Automation Anywhere Reviews

For us, the primary use of Automation Anywhere bots is to automate the business, administrative, and financial aspects of businesses. We have automated many tax reconciliations and also automated the monthly salary slip generation for all the employees.

In business processes, the purchase order and invoice generation scenarios have been automated. Automation of Salesforce entries has also been done with Automation Anywhere, which has significantly reduced the burden for employees and made their day more productive.

Automation Anywhere can have a significant impact on any company's operation, as it can automate a wide variety of tasks that are mundane, time-consuming, and the least productive.

The Automation of salary slip generation for all employees in the organization has helped the HR spend less time manually preparing excel sheets and reconciling with other data and more time in improving the quality and working experience for employees by addressing their issues.

Other administrative functions like keeping a record of employee attendance and work hours have also been automated

The Automation Anywhere (2019) is now a SAAS product, hence I feel it's more fluid to use in any environment compared to the AA11.3x versions.

Automation Anywhere used to have a three-layer architecture with a Control Room, Runner, and Workbench but now it has combined the Control Room and Workbench into One. This made it easy to create bots and administer them.

The document Processing tool called IQ Bot has had several new updates, like a logic field, where you can include Python scripts. I feel it makes the tool more adaptive and flexible.

Automation Anywhere is one of the leading RPA tool vendors and they have done splendid work on improving their tool. The places where I still see scope for improvement is in their background automation are, and also their ability to handle Java applications.

I feel that document extraction like IQ Bot can be made more refined so that it may reach its full potential. 

Another area I feel that needs improvement is the variances caused in extraction results when using the tool with third-party OCRs. This is something that needs to be addressed. I believe rather than giving more third-party options, a single good OCR solution must be added to prevent variations in extraction results.

I have been using Automation Anywhere both A11.3x and A2019 for more than two years.

There is brittleness in UI Automation but this can be circumvented by using REST APIs if they are available. Also, the Java Applications still seem a herculean task to automate for many RPA tool vendors.

The bots are scalable and the only thing one has to ensure for better scalability is proper architecture at the beginning with a long-term approach in mind.

The customer service of AA has been good. Many of our queries were addressed with the raising of tickets as quickly as possible.

The set up was easy and straightforward, and the support was also good.

I have automated and released at least a thousand bots by now. I have also used Automation Anywhere's Intelligent document extraction solution called IQ Bot, both the 11.3 version and the 2019 version.

We use AA for automation of daily mundane tasks, which allows me to focus more on tasks that resonate with my interests. These are Excel-based daily tasks.

We also use it for:

• Automation of long, rule-driven tasks that only require some fixed mouse clicks & keystrokes. This saves time and reduces human error
• Deployed bots to work alongside human counterparts for cross-communication between legacy and new platforms.
• Automated data entry and data validation workflows for 24/7 output.
• IQ & Discovery bots for more complex use cases that require image processing & artificial intelligence.

Automation Anywhere has helped our organization to save human efforts on mundane tasks and shifted it to more analytical/interesting tasks.

We have saved hours so that we can spend more time on deriving insights from business, which will help us to increase our profits. 

We have leveraged automation to increase economies of scale and value-added work while reducing operating costs.

The most valuable features include:

1.  UI Automation including mouse clicks, keystrokes, opening & closing applications.
2. The OCR package allows us to read texts from files.
3. Excel automation can automate most of the tasks and even allows you to automate them without having the application on the system.
   
4. FTP automation allows for maintaining archives on FTP, as well as placing & deleting files from the FTP server.
5. Recording tasks with dynamic variables is helpful for web-based automation.
6. Mail automation allows for downloading attachments and saving emails on the system.

Improvements that can be made are:

• It should be easier to automate tasks on a virtual machine that uses a different environment altogether.
• The AA portal should not give us pop-ups every time a bot agent is updated.
• Ease of debugging & inbuilt debug messages can be improved to help find relevant bugs easily.

In the next release, they should add the Tableau tool as a package since most organizations use it for reporting & analytical purposes. Useful actions would be:

1. Opening & closing tableau
2. Downloading sheet data in Excel
3. Refreshing extracts
4. Publishing Tableau

I have been using Automation Anywhere 2019 Enterprise version for a year.

Best customer service. They heard our case and provided the solution in a short turnaround time.

We did not use another RPA solution prior to this one.

The initial setup is a little complex when it comes to dealing with installing certificates and the bot agent.

It is the most economically friendly and it provides you with a lot of functions.

We did not evaluate other options before selecting Automation Anywhere.

