Currently, we are using it for reading emails. We download the attachments that we get in emails. After downloading those Excel sheets attachments, we process the data based on a few rules. The processed data is input into the SAP application. In the SAP application, based on the business rules, we process the data and commit.
It is very user-friendly in terms of building automation. We don't need to be experts in coding. We can learn it easily and build complex business tools in UiPath. We don't need prior coding experience.
It reduces the cost of digital transformation. Every day, we get 10 Excel sheets, and somebody has to sit and read the Excel sheet and load the data manually into the SAP application. Three to four employees are required for the same job, but if we automate this process, it can be done in a minute. It is easy, and we save time and cost.
It reduces the time taken for a task. If we are manually filling timesheets, we need to open the website, fill the timesheet, and submit it. It can take 10 minutes. With automation, it will take just a minute.
Orchestrator is very useful for deployment and publishing, maintaining queues, and running jobs.
In UiPath, REFramework is useful for different use cases with predefined code templates. There are well-established steps. There is a step for code marginalization. Similarly, there are separate steps for initialization and processing. For closing an application process, a step is there. So, it is very well modularized for getting the transaction data. If there is one exception or anything wrong happens with an application, it will log the exception in the orchestrator and send an email. It can also close your applications and end data processing. So, everything is well organized and separated, and we can log the exceptions separately in the queues as business exceptions or application exceptions. We can have the complete report of a particular queue.
For document understanding, there are so many features. I haven't used them practically, but to read a PDF, there are patterns and semi patterns. A wait option is also there for somebody to come and correct it. It can wait until somebody comes and corrects it, and then it will do the processing. So, all of the features are very useful in UiPath.
In exception handling, wherever exception occurs, the out arguments are not being passed. It would be good if there is a way to pass the out arguments.
Sometimes, when an element is not there, UiPath gets stuck, and it doesn't even throw an exception. It stays stuck for hours until we go and check the logs. When this happens, we have to kill it. It happens in some cases, so an improvement is needed there.
I have been using this solution for three and a half years.
Other than the issues related to the exception handling and UiPath getting stuck, it is very stable.
It can scale well, but we don't really have a need to scale it. Currently, we are automating 15 projects. We are planning to use other functionalities of UiPath to automate extra things.
Currently, we have 1,000 people who use this solution. They are consultants, developers, and business analysts. A business analyst takes care of making design documents and solution documents. The RPA developers develop the code and test it. After that, for deployment, someone is there to take care of all technical things. After that, the support team is there to look after the deployment.
I didn't call UiPath support, but I know about them from my friend. We had called them for some issues, and they answered those very well. I would rate them a nine out of 10.
I have worked only on UiPath.
Its initial setup is straightforward. It is not that complex. We need to install UiPath Studio, and then we connect it to Orchestrator for getting logs, etc. It doesn't take more than an hour.
I took the help of my colleagues.
I'm not sure about licensing and pricing, but the pricing for their certification is a little bit more. Previously, we could do it for no price.
I would definitely recommend it to my colleagues and others. It is very user-friendly.
In terms of reducing human error, it is not up to the mark. It detects human errors, but it waits until we place the correct files for processing. For example, when comparing files, a human can detect two almost-similar addresses as the same, but a UiPath bot cannot do that. So, in some cases, it won't work as humans. It cannot decide. It works on predefined rules.
Considering its areas of improvement and the cost of certification, I would rate UiPath a nine out of 10.
I am a software developer and I am a full-time RPA developer for my company. We create automation for internal purposes as well as for our clients.
I have implemented 15 to 16 processes end-to-end that cover use cases including Excel, front-end web-based applications, backend Windows applications, and sometimes Citrix. I have also done some Adobe Flash Player automation.
The REFramework (Enhanced Robotic Enterprise Framework) is what we use for most of our use cases.
We are using Studio for development on-premises and we use Orchestrator in the cloud.
UiPath has helped to improve our organization in several ways. Prior to UiPath, the company was using legacy methods of automation. These were time-consuming and required that more code be written. With the ease of use and speed at which automations can be developed using UiPath, the company is bringing on new clients and therefore, more business.
UiPath and the automations that we create help us to better utilize our resources. For example, a manual task that used to take between seven and eight days can be completed in one or two days with automation.
This product is bringing new clients to the business and nowadays, all of our clients require something to be done in the domain of robotic process automation.
With respect to ease of use and building automations, UiPath is very good. I would rate them at least a four out of five in that regard, especially when compared to other products on the market. The ease of building automations makes them quick to create and it can be accomplished by people in the business sector.
UiPath enables and helps us to create end-to-end automations, and it divides all of the subtasks up in a good way. For example, monitoring processes is different from developing code, and each of these is separated such that they are independent, but we can link them together for the benefit of the process. This is important because I am a complete process developer, so having all of the different subtasks available in one tool allows me to best develop automation for our clients.
This solution has helped to decrease our time to value, which is something that is evident when you look at the automation we were doing previously. Our technologies included Python, VBScript, and other ways. These approaches took more time to develop and are a little bit more complex. With the help of this tool, it takes less time to build the same automation. It allows us to focus on building the logic and algorithms, without having to deep-dive into things like syntax. By allowing us to focus on the business logic for each process, it leads to significant time savings.
We use the attended automation feature and it helps us when it comes to tasks that require interaction between user and application, such as the necessity to enter credentials. It is quite helpful, in particular for BPM processes, and this is something that is important to us. The typical case is when somebody is doing repetitive work as part of their task. In other words, they are working on one task, and the bot is working beside them but needs the occasional input from the user. In these processes, the bot is doing 80% of the work and the user is doing the remaining 20%.
We use the AI functionality because it makes it feasible to automate processes that are quite complex. For example, Document Understanding and NLP from the UiPath Cloud are things that we use.
The AI features enhance UiPath's capabilities and allow us to automate more processes overall. Previously, when we were doing a specific task, we may not have been able to fully automate it. With the help of AI, we can do more.
In previous iterations of our bots, before the AI features were used, we were not able to get all of the information that we needed from PDF files. This is specific to certain use cases, to present an example. The AI functionality generally gives us more data, whether from document understanding, computer vision, or otherwise.
UiPath has helped to reduce human error because the bot is doing everything and eliminates the opportunity for people to make mistakes in the process. UiPath has had a positive impact in this regard, although we have had successes with other similar tools as well.
UiPath and automation have helped to free up employee time and nowadays, they are more creative because of it. With many of their tasks automated, they have time to work on things that are more creative and have a higher value.
For example, for a task that used to take an employee 10 hours, they are now spending between three and four hours on it. In the remaining six hours, they can be more productive and work on more important tasks. This not only helps the employee but adds value to the company as well.
The selectors work to help automate at the front-end or backend of applications, and they are quite useful. If you use selectors correctly then the automation can be done in a systematic way. For example, selectors can be used for clicking tabs in an application, and what we do is create an algorithm with the correct logic to go with them.
UiPath has good recording features that help to create automations.
