Business Transformation Manager at a maritime company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Helps us with cost-control processes, but bugs have delayed further development
Pros and Cons
  • "The core functionality, the ability to automate these tasks and to interact, both with our own in-house software solutions as well as with our customers' and vendors' solutions and portals, has been incredibly valuable for us."
  • "One thing about it that we have not found to be exceptionally useful are the built-in bot analytics, the Bot Insights. From our own extensive experimentation, as well as from what we've understood from other people using this solution, we've been able to come up with better solutions using our own in-house analytics and our own systems than through theirs."

What is our primary use case?

We're using it across a number of departments. So far we have implementations for finance and cost-control, as well as operational and logistics uses.

Our deployment is a hybrid solution. We have an on-premise component and some portions are in Azure.

How has it helped my organization?

We've implemented a few solutions that are helping us out in a couple of different dimensions. One of the big ones for us is cost-control. We've been able to identify certain billing errors and to dispute them or avoid overpaying in certain instances. It's helping us to improve both the visibility of the accuracy of the invoices we're receiving, as well as any instances where there might be disputed amounts. It's also allowed us, for certain tasks that have previously been repetitive or manual-data-entry heavy, to centralize and then automate them and reduce the number of actual employees we need on those mundane tasks. It's been very helpful for that.

What is most valuable?

The core functionality, the ability to automate these tasks and to interact, both with our own in-house software solutions as well as with our customers' and vendors' solutions and portals, has been incredibly valuable for us.

We're also beginning to dip our toes in the water with the IQ Bots, to do some OCR and some machine-learning. So far that is looking like it will be very valuable to us as well.

What needs improvement?

One thing about it that we have not found to be exceptionally useful are the built-in bot analytics, the Bot Insights. From our own extensive experimentation, as well as from what we've understood from other people using this solution, we've been able to come up with better solutions using our own in-house analytics and our own systems than through theirs.

Also, we're seemingly plagued with certain technological issues or bugs. In particular, at the moment, we're in the middle of a pretty serious issue that's blocking our further development. We have been working with the Automation Anywhere support team on it, but it's been dragging on for a while now and we still haven't received a solution from them yet. We're hoping to get that resolved and move forward. 

There's definitely some funkiness or some jankiness, sometimes, with working with them.

Buyer's Guide
Automation Anywhere (AA)
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Automation Anywhere (AA). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Automation Anywhere ( /products/automation-anywhere-aa-reviews ) for about a year now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability has been mixed. In fairness, it's hard to say how much of that is issues with the solution itself, versus any issues that we may have had in the setup and integrating it into our own systems. It's definitely taken us a while to get to a point where we're comfortable with it being able to run consistently and smoothly. We've made a lot of progress in that regard and we're seeing a lot of improvements as well.

Our issues tend to be more on the development side. We've had pretty decent success once the solutions are fully developed and deployed, as far as stability is concerned. But, we have definitely encountered a lot of issues and hiccups along the road, while developing.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It seems pretty scalable. We're looking into scaling up in the near term. The pool seems pretty scalable and good to us from what we've seen so far.

We currently have six or seven processes that we've automated using Automation Anywhere and we're looking to increase that number quite a lot here in the U.S. We have a prioritized list of another 50 or so tasks that we'd like to try to automate with the solution. In addition, we're working to generate interest among some of our other agencies and countries worldwide, in using it.

How are customer service and support?

Their technical support is good. Any issues that we've raised, they've gotten right back to us and helped come up with solutions. It has taken longer than we would have liked for some of our thornier problems to reach a resolution. At the moment we're a little stuck, based on a problem that we're having, although tech support has been responsive and has worked closely with us to try to come up with a solution.

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

This is the first RPA solution that we have used.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was definitely complex. It took us and our IT teams quite some time to get everything set up the way we needed it, with our three environments. Part of that was getting the Control Room installed and set up, as well as making sure that the client was running properly on all of our machines. It definitely took us some time to get that all running smoothly, a few months to get everything deployed.

We're a global company and our U.S. offices have been running this as a pilot for global. We've been sitting with different departments and stakeholders to try and understand what processes might be right for automation and for this kind of solution. We've been compiling that list, prioritizing, and trying to get the buy-in of the people who will be most impacted by it. We've also been trying to get some early, big wins as far as ROI is concerned, and as far as demonstrating the value of the technology, so that we can continue to roll out more, here in the U.S. and, hopefully, more broadly later on.

