I use it for a variety of shared service applications. It helps manage the volume of processing and handle many incoming ticket requests. I also utilize it for invoice processing, aiding AR collections, and some reporting. There is quite a variety of applications for Automation Anywhere.
Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
Automation Anywhere, Inc.External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Easy to use, quick to learn, and simplifies processes while reducing errors
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I like the web-based development and the control room interface, which is robust and works well. Importantly, I experience fewer errors with finding screen elements to interact with when compared to other automation software.
Automation Anywhere presents fewer maintenance issues.
The built-in features, such as the connector builder and AI development tools, are easily accessible, keeping the software up-to-date.
Before joining, I observed it to be a robust program with immediate visible benefits. I had fifty bots running, effectively demonstrating their workload. The hard parts, like recognizing ROI, building a backlog, and setting up internal infrastructure and governance, were already completed. Having done this elsewhere, I appreciate these accomplishments.
There are a lot of good built-in features like the connector builder. The AI aspects are very good. The software is keeping up with the times and I appreciate the new features they add.
It's easy for new users with no experience. You can learn quickly. You can also use pre-built packages that allow you to build a bot without much experience. There's Automation Anywhere University to assist as well. All of the tools are there to build a very robust robot. There is a learning curve within development. However, if you already have basic programming skills or a basic understanding of how computer science works, then it's fairly easy to build the bots that you need and can incorporate advanced logic, looping, variables, and things like that. If you understand those concepts, then it's not hard at all.
We have integrated other tools or applications with Automation Anywhere. That's one of the things that RPA is really good at. I couldn't say I've integrated other applications with Automation Anywhere so much as Automation Anywhere with other applications. We're using a lot of external vendors and automating processes for those external vendors that were problematic since they didn't integrate well with others.
What needs improvement?
The main request I have for Automation Anywhere is to focus more on technical demonstrations. They do extensive marketing and explanations of new technologies, which are great - however, often less technically focused. Common use cases are frequently repeated, such as loan processing and order fulfillment. I would like to see better and more technical use cases for the AI features, showing how to build them instead of repeated general examples.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used the solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is rock solid. Stability is great. I have never had any concerns about downtime or other issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The software is very capable. I am small compared to others, however, as a higher education institution, I'm probably one of the largest as a whole. The software can scale as far as I need, with no limit other than the investment of money, development time, and effort.
How are customer service and support?
Initially, it took me some time to reach the right team for help, however, the support was knowledgeable and resolved the problem fairly quickly. Although it took a little over a week due to the tricky nature of the issue, I am generally satisfied with the support and have no significant concerns.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used UiPath previously. I like Automation Anywhere better.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy. It took me about a week or two to understand how to use it, and that's being generous. The concepts are straightforward and it's very similar to UiPath, beyond a few differences.
We haven't needed to update to a new version. The major update from on-prem to cloud was done before I came.
The more minor upgrades were painful, yet not at all due to Automation Anywhere. ERP updates and things like that required us to test every bot. None of that was a fault or a problem with our Automation Anywhere. The rest was relatively smooth and straightforward, and the control room updates were relatively smooth and straightforward. This last update, we had a little bit of a hiccup. However, working through support, we got a workaround until the fix can get into place.
There is some maintenance needed on the bots. That's not the software's fault. The maintenance effort is quite low compared to what I was used to.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing is fine. Renegotiating our contract was challenging, however, I have a new salesperson, and I am excited about working with him.
What other advice do I have?
I'm an Automation Anywhere customer.
I have spent the last year getting a handle on Automation Anywhere, bringing five years of experience with its main competitor, UiPath. The opportunities for AI are boundless, and I am working heavily with the hospital to identify use cases. I am incorporating AI in invoice processing to extract data correctly and for image preprocessing.
Benefits form transactions, like enrollment forms for healthcare and dependent change forms, are the next focus.
I have yet to use Copilot, although I do have a use case that I'm hoping to build out.
In terms of seeing the benefits to Automation Anywhere, this particular job had already been using it for five years before I came. So the benefit had already been realized, and it was already a fairly robust program. I could see the benefit the first day I started. We already had 50 bots running, and it was very easy to see all of the work that they were doing. The hard part had already been completed in terms of recognizing ROI and building out a backlog of work, and having the infrastructure and the governance internally set up was already huge. I've done all those things before in other employers, and that takes significant time, a couple of years, to do it properly. Since that was already done, I could just hit the ground running, and we could just build more bots and make the bots that we had more robust.
I rate the product eight out of ten.
Automation software reduces manual effort significantly with user-friendly functionality
What is our primary use case?
I use it mainly as automation software. Any kind of processes that are manual, like data entry, for example, I definitely use it for those. Many legacy applications like Mainframe that don't have APIs or can't access the data to write out to that system are addressed mainly for those purposes.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the ease of use. It's very user-friendly. Someone with even basic technical prowess can jump in and learn it very quickly. The difference is night and day. With processes involving three or four people, having it full-time manually to address that, and once we implement the automation software on these processes, it effectively reduces eighty to ninety percent of the manual effort.
What needs improvement?
