Automation Anywhere Reviews

We are an Automation Anywhere partner and we use it in the finance domain, in areas like B2B or B2C, etc. We also use it in HR and other domains for our clients. We have used it for vendor-invoice processing and recruitment. Those are our two major use cases as of now.

We have automated the recruitment and onboarding process for one of our clients. In that scenario, it has saved a lot of time. A process that used to take seven to ten days has now been reduced to half an hour. It has created a lot of efficiency.

It has also helped in terms of security because of all the off-boarding processes that we have automated. If an employee leaves, all his security access, email IDs, etc., are disabled on that same day. That person no longer has access to work on the company's domain.

IQ Bot is one of the most valuable features because it helps in processing different formats from different vendors.

As of now, it's only available on Windows machines. I would love if it were to also be available for Mac machines. That is something which is lacking as of now.

A cloud version was also missing, but now, with the new A2019 version, that's coming.

When I compare Automation Anywhere with the competition, some of the competitors have ready-made, off-the-shelf modules. For example, UiPath integrates with Windows AD. That is missing as of now in Automation Anywhere. If that became available it would also be great.

Stability-wise, it's a fine product. We haven't faced any major challenges up until now.

Scalability is also great. You automate one process and replicate it again and again.

For example, one of our clients has global operations. What we automated in one country, we were able to implement around the globe. We were also able to just keep on adding on new virtual machines in a given location, to have more and more processes automated. 

It's easy to scale.

Technical support is great. We have raised multiple queries over time and the results have been really good. The responses have been really good and fast. The feedback I have heard is that they get back to us same-day or, if not, the next day.

We had a good due-diligence process before we finalized. We compared different aspects like security, reliability, and compliance. AA scored high on the compliance front, so that's why we went with it.

The initial setup is straightforward. I don't see any complexity involved.

We have seen ROI in areas I mentioned earlier like time savings. We have seen good results.

The product starts at $10,000 and then it's up to you regarding how much you can consume. Comparatively speaking, the costs are higher for Automation Anywhere.

It's a good product. Compared to the competition, you can do multiple processes with one license. So there are a lot of savings in terms of license costs. It's easy to use and has good, UI-based interaction. It's easy to deploy as well. Clients can also train their own staff to do easy implementations, so they can save costs there as well.

I would rate Automation Anywhere at eight out of ten. There is always scope for improvement. There are a few ready-made things that they need to incorporate.

I use automation for finance. For example, SAP, Oracle, and other applications. In the past nine months, I have automated approximately thirty-five hundred hours. Next year we expect to reach at least eighty-five hundred hours.

All of my leaders are pushing us to use automation because they're thinking that other companies are ahead of us. I am looking forward to working on the IQ Bot to see how it might make my life easier.

Recently, the auditors were looking for a tool to assist them with checking incidents. For the American region, there were between twenty-seven and thirty thousand incidents, which as a human we cannot search manually. For each one, they have to check what the incident is, and verify whether they have the proper data. Because the audit was only going to run for one or two months, they wanted the results in ten days. I spent about one and a half days building a bot and started running it. The bot was moved to production, and within seven days, I was able to get all of the details in Excel format to them. They can filter it, see whatever fields are empty, and they can do the audit. They got one hundred percent sampling, which they were happy about. Our plan now is to sell the Bot to the project owners so that instead of having the auditor catch problems, they can run it every month and see what improvements they need and where it is lagging. The bot will educate the team.

The MetaBot is a very good feature that allows me to do things that were not available in earlier versions. I can now run multiple commands, instead of just one.

It is easy to develop using this solution, and it doesn't take much technical skill. It is very easy to integrate any of the macros or DB scripts. It is easy to find people who can work with this solution, unlike Blue Prism, where it is hard to get candidates.

I would like to have the MetaBot screen name title dynamic instead of static. This would allow us to use wild card entries and make our lives much easier. As it is now, we cannot automate using MetaBot because the screen name changes. The only way it can be done is to use multiple MetaBots.

We are having a problem when trying to automate the opening of very large Excel files. One example is our 70MB Excel file, which normally takes approximately twenty minutes to open. Automation Anywhere crashes before it opens, so we moved it to Instaknow-ACE, which is another RPA tool. It imports the Excel file, creates its own database, and then you perform whatever operation you want. After this, it generates the output result without crashing. If this were fixed in Automation Anywhere then it would be a large benefit because we are in a phase of moving away from smaller automation. We are doing a lot with bigger data, and most of it is still in Excel files instead of a database. It isn't the fault of Automation Anywhere because it is Excel that is crashing, but we need to have a feature where Automation Anywhere can import Excel files directly.

The stability of this solution needs to be improved.

The OCR capability needs to be improved to be made more accurate.

Compared to earlier versions it's a lot more stable, but it still needs a lot of improvement in terms of the OCR. We are getting more OCR projects where we have to scan and get data from contracts and give it to the auditors, or other people. The data includes things like region and the product that was ordered. It is very difficult for me to scan because I can't tell customers that it isn't accurate. Sometimes, it will read the letter "I" as the number one, which is one of the issues we are facing. The upper management thinks that everything is ok, but as a developer, I know that there is a problem. If you were to come to me and ask for an OCR to be done, I could only guarantee you about eighty percent accuracy. If I tell the customer that there might be twenty percent errors, they may not be happy.

