Automation Anywhere Reviews

There are many use cases. It is simple to automate tasks or processes related to the active cycle for invoices and similar tasks. It is useful for automating processes in industries like manufacturing and banking. The use cases are correlated with the needs of the customers.

By implementing Automation Anywhere, customers are simply trying to have a more standardized process. For example, there is a better quality of data for manual inputs in various applications. They have more rapid processes, and they can free people from repetitive tasks. These are the most common situations that we solve with this technology.

We have not had any big problems with the technology. We have achieved the results that the customer expected. We are usually able to achieve the expected ROI with the processes of the project.

Automation Co-Pilot helped increase productivity. For employees, it was quite good. I did face some problems with the user interface that we had to build to interact with the user. There were some blocks in this interface that were hard to understand. From a business user's perspective, it is quite easy to use. From a technical perspective, it is a little bit harder to build a bot using the Co-Pilot features.

It helped to free up staff to work on other projects. Every time we automate a task, we are freeing user time. They have more time to focus on more complex tasks. They can achieve better results in terms of compliance of the data that they are inputting into the systems. The data is accurate and reliable, and they can do more in less time. They can easily meet timelines for various processes.

In terms of integration, we could integrate the pretty old type of browser web applications without many problems. We usually use various ERPs, such as SAP, Oracle, or NetSuite. We sometimes integrate by using APIs. We have Google Drive or Microsoft Teams folders, SharePoint, and so on. We integrate pretty much everything with Automation Anywhere. For some technologies, there are some libraries for integration, such as for Salesforce or ServiceNow, and for some other platforms, you have to build it yourself.

It is easy to understand how to use the tool. For a developer, it is very easy to understand the opportunities and how to use and learn these features. It is very business-oriented. It is very easy to understand the capabilities and the features that you can use. You should have a technical overview and a technical understanding, but it is easy to understand. A non-technical person can learn it in a month. However, this person must be involved with a technical team. A person cannot understand the implications of using this technology and its architecture on his own. A business person can learn to develop some features but to move to the next level, a business person would need some help from IT.

The main problem that I have with Automation Anywhere is the support. When I have problems that I cannot solve by myself, it is hard to achieve a good result with support. Language is another issue. From a technological perspective, I have not had many issues with Automation Anywhere, but the support is somewhat lacking compared to other technologies I use.

There are times when I have some problems with the cloud. I sometimes experience errors with the Co-Pilot feature that make me feel the system is not 100% stable.

It is able to provide automation at scale. This is one of the best features of Automation Anywhere, but if you want to scale, you need technical support.

Its usage depends on the customers. We have different types of models, but usually, it is used at an enterprise level.

It is hard to achieve a good result with their support team. The support in Europe seems to be receiving less investment, so I usually cannot have support in my language. For some customers, this can be a problem. Some customers speak Italian rather than English. 

Neutral

We have more customers on the cloud than on-premises. I am personally not involved in the deployment, but the initial setup is straightforward. It is not complex. Upgrading Automation Anywhere is easy.

The number of people required for maintenance depends on the number of automated processes. For 20 automated processes, you might need one person full-time per month. This can vary a lot on the type of process that you have automated.

You have to work at least a year on that technology, but obviously, it depends on the effort you make. If you have one developer or five, it makes a difference.

It is reasonable, but it can always be a little bit cheaper.

Those who want to use Automation Anywhere should have at least one expert on their team. This can significantly speed up the implementation process and the understanding of the problems. It can be a game changer. 

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

There are two main use cases. We are working to complement their RPA capabilities. They have quite a strong position in the RPA market. Instead of trying to face them on the RPA market, we complete what they do. They are especially not good in the attended space. They are good in unattended but not in the attended space, so we kind of complement them.

The second thing we are working on with them is FortressIQ. Automation Anywhere has a task mining solution. We have a process mining solution, so it is a good completion. We have a product that is doing all the process mining stuff. When we need to investigate further into one precise process, dive a little bit into the details, and understand the number of clicks, the number of screens, and basically all the details of the process, we need a task-mining solution. That is where we have integrated with FortressIQ from Automation Anywhere.

The benefits include a reduction in tedious tasks and manual handling of tasks and time savings. This transition moves processes from several hours to a few minutes or even seconds, ensuring that money is saved. Furthermore, it secures the process, facilitates better execution, eliminates errors, and establishes a standard process, which is much more than just saving money.

The ease of use depends on what you want to do. What we do is quite simple because we are mainly using it from an unattended perspective, so we do not have any human interaction. With humans, you need to do a lot of error management. Automation is precise and simple. If the use case is A, B, and C, and you know how to treat A, B, and C, it will always be that, which is simple. If it is not A, B, or C, then you park it aside and do error handling. In the end, 98% of what you have done is good, and the remaining 2% will be manually handled. You still save about 98% of the time. It is quite easy to use as long as we stay in the unattended space. 

We mainly integrated it with non-SAP applications. It is not difficult to integrate Automation Anywhere in the workflow.

