We use it to develop bots.
Use cases: We do Excel operations if we have to download any file from a portal to do any Excel operations. We send these outputs to our business customers.
Bots are specific for each customer.
We use it to develop bots.
Use cases: We do Excel operations if we have to download any file from a portal to do any Excel operations. We send these outputs to our business customers.
Bots are specific for each customer.
Most of the tasks that our organization used to do were manual. We automated our internal processes so it would give us FTE benefits and work would be done in less time. This also saves us time and FTE benefits.
The most valuable feature is the Excel operations because the most repetitive task which we used to do was Excel operations. Automation Anywhere has the Excel commands feature where we can run Excel Macros, which is very valuable. It's saving so much time for us.
We have our limitations. We can run only VBScripts and one more thing. If we want to run Python scripts or batch files, we cannot do it. So, if they would add these extra things in there then that would be beneficial.
I have to add in Excel commands because it is a limited feature, as we only have five to six commands. Suppose we have a spreadsheet and we have to get the counts for how many rows were filled, we have to do it through a Macro or VB. We have to write a separate code and call through Automation Anywhere. If they added in this inbuilt feature into Automation Anywhere that would be helpful for us.
Stability is pretty good. If we want the code to be stable, then we have to handle it in a particular way. We have to utilize the tool in the best way. An example is if there is a web page, and it gets refreshed every time, then the odd properties will get refreshed. If it is the UI making changes, then the properties will get refreshed. So, we can utilize error handling in the best way and make use of it. Instead of failing, we can make it run, making it more robust.
We have so many use cases. When customers come to us, they'll ask for a very simple use case, they will not know the features of Automation Anywhere and what we can automate. Once they get to know it after we automate one process, they will want more features which they'll ask for. They'll give us more use cases for us to do.
We have done many bigger tasks. If the customers are doing it manually, it will take them 12 to 24 hours. But, if they're doing it through Automation Anywhere, it will done in half an hour to an hour.
Automation Anywhere gives quick responses to any request when we used to reach out to them. Then, they will response and work with us to get it fixed. I have multiple experience like that.
I was partially involved, not fully involved, when they were doing the IT Bot setup and migrating to latest version. It went well because the Automation Anywhere team was there. They helped us migrate from the older version to the latest version. Whatever code that we had written in the older version, that needed to be migrated to latest version. With all these things, they helped us out.
Automation Anywhere helped us if our bots should be in their Control Room, if they were migrating or adding extra features. Then, they would take care of it. I don't know much about what would be in the background.
They asked me to use Automation Anywhere and I went through studying the others, UiPath and Blue Prism. Automation Anywhere is user-friendly, and if you're automating, then it's good for developers.
I'll give Automation Anywhere an eight (out of 10). They lost two points for the Excel commands. We have so many things to do in Excel, but we have very limited commands for it. We need to use Macros. We also have to know extra coding languages, like VBScripts.
I lead the automation team in UI. In the UI, we automate mostly PDF and shared devices, then most web applications. For large volumes, we mostly automate PDFs.
I have enjoyed using all the features of this tool, not just one feature, e.g., object cloning, Excel automation, and the web recorder.
The tool is very easy to use and mostly user-friendly. I like that when using it I don't need much expertise.
With the IQ Bots that use AI, I want to see more features using that type of machine learning and artificial intelligence in their products.
It is a very scalable product. With the market, every time and every day, we can scale it.
It is very easy to interact with the support team for Automation Anywhere whenever it's required. Sometimes, if the training is required, they would visit our premises. We can also visit their premises. In terms of training and product support, if you have any challenges as a developer, they help all the time. It is very easy to connect with them.
It is very straightforward.
I have seen a huge difference in how it is improving products.
I use them mostly. I would recommend it to all my friends and team. I encourage team member to use it, even those who are not from a technical background. They can also move to Automation Anywhere, use, and can learn from it. If they go to use Automation Anywhere University and other training tools, the training materials are available for them. So, it's very easy to learn as well. Different platforms and technology members have also moved to use the RPA platform, and are now using the Automation Anywhere tool.
