Automation Anywhere Reviews

Batch JOB processing and Monitoring which was a manual activity earlier.

We've done a lot of automation with the product in the last two years. We started with accounts receivable processes in finance. I would say the AR function is one of the most mature functions in the product right now because we almost automated all the aspects of accounts receivable. 

We have also started looking at automating the accounts payable process as well. I've only mentioned finance at this point, but we also have done a lot of automation with IT, as well as with procurement. Right now, the penetration is higher with the support functions but we are also looking at different ways to automate. For example, we would like to use automation technology in core engineering. We also want to be expansive and do projects beyond our current boundaries — outside of just India. We've already done a small PoC (proof of concept) with a company in China and we also automated three small processes with a U.S. entity. 

We use it daily and have done projects with support functions, such as financial services, IT, and procurement support. We have 50 to 60 processes that have been automated using RPA in all three areas put together. This is the breadth and extent of what we have automated. We are using the on-premise deployment model.

Automation Anywhere helps to automate much of the manual activity. There are already a few inbuild use case builds which we have used and expands for our convenience.

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, but it's automating business processes in our banking system. We're interfacing a lot with Excel, our ERP systems, some legacy systems, the databases, file folders, text files, CSVs. It's hard to pin down one.

• Intelligent automation for business and IT tasks.
• Uses SMART Automation Technology

Bot Creator- Developers use desktop-based applications to create bots. Their dev licenses are checked with that configured in the control room. On authentication, the code of the bots they create is stored in the control room. Different developers may create individual tasks/bots. These bots could be merged and executed at once.

Bot Runner - The Bot Runner is the machine where you run the bot. You could have multiple bots running in parallel. You only need the Run License to run the bots. The bots report back the execution logs/pass/fail status back to the control room.

Autosuggestion of existing use cases based on the problem statement could use improvement. 

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. Listed are low hanging fruits and will boost the confidence of the stakeholders in the RPA deployment, recommend to look at such use cases when looking at Automation Anywhere and its implementation.

• Native cognitive automation for unstructured data
• Bot Store—Jumpstart your RPA with verified, ready to use bots
• 24/7 global support
• Business users can build bots to automate their processes
• 1 bot—20,000 bots
  From pilot to enterprise-scale, at your pace
• Embedded real-time analytics—
  No integration, No delays
  
• Better customer support

It's a great product, timely support, and guidance.

IBM Robotic Process Automation.

We have applied AA to our customers. KPMG another solution they use. 

Streams like HR, payroll are reasons that AA may have been chosen in an environment.

Use cases like report extractions, SAP interactions, HR data, and many payroll automations have been put into use.

We used UiPath and Automic before AA and I feel the difference very clearly and I am sure there's a long way ahead.

Sensitive data handling departments are usually not allowed or exposed to automation but I do not see such limitations when it comes to AA.

AA definitely did improve the scope of our organization but tools like Automic and UiPath still take a slightly upper hand in terms of business and market.

We have been trying our best to sell AA as our best tool and we are getting projects one by one eventually.

Not all tools give us the clear utilization of the infrastructure in place but this does and trust me, this has been proved far better than other RPA tools and that is why I see AA booming day by day.

We are pretty positive about AA.

Live executions on the prod machine with the player options is good.

I have been using tools like Automic and UiPath that has either an engine to run for Automic and Orchestrator for UiPath.

The versioning concept is pretty nice and increases the security and tracking mechanism.

Instead of packages like other RPA tools, I think the repo check-in and check-out feature enables the same in AA. 

Although it does the same, the ease of usage is fantastic in AA from my experience.

The line compare feature is another feature that I personally like the most but there is an anomaly as well.

Maybe not improved but I heard that the 2019 version is going to look more like UiPath, which is not ideal for a typical/classic developer.

The feel of parsing at the code is different from viewing object images for sure.

When comparing the code under version checks, although there is a change done, it doesn't say so because the change is done at the variable level and not in the line of code.

This is logically wrong, a line would contain n number of variables including object clonings, screen images, variables, etc so any change to any of these has to be captured and shown as a change done in the version history.

I have been using and working with AA for 1.5 years. 

I started with initial training, they gave me a project and then a certification as well.

I am AA Master certified, I did it around the start of 2020. Ever since I got certified I am working on the solution building for major clients, client proposals and enhancements for the existing bots on production.

Not all developers use a full fledged tool and that is where I am being considered to propose better solutions. 

We took new clients since April 2020 where AA is the only prime RPA tool being used and we have been enriching it since then day in day out.

