Automation Anywhere Reviews

We are using Automation Anywhere for multiple automation processes. There are multiple clients with KPMG who have many automations going on.

In finance and accounting companies, they ask for report generations and record fetching from some data source type of tasks. They want it to be fetched and exported into forms, charts, etc. using automation. The task will happen when triggers are required based on some data sources. It is the data that will be exported and sent over mail. These tasks are mainly focused on organizations.

No other competitor has this email trigger, so it saves a lot of time if you automate the process. We don't need to fix a time for a task to run. It gives the feature of on demand execution for any task. Whenever a user wants, it can send a mail and get the task done as soon as possible. That is our main feature, I feel. 

There are multiple features, like PDF integrations, which are coming up. Task-related features to PDF integrations are coming up nowadays, so people want those executed and improved a lot in Automation Anywhere.

For improvement, I would like to see Automation Anywhere integrating with multiple other technologies. As of now, it is integrating with .NET. When it come to future technologies, I want Automation Anywhere to integrate with Python scripts, and make the execution easier. That will be very helpful, having our cognitive technologies interacting with Automation Anywhere.

On the basis of rating, I'll give a 90 percent to the process being stable. The remaining 10 percent is based on the change in the environment. If you change the environment from development to production or some other environment, then there are minor glitches which come into the process. But, that also can be handled a bit easier in Automation Anywhere.

It is very scalable. If we come to the point where we need to increase the number of bots in a process, for different countries or teams, we can add multiple bots and Bot Runners to the process, then we can execute. This gives a lot of scalability to the process.

The technical support team was very helpful on on our development. There were many cases where we needed their support and urgency. They gave a lot of support to us. They responded well quickly. That's what is required for our development or developer team, so I'm a bit happy with our technical support team from Automation Anywhere.

It's a bit straightforward. If you go through the user manual of Automation Anywhere, the stuff with automation there is quite easy. A layman or common man, who is new to the Automation Anywhere can install it quickly. So, it's easy.

There are a lot of savings in terms of effort and time as well as costs. Automation Anywhere automates a lot of processes. It allows an organization to save the efforts of a lot people. It saves a lot of time because people can't work a whole day (24/7), but Automation Anywhere bots can.

I'll rate it near an eight (out of 10) for Automation Anywhere. I'm giving this rating because the first thing which can be improved is integrating multiple technologies like Python, which can enable the developer and the process to run in a much better, faster way. The second thing is the automation that is available in Automation Anywhere can be improved. This will help other use cases to run.

I've been part of multiple bot automations ranging from different sectors from finance to retail to banking over four years during which I have implemented multiple bots.

The primary use case for Automation Anywhere is something related to financial and banking operations. Because the financial and banking operations are something which we do repetitively and need to be done with a lot of time. A perfect use case for RPA is something which is repetitive and has a lot of work. Use cases in the financial and banking sectors are something where we have multiple invoices to process multiple transactions. These two sectors are important sectors as use cases for RPA.

There are multiple features which are valuable. One such feature in Automation Anywhere is the object cloning command. Because with the object cloning command, I am able to work with websites and also with Window Operations. I have worked with other tools using this object cloning command. It is easy for a developer to just drag a command and clone whatever features or actions they want. 

I also have an option to modify according to my user inputs when using object cloning. There is one command which impresses me in Automation Anywhere that other tools lack. It gives me the image quality that I need.

There are a couple of features that I would like AA to improve upon in their next releases. One is the PDF automation. Of course, AA has come up IQ Bot which scans PDF documents. I feel that IQ Bot has not reached its mark. With financial and banking, we have multiple invoices that we have to process in our top use cases. Typically, these invoices come in a PDF file. So, PDF automation is the one automation that we want them to concentrate on. 

The second feature which I would like them to concentrate on is the work items concept. AA has come up with this in version 11, but I want them to more like competitors in the market for the next releases.

