Software Engineer at Tech Mahindra
Real User
Minimized our on-premise footprint and has helped with quality control
Pros and Cons
  • "I've contacted technical support many times and they are very helpful."
  • "While UiPath Studio helps speed up the cost of digital transformation, in a way, it requires expensive or complex application upgrades or IT support, as it needs an entire setup. That setup requires support from different departments, and that comes with a cost."

What is our primary use case?

For a current client, we have around 22 to 25 use cases, and it's all based on the financial side of things. The client is in finance, and we have use cases all of which are comprised of different tools, including SAP and their in-house CRMs. It's about automating the process where we take some data from the CRM tool and upload it to SAP. It also involves uploading the files to the FTP server. 

For example, one use case is where the applications used are Oracle, and SAP, and STP. We just download the data from Oracle. There are different files that we download from Oracle and upload to the FTP server. From that FTP server, there is a different team that takes those files and creates a Tableau dashboard. 

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath Studio helped us automate many processes that have helped us save money. Even though the tool price is there and the license costs are there, it has given good ROI. For example, automating a process can reduce the work to half or maybe 60%. We divert efforts to different work. Therefore, it has been pretty useful in terms of savings and quality control.

For example, one client had a focus on quality control. There are instances where employees make some minor errors that could lead to major losses to the organization from the department's point of view. We automated that process and it gave us more return in terms of quality control. Fewer errors ultimately were made which saved the company from losses.

What is most valuable?

UiPath has a full suite of capabilities. It has, for example, an end-to-end automation suite. From a development point of view, it is pretty helpful to have access to all of the activities on offer that anyone can understand. 

The Studio as well as the process mining are great. Document understanding is another useful feature. It has eliminated the business analyst side where you have to go through each department and find out which processes are there, and take a different tool to get those all processes in one place and create a process workflow. All of this can be done with process mining. 

With document understanding, we have the capabilities of having UiPath understand and create documents, which previously was quite a lengthy endeavor. You just have to install it and follow the steps. It will automatically take a screenshot and create a document for you and then create a brief description of it. 

It’s easy to build automation using UiPath Studio. From a developer's point of view, it is easy due to the fact that you don't need much of a coding language or coding background. You just should have a clear logic behind it. If you're clear with the logic, a layman can handle the task. They do have Studio X features, which is for the layman who doesn't have any background, who doesn't have any coding or developer's background. They can automate their own work. Even an SME who doesn't know anything about automation could automate small tasks.

It’s great that we can scale automation without having to pay attention to infrastructure. That is very important actually. For example, scaling automation plus giving attention to the infrastructure can be a little hectic and time-consuming. If there is any way where we could reduce this work or optimize it, it would be great from the implementation point of view.

UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation. Right from the start, you have document understanding and process mining as well as the Orchestrator, which helps you with getting an overall view of the bots in our organization.

End-to-end coverage is the most important thing, due to the fact that, if it is end-to-end, we don't need to go to the market and look for any other application. If you can get end-to-end, you don't need to go for other products which simplifies everything. It's easy for us to maintain and work with it instead of having to integrate and manage multiple systems, multiple products, and multiple applications.

UiPath has helped minimize our on-premise footprint. It has helped us with quality control savings. We have saved many efforts previously requiring full-time employees. It’s one of the most important factors when we work for clients. If a client is hiring us to automate many processes, there are different intentions of doing it. If we are able to help them reduce cost, reduce and do some quality control, it is important for them. For example, previously, if work required ten employees, we have been able to reduce that down to six or sometimes four personnel maybe.

The UiPath Studio has reduced human error. It has helped us with quality control very often. In the past, mistakes have cost us. It has saved costs as well as saving us money related to fines or penalties.

The solution has freed up employee time. Instead of doing the same mundane work every day, we have just automated that part and now the employees have more free time to do more meaningful work. In terms of hours, from a department's point of view, we have saved around half, that is four hours per day, maybe about 80 hours per month. The additional time enabled employees to focus on more important work.

We have found that the product has reduced the costs of our client’s automation operations. With my previous client, we calculated an average of 40% in reduction of personnel and 40% in cost savings. UiPath has saved us money across the organization. The average saving is likely around 40% to 45%.

What needs improvement?

I'm pretty much happy with all of those tools. I don't have anything in mind that I could see improvement.

While UiPath Studio helps speed up the cost of digital transformation, in a way, it requires expensive or complex application upgrades or IT support, as it needs an entire setup. That setup requires support from different departments, and that comes with a cost.

I came across one problem while upgrading. We were upgrading from the 2019 version to the 2020. There was one thing that was not mentioned either on the website or documentation, and we had to take support from UiPath. The documentation needs to contain each of the scenarios which could occur while upgrading the solutions. As it is now, this is not the case. That said, when we ran into issues, UiPath Support helped us through it.

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For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using UiPath for five years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've had outages once or twice. For that, they have a workaround. If a server goes down, we should have a backup server for it. If that's the case, it is just a few steps needed to migrate or we can take the setup from another server. That's it. It's pretty good in general. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is fine. For example, if the bot count is about zero to 100, we have the capacity. And if it goes beyond that, then we have to increase the features of the systems and servers. It could take time if we scale beyond the limits, however, it's still possible. It just requires an upgrade. 

What's required is managing all the infrastructure and getting all the permissions from the client which is what could take time. Scalability can be an issue when it goes beyond the mentioned limit.

In the current organization we're working with, it's totally unattended bots where no user is actually using this tool. That said, the bots are in production, which works 24/7. No user is having this access to the tool. It is all unattended bots.

In the previous organization, there were 58 to 70 users as we had attended bots. They were using bots in their daily routine.

It's a routine for us to use this product every day and deploy this solution. We are definitely looking at increasing it and scaling. We have a lot of work in the pipeline.

How are customer service and support?

I've contacted technical support many times and they are very helpful. Based on the severity and priority, they do help us on priority and they are very helpful in terms of responding, supporting, and maintaining. If they can't help us by email, even after giving clear instructions, they'll bump you to a different level and help. It can be just like spoon-feeding us. They are very patient and try to be very clear.

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

We were doing automation, however, it was just .com and .net. We used to write five lines of code just to click on one button, which is just an activity right now we have in UiPath. We switched to UiPath to do end-to-end processes which would require large amounts of code if we kept doing what we were doing.  

How was the initial setup?

I've implemented UiPath from scratch many times. 

The process is quite straightforward. You just have to have the installer and just click install, and then after a few steps, it is done.

Setting up just UiPath Studio hardly takes ten to 20 minutes or maybe one hour if you're facing some complexity. Setting up an Orchestrator with all the robots could take a while.

Our implementation strategy is based on whatever the customer's requirements are. Different clients have different requirements. My previous client, for example, didn't want the cloud as they were pretty concerned about the security as they deal with financial data and they don't want the data to go to the cloud at all.