I am sure AA is pretty stable.

Now that it's on its own framework, I am positive about the stability. At any point in time, I would preferably suggest sticking to the initial platform and framework that people like the most providing an overall package.

Scalability is always a sensitive topic when it comes to RPA.

For me, I look at it as availability in simple terms. The scalability factor has to be stretched to an extent where availability is never compromised.

I have personally had interaction only twice along with my onshore peers.

1st was with Mae Chang about v11 environment setup &

2nd was with one of the support engineers who helped solve the control room blank screen error.

So far so good.

I used ITPA tools like Automic (CA Technologies product, now Broadcom product) & RPA tools like UiPath and BluePrism.

For a classical and typical developer, we like code to be seen, written, and parsed but not objects. More importantly, security features like parsing, code versioning, ease of use, live executions, etc made us chose AA.

We haven't moved completely to AA for now but talks are in place with customers.

So, for multiple valid reasons, AA takes the first place when it comes to automation.

The setup was good. I wouldn't say straightforward but the process and steps were laid down clean so for us, it seemed to be cool.

It was in-house for the POC project and the customer himself for the account we hold.

Our setup was pretty clean and neat.

I would rate the customer level a 70/100. They haven't defined the scope, networks, security properly, and there is too much of JUST red tape. The process definitely takes priority but not at the cost of providing solutions. The optimal path has to be chosen.

I shouldn't be projecting this out but would say there is a grace ROI with our current clients.

I am not 100% sure. Revenue is nominal as of now. The business model defines it more in order to sustain a customer but I am sure it's doing well.

So far so good.

When it comes to 2019 and the AA cloud I think many are skeptical about the pricing and support model.

For example, we are already on our own cloud, AWS and azure so as a cost-effective solution we would obviously want to choose our own platform for hosting. Be it IAAS, PAAS, SAAS etc.

Now that AA is proposing a cloud as well, we are still in the thinking phase of the costing model to see if this fits us better in terms of revenue and margins.

We are looking forward to experiencing the AA cloud soon.

Like mentioned, we have been using Automic, UiPath, and BluePrism to a pretty good extent for about 2+yrs and it was good until we realized there is a better product in the market and who doesn't want the best.

It was not a one day's decision to chose AA. A big set of people, the cream of the project, were deployed to learn and explore AA to the maximum extent possible.

I lead the operations part of the existing automation project and so was I leading this POC project under AA as well. So all possible test cases, comparisons, ease of use, security, and many other factors were considered before we opted for AA and so is the product now.

My request would be to keep a little lower pricing for services like on call support, cloud, and other key services. Otherwise, the rest all seems to be very much feasible in AA.

We have a long list of customers and multiple use cases in pharma, account & finance, customer billing & payment, and other domains. We use AA to automate those tasks that need less or no human interaction. The reconciliation tasks, SAP and Excel operations, are automated using AA, take less time, and give accurate results. 

Working with MetaBot provided simple drag and drop functionality, integration of DLL of SAP, Outlook, Excel and other application make tasks easier for developers.

Customers are happy with overall performance of bots and it makes the developer's life easy.  

We have a lot of clients who use AA bots in their own process. Tasks that are automated require less human input. AA bots save a lot of time, increase efficiency, deliver accurate output, and provide consistency which improves the overall function of processes in different domains.   

AA is an amazing tool that provides great features to perform Excel operations, Data Integration, and manipulation saving thousands of hours. It is an easy to use application that makes the developer's life comfortable. It doesn't require a technical background.

MetaBot is one of the most valuable features of AA. The simple drag and drop functionality, integration of DLL of SAP, Outlook, Excel, and other application make tasks easier for developers. There's nothing like MetaBot in other tools. 

One can also check the Bot farm for readymade Bots provided by other AA developers and experts.

A2019 is another great feature introduced by AA. The web-based Bot development, Control room, and Bot Insights are other nice features. Improved Error Handling and support of Python script in A2019 seems good.

I have identified a few areas where one can find the scope of improvement:

1. AA IQ Bot has not yet succeeded in living up to its reputation due to its high cost, low ROI, and its inability to meet client requirements.

2. Commands such as OCR are not up to the mark the output accuracy is not satisfactory.

3. It is unable to identify IF/Else, for Loop block when reviewing/writing AA code. There should be an expand/collapse button to identify a block of code.

Integration with Google Spreadsheets and other products should be included in the next release.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for the last three years.

It is a great and advanced tool for the development of Bots.

In terms of scalability, AA is one of the best available tools in the market and provides a lot of command and tools that do not require any technical specialty.  

