Automation Anywhere Reviews

Primarily we use it for automating back-office operations processes. Some of the most frequent use cases are:

1. Invoice processing and proofing.

2. Reconciliation

3. Automating Timesheets

4. SOW invoice creation.

5. Creation of Credit memos

6. Pulling data from SAP and generating a report.

We use VDIs to deploy. Client & runner environment is mostly Win 10. Most of the bots are scheduled. 

Some organizations still use the manual click on the run button method instead of scheduling or running from CR.

It has definitely helped automating a lot of processes, but it is very difficult to build resilient bots. It is very difficult to find skilled developers in the market, who actually build resilient bots with appropriate error handling. Maintaining the bots is another challenge as the applications keep changing.

It is even more difficult to support a bot than build from scratch. No matter how much you document, things do turn haywire if someone new has to make changes to an existing bot. 

Documenting the AA Solution SDD, PDD is another pain point. It is very common to miss out on a lot of things. 

I feel that in places it is better to create a system to automate rather than use RPA.

Most of the features are valuable. 

1. SAP GUI commands in the latest update is helpful as a lot of processes have SAP involved. 2. APIs are helpful too, but they certainly need more improvement. APIs help in building resiliency.

3. Queues are great but need improvement. They are helpful because most of the automations are transaction-based.

 4. Good old object cloning is always helpful as it is versatile.

5. Metabots help in working with many of the legacy applications. But needs improvement there as well.

6. Credential Vaults are helpful, but needs improvement there too.

1. Excel commands should include more features.

2. Need more variable types for eg. date, amount, number, etc

3. Better API support and more APIs.

4. Queues should be enabled to directly connect to DBs.

5. Managing so many variables is a pain. Some kind of variable initialization mechanism like how Blue Prism has it will be helpful.

6. Input-output variables should be defined for taskbots as well.

7.There are a lot of glitches in AA not fixed since Ver 10. Reach me to know more about them.

8. The commands should help evaluate the current state of variables(like how in Blue prism)

10. Metabots should have command to stop the task. Basically should have all commands of a task bot.

11. No one uses "WorkFlows".

12. The user roles and the Credential Vaults administration, sharing and the whole thing in action is very confusing.

13. Automatic technical logging option should be given by default in all commands like how we have in BP.

4

When it comes to RPA, for every step things should be in the right way at the right time. It is very difficult. So I would rate it as a 5 out of 10 on scalability.

It is scalable, though, in an organizational setup where teams work in silos, I have never seen any organization truly using the scalability to its full potential.

Technical support is okay. At times it takes a lot of email exchanges involved before actually setting up a call and getting help.

AA is all I am using. Blue Prism is used but I prefer AA. Though Blue Prism is better in certain aspects mentioned earlier.

It is the same as how enterprise applications should have in terms of complexity.

We develop RPA solutions for clients.

Costs are ok. IQ Bot is too expensive. Bot Vision should come for free as one can easily use a number of other visualization options for free. There is no point in paying too much for too little.

I have evaluated Blue Prism along with AA

We need some support of documentation methodologies so that the knowledge is easily transferrable through the documents.

Our primary use case is for invoice processing. It's a constructive tool that eases my work in desktops as well as web automation. The basic idea is to fetch the data from an Excel and use it as input for the desktop app and then the end result will be used as output and restored back in Excel to create records. There are innumerous functions available in the tool such as creating meta bot, keystrokes, error handling, email automation and many more. The repository is very manageable. The tool is quite feasible and easy to understand even for non developers.

My organization has many projects that use RPA tools for their use cases such as Ui Path, Workfusion, Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere. I have been working on a project that uses Automation Anywhere. AA has been a useful tool after a lot of research among business analysts and developers. Since many of my company's employees are trained in AA it is set to be a prodigious tool. Many of our tasks are automated using AA and due to ease in handling, it becomes the first choice in terms of RPA tool.

AA provides multiple features such as Windows actions, Database actions, Conditional Actions, Files/Folder Actions, Loop actions, Internet actions, and Clipboard actions. I have used mostly all of these features. The one feature which I found interesting is Internet actions. Compared to other RPA tools available in the market, AA is highly encrypted. On the cloud and virtual machines, it is highly scalable. Unattended automation is a key feature in AA. It serves as a tool that gets easily integrated with other platforms. Quick coding is what attracts me.

