Automation Anywhere Reviews

We are currently doing automation on the ground level. There are a lot of unexplored areas of RPA (different scenarios) that we have not captured yet. 

On a daily basis, we had to update a few things on SAP where we had slight challenges. With the help of scripts and DLL, we could solve these problems.

The main things that we give to our clients are its Excel functions and the terminal emulator.

The main problem that we see is migrating data from one system to other system. This is where a human comes into the picture. While we can do Excel crude data going into an ERP system, we would like it going forward if the Excel to SAP integration had a higher focus in the coming features. 

The Excel functions that we see are currently very limited. While I have not tested it, I have seen these functions expanded in version A2019.

I would like more detailed activity logging of what the client does. Currently, it just shows that a task started, then a task has ended. We want more detail around this for our clients, especially for error logging. E.g., we had to create an encrypted log for our clients to see what happens every second for every step. We made this in a CSV, and that CSV can be accessed by anyone who can change it. If Automation Anywhere could integrate this into the Control, that would be great.

You cannot expect an ERP system or any third-party system to remain constant. You have to stay on top of those. You spend about 20 percent of your rebuilding or changing something.

I have no issues with the scalability. For a current client, we have deployed easily around 100 to 120 bots which are running in production.

It would be really good if they could give more priority to tickets which are raised by partners. Right now, Automation Anywhere customers and employees have higher priority.

As a partner, we usually use whatever is online or the Automation Anywhere website. We search that to see if anyone else has already faced this issue and provided a resolution on the site. 80 percent of the time it is there. If it is not there, then I raise a ticket or call a hotline number.

With our current knowledge, the initial setup process is fine. The setup was easy for me.

With the Community Edition, a new user to RPA can utilize the tool and start learning how to use it.

As a partner, we work with other competitors as well. Most clients prefer Automation Anywhere because it is easy to implement. You don't need to know rocket science to learn this solution. If you know logic, that is sufficient. Automation Anywhere is more user-friendly.

We are in the financial business and we use this solution to help provide reports for management.

We download data, perform Excel manipulation, and then generate reports. The reports are then sent to the higher levels of management.

There are things that used to take us a lot of time, like manual entries or HR queries, but now that the bots are in place, we are saving a lot of time. 

The most valuable feature of this solution is recording macros. The MetaBot is also great.

People can easily go in and automate anything they want.

This solution will connect to the database directly.

DLLs can be used to automate the MetaBots.

The GUI can be improved by making it more user-friendly.

Python integration is coming with the next release, and they should expand on that.

This solution could be more stable because sometimes I see some bugs.

This solution is very scalable. The bots do not depend on any specific system.

We have more than one hundred bots in production.

Technical support is great, but some of our tickets have not been solved.

There was a lot of manual effort being put into our processes, and we decided that we needed automation. 

The initial setup was really straightforward. We spoke with AA about what kind of architecture it needs, and they have created it in a way that is very robust.

We evaluated UiPath and some others and decided that Automation Anywhere had the best features.

There are a lot of different features that are built-in, and this is a great product.

There are some bugs in the version that I am using, and it can be improved.

I would rate this version an eight out of ten.

We have many use cases for this solution including invoice processing, email processing, Excel file manipulation, and text file manipulation.

Using automation, we have been able to reduce a lot of time spent on processes.

We have also been able to automate statement processing.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the MetaBot, which gives you the power to add many DLLs and customize them for the automation.

We have had issues with stability in the past, and there should be a function that helps you to find out what is wrong with your environment that is causing the automation to fail.

We would like to have more information on how Python integration works, and how easily it can be done.

This solution is stable but sometimes it doesn't work due to various issues with the environment, like your service doesn't work or your sign-in gets disconnected.

This solution is scalable and works fine. I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten.

Technical support for this solution is quite good and they are very responsive. They also give you a solution very quickly.

When we first started with this solution it took about ten days to learn how it works. Afterward, it was quite straightforward to work with it.

We looked at UiPath but it was not as capable as Automation Anywhere when it comes to large scale.

The 2019 version of this solution looks quite exciting. It will include many features for web integration. It will also include support for Python, which is something that we are looking forward to.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We train students to find their own problems on a day-to-day basis, then use Automation Anywhere (or an RPA solution) to solve these issues.