Clients have the option of on-premises or cloud. Based on that, we just go with the requirements. Some clients want attended bots due to the cost, and some want unattended bots due to the features. 

In terms of maintenance and deployment, how many people you need depends on how many processes you have with the client. Right now, with the current client, we have 22 to 25 processes that we have automated. We are just three users who are developing, testing, maintaining, and supporting this project. However, it varies and often depends on the process and client and how many bots.

For maintenance and support, you don't need many people. For development, if they're at 10 people, five or four could do the work in terms of support and maintenance.

What about the implementation team?

We handle the deployments for our clients. 

What was our ROI?

While the clients might have released some reports, I don't have much knowledge about ROI. 

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

I do know about the prices of attended and unattended bots as well as Orchestrator. 

There are costs related to Orchestrator, Studio, and attended bots. There are also infrastructure costs, and, while implementing this tool in any organization, there are different costs attached to it.

The price for the attended bot is between $1,800 and $3,000. The unattended bot was $8,000 last year.

Orchestrator is around $20,000.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism, however, about five years back, where UiPath, Blue Prism, and Automation Anywhere were the leaders in the market, at that time, just UiPath had the free training and Intuit training for their tool. The other tools didn't have any training, or if they had, it was paid. That's why we chose UiPath, which ended up being the best out of the three anyway.

What other advice do I have?

The company I work for is a UiPath partner.

There have been multiple companies that I've been working with. Two remain the same. I've been using different tools as well. It's been on and off with UiPath.

We are not using the latest version of UiPath. The latest version is 2021. We are using 2020. This is due to the fact that the client that I'm working with has a stated policy as to using a minus one version. They believe it could not be a more stable version for any product. 

At this time, we don't use the SaaS solution or the AI functionality. However, I have enrolled in AI training to better understand it. We do not yet use the automation cloud or UiPath apps either.

In terms of employee satisfaction, from the experience I had from interacting with the client and different users, they are happy as well as sad. They are happy in terms of moving away from the mundane work that has been taken off from their hands. They are, however, both sad and afraid that they could lose their job.

I'd advise users, if they're a layman, to go with the training. Just start with the training from the UiPath website itself, in the RPA Academy. That is sufficient for anyone to start with. They have all the courses that start right from scratch for every role, be it business analyst, solution or product developer, et cetera. In six months, even starting from scratch, you can excel on this product.

With UiPath, it really is possible to optimize so many things. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
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Kevin-Chen - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Asustek Computer Inc
Real User
Enables end-to-end automation, reduces human error, and saves time
Pros and Cons
  • "UiPath is well-suited for automating tasks within Oracle applications and can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud."
  • "UiPath needs to improve its integration with Microsoft products such as Office, SharePoint, and PowerPoint."

What is our primary use case?

We managed over 500 global tasks worldwide, leveraging UiPath to automate procurement, financial accounting, customer service processes, and customer relations.

We evaluate resumes through the RPA and ChatGPT four. We also arrange service for customers who need repairs to their devices through automation we developed using UiPath.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath enables end-to-end automation. The end-to-end automation is important because it allows us to reduce our testing and reporting time from 28 hours down to 15.

UiPath has helped us shorten the time for our supply chain and revenue report generation. By using UiPath Document Understanding the OCR can read the PDF documents and automatically drop the file into the ERP system significantly reducing our time.

UiPath has streamlined our operations by digitizing our documentation and converting it to easily accessible PDF files. This has significantly reduced our physical footprint, eliminating the need for paper storage and manual document handling.

As a partner of UiPath in our region we are required to take all the Academy courses so we can better service our clients and share our use cases.

We have 1,000 clients around the world, each with unique invoice formatting preferences. Our AI system efficiently sorts these invoices based on their specific formats. By automating more processes through AI, we've significantly improved efficiency. For example, while standard OCR takes a minute to process a PDF invoice, our AI system does it in just two seconds.

UiPath has helped speed up our digital transformation. We have created a large data lake to help with analytics.

We require human verification for the final invoice numbers. Using UiPath the number of human errors has been reduced to one percent.

UiPath has saved ten percent of our employees' time by automating the invoicing process, translating the invoice language, and emailing it to the original user.

UiPath helps save costs. We can keep the license costs down by using one API license to convert all our PDF files into Word.

What is most valuable?

UiPath is well-suited for automating tasks within Oracle applications and can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud. This flexibility is particularly advantageous when dealing with sensitive data that cannot be migrated to the cloud for security reasons.

What needs improvement?

UiPath needs to improve its integration with Microsoft products such as Office, SharePoint, and PowerPoint.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

UiPath is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

UiPath can scale to our needs.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good. We rarely have to use them.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

For general automation needs, we choose Microsoft Power Automate due to its cost-effectiveness compared to UiPath. However, for Oracle-centric automation, where stability is paramount, we rely on UiPath.

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment was complex. Many settings within the orchestrator need to be set before running a job. Once we implemented UiPath we had our user team keep an eye on it for one month to ensure it was stable, scheduling only attendee jobs before moving onto more complex automation.

In our region, we have a team of 15 to 25 people for the deployments and a smaller team of five in North America.

What about the implementation team?

We implement UiPath in-house.

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

UiPath is expensive compared to the competition. We pay a license fee that is over 20,000 USD.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Automation Anywhere, Power Automate, and UiPath. Automation Anywhere and UiPath are more expensive than Power Automate.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate UiPath a nine out of ten.

We do require the assistance of IT to help increase our digital transformation.

Maintenance is required when updates are made to a process or component. Our team of 25 is responsible for the maintenance as well.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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Raheel Irshad Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior DevOps Expert ERP & RPA at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Helps save time, is user-friendly, and reduces human error
Pros and Cons
  • "The useability is very good - even for non-technical people."
  • "The Academy classes could be improved. There should be a portal for use cases. There should be more business examples."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for robotic process automation. We use it across the value chain for our business. We've used it in accounts, including cash management, and in HR for management tasks and IT for password resetting. 

How has it helped my organization?

The automation has been quite useful. It's been helpful in our journey towards transformation. 

What is most valuable?

I've used this solution for a while and I utilize the whole tool and get a lot of benefits out of it. 

It helps save time. We've had efforts that would take more than four hours a day, yet, when done through UiPath, it takes less than a minute.

The useability is very good - even for non-technical people. I'm an accountant by education and now I'm also an automation expert by profession. Its interface is user-friendly to those of us who are non-technical.

Anyone who wants to automate any task that is rule-based and repetitive can do it through UiPath.   

We can use the solution for automation emails or notifications.

It enables end-to-end automation. We developed a use case where people from different business units have large amounts of data, Excel files, we've made it so that we can combine it and enter it into the ERP system. Everything can be checked via the rule book and can create the report and send back the information to the customer. It simplifies the data and organizes and compiles it for them. Users have gotten the benefit of five FTEs by using UiPath. It saved many man-hours. 

