Automation Anywhere Reviews

I work for a company, and we mainly automate tasks that we deem necessary, which are often repetitive and mundane. Anything that can be automated to save costs, from the finance and manufacturing perspective, is automated.

We are currently considering how to use it for document automation so that we can read unstructured data, such as invoices, that is a little bit messy and hard for a standard rule-based OCR to understand. We are also looking at an AI solution that could do that for us.

In terms of integration, we use tools like SAP. That is a big one. We have integrated Python scripting a lot. We also use Active Directory.

The advantage of Automation Anywhere is that it automates the mundane jobs that are brainless or take up time out of people's day that they could use to do other tasks. That was the main challenge that we wanted to address by implementing Automation Anywhere. We wanted to free up time in other areas by automating jobs that would make good candidates to do so.

It is built keeping business users in mind. Every single human being who uses a computer uses a UI, so automating those clicks is not a very complicated thing. You are just telling the computer what to do. In that respect, they try to make it as simple as possible to use things like Excel, send emails with Outlook, and automate clicks on a computer. That part is done well.

Allowing business users to trigger the bot means that I do not have to worry about scheduling or triggering the bots. I can just give them the keys to the car and let them do whatever they want to do. It saves time. We spend less time micromanaging and more time developing.

I have heard from people who are using these bots that it is saving them hours every week, every day, or so. They start to see those time savings instantly.

AARI allows business users to trigger the bot, so I do not have to schedule everything. This convenience allows users to utilize it as they need. I can set it up to provide users with a form to fill in all required information, and then the bot operates based on those specifications. AARI is very convenient, and that is their biggest selling point.

I have found that Automation Anywhere is prone to bugs in handling Excel. It breaks and gives vague error messages. I have had a lot of experience with that and learned that it is better to write a Python script instead of using Automation Anywhere's package when dealing with Excel because it is buggy and tends to break, unfortunately.

I have only been using it for about seven months.

I do not remember having any problems. It usually does not lag or crash. Some packages, like Excel, can behave unpredictably, but I have never had any issues with the application itself.

I do not have much information about scalability. When use cases come, I just build them and move on.

Before Automation Anywhere, I used Power Automate by Microsoft. I prefer Automation Anywhere because it is more robust. It allows us to build more powerful applications. Power Automate was great for small-scale things, but it had its limitations.

It was already deployed when I got here.

In terms of maintenance, the updates happen monthly. I do not have to do anything, but there is some maintenance when users want to get connected to run bots. There is a little bit of upkeep that happens there. Other developers sometimes do not have the necessary permissions. That process is not particularly painstaking. It is usually painless. There are two or three of us involved in the maintenance. We spend very little time on maintenance. It does not happen too often.

In our organization, there is a fairly steep learning curve because we have a very particular framework in terms of the way that we handle our bots and our processes. This is likely not the case with other organizations that do not have a similar framework. We like to break down our bots in a very particular way, and we like to control our bots' inputs with configuration files and use Python scripting to handle a lot of work rather than using Automation Anywhere's packages because it is more effective, but then there is a little bit of a steeper learning curve.

I never had to train somebody who is not technical on how to use Automation Anywhere, but you could teach someone how to make something super simple in 30 minutes, and then give them an hour. You can quickly teach them how to send themselves email reminders or do something similar, so you could get going pretty quickly.

Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten. It does what it does well.

Automation Anywhere is a leading global RPA solution provider. Its platform is used by companies worldwide, including many Fortune 500 enterprises. Automation Anywhere is known for its innovative approach to automation, offering both cloud-based and on-premises solutions. It specializes in developing bots to streamline operational and business processes, making it a prominent player in the RPA market.

Automation Anywhere can be deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid platform.

We implemented Automation Anywhere to streamline our operational processes and automate repetitive, mundane tasks. Our bots operate in both attended and unattended modes. In attended mode, bots collaborate with human operators; in unattended mode, they autonomously execute tasks from start to finish. These bots work 24/7 without human intervention. Automation Anywhere is particularly valuable in the BFSI and IT operations sectors, where it can significantly automate business processes. Our enterprise currently utilizes over 5,000 bots daily, resulting in substantial cost savings and improved efficiency. The cloud-based platform's seamless integration capabilities and regular product updates ensure its continued leadership in the automation market.

