Fortra's Automate Reviews

My use cases related to cloud-agnostic tasks involve using Fortra's Automate to automate a batch of file transactions and database-related tasks, which were difficult to manage using native cron jobs and scripts alone, but it handles standardized automation across multiple environments.

I have a dev, UAT, and production environment, so it reduced my manual efforts.

I am working on AWS cloud and working as a senior cloud engineer in my organization, and Fortra's Automate helps me a lot in my organization in the cloud domain where I have automated with the help of Lambda functions and Fortra's Automate.

I can get the inventory of the whole environment, then start and stop any server, and I automated that with Fortra's Automate.

The user interface of Fortra's Automate is very good, allowing me to get all the information I need, which is why I consider it to be very good.

In the automation using Fortra's Automate, error handling reduces our manual efforts; when we automate anything, we do not have to make any changes manually in the infrastructure.

I can use Lambda and then EventBridge services along with Fortra's Automate, and the error handling provides strong, enterprise-grade error handling, which is one of the key strengths of running critical automation jobs.

The licensing cost is high, as per my perspective, in the automation with Fortra's Automate.

I think that if Fortra's Automate can reduce some pricing in their enterprise tier or in a plus plan, then this can be a very useful product for everyone because pricing is the first priority in every environment.

If we get it at a limited price, then this is the best product for automation.

I am using Fortra's Automate for around one year.

I did not find any lagging or any maintenance window in my career on Fortra's Automate; the stability has been good.

Scalability-wise, Fortra's Automate is very good; it will scale and it scales horizontally via agents and bots.

For technical support, I have not contacted them, but my team lead is in touch with technical support, and he is handling all the issues.

I mostly use bash scripting as I am a DevOps engineer, and these are only handled through the servers; I have not done it with any third-party tool such as Fortra's Automate.

The deployment process for Fortra's Automate is quite good, and I feel that we can do it easily due to the good user interface.

The first time I used Fortra's Automate, it took around one day to automate things, but after doing all the automation on Fortra's Automate, I am now used to it, and it hardly takes one hour to automate tasks if we have the scripts already.

A single person can manage the automation with Fortra's Automate; I can handle it by myself, and an entire team is not required.

Fortra's Automate helps to automate things and reduces our manual work, saving our time, so I do not think there is any downside I feel as an automation tool.

I have not encountered any maintenance video in my career, but I will check to see if Fortra's Automate provides any maintenance or something, and I have to look into this.

I would rate this review a nine out of ten.

Automate also provides strong error handling, logging, and scheduling capabilities, which makes it very reliable for enterprise automation. In terms of error handling capabilities, I would say it segregates out the features that are causing issues, and it uses built-in error triggers as well as task-level error handling. Each task is separated into one major task with sub-tasks, and if there is an issue with a sub-task, an error log is created, and we receive the error. Global error handling is employed, similar to nesting in coding.

My thoughts on the intuitive interface of Automate are that it is good, and in my organization, most people are using it. There is ease of use with minimal scripting required, and it is designed for both technical and non-technical people.

Positive

For my business, the metrics I appreciate about the analytics are necessary metrics such as usage analysis and breakage of usage. I can see how every service that I have been using is getting consumed and how much, all through the analytics dashboard. This helps me understand my business, where it is lacking behind, and where it is growing.

I measure success in reducing manual efforts through manual operations.

Automate helps me reduce manual work by automating tasks such as access keys and security rotations that we were not able to automate before. It reduces our manual processes, diminishing human dependency, and helps minimize errors.

I would compare Automate with other products or solutions and find that it has better stability and error handling, a simpler licensing model, and lower technical overhead for setup.

My thoughts on the pricing for Automate are that it is medium and costs a little, which I would say slightly impacts my budget.

In my team, there are ten people, and all of us are using Automate.

Regarding ease of deployment, when I asked my seniors, they said it is easier and much better than others. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it an eight.

I would recommend Automate to other users because it reduces manual procedures, automates everything, allows for scaling, has better stability, provides error handling capabilities, and features simpler licensing models. You do not need high technical knowledge to deploy it.

I would rate this product an overall nine out of ten.

I use it for OCR, grabbing text from PDFs, grabbing data from CSVs and Excel spreadsheets to populate other spreadsheets. I use mail merge, utilizing PowerShell for the mail merge, and RPA to handle the mail merge process. I also use APIs to update and import data.

I find the ease of use from a programming perspective very valuable. The ability to walk through and find issues if needed is a great feature. I really like the API functionality; it's a slick aspect of the solution when I'm using it. Overall, the whole product is really nice and provides significant benefits.

