IQ Bot [EOL] Reviews

We use IQ Bot to extract and consolidate the information. 

Extracting information from 500,000 invoices manually is difficult. IQ Bot automates the task and helps us summarize the data and provide it to the auditors. 

IQ Bot is very easy to use. 

The product is expensive. 

I have been using the tool for a month. 

I rate the tool's stability an eight out of ten. 

I rate the solution's scalability an eight out of ten. 

We are yet to use technical support. 

We have a team to install the tool. 

We have seen ROI with the tool's use. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We have invoice data in the form of an image. With a normal task bot, we cannot extract the data from that. So, we are using IQ Bot to extract information or invoice data.

I have worked on version 11.3.6, but Automation Anywhere has released Automation 360. I have been working on that for the last three to four months, and it has many good features as compared to version 11.

The best feature is that we can extract data from an image. That's why Automation Anywhere implemented IQ Bot. Otherwise, you cannot extract data from an image. Nowadays, every industry is scanning invoices and uploading them to some website or storing them on some shared drive. IQ Bot can do data extraction from the PDF format and the JPG format.

The percentage of accuracy is very low. When I put documents in IQ Bot and the document format gets changed, IQ Bot puts that in the validation queue. If you are uploading 100 documents, the IQ Bot accepts only 60 documents. 40% or 30% of documents go to the validation queue. Accuracy is way low. They need to improve their accuracy level. It should be at least 90%.

Another major limitation is with the handwritten applications. If I write a new application with a pen and scan it and store it, IQ Bot cannot access that information. It doesn't accept handwritten applications. It should accept the handwritten application.

Sometimes, the quality is not good, but it also depends on the quality of the document. If the quality is less than 600 DPI or 300 DPI, IQ Bot will not process the document.

I have been using this solution for more than a year. I'm working as a technical architect. Sometimes, I use it myself, and sometimes, I provide solutions to developers.

It is not that stable when the documents have different formats. When the format changes, the document goes to the validation queue.

It is scalable, and we can put 100 documents or 1,000 documents, but the percentage of accuracy should be more.

In terms of its users, currently, six to seven developers are involved in the invoicing process. It is being used daily. When IQ Bot is not able to handle the data, the document goes to the validation queue. They open the documents that come to the validation queue and retrain the particular document. For that purpose, support people are needed.

They're responsible, and they provide very good support. They are supporting us very well. They are knowledgeable.

It also depends upon what kind of support contract you have with them. Sometimes, there are restrictions on the number of tickets. You cannot create more than 10 tickets. If you create more than 10 tickets, they can charge you or something like that. It depends on the support contract. In my organization, the support contract is good.

I would rate their support a four out of five.

Positive

I never used any other product, but to my knowledge, people are moving to Python script. They are using Python script and going for the AI/ML level. Through Python script, accuracy is more as compared to IQ Bot. If you're using the Python script library, at the code level, the accuracy is more. The code control is in your hands. You control the code and you can modify it, but with a product, the control is not in your hand. 

I am not aware of its setup. Its setup is done by the infrastructure people. They set up the IQ Bot server because IQ Bot needs a server. 

I would rate it a seven out of ten.

IQ Bot is good software, and our current version has good functionality. First, it helps to create an instance in the development environment. Then, it allows you to export this instance and import it to another environment like the certification or production environment.

IQ Bot works well when an application generates a document, PDF, PNG, or other extensions. For example, documents or files are generated in an application like Oracle EVS, making the IQ Bot work well.

In our company, we have only five processes and about 11 instances automated using IQ Bot. For example, one involves documents generated using PDF, and another uses PNG extension.

IQ Bot has helped my organization transform digital documents and files into information to be processed. We often receive files and digital documents in a path or shared directory, and IQ Bot does the work. For example, we receive 3,000 documents a month, transform the digital information and then get the necessary data to use in our processes.

We had issues getting the data when we tried to use Tesseract, an OCR, because the OCR didn't get the exact information. However, with IQ Bot, 99 percent of the documents received work well and help send information to our clients.

With IQ Bot, we can transform an unstructured or digital document into structured data. It was our first experience using software to transform digital information into structured data.

We find errors with this solution if we have a document in paper format and use a scanner to convert it to a digital document like a PNG. As an additional feature, the technology needs to recognize signatures. Currently, there are issues with the technology identifying a signature.

We also used a previous version of IQ Bot about three years ago when we started our pilot and experienced some problems. We had issues exporting an instance and could not import it into another environment.

