UiPath Platform Reviews

I piloted the introduction of UiPath to my team with two projects. The first, domain monitoring, automated our ten-plus Pega applications' quarterly security and health checks. We designed an architecture that could be mapped across all domains, streamlining the process to run weekly instead of quarterly. This provided timely reports on application health via Webex. The second project was a more straightforward test suite automation for another UI-based application. These two successful pilot projects showcased the capabilities of UiPath, with the domain monitoring still in use today.

Building automation with UiPath is straightforward, but it's essential to be familiar with the target application and have a basic understanding of coding and if-else statements. This knowledge will help troubleshoot any unexpected errors. Overall, I'd rate the ease of building automation with UiPath an eight out of ten.

While working on the projects, we used two versions of UiPath: the enterprise and cloud versions. The orchestrator that comes with the enterprise version is different from the cloud version. The cloud version had better end-to-end automation, and the ease of use and accessibility were superior to those of the enterprise orchestrator, which is the on-premise version of UiPath. Although the enterprise version lacks a few features, the cloud version provides a complete solution.

I was impressed by UiPath's user community. We used an open-source library that someone else had built and generously shared with the UiPath community. It ideally suited our needs. The user community is also very responsive, and we readily receive answers to our questions.

We didn't see immediate benefits from UiPath because it was a new tool I was piloting. We had to prove to upper management that it saved significant time, and we eventually eliminated manual testing. It took until the project's end to demonstrate this, as management focuses on results, not processes. However, other teams adopted UiPath after completion, so benefits appeared after two or three months. It took time to get people on board, but they eventually embraced the idea.

UiPath has significantly improved our efficiency by automating domain and application monitoring, saving valuable time and working hours. These tasks were previously quite intensive and repetitive, demanding considerable focus and effort from our employees. With UiPath handling these processes, we've freed up our workforce to take on more engaging and strategic responsibilities.

My favorite aspect of UiPath is its user-friendly interface, as it's a no-code, low-code platform that eliminates the need for extensive coding. Its drag-and-drop functionality, coupled with UiPath's comprehensive library suite, simplifies automation tasks. For instance, the Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint libraries allow seamless integration with those platforms, streamlining processes like connecting to SharePoint in Microsoft 365. In essence, the combination of UiPath's robust infrastructure and versatile tools significantly enhances its usability and effectiveness.

I found the UiPath Academy courses to be a bit rigid in their curriculum. It was more beneficial for me to learn from the forums and YouTube videos. Their courses were tailored to particular roles, with a course on UiPath in data science being heavily focused on Excel. While it was a well-structured course, it didn't align with my job's limited use of Excel. Overall, their courses are well-built, but I found YouTube a more suitable learning platform for my needs.

UiPath Studio provides comprehensive tools and libraries for building automation, but it lacks a built-in feature to generate consolidated reports after automation runs, detailing successes, failures, and operational features. This absence of detailed logging information makes it difficult to troubleshoot issues and identify whether the problem lies within the application or the automation itself. While UiPath's orchestrator website provides some information, it's insufficient for demonstrating automation runs and accomplished features to stakeholders. Although a future release may address this, the lack of robust reporting capabilities remains a significant area for improvement. Additionally, UiPath's diverse suite of licenses can confuse end-users, making it challenging to determine the most suitable option. While the company has improved features, the increased number of licenses creates a knowledge gap between what's available and user understanding. Clearer explanations of each license would simplify decision-making for potential users and streamline adoption.

I have been using UiPath for one year.

Once we have the licensed version of UiPath, we don't anticipate issues with caching. We were using the 2021 Studio version because it was stable. Although the UiPath team suggested upgrading, I'm not certain about the reasons. I can't comment on the latest models, but the 2021 version was reliable.

The scalability of UiPath depends on the number of licenses. To deploy our automation, we need to utilize robots responsible for executing the automation we've built in a user-less environment. Scalability is directly proportional to the number of robots we have, which is, in turn, determined by the number of licenses. Therefore, more licenses translate to greater scalability.