The stability of the process has improved from version 10 to version 11. The version 11 is the current version, and that is what I am working in. So, I have seen good improvements in terms of stability, but I still want some development in terms the stability. We run these bots in multiple environments from staging to development to production. We find usually in the production environment when we run the bots for them to be stable for a week or two. After a week or two, we see some glitches here and there, though the application doesn't change much. This is one feature which I want Automation Anywhere to work on: Increasing stability.

I'm impressed with the scalability. We are able to do changes. We are able to scale from different environments now with the Control Room in version 10 and 11. The scalability is pretty good. It is up to the mark of the other market competitors.

The technical support is something that I rely on if I have any queries or if I have to work on another alternate approach. I've been working with Automation Anywhere for four years, and during that time, the technical support that AA provides has been very good. They usually resolve the tickets that I raise in 24 hours and have come up with a knowledge base based on previous tickets that other people have raised. They have created something called a knowledge base, where before raising a ticket, I can just go to the knowledge base and see whether people have faced similar issues before and how AA has given a solution. So, in terms of technical support, I feel like AA is doing a pretty good job.

I've seen different versions of Automation Anywhere. They have evolved the setup, so even a newbie who comes to RPA or Automation Anywhere with the setup installation document that they provide, it's straightforward because all the steps are mentioned in the document. I've seen that even a newbie can install Automation Anywhere. So, the document that they provide is top notch for installation.

I have personally worked on an insurance use case where there were production teams 24/7. With the bots that we developed, they were able to do the ticketing and production support. There are multiple scenarios where the development of Automation Anywhere has improved cost efficiency and worker efficiency too.

I would rate them an eight (out of 10). Why not a 10? Because I want them to concentrate on the PDF automation and work items. I see these two things as something which have a lot of scope in RPA in the future. If AA comes up with these couple of features, I'm sure it will be a 10 (out of 10) in version 12.

Most of our use cases have to do with Excel reconciliations, data entry or capturing data and entering it into a different portal or reconciling into Excel.

We have a lot of clients who have to track Excel work, or there may be data validation or reconciliation's to be done. In alignment with our primary use and because we are an audit firm, our primary purpose is basically to compare entered data and do data matching or verification. It is best for us to get quick output, and Automation Anywhere has been withstanding our benchmarks for performance. Whenever we have a goal or deadline to meet demands from clients in doing volume processing, it helps us to meet all those projections. We prefer the tool, and we are Automation Anywhere partners. 

The time from the installation to the execution of deployment is not very long, so it is a better solution for us than something else which would not allow us to provide results as quickly.

The most valuable feature would be that it is easy to use. Second, we have flexibility in terms of scalability on our support systems. The functionality of the product enables us in terms of the type of projects we can take and helps in advancing our business prospects.

Alert transition is happening in the Python space and on the front lines of AI and with other tools. You have the opportunity to use different data blending tools and data manipulation tools. It would be good if Automation Anywhere could make more plugins available to use with a greater variety of tools and additional options. I think it would be a better product if it had a greater capability for integration.

Stability-wise and from a security standpoint as well, the tool is very robust. I feel Automation Anywhere is better compared to other automation tools.

This product scales easily. You can just plug-and-play with whatever components you want to use. You can just add in things easily and you can scale it up.

Whenever we are stuck at any point where we don't know something about a feature, we just reach out to the support team. Their ability and knowledge have been very helpful to us.

I was not involved in the decision to adopt Automation Anywhere as that decision was made before I was part of the company. I came in during a phase where we were scaling up on the new deployment. They made the change to Automation Anywhere to more actively adopt the possibilities of automation.

One thing that's very good about the setup is that it is one-click. You just have to click to start the installation and then you configure everything as you go through the installation. One of the best parts of using the product for us is that it is easy to install and configure which fits in our business model.

We are resellers as well as implementation partners and channel partners. So we have been through and are involved in all the phases of implementation and deployment. We are the vendor team.

We have been able to witness a return on the investment. We have had clients where their scope was very broad and we have helped them reach their goals. The ROI that we see is not an instantaneous one because it occurs over time while you build out processes. Here and there you have greater success and the target for return on investment is made up over time.