We are using the latest version.

With this type of work, there is usually manual labor and human error. The people who do it may not like working on it for long. That's a big problem. If we can get a bot to do the same job doing the same thing, then our human workforce can use their intellect. 

There are many valuable features, including the reading material and taking data from websites. We can move quickly working with PDF files.

We can see what the bots are doing when they are working.

I like the bots that take data from databases and websites, then change it into another format. The bots can use this data to fill out forms, which is very tedious.

It is very easy for anybody to learn. Anybody spending time for the solution can learn it.

The UI is great and intuitive.

Automation Anywhere has to be integrated with machine learning and AI systems to read images and videos, then put the information into another format.

Stability is pretty good. We haven't had any issues.

Scalability requires a lot of resources which needs a longer based goal. 

With a cloud-based platform, we can create bots and apply them to any system.

The initial setup is straightforward with no hassles. 

Most people are aware of Automation Anywhere and what it does.

The primary use case for this solution ranges from the web scraping to working on more complicated applications, which are built in-house. For example, in the case where we would have to get into an application that is not automation-friendly, we would use the OCRs to recognize the fields, insert information into the application then extract some of the information. We also do a little on the database front.

We are a solution provider for a back-end team who works on a different manual task.

We tried the same type of flow automation using a Python and VB application, but we don't have the leverage of OCR which is available from Automation Anywhere. 

Most of the automation that we currently handle is that which has already failed when using the previous versions with the VBAs and Python.

We are using this product on-premise, so we still haven't upgrade to the cloud.

In our organization, we track the number of hours we saved, not work for the customers, but work for ourselves. 

Those numbers were tracked in a tracker called Smartsheet. We saved approximately 10,000 hours of work for ourselves. The numbers are staggering, considering we have only been using Automation Anywhere for a short period of time.

I have not worked with all of the commands offered in this solution, but some of the helpful features are OCR and web scraping. 

The OCR application is excellent and has helped resolve many issues that I had been facing. Also, to some extent, the web scraping is more effective, and the delays are really good.

I am also a programmer with VBA, but I found that I am more comfortable with Automation Anywhere, because it is faster and you get more results within a short period of time. we use the Excel VBA.

Most of the times you find the solution that you are looking for in the Bot Store. You might have to customize here and there. It is a good place to get into because somebody might have the same type of scenario. However, I have not used it extensively.

This solution should be more user-friendly so that our clients can take a bot that we have developed for them, and then run it by themselves. As it is now, we write the VBA code and give it to the user, our client, and then they run the code. However, they do not like this. Having this is the next release would be helpful.

Automation Anywhere is intuitive. Initially, you may struggle a little, but once you get used to it, then it's intuitive and you don't really have to know all the commands beforehand. There is scope for improvement here.

The feature often asked about by the users, the product owners, is that they want to learn more about the bots themselves.

We have not used anything attended. As far as we are aware that feature not available, but it is to be released soon.

Version A2019 is something that could be beneficial to new users. At the same time, I cannot rule out completely that you need to have a very good programming skills. It will be easier if you have some knowledge on the programming front because you might be using a command which is already built-in. Therefore, you should know how the loops works and how the conditions work in order to implement them. If you want to do a bit of deep-diving into automation but you will need a little technical knowledge at this point of time.

We haven't had any issues with stability. The ecosystem provided is great, because we have bot stores that can be downloaded, so we don't have to start from scratch.

Before creating a bot, I can go directly to the bot store to see if the bot is already available. That way, I don't have to waste any time.

Most of the time we built the bots for ourselves. When we purchased the licenses from Automation Anywhere we had them provide us with training. It was approximately a week for the training.

Also, there was another training session for photo documentation purposes.

Automation Anywhere is an excellent example of a solution that scales up. 

When we develop a task we modularise it and upload it into the repository. If another team member is working on another project and they require a section of my bot then it then gets downloaded and modified. Somebody else plugs in the variables, etc. In this way, the scalability is great.

At the moment, there is no setup in place.

We don't have a Citrix environment. It's mostly web-based. We also have in-house built applications that we use for our day in and out operations.

