RPA Technical Consultant at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Consultant
Top 20
{layed a crucial role in generating significant capacity and managing all the challenging tasks efficiently
Pros and Cons
  • "The AI feature has enabled us to automate more processes overall."
  • "It would be beneficial to have the capability to track defects during the regression testing of applications."

What is our primary use case?

We utilize UiPath to automate manual and repetitive tasks that range from simple Excel manipulations to web scraping. We have several use cases related to refinancing, such as handling accounts payable for invoice processing, remittances, and accounts receivable, among others. In addition to that, UiPath enables us to develop public-facing applications that are integrated with automation. This automation is triggered automatically whenever there are user interactions or events, resulting in numerous use cases. For instance, if the requested data is not already available in the document, we can obtain input from customers using UiPath. 

Furthermore, we employ UiPath products for automatic invoice processing. When we receive invoices in PDF format, we digitize them using our own OCR engine. Subsequently, this information can be utilized to save data into systems like SAP. We extensively automate ERP systems, including SAP, Oracle, and NetSuite.

We also use UiPath for application testing. We have built several test cases for suppression, user acceptance, and so on, which can be scheduled to run or run on demand.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath has a small learning curve because we leverage Microsoft technologies, benefiting greatly from UiPath's integration with the Windows Workflow Foundation. Moreover, there is also a version tailored for business users. Personally, I have a tech background, but we have received feedback from other users who find it very easy to create simple automation. However, for more complex automation, some experience or training might be necessary. Fortunately, UiPath offers completely free on-demand training through their Academy. Once someone completes the training, they will be able to proficiently build automation.

We employ our bots to collect data on emissions, consumption, and byproducts. We do not have any byproducts. Recently, we published a report detailing where and how we have achieved our sustainability goal.   

With UiPath, we have been able to achieve a 100 percent scale-up in the finance department without increasing the headcount. Therefore, it has played a crucial role in generating significant capacity and managing all the challenging tasks efficiently.

Being able to implement end-to-end automation using UiPath is crucial. We have use cases where human involvement is necessary. For instance, if there are invoices exceeding ten thousand dollars, we require approval. Therefore, UiPath allows us to pause automation until we receive those approvals from various stakeholders. Once the human input is provided, the bot proceeds with the remaining steps. It is highly reliable and adaptable to changes in the sales flow. We have utilized UiPath for automation without the need for additional staff.

Whenever there are new features or releases that lack detailed information, we can use UiPath's User Community to discuss the posted topics. For example, we can seek assistance in understanding how to make the most of a specific feature or determine the necessary settings for our properties to leverage those features effectively. Additionally, training resources for these products are available within the community. Webinars are frequently hosted in the UiPath User Community, which we also utilize to gain insights into the functionality of the product and its application in solving various use cases.

There are several areas in which UiPath has benefited our organization. We gain process intelligence and revenue intelligence. Additionally, we are able to perform virtual investment analysis using automation. UiPath enables us to free up a significant amount of capacity for more meaningful work.

UiPath has helped minimize our on-premises footprint. It's all about the SaaS cloud-based offerings. Therefore, several products are currently available quickly, specifically on the cloud. Essentially, we only utilize virtual machines for the robot itself, which execute alongside all the other services. Everything is hosted in the cloud.

The biggest benefit of using UiPath's Academy is that it offers various labs and exercises, which greatly assist us in utilizing and improving our understanding of the tool. Additionally, the Academy provides certifications that can help individuals become certified in the technology. These are some of the benefits offered by the Academy.

For most of the document understanding process, we utilize machine learning models that are hosted in the UiPath AI center. Additionally, AI is integrated into the process mining and task mining products we employ, which help us discover new automation ideas and opportunities by analyzing information flow within data from ERP systems, among others. Moreover, UiPath recently introduced communications mining, which utilizes a large language model. This enables us to examine emails and other modes of communication to gain insights into the processes and occurrences. There are numerous concealed insights pertaining to both the processes themselves and the sentiments of customers, all of which can be obtained through these AI tools.

