Automation Anywhere (AA) Reviews

Our primary use of this product as a solution is developing bots to automate tasks and processing. For example, we have financial bots and we have IT bots. We have been involved in developing and monitoring the bots for about one and a half years, mostly for finance and IT. A majority of the tasks were done by other teams.

We have automated mainframe applications and integrated the tool with web-based applications and SAP. We have automated many SAP processes, including posting the entries and POs to SAP.

We are currently planning to migrate those bots into the current version (11.3.2) to make the bots more stable.

We are using the on-premise deployment model. We have multiple processes getting automated through this tool.

The major benefit for using Automation Anywhere is that it has provided a lot of FA (Finance Automation) benefits. That is a major plus point for using an RPA (Robotic Process Automation) tool. Any automation tool, for that matter, has its benefits. But because Automation Anywhere is easier to implement and learn, it is possible to move the bots to production faster. Speeding up that process helps in simplifying our workflow and productivity, and allows our people to do the most useful work we can do.

The basic Taskbot itself is the most valuable part of the product for what I do. The use of IQ Bot is still in a development stage. We are looking forward to August 2019 when we should be migrating to a newer version. That seems very promising. For now, we use Taskbot and Metabot with a variety of applications.

The ease of use is good. We had someone join the company who had no understanding of RPA. He was trained on it, getting his hands dirty, then he was able to develop and start automating processes quickly within a month. 

Resources are available online. A person can get certified and start automating right away.

The Bot Store is good. Although, we have not used the Bot Store much, there are some useful bots already built in it. We can just use them in our processes if feasible.

There are several things that would improve the product. I would like to see them include a group chatbot and make the IQ Bot more stable. Just those things would be great. Adding those kinds of features improves what we can do with the product. Using a client control room concept to ensure that everything is based on the web login, would also be great. Obviously we know that the development of new features will take some time.

We are expecting those kinds of features in the future. We expect more AI integration in our technology.

Automation Anywhere could use to be more stabilized. The product is becoming more stabilized with newer versions, but there are various things that still need to be stabilized. In the current version that we are using, we have a Control Room where the client will sometimes get disconnected. This will result in downtime. Therefore, we need some stabilization from the tool perspective. We don't have any other option than to raise a ticket to Automation Anywhere or get in touch with their support to get the issue resolved. So, we are having downtime. This can be improved.

We are not completely okay with the IQ Bot. We previously used version 5. The newest version does have more accurate results.

Technical skills are required to use the product. With these tools, technical programming is still required with the guidance of technical people. Business people can go ahead and try building a few smaller processes, then when they gain technical knowledge, they can use this tool to their full advantage.

Most of our processes are attended automation. It would be great if more processes were unattended automation, so we could release more FTEs.

We are currently using third-party Taskbots. We would like Taskbots directly integrated into the tool.

We have been using Automation Anywhere since version 9. Over that time the stability has improved a lot. We are expecting it to be even better in coming versions and this is why we are looking forward to our migration to 11.3.2 in August of 2019.

In program versions 10.3 and 10.7, what we were developing was okay. The stability was fine. In version 11.2, we had basic client login issues and database issues as well. When we have a better foundation as far as the stability, we are hopeful of getting better updates.

As far as being able to scale our usage of the product, until now, we have been doing well in diversifying. In the future, we expect to be able to get more from the tool. Our ultimate goal is to use the tool to automate most of our internal processing and reap the benefits of RPA.

Multiple users are currently using the product.

The technical support has been really good. Honestly, it is very good. We have been getting good support from the correct technical people quickly. One thing we would like to experience is that instead of waiting for a new version of the tool to resolve issues, that we could get immediate patch upgrades to cater to our requirements. That would be great. We are getting patches sometimes, but they do not perform as well as we might hope.

We have taken courses from Automation Anywhere University: version 11 and IQ Bot. We also attended training at the Automation Anywhere office for IQ Bot. The Automation Anywhere University courses are quite good. You can easily learn and get certified, which has some value in the market.

We were looking to Automation Anywhere as a solution in a relatively new concept. We believe it was our best choice and, currently, we are hopeful that the stability and the enhancements done to the tool will pay off. We are looking forward to using 11.3.

So far, the initial setup of versions has been straightforward and we expect it to be even smoother in the future.

