Automation Anywhere Reviews

I deployed this solution mostly in the finance and accounting space. We had two primary use cases. One was automating the procured invoice to pay process and the other was automating the order to cash cycle, OTC process.

It increased productivity. It raised the productivity percentage of individuals 20 to 35%. We also saw cost reduction.

Automation Anywhere was easier to learn for the developers. It has a lot of out of box features when it comes to SAP, Excel, and others. However, on the other hand, I did not like one feature which is a built-in linear code that is a straight line and it does not have the modular functionality of UiPath so the code becomes one long code and if you need to make changes you need to look through the entire code and make changes. After the code is returned, even if there are some changes in the process, the support cycle is really difficult because, with UiPath, it's modular in structure. For example, one variable changes so it's declared as a variable and you can just change it and the code automatically reflects the change. It creates a nightmare to maintain. That was the one key drawback from Automation Anywhere. The good thing about Automation Anywhere was learning the best practices of it and using the development framework was easier so getting developers who knew AA was relatively easier than getting developers who knew UiPath or Blue Prism.

We faced a big challenge when moving from AA9 to 10. That was a nightmare. The whole process took six months to one year because we had to do it for 12 to 15 clients in my organization and I was leading the Automation Anywhere deployment for 25 clients.

The biggest issue was that the new license required upgraded hardware infrastructure so we were getting all new tech stuff procured which meant that we were getting updated RAMs and things like that. Getting the licenses was easier but building the infrastructure which was required to support the new version was difficult.

Automation Anywhere is one of the least stable RPA tools out of the top five RPA solutions. A lot of times you need to rely on certain features that are really unstable. Three years back 90% of our projects were on AA. Two years back it became 70% with 20% being on Blue Prism and 10% UiPath. This year onwards it's around 50% on UiPath and 50% on Automation Anywhere. The reason why we have 50% on AA is because we have a developer strain on AA. The code is not stable. You have to recode again and again. Then when you do recode, changing the code is really tough.

Scalability is good. It's one of the better ones.

We didn't face any issues from their technical support. They were responsive and helpful.

The initial setup is more straightforward compared to other solutions like UiPath. Initially, it is relatively difficult. If you have a very simple straight linear process then Automation Anywhere is easy to implement and to deploy but as soon as you get into complexities or where you have more rules like finance or accounting where I deployed specifically at times, there are a lot of variances in the process. That's where Automation Anywhere actually becomes a headache to manage.

If you implement it right way the ROI can start within one year. It delivers quick benefits in terms of ROI.

It's cheaper than other similar solutions.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten. 

I would advise two things to someone considering this solution. Go for it if you are positive it is very simple and you understand your processing end to end. It is a cheaper tool compared to others and the initial implementation is relatively easier. You will get results faster. Second, if your process has many variations, is complex, and you do not know a lot about your process, do not use Automation Anywhere, otherwise, you will run into trouble while going live and after support.

My primary use cases are where I'm dealing with a lot of raw data extraction and transformation so that the data can be used by other systems.

An example would be getting the data out of PDF files, transforming it from semi-structured to structured and putting it into an extra-stable system like Excel or a CSV so that it can be used by other systems.

A lot of clients I work with have legacy systems and a lot of API access is not available. Some of the systems might be running off a server located somewhere else, while some would be running on a mainframe and I'm actually restricted to working with the screen. So these clients have a very good use case. If I'm working with the screens, Automation Anywhere really does help me because it gives me the control over the screens. If you are not looking at integrating legacy software, Automation Anywhere gets the job done. But if you need integration then you start looking for other RPA tools.

It definitely saves time and effort. Improving the workflow, that's not something Automation Anywhere provides. That's a different challenge altogether - to do a business process improvement so that automation gives you even more value. That type of process works in combination with Automation Anywhere, but it's not a part of Automation Anywhere. So the process improvement is separate. We optimize the process and then we run it through Automation Anywhere.

You can probably use any similar tools. But Automation Anywhere is one tool that actually gives me automation capability right at the start, without worrying about process improvement in the first place. I can just act like how another person would. Whereas if I do a little bit of process optimization, I can use another tool also. If I get access to APIs, I might use Blue Prism. If I get access to web elements, I go the way of UiPath. If it is a human-mimicking behavior, that's where I use Automation Anywhere.