Easy to use, advanced features like MetaBot, Improved Error Handling, Web-based bot development in A2019, support of Python script and many more.

I have had a great experience with the technical team. I got stuck in one scenario where Object Cloning was not working in the production environment. After spending many hours, I connected with the AA technical team and they provided a prompt solution.

I did not use any other solution.

ROI depends on time, cost, output accuracy, and effective and consistent results.

The pricing of AA is quite high as compared to other tools as it's one of the best RPA tools available in the market.

I did not evaluate other options.

Just reduce AA licensing prices and provide real scenario-based training modules in learning sections.

I use Automation Anywhere in the banking and private sector.

I work in a private company, where I do a lot of processes like MasterCard, MIZA, and ATM errors.

For example, in the case of MasterCard, I download a lot of daily files from the Express MasterCard program, I upload the files to a special server, and then I activate the downloaded files. I take a copy of the files and paste it in the folder of the MasterCard on the date of the download and in the end, I send an email after completing the task.

In the case of an ATM Error, this task is very important because through it you can get all errors in the ATM and know the cause of the malfunction and whether or not you need human intervention to fix the malfunction. Most banks need this process to help solve ATM problems.

Automation Anywhere has helped my company with a lot of things such as technical support and answering our questions. Because of the presence of Automation, it helped my company deal with banks in this field and to know many important processes in banks and private companies.

It also helped me in the way of thinking and dealing in the local and global markets. Knowing everything that is new, developing it and developing my company as well, and working to develop this field in the entire Middle East.

The development of the company from Automation Anywhere V11 to a2019 was valuable. I found many important and new features, like changing the way we write code and programming. It became much easier and very flexible in version 2019A. It became very easy to use and the recording was also good. Excel became very good too.

Bot Agent is the best thing that happened in this upgrade in Automation anywhere A2019.

It is easy to handle, easy to use, and fast to connect to the control room.

The areas in which the product and service must be improved are in the government sector and ministries such as the Ministry of Education and Health.

From my point of view, we need a lot of features that must be added in future releases, for example, improving the special dashboard in bot insight, reducing the duration session from 20 min to 5 min, and added SAP API command.

I would like to have the ability to work on a remote desktop connection, run the recording on it and use all commands.

I've been using v11 for two years and currently, I've been using a2019 for a year. 

The stability is pretty good.

Scalability is excellent.

Their support is good.

I did not previously use a different solution.

The initial setup was easy.

We did the deployment in-house.

The main and primary use case using Automation Anywhere is "Invoice generation", which has repetitive steps and a huge amount of data. For this automation, we worked on a database, Excel, and mail activities.

In order to connect Automation Anywhere with our database, which is in a remote location, we had to install related drivers in the working machine. After that, we apply some business logic to the data and insert it into an invoice template that is in XLSX format.

Ultimately, we save the file as a PDF and send the output file to the user through email.

Automation Anywhere helped us to reduce the work time on data operations. It helps us to work fast and deliver fast. Without it, our work takes too much time using manual effort.

Along with reducing the time, we get the return on investment fast. Now, we are identifying many use cases that are fittable with RPA and Automation Anywhere. The organization has set up a separate RPA CoE and various teams working in this center of excellence. From this, we are working on various problems and providing solutions to clients.

Automation Anywhere has many features that are not supported by other RPA vendors. One of these features is Metabots, and I find it to be the most valuable part of Automation Anywhere.

Metabots are reusable and can be developed easily.

The Control Room is the most important feature, where we can manage the bots and publish to various bot runners in the environment. Here we can add users, edit them, and we are able to assign various roles to the users.

Task Bot can be used to implement the business logic, step by step. 

I think automation anywhere is a complete system if we have to work on structured data that doesn't require human decisions. However, it does not work as well with retrieving data from images. Image automation is something that needs to be improved.

One more thing is that Automation Anywhere does not support reading and writing to CSV files. If we are getting input from a CSV file, we have to add one more layer of automation that first saves the data to an Excel file. This is important to us because most of the data we get from the database is saved to a CSV file.

For the last three years, we have been partnered with Automation Anywhere.

I would rate stability at 90%.

Scalability-wise, I would rate AA a nine out of ten.

The technical support is good.

I haven't used any other RPA solution. We tried with Automation Anywhere and the solution works.

The initial setup was quite easy, and they will provide setup documents.

I have worked both in-house and with the vendor team.

I would rate the ROI a ten out of ten. I can say it is profitable to use Automation Anywhere as your RPA solution.

