Automation Anywhere Reviews

Our primary use case is to automate all the back-end processes, which are accounts receivables, accounts payable, automatic settlement, and a lot of processes in the supply chains. Afterwards, we move onto the front-end transactions.

It provides, not only hard benefits, but also soft benefits. This means to leave the human capital (which they are required to do); leave the human mind free of all voluminous repetitive tasks. Let the workers do the work that they are intended to do, which is thinking. The bot can work for you. There is no comparison to the human mind. 

The customer engagement is really deep, and they work with the “gemba”. They work with operations very closely. I also believe they have a good product roadmap. 

I’ve already mentioned the future of our human mind and thinking are limited. We only think in arithmetical progression, not GP.  So, I have no answer for this.

When you scale up, like on Proof of Value (PoV), it’s okay. You can have one full, dedicated person working on the site. However, when you scale up, and imagine there are 150 people including bots in an organization of 20,000 people, then they need to be loved and cared for (every single one of them). They will need much more support, because it is a new thing and it’ll never fail because of productive partners. It will fail if people on the “gemba” don’t adopt it.

We are in the Proof of Value stage, not proof of concept. Like any business, production lines, or bots, there will be outtakes that you’ll have to deal with and build up.

If you ask me, my personal belief is you can’t even begin to imagine what you can do.  You can imagine, but you are limited by your own imagination and thinking, so you can go exponentially. 

On a scale of one to ten, Automation Anywhere would be a seven to eight.  

From my point of view working in the market and examining at it, this market needs more skill sets. This market needs more bilingual people and some more process-oriented people who can understand the business processes and help the customers grow.

Every industry has its own unique business processes, but this market is short on labor, even in skills, and also in terms of people who can articulate the value of process automation. That is a value piece from Automation Anywhere’s side. These guys need to build a good team.  

There were five big criteria:

1. Cost. 
2. Features and functions. 
3. Global and local support. 
4. Customer service. 
5. Technical support. 

In our office, there was a full team with a full process and close to 10 to 15 people from procurement, technology, business, and also “gemba”, as I keep calling operations. They went into the evaluation and had a very scientific way of doing so. 

There was another partner who we felt was very close, but the edge was the customer service and the support. That was the edge.

It was very easy and simple.

We brought in a partner. However, it was very easy the way things, and if someone has moved in the industry and business processes, they can do it. It was not that difficult at all.

Of course, yes, we have seen ROI. Especially in this market, human capital is valued in an ageing society. If you don’t find skilled people, who’s going to do the job? If you remove the neutrality of people and build it through the bots, that is the best way to do.

For my company and me, we come from a good technology company. Every company is a technology company. Without technology, you cannot live. When you are building up your back-end processes, especially in the shared services, what next?

In the Asian markets, they have come to a point of maturity where labor is the normal average. Looking at China, the Philippines, Malaysia, or even India, these markets are becoming more exponentially expensive. Therefore, what is our next wave of forward industrial evolution? To me, these digital automation RPAs going into artificial intelligence and machine learning are the areas of industry that we’ll need to move into very quickly. We need to take a very conscious call in preparing ourselves for the future.

Did we try some other solutions, to that extent, of automating the right business processes? I don’t know. 

Was the solution good or bad? I don’t know. 

But the perceived value of it, either in terms of real value or dollar value, or in terms of releasing the sources to do better thinking work, those are the areas where personally I was not convinced. So, let’s try something which has a more futuristic outlook. I call it glocalization, globally present and locally present. That was the whole idea behind our inception into reality.

The moment you say you are a vendor and looking at your contract, your relationship is over. You want business partners who can help the industry. We know how to make beverages, and for example, we make the best. I hope so, and I’m confident. We need some partners who know their stuff as well, and who understand the pain points of the industry and can help with them. Those are a couple of criteria which can make you successful partnerships and business relationships, not a vendor.

I would rate this product an eight.  

If I fast forward two to three years. At that point in time, how would it look like? Maybe we have the same amount of enthusiasm, or if it we become very big, then we may become less agile. If you are small, you are more agile. The moment you become big, it goes into its own dimensions.

I’d would advise, first of all, if you are an end user like me, don’t think of yourself as a customer. You have to see your customer as your “gemba”, as the people in operations. Your product partners, implementation partners, and you are responsible for servicing the customer. Thus, it will always be a win-win game for everyone. Don’t try to put a blame on the product or the partner. You are all equally responsible, and need to put your skin in the game. Just go ahead for it. 