What I like about Automation Anywhere is the object cloning and the way you can move the mouse and either go to a particular point or go to an element. That's very easy and intuitive in Automation Anywhere.

It gets the job done in terms of getting the data out of the pages. Although I have other tools, I still have this habit of going through the clicks. If you're going through the clicks, Automation Anywhere is the best.

Let's say you are on a website. You move the mouse around. You click on certain places. Automation Anywhere is better at that because you can adjust the screen directly or you can adjust the element. Whereas in, let's say, UiPath, it's a little bit complicated on the inside because there isn't a direct command for that. I have to go to a web scraper. In Automation Anywhere, I have the direct command to move my mouse. If I need to mimic a human behavior, I will use Automation Anywhere.

Automation Anywhere is troublesome for some people because of the way it is organized. It's organized as an encrypted script, which gets run via a domain-specific language which the user sees. 

There's a loss of overhead on the computing resources in Automation Anywhere. If you have an encrypted bot, the Automation Anywhere software has to read it first, decrypt it, and run it. So there is a potential that, if the logic of the bot isn't good enough, a lot of CPU and memory overload will happen. This is something that Automation Anywhere should look at because it takes a lot of computing resources. I have seen CPUs running at 100 percent.

In terms of additional features, if I am dealing with a dynamic workflow where the workflow might change based on the input parameters, then Automation Anywhere doesn't help me because the code is pretty much fixed. When I need those types of workflows I go to UiPath.

It's highly stable. I'm pretty happy with Automation Anywhere. I'm pretty happy with the security of the bot. Once you make a bot, if you don't have access to Automation Anywhere, you really can't mess with the bot. I'm pretty happy with the stability. 

The only problem I have is that it takes a lot of memory and CPU usage for Automation Anywhere to do its internal encrypting and decrypting.

I'm not yet happy with the scalability of Automation Anywhere. Scalability is good up to about 100 bots. Beyond that, I need to spread it into multiple sites, which means there is additional licensing cost.

I would give Automation Anywhere's technical support about three-and-a-half out of five. They do have a lot of information published, but the response times aren't great within India, where we are located. I can't say anything about support in other markets.

One thing they need to improve on is the way they have been putting out so many terminologies in the market: IQ Bots, MetaBots. They need to define them properly, in simple terms. If I go to my client and say "IQ Bot" or "MetaBot," they don't understand anything. It falls back on us to figure out whether these types of things will be useful for our process or not.

Regarding their support, when they bring in these features, like IQ Bot and MetaBot, there isn't a lot of documentation that comes with them, which can cause confusion in the client's mind as well as the developer's mind. Even Automation Anywhere's guys aren't really clear on IQ Bots, MetaBots, and things within Automation Anywhere because, when we ask, they just give us the definition. That's not very helpful.

It's pretty straightforward in terms of setting it up. It's not a lot of work, as compared to what you would do in Blue Prism, or even in or WorkFusion. I would say UiPath is the easiest to install and configure, while Automation Anywhere would be number two. Blue Prism would be way down because it's difficult installing and configuring it.

It doesn't take much time to deploy Automation Anywhere. We have built a script. We just run the script and within three or four minutes we are done. We don't really install Automation Anywhere by running it and then monitoring it, rather the script automatically installs it. That script lightens our load; we automate our own jobs as well.

In terms of implementation strategy, we have a set of requirements for the client's environment and hardware. For the environment, we need to look at the .NET framework, which version, the directory structure, folder structure, paths. And there are multiple items to be checked out regarding the hardware: We need to look at the RAM, the hard disk space, the connectivity. There's a lot of checking which must be done, but we do that through the script itself.

We have all the environments set up in one local place and once the script runs it goes and installs all the required software components. The .NET framework will be installed, the run-time engine will be installed, Automation Anywhere will be installed, and the policies will be set automatically for at least the end user, so that we can go and create more users.

Once we have the hardware, and once we are ready to install the environment, it takes us about 15 to 20 minutes.

For deployment of Automation Anywhere, we don't need a lot of staff. But when we are deploying the bots, we generally have an experienced guy who will look at the deployment of the bots within the Control Room. That's a different scenario altogether.

We don't require a lot of people for maintenance. What we do is, we transfer some of the load to the client's staff, in terms of monitoring and scheduling. Of course, we have one person keeping an eye on the entire thing. We have one person on a chargeable basis per client location. And this person also doesn't have a lot of work, so sometimes this person moves among the sites if there is no problem at all with the installation.