I haven't used the UiPath Community too much. I often Google questions to find answers. It is a good place to go for development work, though. 

It reduces our footprint. We historically did have many items on-prem. I like it on-prem and on the desktop.

It can reduce the cost of digital transformation. Where processes can have faster response times, UiPath helps with efficiency. However, if the response time of the application is slow, and we need to provide workarounds, it isn't helpful in that it hasn't efficiently helped us save time.

UiPath reduces human error by 100%. Whatever you give to the robot, it will do it correctly. That said, it needs to be programmed correctly - if it's programmed wrong, it will do it 100% wrong. If it's programmed right, it does it 100% right. 

It's freed up human time. It's not well-utilized in that sense. It should be available to everyone so that they can find ways to save time by creating their own automation according to what they need.

What needs improvement?

There are a few shortcomings. For example, even in their latest version, there are still older features even though they've introduced new ones in parallel. They should do something where they update the solution and then close off the older version after a year or something like that. That might help with standardization. 

Sometimes it is very useful for automation. However, sometimes it is really, really frustrating when it is unable to manage the more dynamic items. When an element is stable, it's great. When it comes to changes to IDs or the dynamics of the website, it lets us down in front of our customers. It needs to be better at handling volumes of data. 

Automation on the cloud has had issues. It can be slower. 

The Academy classes could be improved. There should be a portal for use cases. There should be more business examples.

They should offer different licensing tiers, especially for daily individual users. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution since 2016, more than five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable product. There were some issues while interacting with different applications. For example, with Microsoft, we have issues with One Drive. When UiPath is working on a file, it cannot quickly get to the file. We need to move the file to a local drive before processing the data. Microsoft applications seem to give it trouble. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have multinational business units. Company-wide, maybe 500 people are using it. Where I am, there may be a team of ten people working with it and 50 to 60 automations. The solution is in multiple locations and departments. 

The solution is scalable. It depends on how an organization wants to utilize it. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is very flexible, however, they do not respond quickly. Sometimes they just tell us "this is how it works" and we have to try to explain our framework.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

I have also tried Blue Prism. I didn't work with it much; I just studied it theoretically. 

I also tried to work with Power Automate. Initially, it wasn't very good, however, later, it began to echo the style and functionality of UiPath.

UiPath is easy to use and easy to get started with. 

How was the initial setup?

The deployment was a long journey. I was one of the first people in Pakistan to use it. Now, once you get a license, you can deploy it in two weeks. However, it depends on the complexity of the processes in terms of deploying automation.

We have around ten people maintaining the solution. It requires a lot of maintenance. If anything needs to be changed in the target application, it needs to be incorporated into the robot. 

What was our ROI?

Someone told us you do need three to five years before you get an ROI. However, in our first year, we were able to save more than 8,000 hours. 

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

The solution is on the expensive side. 

There should be standardized packages. If an organization already has a license with UiPath, UiPath should offer special licenses to each employee so that each employee has their own UiPath automation capabilities for each of their individual tasks.

There should be regional packages and costs. Different regions cannot necessarily afford UiPath. What is affordable in Europe may not be affordable somewhere else. 

What other advice do I have?

We're a UiPath customer. We serve internal customers with robots.

We do not use the UiPath AI functionality, however, we are on a journey towards building our own internal solution. 

I'd like to see UiPath cut the cost of their license. For end-to-end automation, for developers, I understand why it needs to be expensive, however, for day-to-day users, it should be cheap. 

I'd recommend the solution to new users. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's still the best out of all related products.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
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RPA Assistant Manager at PwC India
Real User
Increases employee satisfaction by having them do value-added work instead of static tasks
Pros and Cons
  • "At my previous company, in the best scenario, we removed almost 200 hours per month of client usage, making it automated with almost zero errors. So, about 32 employees were freed up from their work per month, and now there are only two. This has enabled employees to focus on higher-value work that involves human-base interaction. This saved the client money and provided a recruitment benefit."
  • "When it comes to debugging, there is some improvement needed for UiPath compared to other RPA tools. There are features to edit the workflow or content of the automation file while we are debugging. For example, we have 10,000 lines of code that we have integrated by 10 different users. So, there is one integrated code and you are debugging it. After some time, you might find a line which is not an error. You may have forgotten to remove it or change the value to your desired criteria. It is really a pain to stop the entire debug session and just edit it, then start again at zero. It will do the same steps again just to reach that level or step where you were actually stuck previously. Whereas, in different automation tools, whether you are on the findings step or in-between a debug session, you can actually edit that information. This is good because sometimes the developer also forgets to add or remove certain values in-between a long code. I think this should be improved in UiPath. This should already be in consideration because I have been in touch with UiPath a couple of times because of this."

What is our primary use case?

We are an auditing firm who has a certain level of tasks that are open for automating. These are complete steps, which can be performed by anyone, standardized, and do not involve any human intelligence. These are just basic human tasks. It is a long process, where in-between there are certain validation and verification steps as well as certain steps that involve a lot of documentation to go through. The organization is targeting all these tasks, which are completely static and can be automated, so they can get rid of them. Then, employees can work on something more useful as well as more productivity-oriented tasks.

Currently, I am dealing with our internal COE, providing RPA solutions to internal and external clients. UiPath is a driving force in our COE.

It is on-prem. There are a couple of discussions going around upgrading UiPath because there has been so much advancement with the solution.

How has it helped my organization?

Document Understanding was a game-changer. One of our clients has manual billing that needs to be processed. With the help of Document Understanding and UiPath Action Center, we created an excellent workflow for our client. It also gives us better accuracy. Now, there are hardly any exceptions in the client's billing documents that are being processed.

In my previous role, I presented some clients the end-to-end installation design of UiPath, e.g., building a PDD using Task Capture, going to UiPath Studio to build the actual solution, and then later going to post-production Insights. 

UiPath has helped to minimize our on-prem footprint. Most organizations prefer on-prem because it reduces the risk of compliance issues.

Attended robots have been very beneficial for our users. UiPath saves one robot for every user. We have a couple of clients who are using attended automation for their day-to-day tasks.

What is most valuable?

From an organizational point of view, the most used feature is Orchestrator because that is how we manage more than 100 users. When there are more than 100 users, it is important, and probably better, to have some place to manage them. Orchestrator is doing that for us very well. 

The most exciting new feature is UiPath Apps. I have explored it in-depth to get a better understanding. I think this product will be a game-changer for my organization as well as for my clients. It will revolutionize the way that we are providing licensing and proper access to a user. It also revolutionizes the way people are using it. Everything will be on the cloud, which I think is the most interesting feature of UiPath Apps.