I'd give it a nine point two out of 10. There is still a way to go for Automation Anywhere where we can see improvement. Mostly, we want to see more artificial intelligence and machine learning. Now, I can see only this mostly in the IQ Bot where we construct the data from PDFs. I also want to see more features where we can use the artificial intelligence in automating tasks as well.
I started my career in RPA tools. It's five years for me working in RPA. I have automated different type of use cases in different businesses, like finance, insurance, banking, capital marketing, and manufacturing. There are a lot of areas where I have implemented use cases using the Automation Anywhere tool.
If I compare Automation Anywhere with different tools available in market, there are few things which make Automation Anywhere different than the others, like IQ Bot, which is not available in another tool as of now. IQ Bot is a very nice feature in Automation Anywhere, which gets me the structured data from the unstructured data, and we know wise processing is a familiar use case used in any kind of organization. Another one is a MetaBot which allows for doing offline development, using DLL, using screen calibration, and configuration. These are the main features that I've used. It is a great tool.
In terms of development for our developers, it is very easy and quick to learn because Automation Anywhere has provided an online academy where developers can easily learn the features. It is very easy. If someone does not have a coding background, they can also learn from it very easily because it is just drag and drop and very interactive.
It's a very stable product. It has been five years for me working in RPA. I started with Automation Anywhere only. I developed so many processes in different areas. If I talk about the banking sector, security is a must. It is providing all sort of securities here, like Credential Manager. Also, this tool is very stable and consistent.
It is a very good scalable product because the MetaBot provides a feature where we can reuse our code for whatever we have developed. We can use it in different areas with the same code. It is reusable. So, it is a scalable product.
Until now, whenever we required any help regarding technical support, we got it from Automation Anywhere. So, definitely the technical support is 10 out of 10. We are very happy. Today, I'm very excited to be part of these bot games.
We were already using it when I joined the organization.
It is very straightforward. Today, in the learning track, I was looking at the latest feature which is coming in A2019, which is very nice, because it is a web-based. So, we can do our development while sitting from anywhere. We don't need any type of installation. It's a web-based. Nowadays, everyone has the Internet. So, it is very easy.
I started my journey from Accenture, which is service based company. There, I worked on multiple tools, like RPA products, including Automation Anywhere, Uipath, and Blue Prism. So, I have experience in these three tools.
Both Automation Anywhere and UiPath are leaders in the market. Both tools are providing capabilities which are good. For me, the main differentiator here is the IQ Bot, which is not available as of now in UiPath. If you want to do invoice processing and all, we go for the whole CS. IQ Bot, which is already an Automation Anywhere feature, is one very big differentiator from other RPA tools. Another one is definitely MetaBot because it give me a reusable component which I can plug and play anywhere that I can use. MetaBot can also provide inline development because sometimes the interact is not there. We can just record the screen, then we can do our development and deploy it. Sometimes what can happen in an enterprise, a screen may undergo some changes. So, MetaBot is capable enough to detect those changes, which is not available as of now in other tools. There are more AI capabilities here.
This RPA tool is a leader in the market.
I have had a very good experience working with Automation Anywhere.
We are using Automation Anywhere for multiple automation processes. There are multiple clients with KPMG who have many automations going on.
In finance and accounting companies, they ask for report generations and record fetching from some data source type of tasks. They want it to be fetched and exported into forms, charts, etc. using automation. The task will happen when triggers are required based on some data sources. It is the data that will be exported and sent over mail. These tasks are mainly focused on organizations.
No other competitor has this email trigger, so it saves a lot of time if you automate the process. We don't need to fix a time for a task to run. It gives the feature of on demand execution for any task. Whenever a user wants, it can send a mail and get the task done as soon as possible. That is our main feature, I feel.