I currently have three bugs open with them that I don't know if they are addressed in the new release. I have not seen the documentation, which could also be improved.

Additionally, I would prefer not having to log in to update a ticket but being able to respond via email would be beneficial.

I have been using Automate for one and a half years.

There is really no instability. The processes sometimes run slow when debugging on the server, even though resources seem fine. I'm not sure what causes the slowness.

I haven't had a chance to really evaluate scalability yet. We only have one server and one agent, so everything runs from one location.

In terms of quickness, they are pretty responsive. However, I'm unable to respond to support emails to update tickets, which requires me to manually log in. It's manageable but slightly inconvenient.

Explaining to support what I'm trying to do can be challenging. They don't always understand the processes I'm trying to implement. This affects the customer service rating.

Neutral

I have not used any alternatives.

The initial setup was easy.

The deployment was handled by me. It works well with Automate without needing a team.

Pricing was one of the reasons we chose Automate. It offered what we wanted at a good, competitive price.

Overall, I would rate the solution nine out of ten. 

I am a consultant and I am making a lot of processes in human resources, payroll, certifications, trainings, web scraping, pre-reporting, and many processes that need to be automated on the web. My focus is to pick up and transfer the data automatically.

Web scraping is quite good since it offers a lot of possibilities. Another important feature for me is its compatibility with MBI, the Power that is ISEQUADO Centers. I appreciate the ability to scale and increase the number of bots or studios without additional expense. Automate's non-reliance on additional orchestrators makes it quite cost-effective.

I find that most important features are strong, however, there is a lack of good development for artificial intelligence, such as machine learning. In this area, the solution is not as advanced as it could be, which can be complicated as there is increasing demand.

I have been using it for about six years.

The stability of the product is very strong. It has very robust features, and it is not prone to instability.

I find the scalability to be very good. It is easy to increase one bot or one studio without needing to buy another orchestrator, which can be quite expensive. Processes can be made in parallel, provided they do not use the same elements.

I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten because it is quite fast and courteous. Overall, I find it very good.

Positive

The initial setup is very simple. Unlike other large systems like SAP or UPath, Automate does not require consultants with extensive expertise. It is easy to understand through a training course, and within ten hours, users can get up and running.

The pricing is quite good compared to its competitors. Competitors are often more expensive than Automate. 

I would rate the pricing as an eight out of ten.

I compared normal alternatives with Automate including UPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and Power Automate. Power Automate is relatively simpler, especially given the research advancements with Microsoft.

The general mark for the product is a nine out of ten. I have a very good collaboration with them and they have a good product. I would recommend it to other users. 

I use Fortra's Automate for IT operations as an automated repetitive workflow task, handling tasks like file transfer, job scheduling, SAP data pools, and system notifications.

Fortra's Automate has a user-friendly interface that is quite easy to understand for new use cases.

Regarding error handling capabilities in more complex automation tasks, I find it excellent for automating scripts. The error handling allows me to get manually involved when minor errors occur. I make a script, use the product, and I am ready to go. I can handle more parts of those errors in less time, making the error handling superior.

Fortra's Automate is good overall, but the advanced logic is somewhat challenging. Some of the more complex branching and error handling require digging into documentation or trial and error before I got it right.

I have been using Fortra's Automate for around nine months in my career.

I have never experienced any lagging or crashing in Fortra's Automate. However, in the error handling part, I might find one or two instances of digging required.

Fortra's Automate is highly scalable, and I can deploy it on multiple infrastructures such as cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid model.

I contacted the technical support for Fortra's Automate once, and they are very knowledgeable about their product and helpful as well. They handle customers like me to get to the exact issue, detailing where that issue originates from a technical point of view, the resolution, and the summary they provided. They are on point. I would give them a rating of 10 out of 10 for the support.

Positive

I have never used any other product exactly like Fortra's Automate. However, I did use AWS Lambda to code and automate a few things at an AWS level.

The initial deployment of Fortra's Automate is easy, as we had three to four people deploying the same thing.

It took around five days for the first time to deploy Fortra's Automate.

Fortra's Automate does require maintenance on my end, but the maintenance part does not fall under my team's responsibility. Therefore, I am not fully aware of how frequent maintenance is or how long it takes.

I am somewhat aware of Fortra's Automate's pricing, and I can say it is budget-friendly—not too cheap or too high. The pricing is on point.

I am a customer of Fortra's Automate and do not have any partnerships with them. My overall review rating for this product is 9 out of 10.

