Automation Anywhere Reviews

We are discussed specifically the IQ Bot from Automation Anywhere which has excited me a lot because of the functions that it brings. They are really commendable because I have seen a lot of other software and solutions which are not giving that much accuracy in terms of the output. But, IQ Bot has been one of the top-notch solutions that I have seen in the OCR field, which covers a lot of the areas where we can transition unstructured data into structured data. This can be utilized in many use cases, like accounts payable, T&E processes, and so on and so forth. That's why I'm very excited to talk about IQ Bot.

One of the use cases of IQ Bot that I've seen is the claim processing in the insurance industry. There are tons of manual forms coming into the input files. Everyone has to work on those files manually to create a structured database out of them. It takes lot of time for them to really do it. Whereas in IQ Bot, if you run the engine, and have the scanned copies of these claims processing forms, they just get converted into very good structured data in a few seconds. Later on, you can utilize that database the way you want it. You can do a lot of analytics out of this, which would not only save time and create efficiencies, but it also brings in a lot of value for the organization whose data is being analyzed and structured.

The most valuable part is that it have the integrated OCR solution within it. All the other solutions do not have the right integration of the OCR solutions. You need to go to two different places to get one solution. Whereas, in IQ Bot, there is one area where you get all these solutions together in one area. That is the most important and beautiful point that I like about IQ Bot.

I didn't have anything as such in mind. After listening to the CEO of Automation Anywhere, he has given some very exciting features which are up and coming in the next few weeks or so. One of them is the integration with Microsoft. This will be a game changer forever. Because Microsoft Office 365 or Outlook, these are being used by every individual.

Integrating Automation Anywhere bots with these type of Microsoft solutions will give us so much flexibility. We can utilize so much reach or access to these bots in every type of work that we are doing. They will become like our personal assistants. That is where it's very exciting. I'm looking forward to look it. I believe that it will be a killer in this area.

It may sound a little funny or weird, but one thing that we are thinking is we have to go to various websites and pick up relevant data from various websites using the bot. That is something we have seen that none of the bots have been able to really do it because the back-end of those websites do not allow bots to scrap through all these websites and get the relevant data in one place. We would like to see how the bot companies would crack this idea. But, that's why I said, this look weird because of the legal reasons why this cannot be done. This is something that I am looking forward to.

As far as stability is concerned, it is pretty stable. We have seen how it is used in various use cases in the scenarios. It has very good stability. Because in the case of any claims processing, it creates a very defined database. In case it finds any anomalies, which it does not really solve, it red lines all those areas so someone can manually go and correct those. Then, later on, it learns from its own mistakes. Wherein, next time, you don't have to really fix those issues, which it has found in the first place. This means, as the IQ Bot gets more experience, it will learn on its own, and become a better, more stable product over a period of time.

We have seen results, and the results are good. But, it will take me another couple of quarters to answer on the overall scalability and consistency of this bot.

We did use technical support for troubleshooting and maintenance as well.

Our internal technical support team is not that very big. It's pretty small. One person does it on a very ad hoc basis, whenever it is required.

Wherever we find that our team does not have the right subject matter expertise, that is when we call our customer success manager. They are able to help us out with various automative solutions that bring the solution back in place from that angle.

My boss and I were both involved in bringing the RPA into our organization. We had been researching RPA for the last six to eight months to see what various functions RPA can work on, how to identify the better candidate in terms of processes, and how we can get the ROI out of the RPA.

We did all types research, reading articles, and talking to Automation Anywhere guys. These guys have been very helpful and flexible in talking to us. Anytime we have asked them for any sort of information. they were forthcoming. Giving the information on their own. They have explained their use cases. That intrigued us to go into this area and try more on the RPA side.

This was the first RPA project that we did.

When you are not aware of RPA solutions, it definitely looks more complex. But once you are done with your first implementation, then it becomes very straightforward. Going forward, this will be even more straight forward, because I learned from the Automation Anywhere guys that going forward all these bots or engines can be created with very user-friendly drag and drop functions. This would become more of a plug and play solution for everyone, maybe for the people who are non-technical as well. So, to begin with, it is really complex because of the knowledge that people do not have. But, later on, after the first implementation, it becomes very straightforward.

