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AVP at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
Sep 24, 2019
Enhances productivity and business processes and it can do whatever humans can do and still provide a level of security
Pros and Cons
  • "There is one user registration process in one application where there is no API which has been published by that framework. This is a very proprietary in one application by a third-party. So, there was a help desk, and whenever a call went to the help desk, they had a front-end where they created these user registrations. Now, this is completely automated for all employees who are onboarded. We receive the data, it is put it into Excel, and from Excel, it will update it into the particular tool where the registration happens."
  • "In one of the use cases, we used to have around 300 tickets per month which has been reduced to almost zero now."
  • "There can be some options to connect to the database directly where we should be able to add some data."
  • "The initial setup for the program was not straightforward. It was definitely complex."

What is our primary use case?

We have ITMS (IT Service Management) and there are a lot of support tickets which are coming into that service site. As an enterprise application, there are too many tickets to handle live. This system is being used by service desk employees to enable them to address all the issues that customers are facing which they are tasked to resolve. 

Because the number of tickets is huge, managing those services and change requests is complicated to handle manually. We use Automation Anywhere now to process these tasks wherever it is not necessary to use the API to process the handling of requests.

If, for example, I have an application which does not have an API, but there is one activity where a user may need to be registered in that particular application for it to function, we use Automation Anywhere for that to supply the access. We get the data from the source data and use an Automation Anywhere bot to do the registration of the user into that application. This was being done by the service desk manually in previous instances, now it is automated using Automation Anywhere.

We have had about 300+ live tickets at the end of every month before using Automation Anywhere. We just went live last month using Automation Anywhere bots to take care of processing some issues. The total number of tickets that remain live has come down to around 80 as of the end of this month. It might touch around a hundred at peak times right now. But over a short period of time, maybe around six months, these unresolved issues could become zero at the end of the month. We are just evaluating the numbers from the date when we went live, so it is not so accurate. Definitely, the goal is that the count will become zero, and that is the target. It seems to be working well so far.

The other use cases that we have are open-ended right now. There are a lot of potential uses. For example, if a request comes into the service now to create a VPN account, we can automate that using Automation Anywhere. That work is in progress. Today that is a manual task where the service desk people raise another ticket to another team who will go there and create the VPN accounts. 

We are in the process of identifying certain processes that can be automated through a bot, as there are other services for internal support functions, like HR or IT. We are trying to take some of those services to automate them. In terms of the extensiveness, we have just started with that. We have around 10 new sketches that we have automated right now but we have around 13 to 14 sketches that we wanted to automate through this process.

We are using the on-premise deployment model.

How has it helped my organization?

As far as how the product has helped us improve our organization, we may be a bit premature to just to say that it has already decreased the workload. But looking into the decrease in the ticket counts, it suggests that it is helping process customer service requests and that it definitely is going to help us more in the future as we utilize the solution better.

There is one user registration process in one application where there is no API which has been published by that framework. This is a very proprietary in one application by a third-party. So, there was a help desk, and whenever a call went to the help desk, they had a front-end where they created these user registrations. Now, this is completely automated for all employees who are onboarded. We receive the data, it is put it into Excel, and from Excel, it will update it into the particular tool where the registration happens.

On the service desk, they are using ServiceNow with a VPN connection. Now, they are logging using Automation Anywhere as a bot, which logs into a ServiceNow. It will then take that VPN request and create it on the server.

What is most valuable?

To be very honest, I've not had the opportunity to go through all the features of Automation Anywhere. This feature where it can use a bot to go between a user and into other systems as a robot and do that work is very valuable. It can do whatever humans can do and still provide a level of security. That model is a good one. 

Developers don't have any challenges using it. We are still in the early stages of use, but it is working well. It is very easy to use for our developers.

What needs improvement?

One of the challenges that I think should be resolved — from what my team was telling me — is that Automation Anywhere is not able to connect to a database directly. I have not evaluated this myself. There may be good security reasons for this, but it should be possible.