What about the implementation team?

It has all been done in-house.

What was our ROI?

We are definitely seeing positive ROI on this, between some cost reductions as well as some FTE replacement for the more repetitive or mundane tasks.

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

Licensing is done on a yearly basis. There are some additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees. There are a couple of add-ons we've looked at: The IQ Bot for OCR and machine-learning were add-ons, as well as the Bot Insights - the analytics.

We got The Bot Insights rolled in immediately, on a trial basis. The Meta Bots, if not immediately, we had added on very early on. The IQ Bot is something that we've been looking into recently. We have not yet purchased that license. We have run a PoC with it and are looking into adding that on.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did evaluate other options but I wasn't directly involved in the initial screening process. I do know that we examined three or four other solutions before settling on Automation Anywhere.

What other advice do I have?

The biggest lesson I've learned from using this solution is that nothing is as easy as it seems it should be.

One of the things a number of people are looking for out of an automation solution is a reduction in FTEs. I know Automation Anywhere would prefer we not describe its usefulness in those terms, but I know that's something that a lot of people are into. While it certainly can achieve that, the estimates going in tend to be very high and the reality is that you're not really hitting those numbers. So be very conservative when you evaluate it. It has absolutely been worth it for us and has provided us with good value. But the optimism going in - and I've heard this from other people we've met at the Imagine events, etc. - is over-optimistic and the actual numbers are less than what is estimated. Being realistic about that is very important.

Also, if you're using any kind of custom, in-house software, seeing how it interacts with that is important. It can be a little persnickety about interacting correctly, especially if it's an older, legacy system. It runs very smoothly across many different types of software and modern interfaces. But it can be a little challenging working with something that's a little older or more specialized and customized.

Currently, we have five to ten users, ranging from very much involved to just being onboard or peripherally involved. We have a number of developers directly using the technology, as well as project managers. Those are the people who are directly involved. The number is much larger if you include the business users who are impacted by the solution, impacted by the bots that we've created and their results. I would estimate, roughly, 50 users are benefiting from it right now.

In terms of deployment and maintenance, we're getting back to that five to ten people. We have four or five developers who are developing new bots. We have three IT people who are involved very directly in maintaining our servers and the virtual machines that we're running these on, as well as providing technical support for the overall infrastructure and setup. Those are the people who are directly involved at the nuts-and-bolts level.

It's been very helpful. In many ways it's doing what it says it can do. It's automating processes, it's got some good settings for controlling, running, monitoring, and maintaining that. On the other hand, our experience in actually developing with it and making the bots has been rockier than we would like. Also, the setup - getting the infrastructure and the installs set up properly - and updating, when updates roll out, are a bit complex.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Systems Engineer at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
An easy to use product, but we would like them to add Citrix going forward to mitigate costs
Pros and Cons
  • "We are using it for scripting, and it is end user based with screen captures. It is a bit easier to use than any of the other tools out there."
  • "We looked at the Bot Store initially and didn't find much."

What is our primary use case?

It is primarily used for accounting apps. So far, it has been okay. It's for a small implementation.

We have automated account reconciliations.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is its ease of development.

It's pretty easy for people who don't have a tech background to use. It is one of the easiest tools for them to use. We are using it for scripting, and it is end user based with screen captures. It is a bit easier to use than any of the other tools out there.

What needs improvement?

There are a few things that could be done better, so we can monitor properly. They need to improve in terms of development and enhancements. We need to get the right feature sets in place as an enterprise.

We would like to use Citrix going forward. We use Bot Runners to scale up, and it gets to be expensive. Using Citrix, it can mitigate costs.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We went through the documentation, it looks pretty easy to scale.

It took six months to scale from pilot to our current number of bots.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is good.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. The document was good. Everything went as expected.

What about the implementation team?

The deployment was done in-house.

What was our ROI?

We don't have an ROI in any of our processes. We are just trying it out now to see if it works.

We haven't had any savings yet. We have been putting more time in than saving time at this point.

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

Our annual licensing costs are around $100,000 a year.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We chose Automation Anywhere through a process of elimination. We evaluated all the RPA products out there and decided on Automation Anywhere mainly based on ease of use.

