UiPath Document Understanding Reviews

Our primary clients are in the pharmaceutical and hospitality sectors. We recently developed a process using UiPath Document Understanding called 'Medicaid automation' to automatically download invoices and structured data from legacy systems. We then built an ETL pipeline to further process this information. Additionally, we have experience automating contract downloads and parsing data from contracts, even for structured data sources.

Automating processes using structured data is straightforward. However, in many cases, we need to involve human workers because data extraction is not very accurate. Therefore, we need a solution to integrate human input and structured data into the automation pipeline to minimize manual intervention. Additionally, when accuracy requirements are very high, we can also set up a user interface. Conversely, for less stringent accuracy requirements, we can create a fully automated pipeline. This is the core idea behind using UiPath Document Understanding. We aim to automate processes for functions like finance, resource management, and revenue management.

I work primarily in the pharmaceutical and hospitality industries. Within these industries, specific domains have different usage requirements. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, I work with finance teams, and their focus on unstructured data includes tasks like invoice processing. Revenue management teams might leverage unstructured data for contract management, extracting key details for further use. Both finance and revenue management teams should consider how generative AI technology can streamline their workflows. In my experience, I've implemented an agent capable of extracting data from compliance documents and providing structured responses to users. Other use cases involved HR-related document queries and automated responses. Within the hospitality sector, I've worked on customer success and revenue management projects. On the customer success side, unstructured data related to loyalty programs could be analyzed for insights. We also explored automating email generation and streamlining tasks related to standard operating procedures. Revenue management in hospitality often involves contract automation. For a large hospitality company, I worked on a project to extract data from B2B contracts stored in Salesforce, pushing that information directly into their financial system. It's important to note that while I used unstructured documents as a foundation for these projects, not all of them specifically employed UiPath.

Using UiPath Document Understanding, we have successfully processed invoice documents and contracts. We are now expanding to handle various additional contract types based on specific use cases. This could involve rebate management, B2B interactions, or other scenarios. Additionally, we can handle other document types, such as per-case order documents and various SOP documents (compliance and operational). Finally, we have also explored applying Document Understanding to marketing materials related to sales rep automation, where product information can be leveraged to generate responses.

We use UiPath Document Understanding for many formats. The format of documents depends on their type. Invoices and purchase orders, for example, are considered semi-structured. This means they contain a combination of elements, such as tables, key-value pairs, and line items, but these elements can exist in different templates and with some variation between vendors. Contracts, on the other hand, are largely unstructured. While they may contain structured elements like tables, they also often include running text and information that is difficult to categorize in a predefined format.

We can fully automate the process for 95 percent of the documents. The more high-risk financial documents may need human intervention.

AI capabilities significantly reduce development effort for handling encrypted data while simultaneously increasing its overall scope. This allows me to achieve what was previously impossible with conventional APIs, even in advanced tools like UiPath. While UiPath also utilizes a broad model for data extraction, they are now expanding towards generative AI. Consequently, we benefit from improved extraction quality and the ability to extract data in the desired structure, all with minimal development effort thanks to AI.

When human validation is required, it takes one to two minutes for a five-page document.

Previously, reviewing a difficult document like a contract could take around 30 minutes, while an easier document like an invoice took 10-15 minutes. After automation, processing invoices got significantly faster, taking less than half a minute. This is because the complexity of invoices is generally lower compared to contracts. For contracts, automation was reduced to around three minutes. In simpler cases, the processing time could even be reduced to as low as one to 15 seconds.

The significant reduction in processing time leads to a notable decrease in human errors.

Our clients can see the time to value within the first three months.

The most valuable feature is key-value pair and table extraction. While we previously relied on UiPath and Amazon APIs, we've transitioned to generative AI for its superior performance on unstructured data. However, this shift presents a challenge: while UiPath and Amazon provided consistent output and value, generative AI outputs can vary significantly across different documents. This means we still need logic-based parsing for tables, even though they often share similar formats.

The UiPath APIs lack reliable table parsing.