Due to data protection concerns, the financial services industry has not fully embraced cloud technology. However, the retail and healthcare sectors have migrated to the cloud and identified significant opportunities. Real estate, vertical healthcare, and smart city transportation are well-suited for cloud adoption. These industries often face a high risk of human error. Automating processes end-to-end with RPA bots can mitigate errors, enhance company value, and streamline human work. Cloud-based RPA allows for easy scaling of bots to meet fluctuating workloads, ensuring efficient and cost-effective operations, even during peak demand.

Automation Anywhere makes it easy for business users without coding skills. It offers a low-code product that allows citizen developers to create bots without writing a single line of code. These developers can drag and drop information to automate activities, streamlining tasks like financial operations and daily routines. By providing basic details about the properties they need to operate, citizen developers can quickly build bots that can be deployed to production and triggered manually or automatically. This technology empowers individuals to create multiple bots tailored to specific needs, such as HR bots or onboarding processes. In the financial industry, it facilitates daily validation activities and data transfers between servers.

The learning curve for creating basic bots is approximately one week for non-technical users. However, complex bot creation requires coding knowledge, typically in Python, C#, or DLL. For those with a background in backend coding, such as C# or Python, an additional month may be needed to understand the intricacies of RPA or Automation Anywhere fully. The learning time ranges from one week to one month, depending on the individual's skill level. 

Automation Anywhere's new version introduces Copilot, a feature that allows users to create a basic bot for a specific task. These bots can be deployed into a production environment with minimal adjustments, leveraging AI capabilities.

Copilot's seamless integration with our organization's daily applications will be valuable as we transition to an AI platform. This integration will significantly enhance productivity, accelerate our automation efforts, and reduce time to market. Additionally, Copilot will enable us to create a multitude of bots more efficiently.

Copilot can significantly reduce our staff's workload by generating templates for bots. These templates require only input parameters to be specified, saving up to 30 percent of their time.

AI currently offers a variety of APIs that can be combined to create customized strategies tailored to specific customer needs for service provision and operations. By leveraging generative AI and advanced tools like generative AI bots or Copilots, businesses can develop and deploy automated processes to streamline daily activities. By carefully identifying non-automatable processes, generative AI can assist in addressing these challenges and improving overall efficiency.

Automation Anywhere's versatility allows for seamless integration with various tools and applications. It can effectively communicate with any system, and APIs can be developed to facilitate communication with any desired tool. There are no limitations to its integration capabilities. Its user-friendly interface and well-maintained documentation make it easy to follow and create bots for automation on any platform. CI/CD pipelines can be used to deploy these bots efficiently.

Automation Anywhere offers packages that can seamlessly integrate automation into our workflows, APIs, business applications, and documents. By extracting operational activities and pushing them to databases, we can enhance bot productivity and improve overall business efficiency.

Cognitive services and PDF file automation should be refined. The integration process should be simplified, perhaps using API-based activities. If a response comes in JSON format, these features should be readily available, allowing for easy information extension. This will enable developers to perform tasks and view accurate results quickly.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost six years.

The stability of Automation Anywhere is not a concern when deployed on the cloud. 

Automation Anywhere's ability to scale automation is impressive. We will begin by identifying business processes and then involve subject matter experts to determine the number of bots required and their priorities. This will guide our automation journey, which can commence immediately. Licensing and deployment will be swift, especially if cloud-based. On-premises deployment depends on our infrastructure. The entire bot facility can be ready within a week. For development, a dedicated center of excellence team can prioritize bots and commence activities accordingly.

The deployment complexity largely depends on the integration process. If integration is straightforward, a citizen developer can acquire the necessary skills within one to seven days and begin developing. For complex analyses, prior knowledge of external environments, such as C# or Python programming languages, can significantly reduce the required code length within the Automation Anywhere platform. While Automation Anywhere doesn't offer a traditional coding structure, it supports integrating other languages and components, enabling activities with fewer lines of code.

Automation Anywhere offers a subscription-based licensing model for cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments. A single license allows for 24/7 bot execution, whether performing a single task or multiple tasks at various times on a single machine.

I rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten. It is one of the top three RPA solutions.