We are using Automation Anywhere to automate manual processes and make the organization digital. We have replaced most of the human resources and we are utilizing them for more valued tasks. Now, the other business users are attracted by the output of it and are approaching us to automate their processes in their respective lines of businesses.

We started at version 10 and moved to version 11x. It is more powerful than the previous one, but the new cloud-based RPA has attracted us more and we are migrating to A2019.

We have increased our productivity by five times as of now, and we are still growing.

Now, most of the processes are automated and even free from an audit perspective, as they are completely automated without human intervention. This is getting better and better.

The user is experiencing much higher outputs without error, rather than using humans who are prone to errors. As this works 24 by 7, they are preferring to automate the task and get it processed using the bot. Multiple business lines are adopting this.

OCR, Image Recognition, Object Cloning, and PDF integration help us a lot. We have used these mostly, as our system is legacy. We automate primarily with image recognition and MetaBots, which are mostly accurate. 

Metabots are a useful feature that helps us overcome the issues that we face using image recognition. The reading of data from Excel is much easier and is getting even better in A2019.

The bot store helps us to download most of the reusable utilities and overcome our issues. We also earn at the same time.

It can be improved in a few areas where the legacy system can be read through object cloning.

The Image Recognition functionality should be enhanced to improve the accuracy of checkboxes. In A2019, the bot agent will be deployed on the local machine when we run the bot runner, but to download it takes too long, and the user will lose patience. My advice is to improve on this.

Sometimes, the files are getting corrupted and this causes us a lot of trouble. This is an issue that is still pending.

We have been using Automation Anywhere for three and a half years.

Automation Anywhere is very stable.

The scalability is very good and we have had a pretty good impression from the beginning. It has not changed yet.

The technical support is very good. Whenever we raise any ticket with the support team, they respond immediately. Our issues have been resolved on our schedule after they determine the root cause of the problem.

We did not use another RPA solution prior to this one.

The initial setup was straightforward. The technical team from Automation Anywhere has helped us in installing. They were able to answer our questions wherever required.

The vendor assisted us and they were very good. They are very responsive and reliable.

Not sure as it is from higher management. As of now we cannot share it.

The price is very reasonable.

We did not evaluate other options.

Overall, this product seems pretty good as of now.

We are using this product to automate various BPO processes, where the manual operation team currently does them manually in my project. The process we are currently working on has multiple applications and the API integrated, so we get details from the API and feed those into the front end application. We then process and update the status of the policy in another application.

The main interaction involves retrieving data from a set of applications and feeding it into other applications. Therefore, AA is mainly used for handling end-to-end processes that are compromised of all of the business validations.

This tool provides us with easy accessibility for adopting the new process, as it is more user- friendly. This is the main reason that we implemented this tool. Many new resources are able to grasp the tool and start doing the automation with ease, which is basically missing in the other vendors' tools.

In terms of adaptability, AA has a significant contribution. Most users can easily understand it. The support team is good and is able to resolve the issues or any challenges we encounter.

Actions are very much user-friendly, which we can easily use to proceed with development. The API connection is easy to incorporate and also has the ability to track the task status in the Orchestrator.

XML action commands and Excel commands are the ones we most frequently use in the real world processing of the policy. When we have features targeting those, it will be good enough for the majority of the process we automated.

All of the key action items have been easy to incorporate.

Sometimes the tool is timing out, which would be a good thing to have resolved.

It will be good if we have a framework that is created with the package, so we can leverage those for the multiple processes. As it is now, we create a base framework.

When we have more packages for each of the basic operations, it will be more user-friendly and easier to complete, rather than starting from scratch.

Ideally, when we have those packages we can leverage them for overall project development. Adopting the cloud platform will be more convenient, as opposed to depending on the on-premises setup.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for three and a half years.

Applications can be more effective with the development of bots that are affected less by changes in the object and environment.

The support team is good in helping with queries and issues that had held up the automation.

We used UiPath previously. AA is more user-friendly and adaptable such that anyone can learn and more easily understand how to incorporate it into the process automation.

The initial setup is not complicated.

I would rate the vendor installation team and eight out of ten.

I don't have the exact figures but it does provide ROI.

The setup cost depends on multiple factors, so you need to get details before choosing.

Version A2019 is available and will be adopting it in the coming months. We are looking forward to working on this new version.

We primarily use the solution for universal scanning. As an example, the solution can take various service provider bills and will allow us to view all of them in Excel format. That's a very basic use case.

