What is our primary use case?
We use Robocorp to automate processes for an insurance company client. They upload some Excel and CSV files to our shared folder, which we process and upload to their portal.
We also use it to interface with our banking portal. We need to download all the line items from the insurance claims, such as patient IDs and information. We grab all the details and put them in an Excel spreadsheet. After that, we need to validate everything and push the information out to the appropriate people. The third use case is to automate deployment.
How has it helped my organization?
Robocorp is based on Python, so you can use Python scripts and create libraries for your use cases. Building libraries and custom scripts for a particular client and general use cases is easy. We can reuse those scripts for other clients, so we start seeing benefits quickly.
Our clients have a lot of technical staff members who are proficient in Python. Once the solution is in production, we can hand it over to them and educate their staff to support it on their end.
What is most valuable?
We are using the community edition, so we set everything up in a batch file and deployed it in Windows Scheduler. We need to move the production code to Visual Studio and upload it to the control room. We can do it from a batch file and schedule it. That's the primary feature we use because we cannot do it in the UI, which is only available in the enterprise edition.
Everything is based on Python. Our client wants us to fetch some details about benefit eligibility from their customers in a given period. We've done a proof of concept, creating a custom Python-based package with all the keywords. We attempted to extract all the data from the PDF that they gave us and put the results in Excel so they could be added to the database.
What needs improvement?
We've had conversations with the head of Robocorp over Slack about things we want to improve. We want to introduce some packages, but the authentication tokens and many other things are not there. We can do it in Python, but the custom packages are unavailable.
We would also like an integrated PDF reader and better integration with custom solutions. The built-in Excel customization is limited, but we can still accomplish what we want using Python. We must rely on Python to customize processes in Robocorp. I don't know about the latest IDE from Robocorp, but the old one doesn't have a lot of activities.
I don't know if they have updated the UI in the latest version, but they could improve that. The UI selector isn't that great. It would be nice to take elements from the console and customize parts. Everything is based on command lines, which I do not like. A flow chart with block items would be good for optimizing code. I would also like more support tools for developers so it's easier to understand when passing code to others.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Robocorp for about a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The old version had a lot of performance issues. We got errors and had to restart the program. I moved everything to Visual Studio, which is more reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate Robocorp eight out of 10 for scalability.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have a lot of experience with Automation Anywhere. Robocorp has fewer capabilities compared to that solution.
How was the initial setup?
I rate Robocorp six out of 10 for ease of implementation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are using the free community version, but we have looked into the enterprise license. It's based on the number of processes you run.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Robocorp eight out of 10. Robocorp is an excellent introduction to automation if you know how to code. If you learn Robocorp, it's also simple to learn other automation tools. The implementation is slightly different. We need to get hands-on experience.
Rather than skipping a step and beginning at the technical level, we started with coding. Everything is customized, and we have a lot of managed packages. We can go deeper than the UI when dealing with Python packages and libraries. We're building some knowledge about creating Python libraries inside the developer console.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.