Automation Anywhere Reviews

It helps to free up our staff to work on value-add projects. It has saved their effort. With the automation of their project, a task that would have previously taken ten hours can now be done within four hours. We can then have them on other projects where more resources are required. They can utilize that time.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation consumption. In the last three years, we have used Automation Anywhere excessively, and in terms of cost, we have saved up to 50,000 to 60,000 dollars in three years.

I have used Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Blue Prism. The licensing cost of Automation Anywhere is better than UiPath and Blue Prism.

Features such as MetaBot and IQ Bot are very advanced and capable as compared to reading PDFs using OCR.

It is very easy for me to use, but for non-technical users, Automation Anywhere is a little bit challenging. If you have previously worked with any other tool, such as Blue Prism, it is a little bit difficult to understand because the nomenclature and terminologies are a little bit tricky. After you have hands-on experience with it for six to seven months, it is quite easy to understand. 

Automation Anywhere's UI is difficult. Its user interface can be improved.

They can improve their community so that if any help is required or if we face any issues, we can easily go there and get the help needed. In the case of both UiPath and Blue Prism, the community is very good. Everything is mentioned in the community. We just need to type a keyword, and we get the solution we need. It would be great if Automation Anywhere could improve their community.

In terms of additional features, there could be support for the cloud-based technology so that, similar to Orchestrator, we can use the control center from the cloud. It should be on-premises because a lot of financial institutes use automation, and they cannot upload their data or transfer their data to a third-party cloud. It would be good if they could host the system on the organization's premises.

I have been using this solution for the last five to six years. I am not using its latest version.

It is not as stable as UiPath and Blue Prism. There are some software crashes.

It is scalable but they need to enhance their product so that when any huge load of data comes, it does not crash. If we have to work on a million records of Excel data, it would crash.

They have a support channel where we can raise our concerns. If we cannot understand something or we do not have a solution for something, we can raise our concerns and requests in their support channel, and they provide the response or solution. We just need to create a ticket. I would rate their support an eight out of ten. Their support is good.

I have been working in the automation field for the last 11 years. I started my journey with Automation Anywhere, version 10.7. After that, I started working with UiPath and Blue Prism. I work with all three RPA solutions. I am an expert in all these three solutions, and I am also certified in these three solutions.

We utilize a solution as per the requirement or process. UiPath and Blue Prism are easier to learn than Automation Anywhere. In terms of performance, if you use heavy logic or complex logic, Automation Anywhere isn't as stable as compared to UiPath and Blue Prism. Blue Prism is very stable if you build any process or do automation of any process, whereas in the case of Automation Anywhere, your application or your process can break. However, Automation Anywhere is quite fast. The setup is quite easy. You can easily set it up on your system. The UI is very fast. There is no lag.

I installed it on my personal laptop, and it was straightforward, but for the production environment, the Infra team takes care of the installation. It takes them a maximum of two to three hours.

It is on a cloud. It is hosted in the Citrix environment, and it is being used by multiple departments. We need to log in to Citrix to utilize it.

Its maintenance is handled by our Infra team. If there is a patch release with a feature or fix that we need, the Infra team updates its version. Otherwise, we keep utilizing the same version. Our Infra team has access to the Citrix environment. They can create and close the Citrix environment, and that is why they do the maintenance. Any maintenance activities are done over weekends so that none of the in-progress processes get affected. Generally, they happen over weekends. They usually start on Saturday and then the activities are complete by Monday morning.

We are investing a lot in the licensing cost. If there was no ROI, our organization would not invest in it. We calculate the efficiency in terms of the effort saved by our full-time employees, which could vary depending on the processes. There could be 2% or 5% savings monthly, and based on that, we calculate the annual savings. Overall, there could be a 10% to 12% improvement in efficiency.

Automation Anywhere's licensing cost is better than UiPath and Blue Prism. The licensing cost is a big factor because you might have 50 or more bots, and the per-bot license cost is about $5,000. That is the amount that you need to invest.

We have explored various RPA solutions such as Kofax. We generally go for solutions like Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Blue Prism because of their capabilities. Our clients also want the best and the most cost-effective technology.

I would recommend Automation Anywhere, but it also depends on the cost. If you get a good discount on the license, go for it.

Automation Anywhere is easy to learn if you have experience with automation tools. If you are starting from the beginning, you will have to invest more time compared to the other RPA tools. It could be a bit difficult for non-technical users. You at least need to know what data variables do and what strings do. All these things are technical. You would also need to write VB or C# code, so non-technical people cannot work on these things.

Any integration completely depends on the application support. We have integrated ServiceNow API with Automation Anywhere. If the API is already provided by the organization or the development team, it is quite easy, but if we have to design the API or it is not available, it is a little bit difficult to integrate the application with the automation tool.