Foreign Language: (Japanese)

この製品を主にどのように使用していますか？

我が社の場合の主なユースケースはまず、自動バックエンド業務全般です。これは通常APつまり未払金と売掛金、それにサプライチェーンの多くがあります。後はフロントエンドコミッションです。

Automation Anywhereのどんなところに満足していますか？

顧客関与が非常に深く、彼らは現場でよく働くと思います。 業務部と密接に協働してくれます。それに製品ロードマップが良いと思います。

では、彼らと築いた関係に満足しているということですね。

当ソリューションを使用するとどのようなメリットがありますか？御社が機能する上でどのような改善をもたらしましたか？

はい、後で話しますが、大きな点の1つはハードメリットだけでなく、ソフトメリットでもあります。つまり、実際にすべき仕事に人的資本を使うことです。それは少なくとも人間の精神を大量の反復作業から解放することにつながります。彼らがやるべき仕事をする。ボットは私達のために仕事をしますが、人間の頭には及ばないと確信しています。

 には考える力を発揮させる。

当ソリューションの安定性に関して、どのような印象をお持ちですか？

それはまだです。まだ価値実証の段階で。実証実験を多く行っています。でもどんなビジネス、どんな生産ライン、どんなボットでも同じように対処して構築しなければならない支障はあります。

当ソリューションの拡張性に関して、どのような印象をお持ちですか？

それはまだです。まだ価値実証の段階で。実証実験を多く行っています。でもどんなビジネス、どんな生産ライン、どんなボットでも同じように対処して構築しなければならない支障はあります。

Automation Anywhereのテクニカルサポートを利用しなければいけなかった経験はありますか？ある場合は、サポートをどのように評価しますか？

はい。 10が最高の評価とすれば、彼らは7から8ですね。

10に達するには、何が必要ですか？さらなるサポートですか？

私の見解では、この市場は－私はこれまで様々な市場で働いてきましたが－この市場にはさらなるスキルセットが必要です。より多くのバイリンガルの人々、そしてビジネスプロセスを理解して顧客の成長を助けるプロセス指向の人々が必要ですね。

具体的な例を挙げると？ ビジネスプロセスやスキルセットについて？

どんな業界にも独自のビジネスプロセスがありますが、この市場は明らかに労働力が足りません。労働力が足りない上、スキル、それにプロセスの自動化の価値を明確に表現できる人がいません。ですから、Automation Anywhere側からの価値観で言うと、彼らは良いチームを確立させる必要があると言います。もっともっと。

もちろんです、はい。でも 拡大の余地はあります。急激に進めるための余地、そして急激に進めるなら、パートナーも同時に成長する必要があります。生態系全体が成長する必要があるので、ビジネスが成長するだけでなく、生態系が成長しなければサポートも難しくなります。

Automation Anywhereからのサポートを直接受けていますか？

そうです。直接…名前は言いませんが、製品部で指導を受けたパートナーがいました。というのは、製品を最大限に活用するためには、全機能を探索する必要がありますので。

初期セットアップはどうでしたか？簡単、それとも複雑でしたか？

とても簡単でシンプルだったと思います。

自分達で、それともパートナーを使って？

パートナーを連れてきましたが、そのままでもとても簡単だし、ビジネスプロセスで移動したことのある人になら誰にでもできます。全く難しくはありません。

当ソリューションの次のリリースに含まれていたらいいなと思うのはどのような機能ですか？

すでに言いましたが、人間の思考の将来は限られています。私達はGPではなく、自動化の進歩で考える。だからこの質問への答えはありません。

現在のバージョンで改善されると思いますか？

まだ完全に見れていないので、改善に関して答えるのは難しいです。

スケールアップをすると、価値実証でのように、現場で働く専任スタッフを1人増員することはできますが、その場合、規模を拡大して2万人の組織内でボットを含む150人がいるとします。その一人一人が親身なケアを受ける必要があります。そうすると、もっともっと沢山のサポートが必要となります。というのもこれは新しいものであり、失敗すれば、これは生産パートナーのせいではなく、現場の人間がそれに適応しないからなのです。

ROIは出ていますか？

もちろんです、はい。言うまでもなく。この市場では特に人的資本が少ないです。高齢化社会で熟練した人がいない。なら誰がその仕事をするのでしょうか？ そこで人の中立性を取り除いて、ボットを使って構築するのです。それが最善の方法でしょう。

新しいソリューションに投資をする必要があると思ったのはどうしてですか？

私自身そして我が社は素晴らしいテクノロジー会社を経て来ています。先ほど申し上げたように、このテクノロジーについては後でお話しますが、会社はすべてテクノロジー会社です。テクノロジーなしでは生存はできないし、特に共有サービスにおいてバックエンドプロセスを構築するなら、必要なものは何でしょうか？アジアにおけるこれらの市場では、労働が通常平均という成熟の地点に実際に達しています。中国、フィリピン、マレーシア、もしくはインドを見てください。これらの市場は急速に高価になってきています。では今後の産業革命の波は何か？私の思うには、これらのデジタルオートメーションRPは、人工知能、機械学習へと移行します。これらは非常に迅速な移行が必要となる分野です。 そこで私たちは未来に向けて意識的に自分達自身を準備する行動を取ったのです。