Users need at least two years of experience in a specific coding language for complex automation scenarios. This is a requirement. They will primarily work on integration, as Automation Anywhere bots do not handle this completely. Writing code to call external APIs or web services requires thorough knowledge. Users can create Python code to add to bots for triggers. For complex bots, at least four years of experience is needed, not just in automation but also in other areas. This knowledge helps with architecture, bot execution, and future scaling. To create reusable structures and portions, users should start by drilling down and identifying them. These reusable components can be used in multiple bots or processes. This approach can simplify complex scenarios by breaking them down into smaller, repeatable tasks. To handle such complexity, users should have at least four years of experience in a typical development environment.

There are two distinct approaches to upgrading Automation Anywhere. Automation Anywhere handles the upgrade process for its cloud-based solution whenever a new release becomes available. However, on-premises upgrades require scheduling a call with Automation Anywhere to plan the process. It's crucial to have a well-defined disaster recovery plan in place for on-premises upgrades. This plan allows Automation Anywhere to maintain a single active platform for upgrades while ensuring the other platform remains available for production. Once the upgrade is complete, the other platform can then be upgraded. In contrast, cloud-based customers can rely on Automation Anywhere to manage the upgrade process without additional effort.

Every day, technology evolves. Maintenance is necessary when components change, or new versions are released because specific code segments may become obsolete. We must closely monitor the entire ecosystem for errors and swiftly resolve them. Bugs can sometimes arise due to technical coding, so we must address these issues or share detailed platform information with Automation Anywhere for their analysis. If a core issue is identified, they will take the necessary steps to resolve it. They may request that clients modify their environment, application, or component handling for technology or third-party matters.

The maintenance requirements for Automation Anywhere vary depending on the situation. Minor issues can be quickly identified and reported to Automation Anywhere, who will respond within 24-48 hours based on the purchased services. Our system administrator can resolve minor issues. Audits may be conducted in a development environment, where estimates for time and effort can be determined. Cost and time estimates are not fixed and depend on the specific issue.

The bots are maintained daily.

We have a bot called Marjorie that fetches all the requests in ServiceNow, distributes the request, reads the description, decides whether it's SAP or an Oracle request, downloads the attachments, and processes it for fixed assets. With Automation Anywhere, we were able to control and scale it up based on the demand, especially since quarterly, the requests are huge, resulting in saving two FTEs.

The best feature of Automation Anywhere is the IQ Bot option, which is excellent for document processing and can process almost all types of invoices with great accuracy.

We conducted a pilot for invoice processing with IQ Bot in the same finance team, and it performed exceptionally well, achieving strong accuracy compared to the earlier simple Microsoft OCR that we used.

Automation Anywhere has had a huge impact in my organization, especially in saving time and compliance-related process automation by reducing errors drastically and ensuring quick processing of requests with proper logs available for the audit team.

Compared to other RPA tools, the UI of Automation Anywhere is not that great and is not that easy to pick up for people, which takes more time for a newbie.

The UI needs to be more user-friendly, and similarly, debugging and logging should also be more friendly.

In the current field, it has been about eight years.

Automation Anywhere is stable.

The scalability is amazing with Automation Anywhere since we can scale it up based on demand, which is why we prefer it for finance-related use cases.

The customer support team is excellent; if there is a technical issue we cannot solve, we create a ticket, and they help us very quickly.

Positive

We have evaluated Blue Prism, UiPath, and Power Automate in the market before making our choice.

I cannot provide the exact figure, but we have a strong automation COE team that evaluates the ROI, and only if it is good will they approve the automation.

We are in a hybrid setup with Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Power Automate Desktop, making it a hyper-automation environment.

I am not familiar with the pricing, but I feel the licensing is a little bit complex compared to other tools.

I would recommend not relying on one single RPA tool; it is better to have a multi-view approach with two to three or four tools instead of relying on one single vendor.

I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

The main use cases that we have currently for Automation Anywhere are for our finance department, where we tend to have a lot of manual labor regarding the whole process of paying for everything within our company. We use Automation Anywhere in order to streamline these processes and make it really efficient for the department to do their internal processes.

What I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is that, from a development and developer side, it is really intuitive to do the whole automation, which also makes it easier to do all the support side of the code. It is really great for the user to be able to see everything that is happening in the code, such as what could be wrong or right. 

