UiPath Platform Reviews

I have worked on a number of use cases, and one of them that I can discuss was used in a contact center environment. This is a project that we had done for an automotive insurance company, and it had to do with incident management. Our contact center received the first notice of loss (FNOL) from incidents, such as an accident.

When an accident occurs, they raise a ticket to our customer service representative. This can either be done using a chatbot, which is integrated with our ServiceNow platform, or they can call the customer service representative. In the latter case, the customer service representative will pick up the call and get the details. This includes adding their insurance ID and a couple of other fields, and that is integrated into our system.

Our system was acting as an intermediate between their existing platform and ServiceNow. Part of the system included a database, where they were checking to see if the insurance amount the claimant is asking for is above the limit. There were other similar business rules, as well, which the bot was responsible for checking. Based on the result of these checks, the claim was automatically approved, and then a corresponding ticket was raised in ServiceNow.

There was also a manual process, where there was a person who would go to the site where the actual accident took place. They do their analysis, and then they create a review report, and that report would automatically be handled by an attended robot. The robot would take the detail from the agent and based on the review, fetch certain details like the approved amount.

The bot is responsible for sending other information to ServiceNow, including, for example, details about damage to the vehicle. If there are scratches on the front or scratches on the back, then these details are all posted to ServiceNow. At that point, ServiceNow has a workflow that is initiated.

The workflow uses the information taken by the representative and moves from the review stage to agent verification, and then to a mainframe. The system running on the mainframe is responsible for generating checks, according to the amount that is approved, and then mailing them to the claimant at the address they have on file.

In our FNOL process for the insurance company, we use unattended robots quite extensively for both chatbots and IVR. We use the AI capabilities for language understanding and based on the user sentiment, it will trigger the unattended bot. If instead, they want to speak with a representative then it will trigger the IVR process.

In terms of the robots prioritizing and correctly routing a transfer to agents when necessary, it is a work in progress. From a priority perspective, if you talk about chatbots, let's suppose a customer sale is highly urgent, the AI model can use language understanding to determine an urgent message and in turn, create an urgent ticket. It is something that we can do but it is not 100% accurate. I would say it's 80% of the way there, because of the different types of sentiment that people express during interactions. As an example, when a customer says "I need to have this resolved as soon as possible", there are a number of different things that can happen. According to our business rules, when somebody says ASAP, it should be treated as a high priority, but 20% of the time, this does not work. Overall, at this point, the AI models and machine learning models are not very accurate.

The robot-enabled self-service channels have definitely increased the resolution of issues through self-service. Prior to using the robots, 90% of the calls would need to be addressed by a representative. Since implementing the bot strategy, only 10% have to be handled by a human. We have used UiPath Apps for this and also created some web pages, but those are just to help the bots. Definitely, self-service is one use case that has really benefited because of UiPath.

The Studio is where the development takes place and the interface is very user-friendly. You have the ability to drag and drop components, and this is part of why I think that Studio is the best feature in UiPath. The next best feature is Orchestrator.

The Orchestrator is quite good because it is a one-stop shop where you can run robots after creating them using Studio. You can create queues, monitor the bots, and if there are any issues then you can debug them at the Orchestrator level.

UiPath has a low-code feature called Studio X, which is specifically for business users. They can just drag and drop activities like reading emails, retrieving email attachments, reading data from Excel, and posting data from different sources into different platforms. It is a very good platform for business users who don't know much about coding. It is customizable in the sense that business users can have the system follow a set of simple steps, although it won't do complex things.

UiPath Insights is a feature that has everything from a tracking perspective, which tells you how the bots are working at the production level. It provides statistics about the live environment including how many processes are being run, how much time the bots are being used, and the productivity in general. There is more analytics available from data services, tests, and the AI center. All of these features really help when it comes to analyzing the data, not only from a development perspective, like tracking data on how much a robot is at a log level, but also from the end-user level in a production environment. Reporting on productivity in a single day will show how much time the bot was run, for example, 80% in terms of time or 90% utilization, and other such details.

The UiPath App feature is something that we can use to create simple apps, and these can act as integrators. Suppose there is a process that uses 10 different screens, we can create an app that will be integrated with all of them. As a developer, all 10 screens are used in my workflow, and instead of going to each of them, I can create an app that uses all of the fields that are relevant to me on each of the screens. 

