IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Reviews

We're working with different clients from the manufacturing environment. We have implemented end-to-end solutions. We work on web automation and automation of invoices.

The non-SAP automation is also good. The product’s integration capabilities with other software are sufficient for improving our workflow efficiency. We follow the standard procedures for setting up and deploying bots. There are no challenges. The solution’s impact on staff productivity depends on what we automate. Integrating the tool with SAP, EBS, or other ERPs is easy.

The product must be promoted more. There are no promotions.

I have been using the solution for the last six months to one year.

The tool’s stability is good. I rate the stability an eight out of ten.

The tool’s scalability is good. We can get more tools if we need them.

The technical support is pretty good. Some dedicated staff are allocated to us.

Positive

The initial setup is very simple. The learning curve is easy.

Our customers see a return on investment within six months to one year.

The pricing is reasonable. We buy it as a bundle.

I don't see much difference between IBM and other products. Whatever Automation Anywhere can do, IBM Robotic Process Automation can also do it. We have done some POC with other tools. We chose IBM because we have been partners with the vendor for many years. We are an IBM shop.

IBM’s OCR solution is pretty good. It is quite economical. OCR is good for streamlining operations. We have integrated the solution with our ERP. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We are a solution provider and we have been working on selling the IBM RPA product during 2020. We are primarily dealing with the on-premises version because our clients are not willing to use the cloud because of issues with their data. We have a lot of banks as clients, and it is a problem for them to use cloud versions.

One of our primary use cases is creating chatbots for clients, such as financial institutions.

Other things that we can automate are tasks like dealing with incoming credit processes, and administrative processes such as invoicing. These are the processes that take a lot of time.

We have not generated any sales yet, but we have experience with the product and are working on selling it.

IBM should provide specific solutions for specific problems, like templates for invoicing processes, or general templates for creating efficient processes. Another good example would be to have a template for a credit onboarding process. This would give us something to show the client in terms of a working solution, and that we're not having to create something from scratch.

The quality is great! It's very strong and has a very strong platform. However, you need to consider the clients and have a client perspective.

From my point of view, the RPA from IBM is not yet in touch enough with the clients. They are not taking the client's perspective into consideration, and they don't guide them enough throughout their journey to RPA.

They need to provide more guidance and more coaching. At the end of the day, it's a type of culture that they are trying to build within the company.

I would like to see an interface that would help customers establish which process is suitable for RPA or not. Maybe some type of scoring process would be helpful in establishing the processing suitability for whether it is an RPA or not. That would be a great feature to consider.

We began working with IBM Robotic Process Automation one year ago.

I think that it is a stable solution but I am not yet experienced enough to answer with certainty.

If you are working on-premises then scalability could be a problem. This is certainly not a problem with cloud solutions but again, this is the same problem for us. Our clients would like to remain working on-premises. we all know that cloud-based solutions are the best, in order to have scalability and in order to grow in the number of bots or applications.

Most of our clients are mid-sized banks, and we have a lot of government entities.

I think that the pre-sales and technical support are really great. I had worked for IBM myself in 2016, and these people are really professional.

We are competing with UiPath and Blue Prism, and also, our clients have been considering minor regional RPA companies. One such example is a company from Argentina that is very popular in the region, called BI.

The main difference between IBM RPA and the other products is that the small companies have developed ready-to-use solutions.

We work with the presales teams and have not had much experience with the setup.

The length of time required for deployment will be two or three months, depending on the infrastructure. When you have an on-premises deployment, you need to prepare the infrastructure to perform the implementation. There are times where the initial setup takes longer than you first imagine when the project begins.

For example, having availability with the client's infrastructure in order to start working on an RPA project is sometimes a problem.

The cloud is the best way to deploy RPA. However, we face the dilemma that we cannot use the cloud. So, I think that the solution to this type of problem is to try and set up a private cloud for our clients. Unfortunately, I have found that it is not a simple process to set up a private cloud. The number of resources required is not necessarily reachable for many entities.