As far as costs, it depends on your use. We started with a basic department pack, which is over 10K. The additional costs depend on the scale of the engagement and how it pans out. We customize to our needs on the go.

I have worked with Automation Anywhere on nine versions, including the 10.3 and 10.7 versions. It has been improving all along as they make further releases.

Considering that experience, on a scale of one to ten, with one being the worst and ten being the best, I would rate Automation Anywhere somewhere around 8.5. It is one of the market leaders in their market segment. They have obviously proven their success and adaptability to the market enough to be very good at what they do. But I am scoring in terms of flexibility and in being more open-ended towards developer plans and preferences. In order to score nine or ten, they still need to provide more flexibility and integration with other tools and options.

My advice to people who are considering Automation Anywhere as a solution, is that you have to approach a decision from the point of view of what you want to accomplish. You can just go out and pick up a tool, but you have to actually dig into it and work on it. Automation Anywhere is a very good tool because it helps you along the process. The kind of support that you get from the community, as well as the partner enablement team, is encouraging. You can take it step-by-step. There will be some handholding from Automation Anywhere team. Our status as members of the customer success team is in the future. That kind of support and community helps new partners, existing partner, or those who are looking forward to becoming a partner.

We use this solution to automate tasks for which multiple steps have to be done.

We do it a very large number of times in a day.

We have been able to automate tasks that have a lot of repetitiveness.

The most valuable feature is the object cloning.

The user interface is easy to use.

While we have been developing over time, there have been issues with stability.

The speed of automation needs to be improved.

This solution is not that stable.

We have been able to scale ok.

I implemented this solution for my company.

This is a solution that I recommend.

We are looking forward to trying the IQ Bot to help with reading, scanning, and querying of files.

This solution has a wonderful concept, but the stability needs to be improved.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I have done a lot of use cases. Recently, I have done SAP automation. I worked with MS Excel, a web application, a Windows application, and a mainframe application. We automated three to four applications at once. We automated them in a row where one application's output would be input for another application.

I have done development and production support. I have helped organizations with integration.

The Visual Studio development for the basic version, which they launched long back, that's amazingly good. It has a good design, which is better than Blue Prism and somewhat better than UiPath.

They have good people.

Citrix automation is unstable. It is failing on a frequent basis. With the bot, they claim a lot of things, but it is not the real picture. It is not as powerful as they claim. It is not up to the mark.

Once I'm friendly with a tool, then I'll start checking the stability and power of it. It is not there with Automation Anywhere.

The management people don't know the technicalities. The actual tool is not as powerful as they claim. They are pitching the IQ Bot, but it's not as powerful or as fruitful in real world scenarios as it should be.

The user analytics are not analytics.

Their Community Edition is awful. Every second day, it will fail. It will become corrupt.

Stability depends on your use case and what type application you are automating.

Stability is good, RPA is a emerging field, so you can't expect a lot of stability. You develop things and the maintenance is there. 

Stability depends on the applications being developed. E.g., if it's a Windows application, they are already stable. Doing automation is not a big thing, but doing automation with little maintenance, that is a big thing.

Scalabilty is good.

The technical support is good. 

Their marketing team is good.

The initial setup is good.

I am the person with does the integration. I am developer. I can develop an application in three weeks (done and dusted). After moving it to production, there are a lot of challenges. Then, I am spending three hours of my bandwidth being occupied every day with maintenance.

RPA implementation will be always fruitful. Return on investment will be always higher than the input costs.

Automation Anywhere is a bit more expensive. This is one of the things that we face when we talk to small start ups in Bangalore. They want to do an RPA implementation, but don't have the money. UiPath is the answer.

We have done a lot of complex automation using different RPA tools: Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Blue Prism.

UiPath is a bit better. UiPath is a bit strong in fewer areas, such as Citrix automation. Citrix automation is like a thin client automation. For applications not present on your local machine and in the cloud, UiPath is more powerful. With RPA, you can automate things. Howe, are those automations stable? That is another question. In order to stabilize automation of thin client, UiPath is more powerful. There are few other features which are better than Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere.

