Automation Anywhere Reviews

The environment is within a Citrix environment. Our primary use case is for interaction with mainframe applications along with web links and Excel spreadsheets. The bot interacts with the Excel spreadsheet, captures the task, go to the mainframe application, and pastes it with searching details of the task if it matches different details. It populates in the Excel spreadsheet if it is matched or not matched. There are numerous logics used in it. AA bots do the verifications and give an output in the Excel spreadsheet which becomes an input for the agents on the production floor. 

We have used more than 30 bots in our healthcare vertical and are going to use many more bots. We have a very resourceful pipeline to use AA bots in our RPA projects and we are looking to be more engaged with the AA team in deploying these bots. We have very strict cost efficiency savings to be shown to the client and AA has helped us to meet this to a great extent. We have lined up a huge list of RPA projects and are waiting to partner with AA to a great extent which will help us to achieve these cost efficiencies in a great way.

AA has a bouquet of features that can be used in our projects. We have utilized all the features in our existing projects. It may be task bots, meta bots, or IQ bots. The features in the AA bots may be object cloning or security features where the bots can be triggered only from the control room and will help clients to maintain their security concerns. The number of commands is more which will help us to achieve different types of details being captured, verified, and executed in the project for us.

We have a challenge in our front office automation where capturing details from a table within a table does not happen in the existing AA Enterprise client version 11.3.4. The AA team tries various methods like using an Excel spreadsheet to capture the tables. Using object cloning it recognizes only the top line items and not the table which is in an HTML format then they asked to use Python codes within AA to identify tick boxes as a windows box. If this gets improved then we should be able to work on all the voice-related projects for a particular healthcare payer.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for more than three years.

Automation Anywhere solutions used in our RPA projects were easy to deploy for multiple projects, stable from a bots running continuously for close to 18 hrs each day. We will give a 9 out of a scale of 10 for the stability point of view.

The scalability of this solution is high as we can scale it in a very limited time and replicating the codes is easy.

The customer service/technical support is very good with AA and they are very supportive and listen to our issues patiently and give possible solutions wherever available.

We have not used any different solution as it is a client mandate to use only Automation Anywhere.

The initial setup was a bit complex as the control room was maintained by our clients and we had to approach them for each and every thing whenever there was an error/issue.

We implemented in-house but the control room was maintained by our clients and they helped in moving the codes to the control room and we have specific access to run from there.

Our ROI is very good by using AA. There are some projects where we can get close to 1:10 ROI.

We would advise going for Automation Anywhere as it is cost-efficient and easy in-terms of licensing form.

We did not have an opportunity to evaluate other options.

Any repeated user steps would be a good use case for Automation Anywhere. There are also many other use cases that are proactively using the cognitive solution.

We are mostly using it for audit, finance, quality assurance, procurement, and the reconciliation of various reports. All of these use cases helped to improve the business team efficiency and they are now effectively involved in the analytics of the data prepared by the RPA process.

Automation Anywhere is the first RPA solution we have taken and suggested implementing it to our customers. It has helped tremendously in assisting our customers in achieving their goals.

We have seen consistent improvement in how new use cases are coming with various domains and it efficiently takes care of all of the different domain processes.

The most advanced command options with a wide range of variants are really good to use and they cover almost all of the information silos. 

Every command has its own purpose and usage, which helps with any use case that comes as a process. We are able to achieve the same without any hindrance or impediment. 

With Discovery Bot, we can even have our business people enabled with process finding and do an evaluation on whether it can be converted into an opportunity.

A wide range of variable data types in A2019 is a good feature to have.

A2019 should have more improvement for developers, as it was in v11.x. For example, copying of specific lines between Bots, and Metabots (Calibrate option). All this will make A2019 even more unique in its own way.

We have been using Automation Anywhere for almost four years.

We have not used any other RPA solutions. We have been able to see how Automation Anywhere is improving in every aspect of the product from version 10.x to A2019.

Our customers are effectively using more solutions on this with a good ROI.

It's an ideal pricing model to customize the components based on everyone's needs.

We evaluated Blue Prism and UiPath.

With the recent version of A2019, Automation Anywhere has stepped into a new era of RPA development. We can see a lot of functions coming up with Automation Anywhere as a bundle like AARI, Bot Analytics, and Discovery Bot.

Excellent growth in product improvisation over the period. Keep Going!

We are using this product to automate various BPO processes, where the manual operation team currently does them manually in my project. The process we are currently working on has multiple applications and the API integrated, so we get details from the API and feed those into the front end application. We then process and update the status of the policy in another application.

The main interaction involves retrieving data from a set of applications and feeding it into other applications. Therefore, AA is mainly used for handling end-to-end processes that are compromised of all of the business validations.