We use the REFramework as a template, which divides things such as the opening of applications, applying the business logic, using the queues, and closing applications. As part of this framework, UiPath provides a systematic architecture to us. We just have to understand and work with it by applying our business logic and coordinating effectively to create end-to-end automations.
I would like to see more AI-related features added. Improvements could be made to the models so that they are more compatible with data science and machine learning.
Better support for databases should be included. For example, interacting with SQL Server and SQL Developer would be beneficial features.
I have been working with UiPath for more than three years. The company started using it before that.
Stability is something that UiPath is working on. The new versions have added more stability and important features like test suites and the workflow analyzer. Adding features and improving stability is a continuous process.
In my previous company, which is a large MNC, there were between 700 and 800 people working regularly with UiPath. In my current company, we have between 400 and 500 people working with RPA using UiPath. As we continue to take on more clients, we will expand our usage.
There are a variety of roles for the people that work with UiPath. Some are developers, whereas others are set up or support teams. Our company is very heavily focused on this domain.
The number of people required for deployment and maintenance depends on the size of the process. A larger and more complex process requires a larger support team to maintain it. For example, a simple process can be deployed and maintained with a two-person team, whereas four people are required for a medium-sized process, and a six-person team would be used to handle a complex process.
I would rate the technical support between seven and eight out of ten.
In general, we express whatever concerns we have and then within a few days, we get updates from them. However, sometimes we have to elaborate a lot before we receive an answer. The documents and repository that they use for analyzing and improving our processes could be organized in a more systematic fashion.
We were using a variety of legacy tools that were more time-consuming and needed code development to a greater degree. These included things like Python code and Visual Basic scripting. There are still other tools that are being used, in addition to UiPath.
Prior to UiPath, approximately 80% of our costs were spent on developing automations. With the benefits that come with UiPath, the RPA costs are now only 45%. As the costs have decreased and the volume of automations increased, it improves company profit.
I have worked with Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere, and I find that UiPath is easier to use. However, to capture more market share, UiPath has to continue expanding its machine learning and AI features.
Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism are still being used for some processes in the company. We have switched away from them in some cases, opting instead for UiPath, because in general, it is easier to implement automation tasks using UiPath.
We have a setup and deployment team in-house that is responsible for implementation. They take care of the deployment for our clients and bring things into their production environment.
The team does their best to keep updated on what UiPath features are available and what the current version is. If updates are pending then they will be aware of them.
The company is experiencing quite a good return on its investment in UiPath.
I began learning UiPath with the Community version, which is available free of charge.
Before choosing UiPath for any particular job, the company examines the process to see how complex it is. Based on the time that it will take to implement it, as well as the number of resources, whether in UiPath, Blue Prism, or something else, the decision is made. Different tools are used for different processes based on these assessments.
I started my UiPath journey using the Community Edition, version 2018.4. After I spent some time learning UiPath personally, I began using it full-time in my company.
We have several different teams that use UiPath in different ways. First, we have the developers, who do the coding and create the bots. Then, we have the testing team, who ensure that the bots perform correctly. Next, we have the deployment team and after that, there is the support team.
My advice for anybody who is implementing UiPath is that they need developers who are good with logic. They should come from a coding background with experience in logic, algorithms, have some knowledge of C#, and have some knowledge of HTML tags.
The biggest lesson that I have learned from using UiPath is that technology can be made more efficient by using these tools.
UiPath has all of the features that are required to make automation successful. It is currently just ahead of other similar tools on the market and if they continue to add features then it could be the market leader.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Our current use case is primarily to automate business processes pertaining to finance, HR, and IT. Finance and HR have been bigger players, and other supply chain areas are currently being targeted. It's still in the ramp-up phase. We do not use it in a contact center environment.
In my former employment, not my current employment, we implemented some banking processes during the implementation phase, and last year, when the lockdown happened, due to the automation, things were much simpler, much easier to manage, and it was less dependent on people. This was not an Indian client, however, I could see that in the Indian market, Indian banks were actually struggling with the same function. That is where we could see a very significant difference. A lot of banking processes are dependent on manual processing.
For our organization, the Orchestrator has the most useful setup. All automation is more or less the same. With UiPath, the difference is the Orchestrator. The amount of integration it has is actually what makes it different from all other vendors.
I would rate the ease of building automation using UiPath at a nine out of ten. For automation in UiPath, you use a package. For example, if you want to do MS Office automation, you have an MS Office package. If you want to do Outlook automation, you have a certain set of packages that support that. If you have the package for that purpose, it's very easy to manage.
For ServiceNow, they did not have a package until last year. There was a UiPath team-supported package that was an unofficial package developed by a UiPath employee. Last year, UiPath came out with its own package, and that helped. Now we have standard automation for ServiceNow. That's actually made things more streamlined.
In terms of implementing end-to-end automation, the process analysis is currently outside of UiPath, but everything except that can be done by UiPath. For us, creating end-to-end automation using UiPath is not that very critical. Process analysis is a bit of a situation-specific thing, and at times, it's usually better to keep it outside of the tool. It always helps within the tool, however, it depends on the convenience and comfort that the client has. I wouldn't want to expose my ERP data directly for automation.
Typically, it takes two to three years to see the breakeven. The difference between on-premise and on-cloud is that the lead time is a little less. That's about it. Therefore, the amount of trouble and setup and that sort of thing is the only item to consider.
The Automation Cloud offering helps to decrease the solution's total cost of ownership by taking care of things such as infrastructure, maintenance, and updates, however, only to some extent. It's not a lot. In the long run, it makes it easier to get breakeven from the initial implementation. The maintenance happens a little less as well. When you're updating the Orchestrator, that is where your major maintenance jump comes in. If you're not upgrading your Orchestrator version, it's more or less the same. From an ownership perspective, if you're not upgrading Orchestrator, only your VM license and hosting cost will be different. This depends on the client.
If you already have an Orchestrator in place, having an automation cloud doesn't really increase or decrease the ability to scale. That would only be only in the case where you want a complete separation environment. In that case, you'll have to use a multi-tenant kind of setup. If you do that kind of a setup, it's the same if you do it on-premise or on-cloud. The time to ramp up should be the same.
We use a mix of attended and unattended automation. Attended automation is primarily helpful for a few things like where the application's less stable, where things like Citrix are involved, which already have their own set of infrastructure issues.
UiPath has reduced human errors in the organization. The lead time is reduced, as well as the lead time to activity and the lead time to develop. Specifically, if you do development in UiPath versus any other OEM, you see a very significant difference in implementation lead time from a development perspective. They're much simpler to develop and manage in UiPath. If you go to other OEMs, it's very complex at times. If it takes 10 steps in another OEM, UiPath takes it in one to three, max.
The solution has freed up employee time by as much as 30 minutes per day. It's allowed employees to focus on higher-value work. The primary benefit of automation is doing low-complexity repetitive work outside of working hours. That's the biggest advantage that I've seen. Even if you're sleeping, there is already work being done in the background, so that the next morning, when the employee comes, he has more relevant work in front of him. He doesn't have to do any paper-pushing jobs. Automation can do that instead. That's the biggest advantage.