以前に別のソリューションを使っていましたか？その場合はどうして変更しましたか？

これまでにいくつかのソリューションを試しましたが、適切なビジネスプロセスを自動化したかどうかは分かりません。そのソリューションが良かったか悪かったかも分かりません。でも、本当の価値、あるいはドル価値のどちらかの観点で認識した価値、またはより良い働き方をするために情報源をリリースするという観点から言えば、私個人的にはあまり納得していませんでした。なので、より未来的な見通しのあるものを試そうと思ったのです。私はそれをグローバリゼーションと呼んでいます。グローバルに存在し、ローカルに存在することなので、これが発端から現実までの背景の全体像です。

他のベンダーも検討しましたか、それともAutomation Anywhereだけでしたか？

12のパートナーから選出されたプロセスから始めました。

ベンダーを選ぶ際、決め手となる、その他の条件は何ですか？5つのうちトップの2つはどれですか？

違う答えをしたいと思います。まず彼らはベンダーではなく、ビジネスパートナーです。なのでその定義は違うと思います。彼らが、自分達はベンダーだと言い、契約を見始める瞬間、私達の関係は終わりだと思います。欲しいのは業界に役立つことのできるビジネスパートナーなんです。例えば、私達は飲み物を作る方法を知ってるとします。最高の製品を作っている。私はそう思うし、確信もしています。ここで必要なのは自分達の製品に精通していて、業界の支払いポイントを理解し、助けてくれるパートナーです。こういったことがベンダーではなく、成功するパートナーシップやビジネス関係を作るための2つの条件でしょう。

Automation Anywhereを選んだわけは何ですか？

条件を決めていました。5つの大きな条件が。もちろん、コスト。まず、特徴と機能。 グローバルおよびローカルサポート。3つ目はもちろんカスタマーサービスです。そしてもちろん、テクニカルサポート。私たちのオフィスは完全なチームがあり、完全なプロセスがありました。 調達、技術、ビジネス、そして私が「現場」と呼び続けている運営からの10〜15人近くが非常に科学的な方法で評価を行っています。 非常に密接だと感じていたパートナーがいましたが、決め手は明らかにカスタマーサービスとサポートです。それが最重要です。

Automation Anywhereについて、その他に付け足すことはありますか？

いいえ、何もありません。皆さんのご清栄をお祈りすると同時に、Imagineを東京デビューさせてくれた彼らに感謝します。彼らはロンドンへ行き、ニューヨークに行き、今ではインドにも進出したことを知っているので、うまくいけば私たちの市場はこれから持つべく相互作用から恩恵を受けることでしょう。

製品、サポート、環境の全体に1から10の評価（10＝最高）を付けるとしたら、どのように評価しますか？

8

特定したものではないです。2、3年時間を早送りしたとしたら、どうなっているでしょうか？同じだけの情熱を持っているか、もしかしたらとても大きくなっているかもしれない。だとしたらアジャイル性を失います。小さければもっとアジャイル性があります。大きくなった瞬間に自分だけの次元に入ってしまうんですね。

このソリューションあるいは同様なソリューションを探している、同社あるいは他社の同僚の方に、どんなアドバイスをなさいますか？

まず、私のようなエンドユーザーであれば、自分を顧客とは考えないことです。自分の顧客を現場の人として、運営の人として見る必要があります。 製品パートナー、実装パートナー、そしてあなたは内部にいる顧客にサービスを提供する責任があります。だから、これは皆が勝つことのできるゲームです。製品やパートナーに責任を被せてはいけません。皆で同時に責任を負い、ゲームを進めるべきです。

We are supposed to produce 40,000 components of shells for bayonet caps. Forty thousand caps are required in each shift, which means it comes to about 120 caps per minute. For that purpose, we make use of the vibrating feeder and inserts for all the shoots. We also had composite tools to perform various operations. The additional components, which are supposed to come on the rotary table, were also finished and brought to the table. The shell gets placed from the vibratory feeder on top of it. There are two operations: hot white glass falls into it, and as soon as it falls, it goes to the next position, where it gets molded. The molding shape takes place.

Actually, we are supposed to produce 40,000 components of shells for bayonet caps. Forty thousand caps are required in each shift. That means it comes to about 120 caps per minute. Automation is going to become a new area we will certainly encourage a lot of people to pursue because of the lasting dividends it provides, including saving time and manpower.

I have not come across them. Automation Anywhere is a company that keeps sending their literature very often. I possess it, and I am getting good information through them.

Normally, I go through a lot of journals that provide a lot of information on automation. Practically, I have done a lot of work, which gives me the confidence that I can handle any type of automation.

You only give instructions to them regarding what is required. You explain to them.