At the end of the day, the effort that you put in has exponential benefits, giving you many advantages from your lines of code, which is amazing.

One of the problems we have found with Automation Anywhere is that the rollout of new upgrades or tools is not readily available for everyone to know about the new benefits offered. For example, the Imagine event is a great way for everyone to learn about what is coming and the new benefits, but outside of Imagine, it can be difficult to know what is new.

The whole company has been using Automation Anywhere for around four years; I have been using it for around two and a half years.

At Volkswagen Mexico, we just use Automation Anywhere. However, I believe that Volkswagen Germany uses another tool. The decision to implement Automation Anywhere at Volkswagen Mexico was made by Volkswagen Germany. I do not know what considerations they took into account, but they chose to go with Automation Anywhere.

Since Automation Anywhere is intuitive for the developer, it is easier for them to express to the business side of the company what the benefits and opportunities are, making that communication really easy so we can get ideas from the business and then develop them from our knowledge. It is also easier to onboard people onto this tool.

The main challenge with agentic process automation that we are trying to solve is the whole implementation of artificial intelligence within our company, which is crucial because everything that has to do with security and all our databases requires us to be super careful. We are currently facing the issue of ensuring careful implementation while realizing the opportunities for implementing these agentic solutions within our company, which I expect will happen in the next couple of years.

In the age of agentic AI, understanding what all the things that agentic AI can provide for our company means focusing on translating AI technology into actual use cases. The challenge lies in prioritizing and making the link between actual use cases and the tools available, especially since AI technology presents many options but can leave us uncertain about which to tackle first.

We are currently migrating to document automation; we previously used an older version before starting this migration, but we are just at the beginning. In Mexico, where our company is based, we face issues regarding obtaining new licenses, as this has to be done through a third-party company. This limitation affects what we can get because there are certain packages we have to purchase, restricting our ability to acquire specific licenses, such as for testing AI agents, since we must buy the entire package to get just one license. Therefore, that presents challenges when trying new things.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine because we want to try new things and incorporate more innovations into our company that Automation Anywhere offers; however, the nervousness about testing them poses challenges, which is the only reason I would not rate it a ten.

We have many use cases. We have 200 bots, and we are doing extensive order management. We work at Cargill, so they do a lot of order management type of bots, but there are many different types of bots for all industries.

With Automation Anywhere, the features we are using help to remove tasks that humans are not good at, such as repetitive tasks. It's this type of task that people don't want to do. With intensive repetitive work, it's prone to human errors. That's what is helping us. It first motivates people not to do this type of work, so they can focus more on the customer and work on things that are more engaging. Additionally, it reduces the errors.

The main challenge that we are trying to solve with agentive process automation is business rules. We have many bots that have complex business rules, and these business rules are usually hard coded.

I joined my company, Cargill, in 2018, and since then, they have been using Automation Anywhere. I have been six years working with Automation Anywhere.

The main complaint with Automation Anywhere is when they release features that they don't have ready.

I did use another solution before choosing Automation Anywhere for the first time. In the past, we had UiPath as well. Also, when I worked for Hewlett-Packard, we were using WinAutomation, which is the one that Microsoft is using now for Power Automate desktop.

The pricing, setup cost, and licensing of the platform are the worst. This is my major concern and complaint.

I have considered other solutions. We are working with Power Platform, which is another vendor we are using at Cargill. We did an analysis last year on cost for the long term. If it works, we might change to that platform in the future.

In the age of agentive AI, the biggest challenge for me and my company is that there are many vendors and companies offering the same thing, which gets complicated and confusing.

I would rate Automation Anywhere overall a nine out of ten.

I am working as an RPA Developer, and I am expected to create bots that simplify people's jobs, allowing them to focus on more important tasks. I am tasked with creating robotic processes.

Business analysts come to us with their problems and want to find out if we can address them with robotic process automation. My role is to confirm whether we can do it with Automation Anywhere. They handle the metrics calculations in terms of the impact on the business, but I am informed that with Automation Anywhere, we have streamlined processes, eliminating errors and reducing time. Previously, these jobs were performed manually, but with Automation Anywhere, they can concentrate on more significant tasks.

Its integration with Outlook and SharePoint was easy with the help of the Automation Anywhere team. After we got information about the connection strings and other things from them, integration was easy.