I work as a cybersecurity analyst with multiple AWS accounts containing servers. In our basic use case, we have servers in the AWS account that do not need to be active at night from 11:00 PM to 6:00 AM, so we use Fortra's Automate to keep those servers shut down during that specific time. The second, more advanced use case involves GuardDuty, which detects alerts for malicious traffic coming to servers. We utilize Fortra's Automate to pull the details from GuardDuty, such as IPs and instance information, and we have automated it to check the IP in VirusTotal to determine if it is malicious or not. Based on the findings, we shut down or quarantine the affected servers.

The feature I prefer most about Fortra's Automate is that it offers no-code or low-code automation, which is essential for me as a cybersecurity analyst because we do not have time to code and automate everything. Additionally, the drag-and-drop workflow feature allows us to simply drag and drop actions to complete our tasks, making it one of my favorite aspects.

The interface of Fortra's Automate is easy for any newcomer to handle. I did not find anything complex; I did not need to refer to documentation or seek guidance, so the user interface is perfect and easy to use.

The unified dashboard is extremely easy to use because I have employed the drag-and-drop functionality, which makes it straightforward and actually saves a lot of time, as it is not complex compared to other tools.

There are newer AWS services such as Lambda or Security Hub that security analysts use to detect malicious traffic or alerts, but the integration is not available for these, so we still rely on custom scripting because there are no options for drag-and-drop with these newer services.

When performing larger workflows to get all details of alerts from multiple AWS services, I occasionally find the interface becomes slow, which could be improved; however, this does not significantly impact our productivity.

I have been using Fortra's Automate for the past three months.

I have never encountered maintenance requirements because, in my tasks, the basic and advanced use cases do not require maintenance.

Fortra's Automate is highly scalable, as it can be used by smaller teams to larger enterprises, allowing everyone to automate repetitive daily tasks rather than repeating them manually.

I have not had a reason to contact technical support, so I cannot comment on that aspect.

Neutral

I previously used UiPath, which was a similar kind of RPA tool, and in comparison, while there were things in UiPath that were not as good as Fortra's Automate, we ultimately moved to Automate.

The initial deployment of Fortra's Automate was straightforward because there is a feature that allows us to create a direct connection with the AWS account by providing basic details such as the AWS access key and secret key, creating one role, and giving necessary permissions, which can all be done in a few minutes.

I was not responsible for the deployment, but from what I understand, it involves basic steps such as creating an account in Fortra's Automate and linking it to the AWS account using an access key and secret key, creating roles, and giving permissions. These steps do not take much time; roughly one hour is sufficient for this setup.

I do not have much detailed information about the pricing, but I understand that it is favorable from a pricing perspective for smaller or basic tasks. It is priced per bot. Smaller enterprises may not utilize it much due to the cost. However, compared to UiPath, which has more cost and complexity, Fortra's Automate is definitely better from a cost perspective.

I give this review a rating of nine out of ten.

One use case is to automate single sign-on for different applications with the Active Directory. When people change roles within the company, we need to alter the permissions for multiple users. Another use case is assigning tickets to technicians. We classify what the customer needs and then automatically transfer the ticket to the person in our company who will handle this case. We also have some financial automation dealing with bank transactions.

We sometimes use Automate to help us with data migration. When we have a new CRN that is a hotspot, we make a little robot for data migration because the company has accumulated a lot of data in 30 years. We only did this once and changed the bot after three months. These are some of our use cases. We have had 40 different automation cases in three years. 

We like to deploy on-premises because we have many related programs. When our customers make some tickets, we prefer to have everything in-house rather than on the cloud. We have servers in our office. One of the principal applications is on the server, and we have five bots in different areas, including finance, human resources, and operations.

Since adopting Automate, we have spent much less time on general tasks. In the past, we had one person writing all the emails and assigning them to the people who would handle the case. Now, that is not necessary. Another example is data migration. Migrating a large volume of data sometimes involves repetitive tasks. It's easier and faster for us to develop a little robot to do all that.

It's pretty easy for us to use a bot for single sign-on. When people join the company, we can add them to the bot and set all their permissions based on the Active Directory. Our employees spend less time on these tasks and are more productive. 

It also reduces human error. When you have a human dealing with ticketing, they must collect customer information like names, phone numbers, ticket numbers, etc. It's always possible for the employee to mix up customer information or input the wrong numbers, but the bot never makes these mistakes unless they are broken. 