It is quite strong in the unattended space. 

I never use Automation Anywhere in the attended space because they are bad at that, at least compared to other players like us or UiPath.

I have been working with them for about four years.

I have not contacted them, so I cannot judge them.

Neutral

We are working with UiPath, Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, and Power Automate. These are the four ones we are working with.

Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism are very close in terms of market perception, and they are very unattended-oriented. They are quite strong in the unattended space and are more IT-oriented than others, especially UiPath. They are strong in terms of integration.

In terms of ease of use, it is probably one of the best because they are doing a lot of screen scraping. It is more based on the screens and less on APIs, which makes sense from an unattended perspective. However, when you want to have human interaction, it could become a bit more difficult. It is a more techie product than others but also deeper in terms of what you can do with it in terms of integration, etc.

I do not think a perfect RPA tool exists. Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere as a six out of ten. I would rate UiPath higher.

I utilize Automation Anywhere for automation purposes. Recently, I completed a project for a client in the telecom sector. The project involved automating their monthly bill review system for customers. Previously, this system required on-site employees to check millions of invoices each month manually. A dedicated department then verified these invoices, sent them to customers, and verified payment status after payment. This process was time-consuming. We used Automation Anywhere's RPA and OCR capabilities and the AI document processing module to analyze document structures and verify tabs. We then automated various steps like accessing the portal, applying checks, and sending invoices via email. Now, the entire process is automated, triggered by a robot each month.

The main challenge which organizations want to address through any implemented RPA solution is the repetitive nature of their tasks. Instead of having ten employees perform the same monotonous task from nine to five every day, a single RPA robot can handle the workload, freeing those employees to focus on tasks that require human intervention. Automation is ideal for repetitive tasks, such as processing millions of invoices monthly, which can now be managed by a few RPA robots working around the clock. This allows employees to explore new opportunities, which is the primary goal of automation and the main reason for using RPA or any automation technology. Most automation technologies have features that enable this shift. However, automation is not suitable for all tasks; tasks requiring approvals or human judgment cannot be automated.

The deployment model varies depending on the client. In Pakistan, I worked with several clients using ABL who opted for cloud deployment. However, clients dealing with highly confidential and sensitive data, such as banks and telecommunications companies, prefer on-premises solutions. In contrast, clients in sectors like healthcare might be more open to utilizing cloud infrastructure.

Automation Anywhere has enabled repetitive tasks previously done manually to be automated.

Regarding RPA, ever since generative AI was introduced, we have ChatGPT and Google Gemini. The advent of these generative AI models has shifted the automation landscape. Automation has moved from Robotic Process Automation towards Intelligent Process Automation. The difference between RPA and IPA lies in their ability to handle changes. For example, if a website form changes its layout, a traditional RPA bot might fail because it can't identify the fields or buttons in their new positions. However, with IPA, the bot is intelligent enough to understand the fields' requests and can still process the data regardless of UI changes. Besides this, numerous other IPA use cases leverage Large Language Models and generative AI. For instance, a company could have a trained dataset monitored by an RPA bot, which then uses generative AI to create and send daily reports to top management, analyzing current numbers concerning past performance. This is a fascinating area that I've been exploring and working on lately.

For business users without technical skills, automation is achievable depending on the complexity of the task. Simple processes like sending custom emails from an Excel list can be easily automated with basic tutorials. While time and practice are necessary for mastery, basic automation can be initiated with just a few introductory videos.

We recently started using Automation Anywhere Copilot, so we haven't had the opportunity to integrate it with many of our automations. However, we have integrated it with SAP, where the bot reviews SAP data and provides the user with the required information at runtime. I have utilized this feature, and it's quite interesting. They also offer integrations with many other software, so the integration level is relatively high. Regardless of the type of features the business uses, whether they are using Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, or even AWS, integrations are available. They provide custom APIs that can be used for integration.

Automation Copilot helped increase our productivity by 60 percent.

Copilot has enabled staff to focus on other tasks by automating processes. For instance, the business department aimed to automate 350 processes this year, but by September, they had already surpassed that goal with 370 automations. Similarly, last year's target of 250 automations was exceeded, reaching 300. This increased efficiency has significantly improved workflows.

Our primary application of Generative AI for our telecom client is to detect service outages, such as when an area experiences a loss of service. We've been strategically planning our Generative AI approach for this year and the next, focusing on utilizing RPA to identify potential solutions and valuable insights within our data. For instance, in the context of outages, we aim to pinpoint the areas with the highest outage frequency, understand the reasons behind those outages, and correlate that information with customer complaint data. By analyzing metrics like complaint resolution times and outage resolution times, we can create a benchmark that helps us identify areas where we can enhance our customer service.

The amount of time Automation Anywhere helps save is dependent on the automated task. For example, the bill review task we automated helped save 10,000 hours per month.