The fact that UI handles infrastructure, maintenance, and updates for Automation Cloud saves some time in the IT department. It is a trade-off. The biggest challenge that we've seen with Automation Cloud is primarily with documentation. At times, we raise it to UiPath, and after that, documentation comes up. I'm not saying that's bad, however, that's something that UiPath can work upon. This is a consistent behavior that I've seen.
Back in 2018, I was with another employer, not EY. I started using Orchestrator API within 10 days of its global release, and we had struggled at times for documentation. It's a theme with Orchestrator, with the new Automation Cloud, specifically on the Orchestrator side. For Tableau reporting, there was nothing. We had to raise it to UiPath saying, "Hey, do you have something for Tableau reporting?" They said, "No, we don't have anything for Automation Cloud." Very recently, they came out with it, however, before that, there was nothing.
The documentation isn't the best. It's pretty difficult to search. We would have to raise a ticket to the UiPath team, and they would have to come back with the relevant information. It's difficult to try and do a day or two of research only to have to raise a ticket to UiPath as a vendor.
I've struggled a lot with automating Citrix applications with UiPath. I know how Citrix is not very stable when it comes to automated logins. In that case, attended automation is good. We've seen some good use cases. However, it depends on the consultant's choice and the business's goals.
I've been using it since 2018.
The solution is very easy to scale and allows users to scale whenever they want.
In general, UiPath support is good. It is better than other OEMs. They're usually really good.
I have experience with other RPA solutions. The development time is the biggest difference. The amount of automation one can do with it, that's the main difference. It's huge. It's not even a small difference.
I've looked at leading vendors in Gartner's Magic Quadrant. I've actually worked on all the vendors that you can see in the Magic Quadrant. There is a reason why UiPath is leading. Development is great, and, if you want to integrate a third-party application, UiPath has a lot of integrations set up either in its Orchestrator or in its Studio. Something that takes 15 minutes in UiPath would take one day in most of the other options. In Automation Anywhere, for example, you have more trouble.
The Orchestrator setup doesn't take a lot of time if you have everything in place. Cloud deployment is a good option for smaller clients, or small to medium clients, that are just piloting or don't have any very sensitive data out there. They should go on the cloud.
It's a straightforward setup. It's pretty easy. That said if it's a new solution to you and if you don't know it, it might take a little while. Even then, it's easy. It's not complex.
Prior to StudioX coming in, it was very easy. Within 15 minutes for just a Studio client. However, with Studio, things changed a little. If you install StudioX and do not want to revert to the regular Studio, you'll probably have to uninstall the installation. StudioX usually comes with a separate installer and so on. With Studio Pro and the regular Studio, they come with their own thing.
UiPath is already working on providing an integrated installer for all of its offerings, so that should make it easier. If there is a wrapper application, and if from there you can select which one that you want to install, it'll be smoother. You'll be able to just click and go.
I have seen ROI in the past. My previous clients love UiPath. The current client is not in a spot to say just yet, however. It's a very new setup.
To see the ROI, that's where the off-work hours come into play. The automation works outside of working hours, and that actually speeds up a company's business processes in general. For those kinds of things, it's good. It shows a clear ROI.
The pricing is okay. It can be reduced a little. It's still fair, however, pricing can be reduced by the company if it wants to spend less. Depending on the industry, or depending on the features that an organization is going to get, it's possible to scale down. For example, if I don't want to use the AI set of features, I just want basic automation, I don't have to get what I don't need. They've already done a good amount of corrections in the product offering. If somebody wants only a certain section of the offering, they should be given modular pricing, especially for the managed cloud, which should be pay as you go. If I don't want that service at all, why should you pay for it? If I want something, it's a different situation and I should be charged, however, if I don't want something, it's good to have the option to opt-out and save money. You can't really put the whole cost on a customer.
SAP IRPA has a good model whereby their offering is based on the number of hits. The more API hits that you're asking for, the price per hit reduces. That should be the typical model. I'm not sure what UiPath is doing in that respect, however, I feel that is the best approach.
My organization has a business relationship with UiPath.
In the current setting that I'm working in, it's basically an on-cloud deployment. We have these Automation Cloud Services, to which we have been subscribed. In the past, I've used the on-premise UiPath deployment.
Since it's a SaaS offering, it's always available online.
We are using a relatively new version.
We do not use UiPath's AI functionality in our automation program currently. We also do not use UiPath's apps feature. That said, I am aware of some organizations that use it.
I would advise new users to fix up their processes first, check if their applications need to be upgraded or digitized. After that, they will be in a position to then take a long-term vision with UiPath and have a strategy, have a long, two to three-year strategy. It's not a good idea to take a "do as it comes" approach. There needs to be, ideally, a three-year strategy in place in order to get a lot of business benefits.
I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. If the pricing was better, I would rate it higher.
Specifically, if you see Automation Anywhere's pricing, their basic automation is cheap, however, if you want to use the intelligent aspect, the intelligent aspect comes at a very good premium. That's most important. If I want to do simple process automation and if you're running a company at that scale, you need to understand your competition. There are a lot of players coming into the market and a big differentiator is going to be the cost. Power Automate is going to be successful based on that logic. It has high availability, big integration, and low pricing. It can disrupt UiPath's space.
It's on multiple platforms like Oracle EBS and other IT applications. We have a few of the local government applications that the client uses. We have worked on multiple use cases with all of these applications. All of the client's major work is all through Oracle EBS. We have finance-related use cases. They have Seabridge applications, which are one of the applications that we are automating using UiPath.
Oracle itself has been very helpful when using this solution, thanks to the redundant task they've currently defined. All those are being automated. We mostly use the UiPath Assistant, Video, and Orchestrator. These are the only three products that we use day-in and day-out for our clients.
The ease of building automation using UiPath is great. It technically provides good features in order to develop, automating different kinds of applications using UiPath.
UiPath enables you to implement end-to-end automation, starting with process analysis, then robot building, and finally monitoring automation. It's usually very important. In some regulation cases, redundant cases, it’s been very useful. Instead of avoiding human intervention digitally, we are utilizing the UiPath to build up automation and run those in unattended mode.
If we could use the UiPath Apps feature, it would increase the number of automation and reduce the time it takes to create them. That said, at this time, I do not use this aspect of the solution.
UiPath has reduced human error in some cases. For example, a client has monthly payroll activities, which have to be done for multiple entities and in multiple in order to ensure the reports to be pretty good. It's a huge asset, having these multiple entities. It takes a lot of time for a human to execute the task. Here, automation plays a key role and it creates everything automatically through unattended mode. Of course, when a human is involved, there are chances for errors, such as missing the entities and updating the parameters. All of these things are instead being taken care of by automation. The likelihood of error is removed when the human intervention is.
The product has freed up employee time. It’s likely freed up more than a day, an average of 12 hours at least. That’s 12 hours per day. It allows our employees to focus on more high-value work.
We do use the Apps feature, however, it hasn't really helped reduce any workload. Everything is dependent upon the client's local language, which is Arabic. That is the major reason why we could not implement or utilize much of the Apps. It's not able to recognize Arabic versions properly. That is the challenging area which we are observing currently.