AI is also supporting now. Most people are into AI because of the benefits we get, and it enables changes required through AI easily. It offers a lot of cost benefits and enables faster productivity. Normally, there are specific people we use to contact, who actually do the automation. No, I cannot decide a rating right now.

We use it for P2P, AP, O2C, AR, inventory management, finance and general ledger, and HR.

Moving forward, we see opportunities to operationalize AI within our organization for loss cash discounts, payment term mismatch, credit blocks for vendors, duplicate invoices, accounting entries, and invoicing in SAP.

By implementing Automation Anywhere, we wanted to achieve productivity and decrease the complexity of the processes. The key issue has been the complexity. RPA is not meant for complex processes. When a process becomes complex, we face a lot of errors. That creates slowness of processing, some interactions at critical moments, and frustration in the business because the job is not done. As an alternative, we have to work manually.

We built many complex bots, and that was not the best strategy. It is better to simplify and then automate, and not automate to avoid simplification. When you take this wrong approach, you have to deal with many technical issues, and you are not able to leverage and benefit from the other tools as part of the automation itself. In the business roadmap of an RPA project, there should be some reporting or dashboards of bots' portfolio so that you can see the percentage of successful processing, the rate of failures per bot, and the rate of exceptions. There should also be something to measure the return on investment to be able to say that this bot is meeting expectations and productivity. It was worth it to invest in this bot, and it costs less than manual work. If the bot is always facing issues, it will be better to come back to manual processing. We should not move from manual to automation without thinking about simplification. We need to simplify first and then automate.

We have a centralized infrastructure, but we have a decentralized business strategy. We gained 60% productivity, which is at a high level.

Automation Anywhere is easy to use for business users who do not have tech skills, but first, they need to be able to play the role of business analyst. You should not have many points of contact. You should have a single point of contact, which we call SPOC, and this person should be a business analyst. This single point of contact should collect all the requirements and needs and be able to communicate them in a structured way in order to enable the solution team to tackle the points. It is easy if the person who is supposed to do it follows the learning of the business analyst and is able to speak English. We have English speakers because we are in a multinational group. They should also have a minimum level of experience in IT or in general business. If the training is intensive, it takes three months to train non-technical employees on Automation Anywhere usage.

The RPA automation itself is valuable. We are not using the other components that are part of the platform much because we want to first stabilize the platform, the environment, and the infra.

It could be improved in terms of the global analysis of all the issues caused by the dependency components. For example, if bots are running on virtual machines on Microsoft Windows 2019, sometimes an issue might come from the virtual machine. Automation Anywhere should work closely with Microsoft or any other editor with which there are some issues occurring and stopping the bots from running properly. They need to collaborate together to enhance and improve the platform and the dependencies. It should not be that because the problem comes from Microsoft, Automation Anywhere does not tackle the issue. They should tackle the issue even when they are not responsible 100%. Microsoft or any other editor should work with Automation Anywhere.

I would like them to include process mining.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for three years, and I have been using UiPath for two years.

I would rate it a five out of ten in terms of stability because of the issue of dependency components, such as Microsoft components.

I would rate it a seven out of ten in terms of scalability.

Their support can be improved in terms of understanding the issue more deeply and involving enough resources based on the criticality or urgency of the issue. They should involve the right resources and the right number of resources. If we need an architect, they should bring us an architect. If we need an engineer, we should have an engineer in front of us. They should provide the right person at the right time.

Neutral

I have worked with UiPath. The move to Automation Anywhere was not my choice. It was a group choice.

We have a hybrid cloud. The implementation is easy if you are business-oriented, you first tackle simple use cases, and you involve all the teams. The complexity is always there, but to have less complexity, it is important to ensure these three elements. 

We include people from development, monitoring, management of development and monitoring, central IT management, and central business management.

In terms of upgrades, it is difficult to upgrade Automation Anywhere. The upgrades of Automation Anywhere are sometimes not adapted to the clients. They sometimes choose to upgrade the platform during a critical period, such as accounting month-end closing. It is definitely not the right moment to launch the upgrade. Automation Anywhere sometimes pushes general upgrades during critical periods. The best will be to take into account the constraints of the clients in order to not make it difficult for them.

In terms of maintenance, if the bots are running 24 hours a day, you need three people or at least two people for monitoring. The upgrade of bots requires one developer.

You get a return on investment only after 18 months. You can get 50% savings.

It depends. For example, for my group, we are centralizing the infrastructure in Paris. Our contract is signed with Automation Anywhere in France. The currency and the pricing of Automation Anywhere in France can appear beneficial and interesting for Germany and Scandinavian countries, but when we share our infra and are internally charging other countries such as Poland, Brazil, or some other country with a lower currency value as compared to Euro, it becomes less beneficial. They would prefer to sign the contract directly with Automation Anywhere because they will benefit from a price that is as per their local market.

The price works well for France, but it becomes a bit complex when you centralize it for all the countries or groups. In the international context, you have to propose something a little bit tailored for some countries, such as Romania or Brazil.