Bot creation process: 

1. We identify the process.
2. That process will be well-documented along with the operations people, who will develop the BRDs. 
3. After the BRD creation, we'll come to know whether the process is feasible to automate.
4. Concurrently, a solution design document will be developed.
5. Developers will create the bot. 
6. Once the Bot is developed, UAT will be given to the operations people telling them whether the bot is performing as per their requirements.
7. Once finalized, we'll get a UAT sign off and the code will be moved to production where the bot will go live.

Scaling bots to production depends on the process and how complicated it is. For a simple process, it will take two to three weeks. If the process is a bit complex, it may take close to one to two months. It also depends on how your internal compliance is organized in the company. We have a compliance check done at every phases of automation, so it will take us more time to get the process live even for a simpler process since we have to get compliance sign off during every phase.

We did not use an external resource for the implementation, but I was there when the initial setup was in progress.

As I am currently part of a team of developers and people who perform functions, we are not directly involved in the deliberation of assets or ROIs. However, it is apparent that there is a return on investment, and we are noticing it.

We have many benefits reaped from the automation work we have done. So, I don't have the exact information about the cost and what our return on investment is, but it is benefiting the organization in a much bigger way by channeling efforts away from wasting manual time on processing.

As our team size increases, we may get some more licenses for the tool.

We checked on Blue Prism and UiPath. UiPath was still developing. 

We opted for Automation Anywhere. The pricing was okay for us. Also, It was easier to learn the tool and implement within the team. It is easier to learn, implement, and get things done with Automation Anywhere compared to other tools on market right now. 

Before automating, understand the process:

• How big is the process?
• Is it of use to the organization?
• How repetitive or complex is the process?

This is important because automating tasks requires resources.

On a scale of one to ten with one being the worst and ten being the best, I would rate Automation Anywhere a seven. So far it has been good, but obviously there are opportunities to be so much better.

We expect more from Automation Anywhere based on the new technologies that we know exist concerning AI and also unstructured learning. There's a lot of room for improvement, so that's why I would not rate it higher. Other than that, for data structure, it has been good — apart from a few stability issues.

Ease of integration is good. We have automated a process in the current version. Automation Anywhere will tell us if it won't support this version anymore at this particular time, so we'll have to migrate that code to the currently released new version. At that time, we may face some challenges after moving the code. We may have to do some tweaks to the code. We can't directly run it as is, so we'll have to do some minor tweaks so that it is stabilized more, then it'll be better.

As far as recommending the software, that depends on what use case and what work requirements an organization has. For structured data and for simpler processes, it is fine. For unstructured data — which should be addressed by IQ Bot and additional features — I may not recommend it yet. But for dealing with automation of straightforward processes, Automation Anywhere is good.

RPA solutions are continuously improvement due to competition. Sometimes, it is worth waiting for the next version which is more stabilized to be released.

My company uses Automation Anywhere to automate tedious processes involving large amounts of data. My job is to monitor the processes for errors and see what caused them. I address those errors and run the automation again. We only started using the solution a few months ago, so we're still exploring some potential candidates for automation. We are discussing and trying to build and define those automations based on our business requirements and existing processes. So far, we have integrated it with our ERP and other SAP solutions. 

We have about 500 users at the company, but most of them are not building automations in the solution. They are indirectly benefiting from activities that are automated. Only about two or three employees are supporting the processes, but the rest are benefitting from the results. Automation Anywhere covers about three work streams. 

Automation Anywhere is cost-effective and significantly reduces the risk of errors that can cost the company lots of money. The solution improves our time and cost efficiency. Automation can cut the time spent on these tasks in half or more in some cases. Sometimes, it might take a day to do something that automation can complete in a few minutes. 

Before we implemented Automation Anywhere, we performed these tasks manually. It took a long time, and there were many errors. Now, everything is efficient, and there are fewer errors. If there's an issue, it tells you exactly where to find the problem and goes straight to it, so you don't need to investigate the whole process. 

There are several use cases where we can leverage AI. One example is purchase orders that are there for maybe 100 or 120 days, but there is nothing happening with the order, so we need to close them. When we go into the system, there are thousands of purchase orders that are still open after years. Normally, we would need to close them all manually. We can use Automation Anywhere to close all the purchase orders that have been open past a certain date. 

Automation Anywhere's error handling is its most valuable feature. It sends you an email when there's an error and helps you find the cause quickly. It walks you through exactly how you should handle it.