UiPath Apps will definitely help to reduce the workload of our IT department by enabling end users to create apps. If you are creating an app and sharing it over the cloud, that removes the dependency of having UiPath installed with the correct version as well as Internet connectivity. Or, you might have a global server in the background that is not functioning very well. There are multiple issues related to connectivity of the UiPath robot when deploying it on a user's machine. 

If you are giving access to a group of users and adding Azure container or any other container provided by UiPath, then this reduces 10 to 15 hours of work from the IT or support guys who are manually doing all these things by themselves. Not every user must have the new step of getting the UiPath license and software installed, it is really static. You are eliminating that task completely by having UiPath Apps on the cloud. This is definitely convenient for users to use.

We are not using UiPath Apps in my current organization. About two to three months ago, I created UiPath when I was at TCS. It was there that we demonstrated the power of UiPath Apps versus normal, conventional methods. It reduced our work through scalability. It helped us to easily scale and was more convenient, because giving new or temporary access can be a pain. 

It is very easy to share UiPath Apps. When you want to start or remove it, you can do it with a simple click within the cloud. It is not that complicated. Also, the usage is better in UiPath Apps compared to the conventional UiPath robot. In UiPath Assistant, you can access the portal and simply run it over there. Therefore, you will not have a problem with the background functioning of the UiPath robot or even connectivity issues. Scalability and ease of use are favorable for users when they are using UiPath Apps.

Recently, I have been exploring Automation Hub. Its idea to pipeline a feature will be very useful for our guys managing RPA products on a large scale. 

What needs improvement?

When it comes to debugging, there is some improvement needed for UiPath compared to other RPA tools. There are features to edit the workflow or content of the automation file while we are debugging. For example, we have 10,000 lines of code that we have integrated by 10 different users. So, there is one integrated code and you are debugging it. After some time, you might find a line which is not an error. You may have forgotten to remove it or change the value to your desired criteria. It is really a pain to stop the entire debug session and just edit it, then start again at zero. It will do the same steps again just to reach that level or step where you were actually stuck previously. Whereas, in different automation tools, whether you are on the findings step or in-between a debug session, you can actually edit that information. This is good because sometimes the developer also forgets to add or remove certain values in-between a long code. I think this should be improved in UiPath. This should already be in consideration because I have been in touch with UiPath a couple of times because of this.

My current company is currently looking at the end-to-end solution. However, Insights and Task Capture are major concerns. Task Capture will give you a skeleton of the PDD, then you have to edit it. The skeleton is only there for simple automation, and we have complex scenarios. It is so complicated that the PDD generation using Task Capture will not give you even 20% of the output. While Task Capture is something promising, people are looking at it with greater expectations than it provides. People are not using Task Capture or Insight because of their limitations. These features could use improvements and enhancements.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for three years. I recently switched companies. I worked with Capgemini and TCS prior to this company, where I was in their COEs and providing solutions to clients. This is the first time that I have been on a project for PwC. Since the start of 2018, I have worked mainly in COEs and have interacted with around 30 clients up until now.

PwC, as a firm, has been using this technology for four to five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have been using UiPath on a different powerful system that has high-end RAM. Sometimes, it crashes due to the use of multiple components at once. For example, when I was using Druid with data service and another UiPath product. Developing was quite easy. However, when debugging, sometimes it would freeze. I don't know whether it was because of my system and its compatibility, my system's configuration, or the fact that we were using so many high-end tools and products at once. 

The robustness of the tool, when it comes to using high-end products, is something that I am currently exploring. This is something that is currently a bit of concern for other developers as well. I have been interacting with a lot of developers around the globe. As a part of that, I tend to share my experiences. They have shared that it will sometimes freeze, even with simple automation. Because we are using new features or products all at once, it freezes. I think this should not be the case. If you are using long, heavy code, and it gets frozen at one point, I can understand that. However, 10 simple lines of code, while using three or four products at once, is getting frozen. That should be taken care of or improved.

To troubleshoot the system crashing, we contacted UiPath. They were kind enough to reply and have a discussion. They are working on this and trying to make it more convenient so future releases will solve this problem.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

As a part of a COE, we get clients who expect us to present the entire proof of concept as well as a PPT or presentation. For example, why they need to go with UiPath, what are the advantages/disadvantages, if any, and why we should not go with another tool or solution as a whole, not just RPA. The main point for us when presenting UiPath is the ease of usability and scalability. We don't need major infrastructure changes, just two or three URLs to be widely fitted. Then, they need to decide if they want unattended or attended robots. The scalability is the major driving force which excites our clients and us, because there isn't a need to have media-heavy software or heavy processes changes.

Clients don't want every user in their organization who joins to have a long process to get through the start up. Automation Cloud is something they were very much interested in exploring because of the scalability. They find it very easy to use and scale, because not all the clients have a certain set of users using robots. 

I have seen user usage explode from zero to a bigger audience of 22 users.

UiPath is used extensively in my current organization on a large scale. There is also a plan to scale it to more users.

How are customer service and technical support?

PwC has their internal teams providing a "help center" sort of infrastructure to them. If there was a need for any help, or some basic doubt, it is solved internally. PwC's internal help center exists already. However, for major issues, we reach out to UiPath, as a customer, so that we can receive a response and clarity on issues.

The technical support is really great. I have been in touch with all sorts of UiPath support because I was in the COE and our clients were completely global until my latest assignment. I think UiPath India, France, Belgium, and Canada are timely. They provide a very precise support experience. They were kind enough to let us know the actual reason, because just saying that it is a bug is not something that we can comfortably accept or digest. Also, they have been kind enough to follow back up on updates and bugs that we have reported.

As a whole, I have reported more than 25 bugs across all their products. They were kind enough to reach out to the same forum where we raised the ticket. They were kind enough to reply that these are the updates that they will roll out in the next version. It is good to have this interaction as well as a heads-up regarding your bug reports. I think the technical support is on the mark and doing their job really well.

The learning tools and support are really great. They have the most engaging forum across the globe, compared to other RPA tools. The learning and engagement are really up to the mark. That also brings confidence to our clients and us. We are a part of their global community forum, which is a benefit for us. 

Their marketplace has grown tenfold in the last year. It is because of the developer's involvement as well as involvement from people in the community. UiPath is creating their own statements and usable components, which adds value to our presentation. The tool is growing, and developers and community members are growing with them. 

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

My previous companies migrated from other RPA solutions, like Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and NICE Robotic Automation, to UiPath because of the value of its features and the quality of the overall solution. I migrated my clients from those companies so they could have a better ROI and reduce the cost of maintenance. We also migrated from scheduling tools, like AutoSys, to provide better accuracy and ease of use.

My current company was not previously using an RPA solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup and implementation are standard, simple, and user-friendly. UiPath just requires basic adjustment, then it is plug and play. It is very easy for everyone to understand, e.g., non-technical clients can understand what has been changed.