AA has many features but the issue is with the loss of overhead on computing resources. For example, if the bot is encrypted, the bot should decrypt it first then act accordingly. If there are issues with the logic in the bot, there will be a lot of computer memory overload. There should be an additional feature for cloud functionality.

Also, there should be an improvement done in Citrix automation.

There should be a bit of a pricing cut down as other RPA tools charge only for bot runners. If any new features been introduced it would be a delight for many developers like me.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for almost a year.

It was quite informative and helpful.

The initials steps are quite straightforward and the support desk has been helpful.

I have implemented through in house only. But the vendor team helped us in developing use cases.

I would like to highlight that AA has a bit more pricing range compared to other RPA tools. AA charge for control room. They charge for bot runners.

I started my career in RPA and the first tool I learned was Automation Anywhere v11.3. Within a month, I learned the tool and was Master Certified in it.

I had noticed that the majority of clients for my company demand developers who know AA well. I wondered why, with so many other tools available, why clients are so interested in AA as the only RPM. This is when I realized that AA is much easier, more reliable, and has value for money also with good and vast customer support.

In the past two years, I have become somewhat of an expert with Automation Anywhere. As a senior RPA developer, I deal with clients alongside my project manager and I always suggest AA. It is worthwhile to know that most of our clients are already aware of this tool, its market popularity, and its capabilities. This makes it easier to solidify a business relationship with them.

Thanks to the benefits of Automation Anywhere, 90% of our clients trust and use this tool.

I love its reliability, ease of use, and the vast customer support that are always present to help us.

In the new cloud-based version, A2019, some good upgrades have been added. I feel that everything has been covered in A2019 that was missing in the older v11.3. These advancements have helped to impress our clients and create new business opportunities with them. As a cloud deployment, it saves clients problems with desktops that occurred with the previous version, v11. There are also more commands and features that have made it more awesome for me to explore and play with new commands.

I love the user interface and the automation commands they have provided in the AA 2019 version.

Especially while using v11, I often experience freezes with OCR extraction from PDF files. It just didn't work properly. I had to work around this using Python scripting. It would be a big improvement to have the inbuilt OCR capability work seamlessly. A perfect OCR would be awesome. 

I have been using the Automation Anywhere tool for the last two years.

The new version offers no compromise regarding stability. 

I will rate this product a ten out of ten for scalability.

I had contacted technical support two or three times and they solved my problem on the same day. I will rate them a ten out of ten on support. In my opinion, they are the best and I hope that they maintain the same.

I started working with AA and have moved to the A2019 version. I never switched to another tool, as AA is one that I have found reliable, and has everything that I need for RPA.

ROI is something my management knows, but as a developer, I cannot say for. However, I am pretty sure that AA has benefited our company.

The cloud-based version comes at an increased cost, although our clients are happy with the new features and have not complained about the pricing. Precious things are valuable, and they know that.

I started with AA and have not evaluated other RPA products.

It has now been two years and I have migrated to AA 2019. I now consider myself an expert in Automation Anywhere. Thanks, AA, for providing such a big and powerful platform to us.

I always recommend this product, and that clients implement AA first.

Our use cases include email filtering to get rid of spam, phishing, and many more.

Workflow automation has helped a lot with cost reduction, greater accuracy, and delivery speed. It then continues to add value as it picks up momentum and spreads across the organization.

Workers now have more time on their hands to use their intuitive minds to think about great ideas. All we do is train our digital workers, then they do the work 24/7- 365 without any errors, unlike humans who need time in the day to rest. They are the best part of the business.

All of the business processes we can automate, such as the digital forms you can create, have improved the way we function. The digital forms reduce a lot of paperwork, as well as the stress of losing or misplacing important data.

The sales team is also doing great because their sales operations are improving with the usage of AA.

It offers insights on how to improve with the dashboards that represent your business KPIs. You get information about the trends and know exactly where to improve, and even how you can achieve that.

The sales process is also automated in instances such as follow-ups.

The marketing automation software provides easy workflow creation and management. It increases productivity and it is easy to follow and optimize. Use workflows to set priority, status, and route incoming tickets to ensure your SLAs are met.

Trigger responses are real-time responses that are easy to send to customers. Every response needs to be prompt because even a five-minute delay can lead to a lost customer opportunity. The software has a feature that allows you to time and schedule your responses so that they can be sent in real-time. 

In the control room, the manual bot update should be looked at. I would like to see a technology where they can automatically update or upgrade themselves to the latest version, without having to uninstall the current bot.