The technical support team has been with me from the beginning of my journey with Automation Anywhere. I was not a good developer initially, so I give them all of the credit.

They have a very good support team. I would advise my colleagues to use the IT help desk as much as they can.

As developers, we have evolved. Initially, at the start of using automation Anywhere we had many struggles. We contacted support for some help and suggestions, and with the help they provided, we are now more comfortable with Automation Anywhere.

There were instances where they couldn't help me, but it was because of the task not being suitable for automation. I understand that there are hindrances in the evolution of a solution, but they helped wherever they could. I would say that in 80% of the cases, they were able to help me.

They need a better community support with online resources. Though, there are good resources in regards to other programming languages, such as Python, VBA, and .NET.

Previously, we had been using VBAs and Python, albeit our use in Python was not extensive.

We chose Automation Anywhere because we heard that you don't need to have expertise in a particular area, and anyone can develop a simple bot in a short time.

We still do not have a setup in place. We do have licenses, but we are trying to have more bot programmer licenses in place. As such, the deployment is still in progress, but from what I understand it is simple and straightforward. I expect that it will be completed within the next week or two.

Most of the team who were working on Automation Anywhere had a little programming background, such as VBA or Java. Initially, we struggled a bit to use the rich commands but Automation Anywhere provided initial training when we got our licenses. Somebody came and gave us training for three to four days. Then, it took about three to four months to transition from the PoC to using the bots.

We handled the implementation ourselves, and have not sought out help from anyone.

When we initially bought the licenses, we had the Automation Anywhere team come down to train us. This lasted for approximately a week. They also visited on another occasion for documentation, but otherwise, we work on our own.

We do a cost-benefit analysis along with a feasibility study. We do this initially when there is a project that is lined up. We look at how many hours the project will take. We also delivery time and its urgency. Even if the project may not save a huge number of hours, we still might pick it up because of the urgency. Sometimes, we also look at it from an error reduction standpoint. There could be a lot of errors coming out because it was manually processed and this may cause the company issues. With Automation Anywhere, we reduce these errors.

I was not involved in the cost or purchasing, but as far as I know, the return is great. There are a couple of projects that we have worked on where we could have saved approximately 4000 hours on just one project that we built in two to three weeks. This is the type of impact this solution has.

We have purchased licenses, but are trying to obtain more bot programmer licenses. That should be happening in the next week.

UiPath was the closest competitor that we were considering. We provided pros and cons for both UiPath and Automation Anywhere. There may have been a cost-benefit analysis done from management, but I was not involved in that area.

We just did a PoC with UiPath. We did not work extensively with it. The product was based more on a workflow model. Automation Anywhere will also have a workflow model with its A2019 version.

We were not compromising on quality for dollar value. If you are looking at it from all aspects then Automation Anywhere is the clear winner.

We can automate anything with Automation Anywhere. Initially, we were skeptical about whether this small project would be automated or not because we were not well acquainted with the Automation Anywhere capabilities. After using the product for a while, we understood its potential, such as the OCR capabilities.

My experience with Automation Anywhere to date has been great, however, there are areas that I have not explored which could be features that should be added or improved upon, such as APIs. I have yet to explore this area of the solution and there may or may not be room for improvement.

We used to use Excel VBAs. However, if you want to manipulate stuff in Excel files, you have to write the back-end code in VBA. This is more effective than writing your code in Automation Anywhere. There are no hiccups in integrating with VBA.

We have completed the 11.2 expert certification in Automation Anywhere University and are in the process of completing 11.3. The University has a lot of stuff in their repository. As a programmer, you might not use all those commands extensively in your development. It's a good place to learn, but I didn't see everything being learned in the University being implemented.

For anybody who is considering this solution, I would start by suggesting that they look at their business requirements. We looked at it from a business standpoint because in our day to day operations, we needed automation. This is how we realized we needed a solution. If you are doing web scraping or another type of mundane task every day then you need Automation Anywhere.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I work with clients who are in banking, the financial sector, and the accounting sector. It mostly involves work with Excel, SAP, and BI. A typical use case starts with downloading data from SAP, manipulating it in Excel, sending relevant emails, and then receiving the responses.

