Process Automation Analyst at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Replaces manual work, reduces human errors, and has helpful user community and learning courses
Pros and Cons
  • "The UI Explorer in the UiPath Studio is valuable. We can get a unique and dynamic selector for every element in the UI, which is helpful for me in finding out a particular UI element. Most of my automations have had UI interactions. So, I found it the most helpful feature."
  • "When I started working with UiPath, there were no activities for SAP, but in the version that I'm using right now, there are SAP activities or SAP modules. Previously, I had to code everything from user login to user logout, but now, all the activities are available. I just have to drag and drop and give the username and password. I don't have to do it from scratch. It would be great if they can include activities for all of the most common CRMs and ERPs. They can integrate it with different activities for the most common systems."

What is our primary use case?

My previous company was in the banking sector, and we had done automation with websites, UI, SAP, Excel files, and PDF. In my current company, it is being used for finance and HR. We have ERP, CRM, chatbots, etc. We are using this solution to integrate different systems.

I use UiPath Studio to develop the code, and I use UiPath Orchestrator to publish my work. We have our own UAT systems to test the code. We can install the UiPath in the test environment and find all the compilation errors in the debug mode and fix them. We also have version control. If we upload a version and it doesn't work, we can downgrade the version. Everything is tracked in UiPath Orchestrator.

We are using it on-premise. In my previous company, it was on the cloud, and we accessed it through the cloud. 

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath Academy courses have been helpful for me. There were lots of activities that I didn't know about, and UiPath Academy was helpful for that. There are multiple ways to do an activity, and UiPath Academy helps you to find out those activities. When you start using it, you can find out which activity will work the best for you. The courses are interactive and not boring with just videos or PDFs. They have a mix of PDFs, videos, and interactions. It is fun and interesting if you have a passion for it.

I found the UiPath community very helpful. At the beginning of my career, I had lots of doubts, and I posted them in the community. We had got an unknown error, and we posted our query there thinking that there must be at least one person who has had the same issue. They solved the issue quickly. It was a quick response. If you post a question, sometimes, you can also get a response within five minutes.

I use attended automation, and it has helped to scale RPA benefits in our organization for processes that require human-robot collaboration. We have a process for reconciling bank statements. When the finance department is done with their files, they send them over to me by email, and I have to start the process manually from UiPath Orchestrator. It needs human interaction. It is a monthly process, and we don't want to automatically trigger based on something.

We use its AI functionality a little bit. We have automation for processing invoices that are in different formats. We are using an ML model to train and replicate the output based on the incoming PDFs. We don't have to manually identify the PDF format and process it. Its AI is very helpful in the case of dynamic files where when a PDF is in one format, we want to process it in a certain way, and when it is in another format, we want to process it in a different way. We have automation to automatically identify the fields and then process the documents accordingly. It is helpful in the case of dynamic files. 

It has reduced human errors. We have a process to send emails to the end-users based on the training they complete in our LMS. I did the automation, and the SME was very happy with that automation. She used to have lots of manual errors where she might miss one email id or put an incorrect email id. With the bot, we automated it and added exceptions, etc. It is more stable now, and there are fewer human errors. It is also very helpful for data entry work where there are lots of chances of human errors. All this can be avoided with a bot.

It has freed up employee time. The time saved depends on the complexity and the length of the process. For our LMS use case, the SME used to take around one hour every morning, and now, she doesn't have to do that. Even if she is on leave, our bot is available 24/7/365. 

What is most valuable?

The UI Explorer in the UiPath Studio is valuable. We can get a unique and dynamic selector for every element in the UI, which is helpful for me in finding out a particular UI element. Most of my automations have had UI interactions. So, I found it the most helpful feature.

It is pretty easy to build automations. I am from an engineering background, but even if you don't have much coding or programming knowledge, you can easily learn and use this tool. I used UiPath Academy to learn about this tool, and they have got a detailed explanation about everything. So, even if you don't have prior experience, you can easily use this tool.

They give updates every year. Before the new features go live, they put them out in the Community edition. When the features are stable, they release them. They have got a helpful community forum. If you have any roadblocks, you can post your question there and you will get a response, sometimes even within five minutes, depending on the complexity of the question.

What needs improvement?

When I started working with UiPath, there were no activities for SAP, but in the version that I'm using right now, there are SAP activities or SAP modules. Previously, I had to code everything from user login to user logout, but now, all the activities are available. I just have to drag and drop and give the username and password. I don't have to do it from scratch. It would be great if they can include activities for all of the most common CRMs and ERPs. They can integrate it with different activities for the most common systems.

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March 2024
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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for around five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is mostly stable. We recently upgraded our UiPath Orchestrator, and we stopped receiving the emails that we used to receive in the morning about the status of our bots and jobs. I created a ticket, and they said that the particular version or update that I had wasn't stable. They provided me with a different version that was stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is great. In my previous company, one single bot was doing all the processes. In this company, we have six bots, and every day, around 50 processes are running. So, it is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

For the email issue that we had, we created a ticket, and they responded the next day. The response time was less, and they also provided me with the correct solution.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

When I started my career, I started working in Python and website development with Django. When I heard about UiPath and RPA, I felt that it is going to be the future. So, I switched to RPA. UiPath is the first tool I used, and I'm still using it.

I have used Power Automate from Microsoft, but I found UiPath much better because it has a single package with UiPath Orchestrator, Studio, etc. It has everything in a complete package.

I have also used Blue Prism. Blue Prism is more expensive. I used its Community Edition recently because I wanted to explore other tools, and I felt that its UI is not as good as UiPath Studio. They both have drag-and-drop functionality, but Blue Prism is not as user-friendly as UiPath. I have never used Automation Anywhere, but I have heard from my peers who are from the same background that it needs programming knowledge.

How was the initial setup?

It was a bit complex because we have two virtual machines, and each one had three robots in it. We had to do remote desktop on the virtual machine to run the automation. We have recently improved all the processes in our company. They are now dynamic, and they can run in the background. Even if the virtual machine is closed, they will run.

What about the implementation team?

It was implemented in-house.

What was our ROI?

We have definitely seen an ROI. It replaces the manual work and allows us to do other productive tasks rather than doing repetitive and manual tasks every day. If someone costs $50 per hour, and we are able to save one hour of manual work every day for that person, it is a substantial saving.

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

It is a bit expensive, but it is cheaper than Blue Prism. We have six robots in total. There are no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

What other advice do I have?

I love this tool. They have been improving it every year based on the user experience, or they have been releasing a stable version for any bugs.

I would rate it a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
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Intelligent Automation and Artificial Intelligence Leader at EY at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Eliminates manual errors but there should be a broader transformation initiative
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the fluidity of the products. When I want to use RPA, I can use RPA. When I want to do process mining, I can do process mining. Those are the two top that I typically use it for."
  • "The path forward is probably to tie this all together in a platform and look at the workflow automation"

What is our primary use case?

We are on-prem within the insurance industry. Our use cases are in auto reports and micro use cases within that.

How has it helped my organization?

The biggest benefit we see from UiPath is the overall platform. It's not only the functionalities. As we started tying that all together in the platform view, with the orchestration forms and the workflow function, it'll be key, because it's been around in the industry for 20 years, but hasn't been tied to everything. 

It saves us costs but that's only one part of it. We are looking at it in terms of employee centricity, customer centricity, reducing the risk, and improving the accuracy. There's a multitude of factors that we are looking at.

We have seen a reduction in human error using UiPath. We are an audit firm at heart. We do a lot of audit and tax work, which is all related. Within use cases in those spaces, we see a change in terms of accuracy. It eliminates manual errors. Instead of just looking at 20% or 30% of the big picture, you can look at 100 of it because it's automated. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the fluidity of the products. When I want to use RPA, I can use RPA. When I want to do process mining, I can do process mining. Those are the two top that I typically use it for. 

Building automations is easy. It's drag and drop. If you are a developer and want the full functionality, you can actually dive into it at a little bit more of an API level.

We use the Academy. I am the training and certification lead for our UI group of 200 practitioners. It's probably the only group in your partner community that's 100% certified. We are tied in into your training and certification piece and we are using and reusing the licenses to make sure that we are pushing out the updates from the platform through the training store.