Companies now are not willing to put a large investment up front into these tools, unless the service provider that is developing the bots can assure that the bot will be successful and there will be certain savings. Clients are actually talking to the service providers first, rather than the RPA Software Vendors. It used to be that Automation Anywhere would go to the customer, convince them and sell them five licenses, and then the client would go out and start hunting for Automation Anywhere service providers or resources. The whole model has now changed 180 degrees. Now the clients are more interested in talking to consultants and trying to figure out which tool would be good, how many licenses they would need, what the scalability roadmap is, what will they be doing again in six months, 12 months, two years, etc.

It's hard to get a clear picture of the financial value that it can bring. For example, when we go in, we look at a process and we look at the value that automating the process can bring in, but there are other aspects which we look at, which are a kind of "chain effect." If I automate this, what else will break in the whole chain of processes? When there are processes A, B, and C, if I automate B, either A or C or both will feel the heat from this automation effort. If A and C are not conducive to screen-based automation, then I am in a fix because I can automate B using Automation Anywhere, but for A and C, I might need to use something else.

That type of analysis is now coming into the picture. Earlier, it was: Pick a process, automate it, feel the benefit, and then go for another. That is one reason why now we can also recommend hybrid models where multiple tools could be used via a single interface. We have to build the interface to Automation Anywhere and UiPath, or Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism to get the job done. That becomes an additional cost to the client.

If you look at the capital expenditure, Automation Anywhere is number two to UiPath. But if you take a long-term view, on a scalable model of a large number of bots coming out, it slowly goes on to become the costliest tool. There is something they can do about that.

I did a cost comparison on short-term basis, long-term basis, CapEx versus OpEx, and Automation Anywhere is the costliest. Surprisingly, Blue Prism becomes the cheapest, if you look at the long-term view.

That's because of the licensing terms, the pricing policy, and the engagement models. Blue Prism doesn't want you to buy just one license. They want you to sign up for the long-term, for at least a minimum block of ten licenses. Automation Anywhere can give you a single license, so the capital expenditure is low. But as you go on, the OpEx, the regular increase in the number of licenses and the price per, starts to add up.

The capital expenditure goes out right at the point of buying the tool. For Automation Anywhere, I would need to spend $20,000. UiPath can give me something for $6,000, while Blue Prism will come in at $300,000. If I'm just experimenting, or I don't have a need for a large number of bots, or I can optimize my design to run bots sequentially on the same machine, Automation Anywhere vs UiPath is quite comparable.

Every tool has its own drawbacks. Blue Prism would probably be an eight out of ten, but the nearest comparable tool to Automation Anywhere would be Softomotive WinAutomation. They both work on the same principles, although the internal storage is different. WinAutomation also works on a domain-specific language system, and I would rate it a little notch higher than Automation Anywhere and give it a seven-and-a-half out of ten, but they are all in the same category. I don't really see any of them getting a ten, on my scale, right now.

UiPath can do wonders, but the technology is old. If I want to do machine-learning, I can't do it with UiPath. I would have to create another "open UiPath" for myself to be able to use machine-learning and artificial intelligence libraries which are there in the market, because I can't use them with UiPath. That's where UiPath also loses a couple of points.

It's a very dynamic market and everyday new tricks are being discovered. My advice would be: Look at your process. If your process is screen-based, doesn't have a lot of things to do with APIs, go for Automation Anywhere. If somebody's looking specifically to implement Automation Anywhere, irrespective of what process they're automating, I would probably call it a bad move.

Role-wise, we follow our own system. We have a solution designer and we have an architect. These two guys work hand-in-hand, from solution design to a technical architecture of the Automation Anywhere bot. Then we have developers who develop the system. And we have the leads, of course, who are managers. They are senior staff who understand how the bot code is to be published and released into the Control Room. Most of the time, it's the solution designer and the architects who are critical for us, rather than the developers. The development part is easier than the design part. Designing automation takes a lot out of us.

In our organization we have 42 people, and most of these are multi-skilled on multiple tools. We do only specialized stuff, so some 20 of them would have been working on Automation Anywhere at some point. We use multiple tools. We are tool agnostic. We figure out which tool to use and go with that tool.