Automate has over a hundred connections with email, PDFs, Excel, the web, and various areas. It's like Excel, which has functions, so you don't need to know how to code or be a developer. People need to understand how to use all these connections and functions to customize the solution. Having a little technical knowledge is better because it's faster and easier to use, but you don't need to know how to code. 

All the applications that we need are drag and drop. A lot of functions can be implemented quickly with only some tiny adjustments. They change only one value and the name, then drag and drop. It's essential for us. 

Our employers have strong technical backgrounds, and we have a standard training course for Automate that takes about 10 hours. Usually, we have four sessions that are about two and a half hours. It's crucial when you have a training session that you have some time in between to apply the knowledge and improve. After the next session, you take a week to test and improve. After about 10 hours, you can understand how to use the system well.

They also have Automate Academy, where you can learn best practices. The problem with RPA is that it's impossible to know everything about data and SAP. The standard training is high quality, and you can improve as you go. If you need something special, you can check the bots the community has produced and see how users have built bots using data from ServiceNow or many other solutions. 

We have tried other RPA solutions like UiPath or Automation Anywhere. They are fantastic products but complex, and it's hard to understand everything. It would be best if you had a skilled developer or several. Automate is easy to implement, administer, and use. It's appropriate for us because our cases are simple and easy to automate. We don't need complicated tools with many features; We prefer to get a significant ROI quickly. 

We can automate several processes with only one bot, so it's much cheaper than other products where you need to buy additional licenses. We need a good value for our automation. The other solutions might be more robust, but Automate is perfect for us because we're not a large enterprise. 

The intelligent automation feature could be improved. It's interesting because it's simple, but the automation quality isn't always good. It's easy to use, but sometimes you need to make a slight improvement to the automation, and that's not so easy. 

We have many customized cases, so sometimes, it's not enough. We need to change and customize some processes. We have a little methodology where we sit with the key user and save all the programs because they often have a lot of exceptions. Understanding the risk and whether the processes are good candidates for automation is crucial. 

We have been using Fortra Automate for around five years.

Fortra's scalability is excellent because you can increase the number of bots, studios, and developers. If you have a critical process that requires high availability, if one process fails, you need to have another bot pick that up. A big company cannot fail to pay the payroll. 

It's flexible because you can choose what you want as needed. If I need more bots, I can add them. Maybe I have a project where our resources aren't stable. I can add a subscription for another developer for six months and pay more to use this bot. I don't need to have a perpetual license for developers.

I rate Fortra customer service eight out of 10. We are based in Barcelona, where they have their European headquarters, so there are 30 people here. They also have 200 people in Argentina who speak Spanish. They respond quickly and provide excellent support. This is crucial because I need a quick solution if something fails.

Positive

We have used UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blueprint. Those are good solutions, but they are probably too big for us. These solutions usually have a charge for licenses. When you need more functions, the prices are higher. For example, after automating a process for six months, you might realize you have a new requirement, so you need to pay a lot of money to change the technology. 

The other solutions are a little too complicated because you need high-level developers and more users. I'm sure all that is great, but it depends on your needs and objectives.

I have been involved in Automate since the proof of concept, and I've been working on the setup and maintenance of this project for the past three years. Setting up Automate isn't too complicated. However, installing any software application involves some prerequisites and planning. You need to understand the best practices of the project. It was a little more complicated initially than now. After three years, we can set up a bot with our eyes closed. 

Deploying attended and unattended bots is similar because we have the figures you can use for how you want the robot to start. It's pretty easy to say that I want an attended bot because I am the user, and it is a mixed project. Sometimes we have a complicated process we need to program, like when we receive an email request and we need to start a bot to make a ticket. It's not complicated. 

We started seeing value about six months after we created the automated processes. By that time, we had begun to develop some best practices. When you get an update, you need to install it the first time. You don't lose anything, but it isn't automated. They have two or three updates every year. There is routine maintenance, but you don't need hard services to maintain it. We typically review every new process and need to do some maintenance when there are errors. 

Deploying Automate required a few people. We need some IT people for technical requirements because it involves the Active Directory and configuring the servers. We also required functional people who understand the process and an implementation consultant. The team size depends on the organization because some organizations have mixed profiles. You might be able to do it with three, but it's easier for us to have the most qualified person in each area. 

We had help from the vendor for the implementation because we prefer a fast deployment according to best practices. If you go at it alone, it might take a long time, and we don't have the time to be careful.

We get a high ROI because we can automate all the processes ourselves without hiring a consultant. Learning to develop automation in-house can be a costly process because you need to buy the license and spend money on training, so the initial cost is higher. In our case, we have technical backgrounds, so our staff can pick it up quickly. 