Our training and certification programs are still gaining maturity. We recently signed the USN Certification with UiPath, which gives us access to brochures and AP credits. It makes it a little bit more formal because the process was there, but it was very informal. We were exchanging emails, but now it's tied together with the workflow. It's getting there. 

The breadth of the courses is the most valuable aspect of the Academy. This is my third year doing this. There has been an increase in courses being offered. 

What needs improvement?

The path forward is probably to tie this all together in a platform and look at the workflow automation. At this point, we are doing snapshot automation, point solution, and staff automations. The term RPA itself is a misnomer, it never was a robotic process, it was robotic task automation. We are automating tasks and the way to get away from that is to look at process level automation end-to-end. That won't be done with RPA tools, it has to be with the workflow tools. How do we tie in and how do we tie into, either the orchestration function or decisioning functions? They will tie into a broader transformation initiative. It'll be dual-edged.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability has improved in the last two years. As they push more functionality on that and go more cloud-centric, I think it will be much more stable. We just got through an issue yesterday, but it was resolved quickly. We knew what to do. We could figure out the root cause. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability has come a long way. UiPath is probably the leader in this, but as we look at broader solutions and a process-centric automation suite, we also have a long way to go forward. We are at a midpoint in the journey. It's on UiPath and the department of community to try to hook that together.

UiPath is our biggest alliance in the automation side for my company and the plan is to increase the usage. There's a commitment from the very top on both sides. We have stepped away from past automation and stepped into the broader use of it and the transformation journey. There have been micro transformation journeys in all sectors, whether it's financial services or outside of that and commercial, national accounts, and the public sector. That's how we're looking to scale and become even bigger in the next few years.

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

We use Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and Pega Robotic Process. Some of it is just down to the differences between what the tools offer. I've used all four of them.

Each solution has its pros, but in terms of speed to market, and improving the quality, the partner network, the product suite, and the product roadmap itself, UiPath is a few years ahead of the rest. That's reflected in the analyst reports.

What other advice do I have?

UiPath is something that people can dive into. My advice would be to take a few courses, everything is available online. It really comes down to people's aptitude and whether they want to get into this. I don't think it's very difficult.

I would rate it a seven out of ten. Purely because there is always room for improvement, but it's on the right track. Product roadmaps and positioning are in the right space.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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Buyer's Guide
UiPath
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior Specialist Application Architecture and Developer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Reduces dependencies and allows us to do everything within a single tool and meet the targets
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a very simple tool to work with for anybody. Simplicity is the best in UiPath. It also has the best community support. If we are looking for any solution, we can directly reach out to UiPath at any point in time."
  • "The new features or functionalities that come with UiPath upgrades don't work perfectly in the initial days. Their new releases are not stable. We always find some set of issues. I have to work with the UiPath team for a week or so to resolve the issues, and then I'm able to use it. The stabilization should be there. We expect UiPath to reduce the number of errors before rolling out new features to end-users or customers."

What is our primary use case?

We have worked on multiple use cases, but most recently, we have worked on a payroll system. Previously, every month, we had to manually get certain details from HR, and we used to do the pay run for all employees in the organization. Now, we automatically extract the required information from the current system by using UiPath. We then prepare a sheet by using Excel, and the entire Excel sheet is processed by a bot. The final sheet is sent for the payslips for the entire organization, and the entire pay report is sent to the bank for payment details.

How has it helped my organization?

Automation reduces dependencies. When I have a process that is done by humans, there are dependencies. For example, I need to make sure that the required number of people are available in different shifts. Any process that is done by a human has to be split into eight to nine hours of work. After every eight hours, I have a replacement happening for the same work. So, multiple people are working in different shifts. In addition, any work through humans can only be done from Monday to Friday, or I have to get the team over the weekend. Making our team work over the weekend requires special permissions or approvals. With automation, I am at ease. I'm not dependent on anybody. UiPath is easily accessible from mobiles for the orchestration part. So, if I have a critical process that I need to execute and get the results, I can do it from my mobile. Even when I'm traveling, I can get real-time statistics. 

Previously, I used to get a request at any time to do the pay run for an employee. If the employee was on a leave on that particular day or was not available, I used to miss my target or deadline. Now, we are not dependent on anybody. We are completely independent. If I get a request, the robot is automatically going to process it automatically. I don't even have to tell the robot to run a process after getting a request. All my rules and validations are taken care of by automation before the deadline. If I'm away from the office, my robot can automatically trigger a process on receiving a request. So, we are able to meet all the deadlines, targets, and standards set by the company within the given timeframe.

It has helped in minimizing our on-premises footprint. We work for multiple zones and across the globe. If I have a UiPath architecture, I can deploy it anywhere. Irrespective of the country or continent or zone, I'm able to use the same deployment or the same architecture at multiple locations. It has reduced my cost of infrastructure and maintenance. The cost of everything has come down. Previously, we used to have servers country-wise and continent-wise, but now, we don't need multiple servers and multiple teams to maintain them. I can do things from a single location with a limited set of resources.

The majority of our processes are in the unattended mode, but we do have certain processes in the attended mode where certain end-users provide me the real-time information. We have designed a process where we give a specific form to the user. When the form is filled by the user, a process is automatically triggered, and the robot starts processing. It gives real-time statuses and information to the end-user in terms of what we are doing, how are we doing the calculations, and how are they going to get the benefit by opting for certain features within our organization. I can run my processes in the attended and unattended mode. So, I'm able to trigger both modes of automation very easily.

I am able to keep my customer data integrated. With humans, a data leak can happen, but in the case of robotics, my data is very secure.

The way the processing happens is also very smooth. For example, if I'm on leave or on a break, and a customer calls at my help desk, I won't be able to respond. Now, we have chatbots or robots running throughout the day. When the executives are not there and anyone calls the customer support team, customers are able to get a resolution. They don't have to keep calling or wait. Automatically, the bot is able to respond to their queries and concerns. We have been able to reduce the response time. My customers are pretty much satisfied with it, and they don't have any complaints. Previously, the satisfaction level of the customers was not that great.

The best part of automation is that we can easily integrate multiple technologies within a single tool. I can do it at ease with all of my data flow. Automation is happening across the globe, not only in my organization. Every time we do automation, we feel that there is something overlapping in every process. If I automate a process for my organization and your organization, 50% of the things would be the same. I can very easily maintain common things in automation tools through common libraries or common components. For the remaining 50% of things, we use different technologies. We are integrating optical character recognition (OCR) technologies for document processing. We are also using multiple machine learning methodologies to do pattern matching. We are using artificial intelligence to give a response that is comparable to a human response. 

We use its AI functionality in our automation program. We get multiple requests, and they can be through telephone, emails, or documents. When a request comes through the telephone, the robot or automation is designed to convert that to text. When a request comes through a document, we are using AI features. The document might not have a proper structure, and a customer can give any set of data in any format. So, we have built a special template or format, and this AI is helping us to extract the document with the most accurate results possible. We are getting an accuracy of 95%. With this, dependency is also gone. A human has to properly go through a document. Then, we have to convert the data to the file and process it. With AI, irrespective of the size of the document, which can be 100 pages or 500 pages, we are able to exactly locate the data that we're looking for, and we are able to extract and then process it through automation. We are able to smoothly integrate multiple things within a single process.

Its AI functionality has enabled us to automate more processes. It takes a human 23 minutes to process a 500-page document. With AI features, it hardly takes 7 minutes to process the same document. There is a great reduction in the time taken to do the same task, which is a huge benefit. With AI, I can look for, find, and extract specific information in a particular document, and then I'm able to process the information at ease. I can have documents in different formats. For example, each insurance customer or service provider can have different formats. A human would have to scan through multiple pages to reach the conclusion that this is the right data. AI can easily process different formats, whereas a human being has to be trained for different formats. Humans might also understand something and forget something, but that's not the case with AI or automation tools. They always remember the instructions given to them, which has drastically helped us in making our processes more accurate.

It has contributed to end-to-end automation in our organization. End-to-end automation helps us in completing things in a shorter span of time and utilizing resources in a better way. Previously, for every step of a process, we used to have a different team. We had a separate team for the following:

  • Requirement gathering
  • Answering the queries for the customers
  • Responding to the queries by the ticketing system
  • Responding to emails
  • Processing particular processes at the backend
  • Supporting the infrastructure in real-time

Now, all these things are done by robotics. I only need a few people to maintain my infrastructure. 