Bots should also be automatically downloaded to all computers or devices in the organization without people having to individually install them on their machines.

The device connection can also be improved, as I happen to lose connection most of the time. 

My company has been using Automation Anywhere for a while now, but I have only recently joined and I'm still in training.

Stability is high because these are machines with fewer errors compared to humans, and more production time because they work 24/7- 365 without taking any breaks. 

Scalability is very high and there is no need for numerous source codes. Should the size of the organization go up, there is no need to worry, as AA can handle any size.

They solve tickets quickly and are always ready to attend to any queries, concerns, etc. The service is excellent.

This is actually my first real job and I'm currently doing an internship, so I have not used other RPA products.

The initial setup was straightforward and the instructions were easy to follow.

The implementation was through an in-house team.

Our ROI is an average of 6.5%.

There is a free trial so that they can get an overview, and there are different licenses that are very affordable and can suit every business model.

The company that I work for has evaluated other options and they were also using Zoho.

My recommendation is that more businesses should use it. AA doesn't require any prior IT or developer experience, and it has lots of tutorial videos of how-tos. 

All of our solutions are implemented mostly for banking.

We have an offline biller, which is for reconciliation & settlement of offline biller data operations. We have similar automation for online billing.

The ATM (Automated Teller Machine) monitoring is automated. This includes the monitoring of operational processes on mutual fund & bonds transactions (upload and reconciliation).

We have a process for reconciliation of the billing statement before sending data to the customer.

DRI: Reconciliation charge back & note for SICS (AS400).

We use eight Bot Creator instances, nine Bot Runners, and two Control Rooms.

To show how Automation Anywhere has improved our business, I will explain one of my solutions in the ATM Monitoring use case. Previously, humans had to monitor the ATM status for 24 hours to find out the status of the ATM in the event of fraud or theft. With the RPA, every hour it will download the ATM status data from the ESQ application and compare it with all problem tickets that are still open. Every time a status mismatch occurs, the RPA will send info to the team via email and WhatsApp.

Process Description: ATM Monitoring

• Recap machine problem data according to status and sort by each vendor automatically.
• Send notification & report via email and WhatsApp.
• Schedule adjustment in sending notifications and reports.

Process Steps:

• The Bot will automatically download problem and faults ticket data from ESQ.
• The Bot will compare problem and faults ticket data automatically and sort each vendor for terminal IDs with tickets that are still open but have no faults.
  
• The Bot will send data that has been recorded and processed automatically to each vendor via email and WhatsApp.
• The Bot has a schedule adjustment function related to sending ticket data to each vendor.

Master Data Bank: 00.00 WIB
Supervisor Mode: 00:10 to 05:00 WIB
No Transaction: 14:00 to 00:00 WIB
Outstanding Ticket: 07:00 to 19:00 WIB

The benefits we get from automation include faster and more accurate matching, running 24x7.

One Control Room, one Bot Runner, and one Bot Creator are required. 

Time saved: 45 minutes per bot, per process, and two hours for three status updates.

Applications involved: Outlook, Excel, Browser.

One very useful feature is the IQ Bot, which is helpful in the operation of the data input process to all of their applications. Initially, humans had to read one per one document, but with the IQ Bot, it is continuous until the input process is complete.

Currently, IQ Bot is implemented by a finance company that is concentrating on motorbike financing. There are many claim documents that must be processed and inputted to their internal application, and using the IQ Bot reduces both cost and time.

My suggestion for version A2019 is to enable the Metabot function because it helps us in a shortcut to the integration process with other applications such as SAP, Oracle, and Cyber​Ark.

It would be helpful if Device Credentials can sync with Active Directory so that for the IT policy case that requires periodic password resetting, there is no need for a human to input manually into each Bot Runner machine.

The quality of the IQ bot can be further refined for scanned documents.

We have been using Automation Anywhere for about two years, since 2018.

After using the A2019 version, I find that it is more stable and features more actions. However, maybe because this is a new version with a change in platform, it still has some bugs.

The support from the AA team was very helpful when I encountered issues that I couldn't solve on my own. The ability of the support team is very good and helpful.

From the start, I have only used Automation Anywhere for RPA.

At the initial project commencement in 2018, it was still complex. With the experience of AA projects, it became easier for us to start them.

We implement using an internal team. To improve development skills, I always suggest taking the AA certification and participating in the training.