We have several custom ERPs used internally but primarily rely on Microsoft Dynamics. We have a BCRM portal built on the Dynamics portal, hosting both our BCRM business-facing and CRM customer-facing systems. We also utilize Excel with VBA macros and other platforms, including Kofax for OCR. Kofax's Arabic language detection capabilities are crucial for processing UAE ID cards containing Arabic text. Kofax is our organization-wide OCR solution, integrated with Automation Anywhere. Overall, we have integrated Automation Anywhere with various software solutions.

Integrating Automation Anywhere into our workflows, APIs, and business automation is simple. RPA functions like a digital employee, and we can instruct them to perform tasks. Any activity currently done by a human employee can be done via RPA. However, the crucial question is whether it should be automated. If a task is performed infrequently, such as once every six months, creating an automation is inefficient. The time spent developing the automation could be better used to complete the task manually. Automation is ideal for repetitive tasks performed frequently. If a task isn't repetitive, automating it might not be beneficial. Regarding the capabilities of automation, nearly any work an employee performs on an organization's system has the potential to be automated.

Automation Anywhere has a persistent click-related issue that can make automation difficult, particularly in unattended environments. Even the Automation Anywhere team is aware of this problem, which has existed for several years. When automating tasks on a website, clicks may not work as expected in an unattended environment despite functioning correctly otherwise. The Automation Anywhere team has had numerous meetings to address this issue, but a solution remains elusive.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost four years.

Automation Anywhere's ability to provide automation at scales is dependent on how well it can integrate with every platform. I would rate the scalability seven out of ten.

I compare all other RPA tools to UiPath, which has excellent support—I'd rate it ten out of ten. In contrast, I'd rate Automation Anywhere's support six out of ten.

Neutral

In addition to Automation Anywhere, we also use UiPath, and Power Automate.

It ultimately depends on the client's preference for an RPA solution. In my opinion, UiPath remains the leading option in the market, unmatched by any competitor. Automation Anywhere currently holds the second position, but I anticipate Power Automate surpassing it in the future. However, UiPath is considerably ahead of the competition, leaving Automation Anywhere as a distant second. While Automation Anywhere is a suitable alternative, UiPath's high pricing can be a factor in the decision-making process. A lot of our clients choose Automation Anywhere because it is cheaper than UiPath to implement. Power Automate is the solution often chosen by businesses that already have other Microsoft solutions integrated into their environment.

The primary distinction among these RPA tools lies in the connectors and capabilities offered by Power Automate. Many businesses already utilize Power BI and Microsoft Dynamics, with most BI-related software relying on Tableau or Power BI. While some smaller-scale operations may still use Excel for dashboards, it's becoming increasingly uncommon. Power Automate's built-in custom connectors for Microsoft products provide a significant advantage. Overall, Power Automate has proven to be a game-changer, exceeding expectations with its features, custom connections, and level of support. While not currently the case, it's conceivable that with further enhancements, Power Automate could eventually surpass Automation Anywhere in the market.

While I wasn't involved in the initial deployment, I contributed to the migration from version A11 to A360. This was a major undertaking, spanning six months and presenting numerous challenges. Despite encountering various issues, we ultimately achieved a successful migration.

Cloud deployment is straightforward, while on-premises setup requiring server configuration can be challenging. A cloud deployment typically takes no more than one business day.

We have two teams: the operations team and the development team. The operations team handles deployment and typically consists of one or two people. The development team's size varies depending on the number of processes requiring automation. For fewer processes, one developer may suffice; however, we may engage five or even six developers for numerous processes.

Automation Anywhere provides good cost savings.

Automation Anywhere's price is considerably better than UiPath's.

I evaluated Robocorp from a POC point of view.

I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of ten.

Challenges in implementing Automation Anywhere depend on the process being automated. For instance, if your organization adopts Automation Anywhere, infrastructure won't be the primary concern as their cloud setup is straightforward. The real challenges lie in the processes themselves. RPA automates processes, so if, for example, in bill review, some invoices are unclear due to being scanned images, the robot might struggle to process them correctly. This is a process-related challenge, not an RPA implementation issue. To address this, instead of incorrect automation, we set a confidence threshold, say 80 percent, below which invoices are flagged for manual review. Thus, RPA implementation focuses on the process itself. Businesses have numerous processes across operations, products, clients, and consultations. The key is to identify these processes and determine suitable solutions. RPA involves instructing the robot on the required steps, which it follows diligently. However, even if ten employees perform the same task, each might have their own approach. Therefore, understanding the process from the user's perspective is crucial to identifying the optimal workflow. This ideal process is then programmed into the robot, ensuring consistent execution. It's important to remember that RPA, including Automation Anywhere, has limitations and cannot deviate from its instructions or make independent decisions.

Automating more complex processes requires a deeper understanding of coding concepts like loops, regardless of the automation scale. I teach UiPath Studio X, which is designed for business users without a coding background. It is a good starting point. Training in Studio X includes teaching basic coding concepts, emphasizing their connection to familiar Excel functions. This approach helps users understand the logic behind automation and bridge the gap between their existing skills and new concepts.

