Automation Anywhere Reviews

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.

Processes which have a decision making and do not have any required rule-based are considered for automation.

All the features that we have different from each other. Most of the time, we go for object cloning and IQ Bot, which will be used in the coming years. That feature, people are looking forward to, as it will help us read and extract data from unstructured formats.

Although, IQ Bot has data being extracted from it. It can improve with more features, like handwritten copies that are readable. Anyway, the IQ Bot is coming out in a bit, and I'm sure we will go with it.

For most of the cases that we have worked on, the application has been stable. Automating applications has brought a huge change to the automations which we have carried forward.

It depends on the developer and how they have coded it with respect to scalability. However, it has the ability to be scalable.

The main point to go for Automation Anywhere is because we have worked with other tools than Automation Anywhere and the support team which Automation Anywhere has takes time to try understanding the issue, then give the feedback. That is something we learn along with the Automation Anywhere guys. I would go for Automation Anywhere because of the support team.

Version 10 that we had was a little complex to set up. However, version 11 is pretty easy.

We use multiple tools, but most of the time, it is Automation Anywhere which we go for because of our clients who are looking forward to working with Automation Anywhere. It's sort of easy to use. Also with respect to the client as well as the developers, it gives quick results. With other tools, we need to perform a lot of tasks. This tool is a bit quicker. The ROI also comes into picture.

I have in fact told all my friends and colleagues who are in the RPA domain to work with Automation Anywhere because it's easier to run as well as to implement. Overall, the deployment is easier. I mostly prefer Automation Anywhere over the other RPA tools.

I would rate the product a nine to nine point five (out of ten).

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.

We'll be discussing our implementations for Salesforce and using Automation Anywhere to automate sales for processes within the organization. We focus mainly on sales and BFSI.

A very important piece within sales is that we've noticed most of the salespeople hesitate from updating their Salesforce at a frequent interval. You jump on a call, you have multiple calls with your customer, and you hesitate to keep dealing these updates within Salesforce. The idea behind this implementation, or this specific solution, is that we take care of all the updating of Salesforce processes. We take care of all lead conversions, lead updates, lead generations, etc. through our RPA. All you need to do is have a conversation with your bot, and say, "Hey, I just had a conversation with Nick. He seems good with all the implementations. We should convert him from Level 1 to Level 2." These basic implementations have been taken care of.

We're also looking at mobile transcription. So, if you are on a call with XYZ, you say, "Hey, I'm jumping on a call with XYZ, just transcribe what I'm talking about." So, you transcribe those calls and update them in your total documentation. That's the idea.

Automation Anywhere has been an integral part of this product's evolution in general. A hindrance that we were faced with was companies who did not have API integrations for Salesforce. This is where RPA and Automation Anywhere came in and helped us with integrating solutions which did not have API integrations within themselves. That's how we've evolved in the past two to three months.

IQ Bot seems to be a good solution that Automation Anywhere has come up with. It sets them apart from the other solutions. I want Automation Anywhere to work on IQ Bot further to help evolve the tool more and create a certain set of solutions using IQ Bot. They can maybe use better machine learning algorithms to come up with better accuracy for OCR extractions. This is an area that I want them to work on.

It is absolutely robust. Automation Anywhere as a solution, as well as our implementation, have been robust in nature with thorough testing and UAT processes being involved. Automation Anywhere can be considered as one of the most stable RPA tools in the industry, according to the perspective of the limited amount of tools that I've used. But, Automation Anywhere seems to be the most stable one.

We initially started off with a customer who had just three bots. We've now scaled them to 15 bots. It didn't take us more than an hour to scale. Automation Anywhere helped us scale from one bot to 100 bots within a period of hours, if not minutes. Unless you're scaling from 10s to 1000s, I think Automation Anywhere has it covered.

Support is five (out of five). The technical support is better than any other automation tool that I've seen. The ticketing resolution that they provide not only for paid customers, but for PoCs that we conduct, IQ Bot, and other scenarios wherein the product might not be functioning properly. The support is top-notch. There are scenarios wherein we need to be able to identify the best possible solution, and there is support for that as well.

We started off about one and a half years back initially. In those days, Automation Anywhere hadn't picked up so much. The initial setup was difficult, but as they have moved from on-premise to cloud, the setup has become much easier. Now, we are hands-on with the setup and can do it within hours.

With another client, we are saving about 20 hours. However, we are not able to justify that return on investment by just saving time. There are other parameters that we would have to look at for justifying the ROI.

The return on investment for most of our clients depends from scenario to scenario. Some of them look at it on a long-term basis and some of them look at it from the amount of time saved. For example, we are currently working on a solution for a CIO. We are saving about four hours of his time during a particular week. The return on investment for that particular person is humongous.

We evaluated all the solutions. We had different RPA tools. Looking at the feedback from the market and the type of technical support that we had received, we went ahead with Automation Anywhere. The major reason for going with Automation Anywhere was the technical support that developers have.

I'd rate it an eight point five to nine because there's still always room for improvement.

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.