We don't have plans to push future usage of Automation Anywhere, most importantly because of extensibility of the tool: I can't extend it. So we created a workflow tool for ourselves similar to UiPath, but it's open to extensions. I don't see a lot of projects happening on Automation Anywhere for us unless the customer asks for it. In the Asia-Pacific market, it's either UiPath or Automation Anywhere. If they don't have a tool then, of course, we'll have to look at the type of project and recommend a tool.

I would rate Automation Anywhere at seven out of ten. The architecture is great. It's only the way they have tried to protect their own bots that is causing them to cannibalize themselves. Otherwise, it is great software. It works on a domain-specific language. You really don't need to understand .NET or Visual Basic or C# to work with it. The domain-specific language is more like English. They have done a great job making something, but there is a big scope for improvement if they want to really unsettle the other guys.

In my opinion, instead of sitting in their offices and not conversing with people out there, there are a lot of things Automation Anywhere can do if it listens to the people who are actually evaluating it, using it, and are happy or unhappy with it. I don't really see a mechanism where Automation Anywhere can be seen listening to this feedback. Secondly, they should be more open about their roadmap and where they are going with Automation Anywhere. What I want them to do is to make some more noise about their plans, rather than their current situation, because customers are not looking to buy Automation Anywhere for the next three years. They're looking to buy it so that if their processes change or if Automation Anywhere changes, it can still be usable for their organizations.

I can't keep on changing tools. Let's say I use Automation Anywhere where it's obvious and then it becomes unsuitable, so I have to change to another tool. That rarely happens because the users are familiar with it and change is the biggest barrier. People don't want to change. And the cost of training is actually more than the cost of the Automation Anywhere tool itself. You need to train different people with different skills, not only in Automation Anywhere but for every tool. You need different skills and different people to actually make the whole thing work.

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. 

We use Automation Anywhere for our Finance department.

Automation Anywhere is cost-effective.

The ability of Automation Anywhere to provide automation at scale is quite good.

Automation Anywhere integrates well with APIs, RPA bots, and business applications.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization increase its automation consumption by over 20 percent.

The customization feature should be made more user-friendly in order to enable the use of external reference components.

The technical support has room for improvement.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for three years.

Automation Anywhere is stable.

Automation Anywhere is hardly scalable.

We are a partner of Automation Anywhere and find the pricing to be reasonable. There is an additional cost for using OCR.

We evaluated UiPath, but the cost is higher compared to Automation Anywhere.

I give Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.

Users of Automation Anywhere should possess programming skills. The learning curve for the solution is straightforward. Training for Automation Anywhere does not exceed two weeks.

If the solution is maintained by the business user, I believe that robot automation processes are better, as they do not require the same skill set.

We use Automation Anywhere in our Finance, Pricing, and Purchasing departments.

Automation Anywhere requires a significant amount of maintenance. The maintenance is performed by me and two of our business partners and requires approximately ten minutes of testing per day to ensure everything is running properly.

Our organization is planning to transition from using Automation Anywhere to Blue Prism Cloud due to our business requirements. I highly recommend Automation Anywhere to other users.

Automation Anywhere is a suitable solution for businesses.

Our primary use cases for Automation Anywhere (AA) are billing, email automation, and ticketing.

Most of the features of Automation Anywhere (AA) are good, but one big feature which I really like is its OCR (optical character recognition) feature.

Another important feature of this solution is how it handles variables, e.g. my engineers don't need to have complete programming expertise, and they don't need to declare variables and get variables captured on the fly.

I also find the accuracy rate of this solution valuable, and I like that it performs better after implementation. Most of the features of this solution are amazing.

Multiple things still need to be improved in Automation Anywhere (AA), and the key thing is its error handling command, though it has come a long way from the previous version. This solution still has a lot to improve on error handling, especially when compared to other platforms that are doing very well.

Another area for improvement is its file handling. Automation Anywhere (AA) now supports automating file-related operations, but that still needs to be improved. We can directly import and do the script, e.g. the script feature is new and is found in the latest version, but still needs a lot of improvement.

An additional feature I'd like to see in this solution is more scripting integration. Integration needs to be fluid, e.g. integration of different items are in the latest version, but it always comes with limitations.

If a more fluid integration can be built into Automation Anywhere (AA), I can go and unpack a project file, open it, then from there, I'll know that we need to extract the data. Currently, the native RPA takes a whole lot of time to open a particular file, then read the data. It's always easier to utilize the data frame, read and slice the data, then take what's next. In that note, we can enable the RPA within itself, e.g. in-house data solution that can be integrated, making it a better solution. There is an integration feature in Automation Anywhere (AA), but it's not that fluid, and it's not easy to integrate. We always have to build something outside and integrate the whole process, and this needs to be improved.