The learning curve for RPA automation, depending on your desired level of mastery, is manageable. It is key to understand all the features and how they work, including the AI-powered ones. Basic RPA automation can be learned in about four to five months, allowing someone to start working as an RPA developer. However, working on an actual project for a year or a year and a half is recommended to become a true expert. This provides ample time to learn the ins and outs of Automation Anywhere, understand the challenges, and develop solutions.

Upgrading Automation Anywhere to a newer version on the same platform is straightforward, but our migration from the obsolete on-premise A11 to the cloud-based A360 required moving every single business process, which was time-consuming. Apart from that specific migration, version upgrades are generally not complex.

Bots running on a cloud platform require continuous maintenance. While the cloud platform can monitor the bots, human oversight is essential to identify and troubleshoot issues like crashes. Large clients may necessitate a dedicated maintenance team working shifts to provide 24/7 monitoring and support. These teams typically monitor the bots' control room on a separate screen while performing other tasks. In the event of a crash, they investigate the cause and, if unable to resolve it, escalate the issue to the development team for further assistance.

We use Automation Anywhere most of the time to automate Excel and the SAP system. I used to work for Bajaj Electricals. We are the vendor of Bajaj Electrical India Private Limited. There, most of the data are being pushed into SAP. We are getting data from SAP and manipulating it, and we are preparing reports every day.

The most valued feature of Automation Anywhere is its Excel functionality. Earlier in my career, I used Process Studio as my RPA tool. There was no flexibility of retrieving single cells. We used to fetch the total Excel and we used to apply the filters to get those cells. Automation Anywhere has the flexibility to extract data from Excel.

For non-technical users, some technical knowledge is needed in Automation Anywhere, so they cannot use it as flexibly as developers can. In my earlier career, when using a data table in Automation Anywhere and wanting to merge columns, there was a plugin called Group By. In Automation Anywhere, we have to create variables and append the data to a single variable one by one to get that flexibility. Having an activity for grouping columns would be great. For reading data from Excel, providing a single button to fetch all data columns would make it more flexible for developers. For filtering purposes in Automation Anywhere, we have to apply if conditions and additional conditions to get the appropriate data. Introducing filter activities would change the perspective of developing.

I have been using Automation Anywhere in my career for two months.

In terms of crashing, I have seen some crashes, but they were from other software such as SAP, WinSCP, and Outlook. There were no issues from Automation Anywhere.

The bots in Automation Anywhere are totally scalable. If the developer builds robust robots in parts, then we can use those parts for other processes by integrating them. I have built bots in many parts, such as SAP login. After performing applications, we close all applications. We have built those bots, and we call them once our process is done, so it will close all applications and erase the caches.

I would rate technical support for Automation Anywhere a six.

I have used Process Studio as an alternative to Automation Anywhere. I prefer Process Studio more than Automation Anywhere. Process Studio was launched around 2017 and managed to get into the IDFC First Bank headquarters. According to IDFC use cases, Process Studio was trained and built with more flexibility for business use cases. Automation Anywhere is not as flexible as Process Studio. In Automation Anywhere, performing activities such as downloading, fetching, and data manipulation requires 20 to 30 lines of code. Process Studio gives multiple windows in a single activity, making data manipulation easier. For reading Excel, XLSV, XLSB, XLS files, there was a single plugin. Process Studio's plugins are more flexible than Automation Anywhere.

Having used Process Studio, the initial deployment for Automation Anywhere was not difficult for me. I referred to YouTube videos for guidance. The only challenge was figuring out how to input my device name, which took one to two days until colleagues helped. If some data could populate automatically after installation, it would be beneficial.

For a beginner, Automation Anywhere is a great tool. I have learned UiPath also, which comes with complexities but has frameworks for smooth business flow. Automation Anywhere comes with a beginner-friendly interface. The tool can be learned within five to ten days of training. We haven't used the Automation Co-pilot yet. Once a developer knows all the activities in Automation Anywhere, upgrades become less necessary. Integration with WhatsApp business use cases to send messages would be beneficial. Integration with additional systems beyond SAP, WinSCP, and PDF would make it more flexible in business scenarios. Automation Anywhere can contact me in the future regarding questions about this review. I rate this solution 9 out of 10.

As a financial services company, we have a variety of use cases for different areas of our business, as well as some of our IT partners. We have automations that help perform payment extensions on customer accounts. We have automations that track email communications on accounts that are in collections. For our IT partners, we have bots that perform password resets for applications that our IT team supports, as well as the provisioning automations that we use to grant access or change access for team members at our company.

They have been informative in terms of new features, components, and capabilities that are available to us as their customer. We have a regular cadence set up with our account manager and our support manager to ensure that we are able to leverage some of those new components. We have had the opportunity to test or play around with some of the new features being rolled out to see if it is something that we would be able to introduce into any of our use cases at GM Financial.