The solution is helpful in terms of speeding up or reducing the cost of digital transformation for our clients, however, the license cost is a little high. We are facing some challenges in the form of money. The license is costly.
While employees can now focus on more high-value work, I would not go so far as to say it has improved employee satisfaction.
In UiPath, we have multiple products and recently there have been many product videos. There are videos around customization, deployment, et cetera. are all scattered all over. There are different products and different server setups and various other things, however, it is not organized. If it was simplified, it would be much better.
It could be more user-friendly. There are so many offerings and configurations and customizations that make things a bit complicated. Streamlining it would be ideal.
There are a few small things that should be included in UiPath. There are a few, although I can’t remember all. One, for example, is, when we are sending an email, we should be able to set up options and customize it a little bit. At this point, we need to create custom code and then go through APIs if we want to customize. It should be a built-in functionality, however.
I've been using the solution for two years now.
Stability-wise UiPath is good, however, it releases twice yearly. Therefore it will be a little hard for people to upgrade in-house each and every time. Clients also question why it's necessary every six months to upgrade. It won't be reasonable for the management. Every time when an upgrade is available, we have to complete the regulation for the previous use cases and whatever we already have deployed at production.
When redeploying, everything is kind of a hectic task. Once in a year is okay, however, multiple releases in a year is a bit much. Clients would not be aware that yearly this many releases are happening and every release will have something more to add, that there are changes. Having to adapt to changes is something that is very difficult to make the client understand.
The solution can scale.
You can use the application to automate any kind of application or any kind of use case. A few of them require some customization, using other technologies.
Already we have some 25 bots running in production and a few of them are about to deploy to production and the client is looking for some more use cases. We are looking into a few more use cases that are in the discussion stage as of now. We are increasing our use cases and expanding usage.
The technical support is very helpful, however, there have been cases where we have had some urgent issues and support seems to move at its own pace. They won't rush for you. They don't seem to understand our concerns and they seem to only focus on their own timelines.
Our SLA expectations are not always matching theirs. Even when we mark something as urgent, still there's a timeline of two to three hours. In that time it'll be hard to hold on.
Our clients did not use a different RPA solution before UiPath.
I do not have any other RPA solution experience beyond UiPath.
I am the solution architect who setups.
I was working on the 2018 version of UiPath. The 2018 and 2019 versions are very easy and very straightforward. There were not many changes or many complications in order to set up or upgrade. However, when it comes to 2020, from 2020 onwards it's very complicated.
Now there is an IAS. There is no connection string update. We cannot update any connection strings, and yet we could in the 2019 version. From 2020 we're not able to do the changes at all unless we go further and do another upgrade or something like that.
Earlier it was straightforward. Maybe there was a little bit of conflict, fine, however, now that it's split into multiple things with a conflict DLL file, orchestrated DLL file, identity server file, then an app setting the adjacent file. That is gathered completely into all of these things, where until and unless you have both end-to-end documentation understanding, you cannot go ahead and do anything.
On top of that, there is the SSL certificate. Until 2019 we didn't require each and every robot or a development machine to have the same SSL certificate. Now, we have to export and import to all the machines and add the user's perspective.
From the licensing perspective, licenses were straight, and there was no migration required for the license to be utilized in any of the versions. From 2020, there is a license migration required from the UiPath end. We now need to contact UiPath for that in order to get this migration done.
All of these changes, as well as the identity server database creation, everything has a kind of impact on the ease of deployment.
Upgrading doesn't take much time, however, users deploying the solution should have a ton of knowledge about each one of the steps. They need to remember everything in order to perform the upgrade or else something might be missed. Even if you miss one step you will have to spend hours and hours in order to rectify that.
For the 2020 version, for the initial deployment, I did not actually do it from scratch. I just upgraded. That said, if a user wanted to do it, I would estimate it takes more than a day to complete.
The implementation strategy depends upon the requirements of the client. For example, if it is on-premises versus if it is on cloud and/or if the client is looking for Elasticsearch or Insights or test automation, et cetera. All of these things will be dependent on the other. If you ask for Insights, you need to have an extra server setup for that. The same thing follows with the test automation and SQL database. What we call roles and responsibilities also will be dependent.
The unattended licenses are a little costly. That's the challenging part for us. That said, with the continuous support to the client, as we are increasing the use cases, it will lessen the cost probably by the middle of next year. At least, that’s what we are hoping for. We hope to see an ROI then.
The license cost is a little high. Unattended modes are really costly. If it's not as costly, then we could propose and purchase the licenses. Of course, we get discounts from UiPath, however, just for 10 bots, not even 10, if we load 5 to 10 unattended bots within the production orchestrator with the three development licenses, we have to pay for them twice. I'm not sure how much it is exactly in terms of the dollars, however.
My company does not have a business relationship with UiPath.
We do not use UiPath in a contact center environment.
We use completely unattended automation.
We do not use attended automation at this time, or AI, although we are aware those are options. We're looking forward to AI and it is part of the reason we recently upgraded to the 2020.10 version.
It's one of the best tools where you can work for automation. If you have more redundant work, then it is very helpful.
Except for this upgrade and installation initial steps, apart from that, the solution is pretty easy to use.
I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.
I use this solution to automate business processes that are rule-based. This includes the automation of different applications and background processes, such as posting invoices.
UiPath makes it very easy to develop automations. The interface is user-friendly and makes it easy to perform operations or use services, whether it is a database or another product. We can perform tasks on Microsoft Azure, for example. Many operations can be completed using inbuilt packages.
For whatever activity we want to perform, it only involves using the drag-and-drop capability, so it is easy to do. Anybody can do it. No programming-specific knowledge, like .NET, is required.
It is easy to develop custom components, which makes life easier.
UiPath allows us to implement end-to-end automation starting with the process analysis and ending with the monitoring. This is important to us because for any new process that we identify, using the task capture methods helps us to gather the documents that are required to automate it. After we develop the automation in Studio, we can easily monitor it using Orchestrator. It is helpful to have a complete solution from start to end, with all of the features that it has.
Using automation means that we increase our process output with minimal effort, which is something that every company wants to do because there is a saving in terms of manpower. It is definitely helpful in our organization.
The amount of time or cost savings depends on the process. For example, some processes that take four or five people to complete can be done using a single bot. Also, people can only work six or seven hours a day, whereas, with automation, the bot can run 24 hours a day. Not only is the process done more quickly but at less cost.
Attended automation has helped to scale RPA benefits because we have some scenarios where human collaboration is required. These are business-critical processes, so any level of automation is important for us.
In addition to savings in time and cost, UiPath further saves us money because of the reduction in human error. When a human is performing a task, mistakes happen. When the bots are used, there are no errors and when the number of mistakes is reduced, the business has more income.
UiPath has helped to speed up digital transformation, although hosting it requires IT support. For example, if UiPath needs to be updated or our infrastructure needs to be expanded, then it requires the help of IT support.