The accuracy of document extraction depends on the document's original format. For rich text documents, the accuracy is generally good. However, scanned documents like PDFs or images present a challenge and often yield lower accuracy. Another challenge arises when dealing with multiple documents in a single image. This scenario is common in invoice automation, where a single image might contain several invoices. Furthermore, processing files containing multiple document types, such as multiple invoices in one file, can be problematic. Currently, the system assumes each uploaded file represents a single document or invoice, which is not always the case. To address these challenges, I propose enhancing UiPath Document Understanding to analyze the entire document, not just individual pages. This would allow the system to identify individual invoices within a multi-page document and assign extracted data to the corresponding invoice.

I would like custom key value integration instead of generic key values for extraction.

The cost of UiPath Document Understanding has room for improvement.

I have been using UiPath Document Understanding and other IDP products/APIs for four years.

UiPath Document Understanding is generally considered a stable product. If we encounter issues when using it in the context of a complex backend process, the problem is likely not with UiPath itself but rather with the specific process design and the components involved in its development.

The high cost of adding bots hinders our ability to scale UiPath Document Understanding. 

The deployment takes around five days for my team to complete.

UiPath Document Understanding carries a premium price tag, but its current technological capabilities may not yet fully justify the cost.

I would rate UiPath Document Understanding five out of ten.

UiPath Document Understanding requires significant ongoing maintenance, especially when it integrates with screens or utilizes user interface automation. This is because changes to the website structure are highly likely to cause these integrations to break. Backend automation, on the other hand, typically requires less ongoing maintenance. However, it is still recommended to dedicate resources to monitor the solution approximately 50 percent of the time. This proactive approach helps ensure uninterrupted business processes even after a proper initial development phase.

For automating cloud-native platforms, scripting often proves to be a more suitable approach compared to tools like UiPath. However, when dealing with legacy systems, UiPath might offer a more effective solution.

We implemented UiPath Document Understanding for our first project with a pharmaceutical insurance company. They were receiving invoices from over 2,000 different vendors in a variety of formats on a daily basis, and they wanted to automate the process. We are receiving invoices in their email, and we are automating the download and processing of these invoices. If the confidence level of the automated data extraction is low, a user or client can correct the data according to the invoice and then submit it. The data will then be improved. We will be automating this project in two parts: first, reading specific emails and downloading the attachments; and second, checking if the attachments are normal documents or invoices.

We have implemented UiPath Document Understanding for two companies: one in the insurance industry and the other in the financial industry. We have completed the document creation process, which includes OCR and automatic signature imposition by different lawyers on the finalized documentation. We also use Document Understanding to read the document after analyzing it, and we then update the PDF with a front page signature and other components. This is a small process, but the first project was very large and we gained a lot of business from it. It was a very good project overall.

We process between 100 to 200 documents per day using Document Understanding.

The documents include checkboxes and barcodes. Some of our vendors only provide handwritten invoices, which Document Understanding could not read. These invoices had to be processed manually by the user.

UiPath Document Understanding can handle varying document formats including handwritten documents.

We have implemented a machine learning model to sort vendor names and important information related to those vendors into our system. When the model encounters a vendor that it has already seen, it automatically grabs the important information from the invoice. The model is continuously training on the new data that it receives, so it can become more accurate over time.

Machine learning was very good. We don't think we can implement without any ML model.

We integrated Document Understanding with Dynamic CRM so that the information extracted by Document Understanding is automatically input into CRM.

The amount of human validation required is based on the confidence level of the ML model. Each time human validation is required, the ML model learns and the need for human validation decreases. At the start, the ratio of documents requiring human validation was 50/50, but this ratio decreased with each iteration.

Document understanding helps reduce human errors. For example, if we receive 150 emails daily, we must analyze and process each email accordingly, such as sending invoices, checking invoice values, and investigating all relevant information. We must then read each invoice and enter the data into the system. This is a very active task that requires around 15 people to perform daily. Document understanding has reduced the need for human interaction by allowing us to automate this process. Now, only one person needs to analyze the email invoices. Once the invoices have been checked and analyzed, they are passed to a UiPath bot, which handles all the subsequent steps, such as reading the invoices and entering the data into the system.