If you don't have a technical background, it's somewhat complex, but you don't need to have coding or software development experience, so it is easy in that sense.  I am not technically inclined, and it involves many steps for a process to function properly. It requires a lot of work initially to design and develop a process. I find it somewhat challenging.  If you take time to understand it, it's not too difficult, but it seems complicated at the beginning if you're not a technical person.  

The time needed to learn the solution varies. Some of the processes are complex, involving four or five activities from start to finish. It's a lot of steps and can get quite technical. It might take a month or two to learn. 

I have used Automation Anywhere for six months.

Automation Anywhere is highly stable. 

I'm impressed with Automation Anywhere's scalability. 

I found the setup process to be somewhat complex because I don't come from a technical background. 

I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of ten. We recommend adopting Automation Anywhere. Using digital platforms to automate is efficient and cost-effective. Many tasks that might normally take a day or two can be done in a few hours. You also reduce the risk of human error. It's highly efficient and accurate. 

We use Automation Anywhere for our clients which consists of banks and a telecommunication company to automate their developing systems using bots. We receive the process definition documents from our clients and we developed a process that they need to approve before we can implement the automation.

With Automation Anywhere, we can automate high-priority projects first and gradually shift our focus to automating smaller, manually-driven projects.

It takes around three months to train non-technical people to use Automation Anywhere. We start training on simple Excel automation tasks and progress from there.

Automation Co-Pilot has helped increase productivity. The bots save three to five minutes for each small task per person and even more time on larger tasks. One bot can handle thousands of projects.

Automation Co-Pilot has helped save staff time for other projects.

Automation Anywhere successfully integrates automation into workflows, APIs, business applications, and documents. Everything runs seamlessly in the backend with no issues. 

Automation Anywhere offers valuable features, including command packages for PDF, Windows, XML, and Excel, as well as universal recording capabilities.

Automation Anywhere has difficulty collecting data from Citrix and Oracle applications.

Extracting customer addresses from Google that are not in a standard URL format is a challenge for Automation Anywhere.

I would like Automation Anywhere to make available more development tools, so our people can learn on their own and enhance their skills.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for just over one and a half years.

Automation Anywhere effectively automates our manual tasks at scale.

We clear up any issues in the testing phase, so once we are ready to deploy it is straightforward.

The solution itself is free unless we want to add the support option but we have to pay for the bots we use. There are two types of payment options: monthly or quarterly licenses for the bot agents. 

Between Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Blue Prism I find Automation Anywhere to be the best with UiPath a close second.

I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

Upgrading Automation Anywhere is easy.

We use Automation Anywhere in multiple projects and multiple teams.

Maintenance is required for updating bots or if changes are made by the developers.

We have five to six people working around the clock who are responsible for the bot maintenance.

We use the solution to automate the financial process.

Automation Anywhere has helped improve our organization by automating many processes that used to take us a lot of time.

We see the benefits of Automation Anywhere within one year of launching a project.

Automation Anywhere has been helpful in scaling our organization's automation efforts.

The latest version of Automation Anywhere makes it easy to integrate RPA bots, APIs, business applications, and documents. However, we had a lot of problems migrating from the previous version.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase automation consumption.

The capacity to use Automation Anywhere in the cloud is the most valuable feature.

We have a new feature share in Automation Anywhere, but it does not migrate automatically from the previous version to the new one. Therefore, we had to do a lot of work to adapt the records to the network, which was a problem.

I would like Automation Anywhere to have more integration with for example, with AI platforms.

The technical support response has room for improvement.

Automation Anywhere is not user-friendly and could be improved.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for four years.

Automation Anywhere is scalable. We have 100 end-users and the solution is deployed across multiple locations and departments.

The technical support response time is slow. They are difficult to contact and I am not satisfied with their support.

Neutral

I previously used UiPath, which is more user-friendly than Automation Anywhere. UiPath has many more features, and a better platform, making it easier to learn.

My manager completed the initial setup, but I believe it was complex. The deployment required one person from Automation Anywhere and four people from our technical office, including my manager.

The implementation was completed in-house with the assistance of an Automation Anywhere tech.

I give Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

Automation Anywhere requires users to have some technical skills to use it.

For someone who wants to use an API integration instead of a robust process automation solution, I would say that it depends on the API process. Performance is not the only factor to consider.