To someone who wants to use API integration instead of an RPA solution, I would say that based on my understanding, API integration is completely different from RPA. RPA is an end-to-end solution. It can automate your desktop applications. It can automate your browser-based application. API and web services are also included in RPA, so RPA is a complete ecosystem. API is just one part of it. Only through API, you cannot do automation. Through API, you can get values, and you can put values. You can modify values. You can generate a request or an incident, but creating a report via that data and replacing that data is not possible through API. You have to do it manually, or you have to open it in Tableau or Power BI and create a dashboard. By using an RPA tool, you can download data. You can change the request. You can get the request. You can modify those values and manipulate them according to your requirement. You can then create a dashboard. 

Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere a seven out of ten because of the stability and the terminology used in the product. The terminology they use is not for the layman. If I have to showcase it to my leadership, they would not be able to understand what MetaBot and IQ Bot are and why we use them. I have to make them understand in layman's language.

I am striving to provide individuals with more time to focus on value-add tasks due to widespread headcount reductions. For instance, in finance and accounting activities, we use Automation Anywhere to replace individuals in maintenance tasks or those that were previously unknown to be time-consuming. This is where we witness the greatest utilization of bots. 

Moreover, we employ bots to handle fines associated with individuals driving company cars. With hundreds of fines occurring each month, it used to be a nearly full-time responsibility for one person to receive the fine, identify the driver at the time of the incident, and ensure the fine was directed to the appropriate person for payment. Such activities lacked significant value and consumed a considerable amount of time for someone, but now the bot handles these tasks on our behalf. I believe that finance is the primary area where we extensively utilize Automation Anywhere.

When we began deploying the bots, we established Key Performance Indicators to assess the return on investment. For instance, if a bot could save one-third of an individual's time, we would evaluate the amount of time saved and dedicate it to value-add tasks. However, evaluating the exact monetary savings facilitated by the bots is challenging because the funds are not directly spent on low-value activities. Instead, they can be utilized differently. 

It is important to note that the bots never completely replaced human workers. No job was entirely taken over by a bot. Rather, it was an assessment of how effectively we spent money with the assistance of bots, as they enabled individuals to perform tasks more efficiently. Although I don't recall the exact details since it was in the past, we would reassign the equivalent of full-time employees to these value-added tasks instead of low-value ones. At the time of my departure from the RPA topic, we had 150 bots in production, and we had a clear understanding of how many full-time employees would be dedicated to higher-value tasks as a result.

The ability of Automation Anywhere to provide automation at scale is commendable. We have indeed achieved tangible business benefits. That is certain. I am no longer aware of the metric used to evaluate this, except for the fact that we have eliminated various mundane activities from the workday of numerous individuals.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation consumption.

From what I recall of the type of issue we had to deal with when we started implementing Automation Anywhere, it was the integration with the identity and access management system that the company might use. This is because Automation Anywhere has a vault where we store all the information related to the bot, including the password it will use to connect to the system. The feature, which might be interesting for companies that don't already have an identity management system, was a bit tricky because I would have preferred the system to directly rely on our corporate identity and access management system to manage the bot's credentials. This way, we wouldn't have to store this information in the bot as well. It's something to consider in terms of integrating with an existing IT landscape.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost six years.

We did not encounter any stability issues with Automation Anywhere during the time I worked with the solution.

Automation Anywhere is scalable.

The technical support was helpful and responsive.

Positive

We had previously been using UiPath, and in late 2017, we acquired an organization that was already using Automation Anywhere, which belonged to a much larger organization. Consequently, we began to explore that tool and benefited from our colleagues' positive experiences with Automation Anywhere.

They were able to provide suggestions on the setup and deployment of the solution. As a result, we ultimately decided to discontinue the use of UiPath and transitioned to Automation Anywhere. Without the acquisition, we might not have implemented Automation Anywhere and instead would have continued with UiPath or explored other alternatives. Due to the acquisition, we were able to recognize that Automation Anywhere was one of the market leaders and swiftly create a proof of concept.

The initial setup was straightforward. Although I was involved in the deployment project, the actual installation was carried out by those responsible for implementing the Windows servers.

We needed to acquire the hardware because we had an internal cloud at that time, so we still have it. I would say that we managed to allocate the servers. It didn't take long. We provided training for the people who would deploy and customize the product with the assistance of Automation Anywhere in France. The global deployment infrastructure was ready to be used within a few weeks.

The implementation was completed in-house with the help of the Automation Anywhere team.

We obtained benefits from the original price prior to the acquisition and had to engage in negotiations due to the expansion of the usage scope. We were required to purchase licenses and bot runners, which determined the permissible run times for the bots. We successfully achieved a fair price worldwide. 

I rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten. 