There are multiple features, like PDF integrations, which are coming up. Task-related features to PDF integrations are coming up nowadays, so people want those executed and improved a lot in Automation Anywhere.
For improvement, I would like to see Automation Anywhere integrating with multiple other technologies. As of now, it is integrating with .NET. When it come to future technologies, I want Automation Anywhere to integrate with Python scripts, and make the execution easier. That will be very helpful, having our cognitive technologies interacting with Automation Anywhere.
On the basis of rating, I'll give a 90 percent to the process being stable. The remaining 10 percent is based on the change in the environment. If you change the environment from development to production or some other environment, then there are minor glitches which come into the process. But, that also can be handled a bit easier in Automation Anywhere.
It is very scalable. If we come to the point where we need to increase the number of bots in a process, for different countries or teams, we can add multiple bots and Bot Runners to the process, then we can execute. This gives a lot of scalability to the process.
The technical support team was very helpful on on our development. There were many cases where we needed their support and urgency. They gave a lot of support to us. They responded well quickly. That's what is required for our development or developer team, so I'm a bit happy with our technical support team from Automation Anywhere.
It's a bit straightforward. If you go through the user manual of Automation Anywhere, the stuff with automation there is quite easy. A layman or common man, who is new to the Automation Anywhere can install it quickly. So, it's easy.
There are a lot of savings in terms of effort and time as well as costs. Automation Anywhere automates a lot of processes. It allows an organization to save the efforts of a lot people. It saves a lot of time because people can't work a whole day (24/7), but Automation Anywhere bots can.
I'll rate it near an eight (out of 10) for Automation Anywhere. I'm giving this rating because the first thing which can be improved is integrating multiple technologies like Python, which can enable the developer and the process to run in a much better, faster way. The second thing is the automation that is available in Automation Anywhere can be improved. This will help other use cases to run.
I've been part of multiple bot automations ranging from different sectors from finance to retail to banking over four years during which I have implemented multiple bots.
The primary use case for Automation Anywhere is something related to financial and banking operations. Because the financial and banking operations are something which we do repetitively and need to be done with a lot of time. A perfect use case for RPA is something which is repetitive and has a lot of work. Use cases in the financial and banking sectors are something where we have multiple invoices to process multiple transactions. These two sectors are important sectors as use cases for RPA.
There are multiple features which are valuable. One such feature in Automation Anywhere is the object cloning command. Because with the object cloning command, I am able to work with websites and also with Window Operations. I have worked with other tools using this object cloning command. It is easy for a developer to just drag a command and clone whatever features or actions they want.
I also have an option to modify according to my user inputs when using object cloning. There is one command which impresses me in Automation Anywhere that other tools lack. It gives me the image quality that I need.
There are a couple of features that I would like AA to improve upon in their next releases. One is the PDF automation. Of course, AA has come up IQ Bot which scans PDF documents. I feel that IQ Bot has not reached its mark. With financial and banking, we have multiple invoices that we have to process in our top use cases. Typically, these invoices come in a PDF file. So, PDF automation is the one automation that we want them to concentrate on.
The second feature which I would like them to concentrate on is the work items concept. AA has come up with this in version 11, but I want them to more like competitors in the market for the next releases.
The stability of the process has improved from version 10 to version 11. The version 11 is the current version, and that is what I am working in. So, I have seen good improvements in terms of stability, but I still want some development in terms the stability. We run these bots in multiple environments from staging to development to production. We find usually in the production environment when we run the bots for them to be stable for a week or two. After a week or two, we see some glitches here and there, though the application doesn't change much. This is one feature which I want Automation Anywhere to work on: Increasing stability.
I'm impressed with the scalability. We are able to do changes. We are able to scale from different environments now with the Control Room in version 10 and 11. The scalability is pretty good. It is up to the mark of the other market competitors.