Scalability is very good. Compared to others, Automation Anywhere is on top.

We have more than eight hundred developers in our company, and most do not have a technical background.

I do not deal with technical support directly. We have a COE who deal with technical support, and my team speaks with them. If there is a problem that they cannot fix then they go to Automation Anywhere.

Our COE took care of the implementation of this solution.

What it takes a human ten hours to do, automation should complete it in one hour. In the past ten months, I have saved the work of two people. People are happy with the results.

We are still in the procurement process for IQ Bot, but I am looking forward to seeing how it is going to help me.

My advice for anybody who is considering RPA is to use Automation Anywhere because it is easier. You can learn it, but if you go for other solutions then it will be more difficult. Not all of the people in our company are from a technical background. Many are BCOM graduates and analysts, but they are being trained in using this solution.

This is a good solution, but it still needs improvement and there is a long way to go. Artificial Intelligence still needs to be added.

If they allow the direct import of data from Excel, improve the OCR, and allow variables to be used in the MetaBot start screen, then this solution would be perfect.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for automating our business processes that make up our daily operations.

We have a set of steps that we follow for each of our processes. We devise inputs for these steps and then prepare them for automation. The automation then completes and publishes the results.

The automation that we have run on a daily basis helps us by saving a lot of time.

We have a process where we sell products, and using this solution means that we don't need to dedicate somebody to get this work done. Once we get the input file and prepare it, we run the automation. It completes overnight, and the next morning the results are available.

The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use. It has drag-and-drop features, which makes it very fast for us to gather the required data.

I would like to be able to look at the steps that are completed as a process is running.

It would be helpful if we could start running a process from a particular step.

In the drag-and-drop interface, it would be helpful to have interactive hints, or notes, about what is happening and what the different choices are. This would make it easier to learn.

With respect to stability, we haven't had any issues from what we have heard.

The scalability of this solution is really high. You don't think of it as a process, but rather, part of a process. Once you automate the individual parts, you tie everything together.

We have not used technical support for this solution.

We had different people come in and set up the process for us, initially. After that, I started putting in the automation myself, and it is becoming faster and pretty easy for me.

For anybody who is implementing this solution, I recommend they get help from Automation Anywhere to help understand the best way to do their automation. This will help with the development of the bots. This is what we did, and we now have a framework for building the rest of our processes.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are a solution provider and we use this solution to help our customers with internal processes. For example, we help them with the automation of information processing tools.

From a manageability perspective, this solution is very good. It's just understandable, and this has helped a lot.

The most valuable feature of this solution is drag-and-drop. You don't need to be a coding genius to create a bot. It has a simple interface.

From what I have seen with the IQ Bot, it is very impressive and I think it is going to solve a lot of problems that we face right now.

The cost of this solution can be improved. We have written applications that do the same thing as Automation Anywhere, but for less cost.

When it comes to stability, there are a lot of dependencies. The bot, itself, I would say has always been good for us. The only problems that we have had are when the tools change, the bot has to be enhanced. That is something that is unavoidable.

Compared to other RPA tools, I think Automation Anywhere is very scalable.

For example, we have written simple applications where they do one thing today, but tomorrow they may add something else to it. They're developing an additional, or expanded version of the bot, and it is always simple. In this way, the scalability is pretty good.

The only problem we've had is when we need to expand the userbase. This is because of the ports attached to it.

We do reach out to Automation Anywhere technical support and it definitely helps.

In the beginning, it was a little bit complex and difficult for us to understand how to get things running. We reached out to technical support for help.

Initially, we had planned on going simple. Then, we wanted to be centralized and have a cloud-based environment, which is where we were facing a lot of challenges. One of the challenges was DB connectivity for accessing SAP, which was a security issue. We also had some trouble automating web pages.

Initially, we did see ROI. The problem is that we could not re-use those licenses. One license is not going to be running for twenty-four hours. We considered planning and scheduling to make the best of this, but its split across multiple teams, so there are multiple license requirements. Not everything has huge savings attached.

I have worked with other RPA solutions, such as UiPath.

We are looking forward to having the capability of building the IQ Bots the way we want, using Python scripts. With our scripting, we can fill in the gaps and improve accuracy.

My advice to anybody who is researching RPA solutions is to consider several things. I can see that the path that Automation Anywhere has right now is going to take it to the highest levels. My suggestion is that if you have a lot of coding or scripting experience then I would recommend UiPath. It has its own plusses and minuses, as with every tool.

Instead, if you're looking for someone that can you you build a bot within a short time, who doesn't know any coding or have a background in programming, then I recommend Automation Anywhere. You cut out the cost of developers, but you add to your cost in terms of licenses.

Also, for manageability, Automation Anywhere is the best choice.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

The primary use case is to automate any type of process, mostly for payments, wealth management, and loans.

The bots replicate human behavior in front of a computer.

We are automating all our mundane processes, making people more creative.