We have two people responsible for the maintenance of the solution.

We maintain our bots daily because our processes are complex and ever-changing. We spend around two hours each day maintaining bots.

Automation Anywhere has a steep learning curve and should not be learned on the job.

We get many banking and finance use cases e.g. reconciliation, accounts payable, etc. from banking clients which involves the extraction of unstructured data from various scanned and true PDF documents. Post this, the data needs to be validated and triaged before feeding it into SAP and Java-based applications. 

The Automation Anywhere platform has always stood out from the rest of the solutions available on the market given we have IQ Bots and Bot Insights neatly integrated into the platform which enables us to develop rapidly and train the learning instances using pre-defined domains over the purchase orders, forms, invoices that need to be processed. Post extraction of the form and data fields from the documents we post them into SAP and Java-based applications. Automation Anywhere's ease of automation with these types of applications helps to deliver consistent and reliable automation in record time.

We are currently using AAE 11.3.5.1 Client with Control Room, IQBots, MetaBots, Bot Insights, and AA2019 capabilities.

Automation Anywhere has and continues to help us deliver multiple complex and very complex use cases in record time. With AA2019, this ease of development and rapid time to market has improved by a great margin as virtually no setups and configurations are required. Converting prospects into leads into opportunities has never been easier. AA2019 enables us to build POCs quickly without waiting for IT guys to install AAE client as no setups are needed to build BOTs. This enables us to give demos to clients at lighting speeds and gain client confidence in the capabilities and kind of automation we can execute as an Automation CoE.

1. IQ Bot: IQ Bot makes it a breeze to classify banking documents, purchase orders, and invoices. Also, intelligent OCR helps with accurate form field and text field data extraction from unstructured documents. The easy cloud training of the already existing domains and integration with task bots is the icing on the cake.

2. MetaBots - Metabots makes capturing and re-calibrating screen controls in (offline mode as well) really easy. This enables us to make changes to the UI Assets easy.

3. AA2019 helps us to rapidly try out POCs without going through the install cycle and setting up the control room. This is a very important and critical step given we can build automation rapidly and show to prospective clients helping foster confidence amongst the business enabling growth.

Points to Improve:

1. Control Room -> While exporting a package, an option to de-select all the depending/referenced files should be available. Currently, it only allows for selecting all the files. Also, the views should be re-sizable as they are currently fixed width. This would enable to view long file names easily eliminating any chances of exporting the wrong file.

Points to Add in next release(s):

1. Availability of actions for Date and time functions in task bots, meta bots logics editor like Date Addition, calendar functions, etc.

2. Addition of Assertions activities, that can help with conditional compilations

3. Option to copy multiple variables at the same time (as selected by the developer)

4. Option to close all the task bots files in the editor at a go

5. Option to check-out multiple files inside a folder structure in a go

6. List and array should be made dynamic, as in there must not be a requirement to specify at least 1 element in the list, etc.  

7. Deletion of multiple variables in one go (as selected by a developer)

I have been using Automation Anywhere for over three years.

The solution has been becoming better with every release. We have been reporting bugs and supporting the developer teams to make Automation Anywhere more stable and better. With AAE version 11.x.x.x most of the feedbacks are incorporated and solutions are stable and performant.

Scalability with Automation Anywhere has been great. BOT farms have helped rapidly and dynamically spawn up or down the BOT runners. 

We always get a prompt response from customer service and technical support. I really find the priority technical support the depth at which they go to help us find a solution to issues is simply amazing. I have not experienced this with any other solution vendor. A big thumbs up to you guys. 

Initial setup was a breeze and fairly straightforward with all the great support from Automation Anywhere customer service and various technical teams.

We have used vendor teams and in-house teams to implement various solutions. Vendor team people have good knowledge of the various components of Automation Anywhere and know how to design effective, performant solutions in record time.

Post implementing AA, ROI numbers have grown exponentially. Given the scalability and dynamics that Automation Anywhere platform supports.

1. Setup cost is minimal as AAE Control Room is hosted in the cloud. Also, with AAE no dedicated setups need to be run and installed

2. Licensing cost is relatively less compared to other solutions on the market

3. Pricing stands out well compared to other solutions 

I have evaluated UiPath and Blue Prism.

Automation Anywhere has been a significant step in our digital transformation. AA2019 addresses a lot of gaps that we previously had. This makes Automation Anywhere stands out in the market making it an obvious choice.

