Automate Reviews

We use HelpSystems Automate primarily for file manipulation, such as moving files from folder to folder and tasks that other tools can't do without some programming.

When files come in, we want to send them to specific locations based on their names and based on the results of IF statements. The solution makes this kind of work more straightforward and more drag and drop.

We also use the product to move Excel spreadsheets or PDF files and to convert PDF files; it's a powerful tool for transferring information. It has a playback feature, but we don't use that in our current environment.

We have two servers running the solution; one for development and one for production. Going from development to production is as simple as dragging the object over and putting it into production with little to no change, which makes promotion straightforward.

We get a data file comprised of multiple reports, and it's a text file. We use the solution to split the text file into individual reports, and then we can drop them into a folder, and they get picked up by another tool, OnBase. That is an essential task for us.

We also use the tool for retrieving data files and sending them out via AWS or Google Cloud, as it has cloud-based capabilities.

The tool works behind the scenes; we created a process that reads many data files, matches them to a SQL database and moves them to the correct folder while collecting information required for other processes further down the road. That's mainly what we use it for, and I'm responsible for maintaining it. Automate makes my job easier because I don't have to keep rewriting scripts or changing file names; we can quickly change a database file, and the solution picks that information up and processes it.

For example, we get a file that has ten reports in it. We take that file and run it through Automate, which reads the data file line by line and breaks it up. Line one through 1000 is one report, and 1001 may be a second report. Automate handles that repeatedly very well. It then reads the database to determine what the report is and where it is supposed to go. If a report doesn't match any database parameters, it's simple to go into the report in Automate and add the condition.

We're a small shop with only two of us running Automate for the corporation. We deal with claims and other insurance-related work. The solution reduces the number of staff required because we don't have to hire network programmers or use VB scripts to edit data.  

As the tool deals with repeated tasks and mostly removes human error from the process, it cuts down on errors by about 50 to 75%. 

Behind the scenes, we see the value of using Automate immediately, as when we turn it on or enable it, as HelpSystems calls it, the tool beings working. Depending on the schedule, that could be within five seconds or 15 minutes. The process works fine; it's flawless. 

I like the interface; it makes managing automation easy. We can set different schedules and templates for each task.

The solution also has access to PowerShell, so we can run PowerShell scripts if needed.

Automate is excellent regarding spreadsheet creation based on data files and file movement. 

The drag and drop for development is a key feature for our organization. We can select options for a data file, fill in parameters, add IF statements, and the solution adds the relevant code. We can enter selections for Excel, read a database based on specific values, and pass it a SQL statement. The tool greatly simplifies our tasks because it has interfaces to other products built in; if we want an Excel spreadsheet, we select yes, and then the solution will start encoding based on our selections. The product makes our work much quicker, as we don't have to write code in Visual Studio, especially when moving files around.  

The solution saves us a lot of time. We use it hourly for repetitive tasks dealing with 14,000 files, and Automate handles that well. We would need many staff members to do the job the solution does. 

There is room for improvement regarding cloud functionality; there are a few missing features, and the logging could be better, especially air logging. We can go into logging events and create our own task, but it would be nice if this were more detailed.

We have been using the solution for five years. 

The stability depends on the task; there are some performance issues when working with massive files, but the solution is otherwise stable. It processes files in milliseconds, while database retrieval and file manipulation are rapid. It slows down when we run a process record by record doing multiple calculations. It's good that once we build a task, it's repeatable.

I have yet to experience scaling the product, but I know they have network and standalone versions. We have the standalone version.

HelpSystems has excellent service. I can call them up if I have a question and they'll either send me an example of the code or they'll help me through the actual issue.

Positive

We previously did a lot of VB scripting with another product, and we switched because Automate makes tasks a little easier. 

The initial setup is straightforward; it's just a matter of installing the tool onto the server, and that's very simple. There were three staff members on the deployment team. Now I maintain the product by myself, and it's very lightweight in terms of maintenance. Upgrades come in once or twice a year, and it's just a matter of running the installer to install them. 

Setting up attended and unattended bots is very simple; we can develop on one and then bring it over to the other. The timers, schedules, code, and so on are all brought over. We began developing RPA workflows half an hour after deployment.  

The entire deployment was done in-house. 

I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost. 

We previously used other HelpSystems products on an iSeries, and we went strictly network. Automate was one of those, but I wasn't part of the selection process. I don't know if any other options were considered. 

I would rate the solution eight out of ten.

We had about four hours of training, and then we were able to get the solution up and running.  

I like the product; it provides the same functionality as other products but makes the process easier and more user-friendly. The tool is suitable for developers or operators moving files around or creating workflows.

We go case by case. We use Automate for various file transfers: SFPP, FTP, cloud to cloud, file to cloud, cloud to file, file to banks, and banks back and forth. We're happy with it, though it's mainly for file transfers.

We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us. 

We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal.

Never had stability issues with Automate. Any downtime we've had was caused by other systems, not Automate itself. That's why a free development environment is crucial. We need to test and build without impacting production.

So, the only major improvement suggestion is a free development environment. That would solve our downtime issues and allow us to develop and test automation efficiently without affecting production.

We have specific use cases like secure file transfer. And it has been scalable for our business case. So, for us, the scalability is a ten out of ten.

