We sell Automation Anywhere to customers who want to automate their processes within the hospitality industry.
Our customers can deploy Automation Anywhere both on-premises and in the cloud.
We sell Automation Anywhere to customers who want to automate their processes within the hospitality industry.
Our customers can deploy Automation Anywhere both on-premises and in the cloud.
It is easy to learn and use Automation Anywhere.
Learning to automate using the solution for simple processes in HR and IT is easy. For areas such as finance, the training takes a few months and requires a technical person to train the team.
Integrating with co-pilot is straightforward when using SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, or other international systems. However, challenges arise when integrating with in-house systems.
Co-pilot helps increase productivity for our customers.
We often integrate SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft with Automation Anywhere. There are no issues with the integrations as long as we configure everything properly.
Automation Anywhere enables our customers to achieve savings of over 60 percent in time and money. While employees may take breaks and vacations, their automated processes continue to operate seamlessly without interruption, ensuring a consistent flow of work.
The ability to automate renewals of government licenses four times a year is valuable.
The marketing for Automation Anywhere has room for improvement.
I have been using Automation Anywhere for three years.
Automation Anywhere can provide automation to scale as long as the organization has the budget for it.
The technical support is great.
Positive
I use both UiPath and Automation Anywhere. UiPath has a more aggressive marketing strategy and a larger market share. However, our banking, insurance, and high-level customers prefer Automation Anywhere over UiPath.
The deployment time depends on the number of processes being automated.
Despite being less expensive than UiPath, Automation Anywhere remains cost-prohibitive for many small and medium-sized businesses.
I would rate Automation Anywhere nine out of ten.
Our customers are all enterprise-level.
Automation Anywhere does not require ongoing maintenance and offers 24/7 support if any issue arises.
Automation Anywhere Co-pilot functions similarly to BPM because one user forms and triggers the bot, which works in the background, then shows a message to other departments for approval. It is very predictable and used in many companies. However, in Pakistan, many departments use BPM instead of Automation Anywhere Co-pilot, so they are not utilizing Automation Anywhere Co-pilot.
I am an expert in Automation Anywhere because I develop automation scripts and use IQ Bot for design workflow and process design. Automation Anywhere is very comfortable for any developer to use RPA tools.
Automation Anywhere has citizen developer capabilities. When we develop a bot, the RPA is low-code, no-code development, making it very easy for business developers to use.
AARI is a bot tool that is easy to develop. As an Automation Anywhere Co-pilot developer, I can say that it basically integrates many bots in one platform. It is used by business developers to connect different departments, making it very accessible to automate processes.
Automation Anywhere is not difficult to upgrade because we have bot scripts. When we upgrade, the bot scripts remain unchanged, so there is no difficulty.
Automation Anywhere is very scalable when used on-premises rather than in the cloud. It is used in banking environments, and many large banks across different countries use Automation Anywhere, which demonstrates its scalability.
Automation Anywhere's scale level involves a discovery bot. We use their bots, allowing us to easily scale our bots and maintain proper logging.
Before Automation Anywhere, I worked on Power Automate, but since it is a cloud platform, it was not suitable for banking systems in Pakistan as they do not use cloud computing.
As an RPA consultant who has purchased many licenses and evaluated numerous tools, I recommend Automation Anywhere because it integrates easily with AI and Power BI tools for reporting and discovery bot capabilities, allowing proper log control.
Automation Anywhere uses rule-based access where only admins and developers can access the code. Citizen developers or business users cannot see the code due to rule-based access.
They offer unique features such as hybrid bot capability, which supports both attended and unattended bots on one platform, setting it apart from other tools.
For rule-based tools, I recommend RPA. For unstructured data and predictions, AI is more suitable. For chatbots and different models, Gen AI is appropriate. As an RPA developer, I work with three modes: OCR for AI integration, and chatbot integration, such as Watson in IBM RPA for Gen AI applications.