If the deployment is done properly, you will see better data accuracy with UiPath than manual entry. If the deployment is done by someone without much experience, it will affect the quality of the solution due to bad coding. You can't just leave it to the tool.

Using Automation Cloud makes it easier to deploy.

What about the implementation team?

It takes almost two weeks for us to implement from scratch because we must understand the client's infrastructure, create a solution design, and then present it to them.

We present our clients with a PoC, including a document that justifies the work and costs. We also give them a standard robot that we created for demo purposes. This way, they can visualize how it will be implemented and mapped in their organization.

For deployment, one or two people are sufficient: one from an infrastructure background and another from a technical background. Sometimes, it is complex or hard to understand the client's needs when it comes to the deployment of Azure, Nvidia, or AWS servers on their VPN connection.

The amount of staff needed for maintenance depends on the size of the solution, e.g., the bigger solutions will need more people. However, the maintenance and support activities can also be automated and that reduces the need for support and maintenance. Three or four support team members are enough with the help of a robot.

What was our ROI?

The last ROI calculation that we did for a client showed that they saved 25% of their time by automating a manual task with an unattended robot for a single machine.

Overall, the cost remains the same to the client and us, when using Automation Cloud, because of the amount of money spent on the cloud migration and cloud usage.

At my previous company, in the best scenario, we removed almost 200 hours per month of client usage, making it automated with almost zero errors. So, about 32 employees were freed up from their work per month, and now there are only two. This has enabled employees to focus on higher-value work that involves human-base interaction. This saved the client money and provided a recruitment benefit.

UiPath has been useful for improving employee satisfaction. Employees are now spending time on more value-add work instead of something static, whether it is boring or hectic, that they have been working on for ages. This gives employees a sense of advancement.

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

I would rate the pricing as seven out of 10, where 10 is the most expensive. The pricing increased with the latest release. It used to be cheap. Now, it is expensive. However, it does come with supported features, which almost justify its cost.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Building automations is very easy. I have used multiple RPA tools. Developing automation with UiPath is very convenient compared to other tools. 

Development is very easy. I have been exploring certain markets based on the marketplace component and its native integrations with ServicesNow for the chatbot. I think development is where UiPath stands out as a winner compared to other tools because starting to automate is very easy.

Compared to other RPA tools, UiPath is leading with new feature additions every quarter. Obviously, all the new features will not be incorporated into the solution or be helpful for the client. We see the organization putting in efforts to grow at a rapid pace, including ML, scaling, and everything on the cloud, like data servers. UiPath gives us the confidence to present a tool that can be relied on because it is constantly growing. It constantly has certain new features added which can be beneficial.

With UiPath, not everyone needs to understand the code, which is great. This makes it superior over other tools because it is easy to understand. This contributes to profits because clients prefer UiPath over something else because they have more confidence using it.

Blue Prism has the ability to edit in the middle of a debug. As far as I have explored, Blue Prism is leading on the debugging front and stands out against UiPath. Debugging in Blue Prism gives users a lot of usability to edit the workflow. This makes it easier for developers to run things once and get things done. Otherwise, debugging multiple times can sometimes be a pain.

People migrate to NICE Robotic Automation because they were having difficulty maintaining their software with a limited number of staff. 

It is easier to become more proficient with UiPath than other RPA tools, especially Blue Prism. Training can be done at almost no cost.

What other advice do I have?

I would suggest automating a policy that is not a requirement and follows a process. As an RPA user, it is your responsibility to get things done in an efficient way. If a user is doing A, B, C, D, it might not be required that the robot do the same thing. There might be a shorthand that can take you from A to D directly using the robot. For example, it can go directly to a page and not have to click 10 things like a human.

If you use it properly and consciously, it can increase accuracy and reduce error. If you don't, then it will be the other way around.

As features are concerned, it is reasonably priced compared to any other heavyweight tools in the market.

It is beneficial that there is a SaaS option because this offers a diversified cloud environment. If we expand and explore more cloud options, then having a SaaS solution for UiPath will be beneficial for us. Right now, SaaS comes with a certain amount of compliance issues for my company. 

UiPath AI Center is very useful. I think it is a game-changer when it comes to better usage. However, I haven't had much of a chance to explore it on an enterprise level. Not many clients are using it because of the exposure risk. Once a lot of developers start exploring and developing on it, then more companies will have the confidence to say, "Yes, we can push to that," which will increase the usage of UiPath AI Center.

Everything on the UIPath Cloud is a template. It is just a starting point. You have to dig into it and do more exploration to make it better.

Using Automation Cloud would be very beneficial for us, as a COE, because we are getting rid of the mundane tasks of infrastructure, maintenance, and upgrades, which we do not think are our primary job.

Biggest lesson learnt: UiPath has the fastest growing community with the quickest learning tools. It is easy to automate. It requires basic understanding and effort to get started. 

I would rate UiPath as 9.5 out of 10. I have concerns about the debugging capability, where if I need to edit something while debugging, I can't do it right away without stopping the process.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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PrateekKapoor - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Automation COE at Aon Corporation
Real User
Brings efficiency, reduces errors, and saves time
Pros and Cons
  • "The cloud feature is valuable. Automation Hub and AI fabric are also good features."
  • "Any unnecessary features should be removed. Only the relevant features should be there."

What is our primary use case?

We have many use cases. We have used it in finance, HR, IT, business supply chain, insurance, etc.

How has it helped my organization?

It is easy to build automation using UiPath. UiPath definitely provides a lot of value to the organization. There is efficiency and effectiveness.

UiPath has helped to minimize our on-prem footprint. It is very important for us.

The AI functionality has given us a lot of flexibility to go to the management and tell them that we can enhance things. Some of the things that they initially thought could not be automated can now be automated.

The AI functionality has enabled us to automate more processes, but it is not an easy process to understand and implement automation. It is relatively new, and it requires a lot of change management.

UiPath speeds up digital transformation and reduces the cost of digital transformation. 

UiPath has reduced human error. There is an 80% reduction. UiPath has also freed up employee time by 80%. 

UiPath has saved costs for our organization by 30%.

What is most valuable?

The cloud feature is valuable. Automation Hub and AI fabric are also good features.

UiPath Community is good. They answer all the queries.

What needs improvement?

Their support should be improved. 

Any unnecessary features should be removed. Only the relevant features should be there. There are so many unnecessary features that are not used by the organization. They are offering too many things such as process mining, task mining, communication mining, intelligent documentation, etc. It should be a specialized solution. It should not do everything in this world because the value comes down.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable. I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. I would rate it an eight out of ten for scalability. 

It is being used at multiple locations.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is very poor. It is not timely. They sometimes take a lot of time to find resolution.

We do not use UiPath Academy. UiPath Academy courses are good, but nobody on the team is doing the courses through UiPath Academy.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

I have also worked with Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism. All these tools are good. IQ Bot from Automation Anywhere is very good. It has better features than UiPath, but UiPath is marketed well.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved in its deployment. It is a straightforward process. It took us three months.