The automated regression testing could be better. I need to build my own testing suite, and I know other tools have built-in testing suites. That is an area that's very weak in this platform.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for about six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is pretty good. They are responsive. Just like with any software organization, they usually deal with tier one support, and nine times out of ten, I know more than they do. I get some good support when I advance beyond tier one support. When it gets escalated to the next level is when I receive some good responses and better support.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I think it's a little difficult to scale just because they don't have an automated regression testing suite. We currently have a bottleneck at quality control because of that. If I had to give it a number, I would say six.
How are customer service and support?
Their customer service is pretty good. They are responsive. Just like with any software organization, they usually deal with tier one support, and nine times out of ten, I know more than they do. I get some good support when I advance beyond tier one support. When it gets escalated to the next level is when I receive some good responses and better support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used UiPath, Blue Prism, OpenRPA, and NintexRPA. I've dabbled in a couple of others, and I can't even remember what they are because there are so many, but those are the main ones that I've used throughout my career.
How was the initial setup?
It was already in place when I got to my company.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I think the setup cost is comparable to the other solutions. I don't think it's anything out of the ordinary. I've been on platforms that are a lot more expensive, and this one is comparable.
What other advice do I have?
I would give them an eight out of ten. I definitely would make sure that you at least have some basic understanding of development, just basic principles, and then start training in Automation Software Anywhere Academy. Many like to think businesses can come in and build stuff, which they can, but sometimes they don't know basic software design principles. Once the volume increases or if they don't build it correctly, there are constant issues, and then we have to bring in the core team to help out. It's nice to say something, but in action, it's something that's not the same. Let's put it that way. You can build anything, as I said, you can build all kinds of things, but is it built correctly?
Accommodates diverse use cases and effectively meets customer requirements
What is our primary use case?
I have used it for multiple use cases across various domains. I started with automating use cases in the utility industry, such as customer billing and processing meter readings. Those were the initial use cases for which I used it. Currently, I am using it for a transport company in the U.S., where we process their invoice documents, perform three-way matching, manage their supply chain records, and handle daily billing bots. All these implementations have been successful.
For the transport company, we have identified a use case. Their ticketing team is manually processing all the incidents that occur during that day. We are now collecting all the documents and information about previously resolved tickets. We are creating a knowledge base out of it, and we will use that along with the AI agents that Automation Anywhere has. We will create an AI agent that will help take care of tickets by learning from the knowledge base. We are working on the PoC, and within the next quarter, we will be able to implement that.
We have implemented a Generative AI solution using Automation Anywhere and ChatGPT for email management. We implemented it for semantic analysis and sentiment analysis. One of our clients wanted us to create a bot that automatically fetches all the reviews from all of the social media platforms, including Twitter, and create a knowledge base within their own platform or database, whether the review is positive, negative, or neutral. For that, we leveraged the ChatGPT plugin along with Automation Anywhere. We created a bot that reads all their reviews, does semantic and sentiment analysis, and accurately describes them as positive, negative, or neutral.
We have not yet used Automation Co-Pilot, but we plan to implement several use cases. One use case involves integrating AI agents with Automation Co-Pilot for conversational AI. Users can input queries, and AI agents will run prompts to fetch required details directly in Automation Co-Pilot. This is particularly beneficial when the process SMEs need to verify post-bot run actions and address any data issues. Currently, the RPA support team is asked to rerun bots. We aim to enable SMEs to prompt bots for reruns, reducing response time from different time zones from five to six hours to immediate actions, significantly boosting productivity.
How has it helped my organization?
By implementing Automation Anywhere, we wanted to reduce the manual effort required for various processes for the clients. Previously, the client's accounting team had to collect all the bills, and based on the vendor, upload those to a particular portal. They daily receive bills for more than 250 vendors. We have now automated the process. There is no manual intervention. Earlier, this effort used to take more than 300 hours per month with more than ten people, whereas now, it does not take more than 50 hours per month, and they have only five people.
We have done integrations with Oracle NetSuite and Google APIs. We have done automation with ChatGPT and Claude AI. We are now leveraging Document Automation along with AI agents. We have also done integration with Anthropic. The integration is quite smooth and seamless.
What is most valuable?
Document Automation is a game changer. Earlier, with IQ Bot, we achieved partial automation—around 80% of the process was automated. With GenAI and Google Vision OCR now integrated into Document Automation, end-to-end automation is achievable, even with unstructured documents.
The AI agent automation is noteworthy. Everyone is moving from RPA to agentic process automation. I had a chance to delve deeper into it at the Imagine event in Bangalore in 2024, where I engaged hands-on with AI agents. We are exploring use cases to create our own AI agents, which is exciting.
The generative recorder and BPMN converter features are also impressive. If we have recorded the complete process flowchart in the .BPMN file, uploading this file into Automation Anywhere results in a complete bot framework, reducing development efforts by 30%.
Additionally, the generative recorder's ability to handle changes in web portal elements ensures process continuity and notifies developers of updates, aiding in environmental change understanding. If any element changes on the existing web portal on which the bot is currently working, the generative recorder can record and capture the action. The bot will automatically understand at the run time that the particular object has changed, and it will automatically take actions to complete the process and ensure that it does not fail because of that one change.
What needs improvement?
AI agents need further improvements. AI agent technology in agentic process automation is still evolving. We have only scratched the surface, and there are many potential use cases yet to be explored. As technology advances, I believe it will enable us to implement more comprehensive automation solutions.
