Automation Anywhere Reviews

I work in an automation Center of Excellence in health care, and I utilize it for everything and anything that is appropriate in health care. We have approximately 41,000 hours worth of automation that operates and handles tasks ranging from assisting with HR operations, such as leave of absence, to medication monitoring and much more. Our portfolio is quite expanded.

We are also jumping into the Co-Pilot world because we want to start embedding it into Teams, SailPoint, and some of the other tools. 

We are also looking at a unique use case. We have discharges, and there are certain types of prescriptions that are just extremely specialized as part of discharge. We have medication contracts. One of the things that we have going on in our organization is a buddy system and then an official request. The buddy system is essentially prescription denial appeals. We would like to use AI to search our contracts to figure out what is the standard for these medications and what are the denials and appeals that we can have prewritten and ready to go.

It was a response to COVID that prompted us to dive into scalable tools. We needed scalability and the ability to perform 10,000 or 1,000 or 200 tasks at any moment. No other software that we have had could provide such scalability and is built in a modular way.

It is unique and almost invisible. You do not realize its impact until you discuss it with users who provide positive feedback. We build automation, support it, and deploy it. When we meet with our users later, they have such good feedback about how impactful these things are to their path. For a nurse, not having to repeat a task 10,000 times has made a significant difference. Especially during COVID, it was truly helpful on the front line. Now, I also employ it with other powerful medication tools.

I was personally able to see its benefits as soon as I jumped into software. It was one of the most impactful and amazing tools for my day-to-day life because, at any point in time, I could design something, modularly build it, and deploy it. It can handle such amazing tasks, including things like templates and design and all other materials that we have for communications or activities, and produce them for me automatically. For me, personally, it made a huge impact right from the get-go, but as an organization, we definitely had to learn how to make choices on our use cases.

It has absolutely saved us time and costs. The whole point of the software is to develop something that at least on a use case basis provides value. We have many years of learning how to do our program. Over time, we have also been using it for other things, such as compliance. We have definitely evolved from just saving time or money to using this solution for everything we can use it for.

I have just built my first Co-Pilot, and it is significant in how that part functions. I am also exploring the API task tools, which appear to be quite significant, but for the most part, the forms and the capability to integrate data from other software represent the specialty.

One thing I learned with Co-Pilot is that it is very static. For instance, when dealing with tables and their headers, I must program them in a form. If my build changes, I have to return to my form and update the table titles. Features like looping are missing from Co-Pilot. If I want to perform a task five times in a row, I have to rerun Co-Pilot five times just to achieve that. This is an aspect I considered as I explored possible changes and improvements. Other than that, it is among the best software tools and organizations I have worked with. I find it challenging to suggest much beyond continuing the good work and expanding on it.

I first heard about it back in 2021. This will be my fourth year using it.

I had an issue lasting for the better part of three years, and it was quite severe. I never lodged a ticket because whenever we attempted to resolve it internally, the problem temporarily ceased. Each time I ran my Digital Colleagues, I encountered a strange error on my screen, which persisted for a couple of years. However, an update corrected it, and it is no longer an issue. 

The only current challenge involves a discrepancy in table columns. In my support session, we could not figure out why my table was off by one column. I had to have a blank column zero for my table to align correctly. These minor issues aside, the tool now functions more stably. 

Previously, inconsistent search behavior occurred in the ServiceNow search bar. It was puzzling because it worked differently every single time that we searched in that search bar, but that issue has been resolved.

Scalability is the most remarkable feature of this tool for me. For example, we have a recognition system for automation. I designed a template for various achievements by citizen developers, such as completing a class or build. At first, it was not a big deal to just do it yourself because you are only doing a handful of templates, but the last round had 34. Initially, creating a few templates was manageable. With time, however, it escalated from 5 templates to 34. We are now using this tool multiple times weekly for template generation. Eventually, I aim to release it to the entire automation team so that leaders can readily recognize achievements based on team activities. 

Scalability is impressive; whether handling five or a hundred million templates, it remains easy to design and build. The tool's intuitive nature contrasts with other tools, which are less intuitive for building and scaling, explaining my infrequent use of them.

I have contacted their support for technical issues with the software as well as personal build support.

The response is very quick. Within a couple of days, they are communicating and establishing connections to set up solutions. In my case, I meet with my customer relations every Friday. We get prompt responses to any issues I raise. The support is fantastic, even when dealing with complex situations due to the complexity of some of my builds. While not all problems are solved immediately, this is typical for complex tasks.

I very recently had one of the best support help sessions that anyone could have ever asked for. We were doing something really complex in Co-Pilot, and it was something that was completely unique to even our internal development team. They helped me solve that, and they did it in such a great way. It was a ten out of ten for connecting to someone, taking the time, and doing all of the work. However, we have also had some support tickets in the past that have been just okay. It has been a mixed bag on that front. I would rate them an eight out of ten because they do try hard to connect and support us even though we are doing some complex work.