The initial onboarding of UiPath was straightforward, but the only challenge we encountered was connecting UiPath Studio to the Orchestrator. UiPath Studio is where automations are built, while the Orchestrator is where they are deployed and run. This required some back-and-forth with the product team and my technical lead. However, this issue only arises during the initial setup. Once someone familiar with the process sets it up, it becomes easier. There were some challenges connecting and deploying the first automation, specifically between the Orchestrator and Studio.

Three people were involved in the deployment: my technical lead, who liaised with the product team to discuss progress and challenges; myself, responsible for building and deploying the automation; and one of my junior colleagues, who assisted me. In short, we had a three-person team.

We used UiPath and built and deployed that project, which ran successfully for approximately two quarters while I was away. However, the cost and licensing associated with UiPath became an issue. The license we were using offered excellent features specific to our needs, but it didn't provide much beyond that. It didn't make sense to continue spending much money on UiPath, even though it saved us time and money. The savings were essentially being reinvested back into purchasing the UiPath license. While UiPath licenses offer valuable features, they are expensive. For our single-use case, investing that much wasn't justifiable. We switched to Selenium, an open-source automation tool. Although it took additional time to deploy the same solution with Selenium, and it might not be a 100 percent match in functionality, it allowed us to save on costs.

The cost of UiPath is justified for organizations with many use cases but not for one or two use cases.

I give UiPath a seven out of ten.

The advice I'd like to give new UiPath users is to first understand their specific use case for UiPath. I've noticed some teams try to adopt UiPath by first figuring out a solution and then trying to retrofit it to their existing problems. Instead, I suggest thoroughly understanding the problem before creating a solution. Many teams see others using UiPath and assume it's a cool new tool they can simply apply to their existing issues. This approach rarely leads to optimal results. You might be able to build a solution, but it won't be the most efficient. For first-time users, I recommend understanding your problem, then exploring UiPath's capabilities to determine the best solution. There are plenty of resources available, like forums and YouTube, to help with the building process. Remember, understand the problem first, then build the solution.

We are developing processes with UiPath for clients in the government and banking sectors. 

UiPath is flexible and has various automation capabilities. I like PDF automation, and we have multiple other tools, such as the AI Center and Document Understanding. There is more than one way to automate the same process. We can broaden our experience and use our imagination.

UiPath facilitates our digital transformation. We have an auditing team for our client that was manually collecting data every month from eight websites across different Indian states. We also have to validate the files we get. It takes a person three days to do that manually, but UiPath automation allows us to complete the process in a day, and it's more accurate. There were no errors, which is what the audit team requires. The banking sector is undergoing changes, and by using automation, the banks are improving.

The solution reduces human error in cases where we have Excel automation invovling some formula that needs to be copy-pasted, or we need to fetch the data from PDF to Excel in a particular column. It's easy to make a mistake when both keys are next to each other.  For example, we may make an error while writing "S is equal to A," and we might ignore it. A UiPath bot will perform that without making an error. If the process is properly designed and trained, we'll get the correct output. 

I appreciate UiPath's ability to automate complex processes. It's the best thing. The Action Center, Document Understanding, AI Center, and all the other components of UI Path are also good. I prefer UiPath over other automation tools.

It's easy to build processes in UiPath. I am from an engineering background, but UiPath is a low-code solution, so it's easy for a user with a nontechnical background to understand.  It's simple to explain things to business users. If I need to explain things to my clients, it's easier for them to understand how UiPath works. 

I have developed multiple end-to-end processes, including SAP, web automation, Excel, Outlook, PDF, and directory automation. For example, we might extract the information from the PDFs in a folder. A recent one involved invoice process automation. Invoices for rent and expenses needed to be processed for nine websites, which were automated in UiPath. It included SAP, web, and Excel automation.

The UiPath community has been helpul in cases involving clomplex logic. By getting in touch with the UiPath community, we could see all the new things that have been developed or released in the latest versions. We have community meetings. 