UiPath AI has simplified the automation of more complex processes because it doesn't require machine learning, knowledge, or technical ability. It is a very simplified, no-code, local platform. This has greatly helped us build solutions that previously required extensive coding, saving us a significant amount of time during implementation.

UiPath helps to accelerate and reduce the cost of our digital transformation.

UiPath has helped reduce human errors. There are several errors that occur when working with financial data, such as missed dates and miscalculations. However, the bots prevent such mistakes from happening.

UiPath has generated sufficient capacity, allowing us to avoid hiring additional personnel for our department. Despite an increase in workload, the bots are capable of handling it.

UiPath has helped our organization save costs.

What is most valuable?

The AI feature has enabled us to automate more processes overall.

What needs improvement?

It would be beneficial to have the capability to track defects during the regression testing of applications.  

Buyer's Guide
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March 2024
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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for six and a half years.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and Power Plus Automation, but UiPath is more user-friendly.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is reasonable. UiPath is priced for the market and is even better considering the value it brings.

What other advice do I have?

I rate UiPath a ten out of ten.

We have implemented UiPath across multiple departments, including HR and Finance.

No maintenance is required.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
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Business Developer | Shareholder at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 20
Reduces the cost of digital transformation and allows us to build automations easily and quickly
Pros and Cons
  • "The development part is very simple. It is easy to use. Our development time for a project is approximately two weeks now."
  • "UiPath should integrate more machine learning and have more machine learning processes. In their development system, they have some machine learning tools, but they should increase them."

What is our primary use case?

One of the use cases is related to material billing. For the material billing process, previously, when a vendor invoice came into our SAP system, our staff had to write invoice data and process the invoice. We transferred this process to RPA. We now have only one robot focusing on this project. It handles about 120 invoices in a month.

We have not yet used UiPath's AI functionality in our automation program. We are always thinking about using AI and machine learning in our development, but we have not had a project in which we could use AI. We might use it in the near future.

It is deployed on-prem, but we are thinking about changing it to the cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

It is easy to build automations by using UiPath. One of the projects was related to reporting or getting some information from the websites. To do our purchasing, the department needs a summarized report containing prices in email. We converted that into an RPA project where the robot accesses the website, reads the specific numbers, creates a small report in Excel format, and sends it as an email to our department. It took us three days or so to implement this automation. It was an easy project.

UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation. One advantage is that robots can work 24 hours. It enables people to add some value to the company. They can think about some places where they can improve or they can reduce costs. They have enough time to think about it. Before RPA, they used to take a lot of time to do the same work.

Our on-premises footprint has been reduced. For our invoice use case, our staff used to print out the invoice to check the numbers and enter the data. We eliminated that and reduced our paper usage by approximately 20%.

UiPath reduces the cost of digital transformation. We are using the SAP system, and there is a cost if we want to implement any automation. There are consulting companies that can write the code, but they are very expensive. With UiPath, we can automate our processes and eliminate or reduce that cost.

It has reduced human error. If the invoice is correct and the data is correct, what the robot writes into SAP is also correct. It has reduced risks and errors.

Employee time has been freed up. It saved us the time of one staff member. We were able to shift that person to another department because of the time savings.

UiPath has saved us costs. We could shift one staff member to another department. We did not have to hire one more staff member, so it has saved that cost.

What is most valuable?

The development part is very simple. It is easy to use. Our development time for a project is approximately two weeks now. It is good because even though you can develop the code in SAP, it takes a lot of time. When the demand is high, we can deliver in two weeks. It has helped us to tell our organization that RPA is easier and faster than the usual code route.

What needs improvement?

We have used UiPath Academy courses for process mining. For RPA, we have some KPIs for developers to complete their education. In UiPath Academy courses, they have an option for the Turkish language for videos, but they are always in English. They should correct that.

UiPath should integrate more machine learning and have more machine learning processes. In their development system, they have some machine learning tools, but they should increase them. With robots and structured data, in my opinion, we can use machine learning. The robots should also use machine learning to create some AI models.