This predates my time, so I am not fully sure. I do know Microsoft automations were used before transitioning to Automation Anywhere. Selecting a vendor was a part of the process when we started the program, and Automation Anywhere was chosen.

The decision for the software had already been made. I was only involved in meetings to discuss how we were going to deploy programs, design things, and create standards. 

I believe it took six months from deciding to go live with the software to deploying automations. It did not exceed six months to get everything up and running, though there might have been a year of planning. Once I was set for launch with everything in place, the transition from purchased to used tenants happened swiftly, possibly in less than six months.

Initially, I used strategic resourcing for implementation. At the time, I had an engineer, a technical lead, a technical developer, and an architect—four individuals in total—who implemented all my environments. Four environments were set up, following designs, standards, and rules. This setup involved comprehensive program design, focusing on transitioning and using different control rooms and establishing standards.

We support the entire tool, and we support the automations which require lots of maintenance and support. That is only due to user design or systems changes or some of the elements that are out there. We have a whole support program that goes along with our automations. As for the tool itself, it is just like any other software tool. It is certainly more stable than something like Microsoft where you constantly have to go back and correct issues or incidents. Our incidents are with bots, not with the software.

My job involves citizen development. I work in the field of helping people connect to this technology and use it. In terms of ease of use, the software is not hard to use, but things are presented to users in a new way than what they are used to. I had to make people start with basic programs and learn how to do a simple process. It is a little bit of an advanced tool. It is easy to understand for me and I love it, but it is definitely a step above entry. Before I instituted an entry course, the learning curve was a little bit steeper. We would have individuals coming to our four-day course and then come through and do lots of support. When we taught them the basics of how the automation software works and then brought them into this advanced tool, it was very quick for them. Our results were much better, and we have those individuals building regularly.

In terms of integration, what was interesting to learn was that everything requires a configuration. For an organization like ours, it involved figuring out how we should branch, how we should grow, and how we should engage other teams to get those configurations implemented so that packages will work as intended. That was an interesting learning curve for us. We had to adjust how we train, talk about packages, and use the software to make sure that we had the right integrations and setups. A great example is ServiceNow. They have the packages for ServiceNow built in. If you have all the access to the information and all the things you need, you are in good shape to have some really awesome automation. If one of those pieces is not in place, you have to think a little bit about how you are going to access that.

Automation Anywhere is a ten out of ten. The company is impressive, especially with its new initiatives like Agentic AI. In five years, it is going to be amazing to witness their advancements, particularly as AI continues to play a significant role.

I have been using Automation Anywhere to automate repetitive tasks across various domains and organizations. We have developed a lot of automations in domains like finance, HR, and supply chains on a daily basis. Basically, we create bots using Automation Anywhere that replicate human actions. 

Currently, we are working on a business case involving agents who respond to phone calls, providing order dispatch status. The average call time is five to six minutes. By using AI, we are creating a chatbot so that a customer service agent can input details and quickly provide all the customer-related information. This reduces call times from five minutes to one or two minutes, which is something we are currently working on. We are also exploring AI use cases for things that are not structured or rule-based.

Previously, we were using legacy automation methods. We were using different platforms to automate the system by writing scripts. You get the best value from automation when you automate a process end to end. In a business process, multiple applications might be involved in completing the processes. Automation Anywhere provides better integration with applications. We can integrate multiple applications at the frontend or backend and complete our processes. Previously, we could automate only a few parts because of limitations in supporting various technologies, whereas Automation Anywhere helps to integrate all the applications and automate a process end to end.

I have integrated it with SAP, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Jira, Tableau, and a lot of Microsoft platforms. We have also had integrations with database and mainframe applications. The integration is seamless. They have packages for particular applications. If you want to work with Salesforce, they already have a package for Salesforce. You just have to connect Salesforce with a certain set of details and provide the API details. It is seamless and within a second, you get connected, and data starts to be exchanged with the application.

It saves headcounts, improves customer experiences, and provides time and cost savings. In some projects, millions of dollars are saved annually from a single bot. The response time for certain customer scenarios has also been made efficient.

The way it integrates with subsystems is impressive. When automating business processes, there might be multiple systems in use. Automation Anywhere provides various ways to connect, such as by directly using backend APIs or using the frontend. This is incredibly useful.

They are constantly enhancing its capabilities. They have already included support for GenAI, enabling easy LLM training. You can train LLMs without putting in a lot of effort. You can train a model very easily. If you do the same thing manually from scratch, it will take a lot of time and you also cannot be sure of the accuracy. They are enhancing their capabilities in the field of AI to provide efficiency and accuracy.