The speed at which we were able to create automations for our contact center was very good. One of the reasons that we choose UiPath over other tools, such as Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism, is the ease of development. When it came to setting up the contact center, it was only the connection between different platforms that took time. The bot creation and the workflow creation were quite easy. It took approximately one and a half months to create the whole automation for the contact center, which is quite good.

The AI and machine learning capabilities need to be improved.

The task mining and process capture methods are capabilities that we use, but they sometimes miss part of the task. For example, let's say that for one of my tasks, I need to open my email 400 times a day. This is something that we can automate but for some reason, probably because it is related to email, it is not accurately evaluated. In this regard, the process mining could be improved and lead to better results.

The built-in OCR is only 60% to 70% correct if you're analyzing a PDF that has images in it, so this is an area that can be improved. Different companies use their own OCRs; Google has one, and Microsoft has one. The UiPath one requires that we use a validation step between workflows in order to improve the accuracy.

I had been using UiPath for three years, up until a few months ago when I joined a new organization.

From what I have seen, the biggest factor for availability is the strength of the internet connection. Whether the deployment is on-premises or cloud-based, they both are the same in terms of stability. I have not seen any deviation between deployment types.

Scalability is not an issue. In my previous company, we started with 10 machines and then after one year, we had 85 machines. There were no issues and the implementation was not a headache.

The technical support is very responsive.

Prior to working with UiPath, I was an automation expert with Selenium for web testing. I was not able to fully automate a website because if there was an image that was used as a security check, where the person had to click an image to get through to the next page, I wasn't able to do it.

However, when I switched to UiPath, it was pathbreaking for me. I was able to accomplish what I couldn't do with Selenium and since that time, we have deployed more than 100 production bots.

The installation is pretty straightforward. We usually get issues when we upgrade to a new version but I think that is a different discussion. Strictly from an installation perspective, we have not had many issues. We had no major issues and when we contacted technical support, the team was quite responsive.

The length of time required for deployment is about half an hour per machine. However, if you have 100 machines then you can do them concurrently.

For some of our projects, we used an on-premises deployment, whereas for others, we used Orchestrator and they were cloud-based. Cloud-based deployment gives us the ability to run bots from anywhere, including outside of our network.

Our clients with the contact center did not see a very large ROI in the first year, although that was because of the consultancy costs that we charged to implement the system. From the second year, onwards, they definitely saw a very good ROI.

We had different metrics to calculate RPA implementation ROI. The first is productivity, which increased by more than 60%. If I recall correctly, their investment was between $110,000 and $200,000 after the first year. I don't remember the exact numbers but it was a huge improvement.

It was not just productivity, but also other things like a reduced error rate. The quality of the processes improved quite drastically.

We analyzed and compared the costs of RPA from different vendors and we found that UiPath was the most cost-effective in the long term. An unattended robot costs approximately $8,500 annually. 

We evaluated other RPA tools including Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism. One of the reasons that we chose UiPath is its ease of development.

In terms of ROI, we found that UiPath was the best when you consider the long term.

The length of time it takes to develop and deploy bots for a process depends on its size and complexity. We categorize processes as simple, medium, and complex. Based on how they are classified, we estimate the deployment lifecycle from one month to two months.

My advice for anybody who is planning to implement RPA is to begin by doing research on the vendors. You need to speak with each vendor and start planning, but don't think about clients at that moment. Rather, think about yourself. Consider that you want to implement internal automation, and consider the ROI you would garner during the first year or during the second year.

Once you choose a vendor, as we did when we chose UiPath, you need to make sure that at the very start of your project, it begins with low-hanging fruit. Don't start with all of the complex processes; start with some simple processes. That's why we have divided ours into three sets of processes. Then, don't think that you will achieve a hundred percent automation because that will never be the case. My thinking is that if you achieve more than 70% automation, that is a very good target. Keep your expectations clear.

Another thing to make sure of is that you secure your bot at the workflow level. UiPath provides very good security features that you can use, such as assigning permissions for who can access your workflow. Also in terms of security, be sure that you have all of the required certifications.

Once you have implemented some basic processes and you are getting good results, hyper-automation is something I suggest. Start expanding it to different technologies, such as AI. Also, engage all of your employees as much as possible.