One of the things that I like is that they keep adding new features, such as machine learning models. For example, if you are reading a PDF copy of an invoice then the RPA should be able to identify and understand it. Rather than using rules to identify different formats for different kinds of invoices, machine learning and AI should be involved.
We are using the AI functionality and it gives us the ability to have more automation, saving more time and manual effort, and at less cost. This is possible because UiPath provides pre-built and pre-trained AI models that we can import, depending on the use case.
Some of the processes we have implemented are very complex, and these are the ones that we need AI for. Some of them involve human interaction and cover use cases such as taking different formats of invoices and pushing them to SAP. We have had good success when working with the machine learning capabilities.
The Action Center and Task Manager are very good for business users. The features are helpful because these days, business users are expecting more than a simple rule-based operation in RPA systems.
UiPath Studio integrates well with third-party tools such as Git. It is easy to maintain code from within Studio.
Many of the features that UiPath has are good, although better documentation is required for them.
I have been using UiPath for three years.
I have had issues with previous versions but the latest updates have resolved my problems. As of now, the stability is very good.
Scalability is very good in UiPath.
We have five UiPath users in our project; one is a lead, another is a manager, there are two developers and a consultant. At this point, I'm not sure if we plan to increase our usage.
I have been in contact with technical support in the past, and I would rate them a ten out of ten. They respond very nicely and help to resolve our problems.
When we deploy processes, it takes about half an hour. It varies depending on the process but half an hour is the average per activity.
UiPath is easy to maintain and support. We have a support team and QA teams, and they are responsible for monitoring the processes and the bots. They will check the activities that take place in production.
The number of staff required for maintenance depends on the architecture that the client has.
The licensing model is very good.
We chose UiPath because it is more flexible and has better licensing terms than some competing products.
We use some third-party tools in conjunction with UiPath. For example, to maintain the code and for versioning control, we use Git. We have two or three years of experience with Git and not only is it compatible with UiPath, but it is also easy to use.
My advice for anybody who is implementing UiPath is to start with the documentation. There is a lot of good documentation that includes best practices and plenty of examples. Using the documentation, one can easily learn UiPath.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
We deal in banking and finance. The use case is based on the transaction dates. For example, how customers are using credit cards, net banking, transactions, and what components they are buying. We gather this information in order to provide a CIBIL score.
We do have multiple applications, which are provided to the banks so that they can work without taking much time. We have a set of test cases that need to be automated and we'll run it up.
As of now, we test and we usually have a CSED pipeline as well. We are not only restricted to any one of the features in UFR. We are using Citrix, among others.
The solution makes it easy to build automation. Earlier, we used to collect the data and create a hard copy. Now, these are all processes that are automated. There are fewer human interventions that are required to collect the data from the email or collect the data from the hard copy. It is auto-generated through auto-generated mail. It will collect all the details and save them to a repository. Based on that, our support team is providing the solution to the customer, and it's much easier.
UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation. These processes are very complete. Where there's not a single person is in practicum, however, it's only deployed in our productions.
They have included the chatbot. Therefore, if the customer is having any issues related to any of the products, they will raise their queries. We will log these queries through a bot system, and this will get notified to the escalation team. They will locate into it through banking domains or through the solution of it and providing the solution on emails. It's very helpful.
End-to-end coverage is one of the best features. If their service display is not good enough, or if they are facing any issues, we can sort things out faster, which makes customers very happy. They are getting the solution on time, and they are running 24/7. Human workers are not able to provide each and every solution on an immediate basis, however, by using the solutions, we have got a solution for the end-user that responds immediately so that they are satisfied and their needs will be fulfilled much faster.
As of now, we are using attended automation, however, we also have created some of the use cases, which are going to be linked through unattended automation. Attended automation helped to scale RPI benefits in our organization, by automating department or all specific processes that require human-robot collaboration.
For example, in one project, which we used as a test, typically the turnaround would have been 15 days, however, with UiPath, we were able to churn out this product in 30 minutes. It's amazing how much we are saving in terms of time. We've been able to shrink timelines.
We do use UiPath's AI functionality in your automation program. The complexities are always a part of the banking industry as data is from many places and over a large amount of time. However, when we talk about the calculations, it's when human beings are involved where it really takes a while to get a task completed. With automation, we can shrink that down to 15 or 20 minutes and know in that short amount of time a person's complete financial background and if they are credible or not. This customer doesn't have to wait so long to get the results they need.
UiPath's AI functionality has enabled us to automate more processes overall. Now, for example, it's feasible to process data, and, if we have to, get the data explained very simply to calculate a score and find out if a person is genuine or not. We can look at credit histories, transactions, et cetera, and based on that, be able to process requests in order to enable users to get loans in seconds instead of days or weeks.
UiPath both speeds up and reduces the cost of our digital transformation; it increases processing speed and saves costs that would otherwise be taken up in longer-term tedious tasks.
I've used the UiPath apps feature, however, I cannot say it's fully required for our processes. That said, it was very helpful when we did use it.
UiPath has helped us reduce human error. We can achieve our goals, as mentioned, in 30 minutes, without having to manually go from one stage to another, which may cause errors. It frees up our employee's time as well, to help improve their focus. That, and, within a week's time, we can save 30 hours on a single resource. It allows those employees to really focus on higher-value work. Employees are happier as they now have the time and space to build their skills.
Overall, UiPath has reduced the cost of our automation operations. This reduction is around 30% savings.
The product is well-integrated with different tools that can help with logging, et cetera.
The task capture is great in that we have all of this data we are receiving that's automated and we don't need to invest much time in creating documents.
For a few of the projects, we have saved money, however, on a few of these projects we've noticed less revenue. The orchestration cost is a bit higher when we are working on smaller projects.
From the improvement perspective, I am from the testing background, and UiPath has recently released some announcements related to scrums. I would be happy to see their products be involved with scrum teams.
Just like they have data for the JIRA automation, maybe if they can include some of these options in the Rally solution. It's a tool that is used locally for various projects and having automation activity included there would be useful to us.
From a migration perspective, if we can get something better than the manual process that would be great. It would be nicer if it was smoother for those doing implementations.
I've been using the solution for five years.
I can say it's a very good tool from the RP perspective. It is helping us to get our work faster, saving time as well as offering multiple functionalities. We haven't had any issues with it.
Everything is good - except the capture part. They could improve on that as we are getting less accuracy as compared to the other functionality. Other than that, the rest of the components are fine.
The scalability is very good.
On my team, somewhere around 14 people are working on the UiPath product. There are several other teams also on it. Likely, there are around 50 plus people in total on the solution.
We are regularly using this product. I cannot say I'm not using a single day. 365 days a year this solution runs, as these processes are basically used on the weekends as well. Based on the schedule, it is pretty much always running in the UAT or QA environment.
How much we use it depends on the products. If we get more products, we will increase usage.
The customer support is very nice. Most of the time, we are getting a resolution from there.
I would rate them at more than eight out of ten. Over the last three years, I've been interacting with the web team on customer support. I tend to get an immediate response from their team for the assignment of my ticket, and they schedule a call. However, in some of the operations, it's not possible to directly interact on the WebEx.