I've also obtained multiple certificates through the UiPath Academy. There are foundational and advanced courses. I was certified in solution architecture, fundamentals and methodology, SAP automation, administrator automation, AI Center, and Document Understanding

The time needed to learn UiPath depends on how much time you're willing to spend practicing. I completed the UiPath foundational and advanced courses in a month because I was working on it day and night, practicing with the different tasks we got online. Some of my colleagues took three or four months.

We use UiPath's AI features for Document Understanding. We have to train the AI model repeatedly so that it extracts the data correctly from the PDF. We correct it when there are mistakes so that it trains the model. Similarly, we have the AI Center, where we can choose from different models available from the UiPath or create our own.

A lot of the UiPath processes are capturing information from government websites. It's difficult to capture the correct format, so we need to use a third-party application to capture the information correctly. It would be better to have that capacity with UiPath, so we don't need another product. 

I have used UiPath for more than two years. 

I rate UiPath seven out of ten for stability. The stability varies from machine to machine. If you have enough RAM and CPU, it should be fine. Sometimes it lags on computers with older processors. I'm using an i7 11th generation, and it works perfectly fine. Also, sometimes there are issues in new versions, but it runs smoothly in the latest stable version. 

I rate UiPath support seven out of 10. The response speeds and the solutions they provide are excellent. I have contacted them multiple times to open up cases. Recently, a URL was not working due to some architecture issues, and they responded within two hours. 

Neutral

I have done one process on Automation Anywhere, but it was only an Excel automation.

The implementation varies from process to process and the availability of the process team. I have done processes on various timelines. It sometimes takes a week if the process is small. A few took around three or four months because the scope was larger. It covered 10 to 12 human steps and involved manipulating data in SAP and Excel. It doesn't take as long if it's a simple process that involves moving a PDF, copy-pasting, or bulk emails. It depends on the process length and the testing needed before we can move the process into production.

I handle the deployment because the infrastructure team does all the installation and orchestration. I have admin access, so I can publish and upgrade packages and maintain the licenses, machines, bots, queues, etc. It is all published in the Orchestrator and run on the production machine. Maintenance is required of ther are changes in a URL or some input. 

I rate UiPath nine out of 10. UiPath's license costs more than other tools, but once it is all set up, it's easy to use and is effective at multiple types of automation. If you don't have experienced developers, you can learn to use the UiPath Studio to develop some basic code.

I work in the banking industry and have used UiPath to automate end-to-end processes for seven projects. I am also currently using UiPath to help our clients automate their RPA lifecycle end-to-end.

In my role within the banking domain, I am typically responsible for complex bots. I currently have two applications and data messaging tasks requiring the creation of BRM reports and their subsequent email delivery to users.

With my UiPath experience building automation is easy to do.

UiPath enables end-to-end automation. My preferred development process begins with creating Process Definition Documents and thoroughly gathering requirements. I carefully review this information before commencing development. After that, I conduct User Acceptance Testing. Finally, I place the process in hypercare for one or two weeks, depending on the bot's complexity, before moving it to production.

The UiPath User Community is incredibly helpful, especially when I'm stuck on code during research and development.

UiPath is a leading platform for end-to-end automation, offering advanced capabilities for streamlining workflows.

UiPath Academy offers valuable courses that equip learners with both knowledge and practical experience. I recently completed some advanced coursework in the program.

UiPath speeds up and reduces the cost of digital transformation.

UiPath helps organizations reduce costs through automation by minimizing the staff needed to complete tasks.

UiPath helps reduce human error.

UiPath helps free up significant staff time. It can complete tasks in five minutes that would typically take a human seven hours to accomplish.

On-premises deployment of UiPath requires a significant amount of RAM for optimal performance.

I have been using UiPath for just over two years.

To ensure the stability of our on-premises UiPath solution, a minimum of 1 TB of RAM is required for optimal performance.

I also work with Automation Anywhere. While both tools offer valuable functionalities, UiPath provides additional features, such as flow and list views, for managing automation workflows. Additionally, UiPath offers an orchestrator capability for centralizing and managing automation, which is not available in Automation Anywhere.

The initial setup is straightforward. I can do the deployment myself within ten minutes.

I would rate UiPath ten out of ten.

Maintenance is required for updates.