The technical support is something that I rely on if I have any queries or if I have to work on another alternate approach. I've been working with Automation Anywhere for four years, and during that time, the technical support that AA provides has been very good. They usually resolve the tickets that I raise in 24 hours and have come up with a knowledge base based on previous tickets that other people have raised. They have created something called a knowledge base, where before raising a ticket, I can just go to the knowledge base and see whether people have faced similar issues before and how AA has given a solution. So, in terms of technical support, I feel like AA is doing a pretty good job.
I've seen different versions of Automation Anywhere. They have evolved the setup, so even a newbie who comes to RPA or Automation Anywhere with the setup installation document that they provide, it's straightforward because all the steps are mentioned in the document. I've seen that even a newbie can install Automation Anywhere. So, the document that they provide is top notch for installation.
I have personally worked on an insurance use case where there were production teams 24/7. With the bots that we developed, they were able to do the ticketing and production support. There are multiple scenarios where the development of Automation Anywhere has improved cost efficiency and worker efficiency too.
I would rate them an eight (out of 10). Why not a 10? Because I want them to concentrate on the PDF automation and work items. I see these two things as something which have a lot of scope in RPA in the future. If AA comes up with these couple of features, I'm sure it will be a 10 (out of 10) in version 12.
Most of our use cases have to do with Excel reconciliations, data entry or capturing data and entering it into a different portal or reconciling into Excel.
We have a lot of clients who have to track Excel work, or there may be data validation or reconciliation's to be done. In alignment with our primary use and because we are an audit firm, our primary purpose is basically to compare entered data and do data matching or verification. It is best for us to get quick output, and Automation Anywhere has been withstanding our benchmarks for performance. Whenever we have a goal or deadline to meet demands from clients in doing volume processing, it helps us to meet all those projections. We prefer the tool, and we are Automation Anywhere partners.
The time from the installation to the execution of deployment is not very long, so it is a better solution for us than something else which would not allow us to provide results as quickly.
The most valuable feature would be that it is easy to use. Second, we have flexibility in terms of scalability on our support systems. The functionality of the product enables us in terms of the type of projects we can take and helps in advancing our business prospects.
Alert transition is happening in the Python space and on the front lines of AI and with other tools. You have the opportunity to use different data blending tools and data manipulation tools. It would be good if Automation Anywhere could make more plugins available to use with a greater variety of tools and additional options. I think it would be a better product if it had a greater capability for integration.
Stability-wise and from a security standpoint as well, the tool is very robust. I feel Automation Anywhere is better compared to other automation tools.
This product scales easily. You can just plug-and-play with whatever components you want to use. You can just add in things easily and you can scale it up.
Whenever we are stuck at any point where we don't know something about a feature, we just reach out to the support team. Their ability and knowledge have been very helpful to us.
I was not involved in the decision to adopt Automation Anywhere as that decision was made before I was part of the company. I came in during a phase where we were scaling up on the new deployment. They made the change to Automation Anywhere to more actively adopt the possibilities of automation.
One thing that's very good about the setup is that it is one-click. You just have to click to start the installation and then you configure everything as you go through the installation. One of the best parts of using the product for us is that it is easy to install and configure which fits in our business model.
We are resellers as well as implementation partners and channel partners. So we have been through and are involved in all the phases of implementation and deployment. We are the vendor team.
We have been able to witness a return on the investment. We have had clients where their scope was very broad and we have helped them reach their goals. The ROI that we see is not an instantaneous one because it occurs over time while you build out processes. Here and there you have greater success and the target for return on investment is made up over time.
As far as costs, it depends on your use. We started with a basic department pack, which is over 10K. The additional costs depend on the scale of the engagement and how it pans out. We customize to our needs on the go.
I have worked with Automation Anywhere on nine versions, including the 10.3 and 10.7 versions. It has been improving all along as they make further releases.
Considering that experience, on a scale of one to ten, with one being the worst and ten being the best, I would rate Automation Anywhere somewhere around 8.5. It is one of the market leaders in their market segment. They have obviously proven their success and adaptability to the market enough to be very good at what they do. But I am scoring in terms of flexibility and in being more open-ended towards developer plans and preferences. In order to score nine or ten, they still need to provide more flexibility and integration with other tools and options.
