What is our primary use case?
My company, where I work, is a value-added distributor for Fortra's Automate. We distribute Automate and other solutions to various customers, each with a different use case. We develop a proof of concept solutions and full projects for them. We have done projects for hospitals for insurance eligibility checking, HR automation, and price comparisons for vendors. A specific use case is the insurance eligibility checking we have done for a hospital chain in the region. Whenever a front desk employee takes a person's ID, they enter the identifying number and our bot picks up the ID from the back end, searches the insurance portal for the ID, and finds out if they are eligible, what their copay is, what their coverage is, and what network they are in.
The solution can be deployed on-prem or on the cloud depending on the organization's requirements and preferences.
How has it helped my organization?
For no-code automation specifically, Automate is very good. It is all just drag and drop, so developers do not need to see any of the underlying code that is going on behind the scenes. This makes it very user-friendly, so no one needs to be highly technically proficient to start developing solutions with Automate, which is a great benefit. However, if someone is a more proficient developer who wants to use a more traditional coding language, they can still integrate it into their workflow, as Automate has actions for that.
No-code drag-and-drop and form-based development are very useful for clients who don't want to dedicate a lot of technical resources to developing and automating. We have seen this in our clients, where they have their regular IT staff who are not doing a lot of coding but are still able to get Automate up and running quickly and start working with it. This is a big selling point, but there are some clients who are more used to traditional scripting languages and are less willing to try out Automate. It varies on a case-by-case basis, but in the majority of cases, having no-code automation is a major advantage.
Fortra offers a free Automate Academy on its website, which includes multiple modules and hours of videos covering the basic and advanced concepts of Automate, such as working with workflows and more technical aspects. Customers can also get certified through the Academy. Additionally, the Bot Store provides pre-built bots that can be freely modified, edited, and used for specific use cases. Most of the bots in the Bot Store are free. Combining both of these resources provides a good amount of support for training. However, the amount of time it takes to learn Automate depends on the individual and their technical background. Those with a developer background may find it easier to pick up and use Automate, as they will already have the concepts of loops and if statements. With a few hours of training and practice, they should be able to use Automate effectively. Fortra also provides additional resources to fill in any gaps.
Automate is pretty good at reducing human errors. Whatever we set up, it is done and it's functioning logically. If there are any errors that come through, it is almost always due to gaps in the logic of the implementation that we have done, which can be hard to detect. That is where most of the errors come from. There could also be some edge cases that we don't consider while developing, which might be causing some errors. But if we set it up correctly, it's usually quite effective. The other source of errors could be if we're using OCR or something similar, as there is inherently some ambiguity which can lead to incorrect readings. That is also a potential source of errors.
Automate reduced errors by 90 to 95 percent, which is an estimate based on my observation of the insurance equity process. In most cases, this estimate is accurate.
The biggest advantage of Automate which saves us time and money is that it is easy to automate any repetitive manual tasks. This means a quick return on investment can be achieved. However, my advice to companies planning to use Automate is to not just automate a single process but to also invest in maintaining and scaling Automate. They should set up an automation center of excellence and consider automating processes in other departments such as HR and finance. Automate is also easy to use compared to other solutions, so it does not require a lot of technical expertise to get started. This is the biggest selling point of Automate.
What is most valuable?
The best feature of Automate is its ease of use, which is a major selling point. It has a drag-and-drop interface, so bots can be quickly deployed. This means implementation time is relatively short, making it an even more attractive option. Additionally, the web browser of Automate is also quite good, making it easy to set up web scraping and log into websites to pick up information. All of these features make Automate a great choice.
What needs improvement?
The documentation for errors needs improvement as many of the error messages we receive are very vague. For example, an error message might simply say, "The workflow has run into an unknown status," which does not provide any insight into how or why the failure occurred. As a developer, it can be difficult to debug these errors due to the lack of information.
The logging and failure notifications could be improved because we can set up logging for each step, but we have to manually add it to each task. Similarly, we can set up an action so that when the task fails, a screenshot is taken and an email notification is sent, but we have to go into the task and build a condition for that. It would be better if the logging and error failure notification could be done at a global level, rather than having to go inside the code and adjust each task.