It's important for us to have them extend their communications or extend their environment. Not every organization can get support as they offer it. Using Microsoft Teams or Zoom or a more popular platform may be helpful.
We did not use another solution that is similar. We previously used an automation tool that was purely used for the testing perspective. We decided to move to UiPath as it was an easy-to-use solution. However, I was not a part of the RPA tool decision-making process.
Earlier, it was a bit complex as we had to configure our robot with the orchestrator or the studio that was providing details. Now, when we are installing, everything is taken synchronously. We don't need to enter the required areas. It is automatically catching that from that environment.
The time it takes to deploy depends on the system resources or the system specifications. Usually, it will take around 23 to 40 minutes for the installation, however, now that they have improved their installation time as well, it may only take 20 to 30 minutes.
For us, the deployment plan is basically to focus on the data perspective. We don't want to lose any of the aspects of the data, which is already running, so we do take a backup first. The orchestrator has a different environment structure, which has already been configured like a development rather than a UAT.
These are the phases that we are using on a regular basis. Once it is certified for the first stage, only then does it move to the next phase.
We require 22 people to maintain the product. They are largely comprised of the DevOps team.
While the solution is a bit expensive, we do see ROI. When we compare the ROI with the expenses differently, ROI is on the higher side. Of course, for the organizations who have a small product base, who may have less automation required, will find that expenses are higher. The more you automate, the more you save.
However, in relation to sharing actual data points, that's a bit tricky.
As compared to the licensing costs or the pricing of other tools like Automation Anywhere or Blue Prism, it's a bit cheaper, however, when we talk about the open-source tools such as Robocorp or Robot Framework, the cost is on the higher side. Microsoft Power Automate is also cheaper.
There are no other costs beyond the licensing.
We are just customers and end-users. I'm an RPA lead.
We are using an operating system related to Microsoft and several other features related to Microsoft. If they offered this type of product on a regular basis, that was less costly and had the same compatibility, security, and features, we'd likely adopt it.
I'd advise those considering the solution to check the processes and compare them to their potential ROI. A company needs to consider if the tools will help them based on their environment and goals. It's important to first analyze the internal capabilities before jumping in. If they don't think they'll be getting the ROI they desire, they should look at another tool.
I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.
I am an API developer and I use UiPath for development. I use it to develop solutions for banking problems, like banking automation.
For example, in my previous company, I used the API for developing automated reporting solutions that take a lot of Excel files, check their data, and try to generate a web page containing many graphics based on the Excel data. It's basically translating the data on the web and it's made automatically every month.
For my current company, it's a banking company, and I'm working on the banking solution. It's a process of verification of the user identity or the client's details. This process is based on taking the ID card of the person and digitalizing the data. It's a technology meant for reading data from documents. After reading this data, we automatically take this data and put it into the database and create accounts for the user or do a lot of automated things.
At my current company, the use case is for the process of managing the relationship between the client account and any fees. A robot always checks if there is something to pay for the client and can take the fee automatically if that is the case. Then there is a transfer of money based on the request.
For example, when someone wants to do a transfer they add the money and sign a paper. This paper contains the information of the client's account, including details such as the client name, the account number, and the amount of the transfer. We take the data and the robot automatically takes the data and, via the web, goes to the apps of the bank in order to search for the client, search for the account, say the amount, and take the proper amount from his account, et cetera. We're able to save steps as everything is automated.
The actual company has three environments. There's one for development, one for pre-production, and one for production. Every element has two UiPath robots and one Studio. We have in total three studios and six robots, and each one has its own lessons.
In the first, there was only one robot and one studio. They upgraded the solution from one studio one robot to three studios and six robots and they have found a good benefit in that. They know that it will give them more opportunities and more advantages within the banking environment. They made an investment in this technology to make their work easier so that they could be the best in the market of banking. It's helped them become more efficient.
There is an additional library that I discovered that allows me to work with the previous version of UiPath. There are some libraries that are new on the UiPath Studio, which are also helpful.
In terms of the ease of building automation using UiPath Studio, I must say that I used Automation Anywhere once as well. However, the way the UiPath connects the idea for development makes it so easy to build with the components that we can just drag and drop in. It's the easiest way to develop a solution and is an easier tool to use.
UiPath helps implement end-to-end automation starting with process analysis, then robot building, and finally monitoring of automation.
Being able to implement end-to-end automation is important for me. As much as they make me work, they make the work easier for me. For example, I use it to make the connection between ABBYY Studio, a solution for OCM, and writing scripts inside. I try to launch the script and take the output of the file and try to do a lot of things to make a connection between UiPath Studio and ABBYY Studio. UiPath Studio has given us a strong and new plugin, that we'll put some parameters around and we are done. It makes things easier like that. The features added into the latest update are helping a lot.
UiPath Studio has helped minimize our on-premise footprint in that there's less staff required. Previously, the company had three or four people doing the same thing. Now, only the robot does it. The four people are doing something else now. It's allowed them to focus on other tasks. The robot did not replace them, however. They still work in the same company, however, they are focused on doing different jobs - specifically jobs that can't be automated. They work on jobs that require a human operation, human intervention, and that's it. The employees are happier too. The current company recently won an award based on employee happiness. In 2021, they were awarded excellence in employee condition. Automation hasn't made them bitter or changed their work ethic.
Robots started doing a lot of tasks that four people take one week to finish, except they can do it in one day. It's saved lots of time. For example, if we have 52 weeks, every week the robots can do a week's task in one day. A human may only be able to do 52 tasks in a year, whereas a robot can overperform by roughly 86% over the course of a year.
UiPath speeds up and reduces the cost of digital transformation. The robots are extremely helpful, as they can work 24 hours a day, every day. They can do processes faster than people. It makes everything ultimately speed up.
The product has reduced human error. Even the robots make some errors, however, at least we are aware of them. The errors end up being fewer than that of a human counterpart. The issue with human errors is that we can't know if and when an error is made. At least with the robot, if it makes an error, the person is blocked somewhere and therefore we know that the robot missed something or it found a wrong account number, for example. The robot will notify us of an error whereas a human might miss it completely.
Between version 19 and version 20, the Orchestrator tool interface has changed a lot. It totally changed. The menu changed, the place of the button changed. It took me a week to understand and to make myself used to this new interface. In the end, I found it's a good change and it's helping so much in understanding what the robots are doing in terms of checking logs, extracting some data there to make some analysis, and giving reports to the director.
The scaling could be better. There are so many parameters and options to check and so much to do before the solution is ready to use. Not everyone knows what to do at the outset and it's all a little bit complicated.
I've been using UiPath for one year and a month. The company may have been using it for longer than that.
While the stability is fine, with a license that needs to be paid yearly, UiPath will put out a new version annually. That way, when companies go to renew, they often need to upgrade or pay for a new license. The product does this to keep earning money year after year.
For me, having the ability to scale automation without having to pay attention to infrastructure is okay, generally, however, even though I find that the company can use the tool to make the process automate well, I don't have so many people working with process automation. There are now just a few people developing in the APA and the licensing is still expensive and clients aren't excited to do anything even if it's a good solution for automating the process.