We did consider other RPA products as well. So, all the competitors of Automation Anywhere, we went through them. I personally looked into UiPath, Blue Prism, NICE, and AutomationEdge. These were a few which we've gone through.

There are lot of reasons why we went with Automation Anywhere, but I will tell you the more practical reasons on the basis of which we recommended and said, "Okay, Automation Anywhere would be the good choice for us." 

1. One of them was obviously IQ Bot, which I spoke about in the beginning. IQ Bot is one of the unique ideas of Automation Anywhere. When we want to use OCR, because we are a research company, we see that OCR will be the key for us. That is the reason. In all the others, they have outside integration of the AB and other tools. There is only one product with this. 
2. While working on these products, simultaneously, we have seen that in few cases, there was a duplication of inputs in some of the other ones. Whereas, in the Automation Anywhere, when we were putting inputs in one place, it will just getting replicated in the second place. This was saving a lot of time for us. That was from a modus operandi standpoint. It was much better than the others. 
3. We have talked to the teams of Automation Anywhere, UiPath, Blue Prism, etc. We found the team for Automation Anywhere was very flexible and forthcoming. They were forward looking and bringing more ideas. They are bringing more alternatives to us. They are actually standing right behind us, in case of any sort of inquiries or questions. Those things, we like a lot. That's the reason we chose Automation Anywhere. 

I can write a five-page differentiator on Automation Anywhere, but I think these are the most important ones.

To begin with, since my experience has been excellent with Automation Anywhere so far, I would not shy away from giving them a rating of eight (out of 10).

We started off with accounts payable type of processes. That was our proof of concept. We built that within two or three months. It was highly successful, then we got a high level of endorsement from the wider organization. From there, we moved into academic processing where there's a lot of opportunity around the processing of student results, assessing students for admission into the university and handing out offers to students. There are a lot of things in that academic space which are highly manual. Often, these take quite a long time to process, so there's a clear benefit to the student by reducing the cycle time, which has led to great benefits for the organization.

In my case in particular, I come from a business background, not an IT background. So, it sort of speaks for itself that I was able to pickup its functionality and how it works. In the space of two years time, I've gone from a junior developer to a senior specialist. So, it really speaks for itself in terms of being user-friendly.

There are often a lot of functions within the software that will do the same thing, but it's up to the developer to decide which is the most appropriate. If there were a way of the product sort of indicating or automating which function is most applicable for that field for that particular purpose, that would be great. I think that might be a ways away. But, I think a lot of the improvements that we're looking to find are going to be in the new cloud release. So, we are really looking forward to getting on that.

Every piece of software has its downfalls. The great thing about AA, particularly in Melbourne, is we have local support. So, if we do raise a ticket, it's addressed by our local team down there. If they can't handle it, it'll be expedited abroad. So, we're always very comfortable that we're going to get a prompt reply and support, if for whatever reason, we have an issue with the software. We've sort of developed coding standards which has helped us to avoid any downfalls or pitfalls. Throughout our journey, we've learned how the software really works. We're developing it in a more mature way now, which has reduced the number of errors and breakages of the code.

it's just a learning process. As long as you're willing to learn and engage with the software, it can be quite stable.

With Automation Anywhere, there are multiple ways to achieve the same outcome; many different ways to design a bot and execute a bot. But, there's definitely a best practice out there. For those with little experience, they might be inclined to follow the quickest or the easiest way to develop a bot, but that's not necessarily the most sustainable solution. So, we sat down as a team at the university and agreed upon a certain set of standards that we will always follow. We initiated a code review process, so every code that goes into production, or every bot that goes into production will go through multiple rounds of code review. If it doesn't meet our standards, it'll be pulled back out of production, reiterated, and eventually then it'll go live.

We've gone down the Reagan approach, which was referred to in the session earlier today, where we essentially started out with that low hanging fruit. We built confidence within the business and from there, it was quite an easy sell because it was quite obvious to the business that we could deliver and could deliver fairly quickly. 

