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IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs Vision Helpdesk 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
659
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)
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (33rd)
Vision Helpdesk
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (32nd), IT Service Management (ITSM) (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.
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.
MF
CTO at a cloud solution provider with 11-50 employees
The ​multi-company satellite help desk feature to manage our ticketing system for multiple domains is valuable for us.
Multi-company satellite help desk feature to manage our ticketing system for multiple domains more like a white-label support solution, and Blabby Feature use for internal staff communication We got Reseller Hosting , where we offer end use support to our reseller Clients, which is more of…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Automation Anywhere saves time and money."
"Automation Anywhere is very easy to use; it's a low-code platform that a person who doesn't have any technical knowledge can use."
"On average, the return that I've seen is about three dollars for every dollar spent on RPA."
"The bot creation process is relatively simple."
"It is easy to use for non-technical people, with a simple drag-and-drop interface, so they don't need to be technically savvy to automate their processes."
"Features such as MetaBot and IQ Bot are very advanced and capable as compared to reading PDFs using OCR."
"Most clients prefer Automation Anywhere because it is easy to implement. You don't need to know rocket science to learn this solution. If you know logic, that is sufficient. Automation Anywhere is more user-friendly."
"It frees individuals up from mundane tasks so they can concentrate on being more active and creative other things that they need to do."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"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."
"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."
"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."
"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."
"Overall, it's a good product that I would recommend."
"Overall, it has helped us continuously improve our business processes."
"In general, it's been pretty stable."
"Vision Helpdesk has a very small price but has many functions, and compared with others their price is 3-5x lower for similar functionality."
"Customer service has been one of the best for any software provider we have seen; any issue we had was solved quickly."
"If you are looking for an affordable solution for your business but want all the features of something you would expect to pay highly for, choose Vision Helpdesk! Trust me - you won't look back!"
 

Cons

"My experience has been that if the person who codes the bot is not very well-trained, then they might create unstable bots."
"I would like more cognitive abilities, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. E.g., if I see you, your facial recognition has to be there. If I send your picture, it should tell me your name, where you are from, and when I met you because we forget people. It should have these type of capabilities."
"Automation Anywhere courses are a little bit complex to understand. You need a little bit more time, and accessibility is also a little bit of an issue."
"Custom models with advanced features can be included in the IQ Bot models for unstructured and semi-structured data."
"One area requiring improvement is the debugging process. When I use a multi-structure with conditions to switch from one bot to another, successful debugging of the entire process is not feasible. Each bot has to be debugged individually."
"I used document automation about two years ago, however, it did not work as expected at that time, providing results around 70% to 80%. After that, we turned to third-party tools."
"Blue Prism is more secure than Automation Anywhere. E.g., Blue Prism has a system that is difficult to penetrate. You can't simply go into their system and make any changes."
"One key feature for improvement I have been providing feedback on through the MVP program is enhancing natural language conversation to action. The Automation Anywhere product team is actively putting this feature into their roadmap, which I believe is crucial."
"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."
"The product is kind of clunky to use."
"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."
"Support has been the biggest problem for us."
"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."
"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly."
"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."
"Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."
"I think I'd like to see a more user-friendly interface in the user-ticket view."
"Their live-chat support needs work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The Automation Anywhere license is affordable and not complex."
"If we talk about the automation RPA. it definitely has worked very well for us. I'm talking about giving good savings, about more than 180 FTE savings, after implementing more than 200 plus bots. It has worked well. As an organization, it has supported us very well, and also for our customers."
"It's very good in terms of cost and pricing."
"They recently launched a Community Edition, which is okay, but they should have done this a long time ago."
"It is reasonable, but it can always be a little bit cheaper."
"With the rebate processing automation that we did, it has provided us a savings of around an hour or two a person on a daily basis, which is quite a lot of savings."
"It is affordable for us."
"The cost is at the highest end of the spectrum."
"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."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business157
Midsize Enterprise83
Large Enterprise552
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise3
No data available
 

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)
SmartCloud Control Desk
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology
Riva Tech, StratospherIQ Data Systems, Suprag AG, Thomas Cook, TNM Software, Transition Systems Asia, Uptime Solutions, Volodi, Zakupka, Zen3, Zygote Complete Property Management, Rovia, NAS Insurance Services, FederalBank, InvestIndia, StartupIndia,BankofKigali
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Vision Helpdesk and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.