In SAP, there are many similar regular tasks that are done regularly. In human resources, we created several core SAP systems so that the basic users, in human resources can reduce redundancies by 10 times with very little cost. We actually didn't expect that outcome. It was a nice surprise.

It depends on the use case, however, I'd say the most valuable aspect of the solution is the IQ Bot. 

Normally, you just scan the invoice. However, what makes Automation Anywhere different from other services is machine learning, which includes AI. It's easier and more convenient. 

We can include Python programming language too for getting better results.

The solution provides a Community Edition to all the users. It's a great jumping-off point to learn about automation. There are some features that are reduced, however, it's still quite good.

The insights provided by the dashboard are excellent.

If I build a bot today and don't use it, however, in several months, someone tries to use it, there's a 30-40% change the bot will fail in one or two areas. I'm still trying to figure out why. It's on a ticket right now. It may be due to updates or changes to the environment. I'm not sure.

The solution lacks in the approval process area. They need to provide more solutions.

I've been using the solution for about two years.

The stability is pretty good. The only place it lags is if a bot is made and then not used for many months. Then there can be errors. Other than that, it's got excellent stability.

The solution is quite scalable, however, it all depends, from customer to customer and what their actual requirements are.

We have about ten to 15 people who use the solution regularly. We also have an administrator who oversees everything.

We plan to expand across both the enterprise and A2019 versions. Currently, we're just exploring its capabilities more and more.

The technical support is excellent. I'd rate it ten out of ten. At first, we did run into a lot of issues, and the support team was very kind. They were also very helpful and responsive. We're quite satisfied with their level of service.

I work with RPA technology and have knowledge of multiple companies including Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, Webpack, and multiple other vendors. However, in this company, we've only ever used Automation Anywhere.

I've worked with the free version of Blue Prism for tasks like sending email. It was fine and worked without issue.

The initial setup is not complex. It's also not straightforward.

If someone is an automation novice, for him to set everything up, he must be very clear and aware of the ports. It's advisable to meet the system requirements. If the system requirements fail, there may be challenges on the system and some features may not work or could potentially work if some adjustments also get made. There needs to be a mastery of the technical network like ports and servers.

If I implement it now, if I just install the automation in my server, then it's a one one-time installation

The deployment time isn't too long. It may just take two or three hours if someone is completely aware of what we are doing.

In order to deploy the solution, one person is enough. You don't need a whole big team.

I don't have any information about the pricing or licensing on offer. It's my understanding that there's different pricing, depending on how many licenses a client needs. It's very flexible. If a client just needs a certain aspect, they can just get a license for that.

Automation Anywhere has two different versions, or, rather, two different products. One is the Automation Anywhere Enterprise Edition which is only on-premise. Automation Anywhere also has another service that is called A2019, which can be deployed on-premise. 

One of the main differences between the Enterprise Edition of Automation Anywhere is the dollar policy shop. In there, they can't create or customize our own comment. With A2019, you have an option to create our own comments. A2019 is more flexible. I'd advise new users to go for that version, as opposed to the enterprise version.

Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We are an SI vendor. We have been implementing customer-facing solutions for processes like reports generation, bank reconciliation, payroll processing, etc.

There were different bank statements generated for reconciliations. With some standardization, we were able to automate a process that took more than 4 hours in under 15 mins. In one of our customer implementations, the environment was to use simple RPA functionalities without any complexities. We achieved it with the basic pack of AA license.

The organizations where we have implemented AA have seen tremendous benefits achieved in terms of time and cost-saving with the highest quality of deliverables. Since this is about how it has helped our organization, I would explain it from the context of a system integration vendor. We are able to build a steady pipeline when we position AA as a solution and enhance our resource skills by certifications of AA.  This has certainly improved or relevance in the RPA market space with a growing team of Automation Engineers.

The features that help us satisfy the needs of the customer to overcome mundane activities using task bots and meta bots are the most valuable along with the rich controls in the control room. The developer team is able to capture all the necessary steps without much hassle with the visual designer and the ability to test each step of automation has helped in delivering error-free automation to our customer. With the new version of AA, we have more control over the implementation and we are able to quickly deploy the solutions to the customer.

OCR - OCR capability needs to become better. For the handwritten documents, we had a struggle to extract with accuracy while some other market tools were able to achieve it without any issues. 

The OCR component should allow integration with 3rd party OCR. This way we can use the best of breed solution along with AA or allow better control over OCR packages to be customized. As of now, it acts like a black box where there is very little control over the outcome of the OCR. We had great struggles with a customer who had handwritten data extraction. Finally, the customer was not able to see the value and the exploration went on hold post COVID.