Primarily we use it for automating back-office operations processes. Some of the most frequent use cases are:

1. Invoice processing and proofing.

2. Reconciliation

3. Automating Timesheets

4. SOW invoice creation.

5. Creation of Credit memos

6. Pulling data from SAP and generating a report.

We use VDIs to deploy. Client & runner environment is mostly Win 10. Most of the bots are scheduled. 

Some organizations still use the manual click on the run button method instead of scheduling or running from CR.

It has definitely helped automating a lot of processes, but it is very difficult to build resilient bots. It is very difficult to find skilled developers in the market, who actually build resilient bots with appropriate error handling. Maintaining the bots is another challenge as the applications keep changing.

It is even more difficult to support a bot than build from scratch. No matter how much you document, things do turn haywire if someone new has to make changes to an existing bot. 

Documenting the AA Solution SDD, PDD is another pain point. It is very common to miss out on a lot of things. 

I feel that in places it is better to create a system to automate rather than use RPA.

Most of the features are valuable. 

1. SAP GUI commands in the latest update is helpful as a lot of processes have SAP involved. 2. APIs are helpful too, but they certainly need more improvement. APIs help in building resiliency.

3. Queues are great but need improvement. They are helpful because most of the automations are transaction-based.

 4. Good old object cloning is always helpful as it is versatile.

5. Metabots help in working with many of the legacy applications. But needs improvement there as well.

6. Credential Vaults are helpful, but needs improvement there too.

1. Excel commands should include more features.

2. Need more variable types for eg. date, amount, number, etc

3. Better API support and more APIs.

4. Queues should be enabled to directly connect to DBs.

5. Managing so many variables is a pain. Some kind of variable initialization mechanism like how Blue Prism has it will be helpful.

6. Input-output variables should be defined for taskbots as well.

7.There are a lot of glitches in AA not fixed since Ver 10. Reach me to know more about them.

8. The commands should help evaluate the current state of variables(like how in Blue prism)

10. Metabots should have command to stop the task. Basically should have all commands of a task bot.

11. No one uses "WorkFlows".

12. The user roles and the Credential Vaults administration, sharing and the whole thing in action is very confusing.

13. Automatic technical logging option should be given by default in all commands like how we have in BP.

4

When it comes to RPA, for every step things should be in the right way at the right time. It is very difficult. So I would rate it as a 5 out of 10 on scalability.

It is scalable, though, in an organizational setup where teams work in silos, I have never seen any organization truly using the scalability to its full potential.

Technical support is okay. At times it takes a lot of email exchanges involved before actually setting up a call and getting help.

AA is all I am using. Blue Prism is used but I prefer AA. Though Blue Prism is better in certain aspects mentioned earlier.

It is the same as how enterprise applications should have in terms of complexity.

We develop RPA solutions for clients.

Costs are ok. IQ Bot is too expensive. Bot Vision should come for free as one can easily use a number of other visualization options for free. There is no point in paying too much for too little.

I have evaluated Blue Prism along with AA

We need some support of documentation methodologies so that the knowledge is easily transferrable through the documents.

We are a biotech company. We make medicines to cure cancers. 

We use Automation Anywhere for intelligence automation or robotic process automation. So, we use it finance, accounting, and supply chain. We are actual using it across multiple functions in the company.

We have automated a number of processes in accounting and finance: month-end close, eliminating profits, reconciliation, some in HR, some in operations, inventory to sell, and various other finance and account processes.

The most valuable feature for Automation Anywhere is that it enables developers to build bots and feel like they can contribute.

I love the Bot Store. I encourage a lot of my staff to use it, because it changes the game and the time that it takes to build automation. It has a lot of reusable things that you can use off the bat.

My impressions of the front office attended automation are that it really changes the game from automation which doesn't have high value. It can actually help people organically build automation. It helps change the game for more wide spread use.

I would like to see a lot around API integration going forward, like the ability for other systems to talk to the AI better by opening it up. I would like to see more chatbots or anything in the journey of making it truly immersive for human workers working with these bots.

There are a couple things that have room for improvement: Its openness and more APIs should be exposed to allow people to integrate. How do you make it easier to integrate back with this technology?

I would like it to do more predict, which means if I have a thousand bots in product, how do I check which of the bots may be at risk of failing? This would really help in supporting the bots when scaling the programs.