Its price should be reduced.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using UiPath for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

At the beginning of the project, there were some issues, but now, it is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. For the RPA part, we have 5 robots, and we have 40 projects that are live. We have about 100 projects that are to be implemented.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate them an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not use any other solution.

What about the implementation team?

In our department, we have three employees for implementation. We do not take the help of any consulting company.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Its price could be better. They should reduce its price.

The insights module, process mining, document understanding, and other modules should come as one package because when you buy a module, it usually is not enough for a project, and then you have to buy another module. They might already have bundled these. I have not checked it recently.

What other advice do I have?

To those evaluating this solution, I would recommend seeing it as one package. Before implementing it, the organization should also be ready for it because, with automation, people have concerns about losing their jobs. Organizations should have a clear understanding that robots are coming to save time.

Overall, I would rate UiPath an eight out of ten.

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.
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March 2024
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
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Technology Consultant at Ernst & Young
Integrator
Speeds up digital transformation without having to change an entire system
Pros and Cons
  • "I can also implement end-to-end automation and that means that business owners can hand off these processes and focus on more high-value work. That gives them back hours as well."
  • "They can improve integration with other types of systems by giving us more connectors. That would mean UiPath would work natively with more applications. With that done, they will have built a fantastic solution."

What is our primary use case?

My use cases are mostly in finance, including settlements and reconciliation processes.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath has greatly improved the work we do for our clients. Because I work in consulting, it's crucial to see a reduction in the turnaround time for some of the high-end processes that we've worked on. We have taken down the time required for some processes from four hours to about 10 minutes. It's very important because of the time savings and the cost savings as well.

It also speeds up digital transformation and reduces the costs of that process. You might think you have to bring in a new system, but you don't actually change the system when UiPath is implemented. That reduces the costs of digital transformation.

Another benefit of UiPath is that it reduces human error significantly. In my experience, I would estimate the reduction at 40 percent. It has also freed up employee time and resulted in cost reductions.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable parts for me are the UiPath Studio platform and the Activities that it provides for automation. The platform is quite friendly and it's very easy to build automations. It's mostly drag-and-drop.

I can also implement end-to-end automation and that means that business owners can hand off these processes and focus on more high-value work. That gives them back hours as well. So it's very important that UiPath can complete automation processes from end to end.

Another advantage is that the user community is top-notch. One of the reasons I recommend UiPath is the knowledge you can get from the forums. And there are constant events that the community hosts around the world. You can be in the Lagos community, where I am from, and learn there, and you can also be in another community and learn things from them as well. It's really helpful.

And in terms of UiPath Academy courses, almost everyone I know has learned from the UiPath Academy. It's a great initiative from UiPath. It's accessible and has detailed content. It's great. You don't need to go anywhere else for training, it's all available in the Academy, and it's free, which makes it a no-brainer.

What needs improvement?

They can improve integration with other types of systems by giving us more connectors. That would mean UiPath would work natively with more applications. With that done, they will have built a fantastic solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with UiPath for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. I am coming from Blue Prism where the software crashes from time to time.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very scalable and can handle quite a lot of workload.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is quite friendly and prompt.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've used Blue Prism as well. It was the first RPA software I worked with.

How was the initial setup?

Most of our deployments are on-premises. Our deployment was straightforward. We had a guy who helped us implement and deploy it. It's a Windows Server deployment and it's deployed in multiple locations.

There isn't really any maintenance involved.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

UiPath is a great fit for enterprise-grade companies. It's user-friendly and speeds up the time to delivery.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
Johannes Becker - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner at TPA
Real User
Processes that took our clients three days are now done in minutes
Pros and Cons
  • "It enables us to implement end-to-end automation. We have projects where it automates the entire process from one end to the other. Very often we have "human-in-the-loop" within them, because some decisions have to be made, but they are almost end-to-end solutions."
  • "We have had issues with Ingram Micro. It happened that we ordered licenses and we received something else. It takes a relatively long time, two and sometimes even three weeks, after the order until we receive licenses, and clients are sometimes a little bit impatient. This is something that should be accelerated."