It does require maintenance. We have five people for deployment and maintenance.

What about the implementation team?

We have consultants.

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI. It took us five years to see an ROI.

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

UiPath is expensive.

What other advice do I have?

It is a great tool, and I can help people to implement it.

I would rate UiPath an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Anantharaja Jayaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Advisory Team Lead (RPA) at Ernst & Young
Real User
Top 20
Reduces errors, streamlines manual tasks, and is easy to use
Pros and Cons
  • "It's made it easier to do development and create accurate products for the customers."
  • "They could add enhancements in AI technology that could be helpful for everyday developers."

What is our primary use case?

We needed a solution for users that had too many manual tasks. We're in a large bank, and there are tasks like account opening or other items that can be automated using the UiPath system. It can handle auditing as well. 

How has it helped my organization?

We've been able to increase productivity time by using UiPath. It saves time and costs. 

What is most valuable?

Previously we used the classic activity. UiPath modified the activity and it made it easier to do the development and create accurate products for the customers.

It's easy to build automation using UiPath. There are a lot of ways to make an automation, compared to other tools, like Automation Anywhere and Power Automate. It's very flexible. We can use different codes and use Excel modifications. It's very comfortable to use. 

In UiPath, we've developed a developer foundation and developer processes. If there are modifications to what has been done or ideas for new ways to do something, we embrace that. 

We can implement end-to-end automation. It's important for us. We do need to study the process and then create a process that is a better solution. Our users can study the whole process and come up with solutions and best practices for building automation. The best way to do it is to have one person handle the end-to-end automation so that there is no confusion in the process.

The UiPath Community is helpful for users. It's an advantage. It helps share knowledge. We're able to find the best solutions for issues with it. 

We've used the UiPath Academy courses. It helps users to study UiPath: what it is, how to use it, and how to build solutions effectively. It's great for users who want to study and be more confident in the development process. 

It has helped us reduce the cost of digital transformation. When we have more people, we need to pay more salary, and it takes more time. Using UiPath, we can save valuable time and reduce costs. What a man can do in one hour, UiPath can usually do the same task in half the time. 

It reduces human error. Sometimes people aren't in the right mindset. If they are tired, for example, they can make mistakes. However, a bot always does everything the same way. 

What needs improvement?

I'd like to see the accuracy improved. Sometimes the development works fine. Other times, it requires some small changes in the development. 

They could add enhancements in AI technology that could be helpful for everyday developers. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable for the most part. I'd rate it eight out of ten. Most of the time, it's working fine. However, sometimes we have small problems with the data connection or pushing data. It can be difficult to identify the orchestrated things. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have about ten people on our team servicing clients with UiPath bots. There are three senior developers. We have bots across multiple locations. 

I'm unsure if the solution scales well. 

How are customer service and support?

We sometimes have to ask a lot of questions as the accuracy can be missing. When they provide us with a solution, there are options between classic and modern. It might take a while to fix things or if there are issues again and again the customers can sometimes be disappointed. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

I've used Microsoft, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism. I'm most comfortable with UiPath and Power Automate.

Power Automate is developing a lot of its own solutions right now for Microsoft. I find UiPath more advanced than Power Automate and Automation Anywhere, which don't have as many features. Power Automate is the most comparable to UiPath. 

The main disadvantage to UiPath is the cost, which is really high. 

How was the initial setup?

When we do the deployment, we have to take into account security, et cetera. It concerns us when we're talking about using the cloud. There may be particular processes we cannot do on the cloud. 

One good developer is all you need for maintenance. If you have to update the system or do a modification, we need to update UiPath. So there is maintenance required and a person does need to watch the process. We provide the maintenance.

What about the implementation team?

Currently, our vendors are doing the installation. After it's installed, we provide all of the bots and processes. 

What was our ROI?

I don't have any metrics in relation to ROI. 

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

The licensing is very expensive for UiPath. Many clients are going with Power Automate or Automation Anywhere based on the high cost of UiPath. 

What other advice do I have?

We're an end-user of UiPath. 

Currently, we aren't using AI technology in our solution. However, I like the idea of it. We'd maybe be able to resolve redundancies with it in the future. It may be on our roadmap in the future. 

I'd recommend UiPath. It's very accessible. I use a lot of products and this is the best product to give to customers overall. 

I would rate the solution nine out of ten. 

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: Integrator
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Smitha Setty - PeerSpot reviewer
RPA developer at Presbyterian Healthcare Services
Real User
Helps to generate reports with 100 percent accuracy
Pros and Cons
  • "I am a developer, and I love the tool's easiness with features like drag and drop. The tool is ready to use with some minor updates."
  • "I have had issues with the selectors. I face problems during image capture, and I need to update them. It is not something that I can rely on."

What is our primary use case?

We use UiPath for web scripting, data loading, data uploading, desktop application scripting, file uploading, and data downloading. 

What is most valuable?

I am a developer, and I love the tool's easiness with features like drag and drop. The tool is ready to use with some minor updates. 

What needs improvement?

I have had issues with the selectors. I face problems during image capture, and I need to update them. It is not something that I can rely on. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

UiPath is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product is scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

I contact the support whenever I am stuck, and they help me. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

My director explored a lot of RPA tools and selected UiPath. He convinced the organization that it was a good tool. 

How was the initial setup?

UiPath's upgrade is easy. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated WinAutomation and Blue Prism. 

What other advice do I have?

Our business objective for implementing AI-powered automation is to reduce manual work. 

UiPath has fundamentally changed what our organization was trying to achieve. 

The tool has helped us save 3,000 man-hours. 

UiPath has enhanced our accuracy. We do government reporting where we are given templates. The Excel files are locked, and we have to type the data. There are thousands of cells, and we must generate weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports. We have to assign a person for each report. 100-180 such reports have to be generated. We use bots to populate the cells, and there are no errors. We can see that there is 100 percent accuracy. 

I rate the product a nine out of ten. 

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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Senior Lead Developer at a leisure / travel company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Helpful support, good learning materials, and it saves our business time and money while reducing errors
Pros and Cons
  • "The biggest benefit that we have from UiPath comes from using the API."
  • "The first area that needs improvement is backward compatibility."

What is our primary use case?

We have licenses for 15 robots and they are running internal processes. We develop them using UiPath Studio and we only use unattended automation.

Our primary use case, which is 70% of what we have automated, is related to our booking system. Instead of having 10 agents who handle the booking or creating the reservations, the work is done by the robots. Sometimes, bookings are very simple where you have just airfare or the hotel, but in our case, it's quite complex. We call it dynamic packaging, which will have a flight component, you can have a hotel component, different attractions, meal options, a rental car, and more. Instead of entering all of the options manually, which can take up to 10 minutes or 15 minutes just to create a single booking. It is similar when we perform other tasks, such as making a payment. These things are normally done in our target system. I have created robots and workflows in UiPath that are triggered by the database, and they complete these tasks automatically. We have 15 robots conducting the job.