UiPath has amazing scalability, while Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism are good.

UI Path is leading the market. There is no doubt about it. They have their own challenges. They aren't flawless. 

UiPath Visual Studio is not good. It is messy. Automation Anywhere Visual Studio integration is smooth and user-friendly. 

Automation Anywhere is good in some parts with their Smart Recorder that they they are launching in A2019, that is there but yes they are leading. They are putting in real hard work and emerging. They are in second place as of now in the RPA world.

We are an Automation Anywhere partner and we use it in the finance domain, in areas like B2B or B2C, etc. We also use it in HR and other domains for our clients. We have used it for vendor-invoice processing and recruitment. Those are our two major use cases as of now.

We have automated the recruitment and onboarding process for one of our clients. In that scenario, it has saved a lot of time. A process that used to take seven to ten days has now been reduced to half an hour. It has created a lot of efficiency.

It has also helped in terms of security because of all the off-boarding processes that we have automated. If an employee leaves, all his security access, email IDs, etc., are disabled on that same day. That person no longer has access to work on the company's domain.

IQ Bot is one of the most valuable features because it helps in processing different formats from different vendors.

As of now, it's only available on Windows machines. I would love if it were to also be available for Mac machines. That is something which is lacking as of now.

A cloud version was also missing, but now, with the new A2019 version, that's coming.

When I compare Automation Anywhere with the competition, some of the competitors have ready-made, off-the-shelf modules. For example, UiPath integrates with Windows AD. That is missing as of now in Automation Anywhere. If that became available it would also be great.

Stability-wise, it's a fine product. We haven't faced any major challenges up until now.

Scalability is also great. You automate one process and replicate it again and again.

For example, one of our clients has global operations. What we automated in one country, we were able to implement around the globe. We were also able to just keep on adding on new virtual machines in a given location, to have more and more processes automated. 

It's easy to scale.

Technical support is great. We have raised multiple queries over time and the results have been really good. The responses have been really good and fast. The feedback I have heard is that they get back to us same-day or, if not, the next day.

We had a good due-diligence process before we finalized. We compared different aspects like security, reliability, and compliance. AA scored high on the compliance front, so that's why we went with it.

The initial setup is straightforward. I don't see any complexity involved.

We have seen ROI in areas I mentioned earlier like time savings. We have seen good results.

The product starts at $10,000 and then it's up to you regarding how much you can consume. Comparatively speaking, the costs are higher for Automation Anywhere.

It's a good product. Compared to the competition, you can do multiple processes with one license. So there are a lot of savings in terms of license costs. It's easy to use and has good, UI-based interaction. It's easy to deploy as well. Clients can also train their own staff to do easy implementations, so they can save costs there as well.

I would rate Automation Anywhere at eight out of ten. There is always scope for improvement. There are a few ready-made things that they need to incorporate.

I use automation for finance. For example, SAP, Oracle, and other applications. In the past nine months, I have automated approximately thirty-five hundred hours. Next year we expect to reach at least eighty-five hundred hours.

All of my leaders are pushing us to use automation because they're thinking that other companies are ahead of us. I am looking forward to working on the IQ Bot to see how it might make my life easier.

Recently, the auditors were looking for a tool to assist them with checking incidents. For the American region, there were between twenty-seven and thirty thousand incidents, which as a human we cannot search manually. For each one, they have to check what the incident is, and verify whether they have the proper data. Because the audit was only going to run for one or two months, they wanted the results in ten days. I spent about one and a half days building a bot and started running it. The bot was moved to production, and within seven days, I was able to get all of the details in Excel format to them. They can filter it, see whatever fields are empty, and they can do the audit. They got one hundred percent sampling, which they were happy about. Our plan now is to sell the Bot to the project owners so that instead of having the auditor catch problems, they can run it every month and see what improvements they need and where it is lagging. The bot will educate the team.

The MetaBot is a very good feature that allows me to do things that were not available in earlier versions. I can now run multiple commands, instead of just one.