We primarily utilize an attended bot, meaning they are not created by users. We have made efforts to retain control over IT in bot creation to prevent it from becoming a new avenue for shadow IT. When we started in 2018, the final department had a dedicated team responsible for bot development. However, they eventually hired contractors who developed C-Sharp programs that interacted with SAP through APIs. The bot would simply launch these programs, which is not the ideal method for automation, as we believe the bot should directly interact with the application instead of relying on a separate program to communicate with SAP through an API. I believe the team responsible for this no longer exists. Presently, we have a process in place to identify relevant use cases, and we are collaborating with a subcontractor who creates the bots for us based on specifications provided by the business.

We utilize Automation Anywhere with an attended bot. This implies that after receiving the specifications from the business and creating the purchase, we establish an agreement on the bot's scheduling for execution. However, the user never directly interacts with the bot; they only observe the results of its actions. Therefore, there is no need to provide training for users to utilize Automation Anywhere. We maintain IT control over it, while the development itself is outsourced. Consequently, the issue of the learning curve is not applicable to our situation.

We didn't use a lot of APIs with Automation Anywhere. Instead, we simulated the user's actions on the application's user interface. I can't recall any instances where we relied on APIs to initiate actions in the systems we were connecting to. However, I am aware that APIs can be utilized. There was a point when we wanted to employ APIs to retrieve the password or the bot from our identity and access the financial system just before the bot was about to commence its task. Additionally, we intended to trigger an API to reset the password once the bot had completed its job to ensure that there were no potential security threats associated with the user IDs used for the bots.

For those who prefer using API integration instead of a comprehensive process automation solution, I would like to emphasize that it's not exactly the same approach. Integrated APIs require developing a program for them to interact with. In my opinion, RPA offers a more straightforward approach as it simply replicates user actions within an application. We already have a ready-to-use bot. However, I wouldn't recommend using bots for everything, especially when we encounter use cases that resemble interfaces. 

Essentially, it involves manipulating the user interface of an application to extract data and then sending that data to another application on a daily basis. This approach doesn't seem logical. I'm not sure about the usage of APIs in the context of actual IT program development, where we need to retrieve data from various source systems that provide APIs. In such cases, we genuinely desire bots that faithfully mimic the actions of real users within an application. Our intention was never to replace any kind of deployment with bots, which is why we wanted Information and Communication Technology to be involved in the decision-making process. We wanted to ensure that the distinction was made between tasks that should be handled by bots and those that should be treated as interfaces or programs, aligning with our understanding of process automation.

We have a team of three people in Spain who are in charge of the daily operation of the Automation Anywhere platform. However, deploying our new bot is a quick process. There is a test environment where the bot is validated, after which it is transferred to the production control room and the bot's schedule is updated.

The team responsible for the data operations of the platform, taking everything into account, including the intrusion of the new bot into the production environment. They also handle the platform's maintenance. I believe we have three individuals dedicated to these tasks.

Our company uses the solution for automations. 

As a portfolio manager, the key responsibility is to determine how to use our latest technologies for use cases. We identify use cases in various functions and buy software licenses for them. 

Once we buy licenses, we use the solution for end-to-end discovery of use cases, onboarding in-house technical staff for ongoing management, and collaborations for training or licenses. 

Our licenses are used by our technical team within our Center of Excellence. The team handles the end-to-end work that includes development, testing, quality assurance, and production. We are using the solution to its full capacity. Bots are at an optimum because we want to extract maximum value from our licenses. 

We plan to increase usage once we finish migrating from on-premises to the cloud. 

The solution has helped us embrace more of a digital transformation footprint, bring in efficiencies, and create an internal infrastructure.  

The solution's architecture is very nice. The three components are a bot, a control room, and a bot developer. 

The control room is quite a good feature. It is easy to use and gives you the power to manage your digital workforce. It gives you a sense of understanding in terms of how the audit trail happens. 

The solution should include an analytics dashboard. As the space is maturing, many vendors sell functionalities as separate components so this is not unique to the solution. If I am buying a license, I should at least get a flavor of my analytics with a dashboard related to operational KPIs. Right now, if you want detailed analytics, you need to buy the dashboard separately. This licensing structure adds to the overall cost. 

The solution should include bot insights instead of selling it as a separate license. From the bot and business perspectives, insights are important for operational agility metrics and managing KPIs. For example, I want to how many hours in a day or month a bot runs for human resources when it performs A, B, C, D, and E and gives benefits across D, E, and F. 

I have been using the solution for three years. 

The solution is stable so I rate stability an eight out of ten. 

The solution is somewhat scalable so I rate scalability a six out of ten. 

We get the right support when we ask for it. Sometimes though, service requests are not handled within the timeframe we expect. Issues move in circles until they are placed with the proper technician. 

There is definitely an opportunity to lessen the response time so I rate support a seven out of ten. 

Neutral

I have prior experience with UiPath to a certain extent. 