Document Automation has issues related to speed. When I compare Document Automation with IQ Bot, IQ Bot is faster than Document Automation. My understanding is that they are still evolving Document Automation, and this issue of slowness will be resolved in the upcoming .35 version, so we are good with that.
They are working on signature identification and validations for handwritten documents. Currently, we are able to extract data out of scanned but digital images, but there is still scope for improvement for handwritten documents.
For how long have I used the solution?
I started using Automation Anywhere in 2015, so it has been over eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate Automation Anywhere a ten out of ten for scalability.
Our clients are small to medium organizations. We have seven people working with Automation Anywhere.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate their support a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have completed several migration projects, moving existing bots from platforms like Blue Prism, UiPath, and Power Automate to Automation Anywhere. This was due to limitations with these platforms, such as Power Automate's compatibility issues with legacy systems, which resulted in partial automation.
Customers seeking end-to-end automation have found Automation Anywhere to be the best tool. We analyzed all bots and processes to determine that Automation Anywhere met all requirements. We converted their process documents and redeveloped bots in Automation Anywhere, resulting in successful end-to-end automation.
Licensing costs for Blue Prism and UiPath are higher compared to Automation Anywhere, making the latter's ROI more appealing.
Automation Anywhere is currently leading with GenAI and AI solutions. UiPath is also good, but they are still defining its market position. They are a bit confused about whether they want to project themselves as market leaders in AI, RPA, or agentic process automation. Automation Anywhere has already released five to six features directly connected with AI, not just for the customers but for the developers. Blue Prism recently came out with the cloud version. They are still exploring how they can leverage more AI into their platform. Power Automate works great with Microsoft products, but it fails badly outside the Microsoft ecosystem.
How was the initial setup?
Automation Anywhere has enhanced a lot since we first started using it. At the time, it had the client/server architecture. It was not on the cloud. We had to manually install Automation Anywhere on each and every desktop. In 2019, they shifted to the cloud, so we just have to install the bot agent on any computer we want to use as a device. It does not matter whether it is a bot creator or a bot runner. That has improved the installation setup and reduced the configuration time by 80%. Previously, we had to manually install the client and control room and configure them. That was a tedious task, whereas now, because of the cloud, its deployment is very simple and user-friendly, and it has reduced the earlier effort by 80%.
Almost all clients use cloud deployment, but a Korean client has an on-premises setup because they are very diligent about the data. Cloud deployment is easier than on-premise deployment.
Cloud deployments typically take a few hours, around four to five hours. On-premises deployments can take up to two or three business days due to customer environment restrictions and infrastructure limitations. If conditions are optimal, the setup can be completed in one day. For the cloud, deployment time is much shorter, taking only about four to five hours.
The updates happen automatically for cloud deployments, whereas for on-premises setups, we have to download the new release files from the portal and manually do the updates.
In terms of bot maintenance, currently, our team is working for three customers, and there are 105 bots. Our team of seven people is handling these 105 bots. We are doing 24/7 service and daily spend four to five hours on average for bot monitoring and support.
What about the implementation team?
We have one person for the cloud deployment. For on-premises, we have two to three people.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is not cheap, with costs ranging between 700 to 800 dollars per month. While Power Automate is cheaper at 15 dollars per month, Automation Anywhere offers superior features, user-friendliness, and smoothness. Many customers are transitioning from UiPath and Blue Prism to Automation Anywhere, acknowledging its value.
The pricing is justified and on-point. There are bulk packages that include licenses, Automation Co-Pilot, and Document Automation. Both Automation Anywhere and partners like us offer discounts.
What other advice do I have?
For non-technical users, I would recommend the citizen developer program on Automation Anywhere University. They have a training portal where people can register themselves and do the learning paths. There is a learning path for new developers or people who do not have much technical knowledge but want to start their automation journey. They can go ahead and do that citizen development training and complete that learning path to understand it in a better way.
It takes about six months to learn it and start using it. The best part about the training is that you can also do hands-on training along with it. You can simultaneously learn and implement it. Six months is a good enough time to get your basics cleared and start your automation journey.
I would highly recommend Automation Anywhere, but the recommendation depends on the customer's specific requirements. For example, for automating tasks strictly within the Microsoft ecosystem, Power Automate will suit. However, for incorporating third-party applications like Oracle NetSuite, I would recommend Automation Anywhere due to its broader capabilities beyond Microsoft applications. Automation Anywhere easily accommodates diverse market use cases to meet customer requirements and scale effectively.
Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.
Easy integration improves automation opportunities
What is our primary use case?
I am working as a solution architect at Boston Scientific, and I help other teams automate their manual processes using Automation Anywhere as the primary RPA tool.
The business cases come from multiple teams, such as the HR team, service management team, or supply chain management team. We identify the manual processes that are the best fit for automation opportunities.
Initially, we review the entire process to understand how the teams are completing their tasks manually. Then, we assess how much we can automate using Automation Anywhere, the features it provides, and how suitable it is for the process. We then convert that particular manual process into automation opportunities.
We are on the path of implementing GenAI for digital transformation. We are doing demos of the AI agents to implement GenAI across all the verticals at Boston Scientific. We are figuring out the right opportunities and use cases.
How has it helped my organization?