We use the UiPath Apps feature, and it has definitely helped us. If there is something that is not available within our team, we can directly use all the apps and features given by UiPath. We don't have to dedicatedly set up a team to design that app. If I have to design a new app or a chatbot for my customers, I can easily integrate the UiPath Apps feature instead of recruiting people, training them, and expecting them to give me the output. UiPath provides help and documentation, and if I require any licenses or support, UiPath's team is always available to assist us.

The UiPath Apps feature has increased the number of automations that we can create. It reduces the time to create automations. We can easily create automation. For a small process, we're able to roll out one automated process every 21 days. We are able to roll out an automated and complex end-to-end process every three or five months to our customers. Previously, it used to take us at least six months to one year to roll out the new features or new functionality to customers, but now, the time has drastically come down. 

It speeds up or reduces the cost of digital transformation. Every time we automate, we are able to speed up automation. We are able to do more things, and more people are working on automation. By using new features that UiPath is bringing and the learnings from my past experience, we are able to automate very quickly. Four and a half years ago, a process used to take four months. Now, it only takes 25 days for me. They have added many features, and I don't have to sit and design those features. They are constantly providing new features in their quarterly releases, and I can simply make the best use of them and implement them in my process.

Previously, I needed people in different shifts, and every human being might not have the same speed or enthusiasm. Humans also need breaks. A robot works throughout the day, and it has a consistent processing speed, so we are able to process more and more. I can plan a target with my robot, and I am able to achieve that. If I'm adding new customers, I just have to integrate one or two more licenses, which is very easy. I can easily create or configure a new robot and start processing. With humans, I have to train them again and again, whereas with automation, once a process is ready, I can use it in multiple robots. I can use it for 25, 50, or 100 robots very easily. I can scale my process rate very fast.

Previously, we were able to process 5,000 customer requests in a month. By using automation, we are able to do the same amount of work within 10 days or even within a week. If we add more human resources, it increases the cost for my organization, whereas, with robotics, I can configure 10 robots or 100 robots. It doesn't increase the cost a lot for my organization, and I can process everything that I want. I don't have any backlog.

It has freed up the time of our employees. This additional time has enabled employees to focus on higher-value work. I am utilizing resources in a much better way, and I am able to give them the work that is interesting for them or is relevant to their growth. When people in my team started working, they found the job interesting. After working for more than two to three years on the same thing, they don't feel that they're doing something new or learning something new. By using automation for a lot of things, I am able to train my team on the new things or technology that they are interested in or want to work with. I am also able to give the work that they're looking for. It is bringing more satisfaction, not only from the customers' perspective but also from my team's perspective. I am able to keep the same resources in my organization for a longer period of time because they're very happy. They are not dissatisfied with the organization.

It has definitely reduced human error. Our accuracy is 99.2%. With humans, our accuracy was 96%, and by using robotics, we have brought the accuracy to 99.2%.

It has also reduced the costs of our automation operations. In the initial year, we saved 10% of the day-to-day operational cost that we had when we were doing things manually. In the second year, it was 30%, and it has increased in the subsequent years. So far, almost 60% turnaround in the business profit has been reported.

It has saved costs for our organization. Previously, for a process, I had to train, for example, 100 people and keep them in multiple shifts. I also had to give them multiple facilities to be a part of the organization, whereas with robotics, I only have to design the process once, and I can use it in any number of bots, such as 10, 25, or 50. It also helps in scaling at no extra cost.

By using automation, we need fewer people for support operations. If the customer queries are taken care of by chatbots, my data and patterns are being analyzed by using AI and ML, and the scanning of the documents is taken care of by OCR, I need very few people for support operations. I need only 10% of people for providing support around the clock.

What is most valuable?

We are using the entire automation process most commonly. We are also doing scheduling. Our processes are running on a fixed date, so we are also using schedulers or timers. 

We are also using AI technology. We have AI Fabric, and we are doing the entire extraction part of the document through UiPath, which is very helpful. We're able to do everything within this single tool, and we are not dependent on other tools. We don't have to license more tools from the market and go to multiple tools to do the same work. Within this single tool, we have every feature that we need for our organization. 

It is a very simple tool to work with for anybody. Simplicity is the best in UiPath. It also has the best community support. If we are looking for any solution, we can directly reach out to UiPath at any point in time. 

What needs improvement?

The new features or functionalities that come with UiPath upgrades don't work perfectly in the initial days. Their new releases are not stable. We always find some set of issues. I have to work with the UiPath team for a week or so to resolve the issues, and then I'm able to use it. The stabilization should be there. We expect UiPath to reduce the number of errors before rolling out new features to end-users or customers.

In addition, many times, the apps or activities that we use within UiPath for designing are no longer compatible when a new upgrade happens or the version is changed. We want UiPath to look into it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for almost four and a half years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is one of the very stable tools. We don't see any breakdowns happening within the tool. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We only have to design the process once, and we can use it in any number of bots. It helps in scaling at no extra cost. After we design a process, we can reuse it in subsequent designs. I just have to work on the things that are not already designed. So, there is a 10% to 30% reduction in the new processes that we design. Scalability improves with each and every design.

There is a user base of 100,000 users who are benefiting from automation at the moment. With manual processing, if I had a team of 1,000 people, then with automation, I would need 50 people to automate all processes. I would have four to five solution consultants or solution architects and around 15 to 20 developers and testers. There would also be people who are doing the business implementation, giving guidance to the customers, and doing the production rollout and handover preparation for the customers. 

Our usage is increasing. With every new process that we design, we are able to integrate more and more. Previously, we only used to integrate with OCR, and now, we are also using chatbots, AI, and ML. So, our processes are increasing, and we are definitely expanding.

How are customer service and technical support?

The support that we get from UiPath is one of the best. We are a direct channel partner for the product. Every time UiPath comes up with new features or functionalities, they come and demonstrate that feature and help us to understand them so that we can help our customers with their implementations. We get direct support and the licensing, pricing, and certification benefits from UiPath.

How was the initial setup?

It was pretty straightforward for us. We were able to build the entire infrastructure within a week. This includes getting licenses, doing the installation, and configuring the robots. We found the UiPath documentation very helpful while doing the installation and configuration. 

If I design a process today, I can deploy a process to production within 30 minutes of time. It is very quick. In terms of the implementation strategy, we go to the customer and understand their pain points. We then identify the processes that can be automated and tell them about the benefits and the timeframe for implementing a particular process to their server. We also tell them when will they start seeing the result and how they can achieve what they need by using multiple integrations of the tool. They don't have to spend multiple licenses on different tools. Everything can be done within a single tool.

We use a tool called TFS. With a single click, I can deploy my process from development to QA. In the same way, I can move my process from QA to UAT, and then with one more click, I can move it from UAT to production.

As solution architects, our role is to help the design team understand the design that has to be built. They take care of the design and testing. For the production rollout, we have an infrastructure team. We also sit with the business team to make them understand the process, how robotics works on a day-to-day basis, and what are the things that they have to monitor. Whenever we design a process, we make sure that all the complexities are handled. We are also handling all the compliance, and the integration is done smoothly. After a process is designed and approved by our business team, our accuracy stands at 99%.

In terms of maintenance, it doesn't require expensive or complex application upgrades or IT application support. UiPath is pretty simple. The basic infrastructure works in most of the servers, and we don't need frequent upgrades and maintenance. It is very easy to maintain.

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI. In the initial year, we saved 10% of the day-to-day operational cost. In the second year, it was 30%, and it has increased in the subsequent years. So far, almost 60% increase in the business profit has been reported.

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

There is no additional cost apart from the standard licensing. There is a one-time cost for the infrastructure setup.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did evaluate multiple RPA tools such as Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism. In terms of the ease of designing, the ease of use, and from the cost perspective, we found UiPath to be the best tool for our customers.

What other advice do I have?

Anyone who wants to automate processes should understand the process, its complexity, and the volume of the processing or the number of transactions to be processed. You should do proper analysis before you select the tool and licenses.