It is easy to develop using this solution, and it doesn't take much technical skill. It is very easy to integrate any of the macros or DB scripts. It is easy to find people who can work with this solution, unlike Blue Prism, where it is hard to get candidates.

I would like to have the MetaBot screen name title dynamic instead of static. This would allow us to use wild card entries and make our lives much easier. As it is now, we cannot automate using MetaBot because the screen name changes. The only way it can be done is to use multiple MetaBots.

We are having a problem when trying to automate the opening of very large Excel files. One example is our 70MB Excel file, which normally takes approximately twenty minutes to open. Automation Anywhere crashes before it opens, so we moved it to Instaknow-ACE, which is another RPA tool. It imports the Excel file, creates its own database, and then you perform whatever operation you want. After this, it generates the output result without crashing. If this were fixed in Automation Anywhere then it would be a large benefit because we are in a phase of moving away from smaller automation. We are doing a lot with bigger data, and most of it is still in Excel files instead of a database. It isn't the fault of Automation Anywhere because it is Excel that is crashing, but we need to have a feature where Automation Anywhere can import Excel files directly.

The stability of this solution needs to be improved.

The OCR capability needs to be improved to be made more accurate.

Compared to earlier versions it's a lot more stable, but it still needs a lot of improvement in terms of the OCR. We are getting more OCR projects where we have to scan and get data from contracts and give it to the auditors, or other people. The data includes things like region and the product that was ordered. It is very difficult for me to scan because I can't tell customers that it isn't accurate. Sometimes, it will read the letter "I" as the number one, which is one of the issues we are facing. The upper management thinks that everything is ok, but as a developer, I know that there is a problem. If you were to come to me and ask for an OCR to be done, I could only guarantee you about eighty percent accuracy. If I tell the customer that there might be twenty percent errors, they may not be happy.

Scalability is very good. Compared to others, Automation Anywhere is on top.

We have more than eight hundred developers in our company, and most do not have a technical background.

I do not deal with technical support directly. We have a COE who deal with technical support, and my team speaks with them. If there is a problem that they cannot fix then they go to Automation Anywhere.

Our COE took care of the implementation of this solution.

What it takes a human ten hours to do, automation should complete it in one hour. In the past ten months, I have saved the work of two people. People are happy with the results.

We are still in the procurement process for IQ Bot, but I am looking forward to seeing how it is going to help me.

My advice for anybody who is considering RPA is to use Automation Anywhere because it is easier. You can learn it, but if you go for other solutions then it will be more difficult. Not all of the people in our company are from a technical background. Many are BCOM graduates and analysts, but they are being trained in using this solution.

This is a good solution, but it still needs improvement and there is a long way to go. Artificial Intelligence still needs to be added.

If they allow the direct import of data from Excel, improve the OCR, and allow variables to be used in the MetaBot start screen, then this solution would be perfect.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for automating our business processes that make up our daily operations.

We have a set of steps that we follow for each of our processes. We devise inputs for these steps and then prepare them for automation. The automation then completes and publishes the results.

The automation that we have run on a daily basis helps us by saving a lot of time.

We have a process where we sell products, and using this solution means that we don't need to dedicate somebody to get this work done. Once we get the input file and prepare it, we run the automation. It completes overnight, and the next morning the results are available.

The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use. It has drag-and-drop features, which makes it very fast for us to gather the required data.

I would like to be able to look at the steps that are completed as a process is running.

It would be helpful if we could start running a process from a particular step.

In the drag-and-drop interface, it would be helpful to have interactive hints, or notes, about what is happening and what the different choices are. This would make it easier to learn.

With respect to stability, we haven't had any issues from what we have heard.

The scalability of this solution is really high. You don't think of it as a process, but rather, part of a process. Once you automate the individual parts, you tie everything together.

We have not used technical support for this solution.

We had different people come in and set up the process for us, initially. After that, I started putting in the automation myself, and it is becoming faster and pretty easy for me.

For anybody who is implementing this solution, I recommend they get help from Automation Anywhere to help understand the best way to do their automation. This will help with the development of the bots. This is what we did, and we now have a framework for building the rest of our processes.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.