In terms of scalability, we've had to grow the team slightly. It's really important to have the right team. You need someone with a lot of experience around the tool. From there, you can bring in a range of skill sets, including SMEs. We have SMEs on the team now that don't come from an IT background or development background. By having that range of skills, we've been able to sort of up the velocity of releasing bots.

We could always do better though, and we're still learning.

The technical support in Melbourne, it's great. We have a strong relationship with Andrew Rowlands, who's our customer relationship manager down in Melbourne. We really enjoy working with him. If we do have any issues with tickets that have been unanswered, he will address them for us. I think one of Automation Anywhere's strong points is really its focus on the customer. Because naturally issues do arise with the software here and there, some of which have been addressed in later releases of the product.

We haven't yet updated to the latest release. The company is well and truly able to support all versions and is always really responsive. We typically will receive a solution within 24 to 48 hours.

The initial setup actually came before my time at the organization. I think it is a little bit of an ongoing struggle, because we don't deal with the infrastructure. We have a separate infrastructure team that sorts all that out. So, sometimes there are communication issues just trying to get our internal IT team onboard to run through the installs and that sort of thing. But, definitely with the new cloud version coming onboard, we'll be looking toward going to that. Hopefully it'll resolve some of that friction that comes about through the install process and complexity.

Obviously, the easiest way to create a bot would be using things like keystrokes. It's very intuitive, simply entering the database and what you would see on a keyboard. However, it doesn't really relate to what you're seeing on the screen. So, quite often, you'll be entering data in the wrong field if there's a performance issue with the system. While if you use object cloning, which is another function within the software, it's more dynamic. It'll wait for certain fields to appear, then you will lower the risk of breakages of code.

Just an example, in a period of two to three years, we have a positive ROI. We have a positive return. We've delivered 25 to 30 bots, which equates to over 1000 atmx files. So, for a relatively small team, we've been able to scale up quite effectively.

In regards to how AA works, UiPath has more of a design flow view, where you'll be creating process maps and executing bots face on the process flow. While Automation Anywhere has this task view, or line by line view, that I find it very easy to use and intuitive. It's just really a great piece of software.

It's a solid eight out of 10. We've delivered tremendous value in a really short amount of time. We've gotten a lot of support from our organization. Of course, there are always improvements which could make it even more powerful. But I know the company is well and truly across those. I'm sure it's going to go from strength to strength.

From the business side, we're not an organization that has tremendous volumes, like a big global bank, perhaps that sort of comes into play a bit. But again, it comes back to coding standards. We have a lot of confidence in those standards. We just really ensure that new members of the team are strictly following those for sustainable bots.

I work for KL University as an associate professor. I take care of internships, placements, and industry connect. I'm the associate dean of internships, placements, and industry connect at KL University.

In our university, we have started a center of excellence in association with Automation Anywhere. This robotic process automation tool is very important in terms of distal transformations. 

The majority of students are doing a lot of robotic projects with the help of the bot that we have established in our university.

Another way that this tool helps is professors are doing a lot of researching initiators in terms of automation, wherever there is automation, there is the possible usage of RPA.

The majority of students are showing a lot of interest in this tool as it deals with process automation. Once students are done with the certification and training, the majority of recruiters are showing interest because RPA is doing an excellent job in the market. The majority of Indian companies are showing a lot of interest in recruiting students who are trained in this Automation Anywhere RPA tool. When compared to current skills in the market, Automation Anywhere is a hard skill, where in universities in an Indian-based culture, this place a wider role.

A user can easily adopt this technology and utilize it, when compared to the other available resources in the market.

A majority of this tool works on automation. For future prospects, this tool should 80 percent deal with neural networks, deep learning, and artificial intelligence and that has to be integrated a lot. As these are future skills, these integrations will help us take the tool to take to the next level.

This product is very stable in the market because the adoption of this product is very clear. There is no complexity. Plus, anyone can learn this tool. In India, if a tool comes along, people think that it is relevant to technical guys. However, if someone goes through RPA, a non-IT guy or IT guy (anyone) can adopt this technology, as it is easy to adapt. The unique selling proposition of this product is adaptability is good. So, this product will be the stable in the market.