What is our primary use case?

We use it mostly for our sales and for our clients, with relatively simple, stand-alone robotic solutions. Some are attended and some are unattended. We use it for reporting in our finance and HR departments. 

How has it helped my organization?

We have automated processes for our clients that, before, took somebody three days to do, and now they're done in minutes. That says everything. It's extremely useful for saving time and avoiding mistakes. Those are the two main efficiency factors that we have seen with our clients. Repetitive projects, where someone has to copy a lot of data from one place to another and then work with the data, are very prone to mistakes. We can completely eliminate mistakes and save people a lot of time so that they can do more interesting tasks. We have developed programs that reduce human error by 100 percent. There are no errors, once they are automated.

And it absolutely accelerates the process of digital transformation. There is no doubt that it is getting faster and faster. We are thinking about combining RPA solutions from UiPath with ChatGPT or whatever else comes along, to see if we can make them work together. This will be the future.

What is most valuable?

It enables us to implement end-to-end automation. We have projects where it automates the entire process from one end to the other. Very often we have "human-in-the-loop" within them, because some decisions have to be made, but they are almost end-to-end solutions.

End-to-end automation is extremely important. Usually, when we start with a new client, we start with a smaller process as a type of proof of concept, so that they can see what is possible. Then, we extend it up and down until we have an end-to-end solution. We have seen that it's better to develop a process step-by-step, and not try to do everything at once. But in the end, we have an end-to-end solution.

The UiPath community is used by our developers. They ask questions and receive responses. They are definitely active there.

What needs improvement?

We have had issues with Ingram Micro. It happened that we ordered licenses and we received something else. It takes a relatively long time, two and sometimes even three weeks, after the order until we receive licenses, and clients are sometimes a little bit impatient. This is something that should be accelerated.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for almost four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

UiPath is a stable solution. One of the reasons we left the Foxtrot solution was that it was unstable. If we had the same process running 10 times, we could get three different results. But with UiPath, we have never had any issues regarding stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable.

How are customer service and support?

We have discussions sometimes with people from UiPath about solutions and things that we have done already. That is working quite well. The support is very good.

We participate quite frequently in UiPath webinars, especially when they are presenting new versions or components or pricing models for the software, so that we keep everybody up to date on the latest developments. They develop things very quickly. It's difficult to keep up with the speed at which they are developing new solutions.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

It is very straightforward to implement. The setting up of a license is something that is done within an hour. It's the development that takes more time. Most of our clients are large, multinational companies.

UiPath itself does not require any maintenance, but solution maintenance is required if something changes for one of our clients.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Everybody is afraid of the licensing fees in the beginning, and because we are in Romania where salaries are still significantly lower than in Western Europe, that means that licensing fees have a bigger impact on costs for the company. But we are also working more and more for companies outside of Romania, where that is less of an issue.

When we come up with an offer in which the licensing fees are getting a little bigger, clients are more reluctant. That is another reason that we prefer to start with something a bit smaller until they get acquainted with the solution and see the advantages.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at other solutions. We started with something called Foxtrot RPA, which didn't work well at all. We also compared UiPath with Automation Anywhere. But UiPath offers a better variety of possibilities, it's more flexible, and it's very easy to program if you are a developer and know other programming languages. UiPath offers StudioX for people who do not have any experience with development, but it's still a little too complicated.

What other advice do I have?

We are not using a lot of the abilities that UiPath offers. We have made some attempts to use Document Understanding and we would very much like to do project mining, but we haven't had a client that is interested in that yet.

I would recommend that you start by implementing a small, standalone process, something that is not part of a big process. Automate that small process first to get used to how it works and see what can be done with RPA in general. And only then start with more complex processes. The latter take more time to develop, and clients don't like to wait.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Senior Software Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
It doesn't require much coding, and we can do much of what we need with the basic features
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable aspect of UiPath is that it doesn't require much coding."
  • "The user interface could be better. There have been advancements in UI design and user experience in recent years. UiPath could do a better job of keeping up with these trends."