During the development and the discovery phase for the use cases, while walking through a use case with the process owner, we were able to identify some opportunities that could have helped them before the process was automated. By seeing where they were struggling with manually performing the process and automating the process, we have been able to give them a lot of time back with the use of some of the features.

It is fairly easy to understand. The courses that Automation Anywhere University offers, especially for citizen development, and even for those who are getting into development, have pretty simple course content. It is not overly complex or too technical where somebody could get lost in the instruction. It is fairly easy for anybody who does not have that technical background to pick up and use. If anything, it would probably give them an opportunity in terms of what background they want to understand more to supplement or complement what they learn from Automation Anywhere University.

For a first-time user of Automation Anywhere, there is not a huge learning curve. The content and the instructions through Automation Anywhere University are comprehensible. It is easy for somebody to practice, learn, and build on top of what they have learned. As different use cases come around, there are different opportunities to use some of the different features or variables in development. It will help strengthen how they learn or map out how to use the tool.

We have dependent environments that our automation will log into or interact with. There are applications that our automations interact with or are integrated with. We have automations that are using Salesforce and SharePoint. We have an FIS platform for automations servicing customer accounts. We have various applications and third-party websites that our automations interact with daily.

We have automated processes that were heavy with human interaction. Through automation, we have been able to allow those human resources to be reallocated to other areas of the company, doing different processes manually. These automations are working daily beyond normal business hours, on weekends and holidays. Business partners that are benefiting from the automations have been able to distribute those resources to other areas.

Automation Anywhere has most definitely saved us time and costs through automation. Our business partners are able to receive the benefits of automation and distribute those human resources to other areas of their business. By saving time and costs associated with those human resources, less overtime is being paid. Especially for processes that are dependent and have time-sensitive SLAs, we are not accruing any penalties or anything like that. We are able to leverage automation to avoid those costs. It is not only from a time and cost perspective but also risk avoidance. Risk avoidance is something that is not necessarily highlighted when it comes to automation, but I feel that we have also been able to avoid risk.

We are looking at the different programs that Automation Anywhere offers. We are engaged with our account manager on Pathfinder, and we are able to leverage the ability to map where our program currently is and where we want it to go. We are putting some key ideas, thoughts, and time frames around where we want to be when it comes to building our automation program at GM Financial.

Right now, when I look at the platform for Automation Anywhere, the ease of use for the control room from a production support standpoint for our L1 and L2 team members has been amazing. With our conversion from v11 to A360, there has been better ease of development of components within the control room for our development teams. Obviously, it is apples to oranges, but the experience since going to A360 has been amazing. We have been able to establish some reasonable components, which has made our delivery efforts a lot easier since we have been in A360. From a support perspective, the ease of use with the control room and being able to manage those devices in the control room has been easy for us as well. 

If I look across the use cases that we have, there is more opportunity for us to collaborate with Automation Anywhere to see or maybe explore some potential opportunities for new capabilities within the platform. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of anything that they would need to improve on, but there are probably opportunities to explore some potential use cases where maybe there is a feature that is not yet available. We can discover and pioneer something together.

At GM Financial, our journey began in January of 2020. I have been supporting the development team that has been building bots in Automation Anywhere since 2020.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate my experience with the support of Automation Anywhere a ten.

They are very responsive when our platform admins or our developers need to open up any cases. We have a weekly support cadence with them as well as an account cadence with them. In the different areas that we receive support from Automation Anywhere, they are very responsive and very attentive to our needs.

Positive

When we started our RPA journey in 2018, we had a third party. It was outsourced to a third party that had a proprietary tool. We managed to do that for a few years, but being able to host, support, and build internally was a key factor for us. When the company decided to look at possible solutions to deliver these services, Automation Anywhere was what they selected. When we moved to A360, we took those automations that were hosted externally and brought them into our portfolio as well.

Deploying Automation Anywhere was definitely a learning experience for us, especially when we stood up the platform and tried to understand the deployment flow internally for the team. Our platform admins who do the actual deployment got their system before the support team that helps with the checklist of activities before the deployment takes place. That is where we had to learn and set up our framework to get it deployed.

Prior to actual automation deployments and getting the environment set up, we had to work with our infrastructure team. We had to make sure that we had the right resources in place and that those resources were working adequately before we launched our first automation onto the platform. Internally, we learned some lessons along the way. That is a part of the course for anybody who is deploying a new solution in their infrastructure. Overall, it did help us learn the importance of having a good framework in place so that if we need to build, expand, or change anything, we would be able to accommodate that appropriately.

We have most definitely seen an ROI internally with our development and production support teams. Even our business partners are receiving that return on investment because we have been able to help them realize the benefits that they are getting by automating their business processes. That return is not only to the IT team; that return is tenfold to the business.

I am not engaged in that portion of it; my leader is, which is good because then I do not have to have many discussions.