The second use case replaces the agent when once we get all information from the outside system using a .NET application and store it in the database, it creates parameters for the robots to make a booking or reservation at Universal Studios for attractions.

The third use case covers all of Europe and it is a completely automated car booking system. 

Basically, our use cases are all about travel and booking systems for Universal Studios, general dynamic packaging, and car rentals.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath has definitely improved the way our organization functions. It normally takes one agent approximately six hours to create reservations in the booking system manually, and now the job is left to RPA with UiPath workflows. It saves between 40% and 50% of the agent's time, leaving them time to work on something different.

The accuracy of tasks has been improved because everything is data-driven, and there is no problem that comes from human error. The system is almost bulletproof; if you send garbage in then you get garbage out but definitely, there are no human mistakes. For example, instead of entering the name of the customer, it comes straight from the database. The same is true for options like the times of picking up and dropping off your car. The only problem that we have is not related to RPA; it's the case where the target system is not responsive. For example, if you're moving from one screen to another and the system doesn't respond, then we are notified via an alert. 

The improved accuracy and shorter time to complete tasks, freeing up resources for other jobs, translate to money saved. Given that our processes are complex, the automation of them takes a load off of our end-users. In some cases, they have to perform data entry in several different systems. For example, in order to make a booking, they have to use three different systems with three different interfaces.

With RPA, in general, there is also a fear that jobs will be lost but when you're always swamped at work, including overtime, night shifts, and working on weekends, RPA is a big help. 

UiPath has helped to reduce our hardware footprint by between 20% and 30%. We now have only 15 virtual machines running instead of 15 physical desktops. The amount of hardware required to operate the business is directly correlated to the number of human operators and the software that is running.

UiPath has saved us significantly in terms of costs, primarily because of the manpower we used to have for the booking reservation system. It frees up resources for the agents, IT staff, and people from various departments. For example, we have group reservation systems for car booking, flight booking, and others. UiPath has made an impact in all of these places and the cost saving is very beneficial. In the first year, we saved over $100,000 on the booking systems. After the initial project in the first year, two or three more systems were built, for a savings of $300,000 annually before COVID.

In terms of the time we are saving, it is quite low these days because of the COVID-19 travel restrictions. Pre-COVID, we were saving approximately 80 hours per day. The reclaimed time for our employees is now available for them to work on higher-value work. The savings is not only from the data entry but for troubleshooting errors, which no longer needs to be done.

We have offices in Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto, and the majority of agents are stationed in Montreal. I am working in the Toronto location, so I cannot comment on the majority in terms of how employee satisfaction has improved. What I have heard from the executive management is that more people are happy because they are able to better focus on what they want to do. This is especially true because they do not have to spend many hours troubleshooting trivial issues. Instead, they are concentrating on higher-value work.

What is most valuable?

We are using approximately 70% of all of the activities that are available in UiPath. These include web scraping and data entry, where the information is stored in a database. We also perform database queries.

The biggest benefit that we have from UiPath comes from using the API.

The features that we use most often are database communication, scraping, and PDF functions. The only features that we don't use are those related to Excel, for spreadsheets.

For smaller projects, we are only passing parameters from .NET applications but in the newer projects, we are using features such as database communication and data scraping.

The ease of building automations is great. When I talk about UiPath, I am usually referring to Studio, which has a very intuitive and easy-to-use interface, yet it is very powerful. This is something that has improved with the help of forums and tutorials. In 2016, it was more difficult because there were really no forums so we had to contact the head office in Bucharest, Romania when we needed help. Getting a demo had to be done in the very early hours and there was lots of communication back and forth. It was a struggle to find solutions, although to be fair, they've been very helpful. These days, it is very easy to use because there are numerous examples, and UiPath Academy is available, along with other resources.

We have been using the UiPath Apps feature and it has helped with the ease and time required for creating automation. Everything has improved over the past several years, as in the past, there were no examples or tutorials available. There was no manual and it was very technical. At the time, you definitely needed programming knowledge in order to handle some of the scenarios. It was at times like this that we relied on support from Bucharest.

Even today, there are only a couple of programmers in the company who develop the bots. Even with the Apps feature, I don't think that the end-users are ready, although this may be because of the way that our organization is structured. Everything is given to the IT department because our scenarios are very complex, and not a simple case of data entry or something like that. With such complex solutions, it is definitely too difficult for our end-users.

What needs improvement?

There are a few areas that need to be improved, one of which we have already raised with the salesperson and technical team.

The first area that needs improvement is backward compatibility. If you have a newer version of the UiPath Studio or any product, then quite often, if you're a year behind or so, you cannot compile the whole project. This means that you have to rebuild system modules. It's not like a Microsoft product that is always backward compatible. For us, that is a huge obstacle because sometimes, we have to rewrite entire workflows. In our case, this is a massive undertaking that will take three or four months to complete. This is the main issue for us and it doesn't happen with minor release updates, but with major ones, we have to rewrite the entire project because it doesn't compile.

The licensing should be more flexible and more affordable.

We used to be able to integrate with .NET applications, where all of the business rules reside, and then invoke robots or workflows from there. Now, that capability has been removed, so we have to use Orchestrator. Converting our projects requires a lot of work because we have to move all of the business logic to the UiPath workflow. It is not an ideal situation for us because keeping the business logic inside our .NET applications is more flexible and more scalable.

When I was taking some UiPath Academy courses, I noticed that they gave us more complex tasks. There were expert-level examples, but the junior examples are missing. Furthermore, they give you high-end, very technical guides, but there are not really any examples. This means that you really have to dig and use the forums and ask people questions. Essentially, you have to try and find the solutions by yourself.

In general, if you have very large and complex solutions as we do, the overall workflow layout could be improved because navigating through the network components can be very inconvenient. You can still see the high-level of the workflow, but not a detailed one. It may take you several minutes to get to the component you were looking for. In terms of navigation, the mapping solution could definitely be improved. There are always workarounds. What you can do in this case is use the flow charts with the sequencing module to break it down to a more general view. This makes it faster to get to the module that you want to improve or fix.

For how long have I used the solution?

I am a Senior Lead Developer in my company, and I have been using UiPath since 2016. I was one of the very early UiPath users.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, we haven't really found any issues lately.

In the earlier versions, from 2016 and 2017, there were some issues that were never resolved by the UiPath team. The newer versions, especially while performing web scraping, are much more stable. Once it was deployed, we haven't seen any issues with the .NET applications.

Instability in our use case is the result of the target system; for example, the one that is operated by Universal Studios. If they are unresponsive for perhaps 20 or 30 seconds and the robot is expecting to see a certain screen, especially when it normally only takes two or three seconds to move from one screen to the other after submitting a request, it is going to cause a problem. However, that's not the fault of UiPath or RPA in general, but a fault of the source or target system.