Fortra's Automate has good documentation and a lot of videos available. We were also given training.

So, overall, support has been good.

Positive

Windows had something called 'batch jobs.' It still works, but it was manual monitoring and cumbersome. 

So, Automate has been a big leap forward, simplifying things. Only during the upgrades, do we need to visit the product. Otherwise, everything is seamless. 

The implementation is ongoing. It's not a one-time thing for us. We build new automations every few weeks for new software, involving requirements, development, and testing.

It does not require much maintenance, thanks to backward compatibility. We haven't needed major code changes due to version upgrades.

I was part of the requirement gathering and development but not the installation. Upgrades are handled by the admins with some initial testing from me.

Currently, it is deployed on-premises, we are exploring cloud options. We'll always need on-premises for some things, so it's a hybrid approach for now.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.

The advice is for a customer and a vendor. Do a proof of concept, get a trial version, and play around with it. Have your solution architect or support walk them through some use cases. And most importantly, make sure you're trained! Without proper training, this product will be a failure. Offer them all the resources – training materials, videos, and community links. That's the recipe for success.

My company, where I work, is a value-added distributor for Fortra's Automate. We distribute Automate and other solutions to various customers, each with a different use case. We develop a proof of concept solutions and full projects for them. We have done projects for hospitals for insurance eligibility checking, HR automation, and price comparisons for vendors. A specific use case is the insurance eligibility checking we have done for a hospital chain in the region. Whenever a front desk employee takes a person's ID, they enter the identifying number and our bot picks up the ID from the back end, searches the insurance portal for the ID, and finds out if they are eligible, what their copay is, what their coverage is, and what network they are in.

The solution can be deployed on-prem or on the cloud depending on the organization's requirements and preferences.

For no-code automation specifically, Automate is very good. It is all just drag and drop, so developers do not need to see any of the underlying code that is going on behind the scenes. This makes it very user-friendly, so no one needs to be highly technically proficient to start developing solutions with Automate, which is a great benefit. However, if someone is a more proficient developer who wants to use a more traditional coding language, they can still integrate it into their workflow, as Automate has actions for that.

No-code drag-and-drop and form-based development are very useful for clients who don't want to dedicate a lot of technical resources to developing and automating. We have seen this in our clients, where they have their regular IT staff who are not doing a lot of coding but are still able to get Automate up and running quickly and start working with it. This is a big selling point, but there are some clients who are more used to traditional scripting languages and are less willing to try out Automate. It varies on a case-by-case basis, but in the majority of cases, having no-code automation is a major advantage.

Fortra offers a free Automate Academy on its website, which includes multiple modules and hours of videos covering the basic and advanced concepts of Automate, such as working with workflows and more technical aspects. Customers can also get certified through the Academy. Additionally, the Bot Store provides pre-built bots that can be freely modified, edited, and used for specific use cases. Most of the bots in the Bot Store are free. Combining both of these resources provides a good amount of support for training. However, the amount of time it takes to learn Automate depends on the individual and their technical background. Those with a developer background may find it easier to pick up and use Automate, as they will already have the concepts of loops and if statements. With a few hours of training and practice, they should be able to use Automate effectively. Fortra also provides additional resources to fill in any gaps.

Automate is pretty good at reducing human errors. Whatever we set up, it is done and it's functioning logically. If there are any errors that come through, it is almost always due to gaps in the logic of the implementation that we have done, which can be hard to detect. That is where most of the errors come from. There could also be some edge cases that we don't consider while developing, which might be causing some errors. But if we set it up correctly, it's usually quite effective. The other source of errors could be if we're using OCR or something similar, as there is inherently some ambiguity which can lead to incorrect readings. That is also a potential source of errors.

Automate reduced errors by 90 to 95 percent, which is an estimate based on my observation of the insurance equity process. In most cases, this estimate is accurate.

The biggest advantage of Automate which saves us time and money is that it is easy to automate any repetitive manual tasks. This means a quick return on investment can be achieved. However, my advice to companies planning to use Automate is to not just automate a single process but to also invest in maintaining and scaling Automate. They should set up an automation center of excellence and consider automating processes in other departments such as HR and finance. Automate is also easy to use compared to other solutions, so it does not require a lot of technical expertise to get started. This is the biggest selling point of Automate.

The best feature of Automate is its ease of use, which is a major selling point. It has a drag-and-drop interface, so bots can be quickly deployed. This means implementation time is relatively short, making it an even more attractive option. Additionally, the web browser of Automate is also quite good, making it easy to set up web scraping and log into websites to pick up information. All of these features make Automate a great choice.

The documentation for errors needs improvement as many of the error messages we receive are very vague. For example, an error message might simply say, "The workflow has run into an unknown status," which does not provide any insight into how or why the failure occurred. As a developer, it can be difficult to debug these errors due to the lack of information. 

The logging and failure notifications could be improved because we can set up logging for each step, but we have to manually add it to each task. Similarly, we can set up an action so that when the task fails, a screenshot is taken and an email notification is sent, but we have to go into the task and build a condition for that. It would be better if the logging and error failure notification could be done at a global level, rather than having to go inside the code and adjust each task.