For example, generally what we do now is to write scripts to push the data from the database and into the automation event. The direct access feature — which is not available according to my team — could solve the issue with the scripts. There's room for improvement in making more flexible solutions.

As of now, because I have not used the new version very extensively, I don't have any reference to say what features should be added to the next release of the product. My one thought is that I don't know about the possibility of reading from unstructured data and if Automation Anywhere has any features to access unstructured data sources. It would be good if it can read the data and build some intelligence over that to push data to the right application. We do have some requirements from clients in other organizations where invoices will come in to be scanned. Based on the analysis of the data, copies of the data can be sent to different, appropriate applications. We are using different tools to do this now. If this kind of feature for reading unstructured data is there, then it will be easier to incorporate in processes. That is good to add if it is not there already. 

There can be some options to connect to the database directly where we should be able to add some data. 

There was a limitation where we were supposed to login remotely to one server and carry out some actions. That integration was not possible.

Buyer's Guide
Automation Anywhere
March 2026
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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for about six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In the Indian market, there are a lot of other service companies like us. In the market, there are other products competing with Automation Anywhere like UiPath. My team has technical experts in their technology and these experts also work with Automation Anywhere. When they are comparing the products, they say that the modules or the functionality in UiPath can do a better job overall compared to Automation Anywhere.

From a stability perspective, we run into an interesting issue. Somewhere in the licensing — especially for the Indian market — there should be some different pricing packages. For mid-size companies like us in our market situation, having multiple bots really costs a lot as a percentage of revenue. Instead of adding costs, we are trying to run with one or two bots which run about seven processes in all. It may not be the most efficient or optimal way to get the most from the product. From the cost perspective in the Indian market, if you want to grab the majority of the potential users, you will want to be considerate on the pricing side. A lower price may bring greater market share, user familiarity, and recognition.

Otherwise, stability seems to be good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

From the scalability standpoint, I don't think there will be any issues except for the increased costs which could prohibit some companies on a limited budget from scaling. So technically it is pretty good, but there may be some restrictions or interference in budget or integrations.

We are using one or two bots that are running continuously.

How are customer service and support?

Support wise, I think the company is doing great. When we hired support staff to help us with the installation the support was very good.

Right now, we are just at the beginning of our implementation as far as what we envision it will be in the future. So far the support that we are getting is normal support. It is just okay. When we place a ticket, there is nothing bad, but also there is nothing extraordinary about the support like we were getting during implementation. What we receive now is just a normal support experience compared to the specialist who was very good.

We have not taken Automation Anywhere University courses.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

One of the major reasons why we went with Automation Anywhere is that our company could have a global MSA (Master Service Agreement), where we could use this particular tool for our end customers also. As an organization, we had a global implementation with Automation Anywhere where the clients wanted to deliver this solution to the end customer also as part of their solutions. That's why — because that option was there — we just went with Automation Anywhere.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup for the program was not straightforward. It was definitely complex. As a layman who is unfamiliar with the product, I do not think people can implement it easily. Even people with a little bit of knowledge about the type of robotic engineering and applications are going to go through some challenges where they need help from Automation Anywhere.

So far in this installation, we have had to integrate with some internal processes. Also, we needed to incorporate solutions for the respective firewall openings to the internet. It has taken almost one-and-a-half months to do the basic installation of the software. It is not like pushing a button.

We initially deployed everything on server. However, the permission required Excel to also be a part of our process to be automated. So, we received some complaints on it this. This particular thing cannot be deployed on the server because of the license that we were holding. What I came to know is this feature is not available.

What about the implementation team?

We hired a dedicated person from Automation Anywhere who supported us at the time of the initial installation. Because we were installing this on the cloud infrastructure, we had to go through a lot of challenges. Because we had a dedicated person helping us to do this insulation, it saved us a lot of trouble, experimentation, and effort.

What was our ROI?

We are still in the process of deploying and evaluating both the solutions and the benefits. However, I definitely think we will see a return on investment. Looking into the number of tickets and seeing that they have decreased now because of some implementation of the solutions we intend to deploy is a good sign. We have around 40+ such use cases that we still need to deploy. Definitely, we are going to see some ROI using this product. It will develop more over time.