Document understanding has helped free up staff time.

UiPath provides a useful feature that allows us to classify documents as invoices or not.

If the confidence level is low, we can check it and provide the product value to move forward. In this step, the user can sometimes skip or delete pages, especially if we receive a large PDF with the first two pages being invoices, followed by some relevant documents, and then more invoices in the same period. This is a very good feature of UiPath Document Understanding, as it allows the user to skip pages within the PDF document to move forward. For example, the user can specify that the first two pages and pages nine and ten are invoices.

UiPath Document Understanding's ability to read handwritten files has room for improvement.

The price of Document understanding is high, and we are constantly struggling to get our clients to use it because they find it to be expensive.

I have been using UiPath Document Understanding for one and a half years.

UiPath Document Understanding is stable. We have not encountered any downtime.

UiPath Document Understanding is scalable.

The technical support was helpful.

Positive

The initial deployment was straightforward.

Two people were required for deployment.

The implementation was completed in-house. We have a large team that includes technical consultants, architects, and developers.

The last time we implemented UiPath Document Understanding the price was high.

I would rate UiPath Document Understanding six out of ten.

We use Document Understanding to process invoices, purchase orders, and addresses. It extracts data from a scanned structured document and converts that in a structured manner to a spreadsheet. Predominantly, we use Document Understanding for payroll, procurement, invoice processing, and also in the finance department. Document Understanding has multiple models for extracting data from receipts. Departments have different use cases, but it's mostly used on the finance side to extract invoice data. 

The volume of documents varies from customer to customer. When everyone starts using the product, they typically process between 10,000 to 20,000 in the first year. Once you've achieved a stable environment, you might reach around 500,000 pages in the second or third year. It depends on the project and the customer's budget because pricing is based on the number of pages. 

We are not talking about 100 percent data automation end to end. If our customers work with hundreds of vendors, they deal with various templates. If a new vendor comes in, there is a possibility that the model may not identify that particular document. It's also possible that the upload quality isn't that great because of a bad scan, so there is always a channel for manual processing to handle exceptions. 

When you implement Document Understanding, we may start with 40 percent automated and 60 percent manual. As it progresses and matures, the percentage gradually improves. We may eventually achieve 80 percent fully automated processing with 10 percent manual so that exceptions can be handled with the help of human intervention.

Traditionally, the operations team has done many of these activities manually. A human takes information from the document and enters it into the system. There are many challenges inherent in performing these tasks manually. One is human error. Also, a department might receive documents in the middle of the night, and no one is around to process them. Document Understanding enables round-the-clock support and automatic processing

The implementation is fast compared to other solutions.  Documentation Understanding is more flexible because it has the artificial intelligence to understand new formats when they come in. It may read the information automatically. 

The amount of human validation depends on the type of input document. For example, let's say we are extracting data from a passport. We had to extract data from the passport. The solution can properly scan the documents. There are 192 countries with different passports. The bots are already trained with all the different types of passports. 

However, if the solution encounters a new format for receipts, invoices, etc., it may not identify it properly. During COVID, we had to process PCR tests from different diagnostic centers with different formats, so we created a model to figure out whether the person had negative results, but if a different format came in from a new diagnostics center, we might not have enough data to train the model. 

It will scan correctly without human intervention if it's a well-established document type, but if there isn't enough training for the model, a human needs to come into the picture. Also, if the data input is not properly scanned because of its model input and all those things, and the system cannot understand it, then human-in-the-loop comes in. 

The time needed for a human to validate a document depends on the number of fields and whether the file is a PDF form, invoice, etc. If you only need to validate the invoice number, you can complete that in one or two seconds, but it will take more time to validate all the line items in every field.  

