself does not require maintenance. Only the processes need to be maintained, as they may need to be updated to reflect changes in compliance requirements, government regulations, or the underlying systems. Additionally, patches to the Automation Anywhere software may sometimes cause changes to the processes, which may require maintenance. We currently have 150 processes, and two experts are able to maintain all of them.


    Padarthi Prudhvi p.

Fully Cloud Centric best RPA Tool in the Market

  • September 07, 2023
  • Review provided by G2

What do you like best about the product?
I have been using this RPA tool for the last 5+ years. This is the best tool in the market with which we can able to automate every part of our day-to-day activities. We in our company we automated max all types of applications both on desktop and web.
What do you dislike about the product?
Sudden changes from v11 to A2019 are the of the disliked things that happened. Actually, before this version we are habituated to the tool UI and everything. IQ bot enhancements and sudden patches might cause the rework of training the same old Instances.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
we used work fusion before started working on AA. The development time taken to complete the bot building was less. Even the testing team can able to understand the build logic and all.
Modularization is very easy in AA.


    reviewer1541967

Automation at scale is a strength, but certain types of CRM integration are challenging

  • September 04, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Our clients use it for different things. One uses it for invoice processing and another for the aggregation of documents based on certain characters. Another uses it to automate processes for the admin department. That company has seasonal workers, and they have to create passes for those seasonal workers. Most of the document uploading and validation is done by Automation Anywhere. Most of those documents are issued by the federal government, and they have a standard format.

What is most valuable?

One thing I really like is the recorder where you can connect with multiple systems. The OCR is also good. In one case, we used a different OCR than Automation Anywhere, but in document processing, using the OCR engine is good.

And providing automation at scale is something I feel is a strength of Automation Anywhere compared to most tools. It depends on the segment we are dealing with. There are small organizations that might not need robust applications, but for mid-sized and large customers, we usually propose automation anywhere. It's quite robust, and the performance is good. When we are proposing a solution, the automation at scale makes it much easier for us, post-sales and post-implementation.

Also, the integration of the solution's bots with APIs and business applications is good. There are certain prebuilt integration APIs in Automation Anywhere. That's especially true when you're connecting with SAP. There are issues with SAP, but in general, they have connectors with most of the popular CRM tools. The API connectivity is much easier.

What needs improvement?

We only faced some problems when integrating it with SAP, and Oracle integration was a bit challenging, especially with Oracle Fusion. We had some issues when we were trying to connect some of the applications on the API level. But, in general, integration using Automation Anywhere is fine.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Automation Anywhere since 2019, or about four years.

How was the initial setup?

In the last year, the cloud has become bigger, but before that, it was implemented more on-prem only.

From our side, the number of staff needed for an implementation depends on the number of processes we need to deploy. For the initial configuration, we may not need many people. But, for one of our customers, there are 70 processes that need to be developed over the next 18 months. Obviously, the number of people involved will be much greater than in a project where we're looking at 10 or 15 processes to be implemented. But on average, each process takes at least two to three resources, depending on the complexity.

Once you have deployed an application, you need to maintain it. Compared to other products, it takes slightly fewer people. Maintenance on the admin side requires one to two people. We always assign one FTE for this, at a minimum. Depending on other factors, we might go for two.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Automation Anywhere is more stable compared to some of the other tools on the market. And, post-implementation, we have very few issues with it compared to others. For me, it's all about post-implementation and why customers are happier with Automation Anywhere.

For small and medium-sized customers, we may not suggest Automation Anywhere because of the cost difference.

UiPath has gotten much better in the last two years. They have really grown in terms of overall performance and bot capabilities. There has been a huge improvement there.

What other advice do I have?

As for non-technical users, it's not a low-code type of solution where you draw and drag and drop. Still, it's okay, to some extent, if they at least have some understanding of technology. Generally, it's easy to learn. If you have access to Automation Anywhere University, you can really learn it. But because I am from a technology background, it was much easier for me. We give our customers 13 or 14 sessions to bring them up to speed, and that might span over the period of a month to two months.

In the discussion about RPA versus API integration, one definite advantage of automation is that scheduling, bot management, and those kinds of things are automated. It's more about the customer and their perspective. With automation, you already have something cooked up, and you don't have to worry about much at a later stage. That makes automation much easier for them than using an API integration. You have to maintain an API integration, and there is the cost of maintaining it. With all those factors, automation becomes much easier for the customer.

We have been proposing Automation Anywhere to multiple customers. It's good. It's robust. But it's a bit expensive compared to other RPA tools on the market. Sometimes, it's too heavy for customers, especially if it's on-prem. Also, maintenance is slightly higher.