We have used IQ Bot for one year and use version 11.3.5, the latest version. Automation Anywhere is currently working on another version called A360.

We use on-premises architecture.

It is a stable solution. We have 11 instances and five automated processes. The use of these instances depends on the architecture and number of servers. Our architecture is enough, and we have three highly available servers that allow us to grow and use IQ Bot.

It is a scalable product. However, the scalability is a little complicated. For example, in IQ Bot, you need more servers because its memory and CPU capacity is high. It also requires a lot of hardware.

There are some improvements in the Automation Anywhere A360 new version with changes to the IQ Bot model. In this A360 model, IQ Bot RPI or Control Room automation calls are coupled. However, in the version we use, they are separated. Therefore, we must install Control Room on one server and IQ Bot on another.

I rate the technical support a four out of ten.

Neutral

We did not use another solution before IQ Bot. However, we practiced using Tesseract and considered Hyperscience, another technology with intelligent document processing. After that, we decided to stop researching other options.

Our initial setup was a little complex, and the installation and setup took about two to three hours. It was our first time using this solution, but it may have been easier if we had more experience.

We needed about three people to complete the deployment. We have one architect and an analyst for deployment and maintenance, and I am their boss.

We implemented IQ Bot in-house.

We have not evaluated our returns.

I don't have details about the cost, but we evaluated the unit cost compared to other solutions like Hyperscience, which were very similar. It will be good if the price is lower.

I rate this solution a four out of ten based on our experience. However, the rating may differ with a new version and new functionalities.

Regarding advice on this solution, firstly, I recommend choosing the best scenario and appropriate use case for a company. Secondly, investigate the technology and experiences of other companies. This is necessary because some companies declare that their servers work in different scenarios when they do not. Thirdly, make a proof of concept using this technology.

IQ Bot has the ability to easily capture objects. The latest version is far ahead of the competition. Most of the features are excellent, valuable, and easy to handle.

When you update to a new version, you have to migrate your applications. That should be automated because it should not affect your ability to complete the task. If the version of the application changes, then you need to automate some part of that again. 

IQ Bot is a component of the newer version of Automation 360. We started using it about a year and a half ago. It was introduced in 2020, and we started using it in September 2020.

If you need an application to do some repetitive task, then you are going to create the bot. And as for the requirement, you are creating some IQ Bots and master bot and you're handling errors altogether, so obviously it will be stable up to 98%.

IQ Bot has to be scalable because it contains a lot of data and multiple features. You need to provide some services as well, so scalability is a part of it. 

If a client has a massive amount of data that needs to be processed, it's more likely that there will be errors in the data if it's processed manually. Automating the process gives you greater accuracy. 

I rate IQ Bot support nine out of 10. You might have technical difficulties requiring some tweaking or minor issues that can be resolved in a single call.  Those are easy to handle. For example, maybe some tabs are missing, so support will go inside and check the code to find out what happened.

You are provided support for one month after deploying then there are levels of support: levels one, two, and three. You raise a ticket for a specific issue, problem, or application. Maybe it's a data issue or an application-related problem. For example, perhaps some content is missing. You send a screenshot and some information to the technician. They solve minor problems in an hour or two, but something significant might take one or two days. 

Positive

The ROI varies among clients, but a customer will only implement automation if they expect a return. There are two or three points to consider when providing a solution to the client. You need to look at how much you can reduce two categories: full-time equivalent and AST.  

You should think about the headcount that can be reduced. Let's say there are three people working for 24 hours, and one bot can complete those tasks in less time. Suppose a ticket that takes two hours to resolve manually can be handled in five minutes by bot. That ROI structure is provided to the client. The price structure and an analysis of workload management must be included. You will need to create some remote machines and divide the task into different levels among various machines. 

I rate IQ Bote nine out of 10. If a process is divided into use cases, it should be at least 95 percent accurate. My advice to prospective users depends on the requirement. You have to consider the complexity. If it's a simple task, you can do everything by hand, but if it takes 10 team members to do the task, you might consider automation.

I suggest automation for a complex use case involving complicated processes, multiple applications, and lots of data. If the client is working with semi-structured data, we can offer automation. We only recommend this if we can automate 55 percent of the processes or more. 

We are using IQ Bot for AI-related tasks such as document understanding and classification. For example, we are using IQ Bot to extract invoice data from various types of PDFs that come from different vendors. PDFs can come in different formats such as handwritten, printed, or scanned with images, and IQ Bot is being used to extract the data from these various types of PDFs.