Overall, the pricing of Automation Anywhere is good.

We have compared it to other RPA vendors like UiPath and Blue Prism.

My primary use case is automating the reports from SAP for various domains like accounts, billing, shipment, etc. AA is consolidating the reports for these various domains across different employee numbers and order numbers, then sending them to different business owners using the SMTP server. This reduces human intervention and effort.

This automation helped the functional people to focus on other tasks instead of looking into these, and this saved around 50% of the total effort of the day.

Since business users receiving reports on time and with accuracy, this helped us in achieving better customer satisfaction

AA has vastly improved my organization in gathering more business, reducing human efforts, and optimizing client business. It does this by automating the business processes in almost the domains of SAP, which results in better client satisfaction.

With the help of Automation Anywhere, we have provided more automation ideas from our side, which helps the client in building trust with us and providing more business opportunities to grow.

We started with a team size of five and within the short span of three years, we have increased our team members to 25, handling different business domains.

We use the IQ Bot and Metabots extensively in almost all of our tasks. We have created the bots to consolidate reports from various resources like webpages, databases, and different message formates like PDFs, Excel, XML, and submitting them to the business owner.

Scheduling helps to generate and send reports without any delay.

We have used this functionality to automate business processes that submit the order forms in SAP for a large number of orders without any human intervention.

Automation Anywhere should think about the integration with Machine learning and deep learning with ease, so that AA can be used in various other domains that require human calculation and logic to work. A good application would be IVR, as this can help businesses reduce the response time and achieve better customer satisfaction

AA should include more features in the mobile app, such as monitoring and debugging bots. This can help the administrator to look at the status on the fly.

They should provide more features to improve the visibility of bots.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for the last three years.

I would rate the customer service a ten out of ten, as they provided excellent support, and in a short timeframe. This helped to resolve all of our issues quickly and as efficiently as possible.

We did not use another RPA solution prior to Automation Anywhere.

We have implemented in-house.

Before choosing AA, we evaluated IBM, Blue Prism, and UiPath.

We automate mundane and repetitive tasks for our clients, like invoice processing, purchase order creation, sales order creation, refund processing, transaction chargeback, and many more.

These tasks are basic and require no special skillset, hence are an extra cost to the company. By automating them, the company saves a lot of manpower, leaving them to better utilize their resources for a more value-added task. This ultimately leads to a better return on investment.

Automation Anywhere has provided the capability to automate repetitive tasks for the organization, which in turn has lead to a lot of cost-savings. It has also helped in removing the robots out of humans, by investing their time in more value-added activities.

Humans can work approximately eight to ten hours, whereas if the same activities are done by the bots, they can keep on working round the clock. Therefore, improving the productivity of the organization.

The percentage of human error in such cases has become little-to-none when processed by the bot.

The universal recorder along with the Excel basic and advanced packages has been highly valuable. With Excel basic, we can perform basic Excel activities even if Excel is not installed in the system. The Excel advanced package has a lot of features added, which were initially not there in Version 11 and we had to rely on external scripting for the same.

Earlier in Version 11, we had different sets of recordings, which often made things confusing but with the universal recorder, the situation is not the same anymore.

The UI could be made better because the UI in Version 11 was better and easier as compared to a2019. We were able to fit in more lines of code on the screen at a time, whereas in a2019, we can see much less. This means that the developer has to scroll again and again to view his/her code.

An option should be provided to disable the flow and dual-mode since those are not used often by the developers, and hence take up extra space on the screen.

The IQ bot should also have a feature to process documents with multiple invoices, as currently, we need to split the document according to invoices beforehand.

I have been working as an RPA Developer for the past three years. For the first three and a half years, I was using Version 10 and 11 of Automation Anywhere, and for the last six months, I have been using A2019.

The solution is quite stable.

The solution is easily scalable. We can add more bot runners or creators as per our need when the requirements increases.

The technical support was great. The support team response is quite prompt and they will provide you the solution to your issues most of the time.

Automation anywhere was my first RPA tool.

The initial setup is straightforward and if there is any difficulty, the AA support team will come to your rescue.

Our in-house team automates processes for our clients. The expertise level was good.

From my experience, I can say that the initial setup cost is easily recovered over a period of time once the bots start running in production. We develop bots for our clients and as per their information, most of the time, the automation of a single process has returned their original investment amount.

We did evaluate other RPA tools but we found Automation Anywhere to be more user-friendly and easy to use. 

I, being a Robotic Process Automation Developer, extensively use various Automation Anywhere products on daily basis. I use Automation Anywhere for end-to-end implementation of processes for clients, as well as my organization.