We also looked at Blue Prism.

What other advice do I have?

We looked at the Bot Store initially and didn't find much. We looked a year ago, so maybe we will take a look again.

I don't have much experience with attended automation.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Automation Anywhere (AA)
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Automation Anywhere (AA). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Associate Director, Healthcare Technology Solutions at a consultancy with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
We are getting massive efficiencies across our back office, internally. We are looking forward to the web-based development versions due to installation and performance issues.
Pros and Cons
  • "We are getting massive efficiencies across our back office, internally."
  • "We've had a lot of issues with the installation and performance on a variety of computers, onshore and offshore. Our network bounds multiple domains, and we've had issues there, as well. So, we are looking forward to the web-based development versions."

What is our primary use case?

We have four core business areas: Energy, financial services, healthcare, and our internal corporate. We're spread pretty evenly across the four areas.

We have automated a lot of processes serving human resources, legal, life sciences, financial services, healthcare (on the payer and provider sides), and IT. We're all over the place.

We're still in the rapid expansion phase. The last six months have really been an explosion, so we're trying to keep everything under wraps and control it.

How has it helped my organization?

We are getting massive efficiencies across our back office, internally.

What is most valuable?

Th Enterprise platform: Automation on a platform, as opposed to scattered automation.

What needs improvement?

The ease of use is improving for development. We've had a lot of issues with the installation and performance on a variety of computers, onshore and offshore. Our network bounds multiple domains, and we've had issues there, as well. So, we are looking forward to the web-based development versions.

The bot creation process is getting better. The general development process and change management deployment process is moving more towards enterprise-level and catching up with the more mature software industry around it.

So far, the cognitive document processing is not available at the enterprise level. However, this is being worked on by Automation Anywhere.

I would like them to start building continuity between employees and customer contacts.

There are a lot of new features coming with the release of version 11.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is improving.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is inconsistent. It seems like every time we call, there's someone who has only been with Automation Anywhere for a couple of months. Oftentimes, if you call two different people, you'll get two different answers, back-to-back. What we tend to do is, if we don't get a fix or resolution right away, we'll call back immediately or submit a second ticket immediately, and try to find someone else.

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

Our business teams pushed for an RPA solution.

What about the implementation team?

We worked with Automation Anywhere on the deployment.

What was our ROI?

We have saved time and money using this solution. It varies pretty heavily by use case. We have some bots which are saving a week or month of multiple employees' times. We have some bots saving an hour a half during a day of a team of 30 people's times. So, there is some significant savings that we've uncovered.

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

Our annual license is somewhere in the neighborhood of $115,000.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, UiPath, and Kryon were on our shortlist. 

At that time, Automation Anywhere was the most responsive to working with us. That actually tipped the scales.

What other advice do I have?

The more you preplan, defining processes and governance upfront, the more successful you will be down the road.

The solution integrates well with others. When it doesn't, it is usually the fault of the other solution.

The courses on Automation University were generally good.

We have not done anything with Citrix automation yet.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
Architecht at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Gels with any other application we have, from legacy to advanced technologies
Pros and Cons
  • "It is very easy to use, very easy to learn. That is the main advantage of this tool. You don't need to have very specialized skills to learn it."
  • "It would be nice to have the IQ Bots integrated with the Enterprise Edition without requiring extra licenses. That would be great."

What is our primary use case?

The primary intention is to automate business processes where manual work is heavily involved, wherever it is feasible. That is our core objective. We want to free up our time and concentrate on what is very important for the business by moving processes to automation.

We have automated pretty much everything: premium registration, claims processing, underwriting. We have touched upon many processes.

How has it helped my organization?

Recently we have implemented one particular RPA function which helped the business to complete a particular renewal within a day, a process which took a month to complete before. They were able to reach out to the customer ahead of time. The customer was surprised to see a quicker response. The automation improved business value.

We use the solution for Citrix automation and the AISense is pretty good. It is very nice to use. It has helped us to resolve many security issues, whatever we have encountered so far. They were nullified when we moved into the Citrix AISense automation. We don't need to worry about any sorts of security vulnerabilities or security access issues. We can do everything in Citrix automation with the use of AISense. Previously it was not possible to do object cloning with Automation Anywhere. When this feature came out it was so nice to be able to use it.