Document Understanding has reduced our processing time by around 70 percent. In some cases, it may be 90 percent. It obviously takes more time for an employee to process a document with three or four pages and pull the data from various places. Using a solution with an OCR component like Document Understanding is much faster. It frees up employee time because we're not using resources to punch in data manually. We can use those employees to do other things that require more human intelligence.

The solution has reduced human error because somebody previously opened this document manually and typed whatever they saw on the screen. Now, what is happening is the data extraction is happening systematically. If things look fine and the confidence score is high, it inserts the data into the system. If the confidence score is low, it shows the screen to the user and asks them to correct it. Instead of merely typing the information, the user verifies what the solution has done. It's easily a 30 to 40 percent error reduction, and the operational efficiency is drastically increasing. 

Invoice processing is the most valuable feature. Most of my customers use Document Understanding for invoice processing. That's one of the most common use cases. Typically, each customer starts their RPA journey with the finance department because that's the area where you can see the most benefit. 

It can extract checkboxes, signatures, and printed documents. The extraction and conversion of printed letters is perfect. Document Understanding can also process handwriting and signatures using a machine learning model on the backend. UiPath's product team is constantly training this model continuously. Every two weeks, they are training it with a new set of data, so the model is constantly becoming more mature. I've seen a tremendous improvement since 2021.

The solution's machine learning model gives it the flexibility to accommodate documents with varying structures. Before document understanding came along, data extraction was done using template-based extraction tools. They created a machine-learning model that can be retrained for any number of templates. If you are actually not using machine learning, you will not explicitly identify fields like "Bill To," "Ship To" etc. You have to tell it the location where you want to find data. 

UiPath has already trained its machine-learning model, which has seen these types of invoices and trained the solution. You're building a better solution that requires less effort to implement because the product does a lot of that work for you. The deployment time is faster. It's more intelligent than conventional coding, which is just listing a set of rules. Everybody needs flexibility. It's not enough to have a solution to handle documents in a particular format. Whatever you do, it should have the intelligence to understand data in a semi-structured format even though things are returning in a different manner than the one that came before. 

Document Understanding's handwriting comprehension is improving, but it's still not as good as printed documents. Machine learning models, in general, are becoming mature, but it's still not to a point where I will give it five stars. I may give it a two or three. It is still not advanced enough to identify whatever handwritten content you give to it. It can process handwriting, but you need a human to validate it. With more training, it will become more automated. It will be better by 2025, but it is still not mature enough

Similarly, there is still room for improvement in reading printed documents. Ideally, if you have a model, Document Understanding should be able to extract every field from there. That's what customers expect. 

We have used Document Understanding for about six months.

I rate Document Understanding seven out of ten for stability. It has some room for improvement. 

I rate Document Understanding seven out of ten for scalability,

I rate UiPath support four out of 10. Their support has degraded badly. Presently, they are mainly focused on closing tickets. They have trouble communicating with our business users and end up closing the ticket because they don't understand what the issue is. It's a problem because the customer will lose interest in the product if they are not getting technical support. 

Neutral

UiPath can be deployed on the cloud or on-prem. The infrastructure costs of hosting it on-prem are high. We have done many cloud deployments, but I would say it's not that easy. Normally, we subscribe to the SaaS version of UiPath and configure it for the customer. UiPath has a cloud instance, which is a SaaS offering. I believe Document Understanding is hosted in Azure, but the customer can opt for AWS, Google, etc. There are no restrictions if customers want to put it on their private cloud.

An on-prem installation takes about two or three weeks depending on the complexity of the environment. Cloud installation is plug-and-play, so you can get it up and running in a day. They need to issue the purchase order for it, and we get the licenses. Once the customer has the license, they can log into the UiPath Cloud portal, and it will be activated. Within five days, they can start using Document Understanding. After that, you need to build the automations for your use case. The development time frame depends on the use case. It requires maintenance because you must train the model continuously as new templates come in.

The price is high, so it will take you about a year and a half or two years before you break even. 