I estimate that with all things considered, UiPath is 99.9% stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

UiPath is very scalable. We are a mid-sized company with approximately 200 to 250 employees.

There are three or four of us who have hands-on experience with the product, and there are between 100 and 110 end-users. This includes four or five departments spread across three different locations. Our end-users are primarily business users.

Our goal is to increase our usage of UiPath but we are currently downsizing due to the COVID situation. We have some projects in mind, but we have to wait to see what happens with the travel industry. With approximately 50% of our employees laid off, no progress will be made. However, down the road when we get back on track, we plan to use other areas of the system. That will include manipulating spreadsheets, data entry, interoperability with other systems, and interfacing with it.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is definitely good, although there were some issues that never got resolved. The situation is that we are based in Canada and our salesperson from Toronto organizes the meeting with the technical staff from New York in the US. There were times when they couldn't help us because the majority of them had been with UiPath for two to three years. They didn't understand how things were working back in 2016, '17, or '18, well enough. Ultimately, they never found a person who could help us and to me, that is not really acceptable in terms of finding a workaround or the fastest approach to resolve the backward compatibility and .NET Integration.

What we needed was somebody with five or six years of experience and they could simply not find one.

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

We had some basic automation running prior to UiPath, but it was native SQL and .NET applications. An example is that we were using scaping options available in Microsoft applications, but it wasn't really RPA. UiPath has definitely helped us to reduce the costs of our automation operations. Everything is now run from one application, and you can use the workflows to collaborate between databases, spreadsheets, and booking reservations. Basically, it's end-to-end in terms of the development lifecycle because originally, our tasks were only partly automated.

If you consider automated testing solutions then we were using Selenium for things such as load-testing, in a previous company. I had no experience with a full RPA solution before UiPath in 2016.

In our early stages of automation, the task would start and then only get to a certain point before a different application had to pick it up. We had a scheduler that was responsible for this. The scheduler would see the partly completed task, then take it and put it somewhere else for a third application to take over. Now, all of this is done using the UiPath API.

Specifically, in terms of overhead operations, UiPath has saved us approximately 80 hours a day, which translates to between $4,000 and $5,000 per day, just in one department. If you multiply this by 30 days then it is a lot of money. Given that it is a ballpark figure for just a single department, it could be even more.

How was the initial setup?

Back when we first installed UiPath, it was complex. But now, it is much easier because they have grown. It is much easier than it was five years ago, although, at the same time, we haven't had many issues in the process of implementing and rolling out our solutions.

Our deployment is on-premises and entirely private.

These days, it takes less than a day to deploy. In 2016, it took us almost a week for much simpler deployments because there was no proper documentation. Fortunately, at the time, we got lots of help from the technical staff in Romania.

When we first started with UiPath, it was not even close to what it's today. It was much difficult to create a strategy because it more or less was a black box. We purchased the product and there was only UiPath Studio, nothing else. There was virtually no documentation and more or less, everything was left to us, our team, to develop this strategy.

Implementing it was more of a trial and error process than it is today. Finally, we did it. We moved our automations from the development environment to the staging environment, and then finally into the production environment. Now, it's pretty stable. At the time, however, it was pretty cumbersome and difficult because there was no proper documentation or guidance from UiPath. Nowadays, it's pretty simple.

What about the implementation team?

There are three of us in the company who are responsible for deployment and maintenance. We also handle the monitoring, implementation, troubleshooting, and updating of the product and robots.

We also have an infrastructure team that is outsourced from a company in Toronto, Canada, called Carbon60. Our experience with them has been a little shaky, but we are handling it okay. They could not really help us as much with the initial setup of UiPath because they did not have experience with RPA. We gave them the specs required for our infrastructure, and they set it up. Overall, approximately 90% of the setup was our responsibility.

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

Compared to four or five years ago, the licensing in terms of price is less flexible and less affordable. Recently, because of the COVID situation, we need 15 robots. Ideally, we could use five robots and Orchestrator instead, and pay the difference, but the vendor refused to take this offer.

We are currently using the Community Version of Orchestrator for training purposes.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

When we started looking at UiPath, they had less than 100 customers in the world. We had been looking at three different options that included UiPath, Blue Prism, and one other one. In our case, we were using a legacy application that was Java applet-based, and the other products were not able to handle that well.

From what I recall, back in 2016, UiPath was the only option that supported Java applet-based automation. We needed the functionality because one of our internal applications was not web-based, but Java applet-based, and depended on it. It did not work immediately and there were some workarounds, but with some help from the UiPath technical staff, we were able to handle it. This is the main reason that we ultimately chose UiPath.

Essentially, UiPath was the only option that was able to handle Java applet automation. With that covering the front end, we automated the whole process.

In the future, because UiPath was not able to handle the legacy projects that we developed in RPA, we might consider another product like Blue Prism. We would assess potential solutions based on backward compatibility.

What other advice do I have?

We have been thinking about using the Orchestrator with the cloud option, but because of the current world situation, especially because we are in the travel industry, our income has been significantly reduced. At this point, we are more or less in survival mode, so we decided to stay as-is.

We were also supposed to get Orchestrator, the latest web developer, and a production license but we gave up because we cannot afford it at the moment. Travel may be idle right now but post-COVID, which hopefully is next year or by end of this year, we're going to get the official Orchestrator license.

Originally, we were using .NET applications, which is the technology that has driven the business. It's huge, and with the newer versions of UiPath, it is no longer possible because we have to use Orchestrator. At this time, we are more or less working on a workaround and it's a massive project that is probably going to take six or seven months to complete.

We are not using the AI functionality yet, although it is something that we're planning to look into, eventually.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using UiPath is how much time was consumed by our manual processes. Definitely, we have freed up resources for our business team. In terms of accuracy, there are no human errors anymore. Consequently, we can free up between 30% and 40% of our agents' time in terms of analysis and billing. In summary, the biggest thing that I have learned is that using RPA is about improving accuracy and reliability.

My advice for anybody who is implementing UiPath is to start with the training. These days, especially younger developers, people are very keen to jump on developing RPA and they're doing this stuff without using Academy or other training. Rather than do that, I suggest people get familiar with the product and use the training material first. Use the examples that are provided because the UiPath Academy is amazing in terms of that.

In summary, this product has a very intuitive and powerful interface. There are very good examples and scenarios on the UiPath Academy website, and technical support is very helpful. You can also find lots of good examples in the community forums. There used to be only one OCR option, and now there are two different flavors of OCR, which is definitely one of the pros. However, the major cons are backward compatibility and licensing in terms of flexibility and affordability. We also lost some of the functionality for .NET integration, which was a problem for us because the capabilities are simply gone.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.