My advice to people who are considering Automation Anywhere as a solution, is that you have to approach a decision from the point of view of what you want to accomplish. You can just go out and pick up a tool, but you have to actually dig into it and work on it. Automation Anywhere is a very good tool because it helps you along the process. The kind of support that you get from the community, as well as the partner enablement team, is encouraging. You can take it step-by-step. There will be some handholding from Automation Anywhere team. Our status as members of the customer success team is in the future. That kind of support and community helps new partners, existing partner, or those who are looking forward to becoming a partner.
We use this solution to automate tasks for which multiple steps have to be done.
We do it a very large number of times in a day.
We have been able to automate tasks that have a lot of repetitiveness.
The most valuable feature is the object cloning.
The user interface is easy to use.
While we have been developing over time, there have been issues with stability.
The speed of automation needs to be improved.
This solution is not that stable.
We have been able to scale ok.
I implemented this solution for my company.
This is a solution that I recommend.
We are looking forward to trying the IQ Bot to help with reading, scanning, and querying of files.
This solution has a wonderful concept, but the stability needs to be improved.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
I have done a lot of use cases. Recently, I have done SAP automation. I worked with MS Excel, a web application, a Windows application, and a mainframe application. We automated three to four applications at once. We automated them in a row where one application's output would be input for another application.
I have done development and production support. I have helped organizations with integration.
The Visual Studio development for the basic version, which they launched long back, that's amazingly good. It has a good design, which is better than Blue Prism and somewhat better than UiPath.
They have good people.
Citrix automation is unstable. It is failing on a frequent basis. With the bot, they claim a lot of things, but it is not the real picture. It is not as powerful as they claim. It is not up to the mark.
Once I'm friendly with a tool, then I'll start checking the stability and power of it. It is not there with Automation Anywhere.
The management people don't know the technicalities. The actual tool is not as powerful as they claim. They are pitching the IQ Bot, but it's not as powerful or as fruitful in real world scenarios as it should be.
The user analytics are not analytics.
Their Community Edition is awful. Every second day, it will fail. It will become corrupt.
Stability depends on your use case and what type application you are automating.
Stability is good, RPA is a emerging field, so you can't expect a lot of stability. You develop things and the maintenance is there.
Stability depends on the applications being developed. E.g., if it's a Windows application, they are already stable. Doing automation is not a big thing, but doing automation with little maintenance, that is a big thing.
Scalabilty is good.
The technical support is good.
Their marketing team is good.
The initial setup is good.
I am the person with does the integration. I am developer. I can develop an application in three weeks (done and dusted). After moving it to production, there are a lot of challenges. Then, I am spending three hours of my bandwidth being occupied every day with maintenance.
RPA implementation will be always fruitful. Return on investment will be always higher than the input costs.
Automation Anywhere is a bit more expensive. This is one of the things that we face when we talk to small start ups in Bangalore. They want to do an RPA implementation, but don't have the money. UiPath is the answer.
We have done a lot of complex automation using different RPA tools: Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Blue Prism.
UiPath is a bit better. UiPath is a bit strong in fewer areas, such as Citrix automation. Citrix automation is like a thin client automation. For applications not present on your local machine and in the cloud, UiPath is more powerful. With RPA, you can automate things. Howe, are those automations stable? That is another question. In order to stabilize automation of thin client, UiPath is more powerful. There are few other features which are better than Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere.
UiPath has amazing scalability, while Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism are good.
UI Path is leading the market. There is no doubt about it. They have their own challenges. They aren't flawless.
UiPath Visual Studio is not good. It is messy. Automation Anywhere Visual Studio integration is smooth and user-friendly.
Automation Anywhere is good in some parts with their Smart Recorder that they they are launching in A2019, that is there but yes they are leading. They are putting in real hard work and emerging. They are in second place as of now in the RPA world.