What is our primary use case?

We use UiPath to automate the processing of large volumes of data. The company has multiple sites, but the organization's data warehouse is at one location. Around 80 people use the solution. 

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath enabled the company to reduce staff. We can now perform more work with fewer people. We decreased our manual work by around 60 to 70 percent. UiPath freed up personnel to do other tasks. We still have people doing about 30 percent of the data work, but we hope to increase that to 100 percent. We've cut costs by about 40 to 50 percent.  

We are launching new products using existing UiPath workflows built for our older core projects. When we get new requirements from the client, we can easily implement them. UiPath has expanded our capacity to take on new clients. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable aspect of UiPath is that it doesn't require much coding. We can do most of what we need using the basic functionality. We can implement the code with drag and drop and basic modular programming.

What needs improvement?

The user interface could be better. There have been advancements in UI design and user experience in recent years. UiPath could do a better job of keeping up with these trends.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used UiPath for about five or six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

UiPath is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

UiPath is scalable because we can reuse our workflows. 

How are customer service and support?

I rate UiPath support an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used Microsoft Power Automate for one or two months. UiPath has more capabilities, and we can do more with it. 

How was the initial setup?

Setting up UiPath is straightforward and requires some maintenance. The deployment team does that.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We're getting more clients using UiPath, so the price we pay isn't an issue. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate UiPath a nine out of ten. I would recommend it to my clients and colleagues. It doesn't require much coding knowledge to use. It's also much cheaper than paying human employees to do the same work, and bots are less prone to errors. 

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: partner
PeerSpot user
Rohit Khanna - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Capgemini
Real User
A cost-effective, reliable tool that saves time and improves accuracy
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a very easy and stable product."
  • "The user interface needs a little bit of improvement in terms of performance. Sometimes, it slows down, but it depends on the OS that you have. If you are running it on Microsoft Windows, it is slower than on macOS or Linux."

What is our primary use case?

It depends on the task that is assigned to me, but mainly, I'm using it for PDF automation and Java API-related automation. It is being used for extractions of PDFs and automation of the APIs to get a better and more rapid response.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath helps a lot in everything related to automation. We have lots of tasks, and we need to get accurate results. Our experience of automating using UiPath has been good. It is easy to get good information or good output from the data.

Its AI capabilities are very helpful for automating more processes. If we want to extract something, we can easily use it. Its AI capabilities make it easy to automate a process and get accurate results.

It works well with all languages, such as Python, Java, C++, etc. It also works with APIs. It is helpful to understand the APIs to extract the data. 

It enables us to implement end-to-end automation. 

It has improved productivity and reliability and saved a lot of time. It has also reduced human error. It has reduced human error by 30% to 50%, and it has freed up employee time by 40% to 60% depending on the task or use case of an employee.

It has reduced our on-premises footprint a little bit.

What is most valuable?

It is a very easy and stable product. 

It saves a lot of time. It increases our productivity, and it also helps with project reliability and scalability.

The courses available on UiPath Academy are helpful if we want to go deep into the UiPath scripts or tools. UiPath Academy is also helpful when we want to learn something new that is available in the new versions or improve our skills and knowledge.

What needs improvement?

The user interface needs a little bit of improvement in terms of performance. Sometimes, it slows down, but it depends on the OS that you have. If you are running it on Microsoft Windows, it is slower than on macOS or Linux.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using UiPath for the last two to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. I would rate it a 10 out of 10 in terms of reliability. The tool is very secure. If a user wants to run it on a Mac, it works flawlessly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. I would rate it a 10 out of 10 for scalability.

We are using it for multiple departments. We have IT consultancy and IT services, as well as product teams. In my company, there are about 5K people. Some of them are end-users, some are developers, some are admins, and some are testers.

How are customer service and support?

For any issues, we can take the help of the UiPath customer support and the UiPath community.

When we have some issues with the deployment tasks and automation tasks, customer support helps a lot, and they always try to resolve issues in a short time. Their technical support is incredible. They are always ready to help with customer queries and they try to resolve them within hours, not days. Sometimes, they resolve them within 30 minutes, but it also depends on the issue or priority. I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

This is the first tool that I have been using for the last two to three years.