    SHARDUL VASAVADA

Automation co-pilot integrates pretty seamlessly with day-to-day applications and increases productivity

  • September 04, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Our clients' use cases for Automation Anywhere are primarily finance and accounting, including accounts receivable, payable, reconciliation, and invoice processing. They also use it for supply chain and HR processes, IT, and contact center functions, among others.

Four or five years back, clients were looking to gain more accuracy and efficiency. Later on, they became more informed and educated about RPA technologies, and in the past couple of years, they have wanted one-stop solutions. They do not want multiple technologies or to deal with multiple vendors. They want a vendor or an OEM that can provide multiple technologies. That means not only RPA but something to handle integration document processing. They also want analytics and contact center solutions.

It started with a technology through which a customer would gain efficiency and accuracy. Later on, the paradigm shifted and they wanted to deal with vendors who could provide all sorts of solutions to them.

What is most valuable?

The number-one feature is that Automation Anywhere can interact or integrate with all sorts of business applications.

The next most important feature is the cloud. That has been a game-changer. Currently, everyone wants to experiment more and more with cloud offerings. They don't want to spend money on setting up their internal hardware infrastructure. Automation Anywhere is the only tool that provides a pure cloud to customers. That is one of the key features. In the past couple of years, 70 to 80 percent of the deals I have closed have been for the cloud.

It's also very easy to use for non-technical business users.

Automation co-pilot integrates pretty seamlessly with day-to-day applications. The Automation Anywhere folks have added some advancements to that technology. I'm currently working on a couple of deals and we are using it as a solid unique selling proposition against other tools. For large organizations such as contact centers, automation co-pilot is going to fly for sure. It has already helped organizations increase productivity in the range of 30 to 40 percent, as a bare minimum.

Automation co-pilot has definitely helped to free up staff to work on other projects. That's one of the focus areas: Let computers do what they are supposed to do and what they are good at doing so that employees, associates, and analysts can focus on the things that they are good at doing.

In addition, the integration of RPA bots, APIs, business applications and documents in Automation Anywhere is seamless; it's very smooth.

What needs improvement?

They are already working on this: The boom of generative AI, the next-gen technologies, including advanced AI and ML technologies, are in the roadmap. I would like to see more and more AI integration and a bit more analytics. That would be great.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Automation Anywhere for about six years. I am a reseller of the solution now, but prior to that, I was with Automation Anywhere.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is a 10 out of 10.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is definitely a very good technology. Automation Anywhere is a fantastic tool. But you need to have the right skill sets or the right partners to scale the journey. It's like having a Rolls Royce or a Mercedes. If you know how to drive it, of course, it is very easy to use it, but having an expert partner is crucial.

In terms of providing automation at scale, back in 2018 or 2019, the top five or top 10 customers of Automation Anywhere had more than 3,000 to 4,000 bots running in production. I don't think any other OEM had that sort of success story. Scaling up the journey with Automation Anywhere is pretty robust and a tested and proven technology.

Our customers deploy it in multiple locations and multiple departments. There are all sorts of models. I would rate its scalability at nine out of 10.

How are customer service and support?

Their technical support is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I have worked on UiPath, Blue Prism, and a couple of projects on Power Automate as well. The number-one advantage of Automation Anywhere is ease of use. Number two is the success stories. Number three is that it is a mature overall ecosystem.

How was the initial setup?

Deploying it is very straightforward, although I am not too involved in the nitty-gritty of implementation. My job is to prospect customers and work with them until the deal has closed. After that, I let my delivery team handle it.

We have a maximum of two people involved in deploying it. There is not much maintenance involved.

For technical employees, it takes about six weeks, and not more than that, to be trained to use Automation Anywhere. For a person without a tech background, it takes a couple of months, max. The learning curve is pretty steep for Automation Anywhere.

What was our ROI?

I have dealt with all sorts of customers, from small and medium-scale enterprises to large conglomerates. Across all of them, one commonality is that after the first year, they have all doubled their license count.

They get a return on their investment very quickly, probably within six months the majority of customers get their ROI. After that, it is just a mushrooming effect.

It is not only about cost savings. This technology impacts the top line as well as the bottom line of a company's P&L and balance sheets. Once they also realize its value, they come up with more asks and we scale up the journey.

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

Initially, they charged a premium, but now the rest of the vendors have increased their overall pricing and Automation Anywhere is not that high at this time. It's pretty viable.

I work in APAC, India and Asia Pacific countries, and customers here are very price-conscious. Every time I get a chance to work with Automation Anywhere, I tell them that I want a starter pack at a relatively low cost so that the customer can get started. But for customers based in Europe, The Middle East, or North America, Automation Anywhere is pretty competitive.

What other advice do I have?