UiPath provides a lot of benefits and reduces the cost for an organization. It is one of the best tools in the market. The support that we get from UiPath is one of the best, and most of the features provided by UiPath are simply amazing.

Initially, people are hesitant to use automation because they don't know what automation can do. Anybody who uses the technology in the right way will get lots of benefits from any technology. Your implementation strategy has to be proper. You should check the feasibility of using a particular technology with existing processes in the organization and the benefits you can get.

It helps us in reducing the time, and we are also able to bring more business to the company. By making my processes digital, I'm bringing more revenue to my company. We visit a customer's site and try to find out the processes and pain points. After that, we analyze the entire solution within UiPath and tell the customer about the best solution and what would be the reduction in time as compared to the normal process.

I would rate UiPath a nine out of 10.

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. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Reseller
Frees up employee time, lowers human error, and offer end-to-end automation
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has freed up employee time. It depends on the process, however, if I had to take an average, it is probably freeing up one full-time person, which is eight hours. On a monthly basis, around 150 hours are saved for a medium process."
  • "They can probably focus more on attended stuff or creating a UI around that. We are not using the attended bot a lot, however, I have seen some use cases in other organizations, as I'm working in consulting. I've seen in some other areas where an organization wants to use attended automation, however, the feature is not very well designed which makes it difficult to use."

What is our primary use case?

I have been using it for a couple of different things, mainly insurance-related. As of now, we are using it mainly in insurance platforms, insurance portals, and doing some admin support in terms of the backend insurance tasks.

I've used it before in payroll where it was processing the payroll, generating the payslips, creating the payments for our outsourced invoices, processing invoices, making payments, sending reports to banks, and more.

How has it helped my organization?

In terms of improving the functions, we had to have a lot of time-critical tasks, which we have seen improvement on. In insurance, it is mainly around the claim processing and then paying the invoice to the third parties or doing the payments to the end customer. Most of the time it is missed, and then there are SLA penalties involved. This solution offers good savings for us in all those areas. On top of that, there are fewer errors now. Previously, there were many manual errors due to the time-critical aspect of the tasks. People were trying to put in their best efforts while working quickly against time, which caused them to work too fast and make mistakes. We get savings on two fronts now. One is mistakes. There are no mistakes anymore. The second thing is we are doing tasks faster and can run 24/7.

What is most valuable?

The orchestrator is one of the good features they have.

Internally, internal queue management is another feature that is really helpful when it comes to managing the work and checking the workload.

The latest thing that they added is reports that show the handling times and all those things.

The ease of use of building automation using UiPath is good and I would rate it and an eight out of ten with the version I am using. If we move to the latest version, there may be a couple of new features, such as modern variable management, that would bump it to nine out of ten. 

UiPath enables us to implement end-to-end automation, starting with process analysis, then robot building, and finally monitoring automation. With the new versions, it does, at least. We are not using those features in my current organization, as we have some other tools in place. 

End-to-end coverage is important to us. We use the older version. We started using it three years ago, which is why we build a lot of items ourselves. If the features were released two years ago, we'd likely use UiPath for everything.  

It is important that we can scale automation without having to pay attention to the infrastructure of the automation. We're very interested in the cloud. It offers many benefits. Even though we are on-prem now, in terms of managing the infrastructure, it will likely be really helpful to move to the cloud, so that we don't have to bother about all this infrastructure stuff in the future.

It reduced the cost of digital transformation and it is allowing us to actually move to digital items, as, most of the time, when we were trying to present things and things were not digital, it helped us to advance very much into a digital space easily.

It does not require any expensive or complex application upgrades or IT support. For some applications, it requires some modifications. Even if it's 10% or 20% digitized, we are trying to use UiPath to do the stuff for us instead of doing the application, upgrading, all those things. In most cases, it's not very costly for us.

UiPath has reduced human error. It does all the time. In claims, there used to be a lot of human error. Especially in payments, sometimes it would pay more or less or the wrong person, and now, it's all automated and errors have stopped.

The solution has freed up employee time. It depends on the process, however, if I had to take an average, it is probably freeing up one full-time person, which is eight hours. On a monthly basis, around 150 hours are saved for a medium process.

This additional time has enabled employees to focus on more important work. Employees are happier, and, depending on the process and what they were doing, what kind of involvement it requires, the solution is motivating employees. 

The product is reducing the cost for other operations, as it's an automation tool. While we are paying for automation, it is reducing the overall operational cost. Not specifically automation operational costs, but other operational costs. We are seeing an average savings of around 30%.

What needs improvement?

UiPath hasn't really helped us minimize our on-prem footprint. We are still using the on-premises deployment and everything is on-premises for us. We have, however, used some machines on the cloud. Still, the on-premises footprint in terms of UiPath is not lower.

There are a couple of minor items that could use improvement. Overall the tool roadmap looks fine. They have improved a lot from 2019 to 2021. In two years, there have been lots of additions. It seems like there's no particular improvement which they need to make. They have already improved a lot in the 2021 version, which is adding a modern framework and then modern folder structures. 

They can probably focus more on attended stuff or creating a UI around that. We are not using the attended bot a lot, however, I have seen some use cases in other organizations, as I'm working in consulting. I've seen in some other areas where an organization wants to use attended automation, however, the feature is not very well designed which makes it difficult to use.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been in automation for almost four years. I'm using all of these different tools, not only UiPath, and moving around within tools. For example, I'll use UiPath for six months, and then do three months on another tool, and then eight months again on UiPath.

However, overall, in terms of automation, I've been familiar with various solutions for three to four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. It can perform very well for small to medium complex processes. It takes a little bit of time to adjust for very complex processes, however. It takes some time to build and to develop and deploy for very complex processes. That said, it is very stable overall, with the caveat that, for very complex processes, it's difficult to build or manage.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, it is good in terms of connecting the bots and the Orchestrator can support thousands. 

In our case, we have around 137 to 140 registered users on the Orchestrator. Most of them are developers. I would say it's around 20 odd VAs or other staff, however, most of them are developers. Around 100+ developers, with the remaining users being process analysts.

We are always trying to find new work in the pipeline, and, as of now, it is not used across the entire organization. It is currently used by 50% of the teams and the plan is to take it to 100%. 

How are customer service and technical support?

I would rate technical support at an eight out of ten as of now. They're not always right on the first try, however, most of the time we get what we need on the first or second try.

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

I'm constantly jumping back and forth between various automation tools. 

I previously used Automation Anywhere. I'm working in consulting, so I switch between tools, and for one of the clients, it could be Automation Anywhere, for another it could be UiPath.

Each tool has its own pros and cons. An ideal tool could be probably a mixture of all of the tools on the market as some have some great features. UiPath is great for its ease of use. Anyone can quickly jump in and start learning it. Some of the tools take a little bit more time to understand and probably need more time to deploy or build code. Some others have better debugging. I would say UiPath debugging can be better. This is one of the things which can be improved. It is improved in the latest version, however, if it can be compared with others, such as Pega robotics, it can be improved. That said, Pega robotics is not an automation or RPA tool. It's basically RD. It's a front-end tool.

How was the initial setup?

I have set UiPath up from scratch for one of the companies I worked with in Sydney, Australia. It was in 2017 or 2018 when I was comparing the tools, and deciding which one is better based on the roadmaps. At that point, I set it up from scratch.

The time when I did a setup, it was very complex. 

When I started doing it in 2017 or 2018, there were a couple of issues with installing the SQL server and configuring everything for the Orchestrator machine, et cetera and it was very complex.

Now, they have simplified it. It's a one-time installation, and the cloud makes things really easy. With the new versions, it is better. For me, the support was not very good at that time.

The deployment took us a couple of days. It was complex. The documentation was not really very great, and the support was also not very good. It took us a couple of days, maybe five to ten days, to implement it end-to-end and then set up multiple instances.

In terms of the strategy, we have followed the guidelines, whatever the document said, and then took help from UiPath support. Other than that, it was a standard installation.

For deployment and maintenance, it depends on process counts. Usually, when processes are stable and running for a long time, one person can support four to five processes in general. In our case, we have a mix and match model for supporting production. Overall, I would say that there is a different team for each different support platform. A platform team is just supporting the infrastructure, and overall there are around 20 people, which offer support.

What about the implementation team?