We have built over 75 automations with Automation Anywhere across various teams in the organization, delivering a high value for our internal teams. We have explored a couple of process transformations with Automation Anywhere using their IQ bots and AI automation tools.
We have integrated applications like SAP ECC, One Source Automation, and SharePoint using Python code. Our company has 25 AA developers.
AA improves process consistency and reduces human error. We have saved our clients considerable time using Automation Anywhere. While we don't assess the dollar savings, we look at the amount of time saved per project. The tasks were previously completed by hand, but Automation Anywhere enabled a lot of process automation, giving users automation that runs around the clock. For example, we can automate processes to address point-in-time reports so a user doesn't need to wake up at midnight to handle these issues.
We haven't gotten approval to implement AI, but when we do, I believe it will accelerate the time savings we realize through automation. We will work with other teams to show them the value of AI and automation.
Automation Anywhere's most valuable feature is its ease of use. It's easy to envision a solution or process to transform with Automation Anywhere from end to end. We can realize the value much faster because it's easy to use and understand.
All the features are impressive. We haven't had a chance to use the Copilot or other AI features, but the studio is great. It's the platform where we build the bots. The IQ Bot used to be excellent, but the IQ Bot isn't available anymore. I believe it's document automation, which is also very good.
Anyone at any level can use Automation Anywhere. Once you get the hang of it, it's highly intuitive, and the learning curve is short. We started seeing value from Automation Anywhere within a month or so after implementation, but that was with the older version. It's even faster now that everything is on the web.
Training employees using the courses takes a couple of weeks, followed by another week or so of hands-on learning on the platform. It takes about four weeks to onboard a user.
Automation Anywhere can improve its integration. For example, you can't directly integrate Automation Anywhere with SharePoint or third-party applications seamlessly. Adding seamless third-party integration would add a lot of value to the platform. We need to use APIs or Python coding to integrate the third-party applications. If Automation Anywhere could add some connectors, that would be great.
I'd love to see the ability to build web or mobile applications that are integrated with Automation Anywhere bots, so that a user can work on a web interface directly. Then, it can be linked to the Automation Anywhere bots in the background. They just hit a button, and all the data or information will be used by the bot to do some process in the back end.
We have used Automation Anywhere for five years.
We've never had any issues with stability.
It's easy to build automations and scale Automation Anywhere.
I rate Automation Anywhere support 10 out of 10. The tech support is great. We have a CSM we can contact for information, and they're very responsive.
Positive
We use the SaaS model of Automation Anywhere, so the deployment was easy. We set up the infrastructure in under a week. We worked closely with the Automation Anywhere folks because we wanted a clean slate. We didn't want to migrate from the older version to the SaaS edition and took it as an opportunity to clean up the bots. It didn't require much effort, and only two people were involved. The upgrade process was simple. Maintenance is minimal. It only takes a couple of people to maintain 75 bots.
Automation Anywhere's pricing is excellent.
I rate Automation Anywhere nine out of 10. I would recommend it to others. It's intuitive and easy to implement.
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.
Specifically, we use the solution for SAP where we have particular SAP processes that need automation.
There were multiple processes where implementing a bot allowed us to automate processes and allow it to perform backend tasks. For example, employee onboarding, or creating orders.
We were able to remove manual tasks and we were able to justify the processes based on the ROI witnessed.
We see opportunities to operationalize AI. We aren't using it yet, however, in the future, we are looking to it. At this time, we do not have any AI use cases.
Being able to connect with third-party tools is the best feature.
All RPA tools we are using have the same benefits in terms of automation.
The learning curve is okay. Practicing it is the key thing. Doing it over and over will help a person get comfortable. We do not have a lab environment where we can use and test it. That makes it difficult for users. They need to spend time with it, to play with it, to have a hands-on approach.
It took me two weeks to learn how to do an implementation. Going from the lowest knowledge levels to more of an expert takes a month or two.
We have a few different tools and operating systems. It works well with other application data or operational items.