My advice for anybody who is considering an RPA product is to carefully consider where to start because not all processes are suitable for RPA. You need to carefully evaluate what you are going to do because if you are starting from scratch, you need to carefully choose which processes you are going to start with.

Don't try another RPA solution for the company from scratch. You have to create a culture of RPA inside your company. A good product comes from creating a culture.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

It's used at a high level by about 100 users. A few of them are customer agents and a few of them are in the operations team. Currently, the product is deployed on a container-based platform, called Cloud Pak. We have created containers for our solutions for Automation on the OpenShift cluster.

If you have a business process, and once you have automated that process, you have a readily available workflow in place. We are using it after a sale is done, the next step is that the RPA calculates the offer and offers it to the customer. We have implemented this in sales.

Number one, you can record your actions, number two, you can orchestrate between the human task and bots. The biggest benefit is that you can orchestrate between the human tasks, system tasks, and the bots. That is what the complete IBM portfolio can provide. No other solution I have seen can provide this level of flexibility. In addition to that, we have the IBM Business Analytics insight as well, which is like real-time dashboards. 

The way the robots are being used actually. We need to design the robot to instantiate it based on some event or human intervention. If that can also be automated, that would be good. That would be an additional workflow completed. The next step after that would be to use the RPA service. Some things which require human intervention can also be automated using some decision management, based on rules. If there's a framework which does all of this part, that would be good I think. RPA should be configured as a part of business process management and built-in.  For the user, it shouldn't matter if he is using RPA or he's using none of the automation. It should be seamless from their viewpoint. So they would just use drag and drop, choose the features they wanted, and that would be it. RPA and BPM in one solution and RPA encapsulated inside BPM. This RPA should be under the umbrella of BPM. This is what the future should be. 

We have been using IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for less than one year. I'm the analyst for this project. My responsibility is to design the system, but I am not the developer for the project. 

For now, it is stable because the best thing we have is the scalability as part of our cloud-native application. 

The size of a container is quite small. I think it's only a single MB, so not big. Initially, we started from 20 containers and it grew to around 50 containers or maybe more, depending on the configuration. I think we now have approximately 50 to 100. The assumption is that each container will run a separate process.

We have raised some support tickets, but not very often. We have trained staff also, and therefore we have several teams which could potentially deal with support.

One is the IBM RPA. as a company, we are using UiPath as well. But IMB RPA is the one which my team is using as part of this Cloud Pak for Automation.

I think it's complex, and not straightforward.

Now that it is based in the cloud, it is an easier process and minimises the time for deployment. We are using the OpenShift OCP platform to achieve this. It's like a gateway for the infrastructure team which manages the servers and the cloud server. IT operations take care of the operational activities, and the Gateway infrastructure team does the deployment. IT operations provide support, so we are using three to four resources. 

IBM licensing is annual and based on Virtual Processor Cores (VPC). This provides flexibility as part of the containerization environment. The licenses can be allocated across multiple products. So for example, if you have IBM BAW, Business Automation Workflow,  ODM, Operational Decision Management, and IBM Datacap, or whatever product you are using, you can allocate the licenses to your needs. This provides licensing flexibility, as opposed to single licenses for standalone products. 

We considered Automation Anywhere and UiPath. However, IBM RPA i's a part of one bundle. The Business Automation Workflow can directly integrate with the IBM RPA. The business becomes more robust. Your platform gives you more flexibility to integrate with multiple different types of tasks. 

Based on what you want to do, you can automate your processes in the organization. You need to have a roadmap as part of digital transformation and application modernization. I would give this solution 8 out of 10.  

In my experience, we've done IBM RPA implementations for payment processes and intercompany processes for our customers. Basically, the process is as follows: it interacts with the banking website and collects the necessary data for validation and approval in SAP.

The solution's ease of use is its most valuable aspect.

The user interface is very good.

It's easy to develop code. I can click on items and simply drag and drop. I can even open the modules in Excel. It makes everything very simple.

Much like Automation Anywhere, it would be helpful if there was some sort of community board to help share and trade information to help users learn how to troubleshoot and learn about the various aspects of the solution. Right now, there isn't anything of that nature available to help users find answers.