I have experience with Automation Anywhere (AA) within the last 12 months, and I've been leading projects in a product manager capacity. I've worked with this solution for three years, using the previous generation and the latest generation, e.g. the 2019 version. I handled the implementation of the previous version and the transition and migration to the 2019 network.

Automation Anywhere (AA) has a lot of stability issues. It needs a lot of maintenance. If it runs 24/7 in the server, it's fine, but on the development machines or the VM (virtual machines), it isn't. We really need someone to attend to it, e.g. that person has to monitor the VM, then if an issue starts from the control room, we need to identify what's going on, then we may need to do something to the machine, or to the application. This is a problem in the previous version and the current version, and this solution hangs at times, for no reason at all.

Automation Anywhere (AA) is scalable, but we have not tried to scale it to a larger instance. The implementations we currently have are on-premises, and our costs are limited. We test if this solution works fine for the demos with clients we have worked with, but on the production side, we haven't tried to scale it for more than 20 or 30, and that's the limit we have.

I've contacted and escalated to the technical support team for this solution multiple times. I would rate them 3.5 out of five. They are quick to give support, but it could vary. Their second level technical support are good, but their first level technical support require a lot more insight into the tool and how they're handling issues.

The initial setup for Automation Anywhere (AA) was straightforward, but the current deployments we are working on are a bit complicated because these are switch solutions, and they are not straightforward.

We have multiple systems communicating with each other, e.g. the SaaS systems we need to interface with, then we have other data that we need to introduce to these systems. Because Automation Anywhere (AA) is an on-premises platform, we are looking into whether implementing or deploying it will be safe, but I believe it is safe. In most cases, when it comes to switch solutions where you want to switch your RPA on top of other automation or other technologies, it can be complicated, depending on the technology you're with. It can be complicated when you want to integrate with other systems.

We're paying for a yearly package for Automation Anywhere (AA). It's not a standard license. It's a license package, e.g. it comes with the fee for automation, or the license for the product, and anything beyond that, we pay a base fee, and whether we utilize it or not, it's paid for, and it has to be allocated. That's the current deal we have. What would be better is for them to have different packages for different types of organization.

As Automation Anywhere (AA) is an RPA platform, we have development users and end users, e.g. we have 14 developers who are working on it, and they are direct developers, then we have six citizen developers from the business side, who are certified and are using this product.

Automation Anywhere (AA) always requires maintenance, so we always need maintenance engineers to monitor the application around the clock. Because of cost implications, most clients don't use cloud solution assets, e.g. they use on-premises, which means a lot of maintenance is required.

My advice for people who want to start working with Automation Anywhere (AA) is to get a certification first, and then they also need to determine their purpose, e.g. what kind of case they want to work with. When their certification is ready, they still need to keep learning, especially when they run into issues. They should always get in touch with the forum, or they should get whatever knowledge or information they can take from their certifiers, or whatever organization they got their certification from. There is a learning curve, and it can either be quick to learn, or hard to learn.

I would rate Automation Anywhere (AA) an eight out of ten.

We are in services. We are consultants and we use these automation tools to automate processes for clients. I'm not using it for my own organization, however, I'm using it for clients' organizations.

Use cases are largely cross-business process automation, back office automation. It could be used in finance or accounting. It could be in underwriting, if it's an insurance client, for claims processing.

We have done automation largely in the lending space, including wealth management and customer onboarding. 

The solution helps with reducing operational costs, which can be reduced by up to 30% to 40% in savings in terms of operational cost. That's your basic benefit, which is delivered quite well.

It's usually the RPA functionality that I prefer, which is more widely used. They also have an IQ Bot for document processing, which is a bit of advanced OCR. That's not used as frequently as their RPA tool.

The stability is good.

As it is on the cloud, it's quite scalable. 

Their OCR is a bit expensive, meaning the IQ Bot. There are a lot of customers who don't want to use it due to the price tag. Maybe if they price it more aggressively, it could be widely used as well. Otherwise, it has pretty much industry-leading functionalities, similar to any other RPA tool. 

In general, their roadmap is well defined and we are pleased with its offering. 

I've used the solution for about two years. 

