IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Reviews

My customers' main use cases for IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are especially in the banking industry, particularly KYC.

The most useful features of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are the dashboard and the internal dashboard that gives you rates, reports with PDF, including dashboards.

IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is effective to integrate with other solutions because it's part of Cloud Pak for Business Automation, which is pre-integrated with different modules such as DBM, DataCap, FileNet.

The analytics and reporting tools in IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are the best compared to all other RPAs because all other RPAs only use dashboards while IBM is the only one to have a reporting tool that includes dashboards.

To improve IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for the next release, there should be more integration with external systems, and more integration with IBM's data and AI platforms is needed.

There is an AI part in IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for Machine Learning, but IBM has another platform specifically for data and AI, which is integrated right now. More features are hoped for in the future.

I have been working with IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for 4 years.

I have no complaints about the stability of the solution at all.

The solution is very scalable because it's supported by Cloud Pak for Automation, allowing scaling with other solutions or independently. IBM customers typically buy a bundle of applications, not just IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

I have contacted IBM support for various cases.

My impression of the support experience is lower than middle. I would rank it as that.

They need to improve their support by having more experienced level one support.

Neutral

The initial setup of IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is straightforward.

I would rate the setup a 7 out of 10 for ease.

My customers have seen high ROI with IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) because it has a lower cost than other vendors.

I recommend starting with the Academy to check the features and compare them with other competitors to choose the best option for you.

The Academy resources are free of charge.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) seven out of ten.

Positive

We use it mainly in more corporate situations where we need to establish on-premise or more complex and complicated processes that are horizontal on the device, like onboarding processes or procure to pay, where we have to combine different departments on the same trust.

The good stuff about IBM is the fact that it's very easy to use, there are very nice and smart AI tools within the licensing that you don't have to pay any access. Moreover, it's more precise and more secure.

I would like to have more flexibility in connecting the platform with third-party systems. It is easy to connect IBM RPA with other IBM products, but it is complicated when connecting to non-IBM systems.

So, I would like IBM RPA to be even more flexible in connecting to third-party systems.

I have been using it for the last six months. There are two versions of IBM RPA. There's a standalone RPA platform, and also, there's a cloud platform embedded with high capabilities and process mining and stuff like that. So I'm using both.

It's a very stable and clear platform. Also, there's a local representation of IBM, which is valuable for us as integrators and our customers in Greece.

It is a scalable solution. You can scale up without limits, especially when it comes to cloud automation, where various solutions are available like including data capture, process mining, fast scripting, and decision-making software.

In terms of tech support, it's the best, especially when compared to my previous experiences with other vendors. This is primarily due to the presence of a substantial technical staff from IBM in Greece. Their responsiveness is immediate. Additionally, their product comes with clear and comprehensive training and documentation. This empowers customers to handle the first level of support themselves. As an integrator, we take care of the second level of support in collaboration with IBM systems.

The setup process for IBM RPA is very easy and clear. The documentation is clear and concise, and our customers can easily budget for the costs without any surprises.

The installation involves the basics and the ability to install and set up the company rules about permissions and stuff like that, especially in more horizontal installations with multiple departments. It's a normal process, there are no surprising elements. 

My preference is to use an integrator because I'm handling this job. On the customer side, you will need some IT staff to deploy and manage the RPA solution. However, the training level for the platform is designed to be accessible to business users as well. So, you can also involve business users in the deployment process.

For medium-size projects, the ROI can be realized within six to eight months.

There is a license model. There is a free trial for one month, so you can use it to run your payloads or proof of concept. After that, you can pay for the license on a monthly or annual basis.

There are no additional costs unless you want to add more products. For example, if you want to set up a decision management platform as well, then you will need to pay for the license of that specific product.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. I would recommend that others give it a serious try because I believe that it's possible to start small and use the available technology to fulfill even complicated and hard-core processes.

I used it in 2018 in a company that specialized in medical services. They used it for accounting and payments.

It's user-friendly; even non-technical people can program bots using drag-and-drop functionalities.

There are a few areas that could use improvement. Firstly, the cost of IBM RPA is high, especially here in Brazil. Additionally, it requires a good understanding of the technology to apply it effectively. Lastly, there are limited integrations with other systems, which could be improved.

I have been using it in my work experiences at different companies. 