What is most valuable?

It is very easy to use, very easy to learn. That is the main advantage of this tool. You don't need to have very specialized skills to learn it. It's very easy to use and user-friendly.

It gels with any other application we have. We can take everything from legacy technologies to advanced technologies. You don't feel any difference when using it with any of the applications.

What needs improvement?

It would be nice to have the IQ Bots integrated with the Enterprise Edition without requiring extra licenses. That would be great.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is quite stable. Over the last two years we've had around 50 bots and there have not been many issues with Automation Anywhere. We do have problems, but they have been logged with the portal and should be resolved in the next releases. Overall, it is quite stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good. We started with very few bots and it was quite scalable. We now have about ten Bot Runners.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support has been very good. That is a major advantage of using Automation Anywhere. When you log your particular issue, within the next two to three hours a technical person will be available to walk through the problem, identify and troubleshoot it.

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

We would like to use the IQ Bot only, for PDF extraction. Currently, we are using PDF data extraction and finding whether the data is present. If we go with the IQ Bots, the main reason will be the capability. At the moment we are having some sort of problem with reading the images. We are using OCR and Python for that right now.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We did it ourselves.

What was our ROI?

Currently, we are using it for the labor savings, we are not very particular about what the cost savings are. We look at how much time we are spending on manual efforts and where we can reduce them.

So far we have saved about 15 FTEs in the last one-and-a-half years.

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

I'm not sure what the monthly licensing cost is, as that is taken care of by another team, but I would say it's around $100,000.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Our shortlist consisted of two products. When we started the journey we evaluated three or four products. We chose Automation Anywhere for two reasons:

  • It's easy to learn and
  • it's business-user friendly.

What other advice do I have?

Without thinking twice, I would recommend going for Automation Anywhere.

We have taken courses at the Automation Anywhere University and that was good. It is a good learning platform. We touched almost all the courses. It also has the certification course. It was very good learning there. We even have our business associates logging in to the Automation Anywhere University and learning for themselves, learning about the platform and playing around.

The process to get to our first bot took about one year. 

For our bot creation process, we first have a business meeting to understand what the business processes are doing and we look at the process metrics. We have a spreadsheet to capture the processes for which it's feasible to do automation. Then we look at the suitability of automating a given process and what would be the return on investment if we did the implementation. Once everything has been finalized, we contemplate the development time, do the development, the testing, and then put it into production.

I would rate the solution at nine out of ten. Its usability is very good. The problem is that the IQ Bots' capabilities are coming out slowly.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
VP IS Global Development at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Using bots, we have been able to recoup revenue because processes previously weren't being followed correctly
Pros and Cons
  • "The tech support for Automation Anywhere has been really good, so far. We haven't had to call them very much, but when we have, we have received a good response."
  • "I would like more with OCR and data capture. We are partnering with IBM to help bridge this gap, but Automation Anywhere should continue to expand on their product line and provide these capabilities, as well."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to augment our staff and remove some of the manual processes in our business.

Our team, consists of two college kids who are doing almost all the work, along with a couple of business people to help teach them what is going on. The ease of use has been pretty simple, or they would not have been able to catch onto it so quickly.

How has it helped my organization?

With the new regulation on China tariffs, we were hit with a regulation that we weren't prepared to take on. By using a few bots, we were able to satisfy the requirements for that regulation without going into programs and making changes.

We have automated our China tariffs, some invoicing stuff, a lot of processes for finance, and some mundane closing tasks.

What is most valuable?

We have had a lot of great success with attended automation. The business has taken a hold and embraced it. So, we're very excited about it.

What needs improvement?

I would like more with OCR and data capture. We are partnering with IBM to help bridge this gap, but Automation Anywhere should continue to expand on their product line and provide these capabilities, as well.

The installation and setup for the bot runners and bot creators need improvement. The installation and setup for the control room is also a difficult task. Therefore, improving the ease of implementation would help out a lot.

For how long have I used the solution?

Less than one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've not had any problems with the platform going down. Right now, it's been very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We're still pretty small, so we haven't had a need to scale out too much. 

We have seen the roadmap for scaling out, and it doesn't look to be too difficult. So, we should& have a problem with it.

We have only had the tool for about eight months. From start to finish, we have put over a dozen bots in place, some of which are highly complex and took a lot of weeks to properly deploy.