Start with the community version of the software. Although this review is based on the licensed version, the community edition is free and you can create your bots for free. I always say that even one hour saved because of automation will yield a good return annually, and your results will be very quick.

If you keep all of these things in mind then RPA will be fruitful for you.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The process is for background checks. There are all kinds of checks such as academic, criminal, and work as well. We receive all the volume through the queues. We are using the citizen developer, StudioX, to get the cases and understand what are the fields and what are the requirements for each one of the cases. The bot will process them accordingly. For example, for each university or academic, there is a different process around the world.

The industry we use it for is HR. What we do with the backgrounds is providing a confirmation to our clients that people have the qualifications that they say they have. It is for data accuracy and consistency within the HR and talent acquisition departments.

Our AI-powered automation initiative has not yet changed what our organization is able to achieve because the project is still a pilot. We are still working a little bit on the environment. We are working through VDI, so it is not straightforward. We cannot just install or put UiPath to work. So far, we have not seen all the results, but we are looking forward to that in the next quarter.

UiPath would definitely free up time or resources for other tasks. We are a team of six people. We are estimating that two of them will be free for new projects. There is about 30% of resource savings.

Our usage is very simple. We have been getting the text, parsing it, and trying to categorize and analyze it. We are not using it fully, but the OCR is very important. This is a package from StudioX. With OCR, we will implement document reviews to make sure that whatever the applicant puts in the form is consistent with the document provided. For example, in academics, it will be your bachelor's or master's certificate.

The value proposition of implementing UiPath is that if we use UiPath and the RPA functionality, instead of passing the process to a BPO, we will start understanding the process and automating it as much as possible. We will have hybrid workflows between humans and robots. We will create capacity. We will have the same number of workers but increased capacity. We will start having conversations with our stakeholders on how to reinvest all of this capacity that has been liberated.

We have had some issues with StudioX. In terms of features, for now, I am pretty happy with UiPath. The requirements of the process to be automated are covered with the basic functionality. It is not exactly UiPath, but for security reasons, we are not able to download packages and use the functionality provided by the community with their developments. It is not on the side of UiPath. 

I was certified as a Citizen three years ago. That is the time frame that I have been using it.

Recently, there was a software update of StudioX. We had some bugs. I would rate it a five out of ten in terms of stability.

We are working on moving to the cloud, so scalability will be good.

We have internal support. I do not speak with the vendor. Our internal support system is pretty consistent. They have quick response times.

From my perspective, I do not think we have been using any other solution. We have been with UiPath for about eight years. I cannot confirm the number, but I know that we have been partners for a long time.

We also use AutoHotkey which is something similar but not a replacement. It is a software solution that allows you to reprogram your keyboard and put some functionality in there to automate some of the things, but it is not a replacement.

I was not involved in its deployment. It is on-prem right now. We are migrating the company to the GCP, so there may be some restraints in regard to that. Everything is currently on-prem, but we are working on going to the cloud.

The ROI would be in regard to the capacity. We estimate two FTEs to be free from this project.

We have not yet used UiPath's AI Center and many other features. We are using StudioX, so we are still in the citizen developer mode. We are not using the full functionality with Studio and all that. We have an RPA COE. They have much more complex processes and projects, but we have not used it for that. This UiPath convention has brought a lot of ideas in terms of how to start leveraging it more.

We have also not used UiPath Process Mining and Task Mining. I am working with one of my colleagues who is like a bridge between operations and IT.  We are working together to see how we can better use the technology to improve processes. I have to go team by team, understand the process, and go deeper to see where we can start using this technology. We will have a roadmap of where we need to go.

Overall, I would rate UiPath an eight out of ten.

We use UiPath for marketing, accounting, and sales.

The solution has helped us save time. 

I like the automation capabilities. I particularly like Autopilot and documentation.

We don't currently use AI Center or process mining, but we want to learn more about these features.

The support team could be more responsive and helpful.

I have been using UiPath for one year. 

I would give the stability of UiPath a six out of ten. I've experienced some issues with it in the past.

I would rate the scalability a six out of ten.

I have had to contact the support team on a few occasions. It was a good experience. But the solution could be better with its support team.

Positive

We switched to UiPath because it's a better fit for enterprise companies like ours.