You need to construct the logs inside your robot. You can't see this already constructed. So this is a kind of difficulty inside the tool. But in general, I think it's very stable.

Scalability can be challenging, but we successfully applied IBM RPA in various areas of our company. For example, we used it for payment processing in the medical services department. The tool proved to be very stable for these processes.

The initial setup is not so difficult to use.

During implementation, we had a team of five developers working with two operating systems to automate various processes. We also needed a robot user to access the system. Overall, there were ten people involved in finding and automating processes.

It is an expensive solution. You need to pay something like $100,000 for a license per year.

I would recommend using IBM RPA. I would advise you to learn about your main processes to automate inside your company. So you can apply it in big and small processes depending on the investment for your company. That is an advantage or not.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. It has some difficulty in the tool, but it's a very stable and useful tool for automating processes.

We used IBM RPA with the AS/400 IBM product. We have done a few terminal-based solutions for banking. We used it with their FileNet product for some workflow automation. We have done data entering with FileNet.

It's on-premises, but I've also used the cloud version. We have only deployed three projects with WDG. The first one is purely on-premises and the other two work with the cloud version. The on-premises one is within the internal infrastructure on top of VMware, and the cloud provider for the cloud version is IBM.

I started with version 21, and I'm currently working on version 23.

We can connect with different database types, and they have included a different package for a terminal connection to, for example, AS400. When it comes to UI development, it's not using the drivers or anything. It's not a selector-based development like UiPath. 

We can use its inbuilt activities, and it's a complete package, but just like ElectroNeek, a limitation is that we have to depend on its inbuilt activities. We can't include our own activities or we can't introduce other activities.

When it comes to deployment and scheduling bots, there are some conflicts. They are using Microsoft MQ to communicate with their bots, but it's not reliable. When we are scheduling time, if I need to schedule an interval of one minute, sometimes, the queue gets loaded with a lot of processes or bots, and they don't wait until the first one gets complete. So, that sort of disadvantage is there.

I have found one bug in version 22 when sending or configuring mail. While using their orchestration environment, on IBM Server, you can configure an SMTP connection to send out the details you want. For example, when you create a user, they send out an email. That part didn't work, and I created a few tickets. The issue is that there's a typo in the endpoint API. They have probably corrected it in version 23.

I've been using IBM RPA for one and a half years.

As of now, it's stable. I'm using version 23, which is pretty stable. They have some issues with the terminal where there are some restrictions related to screen sizes, but they seem to be working on that.

Its availability and scalability are pretty high. I have used LDAP with the IBM tool because I have to sync a few members with AD groups. For that, I used JavaScript. I developed the communication outside of the IBM tool, but I can do the execution within the IBM tool using CMD commands.

My whole team is using this tool, so there are about 20 people.

I've contacted them multiple times. Their ticketing process is good. My client has a paid version because they are using IBM FileNet and that particular product set. So, when there is a ticket, the process is very smooth.

I also work on ElectroNeek. We went for IBM RPA because we were working with the FileNet product, and on the BPM side, we have IBM. That's why we are using the IBM WDG tool.

It's at the medium level. For on-premises, we have to install a server separately and the bot environment separately. When it comes to the server, we have to configure a database in MS SQL Server, and we have to create five to six databases on the server side, and the bots and the servers communicate using the Microsoft Messaging Queuing system. 

The initial configuration took about two to three days because I had to enable a few ports. In the client environment, every port was closed, so we had to open a few ports for the API and other layers. They have an inbuilt OCR tool, and for that one, we need to expose the APIs.

You can use this solution, but it depends on your use case. You can use it for a pretty complex project, but when it comes to queuing, you have to use a third-party queue, such as RabbitMQ, to hold your transactions. Other than that, you can easily use the IBM RPA WDG product.

Overall, I'd rate it a seven out of ten.

We use it for communication in a call center connected to banks. We work with remote applications.

IBM RPA helped us resolve a lot of difficult cases we could not resolve using other solutions. All of RPA’s tools make work much faster. The site automation features are especially valuable.

Some other valuable aspects are the community, the documentation and the training provided.

IBM’s support should improve response time. I have opened a ticket with the development team asking them to make RPA easy to work on by different users on the same virtual machine.

We’ve used the solution for three years.

The solution is scalable. Three to four departments in the telecommunication department use it, which covers about 1,000 people. We have four environments with five or six administrators.