How are customer service and technical support?

The tech support for Automation Anywhere has been really good, so far. We haven't had to call them very much, but when we have, we have received a good response.

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

This was our first bot solution. We did do our research and looked to our partners to see what they were using, then created a shortlist. This product was on everyone's shortlist. Also, they partner well with IBM, and we have partnered with IBM for years. This made it very attractive and was the key selling point.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was pretty complex. Everyone who offers this platform is still trying to find the right tools which go with it. Without an integrator, we would have had a lot of difficulty getting it set up ourselves. 

As this product matures, it will continue to get easier to set up.

What about the implementation team?

We used an integrator (BP3) for the deployment. They've been tremendous to work with, satisfying all of our needs.

What was our ROI?

We measure our ROI mostly by time saved, from a real person doing a task versus a bot. In some cases, we have been able to recoup revenue because processes weren't being followed correctly. Because the bot was doing the task the same way every time, we have recouped some revenue that we had lost in the past.

We save 34,000 hours of time per year and have recouped up to $6000 in lost revenue.

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

We have a three-year contract with Automation Anywhere.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

UiPath was also on our shortlist.

What other advice do I have?

Every piece of software has its goods and bads. For your organization, you have to ensure that the goods outweigh the bads for your use case. This solution has been great for our company in almost every way possible. Obviously, we made a good choice. Therefore, I would recommend taking a good, hard look at Automation Anywhere as your bot platform.

With the latest version, I know they have improved the UI. That will already be a big help,

Return of investment has been pretty easy, so it has not been a problem with getting funding for this solution. Our executive team was immediately involved, where I know with most IT projects, they really don't care until they see the output. They had done their research, as well. So, they were really excited for us to take on this endeavor.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Global IT Director at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Drag-and-drop and recording of mouse and keyboard controls make it easy to create reusable snippets of code
Pros and Cons
  • "In Automation Anywhere we liked the drag-and-drop and easily stitching the recording of mouse control and keyboard controls."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our primary use case for it was financial back-end operations. We dabble in Automation Anywhere. We don't use it.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We have an old ERP which required human interactions because of the lack of a system. For example, we were copying and pasting from an invoice to a spreadsheet, and then from the spreadsheet, we would run a macro that would plug it into our ERP. What we did is have the robotics read an invoice and plug it directly into our ERP, avoiding the extra steps, let alone a human doing it. We placed a robot and technology in place of a human. It saved about an hour-and-a-half a day. We measure in FTEs and we measured the savings as 20 percent of an FTE.

    What is most valuable?

    In Automation Anywhere we liked 

    • the drag-and-drop 
    • easily stitching the recording of mouse control and keyboard controls. 

    They were not unique but they were user-friendly. 

    For developers to pick up a new tool, you need something user-friendly where it's easy to create reusable snippets of code and use them in another process down the road. I would rate the ease of use at eight out of ten.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    Less than one year.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It was very stable. We didn't have any issues with it and, if there were, they wouldn't have been Automation Anywhere's problem. They most likely would have been our infrastructure.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We didn't have to scale too far, so we didn't experience its scalability.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    We didn't use Automation Anywhere's technical support, even for deployment. We read and learned what we needed to know. We got on their support site, got their documentation, took the requirements, how to deploy, and what the right architecture was. We scaled based on what we thought we would use it for. My guys like to learn, they like to try, and I allow them to dig a hole and fall into it and then fix it later. They just didn't fall into a hole.

    The documentation was good enough for us to read. Granted we're technical people, but it was good enough to read and take actions based on the content. It was really good.

    How was the initial setup?

    Setting up Automation Anywhere was fairly straightforward. I personally did it. I had my team behind me. They set up the IIS side and the SQL side. But for installation of the product, I did it myself because I wanted to know. I'd still like to learn, even though I don't do the work.

    To install here, on-prem, at the server level, only took two people a couple of hours; perhaps a total of eight man-hours.

    Our implementation strategy was, "Let's try it." We had an objective to save FTEs as well as to introduce technology to get around our lack of a decent ERP. It was a matter of picking among the big three, and some third-world country type of RPA as well, and seeing which one hit the button. We figured out what the requirements were, and we have a pretty hefty on-prem hosting, so we spun up some servers and installed it.