With chatbot integrations and AI agents, we are able to create responses by extracting the data from the database, massaging those replies, and replying back to the customers.
We just need to know the end goal to automate a particular process. In Automation Anywhere, we have multiple commands to automate from Excel or record the UI. A person needs to just drag and drop the commands and fill in the data.
Automation Anywhere supports various types of integrations. We have integrated SAP, Excel, Python script, and JavaScript. We can easily integrate them with Automation Anywhere.
What is most valuable?
We have many opportunities from multiple teams. There are requirements to automate Excel, the UI, or their scripts. We have various integrations with technologies like Python, Java, or macros. Automation Anywhere is perfect for integrating those technologies.
Automation Anywhere has undergone drastic changes over the past five years, transitioning from version 10 to A360, including desktop-based and cloud-based options. The tool is now more stable, with more opportunities and new commands, like recording for the UI or advanced Excel features.
What needs improvement?
For beginners learning Automation Anywhere, there should be predefined templates to start creating a task bot. Instead of dragging and dropping action commands and doing error handling, there should be predefined templates that they can directly use. It will help maintain code uniformity across the organization. Besides templates, most features are already available in Automation Anywhere to help automate a manual process into an RPA opportunity.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere since 2016, so it has been nine years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
We have multiple teams in India, the USA, and Costa Rica. We are working from multiple locations. We are a team of 35 users.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is excellent. I would rate it a ten out of ten. We just have to raise a ticket, after which we receive a call, email, or ping from the Automation Anywhere team. We then provide our queries or show where we are getting stuck, and they provide us with the solution.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, I worked with UiPath and Power Automate. However, I find Automation Anywhere to offer a better experience.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is easy because all updates and upgrades are synchronized with the newer versions.
What about the implementation team?
We have a dedicated support team that helps deploy the bots. We raise the change requests, which are approved by a technical person and the release manager. After all the approvals and validations are in place, the automation bot gets deployed to the new environment.
The time required for the maintenance of bots depends on the requirement or process. We can see the status of all bots in the control room. It is simple.
We have a completely dedicated team to track bots. We have more than 100 bots running in the control room.
What was our ROI?
In terms of ROI, we have a good amount, which amounts to millions of dollars per year.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I am not responsible for the pricing part, but I know the pricing is competitive compared to other tools.
What other advice do I have?
It is relatively simple. It is a platform where you get all the commands for integration and other functions to automate your end-to-end process. It is easy to learn and cloud-based. The control room is easy to understand. All these features will be helpful for automating or starting your RPA journey.
I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.
Improves efficiency with impressive integration and automation capabilities
What is our primary use case?
I have been using Automation Anywhere to automate repetitive tasks across various domains and organizations. We have developed a lot of automations in domains like finance, HR, and supply chains on a daily basis. Basically, we create bots using Automation Anywhere that replicate human actions.
Currently, we are working on a business case involving agents who respond to phone calls, providing order dispatch status. The average call time is five to six minutes. By using AI, we are creating a chatbot so that a customer service agent can input details and quickly provide all the customer-related information. This reduces call times from five minutes to one or two minutes, which is something we are currently working on. We are also exploring AI use cases for things that are not structured or rule-based.
How has it helped my organization?
Previously, we were using legacy automation methods. We were using different platforms to automate the system by writing scripts. You get the best value from automation when you automate a process end to end. In a business process, multiple applications might be involved in completing the processes. Automation Anywhere provides better integration with applications. We can integrate multiple applications at the frontend or backend and complete our processes. Previously, we could automate only a few parts because of limitations in supporting various technologies, whereas Automation Anywhere helps to integrate all the applications and automate a process end to end.
I have integrated it with SAP, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Jira, Tableau, and a lot of Microsoft platforms. We have also had integrations with database and mainframe applications. The integration is seamless. They have packages for particular applications. If you want to work with Salesforce, they already have a package for Salesforce. You just have to connect Salesforce with a certain set of details and provide the API details. It is seamless and within a second, you get connected, and data starts to be exchanged with the application.
It saves headcounts, improves customer experiences, and provides time and cost savings. In some projects, millions of dollars are saved annually from a single bot. The response time for certain customer scenarios has also been made efficient.
What is most valuable?
The way it integrates with subsystems is impressive. When automating business processes, there might be multiple systems in use. Automation Anywhere provides various ways to connect, such as by directly using backend APIs or using the frontend. This is incredibly useful.
They are constantly enhancing its capabilities. They have already included support for GenAI, enabling easy LLM training. You can train LLMs without putting in a lot of effort. You can train a model very easily. If you do the same thing manually from scratch, it will take a lot of time and you also cannot be sure of the accuracy. They are enhancing their capabilities in the field of AI to provide efficiency and accuracy.
It is a low-code/no-code platform. If you have a little bit of technical knowledge, you can easily design a bot. It is a basic part of software development. It is easier if you are aware of a few things such as writing up a logic, loop conditions, etc. Someone having the basic knowledge can easily adapt to this tool. It is quite simple and straightforward with drag-and-drop actions. It also provides information about a particular package or action you are going to use in your automation. If you are not familiar with the technology, you can explore Automation Anywhere University where they provide training. For anyone eager to start with it, it is quite easy.
What needs improvement?