This solution has helped us bring in more clients. We are able to satisfy our clients in ways that we did not think was possible. When we started interacting with our clients, the expectations were pretty low. We were hoping to automate ten processes. Now, with the capability provided by Automation Anywhere and our coding knowledge, we have put everything together and have automated approximately one hundred processes. So, the clients who expected ten and ultimately were given one hundred were pretty happy. The company image has been boosted, as well as the trust and confidence in this solution.

One of the strongest aspects of Automation Anywhere is the ability to have custom MetaBots through images, or through the use of DLLs or APIs. This functionality was introduced in version ten.

This solution is easy to use and easy to learn compared to Blue Prism, UiPath, and others. You don't need to know C# or any other programming language. It is helpful because you can build DLLs, but if you don't then you can still manage. You can use Automation Anywhere from a non-coding background. If somebody is not familiar with RPA then they can still swoop in and get experience by doing automation projects.

They have a good community online with a lot of documentation and videos available. 

I would like to see this solution made to be a little more robust. As a coder, I have written more than one hundred functions and I can do high-level testing, but I can't do the low-level testing of complicated use cases. I think that AA has to look at it from that perspective. Hire a few developers, give them some complex work or use cases, let them work on it, and then check for stability when there are two or three tasks. For example, one task runs, the output goes into another task, one window opens, then another window opens, and you interact with multiple interfaces. This type of testing may be how they'll get to know what is wrong with the application.

I would like to see more Excel functions built-in. Currently, they have forty-five or forty-eight functions supported, but I have written a DLL that includes one-hundred functions. They can do many more than forty-eight, and because we are dealing with accounting and finance, Excel is used a lot. We need Excel and we don't want to always have to depend on a custom-built DLL. When using a DLL, ninety percent of the time it won't be uniform for all of the processes. This means that I have to modify it, rebuild the DLL, and deploy it again. Native support would be much better.

Web automation capability needs to be improved.

I would like to see more features in the next release of this solution, including data tables, spying, and cloning.

IQ Bot is bad and needs a lot of tweaking. It needs to have thrust because right now you use it and it doesn't get off the ground. It just stays there. They made us believe that there is potential, so they have to fulfill it. For example, they speak about this ML component in IQ Bot, but I know that it doesn't exist. There is no ML component there, and I would like to see one kick in when IQ Bot fails to extract data. It should start automatically, and maybe ask us for some guidance at the beginning on how to do the work. With the ML component working, IQ Bot would be very good.

I would rate the stability of this solution somewhere around an eight out of ten. Although it seems to be very stable, perhaps ninety-nine percent of the time, when you need it the most, it stops working. Object cloning, for example, even when you go through DOMXPath, and even if you map the exact path by going through the Object ID, the DOM, you collect the DOM and then you map the exact object, it hangs sometimes.

Scalability is very good, except in the case of IQ Bot.

IQ Bot has problems with respect to scalability. As an example, consider that you want to upload one thousand POs per day. You have two machines, and you want to split the work, but there is a problem. IQ Bot is going to put the output into the same output path, but how do you know which machine has generated this output? How do you map it? This is an inherent flaw that hinders scalability in the long run. IQ Bot doesn't even let you know whether an output has been generated. They have a database, and I built a custom bot to look at their database to find out if the output has been generated, or not. However, people have told me not to touch this database because it is proprietary.

The other point with regards to scalability is that it doesn't just happen out of the box. You do not just add a hundred more machines and have it work in the same manner. You need to use it in tandem with an SQL database, or another application like Tableau. If you do then it will be very strong and very robust. It will be loosely coupled but highly scalable.

I have corresponded with them and I would rate technical support a nine out of ten. I do not want to be too hard on them but what I've noticed is that they will support people, but may not fully understand the technical aspects of the components that they're using in Automation Anywhere. So, if you were to ask them, "How do I get to the Moon?", they would answer, "Just build a rocket". They won't tell me how to build the rocket. If they would connect developers to their own backend engineers then that would be really helpful.

The initial setup of this solution is a little bit complex, but if from the start you know where to go, what to click, and exactly what each button does then it will be very useful. If you have somebody to guide you then it will be much easier.

