What is our primary use case?
We provide RPA services and I am currently working on two different projects.
These projects are for two different clients that are each using a different version of the platform. In both cases, it is an on-premises deployment. Our clients only use the end product and don't do any development themselves.
One of my clients is a retail organization and the primary use case is invoice automation. Previously, the process was totally manual. They have different products and different departments and for each and every department for which they bill, like HR, there are printing and supply chain tasks to be completed. As part of their process, they generate invoices monthly.
To generate invoices, they need to gather data from different sources, such as a database or Excel files. What we have done is fully automated the process. They now only need to work with a consolidated Excel sheet and then email it, once complete.
Once they send the email to a particular email address, the robot retrieves it and reads the attached Excel sheet. After doing some cleaning, consolidation, and validation, it generates invoices each month in a particular template, and then it submits them to the EBS portal.
The manual invoicing task used to take between two and two and a half weeks. Now, they start it at 4:30 when they leave and it works overnight. The process is now fully completed within two days. The time saved is now time that can be used to focus on higher-value work. It has also improved employee satisfaction.
How has it helped my organization?
With respect to building automations, UiPath is very easy to use. I have trained people to use this product and it is so easy to use that even on the first day, people are able to start working with it.
UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation and it starts with features like task mining, process mining, and task capture. Then, we have Orchestrator, where there is a control room that gives you insights, and you can create dashboards using Kibana.
We have done work for a giant logistic firm, and the end-to-end coverage is very important for them. If you are spending and investing money then you should get a return, and the return, in this case, is measured by FTE savings.
Another way that UiPath has improved the way our organization functions is that we have introduced automation to clients that were not even aware of it. For example, we have a client that we have worked with for many years and we were ultimately able to introduce them to RPA. At this point, we have automated many of their processes. Essentially, when you automate a process or task for a company that is not even aware of RPA, they will start using it, which is very helpful for us.
UiPath has definitely helped to minimize the on-premises footprint for our clients. We work with a non-profit organization that we have done some automation for. Since they are non-profit, keeping infrastructure costs down is important. They run events each quarter and in the administration of those events, they have highlighted what they want to have automated and some of the processes include using AI and ML. As a result, the company is growing and creating new products.
I have seen companies that were hesitant about starting with automation because they were worried about the cost. However, in the long run, it saves a great deal in terms of FTEs, effort, and costs. Ultimately, it has helped to reduce the cost of digital transformation for our clients.
This product definitely helps to reduce human error. For example, if there is any human input that is required by the process then UiPath will help to catch these kinds of errors.
UiPath has also helped us to free up employee time. One use case that helped to free employee time was for our client that had to reset lost passwords manually. It was quite common that one of their users lost a password and needed to have it reset, so we created automation for it. The bot interacts with the Unix server to reset the password and the process is now free of manual effort.
Especially for a larger organization, time is money and if you're saving time, it's definitely saving you money. Overall, UiPath has reduced costs for our clients.
What is most valuable?
The feature that we use the most is Studio.
Document Understanding is a good feature that is very helpful to us. We have an ongoing project that requires reading PDF files. We need to use different OCR engines and see which ones give us the correct data. Document Understanding allows you to extract the data into different types using different extractors. For example, there is an ML extractor and other types that allow you to pinpoint fields and determine which should be accepted. Based on the confidence level, it gets better every time. In this way, the feature has helped us a lot.
This is the friendliest community and forum that I have ever seen, which is something I see as added value.
What needs improvement?
I have been using UiPath for close to four years and I have worked with many of the features, but there are still some that I don't know. It is not obvious what all of the features do and it would be helpful to have more information about them.
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using UiPath for between three and four years, since 2017.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
UiPath is pretty stable. Over time, I have seen them add new features and I have not found anything that wasn't working.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Automations are very easy to scale, regardless of what project you are working on. You don't have to think about the infrastructure, which is helpful. One of the things that make it more scalable is that we can integrate third-party tools and applications.
Our clients are expanding their scope in terms of RPA, so we expect to expand our usage. We will be looking for more use cases and developing more bots.
How are customer service and support?
I have been in contact with technical support and my experience was very good. They responded the same day and resolved the query.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Neither we nor our customers were using a different RPA solution, prior to UiPath.
I have a little bit of experience with Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism, although I have not used either of these to implement a bot for production.
The biggest differences between UiPath and these other products are user experience and ease of use. For example, with UiPath Studio, I can easily find things. Even after training on the other solutions, Uipath is still easier, which is a big plus.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty straightforward. It was installed with the MSI installer. I have also installed the Orchestrator, both on-premises and in the cloud, and it is also straightforward.
For Studio, it takes a few minutes to install it, or uninstall and upgrade it. If you have the prerequisites and the AI settings and other configuration options decided, it will take between five and ten minutes to complete.
If you have a reasonable and straightforward process then it can be developed and pushed to production the same day that you install UiPath.
To maintain the Orchestrator and the other components, one or two people would be enough. One person might have the Orchestrator and UiPath knowledge of what settings are required, whereas another person is purely IT and can assist in that regard.
What about the implementation team?
I have deployed this solution for a client on my own, so a single person is able to do it, without help from a third party.
What was our ROI?
Based on what my clients have saved in terms of FTEs, they are extending their scope of automation. For example, in one organization, they saved two FTEs and are now automating processes in different departments. I cannot estimate a dollar value but this saving in FTEs is their ROI. Overall, they are finding it very helpful.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The combination of Orchestrator and Studio is a bit on the higher side, price-wise, for some companies.
Overall, I think that the pricing is reasonable and it is similar to competitors. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.
What other advice do I have?
We have used attended automation for our clients but I have not worked with that functionality. My work has been unattended RPA tasks.
I have tried the Automation Cloud offering but only personally, for learning. The SaaS option is very good and important for some companies because it allows them to save money. Regarding the price, not every organization can afford the Orchestrator, Studio, and everything else that goes with it. These types of companies sometimes want to be service-based, rather than purchasing everything on-premises, and this SaaS offering allows them to save money doing that.
I have implemented the UiPath AI functionality in a PoC, but not in any project as of yet. It is able to handle very complex automations, including those that include third-party integrations, as well as multiple environments on remote machines. We have tried some examples using Excel, Word, and PDF activities and at the same time, interacting with SharePoint, and Microsoft CRM. We are also getting data from the Citrix environment. Applying the AI functionality, it is very much capable of accomplishing complex tasks of these types.
We have not yet used the UiPath Apps feature, although I have explored it. It is a low-code option that you can use to create apps based on where you can see and interact with data, and then use them from Orchestrator. We plan to implement it in one of our projects soon.
There is a myth that when companies develop automations, they will lose jobs. In our experience, there is nothing like that. In fact, we have hired more people since we started working with UiPath.
They have added many features in the time that I have been using UiPath. For example, the AI/ML capabilities have improved to include things like a chatbot. Document Understanding is another new feature that was added, along with an ML Extractor, and AI Center. These packages have a lot of good features that will be helpful for everyone.
The biggest lesson that I have learned from using UiPath is that there are a lot of processes in an organization that can be automated, and it is worth investing in RPA because you can reclaim that time for something more important. After using UiPath for some time, I am much better able to recognize processes that can be automated.
My advice for anybody who is thinking about implementing UiPath is definitely to go ahead with it. I recommend using it without thinking about anything else.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
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