Document Understanding's pricing is reasonable for developed markets because manual entry will be unable to match the cost of automatically processing one page. However, you can get labor for much cheaper in developing markets like India. It's not easy to sell Document Understanding in markets where you can get workers who will do this type of activity cheaply.  

I rate UiPath Document Understanding seven out of ten. It's an add-on for UiPath, so it isn't a standalone solution. If you already have a license for another third-party solution for RPA, you should consider whether it's beneficial to switch. 

Our client has PDF invoices and we use the solution to extract the details from them. We are using it in finance and health care. We have about 16 templates that we process now. The data is in semi-structured format and we mostly process things like signatures and tables. Out of the 16 templates, about 12 are completely processed automatically.

It has helped us automate finance statements and invoice billings.

Another benefit is that it has mostly helped reduce human error. We have a criteria of 75 percent matching. Out of 10 PDFs we have been getting eight PDFs with at least 75 percent matches. It has also helped free up staff time.

The taxonomy and Validation Station are among the most helpful features for us. If anything is extracted incorrectly, we can manually extract it there.

And we have included the AI Center for our customers to interact with PDFs to be extracted. Based on the approval or rejection feature, our customer can determine which kinds of PDFs they can automate.

I also like the table extraction feature. UiPath is very good with structured data.

Handwriting is more complex. We have not been able to get handwritten signatures correctly extracted in different languages. Our customer is in Dubai, and the solution cannot accurately process signatures in the local language. But it is a great tool for handling structured and semi-structured formats.

Another of the disadvantages is that we cannot include another tool. For example, with ABBYY extraction, we can integrate the process with any other product. We can integrate Document Understanding using JSON templates, but it is a bit of a complex model to extract the data from the JSON.

There is also room for improvement in long-running table extraction. If a table continues for more than 10 pages, in some cases, we have observed that it only extracts six or seven pages and skips the last pages.

I have been using UiPath for about 10 years.

Overall, the product is stable.

In our case, the use of Document Understanding is restricted to a particular group of users, around six or seven people.

The technical support from UiPath has been pretty good in the last year. It has been a very good experience. 

We used Azure DevOps for the deployment and we faced some issues regarding the deployment with UiPath and Orchestrator. We had a very good response from the UiPath technical team.

There is some room for them to improve the speed of the response because we often used to get late responses. But the resolutions are good.

Positive

We were using ABBYY, but it is more like a developer's tool with everything a developer needs for extracting fields. But we can train and retrain Document Understanding. In that way, I feel it's a better tool.

The pricing is reasonable.

As for additional costs, the solution is based on OCR, and sometimes the OCR cap is exceeded. It's not a major cost. Per month, we will have two or three scenarios like that. With ABBYY, once the cap was reached, we had to wait until the next day to use it again.

We did not evaluate other solutions. Using Document Understanding was a requirement from the client's side.

In terms of human validation for Document Understanding output, we have a limit of 75 percent correct scenarios. If it is below 75 percent, the user will be notified.

The solution doesn't require any maintenance unless the client requires more fields to be extracted. Only then are there changes that I need to make.

My advice is that if you are starting to learn about Document Understanding, you need to learn more about the taxonomy and what fields you are extracting. You need to have clarity on which position you are extracting, as it mostly depends on the position.

UiPath Document Understanding is a key tool we use to automate document processing for our clients, including tasks like invoice and sales order processing. We can create multiple workflows for different clients and even use it internally. To handle even more complex documents, we've also built custom models for specific data extraction needs.

UiPath Document Understanding helps our clients streamline data entry by accurately and consistently extracting information from both paper and digital documents. This extracted data can then be seamlessly integrated into their existing ERP or finance systems, eliminating the need for manual data input.

Document Understanding automates the processing of our invoices and sales orders, which are our most common tasks due to their semi-structured format. These documents share a typical organization with common fields, though we also handle custom documents like certificates and licenses across various states.

Document Understanding helps us process thousands of documents each day.

Thousands of documents are processed completely by Document Understanding each month.