There are around 10 to 15 developers in our team who are using IQ Bot for different projects, and there are around 300 to 500 people in the organization who are using both Automation Anywhere and IQ Bot.

The most valuable feature of IQ Bot is that it allows me to create a learning instance or create groups multiple times based on the number of periods required, which is an advantage of using IQ Bot.

There are two areas where improvement is needed. Firstly, I find it difficult to select the key and value mapping area when creating learning instances. I suggest that the selection area could be improved. Secondly, IQ Bot should add more predefined headers for each type of document, and allow for custom headers to be added.

In the next release, I would like to add more features to IQ Bot, such as text classification, image classification, sentiment analysis, and natural language processing tools. I believe that these additional features would make things easier and enhance the capabilities of the tool beyond document analysis.

I have been using it for six to seven months. The current version is 8360 of Automation Anywhere.

I would rate the stability of IQ Bot as 50/100, meaning that it is stable only half of the time. Improvements can be made to the code behind IQ Bot, particularly in how it handles variations in PDF formats. If even a slight change is made to a PDF format, IQ Bot may fail to read it, requiring me to create a new learning instance and redeploy the Bot. This is a pain point in IQ Bot, and it would be great if it could identify even slight changes in the PDF format.

We have created tickets on the support website of Automation Anywhere whenever we needed support, and the support team used to get back to us via email or by ticket contact support. Although, we have not encountered any critical scenario that required support.

Neutral

The solution preferences depend on the client's preference. For example, if the client is using Automation Anywhere as their automation tool, then IQ Bot is the available option for AI registration.

The initial setup for IQ Bot is not difficult. One needs to procure the license and add it to the current control room. It is easy to set up Automation Anywhere as well, with just the installation of the MYSQL Server required for the infrastructure setup. The setup is pretty fast.

I would recommend trying it out in a proof-of-concept (POC) first to see if it provides the desired document classification results. I also suggest considering other options, such as Intellibot, as potentially easier to learn for this purpose.

Overall, I would rate IQ Bot an eight out of ten. The reason for not giving it a perfect score is the need to create a new learning instance for every type of document, even if there are only slight changes. It sometimes fails to read certain types of documents, requiring the user to create a new learning instance.

I am using IQ Bot for image recognition, Excel, and SAP.

The most valuable feature of IQ Bot is the Discovery Bots. They can detect and analyze for improvements.

IQ Bot could improve the documentation.

I have been using IQ Bot for approximately five years.

The newest version of IQ Bot is very stable.

IQ Bot is scalable.

The technical support I have received from IQ Bot has been of average quality.

I rate the support from IQ Bot a three out of five.

Neutral

The installation of IQ Bot sometimes is really difficult. For example, making complex architecture can be complex. Additionally, migrations are very complex. Migrating from version 11 to A360 is difficult. They have been working on it, but there is too little documentation.

The number of maintenance people needed depends on the size of many factors. For one deployment I have 10 specialists for maintenance and in another location, I only need one.

We have seen a return on investment in less than a year using IQ Bot. In approximately one year is where most of the projects started receiving a return on investment. Sometimes earlier, but the average is going to be a year.

My advice to others is to get in touch with Automation Anywhere in order to understand, or to a partner that's understanding very well how to deliver architectures in order to have the better installation that they need. Sometimes clients that bought a lot of licenses that they don't need.

I rate IQ Bot a nine out of ten.

IQ Bot is useful. Once you understand it, it's pretty useful to manipulate. It helps us a lot to enhance everything.

We are using IQ Bot for document processing. The use cases are predominantly around NLP and document processing.

It has a lot of great features.

The solution has been quite stable. 

The capabilities meet our needs.

It offers a pretty simple setup process.

So far, the product looks like it can scale.

We've been happy with the product as a whole. There are no missing features.

From what we are operating from now, we don't see any problem areas or anything that needs improvement. 

I would like love to see pre-trained models based on industries. If I'm looking at an insurance domain, if the UiPath, IQ Bot has an algorithm that is pre-trained with the various formats that are available in the market, that would reduce a good amount of development time.

We've used the solution for almost a year or maybe a bit more.

The solution is stable. We have not faced any performance issues as of now. That said, it's still new and we shall see down the line when we cross a critical threshold, how it is behaving.

At this point in time, we are still onboarding use cases. The variety will increase, and the volume as well, likely in the near term. At that time we would come to an understanding about the processing speed and the scalability. Since it is a SaaS product, we have the confidence that it would be available on demand. 

We have been doing everything on our own. We haven't had to reach out to technical support for assistance just yet.