I like web automation and SAP application automation. 

It has a good interface. Those who do not have programming experience can easily use Automation Anywhere. It is very easy to learn. Within three months, they can start creating basic automation.

Sometimes, I find that Excel automation is not as expected. Excel automation can be enhanced. For instance, to accomplish tasks faster, I use scripts. However, if I could achieve the same speed without scripting, that would be ideal. 

For web automation, the recorder package can be improved. It is sometimes hard to catch certain elements on the web. 

The Automation Anywhere community is less active than the UiPath community, which is a downside. When I ask questions in the Automation Anywhere community, responses take a longer time. I have checked the UiPath community, where there are more active participants.

I have used this solution for a bit more than four years.

It is stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.

It is scalable. It is being used for automation for multiple departments. I am working in the RPA team. My company has more than 100 people, but the RPA team has seven people using Automation Anywhere. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

When I encounter difficulties, I raise a ticket with the Automation Anywhere team. They respond promptly and are willing to help, but some team members seem to lack the necessary skills. As a result, problems that typically should be resolved in one day may take three days.

Neutral

I only have experience with Automation Anywhere.

I have not installed Automation Anywhere.

The deployment of automated tasks is easy. I can do it in two minutes. I have used both on-premises and cloud models. In terms of maintenance, the bots usually require updates when there is an issue or there is an update from Automation Anywhere. It is usually once every three months.

I do not know the price, but I am told that it is cheaper than UiPath.

I would recommend this product to other users because it is user-friendly, and I appreciate its features, such as SAP automation and web automation. 

We have not yet used AI in Automation Anywhere, but there is an upcoming course on integrating AI, which I will attend. 

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

We have multiple entities and businesses in our organization, which leads to various use cases. Specifically, there are numerous SAP use cases where we perform automation. Additionally, there are use cases with application automation and document automation.

By implementing Automation Anywhere, we wanted to automate repetitive tasks done on a daily or weekly basis and utilize the time saved for other tasks. We wanted to save time and costs.

It integrates well. We have SAP CRM and browser automations. We also have document automations. We also have API integration.

We have multiple bots running. It saves time. If manual invoice processing in SAP takes two to three hours on a daily basis, a bot can do the same job in half an hour. We are saving more than 70% of the time.

The feature that I currently like is Agentic AI process automation, where we use LLM models to automate our processes. I have heard a lot about it. I am eager to learn more about it and implement it in my organization.

It is very easy to use. You do not require any prior knowledge. Through Automation Anywhere University, you can learn it and implement your use case. A non-technical person can learn it within a month. For a technical person, it is easier to understand the loops, conditions, and workflows. A technical person needs only 10 to 15 days.

One improvement would be to implement a log mechanism within the workflow, similar to other automation tools. Currently, the log mechanism uses a text file. If we want to monitor a process, we need to check manually.

Another improvement would be to facilitate copying code blocks between projects, as currently, it is not possible to copy and paste them either locally or on the web.

I have more than six years of experience as an RPA developer and have used other tools. I have been using Automation Anywhere for the past two years.

It is very stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.

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

We have about 1,700 automation users. We are a big organization with multiple locations globally. We develop automation for multiple departments and multiple entities.

Their technical support is good. I would rate it an eight out of ten.

Positive

I have used UiPath and Automation Anywhere. Both are very good. Automation Anywhere is cost-effective compared to UiPath.

The deployment is fine. It is very easy. 

It is completely on the web. We have our own licensing management tool. Anyone who has done internal training can request the license. A dedicated license is generated for you for a few hours or if needed, permanently. We have a dedicated portal for deploying our projects.

The upgrades are also easy. It does not require much maintenance.

We have multiple communities for automation. We have citizen developers and we also have expert developers. To identify the use case, we approach the entities and ask them to identify any mundane, repetitive, or complex task. We have a perfect pipeline for automation use cases. When a use case enters the feasibility check, an expert assesses its feasibility based on multiple parameters. If feasible, we proceed with development, prepare documentation, and design all solution documents. Next, we prepare the architecture, and development commences. After development, we conduct several rounds of UAT. Before deployment, we conduct a pre-delivery check with a dedicated department, ensuring best practices and proper exception and error handling. Once approved, we proceed with deployment.