Automation tools have a lot of dependency on the environment, particularly on machines. Reducing this dependency could increase success. The product has entered the GenAI space, so it is easy to implement. It will keep improving over time. However, making the product more lightweight by reducing its dependency on infrastructure could greatly help in the long run.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for the last six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability rating is a nine out of ten. They are improving stability daily. If you had asked me four or five years ago, I would have rated it four or five, but they have significantly improved. Currently, nine is accurate, but there is always room for improvement.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is being used globally. We are a global team with a presence in six to seven different countries. We have about 10,000 employees. We have business processes in different countries, and everyone is using it. We have implemented 140 to 150 automations, and a lot of people are involved in developing them.
I would rate it an eight out of ten for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate them a nine out of ten. They have been kind and supportive. Whenever we need help, we can reach out to them, and they help us out.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have worked with major partners like UiPath and Blue Prism prior to Automation Anywhere. I also worked with UiPath last year.
When comparing them from a developer's perspective, I prefer Automation Anywhere. Its canvas is user-friendly with options to switch between code view and list view, which other tools lack. As a developer comfortable with list view coding, transitioning to UiPath without that feature would require adaptation, whereas transitioning from UiPath to Automation Anywhere is smooth due to the flow view or list view option. Automation Anywhere already provides flow view development, simplifying adaptation. I appreciate this flexibility. I am also working on Power Automate, which is generally flow-based. Automation Anywhere offers convenient switching.
In UiPath, if you want to work with Salesforce, the package will not be there by default. You have to import that package, which is not the case with Automation Anywhere. Importing packages, like for Salesforce, is straightforward, and often available to team members. The best feature is having access to packages imported by team members.
How was the initial setup?
It is straightforward.
When it comes to bot deployment, a bot takes two minutes from one environment to another. Moving code between environments also takes only two minutes. However, there are sanity checks. These checks apply to all tools used in automation. Deploying code takes two minutes. We have automated this process, allowing code transfer from test to production with a single approval click. It is seamless.
Bot maintenance is not a tedious task. Once an update is done, we push that into a test or development to check whether it is impacting our automation. In more than 90% of scenarios, it does not impact. In a few cases, there is some impact with the update.
What was our ROI?
Before automating a use case, we assess its impact in terms of efficiency, error reduction, and cost savings.
Automation Anywhere has helped achieve around 50% savings in some scenarios. The error rate has been reduced by 80% to 90% in processes. Errors have been successfully eliminated from the process.
In terms of cost, we participated in projects achieving two to three million dollars in annual savings.
What other advice do I have?
If you are a non-technical person, you need to become familiar with basic programming concepts such as conditions, looping, etc. Automation Anywhere is easy to adapt to. The UI is simple. If someone is coming from a different technology and wants to develop something in Automation Anywhere, one or two weeks are enough to get started with it.
We are getting trained on AI, document automation, and the Copilot system at the organization level. We are also exploring a few other business cases for implementing GenAI. We have some unstructured handwritten documents, and we are trying to assess how efficient it would be to automate it and how easily we can create a model for a certain set of documents for extracting the details.
I would surely recommend Automation Anywhere to other users. For business professionals, it automates repetitive tasks and enhances efficiency and cost savings. For technical individuals, it is easy to use and adapt.
I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.
Provides time savings and supports scalability and integrations very well
What is our primary use case?
We have multiple entities and businesses in our organization, which leads to various use cases. Specifically, there are numerous SAP use cases where we perform automation. Additionally, there are use cases with application automation and document automation.
By implementing Automation Anywhere, we wanted to automate repetitive tasks done on a daily or weekly basis and utilize the time saved for other tasks. We wanted to save time and costs.
How has it helped my organization?
It integrates well. We have SAP CRM and browser automations. We also have document automations. We also have API integration.
We have multiple bots running. It saves time. If manual invoice processing in SAP takes two to three hours on a daily basis, a bot can do the same job in half an hour. We are saving more than 70% of the time.
What is most valuable?
The feature that I currently like is Agentic AI process automation, where we use LLM models to automate our processes. I have heard a lot about it. I am eager to learn more about it and implement it in my organization.
It is very easy to use. You do not require any prior knowledge. Through Automation Anywhere University, you can learn it and implement your use case. A non-technical person can learn it within a month. For a technical person, it is easier to understand the loops, conditions, and workflows. A technical person needs only 10 to 15 days.
What needs improvement?
One improvement would be to implement a log mechanism within the workflow, similar to other automation tools. Currently, the log mechanism uses a text file. If we want to monitor a process, we need to check manually.
Another improvement would be to facilitate copying code blocks between projects, as currently, it is not possible to copy and paste them either locally or on the web.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have more than six years of experience as an RPA developer and have used other tools. I have been using Automation Anywhere for the past two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. I would rate it ten out of ten for scalability.
We have about 1,700 automation users. We are a big organization with multiple locations globally. We develop automation for multiple departments and multiple entities.
How are customer service and support?
Their technical support is good. I would rate it an eight out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used UiPath and Automation Anywhere. Both are very good. Automation Anywhere is cost-effective compared to UiPath.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment is fine. It is very easy.
It is completely on the web. We have our own licensing management tool. Anyone who has done internal training can request the license. A dedicated license is generated for you for a few hours or if needed, permanently. We have a dedicated portal for deploying our projects.