The majority of the technical support that we get will be through digitization. If someone wants to go through a digital process automation, this is one of the best tool to adapt it. When compared to other products on the market, the adaptability and usage are very easy. Moreover, getting the resources who are trained in Automation Anywhere, we can get that very easily. As Automation Anywhere is giving this technology for free, as there are no commercials involved, the majority of the skilled workforce are showing a lot of interest. That will be the future of this product.

There are quick user manuals clearly available. We can easily install the product and start working immediately. There are very big eLearning resource contents available. With the help of Automation Anywhere team in India, they are providing a lot, just to support student and faculties in universities. There is a quick learning process with the help of eLearning resources.

This is a one of the best automation tools where we can have quick transformations when compared to other tools available in the market.

The most interesting about this product when compared to the other products on the market: 

1. The resources available.
2. eLearning access is available.
3. The certifications are free of cost.
4. Adaptability is easy.
5. The implementation part is easy.

I can give it an eight out of 10. We need it to add something. It is a little too early, and they are working on that. If they can add more on these things, this will be one of the future leader of the market. While it is already a future leader, it will goes into the next level of the market.

One thing that we have used it for is uploading reconciliation files. These files usually come in hundreds. Previously, users used to do this work manually everyday. There were around 1,000 users, so that process has been completely automated. Now, these users can focus on more valuable work other than this manual task. This has really helped them.

Apart from this, we also have invoice processing where we are using IQ Bot. For that, even if the invoices are in different formats, the IQ Bot learns, then it works on them. That has helped us a lot.

Apart from the thing which Automation Anywhere is meant for: To automate manual tasks. I feel IQ Bot is the cherry on top, as it has helped us process a lot of unstructured data and it learns over a span of time. So, it has really helped us.

The IQ Bot is the latest feature of Automation Anywhere. It uses cognitive abilities to learn over a span of time, in which we have to train the IQ Bot. It will eventually learn after about 10 files, then it will start learning on its own and it will be able to do the task on its own. 

We use IQ Bot for invoice processing. It can be any type of document. It could be a PDF or any sort of document. It will convert those PDFs into CSV files, which is a structured format. It takes it from an unstructured to structured format. That is why we use IQ Bot.

The Excel command has some limitations. They are working on it. Now, from what I have heard, it has 40 plus commands in the Excel operation, so that is a very good thing. Once that comes up, it would be a 10 out of 10 for Automation Anywhere.

Stability will come down to how the code has been made up. It should definitely handle the code. If anything fails, like the website is not working, it should inform the users. So, it depends on how the code has been developed and it should be able to handle the code if any error comes along. The stability depends on the factor of the developer's coding. Otherwise, the tool is pretty stable.

There have been problems with scalability. It comes down to how we handle the code. It should be handled properly, then there shouldn't be any problems.

Automation Anywhere has very strong game because it is always up for asking feedback. It doesn't just ask for feedback. It actually works upon it. So, every time it releases a new version, we always see that feedback being implemented into their tool. That's a very good thing from Automation Anywhere which I have seen. They actually take the customer's feedback very seriously.

I was working on a workload feature called Workload Management, where I was facing a few issues here and there. For that, I raise a ticket and in the next release it was actually implemented. It was glitch type of thing, and it was handled in the next release.

For evaluating, there is a visibility team which does a visibility check for how the tool should be implemented. I haven't been a part of that.

I wasn't part of the decision-making process since I am the developer. Management sees the tool visibility and checks.

I would give it an eight (out of 10) because there is still scope of improvement which I see in the upcoming tools they have already implemented. I'm still waiting for it. Maybe after that, it could be a 10 (out of 10), but for now it's an eight (out of 10).

We generally do stuff to automate websites and SAP that we have in our company.

It has helped us to save a lot of FTEs for our solutions that we have provided to our companies. Suppose a job which was done by a group of eight to nine people on a daily basis for 24 hours was taking a lot of time, so we created a bot with Automation Anywhere. It was done with a bot working 24/7. It reduced the numbers of guys required to do that process.

