Automation Anywhere Reviews

Our use case is mainly finance related. We've used Automation Anywhere to automate a couple of applications with respect to statement analysis and daily manual processes. 

We check if the process is automate-able, meaning there is no human interaction needed, no judgments to be made, etc. If the process is a candidate, we then move forward and start automating. We also look into the systems involved, because some systems have restrictions with respect to automation.

Overall, we've saved a lot of time. There's a recent process that we automated, which saves around 200 to 300 hours each month, depending on the number of accounts that come in.

Automate Anywhere can just mimic what a human does. That is the overall feature I can talk about. With respect to specific features, my main focus is with IQ bots, because they can learn by themselves, which is very helpful in a finance background where we're looking at statements and the like. There's a little bit of coding that you need to do and then you can just start teaching it.

This solution is very easy to use since it's a pseudo-code based language rather than workflows. It's very easy to analyze, especially when it comes to getting back to your code, making changes, or resolving an issue. It's not only the development that you need to look into. You also need to look into the maintenance point of view. You need a little bit of a technological background, but that's really just an add on. Even if you don't have it, you can really mimic a manual process that you're doing for simple use cases, so it really helps.

One aspect of the solution that needs improvement is with respect to its stability. There are a lot of issues in the tool. There are a lot of breakdowns. We report these issues to Automation Anywhere and they come back with a fix, but it takes some time. At least the fact that we know those errors up front really helps us to design the code. However, with respect to some features, we've finished designing and then we realize that it's not going to work, so all our effort goes wasted.

Stability has yet to get there. There are issues with the tool such as breaking down. When we have the bots run on our local system together, we might need to restart on the second or third day. There are a few limitations, which I'm sure they'll overcome with time, but until then, we have to modify our code to withstand that drawback.

If you have coding background, it's very simple. There will be no effort at all. For a non technical background person, it might seem a little complicated at the start, but with all the drop-downs and pulls for loops and ifs, it gets really easy.

The course is wonderful. The module is really amazing. I tell my peers to take the course. Certification I wouldn't emphasize as much, because the questions asked in the certification versus the module do not sync with each other very well. However, if you finish the module, when you get a use case up front, you will know what feature is best to use. After doing the course, I know all the easiest ways to do stuff. So this course will really help a person.

Our journey starts from discovering and understanding what process to automate. That's where our deep domain and process expertise come into the picture. We leverage process mining technologies over there, partnerships with Celonis and TimelinePI. We take advantage of that. The journey continues from there to designing and developing automations. Automation Anywhere is the RPA platform we use for creating the bots in automation and along with that we also use many of the technologies including AI and ML. 

Toward this life cycle, we have a very structured approach of governing, monitoring, and tracking. Insights we gain from this governance, we apply towards automation strategy and implementations. We've done this for many clients across the globe. We are happy to share those experiences with some of you as well.

The focus on usability and user experience is bang on. Addressing several personas and making it easy for every persona to adopt and embrace is the spot on focus. That's an area that has a lot more room to improve. In the absence of that, the skills and expertise in the industry are going to struggle and if you need broader adoption, which has maximum potential, the persona-based user experience is a focus and I'd say Automation Anywhere is already working on.

In terms of onboarding, we step back and think about how to leverage this technology. We have created some IP around this and leverage our deep learnings from several implementations. We apply the process and domain expertise and determine which process needs to be automated by leveraging what technology and what ROI will you get out of it.

We leverage the process insights technology, we bring that to the table, we understand what processes need to be automated and we apply the relevant technologies. Automation Anywhere is one of the many we apply in transforming across automating the entire process end to end.

Number one thing when you're trying to automate, you need to start thinking beyond productivity gains and think about other value drivers such as improved business outcomes and superior customer experiences. The creation of a bot is only one half of the journey. The other half of the journey is understanding what to automate, what technologies to use and having a digital workforce and a governance platform around it is the other half of the journey. That's the one big learning for all of us from the many implementations we have done.

I would rate it around eight to nine. We have personally seen the platform really mature from several implementations, from scalability to availability, to API programmability. The vision and the journey Automation Anywhere is on is phenomenal.

Our primary use cases are mainly around finance and accounting, so invoice processing, AP processing, those sorts of use cases. It's a quite wide use case but that's where we focus.