The more later versions that you implement, the better that they get. Any enterprise software has its gaps, but it is how quickly it is being addressed. In the latest versions, it has become much better compared to what was there in the past. 

We have them implemented in a cloud-based environment. Cloud by itself allows you to scale. As long as the software works there, it allows you to really scale.

To scale from pilots to the current number of bots that we are using, it took three to six months. That was the time frame. We started pilots on some functions, and learning from our pilots was key.

There is definitely some room for improvement there. It is sort of a hit and miss with their support engineers, you have some really good ones and some that aren't. Consistency is the key. There is room to get consistent. I am giving them the feedback, because as you get more customers, support becomes the linchpin where you can either drive a customer away or get them to use the product more.

For the last year, we were really focused around using it for the right purposes and processes. We have had fragmented solutions, then we decided to pick one player. We already had the tool (Automation Anywhere). It was more about doubling down on our investment on one product, then really getting good at using it. 

We have had the solution for a long time. As you go to cloud-based solutions, there are some nuances, which is less about the initial setup and more about when you have a version that you need to migrate or update. This is an area where we have faced some hiccups, but we were able to get around them.

We used a combination of an integrator and consultant for the deployment. We have used many different companies who are premium partners with Automation Anywhere, and we are also focused on building a COE internally, so we can do some of it ourselves. 

We measure ROI by a number of factors: 

• Hard savings from cost dollars
• Looking at the NPV over number of years.
• Labor
• What control or compliance things that we could be saving.
• Productivity
• Employee satisfaction. 

Roughly, as of today, it is around $250,000 annually.

We had literally everything under the sun, like WorkFusion and UiPath. It was more about focusing on Automation Anywhere, and only if we hit a roadblock that the solution could not solve, then we should look at the other tools.

I would say that they are a nine out of ten. Because if they are a ten, then they sit back and relax. To get a ten, there are some small tweaks to be done. I think the company is going in the right direction. It just needs more focused attention in certain small gaps, then they will get there.

The ease of use is its key novel feature. It is much better than earlier versions. I have actually trained people in finance who have not written a piece of code in their lives. They are able to pick it up. There is a learning curve, some it takes them some time, but it is definitely easy for them to use. I have a couple of folks who have not done automation before, and now they are able to go back to their jobs where we used to build automation for functions. They can now understand what we built for them and actually contribute to a certain extent for it.

Get started with the tool. Think of the structure because using the technology is not the problem, it is more on the governance and how to use it. How can you maximize your benefits that you are receiving? It is about getting your hands dirty and trying it on small PoCs. That is how we started; we started on small PoCs. That's the key.

I was working for an airline client that had their processes in the mainframe. The application Sabre that they had was all terminal-based. It was very difficult to navigate and capture everything. We automated a lot of tasks related to validation. For example, when someone booked a flight ticket and tried to cancel it, they needed to give some reason. We had rule-based validation, so we had to validate the reasons and assess them. Previously, it was all manual and terminal-based, and then we used Automation Anywhere to automate.

We also used Automation Anywhere to do a lot of PO manipulation. It was done in an application called Coupa. We used to do that automation with APIs. API automation was very easy with Automation Anywhere. We used it to automate such tasks.

Automation Anywhere was introduced as an RPA tool to facilitate the digital transformation journey of the client organization. They wanted to eliminate a lot of manual tasks and provide quality work for their employees rather than them doing manual activities. They also wanted to make sure that a process was in place. They wanted a very low code or no code automation so that even business people could upscale themselves and automate. They wanted to free up their employees from such manual tasks and have a lot of bandwidth to do some other research.

In the use case related to the cancellation of a ticket, a lot of things have to be handled. When you cancel a ticket, the airline has to make an update at a lot of places. Only then you would get the refund. It involves a lot of processes. They could be related to the meal or something else. Even if you have not subscribed to any add-ons, all the checkboxes have to be ticked, and only after everything is cleared, you get your refund. Before automation, the refund process was very tedious. When they were doing it manually, any mistake could lead to incorrect transactions. For example, they might end up transferring a different amount. It was a very tedious process, and it was handled with the Sabre application, which was not very user-friendly. It was mostly a terminal-based mainframe application. It had a user interface, but a person with good experience was required for it. A fresher or somebody less experienced could not do it. You needed to know where exactly to go, and there were a lot of things that you had to learn to do this process. It was always done by an experienced engineer, and it was very manual involving navigating different screens. During COVID-19 times, there was a shortage of employees, and the airline was handling a lot of regulations, so this manual process became more problematic. At that time, we introduced Automation Anywhere. We were targeting only 50% automation, but we were able to automate 80% to 90%. It significantly improved the time to process a request and reduced the dependency on a senior engineer for the process. The robot could handle the process. We had programmed the robot. It was a very good experience. It helped the client navigate through tough times.