The cognitive solutions that it provides.

The feature to automate the use case by simply extracting data, putting it into SAP, and automating the data. This is mostly website based, which is pretty easy for us to work on.

I would like to see some more with the Excel commands that they have. Also, with the cognitive, that is coming up we need to see what else they have, e.g., some SAP features to enhance the product more.

It is moving to a stable version right now. Version 10.5 was more stable and version 11.3 is having some glitches. But, we are moving to a newer version. Let's see what that brings to the table.

Technical support could be much better with the responses which we get. Also, guys come to our company and help us whenever we have some big challenges, so it is quite good. However, it could be done in a better way.

Now, it is a big complex to download the product and install it, then again to install the patches. So, it takes a lot of time to download it. But, the newest version that they are coming out with is web-based so it will be quicker on the cloud. As the CEO said, "Booking an Uber takes more time than downloading Automation Anywhere and even making the first bot."

It has provided us ROI.

It is a bit close, but I feel UiPath has an edge over Automation Anywhere.

I would rate the product a proud seven (out of 10). It could be improved more. With the newest version, we need to check the product. I am giving it a seven (out of 10) as a developer and because I'm using it daily.

We use it to develop bots. 

Use cases: We do Excel operations if we have to download any file from a portal to do any Excel operations. We send these outputs to our business customers. 

Bots are specific for each customer.

Most of the tasks that our organization used to do were manual. We automated our internal processes so it would give us FTE benefits and work would be done in less time. This also saves us time and FTE benefits.

The most valuable feature is the Excel operations because the most repetitive task which we used to do was Excel operations. Automation Anywhere has the Excel commands feature where we can run Excel Macros, which is very valuable. It's saving so much time for us.

We have our limitations. We can run only VBScripts and one more thing. If we want to run Python scripts or batch files, we cannot do it. So, if they would add these extra things in there then that would be beneficial.

I have to add in Excel commands because it is a limited feature, as we only have five to six commands. Suppose we have a spreadsheet and we have to get the counts for how many rows were filled, we have to do it through a Macro or VB. We have to write a separate code and call through Automation Anywhere. If they added in this inbuilt feature into Automation Anywhere that would be helpful for us.

Stability is pretty good. If we want the code to be stable, then we have to handle it in a particular way. We have to utilize the tool in the best way. An example is if there is a web page, and it gets refreshed every time, then the odd properties will get refreshed. If it is the UI making changes, then the properties will get refreshed. So, we can utilize error handling in the best way and make use of it. Instead of failing, we can make it run, making it more robust.

We have so many use cases. When customers come to us, they'll ask for a very simple use case, they will not know the features of Automation Anywhere and what we can automate. Once they get to know it after we automate one process, they will want more features which they'll ask for. They'll give us more use cases for us to do.

We have done many bigger tasks. If the customers are doing it manually, it will take them 12 to 24 hours. But, if they're doing it through Automation Anywhere, it will done in half an hour to an hour.

Automation Anywhere gives quick responses to any request when we used to reach out to them. Then, they will response and work with us to get it fixed. I have multiple experience like that.

I was partially involved, not fully involved, when they were doing the IT Bot setup and migrating to latest version. It went well because the Automation Anywhere team was there. They helped us migrate from the older version to the latest version. Whatever code that we had written in the older version, that needed to be migrated to latest version. With all these things, they helped us out.

Automation Anywhere helped us if our bots should be in their Control Room, if they were migrating or adding extra features. Then, they would take care of it. I don't know much about what would be in the background.

They asked me to use Automation Anywhere and I went through studying the others, UiPath and Blue Prism. Automation Anywhere is user-friendly, and if you're automating, then it's good for developers.

I'll give Automation Anywhere an eight (out of 10). They lost two points for the Excel commands. We have so many things to do in Excel, but we have very limited commands for it. We need to use Macros. We also have to know extra coding languages, like VBScripts.

I lead the automation team in UI. In the UI, we automate mostly PDF and shared devices, then most web applications. For large volumes, we mostly automate PDFs.

I have enjoyed using all the features of this tool, not just one feature, e.g., object cloning, Excel automation, and the web recorder. 