I did not use an integrator. I work with a consulting company, and we help with the installation. However, at the time, UiPath didn't have a very good presence in Australia, which made it difficult.

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

I'm not very involved in pricing or licensing.

We are mostly using developer licenses and they have unattended, attended pro and developer licensing. We also have development and production licensing as well as licensing for the orchestrator. Different licenses have different costs.

We pay our licensing fees on a yearly basis. 

What other advice do I have?

I'm not using the latest version. We're a little behind. We need to update it.

We do use a bit of attended automation, however, it isn't very much. It is helpful, however, we are getting better benefits with the backend automation. For us, the level of importance in terms of having attended automation is five out of ten.

We have done a couple of POCs with AI. We don't have anything which is in production. It's all POCs and a couple of minor display things. We aren't using AI very much at all. Therefore, we don't have proper use cases. We haven't solved other processes. The first priority is to solve everything practical instead of moving to experimental tasks.

At this time, we do not use the UiPath apps feature. I haven't seen it and I'm not aware of it.

The support is really good now compared to what it was a couple of years back. Support teams are really helpful when it comes to upgrading or installing the new versions, and it is very straightforward compared to what it was. I would say planning is important however, UiPath support is always there when they are required to be.

The biggest lesson we have learned is it's important to have a roadmap. We've connected a lot of tools and built a lot of things. We invested a lot. However, it's important to be flexible enough to adjust so that you can change if you need to, as it's hard to predict the future.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten.

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. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
IT Director at GarantiBank
Real User
Saves us development time, good documentation, integrates well with Elasticsearch
Pros and Cons
  • "UiPath integrates well with Elasticsearch, which is a great search engine."
  • "The logging capability that comes with Orchestrator does not allow you to create smart reports."

What is our primary use case?

We are using the on-premises UiPath solution for both attended and unattended bots. At this time, we use unattended bots primarily to facilitate integration between applications, and we are not using the attended bot capabilities.

Generally speaking, we develop integrations for our core banking system, which was written in-house and running on a mainframe. It is a highly-developed system that we started using more than 30 years ago. When it was created, we didn't have the integration capabilities that exist in other applications or core systems, today. This means that in order to have external applications communicate with the core system, we need to develop integrations. Examples of this might be web services or other APIs, and that's why it takes time to do.

We have teams to do the integration, but considering that the core banking system is in Turkey and all of our teams are busy, we don't have enough resources to implement all of our integration projects. Now, for the past three years, we have been implementing bots to handle integration by moving data from the applications to the core system, and from the core system to the applications.

How has it helped my organization?

The biggest benefit for us is time savings in terms of developing satellite applications for the core banking system. We are developing the robotic API, and we are integrating our internal front-end applications with the core system.

Using this approach, we can easily get and set data from the core system, and we can see the results for each transition. We can learn about what happens in the core system with the help of the bots.

The amount of time that we save depends on the use case. For example, if we implement integration between core banking and the applications instead of native integration through development, it saves a lot of time. I prefer native integration versus using the bots but sometimes, you don't have this opportunity because it will take too long to put into production. Other times, you can't justify undergoing a large development process for just a small integration, so it's enough to solve the problem using the bots.

There is another use case where our operations teams perform repetitive tasks using the bots. For example, when performing the task manually, users have to take the data from one screen and enter it on another screen. We have never tried to calculate how much time we are saving in cases like this, although I'm sure that we are saving a lot of time.

People in the organization have been asking for more projects to be automated because it is easier for them. When their tasks are automated, they are more relaxed and can focus on other more important tasks, as opposed to the repetitive ones. Getting away from repetitive tasks puts you in a position where you can make more decisions and be part of the smart part of the business. This leaves the easier, repetitive tasks for the robots.

What is most valuable?

There are a lot of really useful features in UiPath including the Orchestrator and the Studio.

The Orchestrator is one of the main tools that I use because I like to help orchestrate the bots. It is the heart of the tool and it gives me a lot of flexibility to automate or manage bots that are in the field. The Orchestration Server is one of the most important features and when you perform a deep dive, you see that it has a lot of functionality. It's great.

The Orchestrator has other features such as computer vision, AI, and machine learning, and it complements the bots and the Studio.

UiPath integrates well with Elasticsearch, which is a great search engine. ElasticSearch is more capable than UiPath for searching logs. I'm filling the gap in log reporting using ElasticSearch, where I'm feeding the logs into it and then creating dashboards, or using the analytics parts of ElasticSearch and Kibana.

The UiPath Academy is a very valuable component of this solution. Many of our employees have used the courses. With it, a person who has a little bit of an analytical mindset can easily learn to do many things. If somebody is willing to develop themselves in RPA, the UiPath academy is more than enough to do so. They will understand the components that make up the ecosystem. The academy is very good, well constructed, and has a lot of labs and exercises to help one learn the system by themself without any help, and very easily.

What needs improvement?

The logging capability that comes with Orchestrator does not allow you to create smart reports. You have the logs from the bots and what's happening on the machines because you get all of this information from the logs. However, UiPath is more capable when it comes to collecting information about your processes, time saved, or process execution. They have some smart report dashboards.

The installation and initial setup is difficult for non-technical organizations.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using UiPath for more than three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is something that we should consider in two parts. The first concerns the bots and how they are running the tasks on the machines. This comes down to what kind of developers we have because if you are developing properly, and implementing all of the exceptional cases that may occur during the execution of the process, it's very good. I haven't had any issues in cases like this.

The second part is the Orchestrator, and I haven't had issues with this either. In the more than three years that we have been using this environment, including the time in production and our test environments, we have never had an issue.

We have had two or three incidents because we didn't have enough space left on the database storage, but that was not related to UiPath. Rather, it is related to the infrastructure. Another time, the SSL certification expired so we had to renew it. Otherwise, stability-wise, we haven't had any problems.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is very good, although we have not reached a point where we needed to scale the infrastructure. The high availability and scalability are two of the main features in the UiPath environment but we have not needed to go in that direction yet. At this time, we only have five bots in the organization and that is enough.

We are not planning to increase the numbers at this point because the number of bots that we have can be managed on a single node. We don't have clusters or multiple bots because of the criticality of our processes, but these are things that you can add and set up to share the workloads. Although we don't use it, I think that it looks really promising.

In our team, we have a business analyst and developers. Some of the roles for the developers are varied. At most, we have three people on a project who are working with UiPath.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support for UiPath is good. When we first started contacting them between two and three years ago, the support for everybody was the same. However, they're now offering different tiers of support that require a different license and cost. There is one basic technical support, where all customers have the right to open tickets and try to solve the problems. Then, there are different support levels where you can pay extra and you can get more assistance for solving your problems.

Up to this point, all of the problems that I have had are mostly related to upgrades and installations, and they have only been from time to time. So far, I have been able to solve problems with basic technical support. Some of the problems I have solved on my own, whereas with others, I have needed a small bit of help from technical support.

I can say at this point that the support is good, although really, I haven't had any major problems that necessitated a lot of support.

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

We have used other RPA solutions in the past, but not to the same scale as UiPath.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not very complex, but it depends on the profile and experience of the person who is using it. Considering we had a great deal of deep experience in the project implementation and also the technologies, we are familiar with everything. This includes tasks like installation of the infrastructure, configuring the databases, configuring the virtual machines, and installing the robots' features.

For less technical organizations or people, it will be difficult to implement the UiPath infrastructure. In that case, they will need the help of partners.

It's not so easy, but it's well documented. In fact, one of the good things about UiPath is that everything is very well documented. The deployment takes no more than two or three weeks.

Our implementation strategy started with developing bots using the trial license. We found the bot implementation was very easy. The trial includes everything that you need to develop workflows and the bots that run on the machines. When you get to the point where you need to run multiple bots in production, you need the Orchestration server.

We did not install Orchestrator until between four and six months after we started with the trial. In the beginning, we were testing UiPath and creating some small projects. These were very easy to implement. After that is when we decided to buy the license and move the bots to production.

In terms of maintenance, it is not critical for the bots. It's the Orchestrator that has to be maintained and kept up to date. Every year, you need to upgrade your infrastructure with the latest release, so there is some annual maintenance. If it is on-premises then you also have to maintain the hardware that everything is running on.