They have a strong community which provides answers readily, and IBM provides training every three months.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward. It takes one hour to deploy.

We deployed the solution ourselves.

IBM RPA is cheaper than other tools.

When working with a remote desktop application, we cannot work with automation. Likewise, we couldn’t have concurrent users working on the same machine, but that is applicable in RPA. A friend working on iPaaS does not allow concurrency without intervention.

I recommend the solution and rate it a nine out of ten.

Our primary use cases for the IBM Robotic Process Automation solution are regression testing, monitoring, and cover cancellation.

The feature I found most valuable is the TCO.

I would like to improve the efficiency of this solution and the Surface Level Agreement.

I have been using this solution for about six months.

I would rate the stability of this solution a nine, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

I would rate the technical support of this solution a nine, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best. They have a good response time and they are quite helpful.

Positive

I would say that the initial setup process was super simple. Our model of deployment is on-premises.

I would say that they have a relatively low price. I would rate the pricing plan an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

There are more than 1,000 users of this solution in our company.

I would rate this solution as a whole a nine, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

I would recommend this solution to other people.

The primary use case is the development of facilities using artificial intelligence, specifically Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to perform tasks across business systems and applications in much the same way as human workers do. 

IBM Robotic Process Automation is an RPA tool that is used to automate any repeated simple/complex tasks with ease. IBM Robotic Process Automation is one of the simplest RPA tools, having a simple user interface, and it is very easy to get hands-on with this platform. 

It has vast learning resources available, too. Use cases include extracting data from scanned PDFs. Using IBM Robotic Process Automation made it much simpler to scrape data from scanned PDFs and convert it into standard Excel format, as per requirements. We also use it for portal automation. AA makes web automation simple and our manual tasks have now been automated. Our portal is for making client bookings of the client. The bot reads the Excel file shared by the user and accordingly, makes the booking in the portal with minimum time and with high accuracy.

IBM Robotic Process Automation has greatly improved the organization by improving the speed of performance, as the speed of the robot is estimated to be 20 times faster than the human being. This is why it is very fast in dealing with websites, downloading files and uploading, using programs and dealing with them, extracting data, filtering them and sending them to customers by mail, and scanning PDFs and images. 

It also helped me work on other problems by saving me a lot of time and allowing me to do other work.

The solution's best attributes include:

• Less coding: RPA does not necessarily require a developer to configure; drag-and-drop features in user interfaces make it easier to onboard non-technical staff.
• Rapid cost savings: Since RPA reduces the workload of teams, staff can be reallocated towards other priority work that does require human input, leading to increases in productivity and ROI.
• Higher customer satisfaction: Since bots and chatbots can work around the clock, they can reduce wait times for customers, leading to higher rates of customer satisfaction.
• Improved employee morale: By lifting repetitive, high-volume workloads off your team, RPA allows people to focus on more thoughtful and strategic decision-making. This shift in work has a positive effect on employee happiness.

The feature that I hope will be available in the next versions is the system role which gives users access to specific features, based on the assigned roles and the accessibility provided to the user. The benefits of creating roles include increased security through controlling users' access according to their specified roles.

We would like a decreased need for customer support. 

We need easy and accurate monitoring of the use and access of data by higher management, leading to better research management.

System roles are preconfigured with the permissions necessary to perform the tasks within the scope of that role. They cannot be modified or deleted.

I've been using the solution for three years.

It is very stable and always offers updates.

The scalability is very good since IBM is very interested in artificial intelligence and very interested in expanding this field as soon as possible.

Technical support is very good and available 24/7.

Positive

I did use a different solution previously as this tool has a very good feature, which is that you can run more than one robot on the same device.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We did the setup in-house.

The cost is very low and good.

I evaluated Automation Anywhere.

In my opinion, I think that the product needs a lot of events and competitions to promote it and spread it quickly

It's used at a high level by about 100 users. A few of them are customer agents and a few of them are in the operations team. Currently, the product is deployed on a container-based platform, called Cloud Pak. We have created containers for our solutions for Automation on the OpenShift cluster.

If you have a business process, and once you have automated that process, you have a readily available workflow in place. We are using it after a sale is done, the next step is that the RPA calculates the offer and offers it to the customer. We have implemented this in sales.