We work in the business process outsourcing arena, it has improved our organization mainly around freeing up people to do other things and that can be quite large numbers. It can be in the high tens, even hundreds of people that can be freed up to do other work.

The main processes that we have automated with this solution are order to cash, procure to pay and record to report. 

For us, it's about replacing repetitive dull tasks with technology, allowing users to be able to do more interesting aspects of their work that hold the most value. 

We work both attended and unattended bots amongst other automation so we very much look at the use case and see what's the best approach. Most of our solutions are a combination of the two.

We're in a digital world where everything's evolving. AI is coming out, so just looking at keeping moving, introducing new innovations into the product, nothing specific. The Automation Anywhere teams seem to know what the customers want.

Stability is good. I liken it to driving a Ferrari. If you drive a Ferrari down the freeway in second gear, it won't be very smooth and reliable, but if you know how to drive it properly, then you'll have a nice comfortable ride.

Scalability is about the right approach. It's not just about the technology, it's about the people, understanding the processes, putting everything in place to make sure you monitor and govern your bots. Scalability is not a problem as long as you're approaching it correctly.

We can scale from the bots to the pilot to the bots we're using very quickly. It can be a handful of weeks. Depends on the complexity of the process. We like to get things out there quickly because if it's going to take six months, then the business is going to go off and do other things. Our target is to get it done in a number of weeks.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's a great environment to use.

Our ROI is around productivity savings, agile headcount savings, but we also look at things like improvement in net promoter scores. Customer satisfaction is very important as well. There's no point necessarily just saving money if your customers aren't going to be any happier.

We have saved both time and money.

I'd give it a 10 out of 10.

You can automate the wrong process and you won't get any value. Make sure it's the right process and make sure it's a good process. Re-engineer, if you need to first.

We use it for automating manual processes that are done by people now, data-entry type tasks.

We're using it to process line items in invoices. We get the invoices via Excel and we have to validate the accuracy of the line item charges. We get them once every two weeks and there are about 30,000 to 40,000 line items, and each one has to be validated. With a person doing it, it would cost more money than it would save to catch the defects. But to have a bot do it is much better because a person can only sample a certain amount. Now, we can have the bot check all of them.

There are a lot of valuable features. It's a very complex piece of software. One of the most valuable features is the different possibilities it gives you to manipulate the interface screens that you're working with. It's helpful to have a certain solution already baked into the environment. 

You really need a four-hour conversation about specific features because there are a million moving parts inside of the software. It's not that one feature is so helpful, and that I decided to purchase it over something else because of that.

Having some more pre-mapping and pre-setup analysis of what you're going to be doing with it would be helpful.

The stability is good. The only issues we've had with the product have been responded to pretty quickly. We've also had some infrastructure issues on our side. But on the Automation Anywhere side, it's been pretty good.

So far, it's scalable.

We have four developers doing the developing in Automation Anywhere. We set it up so that things are triggered automatically by somebody putting a file in a folder. Right now, we have seven bots in production for seven departments.

The four developers handle deployment and maintenance of the solution.

We're looking to increase usage of the solution. We're doing a workshop in a few weeks to bring a lot of our managers in to get them thinking about things that exist in their areas that can be automated.

Technical support, so far, has been pretty good. We haven't had any major issues and the ones we did have were answered pretty quickly.

This is a brand-new implementation. We didn't have a previous solution.

The setup was a pretty complex undertaking. We're a global company. We have our virtual IT management done in Switzerland, while our hardware is in New Jersey. So to get the different stakeholders of Automation Anywhere within our company working together to iron out the Control Room stuff and the virtual side of things, as well as the on-prem software side of things - to have it all connecting properly - was a pretty complex implementation.

The setup of just the developer environment and the actual Bot Runners took about three weeks. As far as building the bots goes, we haven't scaled as far as we can, yet.

We didn't really have a deployment strategy, per se. We just followed the action items that we were given to do by Automation Anywhere. We're still working on how to implement it across our organization. We have Automation Anywhere coming in with some Professional Services people in a few weeks. We still have to work on getting things moving with the managers, teaching them what are good processes to automate, etc.

We deployed ourselves. We own a technology company, so we had that benefit.

So far, we haven't seen return on investment, but I think we're getting there.