In one of the use cases, we use to have around 300 tickets per month which has been reduced to almost zero now.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Softomotive and UiPath. 

With Softmotive, the performance was a concerned. It was breaking in many places. That is what we observed. 

With UiPath, it was good. It has got a lot of integrations and can directly talk to the database as well. All those details are there. 

The major reason that we selected Automation Anywhere was the licensing model.

What other advice do I have?

The primary advice which I would give to someone considering automation tools, in general, is don't just go for any RPA tool (Robotic Process Automation). You want to be sure that the tool you choose will solve some issues and resolve your problems. I've seen people just take any RPA tool just to say that they are using some RPA. It is not a status symbol, it is a tool for business. You need to define the problem and that RPA is the way to go to resolve the issue and improve business function.

If there is a process which cannot be completely automated using any scripts, and human intervention is very much required, consider going for this solution.

I will give an example. There was one use case where we had to read information from an Excel table and generate a report out of that. People might decide they need to start using Automation Anywhere or some RPA tool for this solution. But reading an Excel file is not really a commonly necessary use case for any of the RPA tools. Basically it can be taken care of in programming scripts or some small database script application. An easy solution would have given the proper output with less effort and they would still get what they were expecting as users. The point is to evaluate the problem and how complex it is before going to purchase any RPA tool which may be unnecessary. If it can be done through something else, it may be a more efficient process. 

Business users are not using the tool. They are just using the direct outcome.

We have not used IQ Bots, but might in the future.

We have not used the Bot Store. I would like to explore that in the future.

On a scale of one to ten where ten is the best, I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight. It is an eight because I'm seeing some results in the use case even early on whatever we are trying to automate. It has really helped our process so far and we will expand on that.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Consultant at Deloitte
Real User
Sep 24, 2019
Easy to use and helps us to reduce multiple and repetitive steps in processes
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the object cloning."
  • "This is a solution that I recommend."
  • "While we have been developing over time, there have been issues with stability."
  • "While we have been developing over time, there have been issues with stability."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the object cloning.

The user interface is easy to use.

What needs improvement?

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

The speed of automation needs to be improved.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is not that stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have been able to scale ok.

What about the implementation team?

I implemented this solution for my company.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Automation Anywhere
March 2026
Learn what your peers think about Automation Anywhere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Consulta48d2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at Ernst & Young
Real User
Sep 24, 2019
The Visual Studio integration is smooth and user-friendly. Citrix automation is unstable.
Pros and Cons
  • "The Visual Studio integration is smooth and user-friendly."
  • "RPA implementation will be always fruitful, and return on investment will be always higher than the input costs."
  • "Their Community Edition is awful. Every second day, it will fail. It will become corrupt."
  • "Their Community Edition is awful. Every second day, it will fail. It will become corrupt."

What is our primary use case?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalabilty is good.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is good. 

Their marketing team is good.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is good.

What about the implementation team?

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.

What was our ROI?

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

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner.
PeerSpot user
AI and RPA Practice Head at In2IT Technologies
MSP
Sep 24, 2019
Strong on compliance when compared with competitors
Pros and Cons
  • "IQ Bot is one of the most valuable features because it helps in processing different formats from different vendors."
  • "A process that used to take seven to ten days has now been reduced to half an hour."
  • "A process that used to take seven to ten days has now been reduced to half an hour."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

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.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and technical support?

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.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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

What was our ROI?