In our organization, we are the first ones to work closely with the Gen AI and AI topics. We have a few opportunities to use the Gen AI capabilities in automation.

Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.

We are using this in our college laboratory where I am a professor. We are using it for educational purposes. 

In our college, we are also taking attendance using automation software that we have built. It automatically takes student attendance based on face recognition. We have automated this process.

Automation Anywhere is very useful for automating repetitive tasks. It saves time. Our attendance automation helps take attendance of every person easily. It enables focus on strategic work, boosting productivity.

Automation Anywhere is very easy. It helps in many ways to do more work. It is user-friendly and provides good productivity. It has improved our productivity by at least 10%. 

The best feature is its ability to combine Automation Anywhere with AI to build intelligent bots. It saves time and offers better career opportunities for our students. IQ Bot automation helps to extract data from PDFs and invoices and store it in the database. It is beneficial for students and allows employees to focus on strategic work. 

It is very easy to learn. If you want to do a particular work, you can do it fairly easily. There are drag-and-drop opportunities available, and everything is easily integrated. We can quickly learn and find solutions to our problems. A simple task takes two or three days to learn. A complex task may take about five days.

There is limited scope for complex decision-making. For instance, a bot can extract invoice details, but it cannot determine if an invoice is fraudulent without AI integration. The enterprise version is expensive for small businesses and individual users, which can pose a challenge.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for more than a year.

It is stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.

The stability of the bot depends on the factors like design and application changes.

It is highly scalable and flexible. Cloud-based Automation Anywhere offers maximum scalability. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

In our university, there are more than 500 students using Automation Anywhere.

It has good technical support, but the response quality and availability depend on your subscription plan. They offer standard technical support as well as premium and enterprise support.

Multiple support channels are offered, including documentation, community forums, chat, email, and phone support. Self-service support is also available for all users and is free for everyone. Community forums are helpful but not always reliable for critical issues.

Positive

It is better than UiPath Community Edition, open-source RPA tools like RoboCorp, and Blue Prism. 

Automation Anywhere is very easy to use. It does not require any coding which makes it more user-friendly than Blue Prism. Automation Anywhere is also cloud-based which is not the case with Blue Prism. Automation Anywhere's price is better than Blue Prism.

Its deployment is easy. The deployment time for Automation Anywhere cloud depends on factors such as infrastructure complexity. For a standard cloud deployment, if using a basic setup, the time required is between thirty minutes to two hours.

Ongoing maintenance is required, especially if bots interact with a dynamic application, cloud service, or AI model. We are using cloud services, so regular updates are required. If the UI of an application changes, we may need to update it.

The enterprise version is expensive for small businesses and individual users.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten. It is a great solution for automating business processes and repetitive processes. It works great for data entry, invoice processing, and customer service automation.

I train new analysts and developers how to use Automation Anywhere, so my use cases are rudimentary. We automate many internal processes, such as our monthly reports, employee onboarding, and time cards. On the client side, we focus on finance and accounting use cases, such as order to cash, procure to pay, record to report, etc. I do a lot with revenue ops and revenue cycle automation.

You can create synthetic data to test automation capabilities without using real data. For every RPA delivery lifecycle, you can use synthetic data instead of production-grade data. If you need to beef up your artifacts or documentation, you can use Generative AI to have more complete or comprehensive artifacts as a part of your delivery artifacts.

Document Processing has been a higher priority for our clients this year. Automation Anywhere can meet that need in two areas: FortressIQ transactions and the IQ bot capability.

Automation Anywhere has significantly improved efficiency within my organization. For instance, we reduced the time to enter orders from five to ten minutes to less than a minute in one use case. This has given full-time employees significant time and enabled us to process more orders. We save a ton of time using automation to onboard folks and for our time cards.  

Automation Anywhere's most valuable features include its end-to-end capabilities within a single platform. It offers desktop automation, unattended automation, a recorder for tasks, and advanced IDP capability, which means that I can handle everything from basic cutting and pasting to advanced use cases. With Automation Anywhere, I don't need multiple other tools to automate end-to-end processes. I only need one additional chatbot tool, assuming conversational AI is part of the solution. If I don't have chatbots, all the capabilities are built into the platform.