We're based in Thailand, but the documentation is not in Thai, which makes it difficult for us. If they could translate all of their documentation into our language, we'd be very grateful.

The pricing of the solution is quite high.

I've been using the solution for two years.

While we found version 10 to not be quite stable enough, version 11 is much better in this regard. It's still not 100% stable, however, I would estimate it's now at 90-95% stable, which is quite good.

The solution is very scalable. If a company needs to expand this service they should be able to without much difficulty.

I've been in touch with IBM's technical support in the past. I've found them to be helpful. We're satisfied with the level of service we receive. There's really no problem connecting with them and asking for help. They are quite knowledgeable.

We haven't worked with any other solution. We've only worked with IBM.

I did not find the initial setup complex. I would describe it as easy. It's very straightforward.

We find the solution to be overly expensive.

We are a reseller. We provide the product to our customers.

I'd advise other companies to consider using the solution. It's very easy to use. It's got a great user interface as well. However, you need to use logic in order to use it effectively.  This is important especially during implementation.  

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use IBM RPA to perform customer credit risk analogies. It analyzes all the information coming from the customer.

I like the integration with Watson and the possibility to have an intelligent reading of all the customers' documents. It analyzes the main information to provide insights about the customer to understand if the request is a risk. The ability to integrate with hybrid clouds is another advantage.

The time it takes for approvals, and risk analysis could be faster. It's probably the main benefit you can get from the whole process. If it can do the tedious work quickly, employees with specialized skills can concentrate on the things that require deep knowledge or specialization. Then all the manual, repetitive tasks can be forwarded to automation.

Integrating with artificial intelligence should be more mature and more complete. So far, it works, but there are still many more benefits that we can get with better integration with Watson. There are also some opportunities to improve the integration of documents in the workflow. 

I've been using IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for about six or seven months.

Several products are incorporated in the back for automation. Some of them are in the process of being more aligned with cloud services. Some are still not in Kubernetes or a Docker. Two of them are in the process of being incorporated into Kubernetes and Docker to be aligned with the rest of the products. All of them work in a very stable way.

IBM RPA is totally scalable. It's precisely the reason we have all of them in Kubernetes and the cloud. This makes them available for scalability, and it's very easy. In Kubernetes, you can scale up very easily, without any interruption of the service.

IBM's technical support is very good.

The initial setup is complex. You need to first find out where and how it can provide real value to the company. Without doing that first, without understanding the main objective you are pursuing, it can take a lot of time to show a company that this product delivers real value. 

Once you understand the final objective, you can design and implement it. The implementation really isn't a big problem once you have well-defined objectives that you need to achieve.

We work with an IBM partner.

Being in the cloud is key to having similar products integrated and working in the same environment with artificial intelligence. You have to be clear about the value added by such integrations to the customer, or you'll face some resistance.  

To implement these kinds of projects broadly in several areas at the same time, you won't have a very good chance to be successful quickly. It's important to start with a small project to demonstrate the benefit, and from there, you can scale very quickly. You can grow or diminish the capacity you need in a very dynamic way without very high costs.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give IBM RPA a nine.

We use RPA to test mainframe solutions because they never change.

IBM Robotic Process Automation is very easy to use. 

Stability could be better. It also gets difficult with every new version of Java or every new version of Windows.

I have been using IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for more than 12 years.

IBM RPA is an unstable solution. This is the biggest issue we have right now.

It's very easy to scale. We have done it many times with many machines running simultaneously with integration between RSP and EDM quality management. 

Technical support is very bad. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give IBM tech support a three.

It's a client terminal solution, so the desktop solution doesn't require much time to install and deploy.

For anyone thinking of using IBM Robotic Process Automation, I would tell them not to change anything if it's running.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give IBM RPA a seven.

We have a client with a line of bars in the service/hospitality industry who wanted to have a system which takes a reservation for restaurants. They wanted to use IBM Robotic Process Automation software for this on the back-end. E.g., if a user wants to make a reservation, they can select a restaurant make if a table is available and at what time. On the back-end, IBM Robotic Process Automation will log all that data and create the reservation for the client.