The stability could be improved slightly. This is not a major issue, but we do occasionally lose connectivity. For example, the main central server for Automate is the developer console we are working on. If the developer console loses connection to the main console, this can happen occasionally without us realizing it until later. We may think our task is being saved, but it is not actually being saved on the server and we can lose some data. These occurrences are not frequent, but they do happen. Additionally, there are occasional crashes, although these are not too frequent. 

I would like to have more third-party integrations, as Automate already has a lot, such as Microsoft Dynamics and SharePoint. However, it would be nice to have native actions built into Automate for further third-party integrations.

The community portal is not very active, so it is not a large community. Therefore, if we encounter an issue, we cannot simply search for a solution on Stack Overflow or a similar platform.

I have been using the solution for 14 months.

I give the stability an eight out of ten.

Automate is a highly scalable solution. As I mentioned previously, we also have an unlimited bot version, so we can deploy multiple agents. We can use load balancing across these agents. We can also set up agent groups, where we have an agent group running a certain task and a load balancer to distribute that task among these agents. We have failover and high availability support.

The tech support from the vendor side has been excellent. We can submit a support ticket and we will receive a response within four hours. As a distributor, we also have direct email access to some of their technical support personnel based in Europe. They are usually very responsive and can usually help us with any issues we encounter.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. We need to install the solution and open a few ports. The deployment can be completed in one hour on my own.

Automate doesn't make much of a distinction between attended and unattended bots. They are essentially the same thing, just with different workflows. For example, if we are setting up an attended workflow, there will be some actions that require user input. An unattended workflow, on the other hand, is completely automated. The pricing for both is the same and it is relatively easy to deploy. Once we have developed the bot, we can set up a skill, trigger, or file and it will run on time.

Once we have Automate up and running, we can begin working on it if we have a developer console. Setting Automate up is part of the process. So, once it is set up, we can start developing from there. A simple task, such as reading an email and moving the file to a folder, can be developed in two hours. However, this is a very basic task.

The implementation is completed in-house.

We can usually see a quick return on investment with Automate after implementation. It is relatively easy to develop, so solutions can be deployed quickly. However, there may be times when maintenance is required. From what I have seen in organizations, there is usually a quick return on the initial investment, although there is ongoing maintenance needed to keep it running.

From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point. Compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, Automate is significantly cheaper, as it is priced per bot rather than per process. This allows a single bot to run multiple processes, but still, be priced as a single bot. Additionally, Automate is the only vendor to offer an unlimited option, where customers can have unlimited bots and each bot can do an unlimited number of tasks. Overall, Automate is very competitive in terms of price.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Automate has a recorder feature, but I don't use it much as most actions we can do with the recorder can be done with regular drag-and-drop actions. I don't think the recorder makes it significantly easier to use.

Our clients usually deploy in one location only. I don't have much experience with clients deploying in multiple locations, but the only thing I can say is that it is only supported for Windows, so there is no Mac or Linux support. However, I have only seen them deployed in a single location. I have seen them use multiple servers, but they are all local servers.

We served customers of all sizes, from enterprise-level to small and medium. The biggest selling point for small and medium customers is that they find solutions such as UiPath and Blue Prism to be too expensive for their smaller scale. In these cases, they find Automate's pricing to be more competitive. As I mentioned, we have provided services to customers of all sizes, from enterprise-level to small and medium.

We offer two pricing models: a subscription model, where an annual cost is paid each year, and a perpetual model, where an initial deposit is paid followed by an annual maintenance cost.

I highly recommend Automate as it is a great product at an affordable price, especially for small and medium-sized customers. My biggest suggestion is to invest internally in the organization so that employees can create their own bots for their own use cases. The great thing about Automate is that it is easy to use and learn, unlike many of our competitors where highly certified individuals are needed to develop. Therefore, investing in our people so they can develop is key. Our employees who do the day-to-day work know what they can and cannot automate, so investing in automation and embracing it fully, not just as a small part of the organization, is essential.

Our primary use case is to automate the onboarding user process. This includes creating the user ID, enabling mailboxes in Exchange, adding user groups based on user types and sites, enabling third-party software like archiving for users on external sites, creating specific home directory and private directory structures, SQL querying if certain IDs already exist on our Document management system (our ID's don't match AD), creating logic to alert and email notifications. 

We will also be using it to monitor mailbox messages to create tickets via API for our ticketing system based on the type of email content and assigning it to appropriate departments.  

We are still in the process of rolling it to production and tweaking it (our AD groups are a mess), but the improvements are priceless.  Having users ID's created the same way every time without human error is the best part. We don't need to worry about why groups were not added, user rights not set to folders or missing a private folder being created, typos or just even knowing when things are done and logged. You can automate the time run and ignore it on holidays.  I haven't even gotten to the off-boarding part yet when we need to start archiving stuff on the backend.

It's not no-code, but it's very low code. It's easy to read and understand. A little bit of DOS scripting, basic knowledge of using the information you have, and tossing it into a database to use, and you're off running.  I have to say, the people who wrote this, really understand the use of automation.  You can run your scripts as a different user when you get an error - do this, dialog message box timeouts -positioning- -auto continue -delay, there's plenty of logging and more which I know I haven't discovered yet.

I haven't really come across anything I haven't been able to do with it yet. I am still finding things to automate but I'm sure there's a lot more to explore. My script is quite extensive so I do wish I could jump to parts of my script more quickly but being able to set regions (expand or collapse part of the script helps.) 