During the exploration phase for finding the tool for GM Financial, we looked at other tools like UiPath. I believe Blue Prism was another one that was being evaluated. Automation Anywhere was also in the mix. They were also trying to determine if they wanted to continue to host externally, but all in all, Automation Anywhere was where they went.

We are starting to get into an Automation Co-Pilot use case where we can showcase or pilot that with the business. One of the things with technology is that it is a journey, especially for an older financial services company like GM Financial. It involves adapting, understanding, and educating on new technologies and features. Before we can deploy things, we have to prove them. We have to show them. We have to help them understand what the benefit of using it is going to be. We are getting ready to pilot our first co-pilot using Automation Anywhere, and that is for our customer service or customer experience department.

My favorite aspect of the Imagine event is the opportunity to network and also to see Automation Anywhere showcase any new capabilities and enablements that are available to Automation Anywhere customers. At the keynote session yesterday, it was really nice to see how somebody is recognizing that a lot of times, departments within IT are siloed. They are working through challenges to be more collaborative and engaging to improve the services that we deliver when it comes to automation. Learning and hearing those things and listening to different breakout sessions confirms that we are not alone on our journey when it comes to our RPA program and other things because Automation Anywhere is not just RPA. It is good to know that we are not alone, and it is good to network with people who are experiencing the same challenges or opportunities that we have. All the information and the networking are my favorite things of all the Imagine conferences.

The Imagine experience is fun. It is exciting just because of the fact that we all have these opportunities within our grasp. It is just how we choose to go after it or how we choose to engage. There is the excitement of brainstorming or sharing ideas with people across different companies or services. You feed on that energy, take it back home, and work with your teams to continue to deliver and support.

Three reasons that I would highlight for colleagues and fellow team members to come to an Imagine event are:

• The content that Automation Anywhere shares about upcoming enablement and capabilities that are going to be made available to them.
• The information shared and networking is done with people from other companies across the globe.
• The events in breakout sessions are hosted at different times during the day.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a ten out of ten. I have not had any negative experiences with Automation Anywhere.

We have a pretty big shop nowadays. We have 324 automations in production. Our use cases were concentrated on loan services. Most recently, our initiatives have been targeted in the control space - automating the things that make the bank go around and seeing that the bank is in a good position every day. 

We have a backlog in the hundreds, automation is not something that we'll finish anytime soon. It's definitely a marathon to finish all the things that we need to do.

In 2017, there was a lot of hype around RPA. They paved the way for us to see those benefits, and we continue to grow every year. 

In those early days, we had 28 automations in our first year. We thought we were pretty proud of that number. In 2023, we created over 100 automations in a single year and moved those to production. The volume and the increased capacity for our businesses improved. The employee engagement, when we talk about bots now, is much better. It's "how can we help?" There are no real concerns of "They're going to replace our jobs." Over seven years, our automations have grown, and we've matured with them. 

There are several aspects that we value. The control rooms, monitoring the performance, and making sure everything is up and running has been a great feature. From the design and capacity of the developers' perspective, the intuitive interface is excellent. It's a workflow-driven design session. Following the flow of the users alongside the code makes for an easy automation that everyone can understand.

Automation Anywhere brings in and changes the way we do process automation. Everything was very manual beforehand. We'd have to do batch processes where integrations of systems were pretty costly and took a lot of time. Mapping database fields from screens down to the next system was more difficult versus with Automation Anywhere, you get the visual input of the screens. You can click on those fields and not have to do the data mapping or extract them. You can correlate them to other systems almost instantly individually. 

Automation Anywhere is easy to pick up for business users. Initially, we trained 45 people. Whoever raised their hands, we said, "We'll train you." About 65% of those initial trainees were from the business side. A couple of years later, we noticed that the people who created the automation did really well. They were receiving promotions. Then, all of a sudden, we didn't have the people to support our automation needs since those original trainees moved up. We made a shift and said, "Hey, business users, you want to come to technology? We're going to centralize development." 13 said yes, and we kept building out. Now we're a team that's 40-strong.

The learning curve is pretty quick. Automation Anywhere provides a lot of training courses to support you and there are individuals assigned to your account. The learning curve is short from our standpoint. We spend two weeks with anyone who comes in, whether they're a previous developer or a business person. We find that simple automations can be completed within that training period. Within six months, some of the most complex items people are able to handle.

Right now, our 324 automations touch around 120 different systems. Our core platforms are integrated. APIs are being used for SharePoint or imaging systems so  thatwe don't really have a reliance on the UI. With the integrations, we just continue to grow. 

The integration of Automation Anywhere into our workflows, APIs, business applications, and documents is great. There are several phases to this one. Automation Anywhere, just the design, the tool, allows you to jump in with workflows initially and lay out the complete automation, and then you can get into the details. For us, it's particularly powerful as it aligns with the different systems that we work with, as well as providing connectivity to the underlying systems, seeing the screens to get into the details of that workflow, making for a great design process for our automation.