• The most valuable feature is its Control Room.
• It is a user-friendly tool for developers and easy to learn.
• The product is easy to integrate.
• As a tool, IQ Bot is easy to use, powerful, and very competitive compared to others.

I would like a better code migration solution, because this is something that we do a lot.

It is a complex solution to make stable.

It is a powerful tool for scaling that sometimes makes the process seamless.

It took one year to scale to the amount of bots that we are currently using.

The technical support is very helpful. We have almost 24/7 support. We also have a representative who works closely with us to make sure everything get resolved as quickly as possible.

We did not use another solution previously.

The initial setup was complex.

The first time, we used an integrator for deployment. They were good, but we don't work with them anymore. Now, we work with Automation Anywhere.

We measure our ROI by the money that we save.

Our annual licensing costs are about $500,000.

We did not consider another vendor.

It is a great company with a great product and support. You should consider this tool if you want something powerful and user-oriented.

While I haven't taken any courses through Automation Anywhere University yet, my team has.

The primary use case is for day-to-day activities. We are also automating the activities that the SMEs are doing.

We are an agriculture-based company. We have automated finance, HR and MDM for B2B. We have automated more than 300 processors within a year and a half. 

Human errors have been rectified due to bot usage.

• We can easily use the drag and drop.
• We can connect to the OCR capabilities. 
• We use the MetaBot and IQ Bot. 

We could use more accuracy with IQ Bot.

We want to automate fully with Citrix. However, we are only able to do this at 70 to 80 percent.

The stability is good. We have not had any downtime.

Everyone uses it.

The technical support is great and responsive. Whatever issues we face in the production or our environment, the support team will help us within a short amount time. This is helpful to us when automating all our processes.

Last week we had some issues with our current version, the technical support rectified the issues with a day.

We went with RPA to reduce human errors.

It's easy to set up.

We install the Automation Anywhere Control Room and VMWare on our clients' machines.

Our customers have seen ROI.

Customers chose Automation Anywhere because it is good to use. Security-wise, it matches the competition in the market.

I would definitely recommend Automation Anywhere. From a technical perspective, developers can easily create bots and get things done with this tool.

Day-to-day, the Automation Anywhere improvements have been good.

We use it more in finance and HR processes, such as payment processing or validation of data. It is used to validated data from two different systems or putting that data into an application. There are multiple use cases.

It has changed our mindset. People have started to think about automating things and come up with new perspectives, alternatives, or improvements by which automation can be implemented.

• Service
• User experience
• Feature coming out soon in the RPA.

It is user-friendly and quick to complete automation.

There are security certifications on the tool, but there are still places where our organization has highlighted that there needs to be an improvement on data-related encryption. That is something which needs to be changed or improved.

My main worry is about the security. My organization is very concerned about the data. Data in transit is mostly covered through encryption or TLS 1.2, but there are few things which have been identified which need to be improved.

We need a better way of getting upgrades or defect fixes. It is creating problems for us, as we have to go for a completely new version. Maintaining and managing existing bots, then coming up with new ones takes a lot of time. We would rather have a batch fix than an installation to an installation.

It is a stable platform with a few exceptions. Overall, it's a dependable platform which we can use for RPA.

We have faced issues with the upgrade. As an organization, we can't afford to have periodic migrations. Automation Anywhere is often coming out with new releases. If it's a bug fix or a patch update, that is a good thing. However, if it is a complete switchover or an installation, that needs proper planning. Obviously, time is consumed for this.

It has a scope for increasing which is what we are targeting. We are having sessions in our organization where people are coming up with more use cases.

We have been happy with technical support. Whatever the problem, we get a response with the status. Even if the issue is not resolved, we have transparency.

It was complex to begin with because we are all so new to it. Getting the business come up with use cases was initially difficult because everybody was new to it. Over a period of time, we got to know what has to be done.

We initially use EY for the deployment. Our experience was overall good because we were new to this RPA, it was a good learning experience having a COE playbook in place. Our basic baby steps, we did those with them, which helped us grow.

We have seen ROI.

Have your CEO set up a business user to do the automation day in and day out. If a business user is building or developing RPA, he will know the ins and outs of the process better than a coder or third-party.

Our primary use case for this solution is in finance. We have a lot of things that we are trying to automate, including performing operations in Excel.

We are using IQ Bot for one of our use cases.

I am currently trying to prioritize use cases to fit different scenarios and make the best use of this solution.

The most valuable feature in this solution is the IQ Bot. We are also able to perform many types of operations.

We would like to see the scalability improve from a local perspective.

This is a stable solution. We do see downtime, but it has more to do with the operating system and the servers. From an application perspective, the downtime is close to nil.

This solution has scalability. We have more than forty bots running.

From a technical perspective, their support is pretty good. We get a ticket after submitting a request for help.

We have a high-availability setup, so it was not a straightforward one. 

We performed the implementation, although we had to contact Automation Anywhere for assistance during the installation.

The initial numbers look good, so I think that we will see ROI over time.

For anybody who is considering an RPA solution, I would suggest exploring the limits. Compare products and decide, but try this one out.

We are excited to try a cloud version of this solution.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.