The support was great. One thing I got from support was some basic templates like logging and starter scripts, maybe just include some, the help is very useful but the start templates really get you off to a running start. I am truly surprised by the functions I can perform already on the system straight out of the box and I recommend the video training. 

I have been using it for two to three months.

It has the scalability if you need it. You can purchase more agents to run. It's easy to deploy.

It was great working with Ryan. He always answered my emails and was great at pointing me in the right direction.

Positive

I only had basic DOS and Powershell scripts which others didn't know how to use.

It's really easy to set up.

I installed it myself on-prem. The vendor came in to verify the configurations (recommended).

We have seen ROI in saving time and reduced human error. It can handle any repetitive tasks.

The starter pack was all we needed and was reasonable. Others were either more expensive or didn't do all that I wanted to do without an addon.

We looked at 2-3. ManageEngine and UIPath but I can't recall the other one.

If you like to automate, give this a try. It's easy to learn and you don't need a developer or programmer to help you.  

We use Fortra's Automate primarily to automate different tasks that different users would otherwise have to do manually, whether running secret queries, pulling files off FTP servers, or uploading files to FTP servers, primarily logistics. You'd be sending and receiving EDI documents, sending inventory files, transferring data to and from customers, and running general reports, whether exception reporting or regular inventory. We're even using it in payroll to set notices when people work overtime. We get reports from the payroll provider. We have automated reports for our transportation business. The solution is the whole company.

Automate in pre-judge instances was primarily a work multiplier, so it helped alleviate a lot of the work for our customer-facing team members, provided an additional set of services and tools from IT to the business, as well as supporting sales, customer service, and accounting in many ways.

Compared to other vendors, it's the scheduling tool because a lot of vendors want to charge you extra for their enterprise-level license to have a scheduling tool built in to give you the ability to set up regular schedules to run and do certain data checks. For example, you can run a report and then query the data. For example, "If there's any data here, send it. If there's no data, then end the task." There are a lot of checks in there, a lot of data readers, OCR readers, SQL query readers, and general data tools. They're very helpful.

It would be an improvement if Automate had better stability tools, whether by recommending a certain amount of memory because it can be a memory hog at times, depending upon the type of application or license you run. Fortra does have an enterprise-level automated manager to manage different automated machines running on different servers. We primarily used a desktop version before they discontinued the desktop license. So, going on to the Automate manager, the enterprise manager is a good tool for using it to check the different servers that are running the actual tool. Maybe there are more alerts built into the enterprise tool to check on things like system memory, uptime, or any freezing in the OS versus the application in terms of turning the application from a piece of software into a service or a system running in the background.

I've used Fortra's Automate for about 14 years.

The software's stability is great, but you have to be very careful about the environment you have it running in because you have to make sure you have this much memory and backend processing because Automate can be resource-intensive. Of course, that depends on how many tasks you run on the application, and the more tasks you run, the more resources it uses.

Only three or four people use the solution, primarily from the IT department. The whole company benefits from the solution.

Automate is extremely scalable, based on your licensing level, of course. But if you have a good software management tool built in a good environment with enough resources, you could scale almost indefinitely depending upon the number of servers and resources you have in your virtual environment. You can scale up, no problem. Just add more memory, more RAM, and more processes. You need to be more strategic about your scheduling of tasks.

I've contacted customer support several times to restore licensing after rebuilding our server and recovering the application. We had to make sure the software was running and things like that. That's usually the primary reason I need to contact them. We need to contact them to upgrade our software because if we don't upgrade it by a certain point, you lose the licensing. If you maintain your upgrades, you maintain your support, and you maintain your licensed updated version, your backups and recovery time are free. But if you stop upgrading the application, you must buy a new license after a certain point. I experienced that myself.

Customer support was very helpful. It was surprisingly quick to get in touch with someone. I've received regular communications, regular emails, updates about the tool, and different plugins available now, but this was when they were called HelpSystems.

I was not involved in the original deployment, but I've been involved with deploying the newer versions. In this case, there was a process with deployment because we had to pull every customer service rep for every account and what type of reports they wanted to customize to SQL and then deploy it, automate, and identify whom the reports need to be sent to. That process was just logistically challenging but not hard in the tool itself. For example, if you set it up for one customer, you can replicate the same task and just change the query, and then run it for another customer and change the folder structure and the to and from emails. You just need to go live once you set it up and test it. As a work multiplier, setting it and forgetting it is really good.

It takes about two weeks to fully deploy the solution because of the number of customers we had and the number of customer service reps, and testing and getting the customer feedback and things like that for every single customer. It took me a couple of hours for each individual, but that's just based on response time with emails and people. But once it was tested, I got the feedback, and it looked good. I just set up the schedule and ran it. It was often running. The sad thing is when you create a tool like that and make it so robust and functional, you have to maintain it. You have to then check on people to say, "Hey, does the customer still want this report? Are they still an active customer?" Because we just have automations going on, and no one's looking at them. Fortra's Automate is one of those things where if you set up too many tasks, you have to manage them. Or if you have a break/fix, like a server goes down and you have to build it back up, you have to make sure you automate your backups, replicate the server, and make sure there's a backup server, make sure you have your contacts to get a backup of license keys and everything else. That hurts because when you have an application that's so important, it hurts you when or if it goes down.