Our automation program has positively affected our business in terms of employee capacity and compliance. It's affected all areas. When we think of the capacity, I can go back to 2020 in the early days of COVID and with a payment protection program specifically. We had 9,000 tellers who no longer were going into the bank. We pivoted to an SBA program and had those 9,000 tellers calling a variety of small businesses. We still needed 1,000 more people to do the due diligence. That's where RPA shined. We were able to fill that capacity gap and immediately become one of the top three players in the space. 

When I think of just day-to-day employee engagement, we're focused on the controls of the bank. Those happen maybe once a month, once a quarter, once a year. So those are activities that you really have to prep for and document really well. RPA does the same thing over and over really well, and those controls are assured to be done and executed in the same fashion over and over.

Automation Anywhere has helped us save on both time and cost. When we think of we run around 750,000 hours of runtime on bots per year. That would be a significant amount of employees. That's about 450 to 500 employees' worth of work done every day. Just the overall capacity provided by automation would be hard to replace.

Automation Anywhere's ability to provide Automation at scale is impressive. We've obviously pushed that limit. We're at 324 automations. That's over 4200 tasks executed every day. From a scale and monitoring perspective, we know which bots are running, which ones may be going slow, and which didn't run. The ability of the control with room to monitor allows us to jump in and help out when necessary. That is paramount to our success. 

Automation Anywhere helps us find value. We do use professional services from time to time to augment both our capacity and capabilities while finding new ways of doing things. This is a very fast-moving environment. The things that we did five years ago are gone. We threw them away. We upgraded to new versions and have new capabilities. Keeping up with the latest and greatest is always a challenge. There are also new ways of development and sharing those findings, whether it's a webcast or part of the Pathfinder program; we're always curious about what's next with the product.

The tools are fundamentally solid. However, when I think of self-healing, such as automation with a new prompt or a new Windows patch occurring, being able to handle those kinds of things on top of what Automation Anywhere already does and that automatically click through and do the reboots that are necessary to just have a clean run would be ideal. That way, no one has to wake up in the middle of the night and adjust something. That would be amazing. 

Our company has been using Automation Anywhere for seven years. I've been using Automation Anywhere since 2017.

From a stability perspective, whether it's servers or virtual desktops with agents, we have very few issues. We have multiple servers and have never experienced downtime. We have had one or two nodes go down based on hardware issues, however, it's resilient. 

We're now at 324 automations, and it definitely scales. The screens prioritize things, and you have dashboards that say what's working and what isn't. Those types of activities help drive us to where the problems are and show us what we need to resolve them.

Technical support is solid. We pick up the phone and call and create tickets. We get responses almost instantly. We've had many nights trying to figure out how things work on our network or looking at logs. They've been great about jumping in any time we've asked for help. 

Positive

We did not previously use a different solution.

Throughout the history of development, people have tried to automate things. We've never used a tool that had the control room and the features, the scheduling, and the complexity that it could handle. When Automation Anywhere packaged the whole bundle together, that was the differentiator that really drove us to it.

When we think of ETL, all the standard tools, whether it's SQL or Oracle, we still have all those. However, for speed and simplicity and getting things to production fast, we'll leverage Automation Anywhere.

Many other options often require a data expert. You have to go to database tables to do automation or ETL-type activities, and you have to schedule that and know if there are conflicts within other systems. Plus, if there's downtime, you may not be able to run pieces. It's true coding. There is testing that's also required and the delivery time is not measured in weeks. It's measured in months. We'd all like everything to integrate seamlessly. That said, the real world comes into play, and I'm glad we have Automation Anywhere to fill everything out. 

Setup for us was probably the longest lead time. We're a bank, so we always have to scan the code base. We want to jump in, understand the connectivity, and understand how things are going to happen. There are a lot of planning-type activities before the install. We started in 2017 with version seven of Automation Anywhere. We went through version ten, then moved on to the A360. Each experience became better and better.

We have a PCI-compliant installation as well as our normal normal network.

Our experience deploying Automation Anywhere was seamless. From a server perspective, we run about a dozen servers in four dev IT QB production environments. We'll continue to do the first servers in dev and move to migrate them all the way through production. For any issues that we have along the way, customer service is right there with us to troubleshoot.

We've seen an ROI via hard saves. We define a hard save as someone having to leave the bank or a contract has to leave. We are net positive in our spend. We've managed to prioritize the highest use cases from a cost-saving perspective.

We find it comparable to other products out there. I wouldn't say huge differentiators from that perspective. 

We looked at autoIT to look at for specialty use cases. 

The very first bot that was rolled out was on my team. I've been able to see the control room and the code in progress and evolve over the years has been a pleasure. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

From an RPA perspective, it has all the core functionality. We can automate the bank's systems. The reliability, performance monitoring, and development time are excellent. In 2017, it used to take us six to nine months to develop. That was slow. Fast-forward to 2024, and it takes six weeks, plus or minus two weeks depending on complexity, to deliver an automation. 