The solution is pretty stable. It's good. Whenever there are issues, there are frequent platform upgrades provided by the vendors. It's very stable.

The scalability is great as it is on the cloud. It can be scaled up pretty fast.

On average, I would say, per company that we've seen, there are close to 50 to 100, users - depending on the size of the organization. If it's a small bank, they have somewhere around 20 to 30 users, however, if it's a large company, it's closer to 100 to 200 users. We work with the solution on a daily basis.

We tend to contact technical support once a month. We deal with them pretty regularly. 

I'm also familiar with UiPath. UiPath and Automation Anywhere are often used in many organizations. UiPath can be on-prem or on the cloud, however, AA is basically now on the cloud. 

What we've largely seen is clients more using VBA or .NET-based automation solutions. Before moving into these platforms, either an Automation Anywhere or UiPath was used.

The initial setup is pretty simple and if any issues are noted, the vendor can assist.

The platform can be set up in two to three months. I have not seen clients directly start on the cloud version. Usually, people have had on-prem which they have migrated to the cloud. Basically, the on-prem setup took two to three months. Maybe if there are new clients who are starting directly with cloud, it could be lesser, maybe a month or so. 

From then on, subsequent automation of processes can take anywhere between two to four months, depending on the complexity. If you have a simple business process, for example, invoice processing or claims payment, that can take one to two months. If you have something more complex, that can take anywhere between two to three months.

In terms of the amount of maintenance, it depends on how many processes have been automated. Usually for a small-scale setup, if there are 50 bots or there are 50 automation, there could be maybe 5 FTEs required to maintain it. If the operations are large, with thousands of bots, the team size can vary anywhere between 30 to 50 FTEs. The larger the operations are and the larger number of processes that have been automated, the bigger the support team requirements are. On average, 1% should be able to support 6 to maybe 10 automations.

There's support from the vendor, so I don't see a major challenge in setting this up.

While the RPA is still competitively priced, usually IQ Bot is expensive. That's what we have seen.

For the OCR, my understanding is that it's a one-time cost. I've seen instances where it's $15,000 or so and on top of that there is some cost on every document processed or maybe a bunch of documents. Per every 1,000 documents processed there is a cost that is recurring. That said, the initial one-time cost is quite high.

We are AA partners. 

I would recommend the solution based on its scalability and stability. 

Generally, people who adopt these tools do a tool assessment between multiple vendors. Usually, we have seen that it's either UiPath or Automation Anywhere that is shortlisted. These two seem to be the most preferred options.

I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

We serve different clients of ours helping them streamline or ease out with their day-to-day activities. There is a team who identifies which activities can be automated end-to-end. They prepare a proposal sheet, which comes to us, and we do the feasibility of it: How much of that activity can be automated. Then, we proceed from there.

Currently, in our production environment, we are using Automation Anywhere version 11.3.1. In a beta test version, we are also evaluating the latest version, which is 11.3.2.

Previously, we had to input a password to a particular tool for the user to login. The only option was through encrypted keystrokes, and if I uncheck the password, I can see it. Now, they have a credential vault, which is 256-bit encrypted. That is the highest security that can be provided when it comes to credential maintenance. That's a day and night difference. With a credential vault, other than the user who is entering the password, no one else knows what the password is. This also helps when convincing the clients. 

The most advanced feature in the current version is the security. Previously, the whole thing was like a software installation. Nowadays, it is more of a URL and credential vault. Everything is taken care of by a centralized tool, a Control Room, which is only accessible through the URL. I really like this feature. I hear that in the upcoming version that everything will be cloud-based. So, I'm really excited to see that type of an infrastructure.

As a developer or user, I feel that the performance of the overall package could be made a little better or reliable. For example, if I'm opening up a heavy Excel file, which is uploaded in some shared drive over the net, and I have my box coded to open that Excel to do some work or formatting on it, and depending on the network load and the size of the file, this client version while trying to access that file becomes unstable at times. It goes into the hang position until a human being comes in, ends the task, and restarts it. Until this happens, it does not respond. 

In version A2019, it's moving from a software installation infrastructure to a cloud-based infrastructure. I am hoping that the end-to-end deployment from conception to coding to production will be much faster than it is right now. That really excites me as this is a feature that I suggested to tech support.

I've been using this tool since 2014.

I would definitely like to see an improvement in how it handles the system resource crunch and how it takes care of the pressure. That would be really nice to see.