When it comes to automation and AI, I always think about being business-oriented. Always start with the needs of the business and do not automate just for automation. You have to think about relevant use cases and also scalable use cases. In a multinational group, it is important to not think individually. This way you can collaborate more and reuse more things. You can reuse the components that have already been built. It is also economical.

Each center of automation should have a governance plan. The governance plan should be very precise, and it should expand the roles. Each stakeholder should know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it at each cycle or phase. After that, you should come to the functional and technical aspects. Without a governance plan, nothing is possible.

Overall, I would rate Automation Anywhere a seven out of ten.

Initially, when we started, we were using it for back-office automation. The solution has definitely evolved. We're focusing on implementing customer and experience-facing use cases. Time is the most valuable piece, and that's how we measure the success of automation now. 

The solution is helping our customers save time. 

We were trying to solve a few different challenges with Automation Anywhere. For example, during the pandemic, gaining bandwidth was huge. Hiring while shifting to remote was challenging. There was such an accelerated use of the technology during the pandemic. Having to integrate with existing and older systems was key. That flexibility to work with other applications and other aspects of the platform really drove our decision to adopt more and more of the solution.

We've noticed time savings. The time saving varies. We look at how much value the customer gets. We've noticed time savings of up to 40 minutes, based on wait time and verification delays. Sometimes, we might only be saving a minute or slightly less. However, this is a slightly higher volume scenario where something needs to get done by the end of the day. It offers a broad range of time savings. For example, if someone calls in for the healthcare side to get benefits verified. Typically, that would take 45 minutes in terms of gathering information and validating information and prep work both before and after. Now, we can do that autonomously in a matter of minutes. 

Within the processes of automation, robots learn differently than humans. They are very interactive and literal. Diving into that tribal knowledge that makes an organization unique was really what we had to do differently. For example, if you tell someone, "Go check your email," they know what that means. With a robot, you have to translate that action into a specific language, and that was the challenging part from the process side.

Copilot is great at bringing agents and humans into the loop. Creating that AI assistant that can almost tell someone the next step, that suggested intelligence, is helpful. Getting the data an organization has over to a customer very quickly is effective with Copilot. Simple queries that may take 15-20 seconds to answer, you still have to, for example, to find the number, make the call, et cetera, and suddenly that 20 seconds if two minutes longer. Having that information ready in a conversational way is where generative AI can really help compress time. 

There's a lot of human involvement in the workflow. Automation Anywhere does a fabulous job of integrating users into the workflow. That's important. You wouldn't be able to automate with just the technology. Teaching users to interact in a relatable way with relatable interfaces has had a big impact on the business users' side.

Understanding the technology is very easy based on the way it is positioned. There are a lot of great resources out there. 

How much time it takes to get comfortable using the automation process varies. You need to gain the knowledge of understanding ways to do things, then have the practical knowledge of how to apply; then, there's a third piece of constantly improving, monitoring, mentoring, and iterating. That piece is ongoing. 

Copilot is helpful for pure-play back-office stuff. From the call center side, it's integrated and becomes available as an option as well. Any document processing is great for Copilot. 

With the new enhancements, it's very easy to integrate. It integrates well with infrastructure solutions and testing products, as well as data and analytics.

The integration with workflows has only been enhanced over time. 

In terms of document processes, there is some uncertainty between structured and unstructured. However, the intelligence applied cut down time by 50% or more. That's in time to do the work, not necessarily accuracy.

In terms of APIs and applications, when automation first came out, they shunned APIs. That was a challenge due to the fact that, when you sold it to an organization, they asked why it would be done a certain way when they already had an API. Now, it's making it easier to use solutions. You can bring in your tool kit and create synergy.

Copilot has helped us increase productivity. It's a new feature, so it's hard to quantify. I do see the established value increasing exponentially. 

The product has helped us free up staff time. The biggest thing we measure is experience. If it's moving towards higher-value projects, it's great. However, so is going home and not taking work home with you.

If we look at the concept of bringing automation to a broader user group in an organization, the focus right now is on how to build it properly. We're building it out with instruction manuals and working to make it more user-friendly. We need to do a lot of work from the perspective of education. The messaging is essential. Also, figuring out the platform so that users know where they need to interact. We're pointing users towards that and giving them the help to do that. The messaging and education around how to leverage the platform need to be more precise. Understanding what the benefits are going to be needs to be very clear. 

When you are implementing it initially, it's challenging as there's a lot of change management. That's where the lessons need to be learned. That curve is hard to overcome.

There are more challenging integrations that should be left to more expert users. 

We've been using the solution since 2015. It's been about eight years now.

Technical support is good. You don't have to reach out to them very often. The new layers are great. The services you get alongside the solution are helpful, and combining that with bug fixes, et cetera, makes it fit for purpose for all uses. 