The upgrades are also easy. It does not require much maintenance.
What other advice do I have?
We have multiple communities for automation. We have citizen developers and we also have expert developers. To identify the use case, we approach the entities and ask them to identify any mundane, repetitive, or complex task. We have a perfect pipeline for automation use cases. When a use case enters the feasibility check, an expert assesses its feasibility based on multiple parameters. If feasible, we proceed with development, prepare documentation, and design all solution documents. Next, we prepare the architecture, and development commences. After development, we conduct several rounds of UAT. Before deployment, we conduct a pre-delivery check with a dedicated department, ensuring best practices and proper exception and error handling. Once approved, we proceed with deployment.
In our organization, we are the first ones to work closely with the Gen AI and AI topics. We have a few opportunities to use the Gen AI capabilities in automation.
Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.
Fair price, impressive availability, and continuously enhanced
What is our primary use case?
Our primary functionality is built around screen scraping applications. We collect data from one application and either generate reports or use it to complete a user transaction or a customer transaction. For example, I have automation that handles bill pay. A request comes in, we verify it, and then we execute a bill payment transaction.
How has it helped my organization?
When we first started, the motivation was not wanting to be left behind in the latest and greatest opportunity for automating desktop applications that are boring and time-consuming but are still very important for the company's business operations.
We were able to see its benefits immediately during our proof of concept five years ago. We were able to take five users of daily work and reduce it to one user of support work. It was very significant.
Prior to implementation, these processes were done by the business units manually. Post implementation, the solutions are IT-based. As a result, IT now has additional responsibility for the business automation, just supporting the business function. It is one thing to build the software. It is another thing to maintain it and keep it running in production. There is a pretty significant lift or burden on the IT side that was not there during the manual executions.
What is most valuable?
I like the diversity. Every year, maybe even every six months, new modules are introduced to the program, and module enhancements are added to the toolbox to make automating various applications or situations easier. For example, the email module has been enhanced over the years to support all the latest authentication technologies. That is very important as we move away from username and password and embrace multi-factor authentication. Without the ability for these modules to stay in sync and up to date, we would not be able to use them.
What needs improvement?
On the document automation side, the document learning features are not as robust as one would expect them to be. When I am doing document automation and a document fails due to low confidence in populating a field, it requires manual correction. Automation Anywhere states that if I correct enough documents, over time, the automation tools will learn where those error situations are and automatically fix them. We have not seen that feature work as advertised.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for roughly five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have not had any issues. I am very impressed with its availability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It scales quite well. I have not found an application that has exhausted the capacity of the system to execute. If we need to handle more transactions, we simply need to add additional bot runners. We currently have three bot runners in production. If we needed five or ten, I could have five or ten in a couple of days.
How are customer service and support?
On a scale of one to ten, I would rank their technical support group a nine.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have two other solutions in-house other than Automation Anywhere. They are very specific to the tasks they are handling.
How was the initial setup?
It was pretty easy. I took a proof of concept that took nine months to build. Since I could not copy it from the proof of concept environment to our brand-new tenant or control room, we had to reprogram it. The reprogramming and testing took three months. Now, if you put all those numbers together, you probably could say it took us a year to build that first application.
It requires operation execution maintenance by my company and my IT group, but it does not take any Automation Anywhere resources to maintain it now. They maintain it at the cloud level and do a good job.
What about the implementation team?
Two people were involved in the implementation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is fair. My company is part of a big organization, so the pricing is very advantageous.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Five years ago, we evaluated four products, and Automation Anywhere emerged as the top choice. It offered the best cloud solution compared to the other vendors or providers. Now, if I took those same four vendors and evaluated them today, I might come up with a different answer. The industry has changed drastically just in the last three or four years, and if we did a reevaluation and could start over, chances are everyone, including Automation Anywhere, is on much better footing today than they were five years ago.
What other advice do I have?
In terms of our AI approach, we are very cautious with AI. We are a Microsoft shop, so we are limiting our AI exposure to an Azure tenant-based AI resource. We are probably building our own LLMs to manage the intelligence or the exposure of intelligence to the AI engine. I do not see us ever using external AI modules.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine.
Improves process efficiency and accuracy, and it's fast and user-friendly
What is our primary use case?
I have worked on automation for several clients and organizations. In my previous organization, we automated several business processes related to governance. Currently, I am working with Nokia. Here at Nokia, we are performing data reconciliations, including financial data, procurement data, and asset-related data. To achieve this, we fetch data from systems like SAP and custom applications. Instead of manually navigating multiple screens in SAP, we use the RPA Automation tool to handle these activities. We are essentially automating these processes.
We are exploring an automated system that can help our production support system resolve tickets more efficiently. We have the data of or the history of multiple incidents raised in the past two or three years. We would like to utilize this data to resolve new tickets and provide the steps for resolution. When a ticket is there, the automated system can identify the solutions and automatically implement those suggestions to fix the ticket. We have not implemented it yet.
At the moment, we do not have any use cases for Generative AI, but we are looking into it.
How has it helped my organization?
Automation Anywhere has helped us with efficiency and accuracy. We cannot achieve the same level of efficiency and accuracy through manual tasks. There are also cost savings. Manually performed tasks are financially demanding.