We did not evaluate other RPA options.

The current version has a fresher UI and more Excel processing features. That's what I admire.

We use AA for Training and Proof of Concept purposes.

OS: Windows 10 

Task: Automate Excel files consisting of quality data.

Multiple Task Cloning

Automated Email Sender

Object Cloning

The basic requirement was to extract a big Lot of data consisting of many attributes.

We need to extract out a relevant attribute from the DB data set and process it such that it fulfills client Data Quality requirement.

Filter out quality data using Manual intervention was a hectic task and that is why I used AA RPA tool. 

• It reduced a lot of time to process quality data and store in organized Excel files and ledgers.
• AA made Task management simpler.
• Hassle-free development 
• Hassle-free deployment
• Good Community Support

There was a large number of individuals who were doing the data collection and artifacts collection, and they were actually a third-party. The solution improves our situation in terms of time, money, and resources. Plus, when you're dealing with Data Quality information, there are additional complications of privacy concerns. If we can keep that in-house and have a bot or automated code take care of it, then there are fewer human eyes on the private information as well. It's a resource saver, it's a money saver, and it helps us with security, keeping more human eyes away from private or touchy information.

1. Task Bots

2. Smart Recorder

3. Meta Bots

4. IQ bots

5. Task Cloning

6. Ease of coding with drag and drop features.

7. It has a very good analytics package.

It is one of the popular RPA vendors offering powerful & user-friendly RPA capabilities to automate any complex tasks. It is one of the "Revolutionary Technology" that changes the way the enterprise operates. This tool combines conventional RPA with intellectual elements like natural language understanding and reading any unstructured data.

Automation Anywhere allows organizations to automate the processes which are performed by humans. It is a Web-Based Management System which uses a Control Room to run the Automated Tasks. Automation Anywhere tool can automate ends to end business operations for companies.

1. Data Mapping Utilities

2. Console Management

3. Bot Runner need to perform much smoother

4. It is not able to use OCR effectively and has limited usability.

5. Handwritten documents are still a drawback. Also difficult in terms of control room management.

6. A few applications take more time for loading when integrated.

7. Declaring the datatype of variables is challenging.

8. The process of migrating codes from one environment to the next can be automated as a default function.

9. The webpage for the control room could use some retouching or redesign to enhance the user experience.

10. Many little-usable features.

I have been using AA for three months. 

I previously used Ui Path.

First have hands on with Community Version and then figure out your requirements. 

Blue Prism

I have been using A2019 for validating IC reports and scorecards that we publish every month for the client on a portal. As the reports are around 200, it used to take a lot of manual efforts previously to get this done, however now, A2019 has helped in automating the complete validation part. 

Apart from this, the other major use case is validating the child level reports with the parent. Though the underlying reports are generated from the parent itself, validating individual reports just to add another level of the quality check was a tedious task initially, however, A2019 has made it very easy in comparing the two excel based reports end-to-end

Automation Anywhere, specifically A2019, has helped me and my organization in automating the tasks related to quality checks and assurances. As a consulting firm, it is really important to provide correct insights, reports, and deliverables to the client and it involves a lot of QC checks and validations. A2019 has helped us in automating a major chunk of such tasks, thus helped in saving a lot of time, effort, and revenue. There are trainings going on every now and then, to spread the knowledge and access of this tool to other folks in the organization, so that more number of people would be able to implement this in their projects

The best part about A2019 is its ease of use. You don't need to be a coding champ or an expert to use and implement A2019 in automating tasks. It's very easy to learn, tweak, and implement in your day-to-day tasks, especially features like capture/record is completely marvelous. Apart from these, the Excel basic and Excel advanced features are really handy and easy to use. I personally have used them frequently in all my bots as most of my work is related to excel and stuff. Last, but not least, using A2019 for automating the tasks even on the virtual machines, which is one of my favorites.

One of the challenges that I face every now and then while working with A2019, is around the bot agent updates. Every week/alternate weeK, I receive an error while running my bots, that asks me to update the bot agent. I have to download the bot agent every time and reinstall it, in order to get the work done. This thing has also created an issue for me in the past, where I need to present something to my US counterparts, and then the bot was unable to run because the bot agent update notification came few minutes before the meeting. This was really frustrating at that point in time, however, fortunately, I got that resolved within minutes during the meeting by updating the bot agent. Hence, I believe, there should be some facility available, which can help me in running my previously implemented bots, even if there are some updates in the bot agent

I recently got involved in A2019 training organized within my organization as part of motivating folks for Automation. It's been around six months that I have been using this as a part of my day-to-day work.