We implemented the solution ourselves. We have a team of four IT people and consider ourselves internal customer service. It's primarily myself and my boss who oversee that project.

We've saved about a million dollars, to be honest. Because when you factor in the labor costs we saved and the work multiplication of IT by doing even system-level notifications. We just automate our inventory management system's monitors, SQL queries, and uptime. We used the monitor uptime for our network. If a particular reporting tool is down, it will send an SMS to our phones. We used Automate for cybersecurity, checking our network's access and ensuring file transfers were working. We used it in many different ways that the solution was not readily used for because we were a small IT team at the time, so we used it as a way to multiply our team and provide more services to the company while making IT another kind of profit center because of the different services we're able to provide.

I wish Fortra would retain some lower-tier applications, like the desktop version. The enterprise-level licensing is understandable, especially with the service agreements. However, with the support they're charging, I wish they had more granular support for using the tool or helping me use our training for that location. Most of the support elements are just about break/fix and moving the licenses to different servers. Very little actual direct instruction. However, the tool is self-explanatory and user-friendly, so, in many ways, the help team directs you to the help and written resources already built. They don't have much on-hand support except for break/fix. But there are a lot of resources available.

Once you buy the software, you just pay for the support for backend help.

I tried using Automation Anywhere, which is a competing product. But these solutions lock different functions behind different paywalls to get you to the most expensive enterprise tools. We've only tried to deploy a competing product to compare apples to apples. Half of the functionality that we have Automate that we get out of the box, even at a desktop level. Automation Anywhere had none of those functions available from their lowest-tier application. We'd have to go to the enterprise level to get scheduling tools. The aggressiveness of Automate with all the tools and the functionality that comes out of the box makes it not unique in the landscape, with its versatility and embedded tools. Still, with every tier, Automate makes managing a more stable environment easier. And when you do anything piecemeal, it makes it harder. When you go up to Automate's enterprise tier, it feels like you're getting more than just a paywall to unlock different tasks.

Fortra's Automate was deployed before I joined the company, so I have used it since 2008. However, we deployed the customer-facing element in 2012 when customers regularly requested things like inventory reports from customer reps. Instead of running a report from our warehouse management system, we could run an SQL query replicating the same report or drop it in our CSV or Excel file. Essentially, we created a full-customer service to automate regular reports, whether inventory reports, serial number level, item lot level, on-hand or available freight reports, summary transaction reports, or bill of lading reports. We were able to automate a lot of the reports that our customer servers sent to customers. The warehousing company is a third-party logistics company, so we provide many third-party services to our customers, and reporting is one of them. Being able to automate that process and simplify it for the end user, which is our customer service team, is when I realized the benefits of working with Fortra's Automate.'

Fortra's Automate is primarily on-prem, but we use a private hosted environment. Our servers are hosted on a VM platform by a vendor, but they all use an internal Internet network. VPN over the Internet.

We deployed two additional servers in addition to our primary original server, and we upgraded from one to the other to deploy new applications and services to our customer service department.

You do have to run regular backups because sometimes, for whatever reason, the scheduler may lose the schedule for all the tasks. It's a GUI, meaning it's a user front end. You have your schedules, tasks, and everything, but all those tasks are set to certain file types. It has a surface file with all the scheduled information and all the names of the tasks listed, and then you have the individual files with the actual tasks. The application is a user front that manages the schedules and tasks, so it's very user-friendly. And the scheduler runs the VB scripting in the backend. You have to make sure you regularly backup your schedules and your reports to ensure that, if the software stops running and it loses the file, or if there's something corrupted in the application, you can rebuild it, apply the same license you have with them, and then upload your schedule directly. It's really about securing the application for the Windows environment, making sure that whatever Windows update runs, it doesn't destroy the backend grid. It's always good to have good software management regarding backend support.

I have and haven't tried integrating Automate with other solutions I'm currently using because it's running an SQL query in the background. SQL has been the primary tool in which we work with it. If anything goes off or down, SQL will be the primary tool, so you want to ensure your SQL environment stays stable to work with Automate. When SQL works well with it, it's fine. But then, when you have a lot of different third-party tools or competing applications, such as a Microsoft plugin to work with Oracle or different things, Automate has had recent challenges with that. Other than specialized tools, like specialized Java tools, which I've got to update the APIs for. But primarily with Microsoft SQL, it's great and easy to work with. Especially if you're working with Excel files, You need an Excel license installed on the machine in which you're running Excel queries. It can pull CSV data, but if you want to read and write things from Excel, you'll need an Excel application to open it in the background to pull the data. There are some quirks and things you have to have with it to utilize Automate effectively.

I want to increase the usage of automation because every software vendor has its way of doing things. I do want to make sure our team doesn't get too complacent. I'm making sure we have regular maintenance planned while using the software. That's the challenge when the software works too well, and you're lulled into a false sense of security, and if something happens, you're like, "What do we do now? Oh, my god!" You need to ensure you always have a support plan built in, backup and recovery, and structured backups, and ensure those things are working and are alive.