Machine learning is the core of Document Understanding, where trained models extract data from documents. For simple forms, basic tools suffice. But in most cases, Document Understanding's built-in machine learning tackles complex documents. Generative AI features are new and basic for now but hold promise for the future.

The human validation required for Document Understanding outputs depends on the use case. We aim to get above 80 percent without human intervention. For some use cases, we're well above 90 percent. In just one minute, the human validation process can be completed for the small percentage of tasks, typically between 10 and 20 percent, that necessitate it.

While average handle time varied greatly before automation ranging from eight to ten minutes or even longer, data entry for sales orders with hundreds of line items was especially slow, taking up to 30 minutes per order. Automating the process with API integration significantly reduced this time to just one to two minutes.

Document Understanding helps significantly reduce human error, especially in crucial tasks like sales order entry for manufacturing clients. Mistyped entries can lead to incorrect production, rework, and unhappy customers. While the error reduction varies, estimates range from 18-20 percent to potentially as high as 40 percent in some cases.

Document Understanding significantly reduces manual data entry, freeing up staff time. For instance, one client eliminated a data entry role entirely, allowing that employee to focus on higher-value tasks. This is a consistent benefit – whenever we implement Document Understanding, the staff previously responsible for data entry can be redeployed to different teams, roles, or more strategic work.

UiPath's Document Understanding significantly reduces the effort needed to train a machine-learning model for our documents. Their pre-built models and tools for customizing them minimize the need for manual tasks like creating bounding boxes and training on uncommon examples. This allows us to achieve high accuracy and certainty in data extraction with minimal human intervention.

The rising annual licensing cost of UiPath's Document Understanding product is a major turnoff for users. This constant price fluctuation incentivizes companies to switch to competing solutions, potentially hurting UiPath's market competitiveness.

The technical support has significant room for improvement.

I have been using UiPath Document Understanding for three and a half years.

The technical support is bad.

Negative

Document understanding projects deliver a significant return on investment in two ways. First, by automating data entry tasks, they free up customer service agents to focus on client interaction, improving service quality. Second, this automation can eliminate the need for offshore data entry teams, potentially bringing those jobs back onshore and saving tens of thousands on overall costs.

UiPath's pricing model is complex and based on AI units, which are consumed during model training and use. This makes it difficult to predict costs upfront, unlike a simpler pay-as-you-go model offered by Microsoft. With UiPath, you purchase a bundle of AI units, and even if you don't use them all, you're still charged for the entire bundle. This can be less cost-effective compared to Microsoft's approach where you only pay for what you use.

I would rate UiPath Document Understanding nine out of ten.

I used UiPath Document Understanding to create a report by reading invoices and V9 tax documents. I employed specific taxonomies to facilitate document analysis and populate my database with extracted information. The primary objective was to accurately identify and store relevant data from these documents within the database.

The idea arose from the observation that many companies lack a centralized repository for essential documents, such as invoices. In response, I created a website where a robot automatically uploads and interprets these invoices, presenting key details about each document on the website.

By using taxonomies, I could interpret the documents and make them easily accessible through a website database. This way, website visitors could find all the documents themselves, eliminating the need for them to repeatedly ask employees for specific documents like invoices or V9 tax forms. UiPath's visual processes further simplified this by allowing me to implement and manage the system effortlessly.

I used UiPath Document Understanding to process invoices and V9 tax documents.

All the documents processed were in PDF format.

The documents contain tables, boxes, check marks, and handwritten text.

All the documents were processed 100 percent automatically.

UiPath Document Understanding was able to handle the handwriting and signatures with no issues.

UiPath Document Understanding helped make the automation process easier for me.

The manual validation of each document took one second.

Using UiPath Document Understanding, all the documents were processed in just a minute. While I didn't have many documents, it still surprised me how quickly it worked. Manually, it would have taken me about five to ten minutes.

UiPath Document Understanding has saved me time to work on other projects in parallel.

The highly visual and user-friendly interface was a standout feature. Selecting taxonomies was as simple as clicking the corresponding areas on the invoices, enhancing the visual nature of the interaction.