This tool provides us with easy accessibility for adopting the new process, as it is more user- friendly. This is the main reason that we implemented this tool. Many new resources are able to grasp the tool and start doing the automation with ease, which is basically missing in the other vendors' tools.

In terms of adaptability, AA has a significant contribution. Most users can easily understand it. The support team is good and is able to resolve the issues or any challenges we encounter.

Actions are very much user-friendly, which we can easily use to proceed with development. The API connection is easy to incorporate and also has the ability to track the task status in the Orchestrator.

XML action commands and Excel commands are the ones we most frequently use in the real world processing of the policy. When we have features targeting those, it will be good enough for the majority of the process we automated.

All of the key action items have been easy to incorporate.

Sometimes the tool is timing out, which would be a good thing to have resolved.

It will be good if we have a framework that is created with the package, so we can leverage those for the multiple processes. As it is now, we create a base framework.

When we have more packages for each of the basic operations, it will be more user-friendly and easier to complete, rather than starting from scratch.

Ideally, when we have those packages we can leverage them for overall project development. Adopting the cloud platform will be more convenient, as opposed to depending on the on-premises setup.

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

Applications can be more effective with the development of bots that are affected less by changes in the object and environment.

The support team is good in helping with queries and issues that had held up the automation.

We used UiPath previously. AA is more user-friendly and adaptable such that anyone can learn and more easily understand how to incorporate it into the process automation.

The initial setup is not complicated.

I would rate the vendor installation team and eight out of ten.

I don't have the exact figures but it does provide ROI.

The setup cost depends on multiple factors, so you need to get details before choosing.

Version A2019 is available and will be adopting it in the coming months. We are looking forward to working on this new version.

We primarily use the solution for universal scanning. As an example, the solution can take various service provider bills and will allow us to view all of them in Excel format. That's a very basic use case.

In SAP, there are many similar regular tasks that are done regularly. In human resources, we created several core SAP systems so that the basic users, in human resources can reduce redundancies by 10 times with very little cost. We actually didn't expect that outcome. It was a nice surprise.

It depends on the use case, however, I'd say the most valuable aspect of the solution is the IQ Bot. 

Normally, you just scan the invoice. However, what makes Automation Anywhere different from other services is machine learning, which includes AI. It's easier and more convenient. 

We can include Python programming language too for getting better results.

The solution provides a Community Edition to all the users. It's a great jumping-off point to learn about automation. There are some features that are reduced, however, it's still quite good.

The insights provided by the dashboard are excellent.

If I build a bot today and don't use it, however, in several months, someone tries to use it, there's a 30-40% change the bot will fail in one or two areas. I'm still trying to figure out why. It's on a ticket right now. It may be due to updates or changes to the environment. I'm not sure.

The solution lacks in the approval process area. They need to provide more solutions.

I've been using the solution for about two years.

The stability is pretty good. The only place it lags is if a bot is made and then not used for many months. Then there can be errors. Other than that, it's got excellent stability.

The solution is quite scalable, however, it all depends, from customer to customer and what their actual requirements are.

We have about ten to 15 people who use the solution regularly. We also have an administrator who oversees everything.

We plan to expand across both the enterprise and A2019 versions. Currently, we're just exploring its capabilities more and more.

The technical support is excellent. I'd rate it ten out of ten. At first, we did run into a lot of issues, and the support team was very kind. They were also very helpful and responsive. We're quite satisfied with their level of service.

I work with RPA technology and have knowledge of multiple companies including Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, Webpack, and multiple other vendors. However, in this company, we've only ever used Automation Anywhere.

I've worked with the free version of Blue Prism for tasks like sending email. It was fine and worked without issue.

The initial setup is not complex. It's also not straightforward.

If someone is an automation novice, for him to set everything up, he must be very clear and aware of the ports. It's advisable to meet the system requirements. If the system requirements fail, there may be challenges on the system and some features may not work or could potentially work if some adjustments also get made. There needs to be a mastery of the technical network like ports and servers.

If I implement it now, if I just install the automation in my server, then it's a one one-time installation

The deployment time isn't too long. It may just take two or three hours if someone is completely aware of what we are doing.

In order to deploy the solution, one person is enough. You don't need a whole big team.

I don't have any information about the pricing or licensing on offer. It's my understanding that there's different pricing, depending on how many licenses a client needs. It's very flexible. If a client just needs a certain aspect, they can just get a license for that.

Automation Anywhere has two different versions, or, rather, two different products. One is the Automation Anywhere Enterprise Edition which is only on-premise. Automation Anywhere also has another service that is called A2019, which can be deployed on-premise. 