I recommend UiPath for implementing robotic process automation.

We are using UiPath to automate many processes. In my first job, I worked on billing and ticketing. We were automating the process for ticketing and billing for audit. The robot was responsible for auditing the process of an application. It was responsible for calculating the difference between the amount deposited by the visitors and the amount calculated and predicted by the application. It would then decide if it was the correct currency or not.

Currently, I am working on many applications, but the classic ones are where we are reading data from Excel or databases and then clarifying the data or closing some billings. I am also working on the process of taking some reservations on some sites.

I also sometimes use it to automate something on my personal laptop.

UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation. It is not only about developing robots or putting the code. You must also monitor and implement the whole solution. It is not just a robot.

UiPath provides more flexibility because you can use other languages such as C#. This opportunity is not there with Power Automate or Blue Prism because you are working with graphical tools. For me, it was an opportunity to learn C# and how to code.

UiPath provides the opportunity to work with the conceptual aspects. There are flow charts to help you design the workflow.

UiPath has helped to automate many manual processes. We can see the difference with automation.

UiPath reduces human error. It is one of the main benefits. UiPath also optimizes the time. It is helpful. For one of the processes, the time taken was reduced from seven minutes to one minute.

UiPath saves human resources. For example, we had a process that was done by four to five people, and we automated that process. The robot could do one day's work in 10 to 15 minutes. We have automated almost 15 processes so far, so there have been a lot of savings on human resources. These resources can now be utilized for other tasks. The manual and repetitive tasks were annoying for them, and now, they can work on other things that are more interesting and require human decisions, not just copying and pasting.

It is the most suitable tool for big beginners in RPA. It is simple to manipulate. I found it comfortable because it has ML, AI, and OCR. It is great.

It is easy for me to build automation using UiPath. I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of ease of use. It is easy, and I enjoy making robots. It is not just for the sake of working. I enjoy it when I finish making a robot. I feel I did something.

I did not work much on it, but I like the OCR part. I found OCR interesting because we can work with unstructured data from a paper or handwritten text. It is something new for automation.

The Community edition and UiPath Academy are two powerful features of UiPath. The Community edition of UiPath gives hands-on experience. People who want to learn about UiPath can download it for free and use it. It is a solution for everyone. Anyone can use it to learn about UiPath and practice it.

It should have better integration with Microsoft applications such as Excel, SharePoint, Outlook, etc. Power Automate is better for communicating with Microsoft Office applications. With UiPath, we have some difficulty communicating with the Microsoft Office applications. This is the only weakness that I have come across.

I have been working with UiPath for about two years. I also worked with it during my internship.

It is stable. I would rate it a seven out of ten in terms of stability. 

For scalability, I would rate it an eight out of ten because it gives you methods to be scalable. You can scale many processes.

I have not interacted with their support, but the UiPath Community is there. It is a very big community now. When we have some questions or want some clarification, we can find resources on their site or in their community. When I started working with it initially, it was not easy to find solutions related to UiPath. Compared to Automation Anywhere, it was a bit harder to find solutions.

I have also used UiPath Academy for certifications. It helps to learn from scratch. UiPath Academy makes it easy to learn for someone who has not worked with UiPath. There are different levels. You can find your level and begin from there.

We have our private setup. We have our own Orchestrator. We have a platform that communicates with the Orchestrator. We put the robots on Orchestrator and we monitor them using Orchestrator and some VMs. 

The deployment complexity depends on each project. Some projects are easy. You just need to put the robots. In terms of maintenance, robots do require maintenance. You need to monitor them to ensure that they are meeting the business requirements. If the code is good, one person can maintain the robots.

We are working in a team, and we have our own resources. We have experienced team members who know how to do the deployment.

We have teams working in multiple locations such as Tunisia, Morocco, Romania, and France.

There is a significant ROI with process automation.

It is reasonable considering the benefits of automating the processes.

I would recommend starting with some simple or classic processes, such as reading data from an Excel sheet and a database. You will find it easy. My advice is to not start with something difficult.

I would rate UiPath an eight out of ten.