It's the second-easiest platform we use. Blue Prism is the easiest for non-technical users, but Automation Anywhere is also straightforward. It has a drag-and-drop interface that helps people who have used visual tools and a recorder for rudimentary task automation. If you're not a professional developer and haven't gone through the process yet, it's pretty easy to build a bot without much training.

When I took the training, I did 40 hours of basic and 100 hours of advanced. If I had learned it from scratch, my experience would be different. It was the last platform I learned out of the three. I had Blue Prism and UiPath under my belt before I learned it.

It takes 40 hours to train a non-technical user in basic automation. A process analyst only needs eight hours, but if you use the platform outside of Bot Insight, you need 40 hours to be proficient. 

Automation Anywhere is easy to integrate for all the standard use cases if you have an API. Otherwise, you'll need to build a custom plugin or use computer vision. You can integrate workflows, APIs, business applications, and documents. 

The IQ Bots need more out-of-the-box models to lessen the time required for model training. Their competitors provide more built-in models, which enhance capabilities in document processing.

Automation Anywhere white-labels the Shibumi platform and calls it COE Manager. They could expand on that platform to reduce the development time and manage robots in production. The COE tool could do more. I think that's another place where they can expand their capabilities.

I started using Automation Anywhere in 2019, so I'm on my fourth year.

Stability issues are typically avoidable. Proper infrastructure setup and understanding are crucial for robot processing speeds. Infrastructure is critical, and you must ensure you design these bots to identify all business exceptions In the bot hardening process and the RPA delivery lifecycle. System exceptions are unavoidable, so you need to fix them. But outside of that, there isn't an inherent latency based on legacy software or anything else.

Automation Anywhere’s ability to provide automation at scale is on par with its competitors.

I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of 10. It's on par with competitors, especially if you get the enterprise version. They're a leader in the cloud, with more cloud clients than any of their competitors. 

Positive

I have used UiPath, Blue Prism, and Automation Anywhere. Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere are similarly easy to use. Automation Anywhere comes with all the digital capabilities you need right out of the box. They added those capabilities through acquisitions, but they own them outright. Blue Prism is easier to use but doesn't have all the same features.  They were late to market with their RDA capability, And I would say their IDP capability isn't as accurate, so it's not as highly rated.

Given its web-based architecture, the initial setup is genuinely straightforward. The hardest thing is a hybrid setup because you have to remember the rules for each one. Depending on the web browser, you have to have a certain amount of power and bandwidth at your disposal. I don't know that I would manage the environment myself. I'd rather have hybrid to cloud so that AA could manage the upgrades for me.

 Larger, multi-tenant deployments typically take three to five weeks, while a single device on a VM can be set up in two to three days. When we sell it and do it for infrastructure, we use senior consultants, so it's 1.5 resources. Depending on how complex the configuration is, we may need more senior consultants, but one architect plus a consultant is usually enough to get it done. 

Automation Anywhere requires some maintenance. We provide managed services to our clients for break-fix and business or system exceptions, but Automation Anywhere handles all the upgrades, patches, etc., as long as it's in the cloud. 

 It's difficult to say how much maintenance Automation Anywhere needs because it varies based on your environment. Sometimes, your environment isn't set up correctly, so the service crashes a lot, and you spend a lot of time resetting services and restarting processes.  

It also depends on the configuration and the number of automations. My largest client has 400 automations in production, so it's a full-time job. They say one person can manage that many, but I don't think that's a healthy number. It's more like 140, depending on the SLAs and use cases. An IT resource can fix most system exceptions, but business exceptions require somebody who's at least minimally basic-certified and ideally advanced-certified. 

In other cases, the automation wasn't built with the best practices in mind, so the process will time out and take longer than a human. Many things can cause maintenance and uptime to increase. Ideally, you want to do load management with the bot, so you're sharing the work. You want a utility available if the workload increases or a bot goes down. Lastly, you should ensure enough onboard memory and bandwidth for the automation to run.

The time to value varies depending on the size of your project and its objectives. It takes four to six weeks to produce a viable project if your goal is to prove that you can automate a process in your environment and realize value. Medium-to-large high-value automations might take six to 10 weeks or more. Once you have 10 processes in production, you'll see a return of two to five times the investment.