How was the initial setup?

It depends on the project size. If the project is complex, it takes time. In my opinion, it is straightforward if you know how to use it. If you don't know how to use this tool, it is very difficult. On average, it takes half an hour to one hour.

In terms of maintenance, it requires some maintenance, which is taken care of by the admin side. They have to make sure that it is up to date.

What was our ROI?

It is very cost-effective, and it gives an ROI. It saves a lot of time as well as money. It helps to build client relationships and improve customer feedback. There is a 20% to 30% saving on costs. It has saved $5,000 to $6,000 per year.

The time savings depend on the task and the size of the process. We can save 10% to 50%.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Its price is moderate. It is neither very expensive nor very cheap. Everything is good in terms of pricing.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend it to every developer or software engineer who wants to work on the automation review task. 

Overall, I would rate UiPath a 10 out of 10.

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.
PeerSpot user
Praveen_Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Developer at Capgemini
Real User
End-to-end automation is important for getting results very quickly and saving time
Pros and Cons
  • "It provides various services such as PDF automation and AI capabilities that help in creating accurate results. We are using the AI for chatbot integrations and handling customer interactions. It helps eliminate manual work."
  • "Sometimes it takes time to provide results."

What is our primary use case?

I'm using it for PDF automation.

How has it helped my organization?

It helps us save 60 to 70 percent of the time we used to take and provides accurate results. 

It also helps with increasing productivity. Now that work is automated, it has eliminated any manual work within these processes and reduced human error.

It also provides end-to-end automation, which is very important for getting results very quickly and saving time. We can use that saved time for other productive work. 

UiPath also helps us in reducing digital costs.

What is most valuable?

It provides various services such as PDF automation and AI capabilities that help in creating accurate results. We are using the AI for chatbot integrations and handling customer interactions. It helps eliminate manual work.

The email automations are also very valuable.

It also provides a user-friendly interface so that anyone can use it. 

What needs improvement?

Sometimes it takes time to provide results.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for almost a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable and provides accurate results for our organization.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very scalable, as more than 250 users in our organization use this tool, and we have not faced any issues with it.

How are customer service and support?

The customer support is very good and resolves our queries immediately. It has been very good for us.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

This is the first automation tool we have used.

How was the initial setup?

It requires IT support.

What was our ROI?

It's saving employee time, which helps with ROI, but the cost is higher. But the results it provides are enough for the tool to give us ROI.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's costly compared to other tools in the market. Other than that, it is very good.

What other advice do I have?

As I noted, sometimes it takes time to get the results, but it depends upon the query or task I'm using it for. Other than this, it's very good and I'm happy with this tool. It works well for me and I would recommend that others use it.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
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.
PeerSpot user
Developer at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Process automation solution that has reduced our manual hours by 200,000 each year
Pros and Cons
  • "The automations that UiPath provide free up our team members for tasks and projects that they have always wanted to do but have not had time for. There has been a shift to more meaningful work and doing the work that hasn't been done before."
  • "To improve this solution, there could be increased transparency over licensing and consistency regarding what it costs for on-prem and what it costs for the cloud."

What is our primary use case?

We're in the supply chain industry and we use UiPath for automations for purchasing and selling and to make people's lives easier within the organization. We have 20,000 users in our organization. 

We do not currently use the AI functionality in our automation program but we have in the past. I've found Document Understanding in the AI Center valuable. In the past, the action center was slow compared to some competitors in the IDP sphere, which can be detrimental if you're dealing with millions of documents but this has since been improved.

We use unattended robot processes almost exclusively and this includes approximately 130 to 140 processes. We do have plans to increase this usage and create more core automations. Certain automations have a shelf life and need to be retired at a certain point. A lot of times we're working with systems that are eventually going to be replaced. The reason why we use UiPath over strictly APIs or something programmatic is that we don't have access to something programmatic. 