If you have a lot of money, you can put it all in UiPath and make the robot far bigger. I heard about a company located in Qatar that has 3600 robots. They buy it every year. It's a banking company and every year they pay for it. They are not using all of the robots, however, they've given their developers full reign of the environment.
In my current company, I'm the only one using it. Many companies actually spend a few years testing it before they officially start using it. However, the company does plan to increase usage and does plan to add three or four more people to the team who would be working with me. I would manage them and provide training as we expand.
There's a third party that takes responsibility for troubleshooting. They made the environment, and they are in charge of everything. Personally, I go first to the UiPath forum if I need help. I've found a lot of answers there. If I don't find something useful or helpful, I write an email to the third-party provider so that they can take charge of the problem and solve it.
They are good. There are three people who assist me typically. One is from the Middle East, one is French and the other is from India. Their way of communication, their way of giving information, and giving support have been great.
Both companies I have worked for that use this product have never used an automation solution before.
I have worked with the solution for two enterprises. One was a Canadian company. I implemented the solution for them. I met the organization's boss, and I also put the training together too. I made the environment and I developed the solution and did the full implementation.
The second, which I am actually working for, is a combination between Europe and Africa on the main. In both companies, the solution is already implemented and I work with it. The solution was started by another department. We don't share or manage the site of escalation or choose which kind of installation. The installation in this case is on-premise. We have constructed on our IAS, local server, and that's it. It's on the server, and we're not using UiPath's cloud.
The initial setup is good. There are no problems. Setting up the robots is also good. For the Orchestrator, sometimes I face some issues surrounding not UiPath, but the OS. For example, installing the Orchestrator on Windows 10, version 19.02, it's not the same process as it would be with Windows 10, version 20.82. Sometimes the visuals of the operating system change and it affects the installation too. This is well documented in the UiPath community. You'll find that many people face problems while working with the Orchestrator.
The deployment sometimes took me two hours. Sometimes I come across an issue and it takes more time. However, often, it can be deployed in 30 to 50 minutes if all goes well.
With the installation for a Canadian company, I have a very simple installation experience. The environment was already prepped and ready and I just needed to start the installation.
There is an IT team that does perform the maintenance as required, for example, if there are any updates or upgrades. I don't handle that aspect. I'm only a developer.
We might study potential ROI in the summer of 2022. We're still on the development part and therefore we still can't make reports. We don't have statistics.
There can be costs related to digital transformation. There are two ways this can happen. The first is when the robot is using an internal application, the application made by the company. There often is some modification to the interface of this app. There are some options that become available only for the robots. The second is when the robots use the websites of external companies. Internally, we made some changes to the robots to ensure they work well. In terms of the expense and how much it costs, the information is managed by another department. I don't have information about that.
I can't speak to the exact price, however, recently I heard in a meeting that one license for Studio Path costs 2,825 Euros per year. This price is approximate and may fluctuate.
The license is always per year. They don't show the pricing on the internet. You must contact the support or a seller.
For the company I currently work with, I was in the meeting that chose the automation solution and they put the UiPath blueprint and Automation Anywhere on the table. The company wanted to choose between them. They found that, in terms of money, performance, and popularity, UiPath was the best. That is why they choose UiPath.
We are not resellers. We are customers and end-users.
For now, I am fine with UiPath Studio and I will likely keep developing automation solutions on this tool.
For the attended robots, we are not using them yet. We are only using unattended robots. First, we must make the financial employees understand how robots work. They need understanding or training as a first step before we can use attended robots in development. We are going to use attended robots in the future, however, for now, we're focused on unattended robots.
We don't yet use AI functionality. We're going to start using artificial intelligence and also the machine learning solution of UiPath via AI sensors. We'll use it to measure credit and to gauge the likelihood of clients paying, however, for now, we are not yet using AI features.
We are also not using UiPath apps.
UiPath Studio has reduced the costs of our automation operations, although I don't have an exact statistic that reflects this.
Sometimes, when you come to a company and you tell them that you will make a robot to do their job, the first thing they will start thinking is "we're going to lose our job. They're going to fire us." With that mentality, they often aren't cooperative.
For example, in a Canadian company I worked for when I was working on the process, the parts of the activity for Excel automation, I kept notifying them that they should keep using the same name of the file so the robots can read the file. However, I would get files in different names with letters off or symbols in them as if the staff was trying to get the project canceled by trying to show the robot wouldn't work. However, over time, as they came to understand no one would lose their position, they became cooperative. They weren't happy at first, however, they came to embrace the project.
UiPath has a huge marketing strategy, and they have been the first in the world with a lot of this technology. If a company wants to integrate automation into its processes, it will likely start looking at UiPath first.
If a company is considering UiPath, they should know exactly which process should be automated. When you know what kind of processes will be automated, they will understand better if they need attended robots or unattended robots, and then can proceed with a purchase. What one recent company did is they went and bought one studio and one robot. Then, later, after understanding which process was going to be automated, they figured out that they needed three studios and six robots. It's better to know which process to develop to make it automated, then later go to buy solutions for it.
We will still always need human workers. Of course, there are some tasks that can be automated 100%. However, in the end, and specifically in the banking domain, we always need humans to understand some things that make the work easier. if we combine automation, things like robots, and human intervention, then we can get great results.
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.
I have worked on two UiPath use cases. The first use case is for the IT Infrastructure team for submitting server requests. They receive a request from a third-party portal through email, and then my bot reads the email and fills in the details in the company portal.
The second use case is the data extraction from Word documents. The team receives Word documents with some important contract information. I extract those paragraphs and put them in the CSV format given by the customer.
We are using UiPath Studio 2020.10.2, and the Orchestrator version is 2019.
I heard about UiPath RPA in December 2019, and I went to the UiPath Academy website and completed their learning plans. Till March 2020, there was free certification, and I completed the free certification and kept on practicing. I showcased my skills to the management in my company, and I got into RPA projects. The certification has helped me in getting good projects. It has also helped me with my work for the use cases. My position is now better as compared to the previous years, and my work is also good.
They provide end-to-end solutions. They have UiPath Studio for the development, and they have Orchestrator for package deployment. We can also monitor the performance and execution in Orchestrator. All these are helping us in managing end-to-end automation.
All UI automation activities in UiPath Studio and REFramework are useful. UiPath Orchestrator is also valuable. These features help me a lot in my projects.
UiPath Studio's UI automation activities help me in easily developing automation. It is difficult for RPA developers to write complex code because no one knows everything about all automation areas. For UI automation, it is not mandatory for a developer to know how to write the code for the element on the screen that needs to be clicked or typed into. The UI automation packages of UiPath provide built-in activities, and developers can directly drag and drop and indicate the element on the screen that needs to be clicked or typed into.
REFramework is a template using which we can prepare quality workflows for the transactional processes. It has very good error handling, retry, and logging mechanisms.