When you decide to automate a process, you try to understand the process in and out. You try to understand the exception scenarios and how to solve them. You prepare a process discovery document. While doing this documentation, you try to streamline the process because Automation Anywhere, as a tool, needs to be configured to automate that process. It forces us to ask a lot of questions, such as what if the file to be downloaded is not there. You come across all such things at the initial phase. That helps a person to restructure the process and fine-tune it more strategically. It saves a lot of time. It has plenty of features to do Excel operations. It has a lot of capability for querying. You can read data from Excel and process it using a query. You do not have to do Excel operations one by one. It is very quick. If a person is taking 30 minutes to do the operation, it takes only seconds or minutes to finish it. It provides a lot of efficiency.

You also have a lot of traceability. You have a lot of logs. You can see what happened after a process. When you have an audit, you have some traceability. A person doing a task does not always document each and every step. He or she would just do the task and finish it off. When you automate the process with Automation Anywhere, because the robot is doing the tasks, you get a lot of logs and a lot of traceability for auditing.

At the initial stages of automation, you also redefine and optimize a process. Instead of downloading 4 Excel files at different places, you try to standardize it. You give a standard name and a standard path. Everything is standardized, and a lot of focus is put on security and data privacy. We are very conscious of not saving it at any location that is accessible to anybody else. Subconsciously, we do all these checks. It improves the security and data privacy aspects. It also leads to process optimization. Like any RPA tool, it saves a lot of time, and it is efficient, and then logs are there as a good source of tracking.

Automation Anywhere is easy. It takes one to two weeks to introduce a non-technical person to this solution. They already have good domain knowledge, and they just need to know how to work with the tool. In about a week, we will be able to train them in basics. We can show them the interface. We can show them what goes where, but they will not be able to develop full automation or know about full RPA coding. They can get the basic knowledge in one to two weeks. Full training will require building a use case. It could be a small use case. If a developer would take four weeks, which includes development, testing, and other things, a non-technical person would require eight weeks. Only then a person will be able to learn completely and become a very good developer.

In terms of integration, there was SAP integration and Sabre integration. There was one more application. I worked only with these applications. If there is a component available, the integration goes smoothly. When you want to go for something customized and you try to build an integration, it is very challenging, but that is common with all the tools. When you try an out-of-the-box integration, it is very easy because they would have already tested that it is working. When you try to build something or customize it, that is when the challenges come. I have seen plenty of challenges with Automation Anywhere when you go for something that is not there in the package. You need a lot of support from the team and a lot of effort. The security restrictions from the organization were also stopping the integration. It was not happening. A lot of errors came, and we had to reach out to the network team and the security team. There were networking and security issues that had to be resolved.

Automation Anywhere has saved time and costs, but I do not have the metrics.

I have not used the recent versions, but it provides a great way to automate. Excel automation is quite valuable. Initially, it was only there in Automation Anywhere. It was not very popular with other automation tools. Excel automation is a very good feature. A lot of back-office activities happen in Excel. It is a very needed feature that Automation Anywhere provides.

In 2021, Automation Anywhere switched from on-premises to cloud. They renamed it as A360. They brought the required changes with this version. Before that, they used to have a line-by-line code view. They did not have a flowchart diagram, but it was very much needed. Because it was low code, a pictorial representation of the code was something that was missing in Automation Anywhere. It was there in UiPath and Power Automate at the time. Automation Anywhere then introduced two views. That gave people the option to use the view that they were comfortable with. That was a very brilliant move. Having two options made it very accessible.

It is very user-friendly. The AI capability that nowadays I am seeing in Automation Anywhere is very good. They have plug-and-play AI solutions. You do not need to know a lot about coding or AI to implement AI in your automation. You can just use their plug-and-play solutions. That is where its real strength is.