I have been using UiPath for automation purposes. I have designed processes for various business requirements in the insurance sector, such as policy comparison, application contact confirmation, and underwriting notes.

I have been mostly designing processes for clients' purposes, but I have also designed processes for internal business logic and other purposes such as HR automation to help HR. We have automation where all resumes get downloaded in the local folder. We grab the information from the PDF and store it in the Excel format.

UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation. We follow the specifications provided by our architect. We use UiPath Studio to design the processes. It is very helpful. We can easily drag activities and use them in automation.

UiPath is user-friendly. We can easily drag and drop activities even if we do not have any knowledge of coding. They are improving the dependencies and libraries, and they are focusing on activity enhancement. They are providing more options in the properties panel to use it.

UiPass will 100% speed up digital transformation for us. It will be helpful.

UiPath has reduced human error by 30%.

UiPath has also freed up time. The actions performed by humans are now performed by the bot. It saves almost 90% of the time.

The enhancements that they provide are valuable. We have been using certain built-in activities in which we have to define the classes. For instance, if we are using the for-each loop, we have to define the for-each loop for the particular class. If you drag and drop the variable itself or if you drag and drop the data table, it automatically takes the built-in class. It automatically fetches that and sets it up. Previously, we had to select the first two pairs of variables, then we had to select the classes for those particular variables. UiPath is rapidly enhancing the features inside the activities for developers' use.

I am a developer. I come from a background of Java technologies. I know how to code. For me, UiPath is far easier. We can just drag and drop the activities and write code, whether it is VBScript or VB.Net. For me, it is easy, but I have also seen people who do not have a coding background using UiPath to design a process. That is the main advantage of UiPath. You can design processes even if you do not know coding.

They should provide some more property options to the users in the Enterprise Edition 2021 and 2022. They should provide some more options and some more functionality for the developers to use the activities. They should also improve the activities panel and add more activities.

Their support should be improved in terms of response time.

I have been using UiPath for four years. I have experience with UiPath processes and Orchestrator. I have built business processes for clients and for internal use purposes.

It is stable. I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of stability.

We can scale it. I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of scalability.

We are using it in multiple offices. There are about 200 people who are using it.

Their support is slow. They should respond faster. I would rate them a five out of ten because they do not quickly respond to our queries even in an emergency. They take two to three days, but we would like them to respond with more urgency.

There are also UiPath forums where we can ask questions, and they help us.

Neutral

I have not used any other RPA solution.

The deployment is straightforward if you are a developer. It takes about a week.

It is deployed on the cloud. It definitely requires support and maintenance. 

We have five to six members.

Its price is fair. We have no problem. It is good.

I would 100% recommend UiPath if you want to automate any processes.

I have done certification from UiPath Academy. My colleague has also done associate certification. I am planning to do advanced certification, but I have not started it yet.

I would rate UiPath a nine out of ten. I am extremely happy with UiPath but not the support team.

One of the use cases I've worked on involved uploading a small book containing mathematical formulas, images, and other content to a website. We converted the book's introduction into an XML file and utilized UiPath to seamlessly upload all the information onto the publication website via a step-by-step process using notes.

Another use case involved generating reports by scraping data from specific websites, particularly in the banking sector. The information gathered from one website was then uploaded to another website. These automation tasks included handling schedules, duplicative tasks in Excel, and automating financial processes. This encompassed tasks such as fetching data from databases, manipulating the data, and updating the database accordingly. Furthermore, reports were generated and distributed to users both via email and Excel files.

The automation processes also extended to extracting data from various sources, such as PDFs, images, and tables, showcasing the versatility of the automation solutions implemented so far.

While we haven't incorporated AI or machine learning into our automation programs yet, I have acquired knowledge about these technologies through the Academy.

It empowers us to implement end-to-end automation, a crucial capability for our needs. Achieving full automation is pivotal, and building a process from start to finish ensures a comprehensive, 100% automated solution.

The UiPath user community is beneficial, especially when new features are introduced. For instance, with the recent addition of mail integration, the community provides valuable information. In cases where we encounter challenges using specific properties of activities in the APAC, the community forum becomes a reliable resource to discuss issues, seek solutions, and stay informed about various processes and functionalities.

