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IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs Vision Helpdesk comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
668
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (2nd), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (32nd)
Vision Helpdesk
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (31st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (30th)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
KM
Computer System Engineer at Informatika d.d.
Has centralization and asset management features, and a helpful and knowledgeable technical support team
What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk.
MF
CTO at a cloud solution provider with 11-50 employees
The ​multi-company satellite help desk feature to manage our ticketing system for multiple domains is valuable for us.
Multi-company satellite help desk feature to manage our ticketing system for multiple domains more like a white-label support solution, and Blabby Feature use for internal staff communication We got Reseller Hosting , where we offer end use support to our reseller Clients, which is more of…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"This product is easy to use, and it helps business users to more easily understand RPA."
"It is easy to learn and easy to deploy. That is the best part compared to the other RPA solutions available in the market. Automation Anywhere is easier than UiPath and Blue Prism."
"AA has vastly improved my organization in gathering more business, reducing human efforts, and optimizing client business."
"The most valuable feature is the conversion of PDF Invoices to CSV and to PDF Boxes."
"It has improved the efficiency and reliability of the data in the systems."
"It's easy to use for business users. Everything is good. It's a nice product."
"With this innovative tool's automation, it is very dynamic, easy to develop, and deliver results quickly."
"We were working on a system called AS 400. Automation Anywhere performed well on that old system. It handled complicated processes. I had to review different menus and screens and give resources, storage, and databases. That's complicated."
"In general, it's been pretty stable."
"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."
"The solution has been stable."
"A feature I found most valuable in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is the service request. Another feature I like most about the solution is IT asset management, which tells you who owns a specific asset in the company and from which date."
"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs. That's the most important for us."
"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."
"Overall, it's a good product that I would recommend."
"What I like about the Control Desk is that everything is centralized, you have all the requests in one place, you know which ones are for whom and who is working on them, so you have one big package and nothing is lost."
"Vision Helpdesk has a very small price but has many functions, and compared with others their price is 3-5x lower for similar functionality."
"If you are looking for an affordable solution for your business but want all the features of something you would expect to pay highly for, choose Vision Helpdesk! Trust me - you won't look back!"
"Customer service has been one of the best for any software provider we have seen; any issue we had was solved quickly."
 

Cons

"For our legacy systems, we are finding it very difficult to use the automation."
"There was a time when I would have rated it at around fifty-fifty percent, but now Automation Anywhere uses AI for customer support."
"As a developer, the biggest con is the lag; it's pretty inconvenient to face that delay in things happening."
"The version that we are using has been difficult for us to code."
"There is room for improvement in terms of costs and procurement considerations."
"When dealing with a large number of variables, uploading them directly from an Excel sheet to Automation Anywhere is not supported."
"You could improve the tools for reading CSV/Excel, also providing wizards or detailed guides, otherwise, it is quite complex to use them, especially at the beginning."
"I believe Automation Anywhere can be improved by leading in the direction of seamless integration with the LLM models that are readily available today in the market."
"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."
"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."
"The user interface is not very interesting."
"The product is kind of clunky to use."
"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."
"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."
"Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."
"Technical support can be slow in terms of resolving issues."
"I think I'd like to see a more user-friendly interface in the user-ticket view."
"Their live-chat support needs work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using that Automation Anywhere Master Certification for version 11. Recently, this has been updated in Automation Anywhere University. Until this month, it's free to use. There are no charges. That's why I would like to complete it this month."
"The certifications are free of cost."
"We are a partner of Automation Anywhere and find the pricing to be reasonable."
"We have established a CoE and we take our bot opportunities based on their ROIs. The best ROI opportunity goes to development first. Our ROI opportunities are compliance, profitable growth, productivity enhancements, productivity gains, number of hours the productivity saved, and resources not available that the work can be done by the bot. However, the single most important criteria that we use to measure ROI is how much time does the bot cut down from an analyst's work, as this has the best ROI. E.g., if an analyst is spending a 100 hours of work that a bot can do in one hour, we calculate the 99 hours saved as ROI."
"It has good licensing costs which are average for the market."
"There are a lot of savings in terms of effort and time as well as costs. Automation Anywhere automates a lot of processes. It allows an organization to save the efforts of a lot people. It saves a lot of time because people can't work a whole day (24/7), but Automation Anywhere bots can."
"Our costs are approximately between $5,000 to $10,000 per license."
"It's cheaper than other similar solutions."
"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."
"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."
"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Performing Arts
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
22%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Construction Company
13%
Performing Arts
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business162
Midsize Enterprise86
Large Enterprise565
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise3
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
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Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
SmartCloud Control Desk
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology
Riva Tech, StratospherIQ Data Systems, Suprag AG, Thomas Cook, TNM Software, Transition Systems Asia, Uptime Solutions, Volodi, Zakupka, Zen3, Zygote Complete Property Management, Rovia, NAS Insurance Services, FederalBank, InvestIndia, StartupIndia,BankofKigali
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Vision Helpdesk and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.