Automation Anywhere is an RPA tool we use to automate common workflows that interact with various enterprise applications. These workflows can involve tasks like data generation, sending emails, or completing transactions within those enterprise systems.

We implemented Automation Anywhere to automate our workflows and save time.

In the past, these tasks were handled manually, leading to a lot of repetition. Automation Anywhere has eliminated that burden, making these same tasks much easier and significantly faster to complete.

We implemented AI-based automation that combines documents using intelligent document processing. This involved integrating generative AI to automatically create responses based on the data extracted from the documents. This automation streamlines the process and delivers the desired business output to end users.

Automation Anywhere caters to business users with its user-friendly interface, allowing them to build automation with minimal technical expertise. Our large business user community exemplifies this – after a five-day training program with hands-on exercises, they're empowered to independently develop their own automation within three to four days. This highlights the platform's ease of use from a business user perspective.

To ensure our business users can leverage RPA, we provide training through Automation Anywhere University. This platform offers in-depth coverage of both use cases and technical aspects, along with customized training that helps users directly connect their daily tasks to RPA methods. This blended approach has proven to be very effective.

Non-technical users can overcome the learning curve in four to five days.

While Automation Co-Pilot is a strong solution overall and integrates well with web applications, integrating it with legacy systems may require some effort on our part. However, this effort is typically minimal, taking just a few days to achieve successful integration. We're currently testing Automation Co-Pilot and exploring its potential for AI integration, which reinforces our belief in its overall value.

Based on our POCs, we project that Automation Co-Pilot will add value to our projects.

Automation Co-Pilot helps free up our staff's time on projects.

Automation Anywhere's service and customer support are improving. Their management prioritizes strong relationships with customers, evidenced by frequent collaborative meetings. This focus on customer solutions, along with other efforts, contributes to a clear upward trend in their overall support effectiveness. They've been a valuable asset to our organization.

Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize how we implement automation. Our organization sees a significant opportunity to leverage generative AI within the Automation Anywhere landscape. As a bot-focused organization, we have achieved a 30 percent automation feasibility rate. By combining automation with AI, we can achieve a 70 percent rate. This represents the kind of scalability we envision for our organization.

Our organization is expanding its use of Automation Anywhere. We have two main approaches: governance is handled through a dedicated platform integrated with Automation Anywhere, while bot deployment utilizes a separate web platform built with XTML or Java that interacts with Automation Anywhere for bot execution and deployment.

Integrating automation and APIs with Automation Anywhere streamlines workflows significantly. Users save time and effort since most integrations come with clear documentation readily available before the standard setup process, ensuring immediate functionality. Automation Anywhere's documentation serves as the primary resource for all integrations, and users can find most information there. For any remaining questions, support channels are readily available for further assistance.

Automation Anywhere has significantly reduced our operational costs and freed up employee time. With thousands of automated processes running on our platform, we're saving thousands of hours of work every month.  

Automation Anywhere offers a complete suite of development tools to empower developers for various enterprise automation needs. These tools include packages specifically designed for SAP integrations and other commonly used enterprise applications, making them highly efficient for building automation across different use cases within large organizations. Additionally, the web-based nature of the platform adds further value by enabling easy access and collaboration.

Automation Anywhere risks falling behind by focusing solely on Robotic Process Automation when competitors offer more versatile and adaptable solutions that integrate AI for a more intelligent automation experience.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for three years.

Automation Anywhere offers a 99 percent uptime, ensuring a reliable and stable platform for its users.

Automation Anywhere is capable of automation at scale.

The technical support team is knowledgeable and efficient, readily guiding users toward automated solutions. While some complex issues may require additional data validation, they consistently deliver resolutions within established timeframes.

Positive

Getting started is easy - the initial deployment follows standard procedures and can be completed in as little as two days for a simple use case. Complex setups may take up to a month, and the number of personnel required varies from two to ten people depending on the specific needs of each project.

Automation Anywhere falls within a mid-range price point when compared to other RPA tools on the market.

After considering UiPath, Microsoft Power Automate, and Automation Anywhere, we chose Automation Anywhere due to its ability to handle growth in our automation needs and its strong data security measures.

I would rate Automation Anywhere nine out of ten.

Upgrading Automation Anywhere can be challenging, especially when migrating from a client-server architecture to Microsoft's. However, within the Microsoft architecture itself, upgrades are significantly smoother and can be completed within a four to five-hour downtime window.

While Automation Anywhere itself doesn't require application-specific maintenance, we still need to perform regular maintenance on the server it's running on. One person is enough for the maintenance.

The time to maintain bots varies depending on their purpose but typically ranges from one to four days on average. 

Automation Anywhere is best suited for enterprise-level deployments due to its robust features. However, for smaller-scale needs, other options might be more efficient. If you're dealing with a large organization, Automation Anywhere is a strong choice. I recommend trying it to experience its microservice architecture, which allows for scalability and agility, as well as its integrated AI capabilities. These features provide a powerful and user-friendly platform for automating tasks.

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.