Automation Anywhere is easy to learn. People who are not technical can also get started with this tool. They can explore and slowly adapt to the tool. They do not need too much expertise, but having technical expertise can be an advantage. Overall, Automation Anywhere is fairly good for non-technical people.
We have integrated SAP and web applications with Automation Anywhere. We have also automated using the APIs. Its integration is good and has improved over time. It is evolving and getting easier for us to integrate with external applications.
We have had a lot of time savings. We have 40 to 50 bots.
What is most valuable?
The best aspect is the user interface. It is very user-friendly and snappy, responding quickly compared to other available tools. It is easy to learn, and the community support is good for asking questions and getting answers. Training camps are provided by Automation Anywhere. I recently attended the document automation training camp. In 2025, we are going to attend the AI agent training camp. The community and the training around the tool have been beneficial.
What needs improvement?
In Automation Anywhere, the logging process is manual. We have to manually log each instance where the bot fails or the progress of a task. Automating this through a new feature would help developers simplify their development process. That is my suggestion.
About a year or two ago, debugging was challenging in Automation Anywhere. If you had multiple task bots with a parent task and a child task, there were issues during debugging. Automation Anywhere took the feedback and fixed it in the next releases.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for over five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Most of the time, I do not encounter problems with the control room. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it a nine, but I have had issues with IQ Bot. I would rate IQ Bot's stability an eight out of ten due to some service instability. For example, it sometimes fails to communicate with RabbitMQ. Automation Anywhere's control room is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. Scalability also depends on how we code or develop the bots. We have 45 different use cases, and most of them are multi-bot, so I do not see any issues with the scalability. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate it an eight out of ten. Most of the time, when I raise cases for help with the Automation Anywhere vendor, I receive good help at the right time. However, sometimes I receive automated responses, which are not helpful and cause delays. Despite this, I generally get good support, so I can rate customer service an eight out of ten, but there is room for improvement.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Blue Prism and Power Automate as well. In Blue Prism, logging is simple because it is automatic. Automation Anywhere is more snappy and faster in response. It also has inbuilt document automation, whereas Blue Prism does not have the inbuilt OCR capability. Overall, Automation Anywhere is a better solution than Blue Prism.
Power Automate is a very slow tool. If you have to open any flow, it takes a lot of time to load. This issue is not there in Automation Anywhere. It is more capable than Power Automate.
How was the initial setup?
Currently, we have two control rooms. One is an on-prem control room, and the other one is a SaaS or cloud control room. We are using both.
The SaaS option is evidently easier because we do not need to manage servers, issues, or restart services. We prefer SaaS for these reasons.
In terms of maintenance, the platform upgrade from one version to another version is not difficult. We started with version 21 of A360, and we are currently on version 35. Most of the updates in the SaaS environment are automatic and happen during the night hours. Most of the time, we have not seen any issues. They went smoothly, but sometimes, there were some terminations and other issues. If those issues are also taken care of, it will be very smooth.
For the SaaS control room, there is not much maintenance. We are doing maintenance only in terms of the code. In terms of platform, we do not need any maintenance for the SaaS control room. For the on-prem control room, there is a lot of maintenance. Sometimes, the services go down, or the communication between the application and database server has problems.
What about the implementation team?
We have seven to eight developers and three to four production support resources. Building a bot is not an easy process. It is a lengthy process. The duration depends on the use case. It can take from one month to three to four months to develop one automation.
We have a separate platform team that helps us in terms of the platform issues. We have a development team, and we have a production support team. So everyone has their own responsibilities and roles.
We have about 45 use cases deployed in production.
What other advice do I have?
I would definitely recommend Automation Anywhere. I have been using it for the last five years, and it is one of the leading RPA tools in the market.
Their community support is excellent. If we encounter challenges, we can rely on the community for help. There are ample training programs and an Automation Anywhere university to facilitate learning. The solution is reliable.
I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten. Some features, such as automatic logging, could be improved. It has the potential to become the best tool.
Empowers business users to execute bots with AARI, and saves a lot of time for developers and users
What is our primary use case?
I work for a company, and we mainly automate tasks that we deem necessary, which are often repetitive and mundane. Anything that can be automated to save costs, from the finance and manufacturing perspective, is automated.
We are currently considering how to use it for document automation so that we can read unstructured data, such as invoices, that is a little bit messy and hard for a standard rule-based OCR to understand. We are also looking at an AI solution that could do that for us.
In terms of integration, we use tools like SAP. That is a big one. We have integrated Python scripting a lot. We also use Active Directory.
How has it helped my organization?
The advantage of Automation Anywhere is that it automates the mundane jobs that are brainless or take up time out of people's day that they could use to do other tasks. That was the main challenge that we wanted to address by implementing Automation Anywhere. We wanted to free up time in other areas by automating jobs that would make good candidates to do so.
It is built keeping business users in mind. Every single human being who uses a computer uses a UI, so automating those clicks is not a very complicated thing. You are just telling the computer what to do. In that respect, they try to make it as simple as possible to use things like Excel, send emails with Outlook, and automate clicks on a computer. That part is done well.
Allowing business users to trigger the bot means that I do not have to worry about scheduling or triggering the bots. I can just give them the keys to the car and let them do whatever they want to do. It saves time. We spend less time micromanaging and more time developing.