Of course, there should be somebody responsible for taking care of the databases and general system maintenance. The operating system, for example, should be maintained by someone. All of these things are layers and sublayers on top of the solution.

If instead, you implement the cloud version of UiPath, then you can get rid of all of the maintenance. In that case, you have only the bots and the Orchestrator, which are hosted on the UiPath cloud, and you don't have to worry about anything. UiPath does the upgrades and performs all of the maintenance, which is nice. In the future, we may go in this direction. However, at this time, maintaining the infrastructure in our organization is easy and not a burden for us.

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

I can't say that UiPath is expensive but I can't say that it's cheap. The cost that we are allocating for RPA doesn't burden us too heavily, so what we are paying is acceptable compared to the gains that we have in the organization. That said, it is relative because it depends on the size of the organization, the budget, and other factors. From our point of view, considering our budget, it is okay but for another organization, it might be expensive.

There are some features, such as UiPath Insights, that require you to purchase an additional license. The logging capabilities are also a feature that you need to pay extra for.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

While we were searching for solutions, we read the documentation for UiPath. We found out that UiPath was originally started as a Romanian company, where we are, so we figured that we would try it since this is where it was first implemented. Our tests showed that UiPath was very promising but we kept investigating other solutions.

We tried Blue Prism and we tried Automation Anywhere, which are both RPA tools. We also did some studying, looked at the Gartner report, and did some further analysis. Ultimately, we decided to buy the licenses from UiPath because it was solving all of our problems.

What other advice do I have?

When you use this system, you are using features from several different modules. It's something like an ecosystem where you have the bots, Studio, and the Orchestrator. If you are not using all of them at the same time then something is missing. They complete each other. If, for example, you don't have the Orchestrator and are only running the bots then it is a different kind of automation.

In the past, as I was using UiPath, I found that there were additional features that I wanted, but regularly and with each product update, they were bringing in new functionalities. At this time, I don't have a project that is waiting and cannot be implemented due to missing features. All of the tools that they deliver, for the time being, together are enough to implement any type of project.

We are not yet using the AI functionality because to this point, although that is because we don't yet have a proper project for it. At the same time, the AI and machine learning functionality are very important to us because we are planning to use them.

We have not used the UiPath Apps feature because it is one of the new features that has come out lately, and we haven't had the time to gain a deep understanding of these technologies. We have some rough ideas about how we can use this feature, but for the time being, we do not have a project that needs to be solved with UiPath Apps.

My advice for anybody who is implementing UiPath is to start with studying the processes and trying to determine whether they are good candidates for RPA. In order to automate a process, you need structured data such that the inputs and outputs are somewhat predictable. Once you know what it is that you want to automate, you have to understand the capacity, and then if you have any candidate processes, you can begin developing.

UiPath is the RPA solution that I recommend. However, it is important to know, before purchasing a solution, which of the processes are good candidates for automation.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

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
Sr. Associate Technologies L2 at Publicis Groupe
Real User
Customizable forms, saves time, improves accuracy, and helps us build trust with customers
Pros and Cons
  • "Being able to customize this is extremely helpful for us because we have other attended automation processes, and they can each be tailored to the needs of the business."
  • "Simply put, a stronger collaboration between Microsoft and UiPath in a lot of areas would be helpful because it would ease the development process for us."

What is our primary use case?

We have a use case that involves an invoice billing process, where vendors from an external organization submit their details for the invoice. This automation works as expected, independently of anything else. It is also a good example of how we were able to scale RPA benefits in the company with the automation of a specific process that requires human-robot collaboration.

Our internal tools include the database where all of this information is stored, and we have a second automation that is used by the billers in our organization to tally the data that includes details such as what each vendor has submitted to get their payments.

We built a third automation in UiPath, which basically compares these first two. But, due to the complexity and the nature of the tally that has to occur, we require some human input in between certain steps.

For these particular steps, we have developed a four-bot configuration. These are four separate bots that run and a couple of them have an attended automation part, where a human can intervene. It's a verification step, where the human can decide whether or not something is okay. Specifically, the bot compares two fields and if they match, then it's great, but if not, it triggers a request to a human user for manual verification. If they approve then it is marked as a successful verification.

Because we use technologies like OCR, there are details that cannot always be interpreted properly. This is where we need an additional check, which is the reason that we have humans in the loop as part of the process.

How has it helped my organization?

We have saved a lot of time by using UiPath. We have also improved a lot in terms of accuracy and reducing errors in a lot of projects. In fact, in one of the projects, we automated the entire job, which involves coaching people on what has to be done end-to-end, by the robots. It was built on UiPath and on this project, we had a savings of more than €100,000 euros. That was a big saving for us, and it's continuing right now.

More importantly, a lot of the clients had complained about the end-user, which is outside of the organization, with respect to the accuracy of the data. There were errors. When we deployed robots based on UiPath, the accuracy has vastly improved and the clients are very happy with the results. They no longer have to keep coming back to our billers and telling them that things were not done properly. The robot functions like it has been programmed every single time. So, it's been perfect for that purpose as well. The customer trusts us more because of our deployments in robots.

UiPath definitely allows employees to delegate mundane tasks to their personal automations, saving them time. A major reason for a lot of our automation cases is because most people are not 100% involved in certain tasks. For example, if you spend two hours on a particular process, and then over the next four or five hours, you're supposed to be working on more complicated processes, but what happens during the first two hours is that things get complicated and the day is ruined dealing with small tasks. Now, suppose that the two-hour allotment for the smaller process is automated using UiPath, the person is free to dedicatedly perform more important functions. In the entirety of our automation effort, this has been a primary driver for all of the new use cases. It's a huge plus for us.

With respect to employee satisfaction, it has been a mixed result for us. In certain cases, it's been a huge boon because there was a heavy workload on the employees and UiPath really helped them cope with it. This was especially true during COVID when the workload increased exponentially, and people could not go into the office. However, there were times in the past when people were no longer required because UiPath was doing their jobs perfectly, making them redundant. As they were no longer required, they left the company.

So, we have had both scenarios, but moving forward, instead of telling people that they're no longer required, we have retasked them to other projects. Essentially, we have reabsorbed them and in turn, have simplified the hiring process. In this regard, we have adjusted.

What is most valuable?

The new UiPath assistant is very good.

The customizable forms that UiPath has recently launched allow us to give the user an exact input that they can provide. Being able to customize this is extremely helpful for us because we have other attended automation processes, and they can each be tailored to the needs of the business.

We use the selector technology for automating processes with dynamic interfaces on a daily basis in almost all of our projects. Our extensive use of this feature includes all of the different kinds of selectors that UiPath allows. We have the flexibility to modify these selectors as per our need. This functionality gives UiPath a big edge over its competitors and I know this because I've personally used products by other vendors. The selection-making process is much simpler with UiPath, with improved accuracy and reliability.

This feature is important because a lot of the processes are Citrix-based or remote desktop applications. Because the robot would not have a direct connection to the application, we have to use Citrix technology. All of the applications are different in nature, so having the flexibility to switch between different kinds of selectors and select our activities allows us to build the perfect solution for remote applications. Even the performance, in my experience, has been the best, especially for Citrix-based automations or remote desktop-based automations.

What needs improvement?

There are a few features that could be improved, and one of them is good integration with the Microsoft ecosystem. For example, Microsoft launched Power Apps as its platform, and even though its capabilities are not as good as UiPath, it has the advantage of being so well-integrated with Excel Online, Word, and everything else. We don't have to perform a lot of development work, and it's pre-approved in our organization. Applications like SharePoint are another example of pre-approved solutions. But with UiPath, we have to prove that it's a secure process. Simply put, a stronger collaboration between Microsoft and UiPath in a lot of areas would be helpful because it would ease the development process for us.

Another example is with the Automation Hub. At this time, Automation Hub does not allow you a direct login process or single sign-on option using Azure Active Directory. This means that you're limited to going through either Gmail or something else. This is true for the on-premises solution, not the cloud one. Although we had decided to purchase the Automation Hub license, this lack of functionality held things up because we did not want to manually go in to update all of the new users again and again. We wanted the information to be picked directly from Active Directory whenever a user wanted to sign up for it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath Attended Automation for approximately three and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In the past, stability has been great. However, more recently I have been facing some issues, and I'm hoping for some resolution. For example, we recently upgraded to the new orchestrator in Studio, and we had to upgrade a few packages also, In particular, the UiPath automation packages.