A couple of hours ago, I had a meeting with the group CEO of a multi-national corporation and he asked why he should use RPA when he can do automation using APIs and Python. That can definitely be done. If a customer has only a couple of processes to automate, I'll be the first person to tell them they don't have to invest in RPA. They can use scripting technology or API integration. But when we talk about scale, API automation with Python or any other type of scripting automation will not be the right choice. The reason is that it consumes a lot of time and is not that agile. That approach also becomes "person-dependent", meaning you have to keep the guy who developed that script around. If he is gone, your automation journey goes for a toss. When a customer wants to scale, they need a mature, solid, RPA platform such as Automation Anywhere.


    reviewer2268915

Easy to deploy and configure but needs to be more multi-platform

  • August 31, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Automation Anywhere is similar to Blue Prism. We do a lot of process mining and RPA tasks. We've used it in some very large companies. It's for automating activities in large service centers like home loan originations, insurance claims, or for service desks for utilities for telephone companies.

How has it helped my organization?

Companies were trying to eliminate a lot of manual processes that were being handled by people at keyboards and some of the repetitive nature. A lot of it is the front-end handling of incoming phone calls or incoming service requests that might be sent via email or text. Rather than having people look at the request on a green screen or on a website, the robots would actually handle some of the routing of the requests or the routing of the documents. For example, for a home loan application or some kind of claim. A lot of the time, most of the companies have people sitting in a service center, receiving those requests and reviewing them. However, now, a lot of the inputting of the data can be handled by the robot.

What is most valuable?

The solution is easy to deploy. It scales. It's easy to configure. They are pretty generic. There's not a lot of difference between any of the three big RPAs.

Automation Anywhere is very focused on the Microsoft world. They don't do anything other than Windows and Microsoft, whereas Blue Prism and UiPath compete with other platforms.

The learning curve is low. It's faster to learn than the others.

Some people in my company have used the Co-Pilot functionality. Right now, they use Salesforce, although they have their own RPA now and they are going to replace it with MuleSoft's automation.

Automation Anywhere's ability to provide automation at scale for Microsoft is excellent.

The integration of RPA bots, APIs, or business applications and documents is pretty robust.

What needs improvement?

They should consider being more multi-platform.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution since 2018. I've used it for about five years.

How are customer service and support?

I've never used technical support.

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

I've also used Blue Prism in the past.

How was the initial setup?

My understanding is that the initial setup is pretty straightforward.

The project would dictate how long it would take to deploy. It could take a couple of days to a couple of months. There's a question of governance proliferation and compliance that needs to be considered in RPA. The internal policies would affect the overall setup.

There is maintenance in the form of updates. It doesn't take much maintenance. We don't use bots and therefore do not need to maintain them.

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

I don't have any thoughts on pricing or licensing.

What other advice do I have?

For someone who wants to use an API integration instead of a robust process automation solution, I'd advise it depends on the culture of the company, and the complexity of the integration that one wants to do. Depending on the culture, on average, it's a 50/50 split. There are some environments where RPA is the right thing to do since it's quicker. It's faster. It's easier to manage them from the perspective of just configuring the conformance and compliance with internal policy. However, in other parts of the same organization, you might need API integration depending on what you're integrating.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. Nobody gets a ten. Nobody's perfect.


    Boris Netzer

The most user-friendly and developer-friendly solution that increases productivity and efficiency

  • August 30, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Our customers have a large variety of use cases. It varies from financial processes, R&D processes, IT processes, services, and service desks. Most customers implement the solution for business processes. From a vertical perspective, we have pharmaceuticals, transportation, logistics, the public, defense, and banking sectors.

How has it helped my organization?

Some of our customers see growth in sales. Some see streamlining of the processes or removing errors from the process or rework. For others, the tool provides better usage or upscaling for the employees. All the customers can see benefits from the product. We do not implement any platform without a clear ROI to the customers, especially for the customers in Israel who are very ROI-oriented.

What is most valuable?

The product’s ability to have everything in one place is valuable. It's a web-based application so, our customers do not have any overhead from the maintenance perspective.

The solution is very easy to implement. Developing something on it is very easy because we don't need to work on different screens, applications, and clients. It's the most user-friendly and developer-friendly RPA application in the market. It’s very, very easy to understand.

What needs improvement?

The product is not really intended to integrate with web applications. However, almost all enterprises use web applications, low-code applications, or advanced applications that use webhooks to trigger events. The product falls behind in working with webhooks.