Complaints are generally about the cost of IQ Bot, which is higher than its competitors. The base model’s pricing is comparable to other platforms with attended, unattended, and IDP capabilities as well.

I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of 10. They're one of the leaders. I don't want to give a bad score, but no one is a 10 because there's always room for improvement. While the market share doesn't reflect it, they're tied for first place, in my opinion. 

I recommend doing the training before you purchase Automation Anywhere so you can understand the terminology, components, capabilities, and best practices. You should also get a partner to help you avoid all the hang-ups and pitfalls of adopting and monetizing new technology. About 70 percent of solo implementations fail.

We are using Automation Anywhere majorly for automation, automating web applications or desktop applications.

The best features of Automation Anywhere include the user interface, which is quite easy to use now compared to its previous versions that were more difficult. The interface is user-friendly, and all code is visible during coding, showing what is going ahead and what follows in the code. This is not available in other RPA tools such as UiPath, which makes it a standout feature.

Additionally, Automation Anywhere is robust and the support is good. We get connected with the support team whenever required.

Co-Pilot is used for the processes involving human input while automating tasks. In the context of Automation Anywhere, it allows us to create various forms to facilitate this interaction. By incorporating user feedback during the automation process, we can streamline operations effectively. Overall, using Co-Pilot is straightforward and user-friendly, making it easy to build automations based on the forms we create.

There are several areas for improvement in Automation Anywhere that have been suggested by my team and colleagues during their Imagine event. They need work on WLM and when handshaking with their own application, as there is significant wiring required from a developer perspective. The WLM could be much easier and more understandable. It should be more accessible to developers because in the WLM, if a solution is developed, it cannot be tested in the dev environment. Testing must be done in the runner environment.

From a developer's perspective, there are fewer integration facilities, particularly AI integrations, compared to other tools. The pricing could also be improved.

Automation Anywhere has been in use for about nine years.

The stability of Automation Anywhere can be rated a nine out of ten. It is good.

In terms of scalability, there have been no significant issues. Hundreds of bots have been developed without facing any problems. The scalability can be rated a nine out of ten.

In my current organization, 10 to 15 employees are working with Automation Anywhere. The larger team in other RPA department are using UiPath.

They often provide good solutions, but sometimes they are unable to resolve issues, requiring users to find solutions independently, which can be time-consuming. I would rate their technical support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

We are using it as a SaaS solution. If we choose an on-premises solution, we receive a bundle that we need to install. This installation can be done on Azure, any cloud service, or on our own server machines. On the other hand, when we opt for a SaaS solution, they create control rooms and set everything up for us. We are only given an access key, or what could be referred to as a license key. By entering this license key, we can directly access the system. We can typically receive the license key quickly, often within a minute, for their cloud version. That's what I know about these solutions.

It requires some maintenance, but they are actively addressing it. They install patches and provide updates for the package versions. As a user of the SaaS solution, we don’t need to worry about these details. However, for the on-premises version, I believe users need to manually implement the solutions. Whenever there are updates or new package versions available, they deliver them to us, and we must install them in the control room.

Upgrading Automation Anywhere is very straightforward. It requires just clicking a button to upgrade multiple components including packages, solutions, control rooms, and the bot engine.

Regarding bot maintenance, if there are no changes in the web application or desktop application and no machine issues, bots can run for three to four years without human intervention.

The time saved by implementing Automation Anywhere depends on the number of applications involved. With fewer applications, it can save up to 40% to 50% of time. However, with complex applications involving multiple pages and interactions, the savings shift toward FTE savings, with time savings reducing to 10% or 20%. Sometimes it may take longer than manual user operations.

The pricing of Automation Anywhere is less than UiPath but more than Power Automate, placing it in the mid-range. It can be considered expensive and could potentially be lowered.

When comparing with other automation tools such as Power Automate and UiPath, all tools address similar problem statements but with different approaches. Each has unique features and limitations.

Technical skills are essential for RPA. If you know any programming language and have some technical understanding, you will find it easier to get into RPA. However, if you lack knowledge of programming languages, it may be challenging for you. Learning RPA involves keeping up with new features and updates, so we are continuously learning the platform. It took me about one to two months to fully understand how to complete a process on my own.

I would rate it a six out of ten. They can refine their pricing and improve the handshaking features and integrations.