It might not be a good fit for smaller companies. It's a bit expensive for small companies, but it's worth the money for larger companies.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

UiPath is an RPA solution that is very easy to use and local. It's a good choice for companies that are new to RPA or have limited resources for training.

I'm a network engineer at a nuclear power plant, and I oversee multiple crews. I use UiPath to automate the voicemail system, send alerts, and run tests. Our company has about 12,000 employees. 

UiPath has helped to reduce labor costs. 

You can set up processes using macros without basic knowledge of coding.

The hardest part is popularizing UiPath among our employees. 

I have used UiPath for around a year. 

I rate UiPath nine out of 10 for stability. 

UiPath is scalable. 

The South Korean team uses Blue Prism. That's a good solution, but it's too hard to use. 

Deploying UiPath is easy, and I'm teaching my crews. 

It's worth what we pay for it.

The cost isn't important because a good solution isn't cheap. 

I rate UiPath nine out of 10. There are still many other RPA solutions we haven't tried, so I can't say it's the best. 

We automate business processes that take up a lot of effort and manhours. Our company deals with a lot of documents. 

The most valuable feature is Task Capture. 

We work with Google Cloud and are excited about the possibility of a partnership. 

I have been using the product for six months. 

The tool is very stable. The product's stability depends on the processes you configure it with. 

UiPath's scalability is impressive. 

UiPath's support is great. 

Positive

The tool's deployment was straightforward. There were a few inefficiencies within my company. 

We currently have the tool deployed across different business lines suffering from silos. In the future, we may move towards a centralized structure. 

We have seen ROI with the product's use. 

We want to reduce our employees' demand hours and have them focus on high-value tasks. 

UiPath has fundamentally changed our organization, and we want to learn more about its capabilities. 

The tool has freed up our resources' time. 

I rate the product a ten out of ten. I like working with the software. It might be daunting to start automation and get employees to accept it. However, having a good rollout plan and strategy will ease your concerns. 

I'm using the solution for web applications and for integration.

The solution has improved our organization by improving processes, including documentation processes. We're able to increase our capabilities. We can use it to help us with large projects. Over the years, it's helped put less pressure on the server.

The integration services are quite effective. There are so many integration partners available. For example, we can use the solution with Jira.

It is easy to build automations. We use it to automate processes. We can use the product to automate good causes like sustainable production. However, we work more with web processes as opposed to good causes.

We do use it for end-to-end automation. We can ingest documentation, do a development phase and make our application. It's important to have this end-to-end capability. It helps us gain more knowledge and control.

The user community is definitely useful. If you have any issues or need something explained, you can use the community and gain more knowledge. We can share our knowledge as well. It helps clarify. It helps us interact with other humans to gain insights. 

It's helped lower our on-premises footprint. It's important to us to be able to reduce the on-prem footprint. It saves us space. It's helping us future-proof. It helps reduce limitations.

I've used the UiPath Academy courses. We can learn from ourselves, however, it does help. While we don't completely gain knowledge from the Academy, the solution requires users to go through a learning curve. It can show you the basics, and you need to go further by experimenting. I haven't used Academy courses in the last few weeks. It really does help with integrating services and understanding that aspect of the solution, however.

We plan on leveraging AI functionality. We haven't used it yet. 

It is helping with digital transformation. We can leverage architecture and different platforms much more efficiently. There are a lot of tools and upgrade versions that we need to go through right now. As we continue digital transformation, it will help make our processes more convenient and make tools easier to use.

It's reduced human error. However, the way our documentation is created, we won't be able to completely remove human interactions in the documents and can't remove human error completely.

The product has been able to free up employee time. We can build and complete a process very fast. 

We've noted cost savings when using the solution. We've been able to reduce licenses or move to community licensing.

A lot of implementation is done by UiPath, however, there are parts of the studio we've had issues with. We'd like the upgrades to be a bit easier and more flexible.

I've been using the solution for three years. 

The solution is stable. 

We have three people using the solution in our organization. 

The solution is scalable. We have a lot of applications and different scenarios. We can definitely scale as needed. 

If we have a lot of complications we can get support to troubleshoot. They have been helpful overall. 

Positive

We've also used Blue Prism and Power Automate. 

We find UiPath is easier to build on with drag-and-drop functionality.