Some of our GUI activities, which are not fully backward compatible, have been facing some issues. Consequently, some of our bots have been impacted. We have already raised the issue and we are in discussion to find a resolution. This was the first time we actually faced an issue in terms of reliability with UiPath.

Our past experience has been very good, and I cannot say that we have any complaints regarding the reliability of UiPath solutions.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, it is very good. It is easily scalable and we have a lot of options for expanding and configuring as per our requirements. It is also customizable.

We have a team of between 20 and 30 people, which includes approximately 10 developers, 5 team leads, two architects, two production managers, and one overall manager. We have some contractual workers, as well.

We have approximately 35 automations that are in production right now. From a process perspective, we have pretty much worked on all verticals including finance, healthcare, internal IT processes that needed automation, and more. An example is ServiceNow, where jobs like creating user accounts, deploying new machines, and other administrative tasks have also been automated. HR processes, including onboarding, have been automated.

It is a very large organization, and there are lots of processes, so I expect that our usage will grow.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is excellent in our experience. Whenever we have had a problem, they've always been there to support us and help us with the problem. I don't have any complaints, as they've always made the effort. Even if things have taken longer than we had hoped or expected, they've always come back with the best resolution they can offer.

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

I have worked with Blue Prism and in my experience, UiPath does a much better job, both in terms of dev and listening to the community. For example, Blue Prism is a very closed community and very limited. They have improved, I would say, based on the success of UiPath, but it's not very open-source or open-natured.

The biggest advantage that I have noticed is with Citrix-based automations or remote desktop automations. There are cases where Blue Prism did not work, but UiPath was very good. I did not have to spend too much time with UiPath before it worked perfectly. The reliability was also great.

More importantly, UiPath listens to the customers as well as the developer community, and in turn, they implement features that make their lives easier. They constantly reach out for feedback and it's a good process because it helps to know that the customer is happy. If I am speaking about myself, I'm happy that if I have a need, or I'm facing some challenges, I put it in the pipeline for UiPath and within six months, I will see that feature live in production.

How was the initial setup?

We started with a disaster recovery scenario, where we have one live production orchestrator, as well as one backup orchestrator and a load balancer installed. This is a high availability disaster recovery (HADR) configuration, where all of our live bots are on the main orchestrator. In the case that the live orchestrator goes down, we have the backup orchestrator kick in.

The overall deployment and installation process was simple. However, we did face some issues with the Redis part. Configuring Redis was one of our pain points, and we reached out to UiPath about it.

Although it was resolved, it took a lot of time and effort, from our end as well. That was the only experience that stood out as a problem for us. But overall, it was a smooth process.

It took about a week to set everything up, although we had constraints from our own internal infrastructure team. The delay was not related to UiPath issues.

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

The licensing is close to optimum; however, there is room for improvement in both the cost and flexibility of the licenses. It isn't the best pricing in the market but it's pretty close.

What other advice do I have?

For developing our attended automation, we began by coding the bot to our requirements, and then made modifications to it for attended automation.

My advice for anybody who is considering UiPath is to be sure of what your needs are regarding an RPA product. If you're looking for something very small-scale, very easy, then there are a lot of options. But if you're looking for a long-term, feature-rich solution, which has access to third-party integrations, then choose UiPath.

You will require a development team, at least to some level. UiPath is now simpler with the Studio X products, but in the past, it was a bit more challenging to dive deep into UiPath directly. It required some training but now, things have definitely improved.

One of the major lessons that I have learned from using UiPath is to make sure that everything is documented well. There is a lot that needs to be tested before bots are put into production because a lot of things that work on your local machine may not work on another. It can vary from machine to machine and where something works on one, a change in environment for another may cause it to fail. This means that you should change from machine to machine during the testing phase.

Overall, I feel as if now UiPath is on the right path with its competitors. It is a very good long-term solution.

I would rate UiPath a nine out of ten.

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
Ranoliya Gruhesh - PeerSpot reviewer
RPA Developer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
It's flexible and offers us multiple ways to do the same thing
Pros and Cons
  • "I appreciate UiPath's ability to automate complex processes. It's the best thing. The Action Center, Document Understanding, AI Center, and all the other components of UI Path are also good. I prefer UiPath over other automation tools."
  • "A lot of the UiPath processes are capturing information from government websites. It's difficult to capture the correct format, so we need to use a third-party application to capture the information correctly. It would be better to have that capacity with UiPath, so we don't need another product."

What is our primary use case?

We are developing processes with UiPath for clients in the government and banking sectors. 

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath is flexible and has various automation capabilities. I like PDF automation, and we have multiple other tools, such as the AI Center and Document Understanding. There is more than one way to automate the same process. We can broaden our experience and use our imagination.

UiPath facilitates our digital transformation. We have an auditing team for our client that was manually collecting data every month from eight websites across different Indian states. We also have to validate the files we get. It takes a person three days to do that manually, but UiPath automation allows us to complete the process in a day, and it's more accurate. There were no errors, which is what the audit team requires. The banking sector is undergoing changes, and by using automation, the banks are improving.

The solution reduces human error in cases where we have Excel automation invovling some formula that needs to be copy-pasted, or we need to fetch the data from PDF to Excel in a particular column. It's easy to make a mistake when both keys are next to each other.  For example, we may make an error while writing "S is equal to A," and we might ignore it. A UiPath bot will perform that without making an error. If the process is properly designed and trained, we'll get the correct output. 

What is most valuable?

I appreciate UiPath's ability to automate complex processes. It's the best thing. The Action Center, Document Understanding, AI Center, and all the other components of UI Path are also good. I prefer UiPath over other automation tools.

It's easy to build processes in UiPath. I am from an engineering background, but UiPath is a low-code solution, so it's easy for a user with a nontechnical background to understand.  It's simple to explain things to business users. If I need to explain things to my clients, it's easier for them to understand how UiPath works. 

I have developed multiple end-to-end processes, including SAP, web automation, Excel, Outlook, PDF, and directory automation. For example, we might extract the information from the PDFs in a folder. A recent one involved invoice process automation. Invoices for rent and expenses needed to be processed for nine websites, which were automated in UiPath. It included SAP, web, and Excel automation.

The UiPath community has been helpul in cases involving clomplex logic. By getting in touch with the UiPath community, we could see all the new things that have been developed or released in the latest versions. We have community meetings. 

I've also obtained multiple certificates through the UiPath Academy. There are foundational and advanced courses. I was certified in solution architecture, fundamentals and methodology, SAP automation, administrator automation, AI Center, and Document Understanding

The time needed to learn UiPath depends on how much time you're willing to spend practicing. I completed the UiPath foundational and advanced courses in a month because I was working on it day and night, practicing with the different tasks we got online. Some of my colleagues took three or four months.

We use UiPath's AI features for Document Understanding. We have to train the AI model repeatedly so that it extracts the data correctly from the PDF. We correct it when there are mistakes so that it trains the model. Similarly, we have the AI Center, where we can choose from different models available from the UiPath or create our own.

What needs improvement?

A lot of the UiPath processes are capturing information from government websites. It's difficult to capture the correct format, so we need to use a third-party application to capture the information correctly. It would be better to have that capacity with UiPath, so we don't need another product. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used UiPath for more than two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate UiPath seven out of ten for stability. The stability varies from machine to machine. If you have enough RAM and CPU, it should be fine. Sometimes it lags on computers with older processors. I'm using an i7 11th generation, and it works perfectly fine. Also, sometimes there are issues in new versions, but it runs smoothly in the latest stable version. 

How are customer service and support?

I rate UiPath support seven out of 10. The response speeds and the solutions they provide are excellent. I have contacted them multiple times to open up cases. Recently, a URL was not working due to some architecture issues, and they responded within two hours. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

I have done one process on Automation Anywhere, but it was only an Excel automation.

How was the initial setup?

The implementation varies from process to process and the availability of the process team. I have done processes on various timelines. It sometimes takes a week if the process is small. A few took around three or four months because the scope was larger. It covered 10 to 12 human steps and involved manipulating data in SAP and Excel. It doesn't take as long if it's a simple process that involves moving a PDF, copy-pasting, or bulk emails. It depends on the process length and the testing needed before we can move the process into production.