UiPath Document Understanding requires more database connectors. I encountered difficulty connecting to Workbench from MySQL, necessitating a workaround.

I have been using UiPath Document Understanding for three months.

I did not face any stability issues with UiPath Document Understanding.

The scalability of UiPath Document Understanding is fine.

The initial deployment was straightforward. The deployment took a few minutes to complete and I did it myself.

Originally, I spent some time building the automation robot. However, once I completed it, I realized the value of UiPath Document Understanding.

I used the community version, so there was no fee.

I would rate UiPath Document Understanding nine out of ten.

I was the only one using the solution in our organization.

I recommend evaluating both the free and paid versions of UiPath Document Understanding. 

We use UiPath Document Understanding to process purchase orders and order confirmations.

We implemented UiPath Document Understanding because we wanted a more efficient way to process the documents we were receiving.

We process purchase orders and order confirmations in PDF format. The documents we process are tables and standard data.

We process anywhere from 150 to 200 documents per day with UiPath Document Understanding. We process between 60 to 70 percent of the documents completely with UiPath Document Understanding.

We do not use Document Understanding for signatures or handwriting, but we do use it for various document formats, which it handles moderately well.

The AI and machine learning with UiPath do the job moderately well.

We leveraged API calls to seamlessly integrate UiPath Document Understanding with other systems and applications within our environment.

UiPath Document Understanding has helped save us a lot of time.

We required human validation between 30 to 40 percent of the time.

Prior to implementing UiPath Document Understanding, it took us one hour to process each document. With the implementation, processing time has been reduced to one minute, saving us 59 minutes per document.

UiPath Document Understanding has helped reduce human error.

UiPath Document Understanding has helped save our people time to focus on other projects. This time savings is equivalent to the productive output of a full-time employee. 

I like the clear and organized way in which UiPath has structured the labeling process, as well as the user-friendly development environment.

Several areas require improvement in UiPath. The licensing model poses a significant challenge due to the fee charged for posting a model, which impedes the development of productivity-enhancing models. Additionally, UiPath's pricing is substantially higher than that of its competitors, approximately three to four times higher.

UiPath's AI quality needs substantial improvement. Several issues have persisted for at least two years, such as the inability to handle breaks in tables. When data in a table extends from the first page to the second, UiPath fails to process it effectively. Additionally, UiPath struggles to handle multiple items.

I have been using UiPath Document Understanding for over two years.

I would rate the stability of UiPath Document Understandings six out of ten, because of the AI issues.

I would rate the scalability of UiPath Document Understanding eight out of ten.

The technical support is good.

Positive

The initial deployment is straightforward. We implemented a hybrid model of on-premises and cloud deployment throughout the organization. The robots are physically located on-premises, but their operations are managed and controlled through a cloud-based platform. One person was required for the deployment.

We have seen a return on investment with UiPath Document Understanding.

UiPath Document Understanding compared to the competitors is high. I would rate the price nine out of ten with ten being the most expensive.

I would rate UiPath Document Understanding seven out of ten.

We have seen time to value with UiPath Document Understanding.

UiPath Document Understanding requires constant maintenance because of the AI issues. One person can handle the maintenance.

I recommend thoroughly testing UiPath Document Understanding to verify that the organization is genuinely deriving value from the tool and to assess whether the AI model can effectively handle the capabilities advertised by UiPath.

I use the solution in different ways. There are different ways to deal with the documents and extract data using OCRs, et cetera. I focus on document understanding with machine learning capabilities baked into it. 

I have worked on different types of documents. Both structured and unstructured documents as well as purchase orders, invoices, and time sheets as well. Depending on the type of the document or form, the solution would be different. If we have a structured document to retrieve the known information, then that would be easy. We would just use regular methods and simple extraction methods to get the data. However, if the documents are unstructured and the formats of those documents are different, that's where we would be using understanding and machine learning capabilities.

I've used it in healthcare, finance, and investments.