From a business users perspective, all they care about is the dashboarding and reporting feature. It is very easy to take a dashboard or report, then use that report for their own internal purposes.

It is easy to use. We have enabled our resources who don't have a background in automation to be certified and trained, then implement this product within a very short period of time, as it is very user-friendly.

I would like more drag and drop type of features. If you look at some of the competition, they do provide that scalability feature, where a user who doesn't know anything about automation can work off of it using a bunch of drag and drop things. That is what our clients are looking for.

I would like it to do pretty much everything out-of-the-box without any need for any customization. However, that is not the case right now. We absolutely have to do some amount of customization with the solution in order to use it out-of-the-box as-is.

The technical support is great.

The client was looking at a solution. Because it was an IBM client, this solution was their top choice. When they were trying to compare IBM Robotic Process Automation against the other things which were there in the marketplace, we decided that because it was an IBM product backed by IBM support, this would be the primary driving factor for the client to pick the solution.

The initial setup was not complex at all. It took less than an hour to set up the solution. 

We were able to put up a solution, like set up a port or create an application, in such a short time from the ground up. We are able to run this and put it in production with minimal effort required, and that is a big deal for us.

We used an integrator for the deployment. 

This solution produced a good ROI.

If you compare it to other competing products, it is pretty good in this space. It provides ease of use when you perform a task. If you compare IBM against the competition, the amount of effort required to set up a part or set up a process is way less than what you get from competition.

Put IBM on top of your list because we have done the analysis. We have compared this solution with other solutions that are out there in the market. Nine times out of ten, this would be the go to solution if you are considering all of the factors. I would strongly recommend other clients to start looking here.

We have not integrated the solutions with other solutions. It is a standalone implementation.

We use it for our customers who are looking to leverage automation or artificial intelligence. We mostly use the solution where there are a lot of people in backend operations, like BPOs. We try to leverage automation by moving work, shifting left.

This product definitely helps with cost optimization and brings a lot of optimization to repetitive processes. So if today people are doing something manually which is repeated multiple times, by leveraging this solution we are bringing efficiency in expediting the process and saving the organization costs. The ballpark reduction in operating costs is 20 to 30 percent. It could be much more as we mature in this particular area.

It definitely increases productivity where there is a lot of user intervention. Some of the cases we are trying to improve revolve around optimizing sales processes. Where customers are taking about three days to process an RFP, we are trying to get the response down to one day for all RFPs.

We also see indirect benefits on decision-making and we're looking to optimize that.

It's integrated with all the other products within the Salesforce ecosystem.

We are looking to see how it can connect with various interfaces seamlessly, through APIs.

It's pretty stable.

As for scalability, we are starting with a very small footprint. We will explore and see how it performs when it is scaled.

Technical support is pretty good. We were able to get the right support for the customers, as needed.

We were using Blue Prism. That is one of the competitors that we were evaluating.

The initial setup is straightforward. We have used various versions of automation solutions in the past, so we understand the whole setup process.

We are looking at a 20 to 30 percent ROI due to automation.

We are exploring multiple options. We have done a lot of proofs of value and, through that process, we are identifying the product that should be used in the future.

We would definitely recommend the solution to colleagues and suggest that they evaluate it based on their needs. The biggest lesson we have learned in using this product is that leveraging automation has benefits for our customers in their daily processes and that it can be a stepping-stone in improving ROI for them.

In terms of usability, we are working with customers in the initial phases and the deployment is pretty good. But we need to look at the longer term for how it is being deployed in customers' businesses and we need to get their feedback. Some of our customers' business users use it and, in the initial phases, the usability looks good.

As for using it for compliance and/or governance issues, we haven't explored that part of it. It is more on the optimization, productivity, and cost-saving sides.

I would rate this solution at eight out of ten. We are still in the various stages of exploration of scalability and business-user response. We are still in the evaluation process. But it's pretty good, so that's why I am keeping it at eight.