Because Fortra's Automate can run SQL queries, you can automate any SQL-based tasks. Type in the query, customize it, and set it up, and it'll do everything there. It'll pull in data, parse it, write data to SQL directly, and create custom reports. You could do a lot of stuff directly with SQL with Fortra. It's not just the tool itself but the APIs that the solution can work with in different pieces of software. You can upload things and pull them down from websites. There's OCR stuff from PDF. It's great. I like the tool. It's really helpful.

I rate Fortra a strong nine out of ten.

Before choosing Fortra Automate, start with what you're trying to solve. Ultimately, a tool like Automate, unless you have specific problems to solve, you wouldn't know what to do with it. It does so much. If you have a particular problem you're trying to solve, you get an idea about what you're trying to do, whether it's moving, reading, or updating a file, moving, or pulling data. If you're trying to send data, it can do SMTP upload a secure FTP. The solution can do AS2 plugins. It can connect to Oracle SQL, T-SQL, and MS SQL. It could move files on a server, log into your network, and put things in a secure location. The solution is ridiculously helpful. Fortra's Automate is a force multiplier, so if you're one person in an IT team and you have a whole bunch of automated tasks you need to do, this can take care of most of it. Automate is proprietary software that you need certain GUI access for. For the most part, if you can put it in a file, Automate can take care of it.

We use the solution for automating processes to pull down reports from the web. The company posts these reports on websites, and we want to download them. We then scrape the reports to create database files that can be pulled into other applications.

On occasion, it is easier to use the solution's recorder for recording desktop and browser-based activities.

The solution saved users a lot of time. They are thrilled that they no longer have to manually pull reports and go through large amounts of data to find the information they need. Previously, they had to spend 20-30 minutes every day going through reports, but now we can condense that down to a few minutes.

Fortra's Automate is a drag-and-drop development platform that makes it easy to connect and pull data from visual websites or visuals. Users can simply drag and drop elements to create their automation. This makes Automate a very user-friendly platform, even for those with no coding experience.

Fortra recommends 20 hours of hands-on use before their formal training, which is four, two-hour sessions. I think that is a pretty good plan.

As we use Automate more, it will help us reduce the need to hire more people to process repetitive tasks.

Automate helped our organization reduce human error.

The ability to connect to websites and pull data is the solution's most valuable feature.

Fortra's Automate is not as reliable as I would like it to be. For example, it sometimes has trouble finding elements on a page. I noticed that on occasion when I come in the morning and check the automation, it did not run properly.  I am not sure if it is because of the way I programmed it, but this happens more often than I would like.

I have been using Fortra's Automate for four months. 

For the most part, the solution is stable. We're still finding ways to program around hiccups in our runs.

The technical support is very good. They are responsive and work through issues with me. I called them two or three times.

Positive

I'm not involved in the dollars side, but we're saving lots of time. Users are moving routine and mundane tasks to Automate so they can get to pertinent information with minimal effort.

I give Fortra's Automate an eight or nine out of ten.

Creating the logging is easy enough. We have to do our own logging in Automate. Maybe that's just how it has to be, but I need to understand how to diagnose problems better. Overall, I'm happy with the product so far.

I recommend taking advantage of the training that Fortra offers on its website. It is good quality training. Fortra requires us to complete 20 hours of training, followed by their formal instructor-led training (via Zoom) and certification. I believe that a lot of this instructor-led training could have been delivered through video from their website and that more time could have been spent discussing real-world use cases for the company. I don't know if this is possible, but the training costs $1500, so I think a more personalized experience would have been better value for money.

We use Fortra's Automate to run job schedules for data processing to and from our ERP systems. We extract important data to send to customers and upload it to our ERP system.

The solution is deployed on-premises in just one location.

Fortra's Automate does the work we wanted to do in the expected steps, and it's really a throughput process that enables our system to have a steady flow of transactions.

Our company's goal is to use Fortra's Automate to build and create automation. Of course, we have to instruct the solution as to what to do, but this would be a great enhancement for our organization.

The ability to automate using drag and drop is very important to our organization.

We did not need any training before using the solution.

I was not with my organization when they did not have Fortra's Automate. Therefore, it is difficult for me to measure what they did before. Manual work would have likely caused errors, and the solution is helping to improve that.

I work with EDI, which is the business process that we use. We need to get EDI data into an ERP system, and Fortra's Automate is the tool that can help us do that.

The solution has saved us time, as it is an automated process that runs independently and transfers data.

The solution is quite sound and it is a reliable workhorse. Fortra's Automate performs the job effectively and has the capability to alert us of any issues.

Sometimes when we communicate with the ERP system and there is an issue, we are not always aware of the specifics of Automate and the source of the problem. Automate simply states "failure" and nothing else. This is an area that could be improved by having wizards available to assist.

I have been using the solution for three years.

The solution is stable.

The solution appears to be scalable, however, our lack of time to analyze and experiment is a major setback.

The technical support is excellent. I enjoy chatting with technical support, as it allows me to get a quick response to any solutions or problems. This has saved us a lot of time, and we are able to get an immediate response. The support person will join us online in a Zoom session to resolve our issue. Not many solutions offer this, which is very advantageous for us. We can also email, but they give us the option to chat, which is very quick, easy, thorough, and effective.

Positive

We have seen a return on investment due to the reduction of manual effort required for certain tasks.

The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate.

There are no additional fees.