It is a low-code/no-code platform. If you have a little bit of technical knowledge, you can easily design a bot. It is a basic part of software development. It is easier if you are aware of a few things such as writing up a logic, loop conditions, etc. Someone having the basic knowledge can easily adapt to this tool. It is quite simple and straightforward with drag-and-drop actions. It also provides information about a particular package or action you are going to use in your automation. If you are not familiar with the technology, you can explore Automation Anywhere University where they provide training. For anyone eager to start with it, it is quite easy.

Automation tools have a lot of dependency on the environment, particularly on machines. Reducing this dependency could increase success. The product has entered the GenAI space, so it is easy to implement. It will keep improving over time. However, making the product more lightweight by reducing its dependency on infrastructure could greatly help in the long run.

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

The stability rating is a nine out of ten. They are improving stability daily. If you had asked me four or five years ago, I would have rated it four or five, but they have significantly improved. Currently, nine is accurate, but there is always room for improvement.

It is being used globally. We are a global team with a presence in six to seven different countries. We have about 10,000 employees. We have business processes in different countries, and everyone is using it. We have implemented 140 to 150 automations, and a lot of people are involved in developing them.

I would rate it an eight out of ten for scalability.

I would rate them a nine out of ten. They have been kind and supportive. Whenever we need help, we can reach out to them, and they help us out.

Positive

I have worked with major partners like UiPath and Blue Prism prior to Automation Anywhere. I also worked with UiPath last year.

When comparing them from a developer's perspective, I prefer Automation Anywhere. Its canvas is user-friendly with options to switch between code view and list view, which other tools lack. As a developer comfortable with list view coding, transitioning to UiPath without that feature would require adaptation, whereas transitioning from UiPath to Automation Anywhere is smooth due to the flow view or list view option. Automation Anywhere already provides flow view development, simplifying adaptation. I appreciate this flexibility. I am also working on Power Automate, which is generally flow-based. Automation Anywhere offers convenient switching.

In UiPath, if you want to work with Salesforce, the package will not be there by default. You have to import that package, which is not the case with Automation Anywhere. Importing packages, like for Salesforce, is straightforward, and often available to team members. The best feature is having access to packages imported by team members.

It is straightforward. 

When it comes to bot deployment, a bot takes two minutes from one environment to another. Moving code between environments also takes only two minutes. However, there are sanity checks. These checks apply to all tools used in automation. Deploying code takes two minutes. We have automated this process, allowing code transfer from test to production with a single approval click. It is seamless.

Bot maintenance is not a tedious task. Once an update is done, we push that into a test or development to check whether it is impacting our automation. In more than 90% of scenarios, it does not impact. In a few cases, there is some impact with the update.

Before automating a use case, we assess its impact in terms of efficiency, error reduction, and cost savings.

Automation Anywhere has helped achieve around 50% savings in some scenarios. The error rate has been reduced by 80% to 90% in processes. Errors have been successfully eliminated from the process.

In terms of cost, we participated in projects achieving two to three million dollars in annual savings.

If you are a non-technical person, you need to become familiar with basic programming concepts such as conditions, looping, etc. Automation Anywhere is easy to adapt to. The UI is simple. If someone is coming from a different technology and wants to develop something in Automation Anywhere, one or two weeks are enough to get started with it.

We are getting trained on AI, document automation, and the Copilot system at the organization level. We are also exploring a few other business cases for implementing GenAI. We have some unstructured handwritten documents, and we are trying to assess how efficient it would be to automate it and how easily we can create a model for a certain set of documents for extracting the details.

I would surely recommend Automation Anywhere to other users. For business professionals, it automates repetitive tasks and enhances efficiency and cost savings. For technical individuals, it is easy to use and adapt. 

I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten.

Through Automation Anywhere RPA, we have been able to save thousands of hours of AP invoice processing each year.

Automation Anywhere RPA has enabled a lot of our employees to have their valuable time freed up to do other things, ranging from the Treasury department, the Revenue department, General and Cost Accounting. We had lots of manual processes, no automation whatsoever, and the automations are able to automate those things, such as document processing, PDFs, and ERP system navigation, enabling our employees to focus on other things that require more critical thinking and decision making.

As far as what could be improved with Automation Anywhere, I think they have a really wonderful product. There have been things in the past that I have asked them to improve or submitted a ticket to them to improve, and I've seen results from that. 

They have implemented something that makes the product better. 

If there was anything that I would ask for improvement on, there were times in the past where through submitting a ticket for support, it seemed that some of the engineers who were helping me did not understand the product that they were supporting. That felt difficult because I felt I was almost explaining the product to the company. But again, isolated and for the most part, it's been a really good experience.

Before we implemented Automation Anywhere, we were not using any automation or RPA solution back in 2018.