The setup takes a good amount of time because you have to develop an infrastructure that includes servers and compliance. A lot of time is spent framing those requirements and signing contracts that are quite detailed. 

I rate the setup a five out of ten because it is not that easy.

We worked with technicians from the solution to implement.

There are some difficulties in migrating to a new platform. There are a lot of internal governance forms or approvals that can delay the process. Lots of things need to be reworked as you go through the process. 

For about four to six months, you can take on the fixed paper side to get all the needed approvals. In some cases, the process might even take eight months because everything takes time and other business activities may take priority. Separate contracts need to be created for automations and they are usually handled by another team. Many approvals are needed at all levels of the organization. 

We currently use the solution on-premises but are migrating to the cloud. This process is also not that smooth and requires nudging. We are going back to the drawing board to take another look at things and rework if needed. Most components should be scalable and reusable but we are having a few issues on that front. 

Ongoing maintenance includes our internal team working with two or three of the solution's technicians to resolve issues. The solution's team routes or allocates the right technician to handle our service request. Our internal team supports and helps their technicians to understand our unique scenario. 

The solution is definitely worth the money. It is up to you to add quality use cases and utilize the digital workforce along with the human workforce. The tools are there, but the actual metrics derived are your baby. There are many benefits to automation solutions. 

I won't give 100% credit to the solution. Perhaps UiPath would have given us the same results. The way you use a solution makes all the difference in ROI. 

Similar to how competing products are priced, the solution has separate licenses for features that should be included in a bundle package. For example, the analytics dashboard and bot insights are sold as separate licenses. 

No one wants to buy a product that is too complex because components are sold separately. Give longstanding customers these benefits as icing on the cake. 

The solution is not the least or most expensive. Pricing is good and in the middle so I rate pricing a five out of ten. 

The options were evaluated before I joined the team, but I believe the company also looked at UiPath, Info Sales, and XCL. 

No tool, product, or technology is 100% foolproof. Each has its own set of pros and cons, including the solution. 

The common sales approach across the solution and other vendors is misleading. They make it look like a utopia where you will increase productivity by 200% in six weeks. This is not possible because organizations can't do magic in six weeks. Some of the claims being made by developers or content providers are creating a false impression in terms of senior management. There is no magic wand. There has to be automation. It looks and sounds simple, but implementation is not that easy. Your program, team, and communications management need to move in tandem to give you the inputs or outputs for sensitivities around people, roles, responsibilities, and training. 

It is important to be realistic when launching a new product or partnering with a player in the market. Be open and honest with customers. Don't make things too glamorous because it will be difficult to achieve that expectation. Stop overselling it and just be natural. A lot of consolidation is happening in the space and customers are aware because they read Forrester and Gartner. You can't fool customers so be honest and let them know that the solution needs to be managed by human beings. 

The biggest lesson is to understand the functionalities you need before you buy the solution. Determine if the solution passes the litmus test. Be cautious about overselling it and instead set the right expectations. 

Ask upfront if some additional features can be bundled because that will really help with your automation journey. 

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

I basically develop automations and also configure and create new scripts. I do user testing and separate testing as well.

We use it for legacy applications. We can automate legacy applications well, even with complexity.

It's very easy to use. It helps streamline manual processes. Manual work can cost the company a lot of money, but with an automation, work can be just a click of a button. That, and the work is more accurate and happens much faster. Any manual processes can be automated.

While it does use AI, we don't use it too much. We're looking at it. However, it's not something we prioritize.

I like that we can customize almost anything. You can create workflows fairly easily.

Even if users do not have technical skills, they can still use Automation Anywhere. It's not hard to learn.

I did training over one or two weeks. However, I did find some of the training challenging, specifically in areas where I didn't have any background. That said, I'm using it with legacy applications, which makes some things more complex. For most users, it would be very easy to get going.

We did see near immediate results once we started using Automation Anywhere. Within a week or two, once we started testing it, we could see how useful it was.

It's saved us time and money so far. We were able to do reports both before and after running Automation Anywhere and could compare the results and we were able to see that we did actually record savings on both counts.

The scripting can be a complex depending on project.

I've used the solution for the past three years.

The stability is very good. That said, it's not 100% stable. Sometimes it does crash.

 Automation Anywhere features highly robust, cloud-native scalability that allows enterprises to smoothly transition from a handful of bots to an industrial-scale, AI-driven digital workforce. Driven by its Automation 360 platform and Agentic Process Automation (APA) system, the architecture handles massive volume spikes, multi-geography deployments, and complex workflows without requiring expensive infrastructural overhauls

I've never contacted technical support.

Process Robot. main reason to switch from process robot to Automation Anywhere was that AA is most flexible with legacy applications.

The initial setup was fairly straightforward. Our team did not find it to be difficult. our deployment team was pretty small. We only had four or five people working on it. It was easy to upgrade as well. There is some maintenance needed, including the need to take logs. However, it doesn't take too much time.