We're dealing with multiple vendors right now. When we deal with multiple vendors, each vendor has different structures for documents, and some of them provide data within papers while some of them provide just data as paragraphs. So for each of those types of documents, we have to extend the data based on the need.

How much the process is automated depends on the use case. It depends on the scenarios of the different types of formats of users. Sometimes there are different functionalities that we have to use within UiPath. If we're using Action Center, we probably would be able to automate almost all documents and that's where we would need users' input to validate the right information. In any case, we would be able to automate the majority of the documents since the bot would be able to expand the data. In such cases, the process might be longer. That's where we have to spend more time. However, if the documents are structured, it would be very easy for us to identify the data in those documents and then build the workflows.

The ability of UiPath to handle variant document formats, including handwriting is decent. Extracting the data is fine. However, it depends on what solution you implement and how much time you are ready to spend to implement that solution. If we have a plan to involve the Action Center within the solution, then that's where we would need a few inputs from the users to make sure that the automation is working fine, and that's where you would be able to achieve the majority of the success rate. However, if it is something that we just want to automate and we don't want to involve humans in it, then that's where we might result in a few exceptions as the data might not be right. That's where we would face some challenges. 

The machine learning capabilities have been quite fine. We've been able to digitize and classify documents and use them in our processes. That said, when compared to AI fabric, that's where we need to spend more time creating our own packages for it and then deploying those packages into the workflows. We need to make sure that we have a handle on all the documents.

I have found that 70% to 80% human validation is needed if we are trying to deal with sensitive data or if we are trying to deal with some confidential data. In those cases, we need to make sure that all the data is right. So as long as the document is structured and is well defined, and well-formatted, we might leave it 100% to automation. If any of these details are confidential or if any of these details require evaluation, then we will need user interaction. 

The validation process can be pretty quick. A code document doesn't take much time. It depends on the data. In any use case, I need to extract more than ten or 12 fields. If we're dealing with that number of fields, I'd estimate we need between two to 22 minutes.

The Average Handle Time, the AHT, depends on the cases. If there's no human involvement, then it would definitely take less time. If there's human involvement, the product could at least reduce the effort. The human involvement may drop from 20 to 30 steps down to one and they are just needed for validation. That scenario shows UiPath as a great time saver. Initially, we used to take 15 to 20 minutes to work on a document. Now, with automation, it might only take two to three minutes. It saves 65% to 75% in terms of time. 

There's still a chance of human error or tasks taking a few minutes as users would need to input some data into the document in the Action Center. That said, there is definitely a reduction and less of a chance of human errors over there. 

It's helped us free up time for other staff projects. That's the intention of implementing automation. Users can reduce their time on tedious tasks and focus on more important business needs. 

Document understanding works fine, however, it depends on what information you are providing it with. If the data is right, the data is good, however, in cases where the data is not right, it gets a bit difficult.

They could work on the digitizing and classification of documents. That would play a major role in document understanding since that's where we need to make sure that bots are able to extract data from multiple formats or multiple structures of the documents. The better they get at data extraction, the better we can automate. 

I've used the solution for two and a half years. 

I have worked on different use cases. There was one use case where I just worked on a similar type of document that had data entries for more than 300 to 400 users. I have worked with more than 400 to 500 documents of different formats and different sources. That's where I had to use machine learning packages. Right now, we are working on documents, with set formats and different structures, however, the volume of the documents is about 400 to 500.

They have a good technical team that supports the needs of the developers. 

Positive

It could actually take one year if you consider the effort which we had put into building that solution as well. We have a few developers working on it. We wouldn't see a return on investment within eight to ten months as we would just be starting with building the processes. 

We have witnessed some ROI. For example, it reduces review work from 60% to 70%. That's where the full-time employees would definitely save their time and can then focus on much more important business needs, which could help them get more projects or increase revenue as well. That's where you would see the most ROI. 

It definitely reduces the hours of work. The bots have the potential to also cover offline hours. 

While it depends on the use cases, the document understanding is good. I'd rate it eight out of ten.