Automation Anywhere has invested in the service desk, however, the first tier of the service desk, especially chat, is not really helpful but the second tier is very knowledgeable and professional. The product can do better in the service desk area. The tool must also add some of the more innovative features.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for the last six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The application is pretty stable. The on-premises system’s application doesn’t crash. It is stable as long as the infrastructure is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

On the SaaS version, we do not have any scalability issues. It’s 100% perfect. Since 2019, I haven't experienced downtime with the cloud systems.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support depends on the tier. The first-tier support by chat is low quality. The whole process can take a long time for the customer.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment took us less than one hour. If everything is prepared, all infrastructures are in place, and all the relevant people, definitions, and Active Directory are available, it can be deployed in less than one hour.

Automation Anywhere’s implementation is a click-through process. Mostly, it's a decision process within the system. There is a built-in bot distribution system if we need to scale up. We define the servers, and the system fires out the add-ons to the servers. Since it's a web-based system, we don't need to install almost anything. Just install the control rooms, and then everything else is done through the browsers.

The defense sector customers prefer to deploy the product on-premises. Half of our customers are on the cloud, and half are on-premises. The customers do not care what cloud provider we use since it’s a SaaS application. It is very transparent for the customer.

What about the implementation team?

Usually, we need three people to deploy the solution. We need one person from our side and two from the customer’s side, including a system administrator and a DBA. The tool requires maintenance once it's on-premise and there is no connection to the cloud. However, if there is a connection to the cloud and the servers are intact, we don't need to maintain anything.

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

The pricing model can be a bit more flexible. It mostly has the option for bundles. There is almost no possibility of adding single licenses to the bundle. I rate the pricing a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is very expensive.

What other advice do I have?

Our customers are aware of automation. Most of the processes are implemented in the areas where regular business automation with integration will not apply. Where people are currently applying manual work, our customers would like to automate those processes fully, but there is no possibility of any integration. Our customers also use the product in service areas where they need someone to work in two teams, like integration and screen scraping.

Once business users who don’t have tech skills understand how to use the solution, it's relatively easy for them. It's easier than using an iPad. However, the tool is not filtered to enable the business user to see what they need to see. We need to educate and train the users to use it. On the flip side, this ability is not present in other applications or is more difficult for business users to understand. Automation Anywhere is an easy application to learn.

The time taken to train non-technical employees on Automation Anywhere depends on which level we train them. They would need one week of training to implement basic processes based on desktop applications or Excel files.

Some of our customers use Automation Co-Pilot at the service desk. Automation Co-Pilot is only on the front with the business user. In the back, the core product runs on the business applications. It's the same integration and the same screen scraping. It's like an extension of the capabilities and translation of the graphic interface to the business user. If someone clicks on the screen, both aspects run on the back end of the different applications.

Automation Co-Pilot increases productivity because everything done in 50 clicks before is done in one click now. Processes where a user must follow the instructions and run through the processes, including the decision metrics and decision junctions, Co-Pilot provides all the best practices within it. No one needs to open any applications and learn the processes. All the decisions are made on the application. It's a tremendous improvement in the time spent and efficiency achieved.

Automation Co-Pilot freed up some time for staff from a business perspective, but mostly, it improved the response time to the customers. Whatever someone needs to do on ten screens in five to ten minutes, it's done in one click in a few seconds.

Automation Anywhere’s ability to provide automation at scale is pretty good. It depends on the scale and how large the company is. It's very easy to see in an enterprise. The top three RPA platforms are not intended for SMB users. It's mostly for enterprise companies or at least for the companies with large operations, not necessarily from the headcount perspective but from the operation perspective. In such companies, it's very, very successful.

Automation Anywhere works well with API, but it lacks API management capabilities. Automation Anywhere could be better in integration. Integration between core Automation Anywhere applications with other core business applications can be better.

Automation Anywhere has helped all our customers to increase their automation consumption. Our largest customer in the pharmaceutical area had an exponential increase in their automation consumption, and they are still growing. We started in 2020. Now, they have hundreds of processes. Smaller companies are increasing on the center of excellence side. We implement at least 10 to 20 processes every year if companies have a small center of excellence. Some customers implement 40 to 50 processes a year. It's scaling up really quickly.

My advice to someone who wants to use API integration instead of robot process automation depends on the use case. There is an automation paradigm, and we need to know what to automate and how to automate it. Some processes are not intended to be automated with RPA. Some processes are intended to be automated only with RPA. So if a company doesn't have any API management tool, then automating with API can be very challenging because they can do it right but not manage it. Then, they would have a spaghetti of API connections that they cannot maintain or manage. However, if a company has an API management tool, API capabilities, and applications, it's probably better to automate using APIs and not screen scraping.

If a company with limited IT capabilities is keen to implement business processes that require RPA, I would suggest they configure Automation Anywhere because it's very easy to implement. It is user-friendly and developer-friendly. It is pretty business-user-friendly. It is very, very easy to maintain. It's a great application to implement.

Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.