Automation has reduced staff hours and the risk of errors. We are more efficient and productive. People are more motivated because they're doing fewer repetitive tasks. 

The pricing is quite reasonable. We can run the process with one bot. The limitation is at the server level because they have some resources, and sometimes that is enough. It isn't too expensive, so you can get a good return off of one, and you can also have a pack of five bots that is quite competitive. 

They also have an enterprise license called ultimate with HA ability. It's pretty good because you get a discount as the bots increase. We don't have this license because we are a small company with only 40 processors, but I think it's a reasonable model. If you are working with several price scales, the price of one bot is only $3,000, and it's $6,000 for a perpetual license. If you are one FTE and reducing error, it's a pretty easy decision.

I rate Fortra Automate eight out of 10. To implement Automate, you need to understand that 100 percent automation does not exist. There are always exceptions and multiple factors in your environment that change different aspects. It's essential to have good governance when the report fails. It also helps to have proper documentation for when you need to solve problems.

It would be best if you were realistic about what you can achieve with automation, but you don't need to automate everything to benefit from it. Automating 20 percent of all your processes might reduce your work by 30 to 40 percent. That's a good start; you can study the cases to improve the bot after the fact. Don't try to develop a complicated robot that can deal with 90 percent of your cases. An RPA is good when you see the results after one month. 

We used the platform primarily for task automation, including transmitting EDR files. Additionally, we've utilized it for repetitive tasks, such as downloading web-based reports using the browser and programming it to perform them automatically on a scheduled basis.

The solution's most valuable features are reliable task execution and ongoing development, which brings continuous enhancements. 

We were waiting for the product's FTP capabilities to be updated as they needed to catch up in some areas for which ciphers were permitted. The module for those file transfers or communications had issues with partners tightening their security and turning off certain cyber suites. We stopped communicating until we could resolve some problems. A part of it may have evolved into an actual version upgrade. They've recently made some release notes and added enhancements regarding that topic. I'm glad to hear that attention is still being given to getting the required changes.

The product also has a limited use case in some respects. However, it offers vast more capabilities than what we're utilizing.

The only thing they can improve on is its marketing sales. The costs have become exponentially more than what we used to apply it for. It was only about 200 to 300 bucks when I first purchased it. Now it has become five grand receipts.

We have been using Fortra's Automate for more than 20 years.

We rarely encounter stability issues. The platform works well.

The product effectively handles all the tasks we require. While I cannot confirm with certainty, other customers are likely testing its capabilities more extensively than we are. Nevertheless, it is scalable and meets the requirements of our environment.

I can reach the support team easily via email or phone calls. The resolution process varies depending on the complexity of the issue. For some problems, the support team provides straightforward solutions, such as trying different approaches. They are consistently available to address queries.

My most significant challenge involved agreeing on FTP ciphers between the host and server or client. The support team assisted in resolving this issue, which was the most prolonged troubleshooting engagement I experienced.

Positive

We are about to start with a proof of concept for Power Automate. Additionally, a few lower-cost solutions are available, but they are not feature-rich enough.

The initial setup is easy to work with, involving no code to create automation scripts. The time taken depends on the complexity of the task. Simple tasks can be done in minutes, like setting up a script to move files between two locations.

Maintenance is minimal. There are periodic updates, generally at least once a year, and intermittent releases for patches or enhancements as needed.

One person can handle the implementation if they have the time to learn and are diligent. Much of it is intuitive, like writing code without actually writing code. Before using the tool, one must have a high-level idea of the workflow and the steps needed to accomplish the end goal.

In general, if you want to use any process automation tool, don't just duplicate what you're doing by hand; instead, rearchitect the process to be more efficient. Have a high-level series of steps mapped out before you start coding.

For somebody who just started using Fortra's Automate, they would see the benefits fairly immediately. Once a task is set up, they can immediately observe its performance and reliability.

It can be configured to inform you of an error message. It could indicate a success or a failure, depending on the expected outcome. At least we are kept aware that the tasks are running regularly. A lot of bigger control can be utilized to ensure the tasks function properly.

If the product functions aren't broken, there is nothing to fix. However, it is crucial to complete updates quickly as they could make system upgrades difficult later.

As mentioned before, I advise ensuring they have a well-thought-out process for how they will build your tasks. They shouldn't attempt to automate a poor process; ensure it is optimized or tuned before starting. It applies regardless of the platform they use.

I rate it a nine out of ten.