Implementing the cloud version of the product is easy. Deployment is simple. However, it depends on your environment.

It's helpful to have some knowledge of UiPath. You only need two to three people to maintain the solution. If it's the first time setting it up, it may require more people.   

We do the deployment ourselves. 

I have witnessed an ROI. We've noted cost savings after implementations. 

The pricing can be a bit high. For single attempts at automation, it may be too pricey for a normal person. If you are doing a lot of automation, it's more affordable. 

I'm an end-user.

I'd recommend that users implement the solution. It's important to implement it correctly in the organization, however. The technology is far easier to use than other technologies in terms of reducing manual interventions in processes.

I would rate the solution ten out of ten.

I work for a software solution company, and its use cases are related to HR products.

UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation. We also tried a few payroll automations as a part of our software solution, and it worked perfectly. All the features, UI elements, and processes work well. It is very good. We were able to automate about 80% of the tasks or processes by using UiPath. It is a great platform for automation.

UiPath has reduced human error. It has reduced time for a task. We were able to reduce 80% of a task. We have automated 80% of the task using UiPath, and we were able to save six hours per user for one project. 

UiPath frees up the employee time. After we have the software in place, we can see where we can speed up our processes. If a process can be completed in less duration, that also saves the time of the employee. So, it is a journey. You need to keep identifying the processes to improve. The time savings vary based on the process. For example, we use RPA for the HR payroll, and for 200 employees, we were able to save 6 hours. The savings will be more when you have more people.

The most valuable feature of UiPath is the speed of the implementation. They are continuously adding new features, and there is also fast deployment. It is easy to use. Before going for the enterprise license, we evaluated the capability to automate certain processes and get the outcome that we expected. UiPath has so many advantages, but we struggle in terms of investment and price.

I have used the UiPath Academy for business analyst certification. It is very helpful to understand the tools and features to meet any requirements. You get to learn what are the things that you have to follow. From the business analysts' side, you get to know how to identify the processes where automation can be used. You can identify the automation capabilities. UiPath Academy nicely guides people who are new to RPA. There are so many things to learn on the RPA side. The developers can identify the gaps and learn how to automate quickly and learn new skills. UiPath Academy helps people to understand automation from start to end. 

On the investment side, it is a huge investment, especially with the current situation in Sri Lanka. If they can reduce the price or provide affordable packages, it will be very helpful.

On the development side, there are already so many new capabilities. They are also adding more AI capabilities. I have seen some of the users using AI tools, but I have not worked on them much. 

We have been using UiPath for the past two years.

Its stability is nice. We get regular updates throughout the year, and we have to install those updates, which is not a huge thing for us. We have not had any issues with that. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of stability.

It is scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of scalability.

We use automation in different departments, and we are also planning to deploy some RPA use cases in the client environment. Currently, we have 280 users using payroll automation.

The technical support team from the reseller has been very engaged with the RPA effort. They have helped us with the cons and pros and to identify the capabilities of UiPath using the UiPath community version. They helped us a lot with our RPA journey.

I have worked with Automation Anywhere and UiPath, and I am now also using Power Automate. I used Automation Anywhere at my previous workplace, and at my current workplace, we have been using UiPath, but we are now also using Power Automate. We were using IQ Bot to identify invoices and process those invoices for the finance team. We have been using UiPath for HR and payroll automation.

In terms of ROI and investment, in Asian countries, such as Sri Lanka, we are unable to get a huge return on investment because of the price. We were looking for a solution with less investment and getting more automation, so we picked Power Automate for automation.

I was working as a project manager and consultant. I was involved in gathering requirements in detail and creating the processes. I acted as a bridge between the development team and business owners.

It was a straightforward process. We took two days to set up the process. In terms of the implementation strategy, we identified the use cases for automation. Business owners were responsible for coming up with the use cases and identifying the feasibility and the return on investment for using RPA. We went through each project brought to the table and identified some of the critical scenarios.

In my previous company, we got consultants from Automation Anywhere because that was the first time we were using RPA in our company. It was 2017 or 2018. They helped us in identifying processes, gathering details, and selecting processes for RPA. They were very helpful. Their developers also helped us debug the processes and improve the speed of the processes. They helped to identify the gaps in automation flow and enhance it. 