The price is a bit higher than other options.

We did look at other options; however, we needed something that could handle legacy automation, and Automation Anywhere made the most sense.

I'm a customer and end-user.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

New users should be knowledgeable enough to write scripts, as that's the main issue. However, it's a good solution for automating small processes.

We used Automation Anywhere to automate three SAP projects.

We implemented Automation Anywhere to update company code levels with a new general ledger and profit and loss accounts. This update was based on conditions involving multiple P codes and SAP instances.

Previously, updating the general ledgers across multiple SAP instances was a manual process, but it has since been automated.

Automation Anywhere is easy to learn, with a dedicated certification that takes one month to complete. However, to gain sufficient practical experience, users typically require at least six months to work on automation projects.

Automation Anywhere has helped save costs by, for example, doing the job of two full-time employees.

We have integrated SAP desktop automation, Web applications, and ServiceNow with Automation Anywhere.

We use ServiceNow APIs to manage tickets, not the application itself. All actions, including updating ticket details, processing, and adding comments, are performed through the APIs. If processing is successful, we update the ticket comments via the API. For any issues, we attach logs and update the comments with the error message before closing the ticket, all through the ServiceNow API.

Automation Anywhere has helped save costs and time and has reduced the number of human errors.

The Automation Anywhere interface is user-friendly, allowing even new users to grasp the basics within a few hours. While I haven't used Blue Prism, its interface appears more complex. Other automation tools also present a steeper learning curve than Automation Anywhere.

The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface. When updated packages are available, we receive demos and can practice the automation in the portal.

Automation Anywhere's frequent updates are unnecessary and disruptive. Updates are often pushed for no apparent reason, even for perfectly functional packages. This excessive update frequency is undesirable and should be reduced.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for two and a half years.

I would rate the stability of Automation Anywhere eight out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of Automation Anywhere seven out of ten.

The initial deployment is straightforward. We move code from private to public in a zip file and provide it to the developers. It takes approximately ten minutes.

I have heard that Automation Anywhere is expensive.

I would rate Automation Anywhere eight out of ten.

Our client is an enterprise business.

Two leads and three support people are required to maintain Automation Anywhere. Once we develop the bot, we hand it to the support team.

We have approximately 2,000 users of Automation Anywhere.

Automation Anywhere helps automate routine tasks, freeing employees to focus on other areas, and can even automate processes with underdeveloped back-end systems.

We deployed Automation Anywhere for our clients. It is used for tasks like HR, procurement, supply chain, visa processing, client onboarding, etc. 

Productivity increased when we implemented Automation Anywhere, but it did not meet the client's expectations regarding the number of human workers it replaced. We are currently trying to optimize it to use the maximum potential channels and identify ways to improve performance.

The clients are willing to use AI. They are conservative about it but still progressing in that direction.  The integration of Automation Anywhere into our clients' workflows, APIs, business applications, and documents was seamless, but it was a bit of a struggle until we realized that it has a built-in integration platform. Using the platform, we could define the process so that it also does downstream automation as well. 

Automation Anywhere's central command center is good. We've used Automation Anywhere's AI copilot. It can integrate with around 70 to 80 percent of our client's applications. There are still issues with the other 20 to 30 percent. 

We had some issues with screen-scaping and recording. Also, some of the components are not user-friendly enough compared to UiPath. The learning curve isn't very long if you come from a programming background, but it may be difficult for someone without a technical background to understand. 

We used Automation Anywhere for two years. 

Automation Anywhere is stable. 

Automation Anywhere is quite scalable.

I rate Automation Anywhere support eight out of ten. We get support from local partners. It's good. 

We also use UiPath. It depends on the client's preference.

The initial setup was complex, but upgrading the automations was easy. The bots require some monitoring. It isn't more than an hour daily. We check to see if there are any issues or whether a process has gotten stuck. That's rare. 

I rate Automation Anywhere seven out of ten. There are many more tools on the market that are much better than automation anywhere.

We use Automation Anywhere in a DevOps environment. 

Automation Anywhere helps us resolve some friction between IT needs and business requirements. In an agile environment, the first questions are always: How much money do you have? What is your budget? Automation Anywhere or any other RPA solution can help you achieve your goals within budget constraints by lowering operational costs. It increases productivity and reduces errors.

I like Automation Anywhere's cloud-based nature. You don't need any on-prem infrastructure to host it. If you have suitable infrastructure, you can easily integrate it with Automation Anywhere. The learning curve is reasonable. Automation Anywhere has a user-friendly environment, but digesting all the platform's features takes significant time. 

It's challenging to train users on Automation Anywhere. There should be more organized training sessions. I prefer interactive classes to one-on-one training. You can create super users and organize conferences or workshops where users can learn from experts. Maybe you only have a few of these super users in your organization, so that's why you need to have workshops on a weekly basis. 