Their support team is really great, and they also have a really robust online community, the Pathfinder Community, where developers and automation leaders can go and have discussions, submit use cases or issues, and get support from others as well. I have also had Automation Anywhere staff respond and reach out to me through a Pathfinder community post that I've made. Their ticketing system is also good, and they recently implemented an artificial intelligence agent in their email responses that has helped guide the ticket through the escalation process.

We didn't have anything in place before adopting Automation Anywhere.

For others who are looking for an RPA solution and considering Automation Anywhere, I would encourage you to choose Automation Anywhere if you are hoping to have any level of citizen development involved. 

They make it very easy for anyone to learn and pick up the skills required to develop bots. Beyond citizen development, I think that they have a very reliable platform that is very robust in functionality. 

They can integrate with many applications, and they make it very easy to create automations that scale and are able to automate a wide array of business processes.

When we were looking to implement an RPA solution, one of the other prospective vendors that we looked at was UiPath. One thing that stood out to our company was how approachable Automation Anywhere was compared to UiPath, which seemed to be more developer focused and more technical focused, not as low-code as Automation Anywhere. 

With Automation Anywhere, you could come from anywhere, any level of experience, and any industry. You can learn from their Automation Anywhere University and become a bot developer, which is what we did, since all of our team is composed of accountants who are in the industry first and technical second. Automation Anywhere really provided a solution that let us make that work.

I don't have the exact figures regarding the hours we reduced, but I can say that it is thousands of hours. It's less clear in other departments whether we have seen benefits, as it's more focused on quality of life and relieving pain points. 

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Automation Anywhere as a nine, really because I believe that they're a very fantastic RPA company. Any company has bumps and bruises, but with Automation Anywhere, it's been a very reliable solution that has been able to achieve anything that we need. 

It's been easy to learn for developers who want to pick it up and easy to manage from a Control Room perspective on the back end. As a company, I just really think that they do a very good job at delivering on the customer's needs.

We are using Automation Anywhere majorly for automation, automating web applications or desktop applications.

The best features of Automation Anywhere include the user interface, which is quite easy to use now compared to its previous versions that were more difficult. The interface is user-friendly, and all code is visible during coding, showing what is going ahead and what follows in the code. This is not available in other RPA tools such as UiPath, which makes it a standout feature.

Additionally, Automation Anywhere is robust and the support is good. We get connected with the support team whenever required.

Co-Pilot is used for the processes involving human input while automating tasks. In the context of Automation Anywhere, it allows us to create various forms to facilitate this interaction. By incorporating user feedback during the automation process, we can streamline operations effectively. Overall, using Co-Pilot is straightforward and user-friendly, making it easy to build automations based on the forms we create.

There are several areas for improvement in Automation Anywhere that have been suggested by my team and colleagues during their Imagine event. They need work on WLM and when handshaking with their own application, as there is significant wiring required from a developer perspective. The WLM could be much easier and more understandable. It should be more accessible to developers because in the WLM, if a solution is developed, it cannot be tested in the dev environment. Testing must be done in the runner environment.

From a developer's perspective, there are fewer integration facilities, particularly AI integrations, compared to other tools. The pricing could also be improved.

Automation Anywhere has been in use for about nine years.

The stability of Automation Anywhere can be rated a nine out of ten. It is good.

In terms of scalability, there have been no significant issues. Hundreds of bots have been developed without facing any problems. The scalability can be rated a nine out of ten.

In my current organization, 10 to 15 employees are working with Automation Anywhere. The larger team in other RPA department are using UiPath.

They often provide good solutions, but sometimes they are unable to resolve issues, requiring users to find solutions independently, which can be time-consuming. I would rate their technical support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

We are using it as a SaaS solution. If we choose an on-premises solution, we receive a bundle that we need to install. This installation can be done on Azure, any cloud service, or on our own server machines. On the other hand, when we opt for a SaaS solution, they create control rooms and set everything up for us. We are only given an access key, or what could be referred to as a license key. By entering this license key, we can directly access the system. We can typically receive the license key quickly, often within a minute, for their cloud version. That's what I know about these solutions.

It requires some maintenance, but they are actively addressing it. They install patches and provide updates for the package versions. As a user of the SaaS solution, we don’t need to worry about these details. However, for the on-premises version, I believe users need to manually implement the solutions. Whenever there are updates or new package versions available, they deliver them to us, and we must install them in the control room.

Upgrading Automation Anywhere is very straightforward. It requires just clicking a button to upgrade multiple components including packages, solutions, control rooms, and the bot engine.

Regarding bot maintenance, if there are no changes in the web application or desktop application and no machine issues, bots can run for three to four years without human intervention.

The time saved by implementing Automation Anywhere depends on the number of applications involved. With fewer applications, it can save up to 40% to 50% of time. However, with complex applications involving multiple pages and interactions, the savings shift toward FTE savings, with time savings reducing to 10% or 20%. Sometimes it may take longer than manual user operations.