The stability could be improved slightly. This is not a major issue, but we do occasionally lose connectivity. For example, the main central server for Automate is the developer console we are working on. If the developer console loses connection to the main console, this can happen occasionally without us realizing it until later. We may think our task is being saved, but it is not actually being saved on the server and we can lose some data. These occurrences are not frequent, but they do happen. Additionally, there are occasional crashes, although these are not too frequent.
I would like to have more third-party integrations, as Automate already has a lot, such as Microsoft Dynamics and SharePoint. However, it would be nice to have native actions built into Automate for further third-party integrations.
The community portal is not very active, so it is not a large community. Therefore, if we encounter an issue, we cannot simply search for a solution on Stack Overflow or a similar platform.
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Fortra's Automate
June 2026
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for 14 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I give the stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Automate is a highly scalable solution. As I mentioned previously, we also have an unlimited bot version, so we can deploy multiple agents. We can use load balancing across these agents. We can also set up agent groups, where we have an agent group running a certain task and a load balancer to distribute that task among these agents. We have failover and high availability support.
How are customer service and support?
The tech support from the vendor side has been excellent. We can submit a support ticket and we will receive a response within four hours. As a distributor, we also have direct email access to some of their technical support personnel based in Europe. They are usually very responsive and can usually help us with any issues we encounter.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. We need to install the solution and open a few ports. The deployment can be completed in one hour on my own.
Automate doesn't make much of a distinction between attended and unattended bots. They are essentially the same thing, just with different workflows. For example, if we are setting up an attended workflow, there will be some actions that require user input. An unattended workflow, on the other hand, is completely automated. The pricing for both is the same and it is relatively easy to deploy. Once we have developed the bot, we can set up a skill, trigger, or file and it will run on time.
Once we have Automate up and running, we can begin working on it if we have a developer console. Setting Automate up is part of the process. So, once it is set up, we can start developing from there. A simple task, such as reading an email and moving the file to a folder, can be developed in two hours. However, this is a very basic task.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation is completed in-house.
What was our ROI?
We can usually see a quick return on investment with Automate after implementation. It is relatively easy to develop, so solutions can be deployed quickly. However, there may be times when maintenance is required. From what I have seen in organizations, there is usually a quick return on the initial investment, although there is ongoing maintenance needed to keep it running.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point. Compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, Automate is significantly cheaper, as it is priced per bot rather than per process. This allows a single bot to run multiple processes, but still, be priced as a single bot. Additionally, Automate is the only vendor to offer an unlimited option, where customers can have unlimited bots and each bot can do an unlimited number of tasks. Overall, Automate is very competitive in terms of price.
What other advice do I have?
I give the solution a nine out of ten.
Automate has a recorder feature, but I don't use it much as most actions we can do with the recorder can be done with regular drag-and-drop actions. I don't think the recorder makes it significantly easier to use.
Our clients usually deploy in one location only. I don't have much experience with clients deploying in multiple locations, but the only thing I can say is that it is only supported for Windows, so there is no Mac or Linux support. However, I have only seen them deployed in a single location. I have seen them use multiple servers, but they are all local servers.
We served customers of all sizes, from enterprise-level to small and medium. The biggest selling point for small and medium customers is that they find solutions such as UiPath and Blue Prism to be too expensive for their smaller scale. In these cases, they find Automate's pricing to be more competitive. As I mentioned, we have provided services to customers of all sizes, from enterprise-level to small and medium.
We offer two pricing models: a subscription model, where an annual cost is paid each year, and a perpetual model, where an initial deposit is paid followed by an annual maintenance cost.
I highly recommend Automate as it is a great product at an affordable price, especially for small and medium-sized customers. My biggest suggestion is to invest internally in the organization so that employees can create their own bots for their own use cases. The great thing about Automate is that it is easy to use and learn, unlike many of our competitors where highly certified individuals are needed to develop. Therefore, investing in our people so they can develop is key. Our employees who do the day-to-day work know what they can and cannot automate, so investing in automation and embracing it fully, not just as a small part of the organization, is essential.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: distributor
Thank you for taking the time to review Automate! It’s great to see you're enjoying the no-code automation including Automate's drag-and-drop & form-based development features. We're happy to hear you're utilizing both Automate Academy and Fortra's Digital Market Place (formally known as the Bot Store) as additional resources at your disposal. Also, thanks for your feedback on the documentation of errors. I have shared this information with our product team. If you ever find you need any assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to Support as they are always at your disposal. Thank you again!