With respect to your use case, it's easy to use and easy to implement. However, sometimes if there are complex requirements, the automation of processes gets a bit more difficult.
If you come across any process, it can be automated via Automation Anywhere. However, companies need to better justify the ROI before usage - otherwise, they might spend money on things unnecessarily.
I've been using the solution for around three years.
It's a stable product.
The solution can provide automation at scale.
Technical support is quite responsive. Very rarely do I need to connect with the team, however, if I need to reach out, they are very good in terms of their response.
Positive
I also use UiPath and SAP IRP. We work with different tools according to requirements.
The initial setup is easy. It has its own orchestration and you just need to deploy it.
Any maintenance would fall under your organization's contract.
We have saved us both money and time.
The pricing is reasonable. The money you spend will be worth it.
We are an Automation Anywhere customer.
I would recommend the solution to others, so long as they have some previous knowledge before setting out.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
I use it for various IT operations.
Automation Anywhere has significantly improved our organization's efficiency. Across various processes, we have achieved a 90% time savings for each use case, making our workflow much more streamlined and productive.
We used to do things manually, which took a lot of time. Now, with Automation Anywhere, most things are automated, making things faster and better. Sometimes we still need to do things manually, but overall, it has made our work much easier and less prone to mistakes.
To improve Automation Anywhere for the next release, standardization is key. The application should work universally across servers and desktops, without limitations on licenses tied to specific virtual machines. Currently, the one-to-one bot and VM dependency pose restrictions, and a more flexible licensing system would enhance its usability. Additionally, for business users without technical skills, using Automation Anywhere can be challenging. While it is easy to develop automation, deploying and running them requires some technical knowledge. Training is essential to navigate the platform effectively.
Upgrading Automation Anywhere can be challenging. Communication about upgrades is lacking, and an auto-upgrade feature or at least notifications would be beneficial. Currently, there is no automatic check for the latest version, and improvement is needed in providing information to users about updates.
I have been working with Automation Anywhere for a year and a half.
It is a stable solution. I would rate the stability as an eight out of ten.
Automation Anywhere can provide automation at a large scale, but the effectiveness depends on the complexity of the processes, which is common for any ERP system.
I would rate the technical support as an eight out of ten.
Positive
The deployment process is fairly straightforward. Deployment of Automation Anywhere typically requires just one person. If you are familiar with the entire workflow, one person can manage the deployment effectively. Maintenance for Automation Anywhere is minimal. However, due to recent use, aspects like patching and version upgrades are not entirely clear, and occasional manual intervention is needed for tasks like access management.
The price for Automation Anywhere is reasonable compared to others, but there are some feature limitations. Specifically, the ability of one bot to support multiple VMs is an issue, distinguishing it from some other solutions.
In our organization, I see great opportunities to operationalize AI, particularly in the realm of monitoring. Whether it is through comprehensive monitoring tools or leveraging Python for data analysis, there is potential to enhance our operations.
Assessing the learning curve for Automation Anywhere, it takes around a month for non-technical employees to become proficient. While an expert developer might grasp it quicker, providing training is essential for non-technical users to effectively learn and use Automation Anywhere.
Our organization is focused on expanding automation and AI use cases, continually adding more features. Additionally, there is an interest in exploring generative AI to enhance our capabilities further.
We have integrated Automation Anywhere with various solutions, including ITSM, a centralized portal, and several third-party applications.
Integrating Automation Anywhere into our workflows, APIs, and business applications is effective, but it is crucial to ensure a secure network.
Automation Anywhere has been a time and cost-saver for us. Achieving a 90% cost reduction in tasks is a significant boost to resource efficiency and overall cost-effectiveness.
We use Automation Anywhere across multiple departments, but it operates within the same environment and infrastructure, given its public nature.
My advice for those using Automation Anywhere is to start with a less complex use case. It is a good platform overall, but beginning with simpler tasks will help ease into the automation process. Overall, I would rate the solution as 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.