The pricing of Automation Anywhere is less than UiPath but more than Power Automate, placing it in the mid-range. It can be considered expensive and could potentially be lowered.

When comparing with other automation tools such as Power Automate and UiPath, all tools address similar problem statements but with different approaches. Each has unique features and limitations.

Technical skills are essential for RPA. If you know any programming language and have some technical understanding, you will find it easier to get into RPA. However, if you lack knowledge of programming languages, it may be challenging for you. Learning RPA involves keeping up with new features and updates, so we are continuously learning the platform. It took me about one to two months to fully understand how to complete a process on my own.

I would rate it a six out of ten. They can refine their pricing and improve the handshaking features and integrations. 

Our primary use case for Automation Anywhere began with order processing, specifically the order-to-cash process, where we manually enter orders from the customer through PDFs and other methods. 

We started from four bots and have grown to close to 60 bots at this point, expanding significantly from two or three processes to ten times that scale over the last five or six years.

Our document automation, specifically with IQ Bot as part of the automation, has significantly improved efficiency and proficiency, allowing us to be currently engaged in proof of concept initiatives aimed at further advancing the document automation process with generative AI.

Document automation has indeed been beneficial in handling large volumes of documents in our organization, where we process product-related data sheets that range from 80 to 120 pages, efficiently extracting data that would take a human several hours to read manually. I can confidently say that document automation saves us time, as it takes human effort significantly down from five to seven minutes manually per PO. It is being executed much faster by the bots.

One of the notable benefits we've realized from Automation Anywhere is a significant reduction in errors when processing data, which improves both revenue accuracy and operational efficiency.

In the age of agentic AI, the big challenge is moving to the next step. We are currently running all RPAs now. So robotic automation is the key for us now, and we are moving to the next generation of automation, which is agentic processing. We need a helping hand to make sure that our company strategy and the goal can be achieved with this agentic automation. This year, we have had a big push from our leaders to be involved, more and more, on agentic processing. That's a focus for us. 

As we evolve from RPA to APA, we are at the early stages. We're just moving over. The first step we are taking is a document automation with AI capability on top of it. That's our first step that we are doing at this point of time. Eventually, we'll get there, but it's really early.

We are using some AI. There are 20 to 30 tools at this point. So we are trying to bring in Automation Anywhere into one of those ten. It's in the evaluation phase at this point. There's a big team working on it. We want to get the right tool both legally and via a vetting process before we can bring any tool into the company. That's an ongoing process. 

Automation Anywhere can be improved by integrating self-correction capabilities into the bots, particularly as we develop RPA, where changes in environment paths require additional redeveloping efforts.

We've used the solution for around five to six years. 

There have been no downtime issues since we migrated to cloud. The availability has been good. 

Automation Anywhere is scaling well. 

As we aim to keep up with current technology trends, we are working on enhancing our growth rate moving forward.

We have around 2500 people worldwide.

The support from Automation Anywhere has been outstanding, with timely responses to submitted tickets and effective resolutions for issues that have arisen.

Prior to adopting Automation Anywhere, we used B2B automation for a long time for our needs, and the limitations of other tools in handling complex PDF transactions were significant factors that prompted us to consider a change.

I was significantly involved in the deployment of Automation Anywhere, being the sole person from my company starting this automation journey, and we faced some initial challenges, particularly with hardware setup when we transitioned from on-premises to cloud, which eventually became smoother.

I've seen a return on investment with Automation Anywhere, as we've measured time saved, starting from 50 days per quarter to about 1500 days per quarter with the deployment of bots, equating to substantial human time savings.

The pricing is average. It's not an expensive tool. The pricing is mid-range.

Before selecting Automation Anywhere, we considered several tools including UiPath, which we had set up for financial functions and Kofax for SAP automation, but ultimately chose Automation Anywhere for its scalability across the company.

For companies considering Automation Anywhere, my advice is to prioritize identifying and automating the most critical processes rather than trying to automate everything, ensuring that a thorough study backs these decisions to maximize support from leadership and demonstrate success. 

We are not utilizing Automation Anywhere COE manager, but we have developed our in-house COE manager since we started the process independently in 2019.

On a scale of one to ten, I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

The use cases for Automation Anywhere are industry-agnostic and sector-agnostic, allowing for automation of processes that involve human interaction, mundane tasks, and large volumes. With the help of AI, we can now automate a lot of unstructured data, which wasn't possible before, so it's not limited to any specific sector or process. Whether it's HR, marketing, sales, operations, or engineering design, any of those can be considered for automation.