I have used Automation Anywhere for three to five years. 

I rate Automation Anywhere seven out of ten for stability. 

I rate Automation Anywhere support seven out of ten.

Neutral

I previously used UiPath at a past job but switched when I started work at my current company. 

I rate Automation Anywhere seven out of ten. 

I have primarily worked in the presales as well as in the sales cycle. I do not have hands-on experience with the tool. I have a team of people who are the continuous improvement folks who work in a particular area. We have developers or continuous improvement people who leverage the tool and go ahead and help to get them deployed. For example, if it is UiPath's process mining capabilities, they basically plug the data and do other things. They do the work, and we ensure that we drive the transformation and build the business connects for the customer. So, my role is very different. I am a management consultant. My core hands-on experience is not with digital tools in itself, but I leverage digital tools to drive transformation for a customer. As part of my role, I understand the features and the value add that it brings to the table. I do quality assurance of the outputs that are generated. I also ensure that teams are able to work in a client environment because they need to be able to access the client environment. I also need to drive transformation because there is a lot of stakeholder management. There is a lot of project management that is needed. I work in that area and that sphere. I am not a technical person as such, but when a tool is deployed, I understand how to execute the implementation, how to drive the discussions, and with automation, how to drive value for my customers. That is my area of expertise.

People primarily use it to fast-track and automate transactional, repeatable tasks. By using Automation Anywhere, people want the execution of transactional activities. It could be the back office. It could be the middle office. I have not seen front office use cases, but I am sure there are use cases for that. I have only seen a lot of middle office and back office activities. For example, in the Procurement area, a typical transactional activity would be PR to PO, where information is readily available. That is the use case where it can be easily applicable. Likewise, in the Accounts Payable area, you can use Automation Anywhere to execute automation for payment processing activities. The finance area has got a lot of use cases. They could be reconciliation-related activities, data-gathering activities from different documents, etc. In some areas of Audit to Cash, it could be even looking up invoices and answering customer queries that are pretty straightforward. These are the high-level use cases that I have seen.

Typically, when you are able to execute any repeatable task in an organizational environment, you enhance organizational AI capability. The reason is that your increased accuracy will improve the predictability of the AI algorithm for getting the job transactional activities completed. For example, if somebody is going to create a purchase requisition and the average turnaround time is five days, with a bot, I can get the purchase requisition created in one day. The organization can check and see what is the rate of improvement or what is the predictability of getting the orders received for producing the finished goods. When you look at the end-to-end view, you get predictability to say when will my goods reach the customer. You get to know that by improving one area with automation and ensuring that the work is done in a repeatable manner, you can improve your predictability by a certain percentage, so any automation of a particular process will improve an organization's AI capability. 

The biggest integration is how it integrates with the system of record. When you automate a process per se, you are extracting information or reading information out of a system of record. It could be SAP. It could be Oracle. It could be Microsoft Dynamics, but Microsoft has its tool called Power Automate. That is one level of system integration. The other level of system integration is where you have a front-facing bot. For example, anything to do with query management or queries that keep coming via mail or shared service portals. These integrations are a little different from the ones that you have with a system of record. Automation Anywhere integrates pretty seamlessly for both types of automation. The system of record integration can be a little bit of a challenge as compared to the regular mail servers or shared service portals because of the permissions and the security checks that are needed. Getting VDI access becomes a little bit challenging because customers sometimes are not comfortable giving full-fledged access during the UAT. It becomes a little bit challenging, but it also depends upon the maturity of the customer and the nature of the business. They are not comfortable giving full-fledged access because it will create problems for them, but after that, when it gets into the live environment, things are a lot easier and streamlined. It has nothing to do with Automation Anywhere. It is just about the maturity and the protocols that a customer has in place. These aspects make it easier to integrate with Automation Anywhere or any other service provider. Based on what my peers have mentioned to me, it is not challenging to integrate with APIs, etc. It is pretty seamless. There are not too many issues. There might have been a challenge in a specific situation, but by and large, in general, the capability it offers is pretty standard for a typical automation tool.

There have been a lot of use cases where we have used Automation Anywhere to save time and costs. Typically, any automation gives you 20% to 30% efficiency. That is what I have seen. That is an average. In some cases, it could be high, and in some cases, it could be low depending on the task and the domain, but 20% to 30% efficiency is typically possible.

Since implementing the solution, the tasks are taking place in a seamless manner. As long as the process is not changed, there is the ease of replicability. Repeatable tasks constantly get done without any challenges. 

There is also an increase in the efficiency of the people. There is reduced turnaround time for responses or getting the activities done.

We work with lots of digital tools, and I have been engaged with teams for the last seven years or so.

They are one of the top service providers for automation. They are definitely stable.