From the development side, there were two developers and a project lead. There were also two subject matter experts or business owners, so altogether, there were five people.

For maintenance, one person is enough.

UiPath could not save us money because the cost of the bot license and the Studio license is high. For Asian countries, such as Sri Lanka, it is a huge amount. 

We have been using the community version to identify the automation capabilities. We are also trying to sell the RPM modules to our clients who use our payroll process. When it came to purchasing, there was a huge difference in the price of Automation Anywhere and UiPath as compared to Power Automate, so we went for Power Automate.

It is expensive for our country. Other than that, we do not have any issues with UiPath.

Most companies evaluate Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Power Automate. Development speed, user-friendliness, and price are some of the factors that companies look at while evaluating a solution. UiPath helps with fast development, and it is user-friendly. There is also a community version to understand its capabilities before purchasing the license.

Both Automation Anywhere and UiPath require a big investment. Companies based in European countries get a good return on investment, but most companies based in Sri Lanka do not get a good return on investment because the cost is very high.

To those who want to use UiPath, I would advise understanding what digitization is and how RPA can help with their digitalization journey. Before using RPA, they have to standardize their processes in terms of the process flow. We encourage people to identify those gaps before using RPA. They should also select processes that provide a good return on investment. They can use the community version of UiPath to identify the processes. 

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

We are a partner of UiPath, and we utilize their solution for welfare unions and document understanding.

Building automation using UiPath is straightforward. I would rate the ease of building automation an eight out of ten.

UiPath enables end-to-end automation, which is essential to our organization because it saves time, is reliable, and is easy to use. Although it is somewhat expensive, it is worth the investment in the long run.

Being a part of the UiPath User Community helps us deal with various tasks. We can share our experiences with the members of the group and learn from the experiences of other members of the community.

Some of the benefits our clients have noted about UiPath are the speed and the reduction in operations at the end of the day. Our clients were able to achieve their goals quickly by using UiPath and witnessing a return on investment.

The introductory course of UiPath Acadamy is good.

UiPath accelerates digital transformation and reduces its associated costs. Initially, implementing such transformations may necessitate expensive upgrades. However, once the setup is complete, operations can run smoothly. Typically, when a company begins contemplating digital transformation, they often find themselves in a technologically outdated state. As a result, a comprehensive update of their systems becomes imperative, incurring significant costs.

UiPath helps reduce human error. It is highly beneficial to automate certain human tasks and mitigate the potential for errors.

It has freed up approximately 50 percent of our employees' time.

UiPath has saved approximately 20 percent of our organization's costs.

The UiPath Community is truly helpful.

Although we have to pay for the extra features that UiPath offers, they are extremely useful.

The introductory courses of UiPath Academy are adequate, but there is room for improvement. I understand that creating an automated course for everyone is not an easy task. After completing these courses, we are capable of performing simple tasks. However, if we truly want to learn, for example, Java, we must conduct further research on our own. The Academy courses should provide more challenging content.

The pricing in our region has the potential for improvement. The price is the same throughout Europe, despite the varying economies in each country, which poses challenges for all the partners involved.

I have been using UiPath for five years. 

I would rate the stability of UiPath as a perfect ten out of ten.

I would rate UiPath's scalability as a perfect ten out of ten.

We previously used Blue Prism but switched to UiPath to meet client requirements. Personally, I prefer UiPath.

As a partner, we experience a return on investment because we bear the cost of the solution, and subsequently provide the services. The client pays for both the services rendered and a portion of the licensing fee. For us, the benefit is clear, but as a lean benefit, compared to the really expensive fee that we have to charge the clients to have a margin.

The price is high. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, I would rate the price as an eight out of ten.

We also have to pay extra if we want Studio, Document Understanding, even if APIs are not going to be used for text recognition, or Insight. Insight is really expensive and doesn't offer anything new other than Elasticsearch and Kibana, which are free tools. The message we have received from UiPath is that they are the leader in the market, and we have to pay for that.

We evaluated Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, Appian, and a few others before selecting UiPath.

I give UiPath an eight out of ten.

I recommend that new users first take the Academy courses before transitioning to the UiPath Community version. It is advisable to learn all the basics thoroughly, without assuming any prior knowledge, and to exercise patience.

I have learned that using a machine is better than I am.