Over the years, I have seen the solution really change. I have seen the differences that come with the subsequent releases.

It is definitely scalable. It is very flexible when it comes to scalability. I have had projects in which the total benefit was about 12 FTEs across the globe. We would start off with 0.5 FTEs when we went into live production. Then, we started onboarding other countries or regions, and getting roles onboarded was pretty much seamless. Scaling up is a good thing that Automation Anywhere has for it.

I use Automation Anywhere's tech support every day. They are awesome. Whenever I have certain ideas, I always drop them an email. Then, six or eight months down the line, I see those releases coming in which makes me feel proud. 

The engineering team works on our suggestions and provides us with a patch or upgrade, which is nice to see.

Back in 2014 (at my previous organization), I wouldn't say the initial setup was smooth. There were a few roadblocks. Both Automation Anywhere and my previous organization worked on them. Eventually, everything got sorted out. Nowadays, everything is much better than what I saw back then.

We deployed in-house.

I have not see ROI in my current organization. However, I did see ROI in my previous organization.

In the initial year after deployment, you won't see return on investment. Eventually, when your bot is more stabilized and your processes are streamlined, in the one and half years to two years window, you will start seeing return on investment. The FTE cost is definitely higher than the license cost of each bot. If your program has been thought through, then one bot can be used to do the work of approximately two human beings worth of labor. That is where the benefit is, which will start from the second year onward. 

Approximately, for a developer, it is around $750 for a license a year. For Bot Runners, it is about $550.

Automation Anywhere is unlike any other software. Automation Anywhere provides me with my bread and butter. I just love the tool.

Understand what projects or automation projects that you have on hand. Every clients setup demands a different set of tools which can be used for automation. Automation Anywhere does try to cover all environments, though. However, there are a few other tools in the market specifically built for specific infrastructures. First, study your requirements. Then, based on those, go ahead and decide on what tool you want to use.

Automation Anywhere Enterprise RPA was used in conjunction with Automation Anywhere IQ Bot and Automation Anywhere Bot Insights to reduce the time taken to process a mortgage application by automatically verifying the applicants, the address, title, and scheduling a settlement meeting. The automation solution extracted information from or entered data into more than six applications including four major bank web applications. The environment included a Control Room server, an IQ Bot server, a bot runner machine, all running windows server 2012.

Automation Anywhere is stellar and the pre-built bots on the bot store help reduce the development time and effort. The IQ Bot solution can read from scanned images and documents which has hugely benefited the mortgage processing team.

The professional services team at Automation Anywhere helped in designing and architecting the solution effectively and their modular approach to the solution meant, the solution could be tested for user acceptance in stages. It helped the team provide early feedback and suggest changes to optimize the automation solution.

There are several valuable features : 

(1) Validate the data extracted from digital and scanned documents.

(2) Schedule the bots to run at specified intervals and report on the execution status.

(3) Ability to resume automation from intermediate states in case of exceptions.

(4) Ability to introduce human in loop for making decisions without requiring the mortgage application to be started again.

(5) Reporting on straight through processing, exceptions and failure.

(6) Business user friendly interface, easy-to-learn tools and availability of on-demand training for free.

There are some areas that the product can be improved : 

(1) Better exception handling mechanism.

(2) Parallel processing of branches to improve execution time.

(3) IQ Bot: An easier way to tag the document's source after extracting information from the document. (Which group does the document or a transaction belong to).

(4) Better integration with external data sources for Bot Insights.

(5) Advocating and encouraging use of queues and device pools by providing implementation details with success rate and support from services for the same.

I have been using AA for 1.5 years.

V11 is very stable. 

A2019's stability is yet to be determined but most usecases would not have any trouble being automated in A2019. It is more robust in terms of feature availability and bot code maintenance.

Highly Scalable.

Stellar.

We used UiPath and Kofax Kapow.

Not quite straightforward. Required support from Automation Anywhere Support team but that was made available at no cost.

Vendor team and Automation Anywhere's Professional Services.

>80%

Calculate the IQ Bot page count and usage.

Factor in the development as well as training time required for IQ Bot training and validation. The effort is easily underestimated.

We evaluated UiPath but Automation Anywhere's IQ Bot solution was the only fit for our use case at that moment. (UiPath was yet to unveil their "Document Understanding" product suite).

The learning curve is less steeper compared to other automation products in the market.