Automations are also pretty stable. Automation works on the fact that you are not changing your process. As long as things are repeatable, every automation software does the same thing. Challenges come when you do upgrades to your ERP, or for that matter, you make one simple change in the process. That is when you have any stability-related challenges.

I believe they can do automation at scale.

It has been a long time since I reached out to them for support. As a service provider, they are always there to provide support. The challenges happen in terms of how the deal was constructed, what was agreed, and where were the gaps in understanding. That is where the issues happen. There are usually many unknowns. I would rate them an eight out of ten based on my experience a while ago.

We work with lots of digital tools. We have leveraged UiPath in the past. We are platinum partners with some of the service providers.

 I know that Automation Anywhere, UiPath, or any other solution has its own specific nuances, but the gap between them is closing up technically. In terms of value, I do see that Automation Anywhere offers value.

The tool selection depends on the partnership deal. It depends on who an organization is considering and the approach for partnership deals. In my organization, we have different partners with whom we work. How you partner with an organization and approach that organization is one of the big differentiators. I know there are not too many players out there in the market. You only have big fours. The key thing is how you are partnering with them and how you are going into the market and taking their support. The second thing is how you are promoting the key capability that you are bringing to the table and how you are comparing it with other people. For example, I know that UiPath has process mining capability, but Automation Anywhere is offering AI capabilities. If I go to a customer and immediately start talking about AI via automation, it is a little drawn-out process for me, whereas with process mining, I can immediately plug and play the data and tell them what are the challenges and for those long run activities, what are my automation possibilities. The positioning is important, but I am not undermining the AI capabilities that Automation Anywhere brings. 

I was not involved in the deployment of Automation Anywhere. I work with the RPA team.

The deployment environment varies. It is dependent on the client's environment. It depends on where your data is and where you are doing the automation. If you are doing automation on the data fabric for reporting purposes and you are deploying a bot to gather the data from specific tables, you might put it onto a data fabric or a data lake. If you are working on PR to PO, that information is going to be on a system of record. It might be on the server itself. It is truly use-case-dependent in my view.

In terms of maintenance, customers typically buy the licenses, but these days, I see that customers prefer to use one main partner for all their licenses because it is easy to manage that one main partner. It could be the largest partner they have in their set of vendors who are supporting them for all IT-related activities. If they buy it from them, they do not need to do maintenance, but if they buy the licenses themselves, they may need maintenance. It depends on whom they are engaging with and what is the purchasing model of licenses.

They all are very competitive today. At the end of the day, it boils down to the negotiations that happen and what type of partner you are. Are you a premium partner or are you a preferred partner or a gold partner? Prices are very standardized. There could be a little bit of deviation, but they are comparable. It is a pretty saturated market because everybody has been doing our RPA for the last decade, so they are pretty competitive in pricing.

Every customer is at a different maturity level. Customers at a high level of maturity of process standardization definitely are looking at the next wave of evolution with generative AI. To do some things in generative AI, there have to be some elements of automation. Companies that are not so mature or the small and medium are not yet there. They are trying to digitize the ways of working. They want to ensure that they have the right framework structure within the organization. They are experimenting with automation, but it is more like a basic level of automation. Mature companies with billions of dollars in revenue have already been doing it for the past many years. They are taking up more of the generative AI opportunity to enhance and go deep into those areas.

I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

We work with partners to implement the application on several customer sites, typically banking, financial security, and insurance. We work as a service provider. It's used, for example, in the banking sector to handle processes and tasks. It helps automate. 

We've implemented more than 3,000 business processes for customers. 

It helps improve performance and helps companies save time and money. Customers have been very happy with the experience so far. We've saved about 10% to 15% of time and costs. One robot can help replace a portion of the workforce. 

The security on offer is very good. 

AI has big potential right now. We're trying to support organizations that want to integrate it. We're trying to increase AI capabilities.

It's a pretty easy solution to use for business users that are not technical. They can learn the tool very fast. In maybe six weeks, even with no previous experience, they can go to the market to implement the service for the client. After a while, they can become very proficient in using it. 

It's easy to integrate with other applications. We can integrate automation into workflow APIs, business applications, et cetera. 

The product has helped increase productivity. 

There could be more training provided by Automation Anywhere. 

We've faced some economic problems based on the exchange rate. 

A major impediment to using CoPilot is that many of our users cannot access the cloud. They need to work with the on-premises version. 

I've used the solution for five years, since 2019.

The solution is stable. 

The solution has been scalable. 

Technical support is good. 

Positive

I'm also familiar with UiPath and IBM RPA.

How easy or difficult the setup is depends on the customer's level of knowledge. Most of our clients are in banking and require on-premises deployments. Even government entities cannot use the cloud. We are comfortable with deployments and find the process to be straightforward.  Sometimes it is difficult to upgrade from older versions. 