We can monitor robots in Orchestrator. We can check logs, monitor the performance of each robot, and divide robots into different environments. These features are very helpful for me in managing my work. If I have two or three robots on a set of machines and I want to define my process only for these robots, I can add that process into the environment. My process will be executed only on those robots. This is a good functionality.
For every transaction, there is the queue functionality in Orchestrator. I can go to a queue and add each transaction item to the queue. For every transaction, I can check the logs. I can also check their logs based on the jobs executed. We also have triggers, so we can schedule our jobs with the help of triggers. These features are helping me a lot in managing the performance of my robot and understanding how my robot is performing.
They have UiPath Forum where I can ask any questions. Many UiPath Most Valuable Professionals are on that forum, and they help us a lot. We get quick replies. If anyone is having any challenges, they post their challenges on the UiPath Forum. I can go through them, and if they are already solved, I gain knowledge by reading those solutions. If not, I try to answer them. In addition to gaining the knowledge, I'm getting some visibility in the UiPath Forum. All these things have really helped me a lot in increasing my technical level and expertise and getting good work.
UiPath Studio supports three types of workflows: sequence, flowchart, and state machine. Flowchart and state machine are good. Sequences are also good, and they're for linear workflows. However, in a sequence, as we keep on dragging and dropping the reusable components, the size of the screen increases. If we drag and drop the conditional or looping activities on the site, the screen size increases in length and breadth, and it becomes too complex for a developer to navigate between activities.
All programming languages, such as C, Java, Python, or Visual Basic, have script-level support. So, we can reuse their functions because they support scripting. For example, if we want to use any reusable components, Python has modules, and there is a way to import packages. For complex automations, if we can write a script, it makes it easy to manage and know the line on which we are getting a syntax error or a runtime error and how is the structure. If I want to modify the logic, it makes it easier to know in which block I need to make the changes. So, it is easy to navigate in the program. Instead of the drag-and-drop blocks, UiPath should have support for scripts such as VBScript and PowerShell. It should support scripting even for complex automation.
The user interface for logging should be improved in Orchestrator. Currently, the logs in Orchestrator show how many hours ago the execution is completed, but it doesn't say how much time it took for a particular execution to complete. It just gives you a rough idea that it started three hours or one hour ago. It doesn't tell you exactly when a particular execution started, and at what time, it stopped. To get a clear idea, I need to click one more button and go to the details of the log. I need to check the start time of the first log and the end time of the last log in the same job, and then I need to calculate the difference to know the exact time it took for completing the job. Instead of doing all that, there should be a column that gives me the exact amount of time in minutes and seconds. It will help me in understanding how much time each execution took and what I should do to improve the speed of the execution.
In my current project, there are no intelligent automation requirements, but I have learned it recently. Just today, I completed the UiPath AI Center course. I also have some basic knowledge of machine learning. They're giving us options to use the out-of-the-box models developed by UiPath and their third-party vendors. With our internal data science, we can also develop our models, integrate them through UiPath AI Center, and deploy them. They're giving us an option to use them as a part of our RPA workflows with the help of the UiPath Studio activity called ML Skill. So, it becomes very easy for RPA developers to integrate machine learning models into their automation workflows, which is very nice, but I feel there should be some more improvement. They should give more visibility into how much time a model takes to finish the training and on how many algorithms it is running. They should also give visibility into which algorithm is best suited for my requirement and which algorithm is giving the best results for my requirement. If they can also give such insights in the same UiPath AI Center, it will help me in picking up the correct model and algorithm for my requirements.
When it comes to intelligent automation, machines use machine learning. No machine learning model can reach 100% accuracy or give 100% accurate output, which is a limitation. However, there is a possibility to increase the accuracy by tuning the parameters. So, UiPath should give more visibility into their models, how the pipeline is running in the AI center, and which factors can improve the accuracy of my model. Such insights will be useful for me in improving the accuracy of my intelligent automation.
In December 2019, I started learning UiPath, and I became an RPA developer in November 2020.
Until now, I have seen good uptime. There were no disruptions in data. I've seen the services running properly 99% of the time. Their logging mechanism, job schedules are also running properly in Orchestrator. So, it is a stable environment.
We're getting good support from UiPath. I would rate them 75 out of 100. Most of the time, I get fast and good replies from the support team. Sometimes, I receive late replies, or they don't understand the question properly, and I need to explain multiple times, but they are mostly good.
I have worked on different IT process automation tools in the past. Their support did not respond as fast as UiPath's support, and they put the tickets in the suspended mode for a long time. They also didn't understand the question a lot of times and took too much time to analyze the issue.
I also have the advantage of talking to my Infra team because we've deployed it on-premise. They can act as the first level of support and check if there is anything wrong with the on-premise server. If it is related to UiPath functionality, then we raise a ticket with UiPath support.
It was already set up when I moved to this team. I was working in IT process automation, and I moved to the UiPath development team. The setup and licenses of UiPath Orchestrator are managed by our Infra team members. They provided me with the licenses and links to the UiPath Orchestrator. So, I make use of the resources already deployed by my team. I just build and publish the packages to UiPath Orchestrator.
I have not deployed anything in the live environment, so I cannot comment about the return on investment. I've seen my colleagues deploying it, and with the help of data automation use cases, they have reduced around 10 hours per month for each support team. For my use case, we will be able to reduce at least one or two FTE for the support team when it goes live. I'm able to predict this because I have developed and tested many test cases for my use cases.
I only know about the community version. They give us two robots as a part of the community version, and they are enough for my practice and personal automations. For the office work, my Infra team checks the licenses needed for a particular use case, and my management team manages the pricing and licenses.
Nine times out of ten, I would recommend others to use UiPath. I have also worked on other IT process automation tools, and none of them provides the functionality, support, and community like UiPath. I had conducted a survey on LinkedIn and asked about the RPA tool that people preferred. I got 60% of the votes for UiPath.
From the development perspective, I've seen a lot of improvement in the UiPath services in the last one year. They're giving more out-of-the-box models for the AI Center, and they are also improving their courses. They are also introducing new functionalities such as the orchestration processes in which you can use persistent activities, and your robot can wait for the human task to finish, and then it can continue its job. If they make any enhancements required for our current automation, we will make use of new UiPath functionalities to enhance our automation.
They have released two new versions of their certifications. One is UiPath Associate Certification, and the other one is UiPath RPA Developer Advanced Certification. I have completed the Associate certification. For these certifications, we have learning plans. There is recommended training, and everything is given on the UiPath Certification Program website. We have the option to check their recommended training and do the practices. They also guide us about how to book the exam from the Pearson website. Going through the recommended training and doing the Associate certification has increased my credibility. I've gained more trust in the company. It has changed my career. So, UiPath has played a prominent role in my career.
It can reduce errors by 100% because a machine can give 100% accuracy and work faster than humans. Just like all RPA tools, UiPath can provide 100% automation accuracy for rule-based automation. You also get better speed because machines are faster than humans. When it comes to intelligent automation, machines use machine learning, so there is a limitation. No machine learning model can reach 100% accuracy in automation.
I would rate UiPath an eight out of 10.