I have been using this for the past six months and have been already utilizing this for my day-to-day work. The level of involvement of A2019 for me is increasing as time passes, as now, I see things from a point of view, where I try to automate major chunk of my work using this.

This can be used to any level of tasks/processes as it allows the bots to communicate within. This helps in automating major tasks into smaller bots and then coordinating them together to automate the complete process.

I used to have connections with Automation Anywhere folks every week/alternate week and I must say that they were highly professional and learned people. They always guided me before even implementing something and made me aware of all the nuances. Overall, I am really happy to get in contact with such folks, who not even helped me in shaping my imagination for automation, but also showed directions by demonstrating their example bots.

I have a little experience of working on Blue Prism in my previous organization. However, Automation Anywhere is far better it in terms of features and ease of use and implementation.

For me, the setup was quite straightforward. Yes, I did take some online help to get some issues resolved, however, the overall process was pretty easy.

I implemented it in an in-house setup. This has really become a part of my organization's work as the Business Operations vertical is using it very frequently.

I invested around 2-3 weeks in learning this and creating my first bot. Then it took me a week to use it for targeting parts of my day-to-day work. And now, I am using it for the past 6-7 months without any investments and saving a lot of effort on a weekly basis.

The costs are just a one-time cost, but the amount of savings it will generate is uncountable. So it's better to invest in something now, learn and start saving your time, effort, and money in the future.

One of the options was the level of features present in Automation Anywhere. It allows both back-office and front-office bots to automate. However, in the other case, only back-office bots can be automation. I personally like the UI and the overall features present in A2019 and level of ease, with which this can be implemented to any application.

The only con is the frequent updates in the bot agent every now and then. This annoys the user at times and (s)he may land up in some trouble due to this, as the bot would be able to run without installing the updated bot agent.

We have used AA for multiple applications that were to be automated. We're interfacing a lot with Excel, scanned PDFs, image files, databases, file folders, text files, CSVs, and web applications. It's hard to pin down one. The tool can interact with SAP and Oracle which helps us automate the application faster. Mainframes can be automated and Citrix applications can be automated. 

We use it to automate all kinds of business processes. The primary use case is the RPA platform, even though they have the cognitive platform and the analytics platform. We use it for so many different things it's hard to focus on one. Now AIML is also incorporated which is a current requirement and an added benefit.

Data that was in scanned PDF format could not be extracted, but the IQ Bot feature has made it simpler. It's also easy to use and deploy. It is faster and the new features in A2019 are better than the previous versions of AA 11. Currently, new features like the Data Table have been added which helps in multiple forms. 

As it's now completely web-based it can be accessed from anywhere. As AIML is also incorporated where the machine learns by itself it helps in data accuracy and training time for the BOT. Time-saving is achieved and resources can be utilized for some human judgment work.

IQ Bot is very helpful as it is easy to learn and implement and the data output accuracy is almost 90%. Over time, the BOT learns from the validation which is an added advantage. Whatever I was thinking for version 11.3, it's being implemented in A2019. The incorporation of Python scripts is also implemented which will be easier for validations. The forms feature in A2019 is useful which can be used for voice processing where only input will be provided and BOT can perform the backend activity and get real-time data instead of Agents searching for the details.

In A2019 the dependencies that are being downloaded take a longer time that should be reduced. Migration utility should be provided so we can easily migrate from lower versions to higher versions. 

I would like to have reading from a handwritten text, which they are bringing in the next version. That will be a good thing. Some things that I do not see as of today are interactive chat or video interface. These are things that I will look for in the future. I saw something like image recognition, but something like a video or voice recognition is something that I'm looking for in the Automation Anywhere platform as an end-user.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for three years. 

The scalability really depends on how much RAM and how much network bandwidth we can do, how many servers we can apply. From the scalability standpoint, I don't think there will be any issues except for the increased costs.

It's good sometimes. Sometimes it takes time.

I have used different solutions. I switched mainly as A2019 is now web-based so desktop dependency is removed. IQ Bot is easier to use and learn for images and scanned documents.

Setup is straightforward.

In-house.

Cost-wise, it should be reduced.

Document Understanding and Abbyy Flexicapture.

Overall its good solution.