We have many use cases. One of them is from the marketing department. Every organization needs to market their products and services to get future clients. The marketing people used to mail the prospective clients one by one manually, as per their mailing list. They used to spend approximately one minute on each email. We created a bot that helps the department in sending emails to prospects with product information, service information, brochures, etc. 

Now, the department needs only to specify the content file and an Excel file having email IDs, and the rest is done by the bot. It sends approximately 500 emails within 10 minutes. That makes the process of sending emails extremely fast, including customized content.

Automation Anywhere has helped save many man-hours in my organization by letting us automate monotonous and repetitive tasks. Let's take an example of procurement, to Purchase (P2P) Process in SAP S/4 Hana.

This task requires an employee to manually verify the invoice, feed data into SAP, Park Invoice, Validate Line Items, and generate MIRO. This takes approximately 10 minutes per invoice and that doesn't require any human intelligence. It is just a tedious task. Instead, we implement this solution using Automation Anywhere.

We used the Automation Anywhere IQ Bot to extract data from invoices.

Automation Anywhere Enterprise is used to automate email, for data entry into SAP, 3-Way Match in SAP, as well as MIGO & MIRO Generation in SAP. This frees up employee's time as well as increases the accuracy of the work.

I am inclined towards features such as Automation Anywhere Bot Store, Automation Anywhere Enterprise Client, Recorders, and Scheduling with the Auto-Login Feature.

Automation Anywhere Bot Store; The Bot Store is an online library where anybody can find different types of pre-developed, production-ready bots. Being production-ready and easily accessible saves development time. All bot submissions to the bot store pass through strict security checks, which makes them secure to download and deploy.

Automation Anywhere Enterprise Client; The Automation Anywhere client has 500+ commands to perform various tasks. It has a user-friendly workbench and UI. The most important part is the scriptless development, where you just drag and drop the command and you are ready to run it.

Recorders; Recorders make automating desktop applications, as well as web applications, very reliable and easy to implement. Think of creating a bot to extract data from a webpage in less than 30 mins and it can be run by pressing a button daily. It makes tasks easy to finish. 

Scheduling with Auto-Login Feature; Automation Anywhere has the most user-friendly way to schedule a bot. Scheduling is so accurate in Automation Anywhere that we don't need to worry if the task will be deployed at the specified time or not. I personally manage 30+ schedules and each runs at its set time. Scheduling comes with an awesome Auto-Login feature. This feature logs into locked Windows even when the system has a disclaimer message. It makes scheduling reliable and accurate.

For me, IQ Bot needs to be improved. It has great capabilities and works really well for fully structured and spotless documents. When we try to process structured documents but with some little pen marks, improper partitions, or faded documents, IQ Bot fails to extract data properly out of them. Typical Indian supplier invoices are hard to process through IQ Bot.

I would love to see a package for Regular Expressions with various sub-commands such as regex builder and regex replace.

OAuth2.0 native support should be added in future releases. From a security point of view, there is work that is needed.

We have been using Automation Anywhere for more than 30 months.

Stability is great If you follow the recommended hardware and software. If you do not meet the requirements then it sometimes creates problems. So, the hardware should be up to the mark for a seamless experience.

The product is highly scalable. Scaling is easy. We started with the Marketing department and within the next three months, we were able to deploy bots for six more departments.

Automation Anywhere has a superb support team. They are prompt in responding to queries based on urgency. If I log a ticket with a production-level issue, they quickly respond and help to solve the problem.

The overall experience with support has been great. They even follow up to see if the issue has been solved after giving the solution.

We did not use another similar product. We started our RPA journey with Automation Anywhere.

The initial setup was straightforward. Automation Anywhere has descriptive documents to guide in installing the application on the server. Initially, I was the only person starting the RPA journey in my organization. I needed to set up the infrastructure, develop the bots, and give support as well.

Installing the application on the server was very easy. All credit goes to excellent documentation.

We implemented it through our in-house team.

With the newer cloud version of Automation Anywhere product, the setup cost has been cut down because the customer doesn't need to invest in new hardware.

Automation Anywhere is flexible in terms of costing and licensing.

We evaluated only one other vendor, which is UiPath.

Automation Anywhere seemed easy to work with, in our initial journey of RPA. So we choose it.

The product is promising and is successful. You should start your Automation journey with simpler processes and step-by-step, move towards bigger and more complex problems. They have a great support team and the product's community is active as well. This will help to make your automation journey seamless.