Positive

I'm familiar with other options. The difference is the people side of things. The team outside of the technology, the people putting it together, is what makes the solution itself better. 

It's important that Automation Anywhere is easy to use. There's an intimidation factor when you present people with a massive ecosystem. It's practical and fit for purpose from the outset, yet very flexible and versatile. 

I was involved in the initial setup. 

If you start out pretty simple, the challenges that cause delays are more from change management and security and clearance. That's outside of the platform itself. That takes 80% of the time.

You can stand it up in a couple of days, however, it can sometimes take a month for reasons outside of the platform.

You can get things going within a week, which you can iterate on pretty quickly. 

Maintenance depends on usage. There are tools where you can build automation to provide alerts. You need someone who's at least slightly dedicated to that. Once you get bigger, you'll need a dedicated team, and then you have to figure out how to prioritize your time, in terms of evangelizing it, making more automation, et cetera. 

The pricing is okay. We've established the value of bringing it into our organization. For scaling, you can't beat the price of adding a robot that provides basically unlimited scale. 

Our strategy when it comes to automation and AI (and generative AI) right now, as with any technology, there's a lot of buzz. Historically, we've had periods of punctuated innovation, like automation in general, that was a real change in how organizations did business. Right now, we're seeing an iteration of that with generative AI. We have the foundation down with these platforms. Our strategy is the same: understand the technology from the people's side. We're the ones using the technology. You can't blame a piece of technology - it's still on us. We need to establish it. At the end of the day, we need to own it. Technology isn't a silver bullet. However, if we approach it right, we'll have all the success in the world.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

We use Automation Anywhere for web scraping, PDF automation, Excel automation, and API automation.

The most valuable features of Automation Anywhere are Excel, periods, database, and email action.

Automation Anywhere should improve its OCR capabilities.

I would like to see more communication between other technologies. We can directly implement some coding scripts. We already have Python, JavaScript, and VBA, but having some programming languages like Java and dot Net would be great.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for five years.

Automation Anywhere is a stable solution.

Automation Anywhere is a scalable solution.

Our company has different teams, and more than 500 users are using Automation Anywhere in our organization. More than 20 administrators use the solution.

The solution's technical support team gives you different solutions. Some solutions work, but others seem irrelevant. It would help our organization if they gave accurate solutions instead of tentative solutions. They have to improve the speed of their response time.

Positive

The solution's initial setup is easy and not very complex.

We develop the bot, test it on our local environment, and then take it to UAT and production. For simple usage, the solution's deployment may take around 30 days. We implement the solution through an in-house team.

We need only one resource for the solution's deployment. When everything looks good after the testing and peer review, we deploy the bot into production.

Automation Anywhere is easy to learn. I'm also looking at UiPath, but I'm not finding time to explore that RPA tool. Automation Anywhere is a hybrid tool, which we can see in the code view as well as in the flow chart view. On the other hand, UiPath has only flowchart diagrams. UiPath is ruling the RPA industry, but Automation Anywhere is next to UiPath. It would be great if Automation Anywhere had all the capabilities that are present in UiPath.

People who don't have technical experience can learn to use Automation Anywhere quickly because it's easily understandable. They can easily build bots by going through the documentation and videos in Automation Anywhere University. Normally, business users will run the bots and know the functionality, but if they want to learn Automation Anywhere, they can easily learn it in a couple of days.

Currently, we have more than 10 bots in production and more than 20 bots under testing.

If anyone wants to use Automation Anywhere, I won't say it is a 100% perfect automation tool because it depends on the developer and logic. Users may sometimes face hiccups in running end-to-end automation. There are chances of the bot getting hampered while working on some websites.

Automation Anywhere fails to load some objects for some old technologies or websites. It would be helpful if the solution could read every technology and clone every object on the website, even for legacy technologies.

Overall, I rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

We typically use Automation Anywhere for backend operations and financial processes, such as APR.

The biggest benefit of Automation Anywhere is that it makes our processes error-free. Accuracy is how you build efficiency within the system and increase productivity.

Document Automation, one of Automation Anywhere's core features, is excellent. All the other features are also useful, and their cloud solution is pretty seamless. 

Automation Anywhere is relatively accessible to non-technical business users. It's about 60:40. Around 60 percent of the solution is intuitive, but you still need to do some work to learn the platform. The company offers strong learning resources. Most people can easily learn Automation Anywhere in a couple of months using tutorials.  

Automation Anywhere works with POST and REST APIs, so it's easy to integrate with any platform or application. Automation Anywhere is applicable to any industry or department where there are large volumes of processes that are straightforward and require no manual human intervention. 

I have used Automation Anywhere for nearly four years.

I rate Automation Anywhere 10 out of 10 for stability. 

I rate Automation Anywhere 10 out of 10 for scalability. We usually optimize one or two processes until we can achieve an ROI and scale them up for the entire organization.