We have five people out of a team of 13 that can handle any maintenance. Maybe 20% of our team would be involved in maintenance. 

The pricing of the solution is flexible. 

We did compare Automation Anywhere with UiPath. Automation Anywhere could offer more marketing and training. 

I'm aware of the CoPilot feature. However, we do not have clients using it. We're trying to introduce the tool to the market and to the customer. However, it has the potential to be a good application. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

Our journey started with a migration initiative with something that already existed in an RPA solution. Then we started expanding and we started going into finance and HR activities. We use it in different entities and have been working with Automation Anywhere to build automation. We're seeing a lot of very good use cases that help deliver very good ROI. 

Our company is quite large. We have several hundred applications and systems, including legacy systems. As part of a recent merger, part of our work is consolidating these systems. There are a lot of challenges. Someone has to manually perform activities, for example, to be an integrator between two systems. We use Automation Anywhere to bridge the gap. Wherever we can find and remove the human from repetitive tasks, we use Automation Anywhere. 

This is a cloud solution. The framework we had before was on-premises. We wanted to move to the cloud, and that was a huge change. We're also able to redesign and refine processes that may have already been in place.

During our migration initiative, we were able to talk to different customer groups and revisit aspects to make things better and do things that may be needed. We were able to effectively optimize the processes and redo what was already in the existing platforms.

There is a lot of interest in operationalizing AI. There's a lot of buzz around generative AI. We've been reviewing different AI services. However, our focus has been more on orchestrating an entire end-to-end process, not just the AI. When we're talking with all the groups, we try to identify which steps can be automated, and add AI into the mix, if it is needed and it makes sense. We've had a lot of opportunities to work within legal, corporate, finance, HR, et cetera, and we're working to bring more use cases into production. Right now, it's all in proof of concept. 

The leadership is very invested in generative AI and doing a lot of research. There's a separate team that does InfoSec reviews. We're undergoing a stringent vetting process. We're in the analysis phase to ensure the data stays within the model and doesn't go outside the LLM for training. 

We are finding opportunities to implement some hyper-automation options. 

Automation Anywhere and even previous versions, which I've worked on, have good core functionality. The core functionality of being able to automate and build a solution that is local and low code is one of the key differentiators that's allowed us to find success. 

It's easy for business users who don't have technical skills. We try to build and help users build automation quicker. We've built a framework around it that's made it easier for everyone to build automation. 

The learner curve for users is okay. The curves are different for end users. We have a large footprint of citizen developers, and some take quicker or longer depending on prior project commitments. It depends on the amount of time they can commit to it.

We've used the automation copilot, which is quite useful.

We have a lot of internal tools. A lot of finance and HR, for example, have specific apps and platforms. We've established a lot of connectivity with other apps. If there's an interest that business users want to start building, we already have the framework in place, which makes integrations fast.

We get a seamless experience when using the packages. There are constant upgrades. It doesn't stay stagnant; there are new features added to it. The consistent growth of the packages has remained seamless.

We save time and money. I can't share exact details, however, we do have good ROI. We track time, compliance, cost avoidance, et cetera. Everything is heavily tracked, and we make it available for leadership to review. 

The improvements have already been rolled into recent releases, like better governance models. From a GenAI perspective, there are good releases like automation pilot and copilot that are already part of the product's release agenda. 

They need to improve the stability of the core functionality. If they keep the core constant and constant, they will continue to thrive. It needs to stay consistent. 

I have a long history with the solution. With my current company, we've been using it since 2021. However, in my previous roles, I've worked with it as well. 

The platform is highly scalable. That's one of the key advantages. We build at first on a smaller scale, and build it up over time. The scaling part has been really seamless. It's been good so far. 

We've had a great experience with technical support. They've partnered with us in terms of the challenges we face. We have a collaborative relationship and have had a positive experience. 

As the product evolves, it would be great to have more support and have them up to date on the latest and greatest. The teams should be constantly upgraded to ensure that if something goes wrong, they can handle anything - that will be important for the future.

Positive

We do use other tools that are low code/no code, such as ServiceNow, SalesForce, et cetera.

Everyone tries to improve their opportunities. This competitiveness has helped the product evolve. 

We've deployed processes within a week, while others might take four or six weeks, depending on the complexity. We have release schedules and release controls in place. Everything is streamlined, and we test before the automation goes live. 

We're on the cloud, so we do not have to upgrade anything. 

Maintenance is more on the partner-owner and device side. There might also be work upgrading and testing packages and new features. We do spend some time when a new feature comes out to test it before we actually upgrade our packages.

The licensing isn't an area I can discuss in great detail. 

I'd rate the product eight out of ten. They have been an industry-leading automation solution provider. They have a lot of experience, and the core functionality is great. Keeping up with the market and putting in new competence into the product - the constant innovation - makes the product impressive.