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath has improved our organization in the sense that it has reduced our manual hours by 200,000 hours per year. This is substantial especially given the size of the COE. We don't necessarily realize these benefits from a head count decrease perspective but we definitely realize it from a time-saving perspective. 

The automations that UiPath provide free up our team members for tasks and projects that they have always wanted to do but have not had time for. There has been a shift to more meaningful work and doing work that hasn't been done before.

What is most valuable?

The Orchestration feature has been valuable as well as Studio because it makes it easier for people to develop who don't necessarily have a coding background. The UI automation when using UiPath is the best in the field, as far as RPA goes.

What needs improvement?

UiPath will introduce new features and it appears as though there is an unspoken rule that what they have released is not where it needs to be, but it'll be there eventually. To improve this solution, there could be increased transparency over licensing and consistency regarding what it costs for on-prem and what it costs for the cloud. This would make it more enticing for people to switch from one to another. 

We have also experienced some difficulty with updates and making sure that everything runs consistently. Many times, new releases are not communicated and then are released. This is included in documentation but this documentation is not always stored in the same place. Having some clarity or upgrade assistance to highlight what we need to look out for would help a great deal. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a stable solution but stability is dependent on your configuration. If you configure your robots in such a way that every VDI that runs or every virtual machine that's able to run a bot has a backup, then it will be stable.

How are customer service and support?

UiPath's support is quite good. Whenever I've submitted a ticket, I have gotten relatively good responses within a couple of days. If you say that something is urgent and critical, they do get back to you sooner. Sometimes you get stuck between L1 and L2 support, which can be frustrating. 

I would rate the support for this solution an eight out of ten. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The complexity of the setup depends on what you're trying to deploy. If you're deploying only the orchestrator and setting up robots, it is pretty straightforward. If 10 is difficult and one is easy, I would rate the setup a three or four. 

The certificates needed to set up the orchestrator can be confusing and frustrating during setup. For the most part, what you need to do is straightforward. When it comes to installations that require a Linux virtual machine, Docker configuration, or Kubernetes, the setup is more complex. It is more complex to set up an on-premises configuration compared to a cloud configuration.

What was our ROI?

From what I've seen, organizations will have vastly different numbers as to how hours correspond to dollars. Our return on investment has been good, even from a conservative perspective.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The way that the licensing is structured is confusing for some because there is different licensing if you're on the cloud versus if you're on-prem. There are unattended licenses and then there are non-production licenses and people get confused by that.

There's a level of buy-in that's required that makes it difficult for people to get started. For example, "If we do this, we need to get this whole package" as opposed to, "Let's get a couple of licenses and see how it works for us." There's the community for these questions but if you want to do an on-premise installation, you can't really use the community in the same way to get clarity.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

As far as strictly RPA and UI-based automation solutions are concerned, UiPath really shines over its competition. The most similar comparisons would be Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism, and I don't think that they have the same level of ease when learning how to use their solutions. Not as many users in the market know how to use those solutions and they don't have the same level of orchestration which makes them more difficult to manage compared to UiPath. 

What other advice do I have?

The UiPath's user community, in terms of the value that you gain by being a part of it, is hit or miss. A lot of times there aren't responses to the high-level questions. There are a lot of responses to people who are just learning how to use it, but for more complex questions, there are no experts to field responses. It is possible to find these answers but they are not necessarily contained on UiPath's platforms. That being said, I did find the user community and academy very useful when I first started using this solution.  

I have done 16 courses from the academy and continue to review what is released to see if it would add value to me to stay up to date with the latest features. The academy provides the ability for more people to learn UiPath and learn RPA and this makes it easier to hire new team members as they can easily gain the necessary skillsets. They still do have to learn on the job to some extent, but there's a basic skillset that's pretty well established and there are certifications that are associated with that. 

I would advise others considering UiPath to start with some use cases in mind. I don't necessarily think that you're going to get value out of evaluating the solution if you don't have at least a few things to get you started. I would advise having someone with a technical skillset to assist in this regard. 

I would rate UiPath a nine out of ten. 

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.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
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Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.