Number one, you can record your actions, number two, you can orchestrate between the human task and bots. The biggest benefit is that you can orchestrate between the human tasks, system tasks, and the bots. That is what the complete IBM portfolio can provide. No other solution I have seen can provide this level of flexibility. In addition to that, we have the IBM Business Analytics insight as well, which is like real-time dashboards. 

The way the robots are being used actually. We need to design the robot to instantiate it based on some event or human intervention. If that can also be automated, that would be good. That would be an additional workflow completed. The next step after that would be to use the RPA service. Some things which require human intervention can also be automated using some decision management, based on rules. If there's a framework which does all of this part, that would be good I think. RPA should be configured as a part of business process management and built-in.  For the user, it shouldn't matter if he is using RPA or he's using none of the automation. It should be seamless from their viewpoint. So they would just use drag and drop, choose the features they wanted, and that would be it. RPA and BPM in one solution and RPA encapsulated inside BPM. This RPA should be under the umbrella of BPM. This is what the future should be. 

We have been using IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for less than one year. I'm the analyst for this project. My responsibility is to design the system, but I am not the developer for the project. 

For now, it is stable because the best thing we have is the scalability as part of our cloud-native application. 

The size of a container is quite small. I think it's only a single MB, so not big. Initially, we started from 20 containers and it grew to around 50 containers or maybe more, depending on the configuration. I think we now have approximately 50 to 100. The assumption is that each container will run a separate process.

We have raised some support tickets, but not very often. We have trained staff also, and therefore we have several teams which could potentially deal with support.

One is the IBM RPA. as a company, we are using UiPath as well. But IMB RPA is the one which my team is using as part of this Cloud Pak for Automation.

I think it's complex, and not straightforward.

Now that it is based in the cloud, it is an easier process and minimises the time for deployment. We are using the OpenShift OCP platform to achieve this. It's like a gateway for the infrastructure team which manages the servers and the cloud server. IT operations take care of the operational activities, and the Gateway infrastructure team does the deployment. IT operations provide support, so we are using three to four resources. 

IBM licensing is annual and based on Virtual Processor Cores (VPC). This provides flexibility as part of the containerization environment. The licenses can be allocated across multiple products. So for example, if you have IBM BAW, Business Automation Workflow,  ODM, Operational Decision Management, and IBM Datacap, or whatever product you are using, you can allocate the licenses to your needs. This provides licensing flexibility, as opposed to single licenses for standalone products. 

We considered Automation Anywhere and UiPath. However, IBM RPA i's a part of one bundle. The Business Automation Workflow can directly integrate with the IBM RPA. The business becomes more robust. Your platform gives you more flexibility to integrate with multiple different types of tasks. 

Based on what you want to do, you can automate your processes in the organization. You need to have a roadmap as part of digital transformation and application modernization. I would give this solution 8 out of 10.  

In my experience, we've done IBM RPA implementations for payment processes and intercompany processes for our customers. Basically, the process is as follows: it interacts with the banking website and collects the necessary data for validation and approval in SAP.

The solution's ease of use is its most valuable aspect.

The user interface is very good.

It's easy to develop code. I can click on items and simply drag and drop. I can even open the modules in Excel. It makes everything very simple.

Much like Automation Anywhere, it would be helpful if there was some sort of community board to help share and trade information to help users learn how to troubleshoot and learn about the various aspects of the solution. Right now, there isn't anything of that nature available to help users find answers.

We're based in Thailand, but the documentation is not in Thai, which makes it difficult for us. If they could translate all of their documentation into our language, we'd be very grateful.

The pricing of the solution is quite high.

I've been using the solution for two years.

While we found version 10 to not be quite stable enough, version 11 is much better in this regard. It's still not 100% stable, however, I would estimate it's now at 90-95% stable, which is quite good.

The solution is very scalable. If a company needs to expand this service they should be able to without much difficulty.

I've been in touch with IBM's technical support in the past. I've found them to be helpful. We're satisfied with the level of service we receive. There's really no problem connecting with them and asking for help. They are quite knowledgeable.

We haven't worked with any other solution. We've only worked with IBM.

I did not find the initial setup complex. I would describe it as easy. It's very straightforward.

We find the solution to be overly expensive.

We are a reseller. We provide the product to our customers.

I'd advise other companies to consider using the solution. It's very easy to use. It's got a great user interface as well. However, you need to use logic in order to use it effectively.  This is important especially during implementation.  

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.