Yearly, our licensing costs are about $90,000 to $100,000. There will be additional licensing costs when we add more Bot Runners to our infrastructure.

We evaluated UiPath. We went with Automation Anywhere primarily because of the bot analytics, called Bot Insight. The analytics capability was a big one. UiPath didn't have the kind of functionality we were looking for in analytics.

Definitely do a very thorough infrastructure assessment first and make sure you're all set up there. Do some testing of the solution on any proprietary software that only exists inside of your company. Have a good understanding of what you're looking to automate. Don't just take a manager's word for it, but really look at it yourself to make sure that the process doesn't have any decisions that have to be made by a person or that there aren't some small things there that might stop you from automating.

I would rate Automation Anywhere at eight out of ten. It would have been good if they had helped us be a little bit more realistic about feasibility. If they had asked us for some examples of processes that we're looking at automating and had pre-tested some of those, it would have been helpful. The expectations of what we thought was possible, versus what appears to be possible, were a little bit off. They should investigate, early on, exactly what you're trying to do to make sure it's a good fit and set expectations.

We automate a lot of front office use cases.

I would like to see integration better integration with Excel and SAP.

Product support for our customers needs improvement. They should increase the support personnel.

We worked closely with Automation Anywhere's customer success manager.

We have saved 60 to 70 percent on operations.

We only deal in annual licenses. There are no pay-as-you-go licenses.

We would like them to change the license model of charging per bot.

We take all the product features and operational needs into consideration before recommending a vendor to a client.

Before implementing it, figure out how the RPA product will make an impact in your company.

Using the Automation Anywhere University, you can go and train yourself to be an expert in the tool.

The IQ Bot is the most valuable feature and a significant market differentiator. 

While you don't a coding skill set as a business user, you do need to have some knowledge before using the product.

We would like Automation Anywhere to have a way to run a capacity check on machines and show us what is available.

In the past, the solution has been unreliable. Now, it has become reliable in terms of the issues that we are seeing. Now, it is stable with no major issues.

Scalability has been a pain point. The scalability is there, but there are ongoing operational issues with it.

The technical support needs to do a better job of triaging tickets and updating critical people at companies.

The setup is straightforward. Automation Anywhere provides customer success managers to help with the setup.

I am an RPA consultant who does deployments.

Whatever you automate, it is important to identify what you want to do after your journey.

Attended automation is okay.

We have automated a lot of back-end processes. We started with easier tasks and are moving onto more complex tasks now.

We have a use case where we need to digitize documents, and we will be using the IQ Bot going forward. We are excited to work with Automation Anywhere on this in the future.

The OCR is the most valuable feature, though this is a third party feature that we have integrated. It is quite easy to integrate with other solutions.

The commands are not working 100 percent as the developers thought that they would.

We tried Citrix six months ago, but the solution that they gave us did not work in our environment.

I would like the IQ Bot to have plug and play functionality.

When it comes to stability, complex bots always have issues.

The stability needs improvement.

The scalability is good.

Sometimes, it takes 24 hours to get a response from the technical support.

We decided to pursue an RPA software because we had a lot of error prone legacy systems.

It took six months for us to start our bot process because of issues, like security and setting up servers.

We deployed it in-house.

We have automated over 2000 man-hours.

We also looked at UiPath.

The Automation Anywhere University courses are very good.

The bot creation process depends on your use case, e.g., the simpler the use case, the simpler the creation process.

I would rate the tool as a seven out of ten.

The primary use case is automate processes which had delays or inconsistencies.

We are focusing on automating back office tasks, such as financial process with financial documents and HR processes.

We had some business users who created their first bot four weeks back, and they were thrilled. It was very easy for them because of the drag and drag. They understood the process very well.

We are looking forward to seeing it in the cloud and how it works there.

It needs more functionality and customizability for bots.

It is a stable product. We are happy with it.

The product is scalable.

The technical support is good. They are responsive to any questions that we have.

We were not using another solution prior to Automation Anywhere.

The initial setup was complex because we had to make sure all the security aspects were approved by our leadership.

We did use a consultant for the deployment. It has been a good partnership for us.

We have seen ROI by having our employee do more value-add activities.

We chose Automation Anywhere versus other RPA software because of its scalability.

There is still room for improvement, which is why I am giving it an eight out of ten.