We found the initial setup to be quite simple and quite straightforward. It's a SaaS and therefore not complicated to deploy.

Right now, since it is a fresh and ongoing engagement, the same team builds, deploys, and supports. It's only when you complete the automation development that you would need a team for support. Therefore, at this point in time, there is not much support activity that I foresee. Only time will tell once we enter into everything, what will be the staffing requirement. 

Doing it as a SaaS takes a lot of headaches out. Only the operations would be required to just ensure that the bots have been running. I tend to believe it would not be much of a strain on personnel in terms of maintenance in the future.

Most of the support that we do is predominantly of the infrastructure, maintenance, networking, and all that stuff. On top of that, we will also have the patching, upgrades, and all of that. That is where we see most of the support going. However, for a bot operation, supports are not that high. It is limited. It would be around 12% of the overall team size and it would be in the build state.

We implement the solution for clients. 

I'm not sure of the exact cost related to the solution. I would not have the numbers as this is directly done by the delivery team, which is on the ground. I belong to the overall automation where the costs are billed directly to the project.

Whenever it's UiPath versus Automation Anywhere, and both numbers are looking the same, it's a little higher on the Automation Anywhere compared to UiPath.

In relative terms, Automation Anywhere is a little costlier - maybe 10% more than UiPath. However, UiPath recently increased its license cost. That happened just a few weeks before. 

We are using IQ Bots and they are gaining popularity. We have some solutions around the IQ Bots. In fact, for Automation Anywhere, mostly the clients have IQ Bots as that's around the telecom space and they've gone with the SaaS solution of Automation Anywhere.

With IQ Bot, you need to ensure that you have the right amount of database freedom. If you train with less amount of data, your accuracy goes down, and the confidence score goes down. Then, you come up with the problem of inaccurate executions. When training, it's important, to have the right amount of data and what we are extracting. I'd also advise adopting a co-bot approach for the initial attempts until you believe that it is well trained enough to make it automatic.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

I love IQ Bot. I can extract any type of document. It doesn't matter if we have a background image in the document if it's a colorful document. It doesn't matter. I can extract and work with it regardless. I can train all the instances and properly adjust, inject Python code to find entities, and so on, and so forth. 

IQ Bot is a powerful technology. It's a very, very powerful technology. It's 100% integrated with Automation Anywhere Enterprise without any type of API. When you use Foundation AI and ABBYY, you need to consume APIs or you need to install an integration pack, however, when you work with IQ Bot it's very straightforward. You just consume all your instances very fast.

The problem with IQ Bot is the price. With so many options on the internet, some customers, medium-sized companies, have no budget to pay for IQ Bot, and then they just migrate the IntelligentOCR and all the machine learning to data extraction to cloud providers, such as Foundation AI or ABBYY.

In terms of Automation Anywhere, I did not try it yet, however, until the IQ Bot 11, what I can ask for Automation Anywhere to improve is just NLP and NLU, to extract body emails or an unstructured text.

I don't know if we can use IQ Bot with another RPA vendor by just integrating IQ Bot through API. I don't know if it's possible. I'm working with UiPath as well and I don't know if we can use IQ Bot with UiPath. 

We'd like just a bit more improved technology. Sometimes we send documents with less than 300 DPI. I know that Automation Anywhere just said that IQ Bot 11 and higher versions are ready to extract the documents with less than 300 DPI, however, this is not true. I never could work with documents with less than 300 DPI.

I've worked with the solution for more than 12 months. 

I've also used Foundation AI and ABBYY, however, they require the use of APIs.

The solution is largely pretty expensive, especially for smaller organizations. 

We are a partner of Automation Anywhere.

I work with Automation Anywhere. I never worked with Power Automate before. I've been working with Automation Anywhere for the last four years, since version 10. Automation Anywhere is evolving. In the beginning, it had so many bugs. Things didn't work as expected. Now, with version A360 and also with A11, I can deliver all the business expectations with Automation Anywhere Enterprise IQ Bot.

I've already deployed three environments. I also participated in two big migrations without any hitch, without any problems. They're well-documented by Automation Anywhere and the product is very reliable. I never faced a platform downtime, big downtime, with the platform doing application error. I haven't had even database issues. What I can say about Automation Anywhere is that Automation Anywhere just delivers everything I need to deploy all business processes, no matter the line of business. If you were talking about manufacturing, if you were talking about finance or insurance companies, I can deploy and automate almost all processes using Automation Anywhere.

I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten.