RPA Controller at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Rock-solid and helpful for meeting our SLAs and reducing human errors
Pros and Cons
  • "The Orchestrator is most valuable because we get work periodically throughout the day. It'll ebb and flow. We have really tight SLA, so we're able to have bots on demand. As soon as work shows up, the bots are picking it up."
  • "It is a little confusing at first. I came from Blue Prism where you have one dashboard and very little jumping back and forth. In Orchestrator, you have menus, and there is a lot of jumping between tabs and sub-tabs to get to the specific information, but once you learn that, it is pretty intuitive. There is just that initial learning curve if you're coming from another system. Blue Prism does everything in the one pane, and even though UiPath is neatly laid out, you just got to learn how they laid it out."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it to automate various tasks of mortgage onboarding.

We use UiPath Assistant and Studio. We are using the cloud version. 

How has it helped my organization?

We do a lot of mortgage onboarding. To make that opening process of a loan easier, we're automating various tasks or tests during the creation of loans, such as running driver for approval letters and things like that. So far, we're getting good feedback from the business. We have 60 bots now.

It has reduced human error. I don't know the exact impact, but currently, we have about a thousand transactions a day between all of our bots. A lot of those are critical where you don't want errors on it. So, knowing that those are error-free is really good for the business.

What is most valuable?

The Orchestrator is most valuable because we get work periodically throughout the day. It'll ebb and flow. We have a really tight SLA, so we're able to have bots on demand. As soon as work shows up, the bots are picking it up.

In terms of ease of building automation, it is pretty straightforward. Once you learn the tool, it is pretty easy to use. 

I have used UiPath's Academy courses. They have helped a lot in getting up to speed with the solution. I came from Blue Prism. Once you know a system, you try to map another one with the way you did things in the first one. I was able to figure it out pretty quickly by just going through the courses. The content is pretty good. They have everything you need to know to get started. 

What needs improvement?

It is a little confusing at first. I came from Blue Prism where you have one dashboard and very little jumping back and forth. In Orchestrator, you have menus, and there is a lot of jumping between tabs and subtabs to get to the specific information, but once you learn that, it is pretty intuitive. There is just that initial learning curve if you're coming from another system. Blue Prism does everything in the one pane, and even though UiPath is neatly laid out, you just got to learn how they laid it out.

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April 2024
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For how long have I used the solution?

They started using it before I joined. I joined the company in April, and I believe they started with the concepts back in January of this year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've had only one outage, and that might've been our internal issue. Otherwise, it has been rock solid.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

In our use case, it is a little difficult to scale because we have to create accounts for each robot. We do want to explore the feature where you can scroll up bots on demand and shut them off on demand, but we don't have the resources. So, we can't use that yet based on our internal limitations. If you're able to use that, then that's great.

In terms of the number of users, we don't have any attended people. It is just our development team.

How are customer service and support?

They've been fairly responsive to everything we've reached out for.

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

I don't think they used any other solution.

How was the initial setup?

It was all set up before I came in, but I had to onboard new stuff. It is pretty straightforward and easy once you figure it out.

What was our ROI?

In terms of cost savings, I don't know the numbers exactly, but I've heard good things.

The automation cloud offerings help to decrease the solution's total cost of ownership by taking care of things such as infrastructure maintenance and updates. However, I'm not 100% in tune with that side.

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

The pricing for the robots is fair. One thing that annoys us a little bit is that we have to pay for each developer. With Blue Prism, you can have 20 developers and not incur any additional costs. We don't like having to piecemeal all these different licenses. It is providing value, but it is not in the sense of a robot. You're paying for the tools, whereas other people just give you the tools, and then you pay for the bots.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I'm sure they did because that's a part of their bidding processes.

What other advice do I have?

It has not helped to reduce the workload of our IT department by enabling end-users to create apps because we're not utilizing or doing user-created stuff. We are also not using its AI functionality in our automation program.

It, as such, hasn't freed up employee time because we're still in the baby steps. We're still trying to figure out how RPA fits in with everything. We're piloting a bunch of things, and we'll automate one part, but we haven't been able to downsize or reallocate people yet.

I'd rate UiPath an eight out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Enterprise Optimization | RPA | Digital Transformation | Intelligent Automation | Next Gen Tech at City National Bank of Florida
Real User
Reduced human error, frees up employee time, and offers a great ROI
Pros and Cons
  • "The time to value is excellent on this solution."
  • "In the world of NextGen technology, it would be ideal if they could speed up their beta products."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for the typical banking and transactional use cases. An example could be something such as homeowner's association transactions. That incorporates multiple departments in a bank, including treasury management accounts and opening an ACH. All of those areas are very transactional in terms of the rules-based processes that they follow.

We also use the solution for wire transfers. We have a lot of those. Then, from a business perspective, we look at lines of business as well. It can be used for residential and commercial lending. It's very process-driven and very transactional. We're able to incorporate automation in those areas very easily.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution allows us to do more with less. If we have a relationship with a third-party bank to onboard with a thousand accounts with a 15-day turnaround time, depending on what the relationship is, without automation, without RPA, you'd have to hire at least 10 or 15 contractors to get that done. That’s from a contractual perspective, to make sure that you meet the deadlines. However, automation just allows you to scale. You can save the same scenario in multiple areas. The scalability and the time to scalability on offer are key. And that's where we see the value as an organization.

What is most valuable?

The time to value is excellent on this solution. It is incredible. Unlike any other technology, which is really generally workflow-related, this RPA will give you quick wins, as demonstrated by the return on investment.

The solution has saved costs for our organization. We look at it from different lenses. We look at it from an actual savings perspective. We forecast it and then we annualize it to understand where the product will be or what it will bring us in the long and not just short term. For us, it’s very ROI-driven.

I’ve been with the bank for nine months now, and we went from having two processes automated to now having actual savings of about a little over $300K. It's not bad. There are about 30 processes in production. If we annualize that and forecast out we can see how we can continue to grow.

We have been able to reduce human error. I would call that the cherry on top. You don't really track that until you have it automated. However, if the alternative is having end-users upset that mistakes happen, having the level reduction we’re getting is great.

The solution has freed up employee time by a lot. We see it wherever it's very transactional heavy, where we had multiple team members. Now the teams are built by bots and people. Where you had three people before, now you have a person and a bot executing. So far, we have likely saved, in these nine months, a little over 11,000 man-hours. That's quite a win.

This additional time enabled employees to focus on higher-value work. That’s the whole purpose. We tend to look at ROI, not just money. It's also what else are the employees doing. We’re saving money from a man hours perspective, and, from a cost avoidance perspective, we’re not having to hire. The folks that work for us actually can do valuable work. They can focus on better decision making, more time with the customer, better relationship making, et cetera.

My team has started to utilize the UiPath Academy. My team is composed of multiple different skill sets from PMs to BAs to engineers, and so forth. Even at the level of IT, with the teams that manage infrastructure, sometimes I have them taking some of the infrastructure courses in the Academy. The Academy works well due to the fact that they prep you to grow quickly. If you don't understand how the technology operates, it could be a little bit difficult. You do have to train a little bit to understand it a little bit, however, it's not very difficult, especially when you have access to the Academy.

Having the Academy has affected the process of getting employees up to speed big time. Their appetite to get better and better is just enormous - not just due to the fact that the product is good and it's providing that information to do that, but also due to the fact that they're seeing results. That's helping them want to do it better and faster. It’s a win-win situation there.

The Academy has a really good curriculum for very particular skill sets. It's hard to be an engineer and have to learn a bunch of different stuff that won't necessarily concern you. UiPath has been able to really compartmentalize that learning capability so that it makes sense to different groups and speaks to their level of expertise. That’s probably the most valuable aspect of it.

What needs improvement?

In the world of NextGen technology, it would be ideal if they could speed up their beta products. My team handles all next-generation technologies that we implement in the bank. For example, we're looking at task mining right now. It's theoretical, however, that product is going to be tremendous. That said, it's still a bit in beta. For us, if they were trying to get new items a little bit quicker out there, that would be ideal. They're running with it, therefore, I'm not overly worried. They also want to provide a good platform for its users, and so I understand why they want to make sure it's good. The competition, in reality, even though it's growing, is not as strong. The feedback is just me being picky at this point.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution since 2015.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

So far, we have had very few issues and the issues really have been around very complex knowledge. We have reached out to UiPath to get advice, and they responded, and it hasn't been bad at all.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability has not been an issue. It's not even a topic of concern. The concern is more on the business side and can you manage the growth from a business perspective. The technology's there and I want to automate more. However, with automation, the question is if you can manage it.

We do have plans to increase usage. 

We have about 30 automations in place. That means about 60 to 70 people are using it. They work in shifts and they'll come in and they'll use their bots to process stuff while they do other stuff. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is great. In the times we've used it, they've come back relatively quickly.