Automation Anywhere is easy, but the Automation Anywhere courses are not so easy. All RPA tools have their own academy where business users can go and learn the solution and do things themselves. Automation Anywhere courses are a little bit complex to understand. You need a little bit more time, and accessibility is also a little bit of an issue. They should focus a bit more on the academy and learning materials on their portal. The content should be easy to understand. It is not easy to grasp for a non-technical person. It should be easy for citizen developers. Also, their certification is very costly.

There should be more visibility as an RPA product. Every organization is trying to stick with certain tools. I like Automation Anywhere, and I would like to work with it, but I am not getting an opportunity. Automation Anywhere is not promoting itself to other organizations. Organizations are moving towards Power Automate and UiPath. It could be because Automation Anywhere is not reaching out to companies.

Their community events are also less. There are not many developer events in the cities where IT is there. In Bangalore, India, most of the IT companies are there, so we get to go to a lot of conferences. We get to hear a lot from other vendors, but Automation Anywhere's events are very limited. They should take care of their presence in the community and companies.

They should introduce videos for the new features. They should promote new features. They should be known to people. They should be accessible to people. Only then developers or companies will know about it. Only then, it will get used. There are probably plenty of good features, but they are not known or explored.

I worked with Automation Anywhere for 2 years.

It is a stable product. I would rate it a 7 out of 10 for stability. It is not a perfect product, but it is improving every day.

It is not very scalable. I would rate it a 6 out of 10. After you have built your robot, if you want to make some changes, you can do that, but if you built a robot and you want to make it an AI-enabled robot, it is quite a challenging task.

There were many users of this solution. I was a part of the Center of Excellence. The finance team and HR team were also trying to use it. There were more than 50 people for this solution.

I was getting good support from them. I would rate them a 9 out of 10. They were always very helpful to me. My colleagues have had a bit of a bad experience, but I did not. I have raised a few tickets, and every time, the person was attentive and helped me out. They were very patient. They were straight to the point. They knew the technology.

Positive

I am working with UiPath and Power Automate. Automation Anywhere has got its own benefits and its own strong points, and the same is applicable to other vendors. It is just about which one your organization is aligned with and which one your organization has chosen to go forward with. However, other vendors are better in terms of reach. Even if I am not working on Power Automate for six to seven months, I get to learn about it. I see a lot of things on LinkedIn. There are communities where I can go to learn and keep myself updated, whereas, about Automation Anywhere, I do not see much information. I have to exclusively go and spend a lot of time to find the information. That is where I see the difference.

It was on-prem before, and then we migrated to A360. It was already deployed when I joined, so I do not know about it, but migration took 4 to 5 months.

There were 4 people mainly focusing on migration. It was a bit complex because it was new, and there was not a lot of material available online. It was a little complex, but later, it became smooth. We reported a lot of bugs, and other people also reported them. It was very smooth.

It is cost-efficient in terms of licensing. I found their support good when I was working for the airline client. However, I hear from my managers here that the support price for Tier 3 or premium is a little higher. That is why we are not going for Automation Anywhere. Its price was okay for our client, but for us, it seems expensive.

Automation Anywhere was a tool that was decided by our client. They were very much satisfied with how work was progressing. It gave them faster results, and it helped them navigate through the Covid-19 situation.

I would recommend Automation Anywhere. It is a very solid product. I have always vouched for it. I see a lot of potential because it is very easy and it was a stable product when I was working with it. They were very careful about their releases. They were not releasing a lot of things, which is something I see in other products. With Automation Anywhere, each release is very carefully tested.

They introduce new features, but I have noticed that in India, the market for Automation Anywhere is not very big. I am not getting to work on Automation Anywhere because companies are moving to Power Automate and UiPath, so I am not able to learn it more. It is difficult to get hold of this solution.

In terms of our organization’s perspective when it comes to automation and AI, specifically Generative AI (GenAI), we want about 50% of the income coming from IT and services. Automation and AI are placed at the top of the strategy. We are moving towards RPA plus AI and ML. It is almost like hyperautomation or intelligent automation. This is one focus area, and another one is Pure Generative AI and data. The data part is handled by a different organization. We are looking into how to drive insights from data analytics and how to leverage the GenAI technology outside and derive value from it. These are highly focused areas.

I would rate Automation Anywhere an 8 out of 10. I liked working with it.