It helped us in entirely minimizing our on-premises footprint.

I've seized learning opportunities through the UiPath Academy, where my initial learning journey began. I continue to rely on the Academy for various courses and continually update my knowledge.

It is expected to accelerate our digital transformation, enhancing the speed of various tasks over time. While I cannot provide insight into the cost implications, the positive impact on speed is noticeable when it comes to digital transformation efforts.

It has significantly minimized human errors, especially in tasks involving extensive document processing and repetitive jobs.

It has contributed to time savings for us. With the ability to automate the monitoring process for any website, we can now sit back and relax.

We have achieved cost savings by implementing automation. Utilizing automation allows us to streamline the tasks currently handled by multiple team members. With automation, we can allocate just one team member to monitor the automation board, resulting in reduced costs compared to the expenses incurred for seven individuals performing their specific tasks.

I find the pivot feature particularly noteworthy as it enables seamless connection to any source system, allowing for data retrieval from diverse sources. Whether dealing with conventional or unique source systems, UiPath's pivot feature empowers us to connect, extract data, and efficiently integrate it into the system. Additionally, I've been impressed by the task mining and task capture functionalities. This feature provides insights into the entire process, making it a compelling addition. The document understanding feature is perhaps the most significant and useful use case for UiPath. It allows for extracting data from both structured and unstructured formats, providing versatility in handling various document structures.

Creating automation with UiPath is straightforward, whether you're building them or simply learning how to use the tool. It offers a trial version that's accessible for two years, making it convenient for anyone looking to learn and apply the platform. The simplicity extends to the process itself; setting up conditions and building automation becomes easy and intuitive. Regardless of the complexity of the task, UiPath enables the creation of goal-based automation, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in achieving specific objectives.

When dealing with a VPN connection, automating the process becomes essential. However, challenges arise when attempting to automate multiple VPN connections.

I have been using it for more than four years.

The stability of the automation depends on how we establish the rules for a specific automation task. When we define a set of rules for rule-based automation, it tends to operate smoothly without lagging or getting stuck. The automation remains robust as long as the established rules are adhered to, even when there are changes in the user interface of the system.

I would rate the scalability capabilities eight out of ten.

We reached out to tech support when encountering challenges that we couldn't resolve independently. Although direct contact with them has been limited to the initial stages, such as during the license purchasing process, we have relied on the technical team's assistance for troubleshooting and problem resolution.

The initial setup was relatively straightforward.

We have the flexibility to deploy both on-premises and on the cloud. The ease or difficulty of deployment is somewhat contingent on the client's machines. Various client systems may have specific restrictions; some are more stringent, while others have fewer limitations. The complexity arises when certain systems impose restrictions, especially concerning data source connections. The number of systems to be deployed dictates the need for a team knowledgeable about effectively integrating the software into diverse systems, but mostly two individuals are enough. Overall, I find the deployment process to be quite straightforward and maintenance to be easier compared to other alternatives.

The pricing is quite reasonable. I believe it is more affordable compared to other automation tools such as Automation Anywhere, which is often considered out of budget.

My suggestion would be for any user interested in learning about UiPath to start with the trial version before committing to the implementation. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

We are an insurance company. We mainly deal with all types of insurance from casualty and specialty to even aviation and medical stop loss.

I have had use cases where we have been taking information from emails and phone calls to put them into a mainframe. We have done claims intake for insurance, and then we have notifications. For the policy system, we have done a lot of back-office accounting work.

By implementing UiPath, we were trying to seek a way to free hours up at critical times. It is not just about hours saved. It is also the quality of the hours that we save and freeing people up for more value-added work.

UiPath has definitely helped with scalability. The number one reason to use something like UiPath is to increase scalability so that we are less susceptible to changes in the market. We can grow our business without growing our staff hours.

UiPath has changed the way we perceive our processes because even outside of processes that we automate, we look at our processes in a new way in terms of process improvement. Not everything needs to be automated. Some things just need to have the process changed. It has helped us to be very critical of our processes and be more forward-thinking and not just sticking in the same ruts.