I have heard from people who are using these bots that it is saving them hours every week, every day, or so. They start to see those time savings instantly.
What is most valuable?
AARI allows business users to trigger the bot, so I do not have to schedule everything. This convenience allows users to utilize it as they need. I can set it up to provide users with a form to fill in all required information, and then the bot operates based on those specifications. AARI is very convenient, and that is their biggest selling point.
What needs improvement?
I have found that Automation Anywhere is prone to bugs in handling Excel. It breaks and gives vague error messages. I have had a lot of experience with that and learned that it is better to write a Python script instead of using Automation Anywhere's package when dealing with Excel because it is buggy and tends to break, unfortunately.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have only been using it for about seven months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I do not remember having any problems. It usually does not lag or crash. Some packages, like Excel, can behave unpredictably, but I have never had any issues with the application itself.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I do not have much information about scalability. When use cases come, I just build them and move on.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before Automation Anywhere, I used Power Automate by Microsoft. I prefer Automation Anywhere because it is more robust. It allows us to build more powerful applications. Power Automate was great for small-scale things, but it had its limitations.
How was the initial setup?
It was already deployed when I got here.
In terms of maintenance, the updates happen monthly. I do not have to do anything, but there is some maintenance when users want to get connected to run bots. There is a little bit of upkeep that happens there. Other developers sometimes do not have the necessary permissions. That process is not particularly painstaking. It is usually painless. There are two or three of us involved in the maintenance. We spend very little time on maintenance. It does not happen too often.
What other advice do I have?
In our organization, there is a fairly steep learning curve because we have a very particular framework in terms of the way that we handle our bots and our processes. This is likely not the case with other organizations that do not have a similar framework. We like to break down our bots in a very particular way, and we like to control our bots' inputs with configuration files and use Python scripting to handle a lot of work rather than using Automation Anywhere's packages because it is more effective, but then there is a little bit of a steeper learning curve.
I never had to train somebody who is not technical on how to use Automation Anywhere, but you could teach someone how to make something super simple in 30 minutes, and then give them an hour. You can quickly teach them how to send themselves email reminders or do something similar, so you could get going pretty quickly.
Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten. It does what it does well.
Boosts efficiency in billing management and significantly reduces costs
What is our primary use case?
I am an assistant professor in a DMI institute in our country. In our institute, we have to manage a lot of invoice billing. I have been using the bots to automate and maintain invoicing in our institute.
We have also been using AI. I have created many projects, such as a virtual assistant, to automate tasks in our institute.
How has it helped my organization?
Automation has been playing a significant role in every aspect of our institution. In our institution, it is very difficult to manually manage more than 1,000 people's data. I like the ability to automate and the bot feature in Automation Anywhere.
Previously, we were doing everything manually. We needed a lot of people to do the work manually. We need 20 to 30 people to manage invoice billing every day. With Automation Anywhere, it has become very easy for us to do invoice billing. It has saved us about 80% of the time. We only need 10 people now. Financially, it has helped us a lot because we can manage tasks very easily with few people. The workload has been reduced by using automation.
I like to make use of Co-Pilot with every task because it is very reliable. They have improved it a lot. I like to use it every day and integrate it with my software. A task that takes months can be done in weeks with the help of Co-Pilot. It helps us save time and do other tasks. It saves a lot of time for employees to do or prioritize other tasks.
In terms of integration, some of our staff have been using the integration of Automation Anywhere with Microsoft 365, but I have not integrated it.
What is most valuable?
The interface is really nice and user-friendly. Anyone can start right away.
What needs improvement?
I have been using IQ Bot, and its accuracy can be improved. It could be more accurate.
Managing all the bots in the control room can be a difficult task for a large organization. The control room features could be enhanced for better performance.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Automation Anywhere for around one year in my institute.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
At times, I faced some issues with Internet connectivity, even though I had a good Internet connection. This happened at the initial stage, but over the last five to six months, they have improved a lot. Other than that, everything is perfect. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
The automation is used by 60 to 100 people on a regular basis. Around 50 to 100 people use it at intervals. They are not using it regularly in our institute. Overall, there are about 200 to 250 users.
Around 30 to 40 people are involved in maintaining the bots that we have been using. We usually assign them tasks to maintain the bots weekly. It takes a few hours. It is not a big deal.
How are customer service and support?
Support is really good and genuine. I would rate their support a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have not used anything other than Automation Anywhere. We were introduced to this by an employee of one of my friends, and we have been using it. We have not used any other solution.
How was the initial setup?
For a non-technical person, it can be a little bit complex, but it gets easier with time. A couple of days are enough to learn and deploy it.
We have five to six people involved in its deployment.
What was our ROI?
It has helped us save a lot of time and money. It helped us a lot financially.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is reasonable and affordable. If you consider the tasks that we can get done using this, the pricing is reasonable and affordable.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, it is not very difficult, but initially, it can be a bit difficult to understand how the bot works. Over time, even a non-technical person can manage it. A week or ten days would be enough to learn everything and start using Automation Anywhere.
I would suggest starting small for anyone new to Automation Anywhere. I would also recommend learning and gaining experience from those who are already experienced. Other than that, it is fine. I would definitely recommend Automation Anywhere to everyone.
I would rate Automation Anywhere a solid eight out of ten.