I would rate the solution an eight out of ten because we never received any training or exposure to Fortra's Automate. We had to learn it through hands-on experience with a mentor when we started. We weren't given any resources to help us learn, so we had to figure it out on our own.

We have two people that directly use the solution.

The biggest issue we face is failure when attempting to use the ERP system at times, so we have nothing to maintain.

Potential users without experience should view demonstrations of how Fortra's Automate works to gain an understanding of its capabilities.

We're a value-added distributor for HelpSystems Automate. We distribute Automate along with other solutions to various customers. Each customer has a different use case. Usually, we develop a proof of concept solution for them or the whole project for them. 

We've done multiple projects. We've done projects for hospitals for insurance eligibility checking. We've done HR automation. We've done price comparisons for various vendors where they want to know how their competitors are pricing the same products.

For the insurance eligibility checking that we have done for a hospital chain in the region, the requirement was that they have thousands of patients coming in every day, and they need to know the insurance these patients have and what's covered under the insurance for them. So, the front desk employee takes a person's ID and enters the identification number from the ID. After that, the bot that we've developed picks up that ID from the backend, goes into the insurance portal, searches for that particular ID, and then finds out if they're eligible or not. If they're eligible, it finds out what's their copay, what's their coverage, what's their network, etc. This is the process that we developed for a hospital chain in the region.

For no-code automation specifically, it's very good. It's all just drag and drop, so as a developer, you don't see any underlying code that's there. It's very friendly in that regard. You don't need to have someone who is extremely technical or proficient to start developing solutions with Automate, which is huge. However, you do have to work on integration. For example, if you want to integrate a PowerShell script into your workflow, there are actions for that. If you are a proficient developer who wants to use more traditional coding languages, you can still integrate that with your regular workflow. It's very useful for clients who don't want to dedicate too many technical resources to develop and automate. Some of our clients have regular IT staff. Even though they're in IT, they're not doing much coding per se. They're able to automate pretty well and pretty quickly with Automate. They can easily start developing and working with it, which is a big selling point. We also have clients who are more used to having traditional scripting languages and are less willing to try out Automate. So, it varies on a case-by-case basis, but in the vast majority of cases, having no code is a huge factor.

It's pretty good at reducing human errors. Whatever you set up, it does that logically. If any errors come through, it's almost always because of some gaps in the implementation logic, which can be tricky to catch. That's where the bulk of the errors come from. There might be some edge cases that you didn't consider while developing, which might cause some errors. That's quite possible, but if you set it up right, it works pretty well. The other area of errors would be if you're incorporating OCR or something like that. There's inherently some ambiguity in that. It can read some letters differently. There's a possibility for errors to come in there as well. However, based on what I've seen, at least for the insurance eligibility process, there is about 90% to 95% accuracy. In the vast majority of cases, it's pretty accurate.

It's very easy to use. That's a big selling point for it. It has got a drag-and-drop interface, so you can quickly deploy bots.

The implementation time is pretty quick, which is another big selling point. The web browser of Automate is pretty good as well. If you want to do any web scraping or log into a website and pick up information, it's pretty easy to set that up. These are some good features of it.

Error messages should be better. For error status, there should be better documentation because a lot of times, error messages that you get are quite vague. For example, you get a message saying that the workflow has run into an unknown status, which is vague. It just tells you that it failed, but you don't know how or why it failed. It makes debugging difficult. From a developer's perspective, it gets a little difficult to debug at times due to these error messages. It's not with all the errors, but for quite a few errors, the documentation is vague.

Event logging and failure notifications could be improved because you can set up logging for each individual step, but you have to go and manually add it to each step or task. The same issue is there with the failure notification. You can set up an action so that when a task fails, you can take a screenshot and send an email notification, but you have to go into the task and build a condition for that. It would be better if event logging and error failure notifications can be done at a global level without having to go inside the code and add it for every single task.

Its stability could be improved a little bit, and it could also have a few more third-party integrations. Currently, you can integrate with almost any third-party service. You can integrate either through the API or through the GUI, but it would be nice if there were native actions built into Automate. It already has a lot of integrations. For example, we have Microsoft Dynamics, SharePoint, etc. We do have a fair bit of third-party integrations, but it would be nice to have a few more software integrations.

There is a community portal, but it's not particularly active. It's not a very big community. If you run into an error, you can't just look it up on Stack Overflow or something like that. However, the tech support from the vendor side has been excellent, so it isn't a big issue.

I've been using it for a year and two months.

Its stability can be better. It's not a very big concern, but once in a while, you lose connection to the main central server for Automate from the developer console. If your developer console loses connection to the main console, which is not a very frequent occurrence, you don't realize it until later. So, you're saving your task thinking it's working fine, but it's not being saved on the server. You lose a little bit of data once in a while, but these are not very frequent occurrences. It happens once in a while, but it's something to be careful about. There are also occasional crashes. Sometimes it slows down, and it crashes. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of stability.

It's a very scalable solution. We have an unlimited bot version as well, so we can deploy multiple agents. We can have load balancing across these agents. We can set up agent groups as well. We can have an agent group running a certain task, and we can have a load balancer to distribute that task across agents. We have failover support and high availability support. So, it's a very scalable solution.