UiPath has helped with the accuracy. There is less fat fingering of things. When the robot is entering things into a system, it will put in exactly what was input into it. There is also a chance for transposing things, so there is a lot more accuracy in that respect.

UiPath has freed up time and resources for other tasks. That has been our main focus in terms of the ROI we look for. With the accounting back office practices, our close cycles are shorter, but people are not working more. With automation, we now have things that are on more of a 24-hour cycle. We are able to do a higher volume in less time.

We have saved thousands of hours not just in the back office accounting side for close cycles but also in insurance. We have busy seasons. We sometimes had to hire temporary workers. With the automation of our claims intake and other processes in that area, we are no longer hiring those temporary workers. We do not need them anymore.

The ability to connect various systems that do not have any kind of API between and the areas where we need to mimic what a human does to a system in terms of input and output is valuable. We primarily use UI automation where we simulate what a human does within an application. By using the right selectors, we try to find where on the screen we need to click. We take in information from input files. We use all the logic flowcharts and logic trees to determine where the information needs to go in a system.

Some of the areas around the administration aspect of UiPath, which is what I have been mostly working with over the past few years, can be better. From an organizational standpoint, some of the guidance there could use some work in terms of helping COEs know how to grow and how to take control of their organizations as they spread.

I have been using UiPath for about five years. 

There are still some stability issues. There are sometimes issues related to bots acting up. It can be hard to tell whether that is something related to how we developed it or whether the bots are having an issue. We are not sure why, but there are some stability issues.

Its scalability is fine. It has definitely gotten better over the past few years with all the improvements there. I know there have also been new offerings for serverless robots, which we have looked into, but they do not fit our needs. The UiPath Orchestrator makes it easy to maintain its governability as we scale, which is one of the main differentiators of this solution.

They can sometimes be hard to get a hold of. There have been a few times we have had to go to the UiPath Pro support. While we have eventually gotten to the solution, it has sometimes taken us a while to get in contact with someone who has the right knowledge to help us with our problem. I would rate their support an eight out of ten.

Positive

This is the first one we have been using. We have a group in the company that started using Power Automate. They ran into a problem and turned that back over to us. We are the UiPath team. They tried to automate something with Power Automate, and we ended up taking over that project.

Orchestration is the main differentiator between Power Automate and UiPath. UiPath has orchestration whereas Power Automate does not. Without that orchestration, you lose a lot of the value for these robots, especially at the organizational control level.

I was brought on specifically to do the deployment at my current company. It was fairly easy. I did an on-prem deployment about five years ago, and now, I am doing the cloud deployment. We are using the automation cloud. Having the automation cloud made it much easier to do the deployment this time than trying to set up the on-prem Orchestrator the first time.

In terms of the implementation strategy, we essentially looked at how many processes we had as candidates and what we thought the bot load would be. We stood up that many VMs. We deployed unattended robots to those. In terms of Orchestrator, we just did some basic tenant separation, and as we have grown, we have seen where to increase the bots.

We used one called Accelerate to start with. Our experience was fine. Our goal was always to transition to our own, so after the proof of concept was done, we hired our own developers. We hired our own team and went from there.

We have definitely seen ROI coming from it. For any project we take on, we look at both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Quantitative is usually just the hours saved. If a process is automated, how many hours are saved as compared to the last one? Qualitative would be things like whether we have increased accuracy, whether we have increased any time to the next process in the chain, or whether we have gained redundancy and reduced the fragility of our processes.

If it can be lower, we will always take lower.

Blue Prism was what we looked at pretty heavily. We looked at Pega. We also looked at Power Automate, and some groups within the company decided to try and use that. 

When comparing UiPath and Blue Prism, there is clearly a difference in power and capabilities between the two. We also had a solution partner who could work with us better with UiPath at the time.

We are currently setting up the AI Center. We have not used UiPath Process Mining and Task Mining. We tried to use the task binder where you record something and create a workflow from it, but it was not very useful for us. The output was not very useful for us. The documentation from it was also not useful for us.