I rate Automation Anywhere support 10 out of 10. They have a solid team to address any issues or glitches as they arise. 

Positive

We typically deploy to Automation Anywhere's public cloud. We haven't used the private cloud option because it's expensive. I'm the project delivery manager, so I was involved in the deployment. It doesn't require any infrastructure because it's in the cloud. 

The deployment time depends on the complexity of the processes. Simple processes can be configured in a couple of weeks, but complex projects might take up to three months. 

The number of people involved also depends on the client's needs and the licenses purchased. You need a developer license for each engineer. Automation Anywhere licensing is based on the individual users, not the partners. For example, let's say a project will take one engineer three months, but the client wants it done in 45 days. You would need to double the number of engineers and pay for an additional license. 

Automation solutions require some maintenance and change management because no process remains constant. You will need to update and optimize the bot as the process mechanism changes. 

We have seen an ROI. It's hard to give a solid metric because every organization has a different way of calculating it and it varies between processes. However, I can say that Automation Anywhere reduces costs while increasing productivity and accuracy. By automating repetitive tasks, we can shift our human employees to more productive work that requires imagination and creativity. 

Automation Anywhere is expensive. They should consider lowering the price to make Automation Anywhere more affordable to SMEs, which comprise a huge segment. The license is annual, not monthly. You need to pay for some of the advanced features, such as document automation, which doesn't come with the base package.

I rate Automation Anywhere nine out of 10. RPA can be integrated with API and integrated on top of any application. However, it's always better to go with API if you have that option. It's steadier, more scalable, and more robust. The best part about RPA is you can create a hybrid model, so you can use API when available or RPA when that isn't the case. 

We use Automation Anywhere to automate our processes. The company has three bot creators and one bot runner, but there are other users triggering the bots in various ways. I don't have a precise number of end-users, but it's around 20 people. 

The solution's primary benefit is improved efficiency. Automation Anywhere enabled us to enhance many processes that were previously done manually. It helps save time while improving compliance by keeping the data clean. We've also increased visibility for our end-users because we use the data from Automation Anywhere to build dashboards. 

Each process might take one or two hours manually, but we can complete the same processes in a few minutes. It frees our employees to focus on other things, such as training and building new skills. It took about three weeks to fully realize the benefits because we had to adjust the processes. 

The API integration has been helpful. There are no errors, and it performs much faster than any object clone or anything like that. My overall experience with API integration is positive. I use Power Automate for documents and OCR, but I haven't used Automation Anywhere for this purpose. It saves time if we use the APIs more than just the RPA bots, and it reduces the number of errors. Overall, our automation consumption has increased by about 70 percent. 

I've had a generally positive experience with Automation Anywhere. The solution has improved significantly in the latest version. They've added some handy Excel actions that have saved me a lot of time as a developer. Object cloning has been enhanced, so our automated processes are more stable and have fewer errors. 

Automation Anywhere is accessible to users without technical knowledge. However, you need to learn some basic programming skills to go from conceptualizing a business use case to realizing an automated process. Breaking down a process step by step requires some rudimentary programming and problem-solving skills. Most of it is drag-and-drop, but you need to understand programming logic. 

I had some programming skills before I started, so it wasn't difficult for me to learn. It took me about two weeks to get comfortable using the software. There are lots of resources online, so I could easily Google information whenever I got stuck on something.

I haven't tried training any non-technical users. When I started at this company, we all underwent the same training. The employees' skills and backgrounds varied. I have more of a technical background, and another colleague had taken some programming courses previously. Others had backgrounds in finance, operations, marketing, etc. All of those people took seven days of training, but they aren't doing anything with Automation Anywhere. They're business users, not developers. Non-technical people need at least a couple of weeks to learn the solution. 

We've struggled with some of the new features Automation Anywhere added in the latest version. For example, they added a new OpenAI package, but it took a while for me to find it in the actions menu.

It would be helpful if the company communicated more about new features or created some built-in instructions within the platform. I feel like we aren't fully utilizing the latest features. They could add some links to tutorials or provide some training to walk us through the new features.

I've been using Automation Anywhere for three years.

The stability has improved significantly in the latest version. 

I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of 10 for scalability. The scalability is excellent because we have subtasks and bots that we can reuse to scale up other customers. We can build templates and customize them for various clients' needs. We can also combine sub-tasks and templates to build bigger bots. 

I rate Automation Anywhere seven out of 10 for support. We had a customer service rep who was supposed to help us with issues when they arise, but we had a bad experience, so we started going through the ticketing system, which has worked out well. 

Neutral

I was using the online version of Power Automate to try it out for a week or two. 

I rate Automation Anywhere eight out of 10. I recommend getting some training before using Automation Anywhere. Try to automate as many processes as you can to understand appropriate use cases. You must learn to translate a business requirement into a bot's coding. Learn as much as you can about all the features. It's sometimes hard to keep up with the latest updates. 