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

I started with UiPath a long time ago and I actually worked for Automation Anywhere. I was head of their cognitive product. Therefore, I used them for a while. They're not a bad product at all. They're really good, however, their scalability is a little bit of concern. For us, coming back to UiPath was probably a good decision.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex. However, that's okay. It's also not supposed to be easy. You have to learn a little bit about what you're doing. Any technology would be a little bit complex. Once it's in, you can get that learning curve moving. With the actual users, that's where the trick of the implementation piece comes in. Once you're through it, however, that's where UiPath becomes really tremendous.

The deployment was maybe 60 days, however, it wasn't necessarily just because of UiPath. In banking, there's red tape. It takes time to get certain aspects approved. It takes time to get the right infrastructure in place. The enterprise has to be willing to put the time in just as UiPath has to put a certain time. It's a blend. As we were implementing, we were still putting things together and setting up governance. It was not just the technology. You still have to prep on the business side.

In terms of maintenance, on my team, I have about seven people, three engineers, a couple of business analysts, and a couple of PMs.

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

The pricing could be a little bit better for document understanding. I ran the pricing scheme for intelligent documents. With understanding at Automation Anywhere, there's room to maneuver. They can do a little bit better in making it easier for customers to dive in. I know it's available, however, it is what it is.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The organization evaluated Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, and UiPath. 

We went with UiPath due to the fact that they gave us a good deal and we wanted to try it out. We started little. At the hedge fund, we're actually now at over three bots in production. Automation Anywhere's a little bit pricey at the moment. We just kind of pulled the trigger on UiPath and it was a blessing. 

What other advice do I have?

We're just customers and end-users.

While we are on-premises, we're starting to use the cloud including some of the modules from the cloud, document understanding, task minding, et cetera. We're using the latest version of the solution. 

I'd advise those considering the solution that there's a secret sauce to it. It's not just the technology. People need process systems and a really good partner. That's how you get it done.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
UiPath
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about UiPath. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
770,765 professionals have used our research since 2012.
RPA Financial Systems Analyst at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
MSP
Saves time, is simple to use, and is easy to learn
Pros and Cons
  • "UiPath support is amazing."
  • "They could always continue to add new features, however, I don't have anything specific in mind right now."

What is our primary use case?

We have around more than 300 bots that are active right now. All the automation we have is based, basically, on Oracle and Oracle ERP. We have other automation as well, however, for now, I am focusing only on Oracle-based automation.

We have so many other use cases that we want to implement within our organization. We try to look at how we can save time for our employees so that they can spend their time on other valuable things, and not waste their time on unnecessary time-consuming tasks. 

Our employees use Oracle ERP, so they have to process so many invoices at one time and it takes a lot of time to consume a single invoice. I'd estimate it would take at least 5 to 10 minutes. But with the automation, we can process one invoice within a minute, or maybe less in some situations. It saves a lot of time - likely hundreds of hours for each employee. It saves manpower for the company and saves you valuable time for the employees. They don't have to do the same things again and again and waste their time on that.

For example, if they have to download an invoice and process that for some reason. They have to go to some ERP tool, log it onto that first, type in the information, and then download the invoice. It takes a lot of time. They don't have to do this once or twice, it's hundreds of times due to the fact that they're not for the same couple of invoices. Therefore, this is one of the best use cases that we have for now. We are still looking for other future use cases, but for now, this is the one we have.

What is most valuable?

UiPath is saving employees hours of time and has also been able to dedicate their free time to more valuable tasks.

The most valuable feature of UiPath is the time-saving employees get. It's definitely sometimes complicated for the developers when they are automating. However, from a business point of view, I would say this is one of the best tools that every organization should have, to help save time and work hours.

Sometimes if you are doing the same task, again and again, we do make mistakes. Automating those tasks removes that human error. Also, with those types of tasks, a human gets annoyed very, very soon if they keep doing one thing again and again. With the help of robots, we can fix it. There is no error with the bot. The only error would be if there is an exception if something is wrong. That said, from a business point of view, when I'm working on a bot, I make sure that it is not throwing any errors and making sure that there are no mistakes. From a development point of view, we can always fix that, however, we don't want our bot to have an error on the production level.