The main benefits of Automation Anywhere include improved operational efficiency, enhanced productivity savings, increased cost savings, new revenue streams, and a reduction in regulatory human errors. These are some of the major benefits it provides. For example, if a human takes one hour to perform a transaction that involves navigating through multiple systems and inputting data, Automation Anywhere can reduce that time significantly. The bot can complete the task in about 20 minutes, saving roughly 40 minutes per transaction, which translates to a 60%-66% time saving, enhancing overall productivity and cost efficiency.

They have introduced numerous AI-related enhancements in their product, making them the first among their competitors to develop a reasoning engine. Their PRE reasoning engine is particularly noteworthy, and they have quickly integrated Generative AI into their document automation product. Additionally, they offer a variety of other AI features and have designed the platform to be cloud-native. The AI features they have implemented stand out; they are indeed leading the pack. This strategy is impressive and effectively empowers their product with a wide range of AI capabilities, which are increasingly important in today’s tech landscape, especially with the rise of AI, Generative AI, and Agentic AI.

Automation Anywhere also provides Agentic AI-related APIs and is currently testing Agentic process automation in its early stages. In terms of product capabilities and AI integration, I would definitely rate them a ten out of ten. They are the fastest to reach this level of advancement compared to others, who seem to be lagging behind. For example, Blue Prism is progressing quite slowly, and while Power Automate has some AI features, they do not match the scale that Automation Anywhere has achieved.

Its pricing definitely needs to be more competitive. When licensing costs are high, we cannot use this tool for automation. Instead, we might opt for a lower-cost tool like Power Automate which is 50% less expensive.

Power Automate offers very seamless integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, including Azure cloud services and other Microsoft products. In contrast, Automation Anywhere has to rely on external LLMs for integrations. If Automation Anywhere can improve the ease of these integrations and provide them natively within the platform, it would greatly enhance its appeal.

I have been working with Automation Anywhere for over the last eight years, although not extensively in my current role. In previous journeys, I have used it for around three to four years. Currently, we use Automation Anywhere, but not extensively.

At this moment, I'm not sure about the stability of Automation Anywhere, but in previous experiences, I faced challenges with stability, which required ticket submissions for support. We encountered several challenges related to platform and technical issues. For instance, sessions would occasionally get disconnected unexpectedly. In those cases, we would raise a ticket with the vendor to get support. However, since we haven't been using the system extensively, we haven't faced many issues.

All these automation platforms, including Automation Anywhere, are highly scalable; depending on volume, you can adjust the number of bots, scaling instantaneously in the cloud. For on-prem solutions, one must ensure they have the necessary infrastructure ready for scaling.

While it is easy to scale with Automation Anywhere, I have not experienced extensive scaling in my previous encounters. The maximum number of bots we had was around 20.

I haven't raised many tickets recently to evaluate their technical support, but I know they have a dedicated partner manager. It has been good in my previous experience.

Positive

We are also using UiPath, Blue Prism, Power Automate, and the Microsoft stack. Mainly, the license costs of UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism are high, so we use Power Automate and Power Platform heavily.

It is generally easy to deploy. We use Automation Anywhere with both AWS and Azure.

Maintenance is indeed required for Automation Anywhere; you have to follow the vendor's product patches and version upgrades to keep it maintained.

Upgrading Automation Anywhere follows a standard process that they provide detailed instructions for, and we adhere to those guidelines. The upgrade process feels similar to any other software platform; I don't find anything particularly complex or different about it.

There is a separate team for bot maintenance, and if the bots are stable, maintenance needs tend to be low. However, if issues arise, maintenance efforts can significantly increase.

The return on investment from Automation Anywhere varies based on the business case and the benefits versus costs involved; for simpler RPA use cases, ROI can typically be achieved within a year.

Pricing needs to be more competitive, both in terms of licenses and overall expenses. This is crucial because many use cases cannot be automated if it isn't cost-effective.

We have not extensively tried Automation Anywhere with business users because they have added a lot of AI features that are difficult for them to understand. We also do not want to encourage business users to create automations that do not comply with regulations, compliance, and best practices, which presents a risk. Therefore, we've only utilized it within the CoE team for now. 

For existing developers, the learning curve for Automation Anywhere is easy to pick up. However, for business users, it might take some time, especially if they lack a programming background.

I have heard about the Automation Co-Pilot, and it sounds very powerful and useful. The Co-Pilot can generate code based on a natural language prompt, which is a substantial feature as it can reduce development time by 30%-40%, allowing faster shipment of code to production. 

In terms of integration, Automation Anywhere acts as a tool used to develop automation that connects to various systems, such as SAP, Excel, Outlook, and web applications. It doesn't integrate with other solutions directly but helps in automating processes that involve multiple systems. The platform provides capabilities for building various integrations, and that is part of what they sell. Automation Anywhere is fundamentally an automation platform that enables performance across workflows, APIs, business applications, and documents. API integration is possible with Automation Anywhere, but if specific APIs do not already exist, there is no way to create a new API directly within the platform. For that, one needs to create a new API using languages such as Java, Python, or C# before integrating it with Automation Anywhere.