I handle the deployment because the infrastructure team does all the installation and orchestration. I have admin access, so I can publish and upgrade packages and maintain the licenses, machines, bots, queues, etc. It is all published in the Orchestrator and run on the production machine. Maintenance is required of ther are changes in a URL or some input. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate UiPath nine out of 10. UiPath's license costs more than other tools, but once it is all set up, it's easy to use and is effective at multiple types of automation. If you don't have experienced developers, you can learn to use the UiPath Studio to develop some basic code.

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
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PeerSpot user
Maurizio Napoli. - PeerSpot reviewer
co-founder at CatalystRPA
Consultant
Intuitive, improves accuracy, and saves time
Pros and Cons
  • "UiPath reduces human error. That is one of the main reasons why automation is done for customers."
  • "There should be the ability to customize the building blocks instead of having to specify everything in every step. We should be able to combine these building blocks to make specific processes faster."

What is our primary use case?

I am a consultant working on RPA solutions in general. UiPath is one of the solutions that I am using.

The use cases depend on the clients. I have done automation of sending mail with invoices in it. We have used it for analyzing PDF documents, getting information out of these documents, preparing in three different languages depending on the client, and sending invoices by email.

We are also checking VAT numbers on the EU side to validate the client's VAT numbers and related data. We have automated the generation of reports out of SAP for two different managers and teams. We have also automated including specific signature images within PDF documents and sending them to the related service or email address.

We have mainly used UiPath to focus on processes related to the finance department. The targeted processes are the ones that are the most repeatable and require a lot of effort but there is no real focus and attention from the user. Because of its repeatable nature, the risk is that users do not pay attention to the process itself and make mistakes.

Generally, we do not implement end-to-end automation. The idea is not to automate an end-to-end process but to automate a part of the process that takes a lot of time and resources. That is the focus point, so it is not a matter of having an end-to-end process implemented. It may occur, but often, it is a part of the process where the focus needs to be reliability or time and resource consumption.

How has it helped my organization?

The benefit for our clients is time and reliability. They quite often see the benefits in terms of the reliability of executing the process, even reporting mistakes or errors that happen during the execution of the process. That is something quite valuable for them.

Usually, it takes our clients at least one month to realize the benefits. If the processes are executed on a daily basis, then it is quite fast, but there are processes that are triggered every month or every quarter. In that case, it will take at least a month or a quarter to see the benefits. Once it is executed, there is quite an immediate benefit. On the other hand, it takes time to analyze the process because often processes or procedures that are written are not in sync with what is executed by the user. We have to modify them. Often, by questioning the end user, you end up finding the shortcuts and implementing them, so the analysis takes more time, and the implementation takes less time.

UiPath reduces human error. That is one of the main reasons why automation is done for customers. Two main reasons for automation are reliability and resource availability. 

UiPath saves time for our customers, but it is hard to know how much time it has saved because it varies from process to process. For example, the process of validating the VAT numbers on the EU website used to take two or three resources every quarter, whereas now, it is reduced to less than half an hour. These time savings are valuable, but the added value is reliability.

UiPath has not had a lot of impact on the digital transformation because the processes that are requested to be automated are already digital. The reason for automation is to speed up the process or make it more reliable. There is no real impact on the digitization of processes.

In terms of the reduction in the on-premises footprint, I am not always aware of the eventual use of the processes that I am implementing for the clients with the bots. I see that some of the bots are not used anymore because they have their own application that includes a big part of what has been automated on their side. It depends on the way they use it and how often they use it because I have bots that are running every day, and I also have bots that are running once a quarter. The ones that are running every quarter are harder to evaluate because people are not always able to see the resources released from executing those processes. Because they are executed every quarter, they are usually not measured. Our clients generally go for automation for reliability.

What is most valuable?

Specifically in the recent versions, the ability to change the interface is valuable. One of my clients had to upgrade the SAP version and move to a web-based UI. This was handled by isolating the UI interaction within the library for the targeted SAP on the client side. I upgraded that library to handle the web-based, and the bots worked fine after that without modifying anything in them. The usage of libraries is very important for me because it helps a lot in this kind of upgrade, specifically because SAP is used across the company. It is impacting a lot of different businesses within the company.

It is quite intuitive and fully handled by a visual interface. It is no big deal for me. I have been a developer in the past, and I have used Visual Basic and C#. If I need to specify something exceptional, it can be done. It is not a big deal. For me, it is very easy. There is a competitor with an open-source solution called OpenRPA, but for me, UiPath is far better and more intuitive.

What needs improvement?

There should be the ability to customize the building blocks instead of having to specify everything in every step. We should be able to combine these building blocks to make specific processes faster.

There should also be some kind of templates, similar to Power Automate. Power Automate provides templates for a specific context.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I am absolutely satisfied with its stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I did not have to worry about it so much because usually, my clients want to take control of their bots. They want to execute it when they want, so I have had no experience with the scalability of UiPath. 

How are customer service and support?

I have not contacted their support. When I am developing, I try to make a bot quite stable. I am aware of what is happening and what it is doing, and I can notify people with logs or names of different events that are occurring during the process execution. I know exactly what is happening and where. It is quite easy and fast to diagnose and fix if there is an issue, but it is not often that I have to intervene in production. If a process is designed correctly and safely, not much intervention is required. Clients look for this kind of stability because that will save the time that they will have to spend fixing things in the production environment.

They have a UiPath Community, but I have not used it often. If there is something blocking, I go over there, but generally, I find the solution to the issues through my colleagues.

How was the initial setup?

It has always been on-premises. The setup is quite straightforward. If there is some kind of Orchestrator to be installed, it is more difficult, and it takes more time. Usually, they want to have someone internally to handle the Orchestrator. I am more focused on the bots and the triggers for these bots to be executed. I am not that often involved in the implementation of the infrastructure of UiPath for the operational side.

Bot development duration varies. It depends on the process, but it can take a few weeks to several months. I have bots that were developed in two or three weeks, and I also have bots that took at least six months because they were quite heavy and complex. Generally, it does not take longer than that because then it will not be as valuable to the clients. If it takes more than six months, it is better to have it developed in their own software.

Bot deployment is quite straightforward for most of my clients because, during development time, I take care of environment parameters. So, deployment is quite straightforward. It is a matter of deploying and pressing a button to have the package deployed. We then set parameters in config files, but it does not take a long time to have it deployed.

Bots usually do not require any maintenance, but if the source of data has been upgraded or modified or the UI has been modified, they might require some maintenance. Usually, once the process is running and every source is stable, there is no need for maintenance. When the data source changes or the infrastructure changes, such as the main server being moved or renamed, then there is a risk over there, but it is not a big deal to adapt.

Generally, two or three people might have to investigate the cause of the issue. If the issue is inside the bot, it is not a problem. One person is enough. If it is related to external data sources or infrastructure, it may take two or three people depending on the segmentation of the clients' people in their departments and services.

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

I do not know about the exact price because I am not selling anything. I propose several solutions to the clients, and the client does choose one of them. If UiPath is chosen, they contact the official reseller in the country. In one case, I had the prices in front of me, and it was not expensive for the service it was providing.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend it depending on the needs. UiPath can do a lot of things, and I have covered only 20% of UiPath functionality. Based on my experience and the needs that I had so far, UiPath has been quite valuable.

I would advise defining your use cases. That is the rule for everything. Once you have the use cases analyzed, you can specify what is needed, how you would do it, and what is the best solution to have it implemented. One thing that I am doing is that I am mixing solutions, where, for example, UiPath interacts with Python processes that I have developed. Python processes provide information in files. Web scraping is not difficult in UiPath, but it is quite heavy. In Python, it is faster to develop and use than with UiPath. It also depends on the number of iterations and resources available to execute it. It is a matter of the quality of a particular functionality in UiPath. UiPath relies on the .Net framework, and it has its own limitations. It has quite a heavy set of libraries and frameworks. It is a matter of balancing what you are expecting of it.

I would rate UiPath an eight out of ten. It is a good product. It is well-designed and well-executed.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Consultant
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.