The tool is very easy to use and mostly user-friendly. I like that when using it I don't need much expertise.

With the IQ Bots that use AI, I want to see more features using that type of machine learning and artificial intelligence in their products.

It is a very scalable product. With the market, every time and every day, we can scale it.

It is very easy to interact with the support team for Automation Anywhere whenever it's required. Sometimes, if the training is required, they would visit our premises. We can also visit their premises. In terms of training and product support, if you have any challenges as a developer, they help all the time. It is very easy to connect with them.

It is very straightforward.

I have seen a huge difference in how it is improving products.

I use them mostly. I would recommend it to all my friends and team. I encourage team member to use it, even those who are not from a technical background. They can also move to Automation Anywhere, use, and can learn from it. If they go to use Automation Anywhere University and other training tools, the training materials are available for them. So, it's very easy to learn as well. Different platforms and technology members have also moved to use the RPA platform, and are now using the Automation Anywhere tool.

I'd give it a nine point two out of 10. There is still a way to go for Automation Anywhere where we can see improvement. Mostly, we want to see more artificial intelligence and machine learning. Now, I can see only this mostly in the IQ Bot where we construct the data from PDFs. I also want to see more features where we can use the artificial intelligence in automating tasks as well.

I started my career in RPA tools. It's five years for me working in RPA. I have automated different type of use cases in different businesses, like finance, insurance, banking, capital marketing, and manufacturing. There are a lot of areas where I have implemented use cases using the Automation Anywhere tool.

If I compare Automation Anywhere with different tools available in market, there are few things which make Automation Anywhere different than the others, like IQ Bot, which is not available in another tool as of now. IQ Bot is a very nice feature in Automation Anywhere, which gets me the structured data from the unstructured data, and we know wise processing is a familiar use case used in any kind of organization. Another one is a MetaBot which allows for doing offline development, using DLL, using screen calibration, and configuration. These are the main features that I've used. It is a great tool.

In terms of development for our developers, it is very easy and quick to learn because Automation Anywhere has provided an online academy where developers can easily learn the features. It is very easy. If someone does not have a coding background, they can also learn from it very easily because it is just drag and drop and very interactive.

It's a very stable product. It has been five years for me working in RPA. I started with Automation Anywhere only. I developed so many processes in different areas. If I talk about the banking sector, security is a must. It is providing all sort of securities here, like Credential Manager. Also, this tool is very stable and consistent.

It is a very good scalable product because the MetaBot provides a feature where we can reuse our code for whatever we have developed. We can use it in different areas with the same code. It is reusable. So, it is a scalable product.

Until now, whenever we required any help regarding technical support, we got it from Automation Anywhere. So, definitely the technical support is 10 out of 10. We are very happy. Today, I'm very excited to be part of these bot games.

We were already using it when I joined the organization.

It is very straightforward. Today, in the learning track, I was looking at the latest feature which is coming in A2019, which is very nice, because it is a web-based. So, we can do our development while sitting from anywhere. We don't need any type of installation. It's a web-based. Nowadays, everyone has the Internet. So, it is very easy.

I started my journey from Accenture, which is service based company. There, I worked on multiple tools, like RPA products, including Automation Anywhere, Uipath, and Blue Prism. So, I have experience in these three tools.

Both Automation Anywhere and UiPath are leaders in the market. Both tools are providing capabilities which are good. For me, the main differentiator here is the IQ Bot, which is not available as of now in UiPath. If you want to do invoice processing and all, we go for the whole CS. IQ Bot, which is already an Automation Anywhere feature, is one very big differentiator from other RPA tools. Another one is definitely MetaBot because it give me a reusable component which I can plug and play anywhere that I can use. MetaBot can also provide inline development because sometimes the interact is not there. We can just record the screen, then we can do our development and deploy it. Sometimes what can happen in an enterprise, a screen may undergo some changes. So, MetaBot is capable enough to detect those changes, which is not available as of now in other tools. There are more AI capabilities here.

This RPA tool is a leader in the market. 

I have had a very good experience working with Automation Anywhere.