If you are evaluating UiPath and other products, I would advise looking at what kind of model you are looking for. Are you looking for a more federated model or a centralized model?  You should look at what kind of governance you need in place for the solution you are looking for. One type of solution is that you put it in someone's hands and leave it and forget it. If you want to empower people and maintain central control, UiPath would be for you.

In terms of deployment, I would go for the automation cloud every time. There is the ease of use of not having to worry about standing up your own servers to monitor that. The US cloud especially has been very stable.

Overall, I would rate UiPath a nine out of ten.

We're a consulting firm and we use the solution to automate various systems, mostly in data processing, including in the customer service department. We're also using it to take advantage of artificial intelligence.

We've noticed a lot of benefits. For example, I've noted a reduction in errors in data processing and analysis. We've also been able to increase our working hours. We don't necessarily need to have a human workforce going around the clock. There are some hours or some shifts where we rely on the robot to take care of the workflow. We've also been able to apply artificial intelligence to our work to amplify the customer service experience and help us be efficient and fast.

The pricing is pretty fair. It fits various types of organizations.

The support has been very good. We appreciate it. Support is in various languages.

Building automation is very easy. You can deploy anywhere and you can even access the platform using a mobile device, web browser, or iPad. This flexibility makes it easy to use. 

It allows us to handle end-to-end automation, mostly for data analytics and data processing. With this option, we are able to work through processes 24/7. This reduces the amount of downtime.

The community has been very helpful. You can go there if you have minimal problems instead of going to support or having to shut down your whole system. You can contact someone in your community, and they can help share insights. It's helpful for teaching staff how to use the platform.

We've been able to reduce our on-premises footprint. At the same time, we've been able to grow our digital footprint.

We have dashboards where we can monitor staff, and even if they are far away or working from home, we are able to monitor everything, and people no longer need to necessarily be on-premises to work.

The solution has a useful Academy that I started using in the past year. When we have new employees who are onboarding to the department, we conduct an initial training. However, after that, they can go to the UiPath Academy and acquire even more skills. The biggest benefit is that it allows any employee to learn on their own time. It gives everyone the potential to grow and learn at their own pace.

We have used the AI functionality from UiPath, mostly in Europe. As an accounting company, we handle tons of Excel worksheets and formulas. The AI makes it all very efficient and helps with analytics and processing. 

It's sped up our digital transformation. Initially, we did not have automation. We only had automation available through other companies. When we adopted UiPath, we developed an automated process that allowed us to bypass having a human behind the computer.

UiPath helps reduce human error. It's reduced it by a huge amount and was a big reason for us acquiring the product.

The solution has helped free up employee time. Employees now have to do less manual work. You don't have to manually look at every receipt or every piece of data. We assign a UiPath automation to the task. Something that would take a human an hour is done in 15 to 20 minutes.

It does save us money. We used to have two shifts before acquiring UiPath. Now, we've reduced the human workforce for the night shift. 60% of the work we can assign to RPA. Less of a human workforce means less money spent on manual productivity. It's helped us reduce our overall operating costs.

The billing plans should be improved. Instead of billing per month, they can offer plans for a year or two.

I've used the solution for a year and eight months. 

The solution is stable, depending on your infrastructure.

The solution is scalable. 

We contacted support in the initial six to eight months of usage. We used to contact them monthly since not all staff were knowledgeable. 

Support was fast enough. Of course, there were sometimes technical errors and it would take two to three hours to get a response.

Positive

We did not previously use any automation solution. 

While we started on the cloud of the free trial, we moved to the on-premises deployment model.

The deployment was easy. We started with the free trial, and after we saw the results, that informed our decision to continue.

We had 20 to 40 people involved in the deployment. 

There is some maintenance required. New employees need to be onboarded and sometimes they mess up and the IT team will have to return the platform to normal.

We didn't go through any other channel during deployment. We had an efficient vendor from UiPath.

We have seen an ROI in that we were able to reduce the need for so many workers on night shifts. That aspect has brought down our operating expenses while driving productivity up.

I'm a customer and end user. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.