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Agiloft Service Desk Suite vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
661
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (1st), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
Agiloft Service Desk Suite
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (45th)
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (33rd)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
MG
Project Executive at GT Services LLC
Our customer service and productivity have increased in quality and quantity since using this product
Agiloft has a great support team to help the process along. They are affordable, friendly, and knowledgeable. The tech support team acts like walking encyclopedias. They know databases and programming. After all these years, we hardly need to speak to Agiloft anymore. However, they have great customer support. Every time we need something from them, they make our small troubles go away quickly.
KM
Computer System Engineer at Informatika d.d.
Has centralization and asset management features, and a helpful and knowledgeable technical support team
What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"While our Automation Anywhere's implementation is in a premature stage, it has really decreased the workload on our service desk and we definitely see some ROI in the future from this product."
"The best features are the ease of use, the short learning curve, and the good support from our local partner."
"This solution has decreased the time that our employees spend on manual processes."
"The ease of use for the end user and the very low complexity in trying to build a bot are the big factors for us. We are able to work on a project, identify a use case, come up with a design spec, and execute and build a bot within a span of six to eight weeks. In nine to ten weeks, we are able to go live, which reduced complexity. Once we go live, the user interface and the user experience are extremely good."
"We have used support a few times for one of our customers, and they respond quickly. If the issue involves a critical production system, they respond to the request on the same day."
"By combining Automation Anywhere and Appian together, we have been able to build a bot that works with Appian workflows to manage all our employees."
"We brought onshore a lot of what we were doing offshore, saving our company close to $20 million."
"Co-Pilot is a valuable feature."
"This product paid for itself within the first six months of use, and after about six months, we started making a return on our investment at more than 300%."
"Because this product is infinitely customizable and easily developed, we are using it for other applications."
"Our customer service and productivity have increased in quality and quantity since using this product."
"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs. That's the most important for us."
"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."
"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."
"In general, it's been pretty stable."
"Overall, it has helped us continuously improve our business processes."
"The solution has been stable."
 

Cons

"One of the important drawbacks of Automation Anywhere is that it needs to be able to show the automated process as a single flowchart."
"They should do more on the cognitive side. If they can keep adding more features, that would be their greatest advantage."
"Technical support needs to be much faster. I also had the project delivery. I had six clients whom I looked after. Whenever we got stuck, it was all about sprinting. There was a two or three week sprint. Within that, if you just wait for two to three days, it doesn't make sense. The support needs to implode, because I was just talking to a customer now who came directly and asked us, "Can you give us a dedicated support team?" It's feedback from our customer that support takes too long."
"The mobile application can be improved by adding more functions and capabilities because right now, only a few features are enabled for mobile users."
"It is not able to use OCR effectively and has limited usability."
"Its pricing definitely needs to be more competitive. When licensing costs are high, we cannot use this tool for automation."
"We need a native way in Automation Anywhere's framework to tie all that information together, including AI dashboard, governance dashboards, and document automation results."
"Sometimes the tool is timing out, which would be a good thing to have resolved."
"We have found the documentation a bit confusing at times. This area could use some improvement."
"The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."
"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."
"The user interface is not very interesting."
"The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces."
"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."
"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."
"Support has been the biggest problem for us."
"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have reduced our headcount, approximately 200 to 300 employees, by eliminating manual, repetitive work. It provides profit to the business."
"The current pricing for Automation Anywhere seems a little higher compared to competitors Power Automate or UiPath. Automation Anywhere is perceived as pricey due to the support model charges ranging from 20% to 30% based on the plans."
"We're on a license package with Automation Anywhere (AA), paid yearly. What would be better is for them to have different packages for different types of organization."
"I don't know exactly what the pricing schemes are for the product as this type of negotiation is not my responsibility, but I think the basic pricing comes to $15,000."
"There is an annual subscription for Automation Anywhere."
"Because it reduced the time duration of our processes, our costs went down."
"Automation Anywhere is affordable."
"It costs up to $1,200 per license."
"After about six months, we started making a return on our investment at more than 300%."
"Agiloft has by far the best entry point for both cost and learning curve."
"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."
"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."
"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
No data available
Performing Arts
15%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business157
Midsize Enterprise83
Large Enterprise553
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
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Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
No data available
SmartCloud Control Desk
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
EMC, ArcaTech Systems, Idera Pharmaceuticals, RBC, Affinity Service Group, Atrenta, DCG systems, ENKI, Hopkins County Board of Education, MVTS Technologies
St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Agiloft Service Desk Suite vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.