It's usually deployed in one location. I don't have much experience with clients deploying in multiple locations. I've only seen them use multiple servers, but they're all local servers. It's only supported for Windows, so there's no Mac or Linux support.

We've done implementations for enterprise-level customers to small and medium-sized customers. Its biggest selling point is that small and medium customers usually find solutions like UiPath and Blue Prism far too expensive. They find Automate's pricing much more competitive. 

Their support is excellent. You can raise a support ticket, and within four hours, you'll have a response. Because we're a distributor, we also have direct email access to a few of their technical support team members based out of Europe. They're also pretty responsive. Usually, they help us out with almost any issues that we run into. So, their support is excellent. I'd rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

It's agnostic. It can work on the cloud or on-prem. Some customers want it on-prem, and some customers want it on the cloud. It doesn't make much of a difference from Automate's perspective. It's the same software, and where you deploy it doesn't make much of a difference. We have integration with AWS and Azure. 

I work in development, so I am involved in deployment for clients. It's pretty straightforward. You just install it and set it up. There are some prerequisites where you have to open a few ports and do things like that. Overall, it's straightforward. You can do it in maybe an hour.

After you have it up and running, you can just start working on it. You have a developer console, and as soon as it's set up, you can start developing and deploying from there. A simple, basic task such as reading an email, taking a file, and moving it to a folder can be developed in two hours. 

In terms of the ease of setting up and deploying the attended or unattended bots, we don't do much differentiation between attended and unattended bots. They're the same thing for the most part. It's just about how you'd set up the workflow. If you are setting up an attended workflow, for example, you'd have some actions in the workflow saying that wait for a user's input or something like that. For unattended, it's going to be completely end-to-end. We don't make much differentiation in that case. The pricing is the same, and it's pretty easy to deploy them after you've developed them. 

For deployment, it's just me for the most part. It's pretty straightforward.

In terms of maintenance, we offer two pricing models. We offer subscription models where you just pay an annual cost every year, and there's also a perpetual model where you pay some amount initially, and then every year, you pay the annual maintenance cost.

We see that there's usually a very quick ROI on it after implementation. It's pretty easy to develop, which means you can get solutions out pretty quickly. At times, you have to maintain certain parts of it, but that's expected. What I've seen is that after implementing it, organizations usually see a quick return on the initial investment they have made. There is going to be a maintenance cost for it to ensure that it keeps running, but that's fair.

From a distributor's side, one of the biggest selling points is its price point. Without going into any numbers, compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, we're significantly cheaper. The main difference is that other competitors usually charge you per process. However, in Automate's case, it's priced per bot. So, a bot can run multiple processes at the same time, but you are only priced for a single bot. That's a big selling point. It isn't like most of the competitors where if you're running three processes on a single bot, they would be charging you for three processes. We're also the only vendor to offer an unlimited option where you can have unlimited bots, and each bot can do an unlimited number of tasks. Price-wise, we're very competitive.

I'd definitely recommend it. It's a very good product. It's a very affordable product, especially if you're a small or medium-sized organization. My biggest suggestion is to invest internally in your organization so that your employees can build and develop their own bots for their use cases. That's the biggest thing that customers who are looking to buy Automate can do. It's very easy to use and very easy to pick up. It's unlike most of the competitors where you need to have a highly certified individual to develop. So, invest in your people or employees who are doing the day-to-day work because they know what they can automate and what they cannot automate. Embrace automation fully and not just as a small part of your organization. 

It's pretty easy to automate any manual tasks that are currently repetitive. So, you can see a very quick return on investment with Automate. I also advise companies that are planning on doing automation to also invest in maintaining and scaling it. Don't just be satisfied with automating a single process, but take it further and set up an automation center of excellence and also look at other departments, such as HR and finance, that can use automation. It doesn't have to be just in IT. You can do this for almost any business flow that you have. You need to embrace it and invest in it more than just having a consultant come in and do one project and leave. You don't need to have too many technical or certified people to start working. It's very easy to use compared to other competitors' solutions.

In terms of training required to use Automate, HelpSystems offers Automate Academy on its website. It's free of cost, and anyone can access it. It has got multiple modules and hours of videos going over from the very basic concepts to more advanced concepts of Automate, including workflows and other more technical features. You can go through that, and you can also get certified through it. Those resources are freely available. Any of our customers can use them. That's one place where you can get support for training. There's also something called Bot Store, which is provided by HelpSystems. You can just go there and download prebuilt bots, and you can freely modify them, edit them, and use them for your use case. They are also mostly free. When you combine both of these, there is a fair bit of support for the developers for training. In terms of the amount of training required, it varies on a case-by-case basis. Some people learn it faster, and some people learn it slower. It also depends on your technical background. For example, they still have the concepts of loops and if statements. Even though it's drag-and-drop, you still need to know those concepts to develop with Automate. You need to have that kind of algorithm thinking. If you come from a development background, it's very easy to pick up and use. With a couple of hours of training and just playing around with it, you should be good to go, and of course, there are all the resources from the vendor side to fill in many gaps.

There is the Recorder feature in Automate, but I don't personally use it that much because anything that you can do with the Recorder feature can be done with the regular drag-and-drop actions. Recorder doesn't make it a lot easier to use than it already is.

Overall, I'd rate Automate a nine out of ten.