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

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller.
PeerSpot user
RpaLead259a - PeerSpot reviewer
RPA Lead at Juniper Networks
Real User
Sep 24, 2019
Doesn't require coding knowledge. Screen resolution changes when unattended bots are run in the background.
Pros and Cons
  • "It doesn't require any coding knowledge. Any business person can automate this process."
  • "For the cash and bank reconciliation, we brought down amount of days it takes to do the reconciling and announcing the results; previously, it took 10 to 15 days, now it takes two days."
  • "Sometimes, the ESX services will stop. We are working with IT to resolve this, as it's not our fault. Automation Anywhere is stopping the service, and during that time, the bot will be stopped. Right now, we are logging into the client machine and restarting/rebooting them, then restarting the services. As some of our processes run at night, we won't know that the service is down since our processes run 24/7. This issue is then escalated to the manager. This is the current challenge that we are facing, and we would like them to improve this."
  • "Automation with bots runs fine only if it is an attended bot. With unattended bots, the bots run only 25 to 30 percent of the time."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it for finance and logistics-related tasks in departments that we are automating. E.g., for finance, we are using it for cash and bank reconciliation. For logistics, we automated eBay billing for the government portal before any goods can come out of the airport or get inside the airport for any package. We are using Automation Anywhere to create the transits IDs for this.

The product is deployed via internal cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

For the cash and bank reconciliation, we brought down amount of days it takes to do the reconciling and announcing the results. Previously, it took 10 to 15 days. Now, it takes two days.

What is most valuable?

It runs in the background.

It doesn't require any coding knowledge. Any business person can automate this process.

What needs improvement?

We started with attended bots and are in the process of migrating to unattended bots. We are facing a lot of issues with unattended bots as Automation Anywhere is not supporting this. When we run unattended bots in the background, the screen resolution changes. That needs to be improved because it might cause our IR operations or objects to fail.

Attended automation is fine but it is not the favorable because we are looking for an unattended bots. If we want to trigger bots manually, then we need a resource for that. Therefore, there is no point in hiring a resource only to run the bot. They need to improve the scheduler.

There are a couple of issues which needs to be rectified. Otherwise, Automation Anywhere is like using the Windows Scheduler. Aside from the Control Room, it's normal automation, and you can use other tools for that.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using it for almost two and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Sometimes, the ESX services will stop. We are working with IT to resolve this, as it's not our fault. Automation Anywhere is stopping the service, and during that time, the bot will be stopped. Right now, we are logging into the client machine and restarting/rebooting them, then restarting the services. As some of our processes run at night, we won't know that the service is down since our processes run 24/7. This issue is then escalated to the manager. This is the current challenge that we are facing, and we would like them to improve this.

Automation with bots runs fine only if it is an attended bot. With unattended bots, the bots run only 25 to 30 percent of the time.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are not using it to its full scale. We have deployed only nine bots in production and two in development. We are only using three or four bots completely. Rest are going unused, so we are not looking to scale out anytime soon.

How are customer service and technical support?

We hardly get a solution out of the technical support. I would rate them as a five out of 10. There is a lack of ownership.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

In Juniper, we had automation for different tools, like dashboards and visualizations. We used Tableau. Therefore, we upgraded some of the manual gap, then we began to explore other tools at that time. That is how we came to know about Automation Anywhere.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward.

Approvals are taking us more time than development. For the bigger products, it takes four to six months to scale. If it is a smaller product, then it can take 45 days.

What about the implementation team?

We are using consultants who are developing our bots for us.

We receive help from customer support.

What was our ROI?

We have not seen ROI in the last year. We should see ROI on the platform in two or three years.

If we use attended bots, there is no ROI in the product.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Our annual licensing costs for the entire company are $100,000.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did a PoC with UiPath as well. We felt Automation Anywhere was better than UiPath because of its features, like its Control Room.

UiPath is better for development because its workflow feature.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate the solution as a six out of 10 due to the resolution issue. It is a major issue that we are facing with the tool.

Get the approvals done before investing. We wasted the license for six months. The licenses were unused because we didn't have the approvals for the application. We procured it and kept it for six months. Therefore, before investing, get the approvals internally, then go for it.

We have integrated Automation Anywhere with SAP (ERP system) and BlackLine (reconciliation tool). For integrating, we are using web scaping tools and object cloning.

I am certified Automation Anywhere RPA professional with Automation Anywhere University. I am looking for courses on solution architecture and would like to have something for this in the University.