We implemented this solution ourselves. We developed the Bots like we always do. We uploaded it to a repository and moved it to a production environment that we set up. We then synchronized all of the files that are required to be present in the production environment. Finally, we provided support for a week after the deployment.

We have saved a lot of time and replaced a few FPEs with this solution. It is a one-time investment for a year. You may replace people or alternatively put them elsewhere to work on better activities. This solution saves money for our clients, which is a good thing.

I have seen my colleagues use UiPath and web automation is excellent. I have been involved in hackathons where I have used Automation Anywhere for web automation, and I have struggled. In web automation, if UiPath completes it in ten seconds, then Automation Anywhere will take seventy to eighty seconds for the same task.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We are primarily using this solution for banking, healthcare, and Agile processes. We implement automation solutions for our clients.

I have been using this solution for the past three or four versions, and the look and feel have improved a lot. A lot of functionality has been added, including control room features and deployment features. It takes some time to analyze and overcome the technical aspects before deployment, but now, we know that we have an easy time in development and deployment.

Our solutions are easily understood by the client and they do not have any difficulties.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the ease of using it. Even as we were getting into RPA for the first time, I found it easy to understand this tool.

The terminal emulator and the automatic scanning of PDFs are good features that you can do really easily.

We would like to be able to directly implement automation for Word documents and XML. Currently, we have to write a script or some code in Python, and there is no direct solution. Basically, I'm expecting some things that are more innovative.

It would be great if technical support were a little faster.

I would like to see more documentation for automation.

This solution is very stable, even though it is growing in an aggressive way.

We are implementing complex solutions in health planning care, HR, and banking, so there are a lot of things that you have to consider when it concerns data and the information. Sometimes we get an error where the port will hang, or the solution will change over a period of time, but generally, the solution is scalable. I would rate scalability an eight out of ten.

Technical support for this solution is good, but sometimes to takes a long time for them to get back to us. Sometimes we face technical issues while we are downloading, and there has been a delay in getting support. If this could be minimized then it would be great.

I have worked with other solutions and information providers before, and this solution is easier to use. 

The initial setup of this solution is pretty simple.

It takes approximately a week and a half to set up automation. We have already had some examples and demos, so setting up is very easy. Learning will take some time after that.

We perform the integration for this solution with our in-house team.

We have seen ROI since implementing this solution. We started with the HR processes and we are using healthcare information. It has given a decent ROI. We used to have fifteen employees, but now there are two or three who manage and support the bots.

Choosing this solution for our clients concerns multiple aspects. I have to think about the complexity of the solution and how much time it takes compared to other solutions. These things considered, Automation Anywhere is a decent competitor and gives a better solution. Even through the development and debugging phases, it give very good performance without scalability issues.

We have worked with both Blue Prism and UiPath

For anybody who is learning and wants to use RPA, I would suggest starting with Automation Anywhere. There are many things to consider including the technical capabilities, the length of time for development, the number of pieces that there are, what the support is, and how easily the bots are deployed.

This is a good solution, but some pieces are missing and there are issues with support.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for application automation in both web-based and Windows applications.

Our automation is specific to the insurance and hospitality industries and has to do with automating email, PDFs, and updating them inside our ERP application.

This solution allows us to more fully automate our clients' specific tools.

The automation of data entry is the most valuable feature for us.

Built-in HTML features are lagging in this solution, whereas in UiPath, they are very good.

We would like to see more improvements in the ability to retrieve region data because, currently, this is the reason that some of our automations fail.

The stability of this solution is good, but it still needs to improve. We are not confident with its capability to automate in every case.

This is a scalable solution. For us, we will be scaling more into the future.

We have not used technical support for this solution.

We have used UiPath, and some of the features in that solution are superior.

My backend team handles the implementation of this solution.

There is a return on investment. The automation and scalability provide benefits in terms of reinvesting or reusing what we have developed.

This is a good tool to work with.

Our automation is running well, but there is a lag in features when compared to other Windows tools that are coming out.

My advice for anybody who is considering this solution is to consider the type of automation that needs to be done. If it is not overly complex then this is a solution I recommend.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.