    After deploying, our developers then took control. We had a team of three developers. In terms of maintenance, we usually set up our environment where we install updates monthly. That should take a couple of hours per server. I don't recall Automation Anywhere standing out as a "problem child." So maintenance on the infrastructure side might be about two hours a month.

    What was our ROI?

    We couldn't put the math together. When we decided to actually procure and get the quotes, they gave us free trials for a while and extended them for months. But when it came down to it, we couldn't do ROI because our company outsources to India. Our employees are in India, and in India, $250,000 goes a very long way. We just couldn't make up the money fast enough.

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

    Cost is the biggest area in need of improvement for Automation Anywhere. Annually it's $250,000. That's what deterred us right away. We stopped using it as a primary solution because of the costs.  We did not apply hardware to that, because we've already got the cost baked into our infrastructure. Otherwise, there would have been hardware costs on top of that. If we really took a full, all-in cost for Automation Anywhere, it would have been much higher. But we don't do it that way.

    There are three big, heavy-hitters in RPA, with Automation Anywhere probably being the premier, followed by Blue Prism, and then UiPath. Of those three, Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere are very expensive, but the accomplishments are the same. UiPath is pretty affordable as a buy-in, with the accomplishments being the same.

    Overall, each has its own uniqueness, strengths, and weaknesses, but when it comes to looking at it on the financial side, Automation Anywhere is probably one of the most expensive to have an all on-prem solution. We're all about on-prem. It was very expensive to stand that up.

    We went with UiPath.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    In terms of differences between Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and UiPath from a functional standpoint, there really weren't any. They all do the same thing. It's coding in .NET, coding in Java. They all have their strengths. Automation Anywhere stood out because of its high cost. 

    When we put them side-by-side, everything we could accomplish in UiPath, we could accomplish in Automation Anywhere. Each one is making its own jumps. For example, when we were evaluating them, UiPath was making leaps in OCR and reading natural language, and Automation Anywhere was taking a back seat in that. But Automation Anywhere was advancing in its process improvements. Now, they're doing it the other way around, and Automation Anywhere is jumping forward ahead of UiPath. So they play this game, but either one is equally good.

    What other advice do I have?

    My advice would be "due diligence." Make sure you read, and make sure you engage the Automation Anywhere team and the support. We didn't, but we didn't have to. But do due diligence based on cost, and scale, and really what you're going to do.

    RPA is the hot word right now. Everybody wants to do RPA. But what we did is just put it into our arsenal of other tools. It's not the golden bullet. It's not the one that is the end-all. It's just one of the tools in the arsenal that IT has. That's why we chose not to spend $250,000 and, instead, to spend much less. Sometimes RPA is the answer. At other times it's system integration, and at other times it's just raw development. That's what I even tell our customers. That's our toolkit. Our arsenal is developer's RPA, and we use a third-party integration tool as well.

    Just the developers were using it in our organization. They tout it as it's user-friendly: Give it to a user and they can do it. But we didn't discover that at all. We couldn't just hand it to a user, so our developers were taking the processes and applying them with development code behind them. Automation Anywhere has "record-the-screen," but when our users were doing it, they would move an icon and it wasn't smart enough to find the icon that had moved.

    In terms of extent of use, it was used daily for some of our daily processes. The finance process I talked about earlier is one example. We automated that and that robot ran on a daily basis. As for increasing our usage of RPA in general, we scaled up pretty quickly. Internally, we have four or five robots running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Project Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
    Real User
    Top 20
    Improved process performance for us with fewer employees, saving us hours of time
    Pros and Cons
    • "There are ready plugins and connectors to integrate with APIs for common systems like Oracle or Microsoft."
    • "There could be improvement in the reporting and insights into the ROI. The ROI tool that shows the performance and the return on investment is not very accurate."

    What is our primary use case?

    We were looking to replace employees with a robot for repetitive and tedious tasks, to save time.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Automation Anywhere is saving hours and hours of employees' time. We can do the same tasks with fewer employees. 

    We have increased the automation of processes in our organization. It is really obvious how automation has improved the performance of our processes. We have two tracks of automation. We do traditional automation using application management and integration, and that is done by a big team. But we can compare our small RPA automation team to that big team. Both are increasing automation in our organization, each accounting for about 50 percent of our automation.