Our organization places high priority on automation and AI. We are using the Microsoft ecosystem for many of our use cases.

For organizations considering Automation Anywhere, I advise that if you are focusing on AI features such as Generative AI or agentic process automation, it's a great choice as they are front runners in incorporating these functionalities early on. However, if licensing costs are a concern, the Microsoft stack would be more beneficial.

I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

Right now, my use case for Automation Anywhere is that we're in the middle of an AP invoice automation project, automating invoice entry into our Oracle EBS system.

What I appreciate the most about using Automation Anywhere is that I find it very easy to use; the connectors are great, the layout's great, the functionality is great, and it just works, so it's pretty good. Using Automation Anywhere has improved our company significantly, as we are doing over eight to 10,000 invoices a month, which people had to do before, while now the automated process is doing that without too much human intervention, saving probably about at least two to possibly three FTEs per week.

Regarding the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Automation Anywhere, I think it could always be cheaper, but it seems fair and it's a good product. I think they should figure out a way to allow development environments that don't require licensing for unattended so I can test without taking away production licenses.

Automation Anywhere is already pretty robust and we have not run into a problem connecting everything; we connect everything from Office 365 to Oracle databases, to Oracle EBS systems, to Workday, to other systems, and I have not found a use case that Automation Anywhere hasn't been able to accommodate, so we are really happy with everything we've seen.

My biggest suggestion would be to allow us to set up test and development licenses or environments that don't use unattended licenses needed for production. Currently we have six licenses and can use only four in production due to the need for test licenses that don't get used often, sometimes just once a month, while we either have to switch them back and forth or deal with not having all the licenses we need. I understand they don't want abuse, but it seems having a better way to handle this could be beneficial.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for approximately nine months.

I have not really seen an impact yet from Automation Anywhere's visibility in the automation lifecycle, as we are in the very beginning of it, but it does look having a good framework.

Automation Anywhere has helped me overcome these challenges as it, along with another tool called Hyperscience, has completely changed how we process invoices, automating what humans used to do from beginning to end. Automation Anywhere has helped me achieve my automation goals, as we are in the middle of it and it's helping month after month, allowing us to continue to add suppliers and invoices while it just does what it needs to do.

I was not using another solution before Automation Anywhere. We started this journey with Automation Anywhere and have actually added Power Automate into the mix, especially around end users, as we're a big Microsoft shop and everybody has some form of a Power Automate license. We decided on Automation Anywhere over UiPath and Blue Prism based on what the product could do for us.

Document automation has impacted efficiency and productivity massively, as we are processing approximately 8 to 10,000 invoices every month, with probably another 8 to 10,000 more to go, different suppliers and a different accounting structure, and it handles everything we throw at it. I have measured the time saved by using document automation in document processing, approximately noticing we are at roughly three minutes per invoice, saving about 60 man-hours per week.

I don't know the biggest differences between Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism and UiPath, as I wasn't part of that conversation and I have not looked at Blue Prism or UiPath. My understanding of UiPath is that they claim to have a lot of features, though not much of it is as relevant as their marketing material might suggest. Regarding Power Automate, I have delved deep there too and noticed they struggle with having both cloud-based and desktop-based functionalities, making it difficult.

The main challenge I was trying to solve by intelligent process automation around AP invoices was that the current AP team had a backlog of a couple months of invoices, taking them quite a long time, and it didn't become feasible to keep adding more people to a team that already had many, so they needed a solution and the automated process was that solution, allowing us to grow and add more invoices and suppliers without needing more people and reducing the backlog to under a week.

I am not utilizing the AI Agent Studio in my automation process yet, as we don't have a license for that, but we're exploring it. Both I and another person on the team are in training that Automation Anywhere had a few weeks back for agent AI, which is really interesting and we're excited about, though we don't have a license for it just yet.

My impression of the AI governance features in maintaining compliance and data integrity within my company is that we are just starting to explore that, and it looks very helpful. We are setting up a Center of Automation to solidify those rules and needs for governance, and the tool itself seems to do a good job at facilitating that.

I am starting to utilize Automation Anywhere CoE, as once we started getting most of the invoices in, we are having meetings about starting this project this week and next month. I perceive the cloud-based nature of Automation Anywhere CoE Manager as effective for managing our automation pipeline. We use the SaaS product exclusively at this point without anything installed internally, except for some internal machines that have Automation Anywhere installed from a client perspective.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Automation Anywhere a 10.

Our main use cases for Automation Anywhere are across finance functions and accounting functions, such as helping with the monthly close. We are evaluating multiple processes for standardization across our locations, helping with any repeatable month-to-month processes, and identifying where automation can provide value as a tool across multiple systems. 