My biggest lesson has been the importance of persistence. You have to keep trying to improve the processes because there are often better ways to do something and multiple approaches you can adopt. You need to occasionally revisit processes you've already automated and consider ways to improve them. Initially, I would automate a process and move on, but you sometimes need to optimize the process first. 

We mostly use it on engineering processes. We also use it for finances in SAP — uploading, invoice creation, etc. But we have mostly focused on our engineering processes.

An example from the finance area is when we need to invoice a customer. We open our SAP account and upload all the data into SAP, create an invoice, and send a notice to the finance team that the process has been completed. They then move the process further along. It's a daily type of operation, whenever such requests come.

We are using the on-premise version because the cloud version (A2019) is not out yet.

One of the ways it has improved our organization is regarding working on Saturdays and Sundays. Obviously, employees don't like to come in on those days. When a user is not there and we want certain processes to be done, we don't expect the engineers to sit there and do them. We can schedule things via email so a bot runs on Saturdays and Sundays. That results in a reduction of man-hours. 

It automates all the processes which do not require human intervention, things which are very repetitive. That means we can give more important work to the engineers now, rather than asking them to do repetitive tasks.

We have these invoices which gets generated every month. We have to enter these invoice details into the stacks. It is a tedious task that is done by our finance team. We have automated the process of entering the details into the stack, and t reduces a lot of manual work.

The best feature of AA is the scheduling and the triggering part of it. Whenever an email comes in we can just use Automation Anywhere. We don't have to sit there. The unattended bots of Automation Anywhere are something which we find very useful.

It does not require much onboarding skills. It's easy to train anyone. We just ask them to apply logic.

One very important thing would be more support for Citrix automation. We want something to support Cisco. Citrix automation is not a very good tool. We are not able to use it properly. Even if we go through a remote desktop connection, it goes along only with the keystrokes and image recognition.

Also, when we are moving from one version to another version, it's very difficult because most of the features stop working. They should first test everything and then release the new version. For example, there's a system variable known as the Excel Cell Row. It gives you the current row of the inner loop. When going from version 11.1 to 11.3, this variable was suddenly not supported, and most of our bots were dependent on that. Everything went down and we had to start from scratch. If you do not have a developer who has done this, it's going to be a big problem in terms of the time it will take.

We need the migration from version 11 to A2019 to go smoothly. Our developers cannot be expected to enter the code again.

I'm not sure about the stability because there are a lot of upgrades all the time. Whenever we move from version to version, like 11.1 to 11.3, if we have ten bots we have to go around and test all ten bots. And in case something is not working, we have to make changes. If they support a migration utility properly, I think it's a great tool.

The scalability is great. Nearly a 100 bots have been deployed in finance, HR, and mostly engineering. We will be implementing bots going forward in procurement.

It has taken us two years to scale to our current number of bots because we spent a lot of time on training at first.

Technical support from Automation Anywhere is great. I have written to Automation Anywhere support many times and there is a great response from them. Even if they do not have the exact answer, they always say, "You can try this option or you can try this option."

We started with Automation Anywhere. The biggest reason our company chose Automation Anywhere was because we found it more reliable for our operations than any other. Also, the response from Automation Anywhere is really good.

We started with version 10.7. When we started, initially downloading the Control Room and those types of things was a bit complex. We had the user manual, but I don't think it's very good. It misses many points. When we missed something, we needed to contact Automation Anywhere support, so there were some delays in the process. 

Then we moved to version 11.1, which was more complex and requires more of your system space.

Overall, the other process is a bit complex. They have said they're coming out with the cloud version. I think that will be a bit easier. 

The development process took us about six months.

We have a team in our company which is responsible for RPA. It's something which we do internally for our company.

There has been a great return on investment. We are interested in saving manual engineer man-hours. So far, we have saved $100,000.

We also evaluated UiPath and Blue Prism. We chose Automation Anywhere because of how well it suited it our office.

Automation Anywhere is easier to use. With drag and drop, we don't need the uploading skills, etc. Everything is just there. You can just drag and drop, then just go ahead and do it. With UiPath, it was a little difficult to understand the process. Also Automation Anywhere has email automation.

I would rate the solution at seven out of ten. One main drawback is that migration issue. Another thing I would like to see is support for all the other scripting languages, like Python, JavaScript and all.

Go through the Automation Anywhere courses properly to be aware of all the system variables and all the features it has. Then proceed with the development phase. Until you're clear on the basic things you cannot do anything in the tool. You need to know those things.

I have done the Masters course on Automation Anywhere University. I have a Masters Certification from them. Their courses are pretty interesting. At the end of the Masters course, we had an interview on the course itself. There were a lot of informative things and it was a great experience.

Next year, we should be moving into cognitive document processing.