We don't use Citrix automation.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Senior Software Engineer at EMC Corporation
Real User
Sep 23, 2019
Developer-friendly, easy to learn and use, with powerful features such as the MetaBot
Pros and Cons
  • "The MetaBot is a very good feature that allows me to do things that were not available in earlier versions."
  • "In the past ten months, I have saved the work of two people and people are happy with the results."
  • "I would like to have the MetaBot screen name title dynamic instead of static."
  • "If you were to come to me and ask for an OCR to be done, I could only guarantee you about eighty percent accuracy."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for more than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and technical support?

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.

What about the implementation team?

Our COE took care of the implementation of this solution.

What was our ROI?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Sr Site Operations Coordinator at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Sep 23, 2019
Easy to use and saves us time in our day-to-day business processes
Pros and Cons
  • "It has drag-and-drop features, which makes it very fast for us to gather the required data."
  • "The automation that we have run on a daily basis helps us by saving a lot of time."
  • "It would be helpful if we could start running a process from a particular step."
  • "I would like to be able to look at the steps that are completed as a process is running."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have not used technical support for this solution.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Automati9838 - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation Lead at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Sep 23, 2019
Good manageability and a simple interface, but the license cost needs to be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "From a manageability perspective, this solution is very good."
  • "From what I have seen with the IQ Bot, it is very impressive and I think it is going to solve a lot of problems that we face right now."
  • "The cost of this solution can be improved."
  • "The cost of this solution can be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We are a solution provider and we use this solution to help our customers with internal processes. For example, we help them with the automation of information processing tools.

How has it helped my organization?

From a manageability perspective, this solution is very good. It's just understandable, and this has helped a lot.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of this solution is drag-and-drop. You don't need to be a coding genius to create a bot. It has a simple interface.

From what I have seen with the IQ Bot, it is very impressive and I think it is going to solve a lot of problems that we face right now.

What needs improvement?

The cost of this solution can be improved. We have written applications that do the same thing as Automation Anywhere, but for less cost.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

When it comes to stability, there are a lot of dependencies. The bot, itself, I would say has always been good for us. The only problems that we have had are when the tools change, the bot has to be enhanced. That is something that is unavoidable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Compared to other RPA tools, I think Automation Anywhere is very scalable.

For example, we have written simple applications where they do one thing today, but tomorrow they may add something else to it. They're developing an additional, or expanded version of the bot, and it is always simple. In this way, the scalability is pretty good.

The only problem we've had is when we need to expand the userbase. This is because of the ports attached to it.

How are customer service and technical support?

We do reach out to Automation Anywhere technical support and it definitely helps.

How was the initial setup?

In the beginning, it was a little bit complex and difficult for us to understand how to get things running. We reached out to technical support for help.

Initially, we had planned on going simple. Then, we wanted to be centralized and have a cloud-based environment, which is where we were facing a lot of challenges. One of the challenges was DB connectivity for accessing SAP, which was a security issue. We also had some trouble automating web pages.

What was our ROI?

Initially, we did see ROI. The problem is that we could not re-use those licenses. One license is not going to be running for twenty-four hours. We considered planning and scheduling to make the best of this, but its split across multiple teams, so there are multiple license requirements. Not everything has huge savings attached.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have worked with other RPA solutions, such as UiPath.

What other advice do I have?

We are looking forward to having the capability of building the IQ Bots the way we want, using Python scripts. With our scripting, we can fill in the gaps and improve accuracy.

My advice to anybody who is researching RPA solutions is to consider several things. I can see that the path that Automation Anywhere has right now is going to take it to the highest levels. My suggestion is that if you have a lot of coding or scripting experience then I would recommend UiPath. It has its own plusses and minuses, as with every tool.

Instead, if you're looking for someone that can you you build a bot within a short time, who doesn't know any coding or have a background in programming, then I recommend Automation Anywhere. You cut out the cost of developers, but you add to your cost in terms of licenses.

Also, for manageability, Automation Anywhere is the best choice.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
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Updated: March 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Automation Anywhere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.