We partner with multiple tools. We find AA to be much superior in support.

I automated Server applications like SAP, ERP, CRM, etc. With SAP, we can use different kinds of automation like BAPI with MetaBot and the SAP GUI with DLL automation.

One of my uses cases to help understand how we use AA is email-related. First, we used to get emails, and based on this as input, we needed to trigger some events in SAP. Depending on the resulting error, we needed to delete some records and further, needed to generate DB for some records (daily around 1,000 records). This is a repetitive process that happens every day.

Mmainly, we implemented SAP tasks related to customer support functionality. We also use it for the creation of PowerBI reports related to sales.

We have automated approximately 30 processes, reducing the manual effort a lot. Now all of the manual work is handled by the Bot alone.

We trigger by email sometimes, and it is also scheduler-based. We handle errors and can extract information. If the bot is not able to perform any step, then the support team gets into the picture and they will resolve the issue.

I like all of the features, especially the MetaBot, REST API, and SAP DLL.

We use the MetaBot to capture all of the screen contents, then if the elements are captured properly, it is fine. Otherwise, we create a custom object that acts as a click function.

The price is a little high and could be reduced.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for the past five years and it is one of the best tools to automate manual tasks.

Stability-wise, Automation Anywhere is good.

I would rate the scalability a 9.8 out of 10.

The technical support is good. We directly reach out to the AA guys by raising a ticket, and they also have a forum to resolve issues

Previously, we went through manual work. It was only with Excel that we had some automation using macros.

The price is a little bit high but the support is good.

We compared different RPA vendors and finally, we decided to go for Automation Anywhere as our single RPA solution.

Many new options have been implemented in the cloud version. NLP and G suite automation are also available, among a lot of other options in the A2019. At this point, we just need to explore the options.

I mainly used AA to extract data from invoices from PDF files with multiple formats and to upload this data to a Data Lake, on a Windows machine.

Other projects involved extracting data from Excel and CSV files and then inserting them into custom applications, databases, and mainframes and finally sending recap emails to the user.

The Bots developed, according to the end user's needs and the type of process, were both attended and unattended. In both cases, the end-users were always satisfied with the functioning and performances of the Bots.

By automating the process with AA and using the verification station, it was possible to speed up the process and strengthen it, involving the process owner in the verification of the correctness of the data extracted.

It is becoming more and more normal for companies that a process is carried out partly or totally by a Bot, thus allowing humans to dedicate themselves to high value-added activities.

The speed-up and greater control over the quality of the processes have also led to savings in money and are increasing the happiness of the company's customers.

I consider the verification station very useful because it allows you to quickly check if the data extracted are correct or if you need to change the process. The process owner is also much happier because he is more involved in the implementation of the Bot and thus it is easier to develop the requirements.

During the test phases and during the review, it is possible to engage the process owner who almost enjoys verifying the correct functioning of the Bot, thanks also to the simple and attractive interface of the verification station.

You could improve the tools for reading CSV/Excel, also providing wizards or detailed guides, otherwise, it is quite complex to use them, especially at the beginning.

It would be useful to have an online wiki on each tool that can be used on AA with practical examples of use, with images and videos.

It would also be useful to increase the community and make public in a forum the problems solved by other developers through the support, so that we can use past experience to solve development problems without having to send emails to AA about a problem that may have already been solved.

I use Automation Anywhere for five months.

I think the final product is quite stable. All the functionalities included in AA are extensively tested and thus do not present strange errors after the Bot has been released into production. AA also handles the release of new versions of the IDE very well, guaranteeing the portability of the code with simple procedures.

It is a very scalable product, also thanks to some features included in the IDE.

So far, I have not used customer service very much.

I currently use both Automation Anywhere and UiPath. Depending on what you need to automate, one may perform better than the other.

The initial setup is quite long and full of different phases. It would take only one official AA installation guide with the most detailed step-by-step description and one image per step, without the need to consult more than one guide.

I implemented through a vendor team and their level of expertise is medium-high.

We also evaluated UiPath.

It is a tool that allows you to have excellent performance but some features are not intuitive to use.

We use Automation Anywhere to automate business processes for insurance clients. Automation Anywhere reduced the manpower up to 80% with a high return on investment. The process which we automated can complete the entire workload within 10 days when the normal process would have taken around 30 working days.

Apart from this, we automated password reset processes which saved time and effort and also enhanced security.