One of the main differences between the Enterprise Edition of Automation Anywhere is the dollar policy shop. In there, they can't create or customize our own comment. With A2019, you have an option to create our own comments. A2019 is more flexible. I'd advise new users to go for that version, as opposed to the enterprise version.

Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

I have used Automation Anywhere for automating different use cases which involved applications such as Excel, SAP, PDF, Salesforce, Outlook Web applications, Desktop Automation Email automation, and many more. I have automated many processes that involve report generation using Excel, invoice processing, order processing, BPO related processes, and many more. It's safe to automate processes that involve secure credentials because Automation Anywhere provides an encrypted centralized credential vault.

My organization has worked with multiple clients and helped them automate their repetitive and mundane processes. These organizations have seen a drastic increase in employee productivity, reduced human errors, and better SLAs. All of this leads to customer satisfaction.

AA is not much more expensive compared to other RPA tools, so ROI was much higher by automating some of the end-to-end business processes. Support and maintenance work is also easy because of the well-managed control room architecture. 

The best feature is the drag-and-drop command. Users with less coding knowledge can also automate their end-to-end processes very easily. 

Centralized Control made maintenance and support work easier. 

Bot Insights is another feature in which the bot can log all the statistical information and display it to the end-users in a graphical view.

In A2019, I liked Excel Automation because now it is possible to automate Excel files without having Excel installed on the machine in which the bot runs.

When it comes to Citrix automation, AA should improve or add more features in such a way that all the commands should work when automating a Citrix application.

There should be more options to write codes in VBScript, C#, Python, etc. directly within any commands, instead of just invoking an already existing script.

Since A2019 is cloud-based and since it is a new product, there are a lot of commands that require improvisations such as the Outlook Save Email command, Rest API commands, and a few others.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for the last two years and for the past six months, I have been using the latest version, A2019.

When it comes to scalability, AA has a lot of potential. Now with A2019, the commands and the subcommands got doubled and now automation has been very easy.

We get excellent support from Automation Anywhere for any type of product-related issues and queries. They typically reply within 24 hours of time.

I have not used any other solutions before. But recently I have started using UiPath.

The setup was so straightforward for me as I was from a technical background. 

In-house.

ROI was much higher compared to what we have expected or calculated during our ROI calculation stage.

The cost of unattended bots is reasonable and when it comes to attended automation the licensing cost for Attended bot runners is a bit expensive. The overall price is not so expensive compared to other tools.

I have not evaluated because this solution was chosen by my organization.

I believe that A2019 is going to be the next big thing in the RPA field.

The primary use case depends on SAP and Excel platforms, where we automated repetitive tasks. Also, we automated the Tableau server using this.

We use SQL DB for storing logs. We have been using it for one year for our client. The support also is great. If we are stuck, the Automation Anywhere team comes to the rescue. I have worked on other RPA tools but this is more logical and easy to use. The flows and the commands can be easily learned by a beginner as coding knowledge is not needed.

It has helped us a great extent as we are part of the service and basically provide clients with automation solutions for their manual and repetitive tasks. We have done automation on SAP, Excels, web applications, Outlook, and many more application platforms. 

It is JAVA based so it is easy to use and user-friendly. Now comes the support part, where the use cases are deployed and hyper care is given to the bot. It is easy to schedule an easy process of deployment too. The credentials are stored safely.

Mostly the Metabots function and Excel as DB function are of great help as we can connect to SAP and work on that easily. Excel as DB helps us to perform operations on it even when huge amounts of data are on it. 

The control room is the best part as everything can be seen and controlled from there, scheduling storing of credentials, and much more. I have used PDF extraction and other tools where data needs to be extracted and it works great at that part. I highly recommended this tool for automation.

Already the new version is out, which has cognitive abilities. The bot learning skills are there, which helps to train the bot. AA has done a great job by bringing compatibility with IBM Watson and many other AI interfaces. If some more functions we can get related to other web applications will be a great help. At some places, the if-else statements become so confusing so, at that place, they can change the UI for better understanding. Apart from this I liked this tool and would like to continue working on this.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for one year. 

It is quite a stable platform based on Java.

It is highly scalable.

We once had an issue with the SAP meta bot, where the click was not working so the tech support team helped find the issue and then changed the code so that the issue does not come back. 

We had a resolution issue, where the bot was unable to find the screens. They also helped us with that.

I used Automic but switched because it was not much compatible with other applications. Also, it was more of coding which made it a complex tool to work upon.

The vendor team is great, we have reached out for many issues and they responded well.

Setup cost is a bit okay, but once it is up, it can give a great amount of ROI.

This tool is a good platform for automation.

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.