We have been reaching out to various finance departments and conducting process mining while focusing on repeatable processes. More importantly, we are trying to push the edge to introduce some Artificial Intelligence and more complex decision-making, venturing beyond just simple if-then processes.

We have been using Automation Anywhere for about two and a half years now, focusing strictly on migrating over 100 automations from Blue Prism in the first year. Lately, there has been a focus on developing new automations, trying to take advantage of the latest technology with Automation Anywhere, and seeing where that technology can be applied in various areas of our business.

Some features of Automation Anywhere that I find most valuable are its ease of use, making it much more user-friendly than Blue Prism, the tool we transitioned from. Our IT support encountered difficulties supporting those automations. With Automation Anywhere, we have a much easier time supporting and developing new automations. Additionally, we have experienced great support from Automation Anywhere, having weekly meetings where they suggest best practices with the latest releases and are always available for support when needed, ensuring the successful onboarding of new automations.

We have factories all across the world, with locations in Korea, Taiwan, Japan, all across Asia, and even Portugal, so my responsibility is to identify where those automations can best be applied, whether specific to those locations or as a universal automation applicable across many locations. I have been working to establish a finance center of excellence and working closely with Automation Anywhere to see how it can be universally applied as well.

We have recently started to use document automation in our processes, particularly in our Korea factory, where our counterparts are migrating from their original OCR technology to utilize Automation Anywhere's solution. We are finding it to be a much better solution, as it is not very one-dimensional the previous one, allowing us to integrate it with some of our current RPAs.

Automation Anywhere plans to integrate with various other solutions. Whether through APIs or integrating Azure Tech solutions, I am thrilled because some of our current work not specific to Automation Anywhere should be integrated with its solutions. I appreciate their open-minded approach to making it more universal and applicable to everything else.

I would wish for a greater focus on citizen development, which is a priority for our company.

We have been using Automation Anywhere for about two and a half years now, focusing strictly on migrating over 100 automations from Blue Prism in the first year.

Using Automation Anywhere has been very stable and reliable. The team supporting us keeps us informed about the latest releases, and if any changes could affect existing automations, we are always kept up to date. We receive notifications through email and our weekly updates about any potential impacts. So far, we have not experienced any adverse effects since implementation, and I do not foresee any reasons to expect issues in the future.

Automation Anywhere scales well with our needs for the growth we have planned at our company. We are pursuing several AI initiatives, currently strategizing to roll out Azure Tech AI solutions alongside various use cases. As we are using Microsoft Copilot for our AI agents, I look forward to integrating it with Automation Anywhere and its solutions, seeing it as a beneficial partnership as Automation progresses toward AI as the main solution.

I think Automation Anywhere's customer support is fantastic. They are consistently available when we need them. I would wish for a greater focus on citizen development, which is a priority for our company. However, whenever we have questions or needs, they are always addressed. We really have not encountered any issues with customer support.

Prior to adopting Automation Anywhere, we were also considering UiPath, as some of our factories moved forward with their own solutions and IT teams exploring RPA options. However, Blue Prism was the main tool across the company. 

In evaluating Automation Anywhere against UiPath, Automation Anywhere emerged as the winner due to its ease of use. Everyone appreciated the drag-and-drop features of the tool and felt most comfortable with it, aligning with our company's strong focus on citizen development, which is why Automation Anywhere became our chosen tool.

The deployment of Automation Anywhere went smoothly. They were very supportive with the migration of all of our existing automations and also being there and supportive with the development of the new automations. 

The team was fantastic. They're continuing to support and track not only migration, but encouraging us to bring on new automations as soon as possible. We're trying to keep up with them pushing us, which is great.

The team was fantastic, providing ongoing support not only for migration but also encouraging us to bring on new automations as soon as possible.

Some benefits I have tracked from using Automation Anywhere relate to the Finance Automation COE I established. We are reviewing all automations to track metrics for time and money saved, with the most recent evaluation showing over $20,000 saved per quarter just from our finance automations. We plan to expand our estimates to include all automations in the company, but it is encouraging to see real value being generated from Automation Anywhere and its tools. This tracking allows us to monitor progress and promote additional automations, inspiring others to implement them as well.

I was not directly involved in the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Automation Anywhere.

Prior to adopting Automation Anywhere, we were also considering UiPath. Some of our factories moved forward with their own solutions, and IT teams are exploring RPA options. Largely, across our organization, Blue Prism was the main tool. Automation Anywhere ended up winning out thanks to its ease of use and citizen development tools.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a perfect ten out of ten, considering it is significantly better than what we had before. We had some exposure to UiPath and other solutions, however, for our specific needs, a ten is justified as this solution fits our model well.