We are also automating the deployment process for new process setups. 

Bot Stuck Automation is helping us to keep track of the bots that are stuck for long time.

Automation Anywhere made a huge impact in maintaining client relationships. The reason is a high Return on Investment from the processes we automated. Because we have high ROI we gained new clients which increased the client count as well as our company's financial strength. 

Most of the employees learned the Automation Anywhere tool and got certified from Automation Anywhere University. AA makes their professional life much easier from a career perspective. 

Our organization has improved revenue just by automating the business processes where too much manual work was involved.

Web-based control is the most valuable feature. We can access it from anywhere in the world with the control room URL and in any browser. Bot Insights make our report generation and other insights view easier. We can export the data in the form of CSV, PDF, etc.

Credentials is another important feature, where we can store the important/bot credentials securely in the Control room itself and we can track who accesses the credentials and we can restrict the access based on users.

Bots get disconnected from control rooms sometimes without any reason and this takes up a lot of time. 

If the user creates a schedule then he/she leaves the company, that schedule became unusable at some point and I can't edit it. We need to create it again using generic IDs. This problem can be avoided in an upcoming release or update. There should be a button for customer support.

For each process, we have a separate log folder/files and it's tedious to go and check each process. They should include a button/feature to check the logs for each/process and or bots in the control room itself.

There should be an option for the quick addition of disconnected bots/kind of rollback options.

I would also like to see the One-Touch Asset management report button in the control room.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for three years. 

We can assure 98% stability and the remaining 2% is just because of the environment issues.

It is highly scalable.

Support was good but sometimes they ask for logs that have client information. But apart from this, they are really helpful.

We have been using Automation Anywhere from the initial stages.

The setup is good but the control room setup takes some time.

We have an in-house team to implement AA solutions. 

We saved around 80% man-power.

Small companies can't afford this cost as the pricing is a little higher.

Yes, I evaluated with Blue Prism.

Automation Anywhere is a very Interactive and easy to use RPA tool.

We have a long list of customers and multiple use cases in pharma, account & finance, customer billing & payment, and other domains. We use AA to automate those tasks that need less or no human interaction. The reconciliation tasks, SAP and Excel operations, are automated using AA, take less time, and give accurate results. 

Working with MetaBot provided simple drag and drop functionality, integration of DLL of SAP, Outlook, Excel and other application make tasks easier for developers.

Customers are happy with overall performance of bots and it makes the developer's life easy.  

We have a lot of clients who use AA bots in their own process. Tasks that are automated require less human input. AA bots save a lot of time, increase efficiency, deliver accurate output, and provide consistency which improves the overall function of processes in different domains.   

AA is an amazing tool that provides great features to perform Excel operations, Data Integration, and manipulation saving thousands of hours. It is an easy to use application that makes the developer's life comfortable. It doesn't require a technical background.

MetaBot is one of the most valuable features of AA. The simple drag and drop functionality, integration of DLL of SAP, Outlook, Excel, and other application make tasks easier for developers. There's nothing like MetaBot in other tools. 

One can also check the Bot farm for readymade Bots provided by other AA developers and experts.

A2019 is another great feature introduced by AA. The web-based Bot development, Control room, and Bot Insights are other nice features. Improved Error Handling and support of Python script in A2019 seems good.

I have identified a few areas where one can find the scope of improvement:

1. AA IQ Bot has not yet succeeded in living up to its reputation due to its high cost, low ROI, and its inability to meet client requirements.

2. Commands such as OCR are not up to the mark the output accuracy is not satisfactory.

3. It is unable to identify IF/Else, for Loop block when reviewing/writing AA code. There should be an expand/collapse button to identify a block of code.

Integration with Google Spreadsheets and other products should be included in the next release.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for the last three years.

It is a great and advanced tool for the development of Bots.

In terms of scalability, AA is one of the best available tools in the market and provides a lot of command and tools that do not require any technical specialty.  

Easy to use, advanced features like MetaBot, Improved Error Handling, Web-based bot development in A2019, support of Python script and many more.

I have had a great experience with the technical team. I got stuck in one scenario where Object Cloning was not working in the production environment. After spending many hours, I connected with the AA technical team and they provided a prompt solution.

I did not use any other solution.

ROI depends on time, cost, output accuracy, and effective and consistent results.

The pricing of AA is quite high as compared to other tools as it's one of the best RPA tools available in the market.

I did not evaluate other options.

Just reduce AA licensing prices and provide real scenario-based training modules in learning sections.