    There is definitely another business benefit from using it: Processes have been re-engineered after being reviewed.

    What is most valuable?

    There are ready plugins and connectors to integrate with APIs for common systems like Oracle or Microsoft.

    What needs improvement?

    There could be improvement in the reporting and insights into the ROI. The ROI tool that shows the performance and the return on investment is not very accurate. I have developed my own tool to do that instead of using the native tool that comes with Automation Anywhere.

    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?

    It is a stable product.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The system can be expanded easily if you scale up the team or the process itself. It's the perfect product for that. It's definitely scalable.

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

    We didn't have a previous solution.

    How was the initial setup?

    There were some difficulties regarding the connection of the servers and performance issues, but we overcame them by reading about the product and seeing how things can be done. We also opened tickets with Automation Anywhere but it took them a long time to respond. There was a ticket that never closed during six months. But with an upgrade to the new release, it disappeared automatically.

    Automation Anywhere has a learning curve, but it's not that hard and it's not very easy. Someone without tech skills can learn it by taking courses. When you try, you get into some problems, but in the end, it's nice and not hard. I haven't tried training non-tech people to use it, but in general, it may take people without a tech background about three months to learn it.

    From time to time we need to do some maintenance of the infrastructure servers and make sure that the CPU and memory utilization is optimized. Occasionally, we need to increase the memory. There are two or three people involved in the maintenance from our organization's application support team.

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

    The solution is quite expensive. Not every organization can consider this option. That's one reason they might go with real integration via API.

    There are additional support costs. We didn't buy the support because we have a capable team that is doing the job.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We have seen options from the competitors, and we decide to go with this one. There were many aspects to our decision, but the main ones were the cost of the solution and the support available in our country.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would recommend Automation Anywhere as a serious option. You will find it easy to use, overall, making it a very good choice.

    When it comes to deciding between an API integration and RPA, integration is the best option, not automation. If API integration is available and ready to use, it's better to go with that option. However, sometimes, based on my experience, there are cases where you don't have control of those things and you have to think of other solutions. For us, the alternative was automation using RPA. But when an API integration is possible, I prefer to go with that option, rather than going with the RPA. When that is not possible or easy to do, we go with RPA.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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    PeerSpot user
    Yasser - PeerSpot reviewer
    Chief Executive Officer at Imbassy
    Real User
    Top 5
    Great drag-and-drop functionality with a user-friendly interface and helpful AI
    Pros and Cons
    • "The most valuable feature is the power of AI Technologies involved in Automation Anywhere's IQBot - such as Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Fuzzy Logic, and Machine Learning."
    • "They need to improve the real-time data and analytics."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use Automation Anywhere to automate all the repetitive tasks that was previously done manually by individuals and to reduce the risk of human-errors so we can save time and money, It's like creating a digital employee that will work more quickly and accurately than humans. We mainly use it for the service desk tasks and to handle requests and also to create invoices and approving bills in finance and accounting departments, And we're implementing it into all of our departments since we found the benefits of it.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We have solved many problems we had in the past before using Automation Anywhere, Mainly we saved a lot of time and money, We reduced and minimized the risk of human-errors and got rid of all the manual repetitive tasks so we can focus on the core of our business, All the people in charge of supervision are dedicated now to a more important tasks. We succeed to reduce the response time of our business processes and this increased our performance and effected on our overall, But then when we started implementing RPA solutions for our clients, We had to switch to another product with an easier implementation and more friendly interface.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature for me is the power of AI Technologies involved in Automation Anywhere's IQBot such as Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Fuzzy Logic, and Machine Learning to automatically classify, extract and validate information from business documents and emails, I also like the Bot Insight to analyze and optimize the processes, I also like the visual flow charts and the drag-and-drop actions, I like the cloud infrastructure and security and the lightweight web-based architecture. 

    What needs improvement?

    They need to improve the REST Api Documentation because its not well detailed or clear enough for beginners, They need to provide some out of the box AI and ML functions such as Image classification and Objection Identification, They also need to improve the real-time data and analytics,There is less support for various data types, The .NET Framework is not completely supported and they have to add more features to fully support the .NET, Last advice is to add an option for developers for Graphical View along with the Code View option.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    One year before I switch to another solution
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Automation Anywhere (AA) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: March 2024
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Automation Anywhere (AA) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.