The ease of use and building automation using UiPath is pretty straightforward. It's not complicated. Even a person who is non-technical can become a citizen developer and use StudioX to automate some of the tasks that they think are time-consuming for them. Otherwise, from a developer's point of view, I don't find it complicated. Initially, when a user is learning and at the initial stages of learning RPA, it's definitely complicated, however, once you get used to it, it's pretty straightforward. I love working as an RPA developer.

UiPath has saved costs for our company. I don't have any metrics on the spot, however, I would say it's a big amount of saving. Our organization is very happy that we are using UiPath. We have a few complications right now, however, in a few months we'll fix everything. By next year, when everything is all settled down within our team, then we can start looking at exact metrics in terms of cost savings.

Our teams have used the UiPath Academy courses. I have been using UiPath Academy for a long time. I tend to keep on checking what's new at the Academy. If something new is there, I always try to learn it as soon as possible. If somebody were to ask me "How can we learn UiPath?" The first answer I’d give them is, "Just go to UiPath Academy and follow the learning path over there." That's what I always recommend to any new person.

UiPath Academy courses have positively affected the process of getting employees up to speed in UiPath. It’s helping employees and companies to learn, and I would say it's a one-stop place for anything related to RPA. You don't have to go to other places. You will find everything at UiPath Academy. Sometimes it doesn't have too much detail on the advanced level of things. However, it provides enough information that you learn by experience. If you need more information, you also have access to the UiPath Forum for that.

The biggest value of the courses is that they definitely save time for someone who wants to learn. I don't have to read a book and I don't have to go to any other place or learn from multiple sources. Everything is in one place and I can just follow the learning path and it's a good education in the tool.

Sometimes we don't see what processes can be automated. When we think that, "Okay, we can do that. It's not so time-consuming," however, we can figure it out with the help of UiPath apps and we likely will use them in the future to automate even more.

What needs improvement?

In terms of improvements, to be honest, I don't have anything I'd want to be added right now. If I have any problems, UiPath is always there. It's easy to find everything. I don't think anything can be improved. It's going very well. It's working for us.

They could always continue to add new features, however, I don't have anything specific in mind right now.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been on UiPath for almost more than a year now within our organization.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I'm satisfied with the stability of UiPath. It's good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

UiPath is always there if you want to scale over UiPath-related items. It is scalable.

In terms of who uses the solution, on my team, it's only me who is an RRP developer. That said, every person in the team knows what UiPath is, and they are joining bots onto the system on a daily basis if they have something to do. In the finance department, there are almost 40 to 50 people using UiPath. It might be more. We have more than 300 bots active right now, and I'm not working on all the bots. We definitely have other developers and other people who are working on it in other divisions within the company. 

We also do have plans to create more bots. We are going to use the UiPath apps in the future to see what kind of automation we can do there as well. for example, the Task Capture is a good tool. We haven't used that yet, however, sometime in the future, I would love to set it up for everyone on my finance team and run that application in the backend so that we can see what processes might be automated.

How are customer service and support?

UiPath support is amazing. We talk with someone on a weekly basis. They suggested we use UiPath technical support as we were having a few technical support issues with UiPath and we couldn't figure it out. When I submitted a ticket at UiPath, they were able to answer within a few hours. At maximum, we would get a response in one day. Not more than that.

They also answer with a solution, and the solution always works. I'm very satisfied with them. We don't have to search on the forum and do our own research. We just submit a ticket and once they get back to us, implement the suggested method and after that, it's all good. I'm really, really satisfied with UiPath's level of technical support.

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

It's my understanding the company did not use a different RPA tool before UiPath.

That said, there are so many automation tools and I do know a few. There's Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, and Microsoft has their Power Automate. I'm not familiar with all of them as my focus is only on UiPath for now. I haven't used others. I wouldn't be able to compare them. UiPath does seem to be one step ahead, however, as others do not have a free learning academy the way UiPath has. They do not offer a free trial version initially either. That is the best thing UiPath has done from a business point of view.

How was the initial setup?

I was not present for the initial setup of UiPath.

What was our ROI?

While I do not have an exact ROI metric, it's my understanding that we have saved way more than the solution costs.

For example, if we are spending, for example, $300,000 on the licenses in a year, and we are definitely saving more than $1 million, or maybe more than that. due to the number of hours that we are saving, it's a huge amount of savings we're receiving. 

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

The pricing is worth it. It's definitely expensive, however, I wouldn't say it's overpriced. The services that we are getting from those licenses help us to save way more than what we are spending.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

My managers were telling me that they were comparing which tool to use before choosing UiPath. While I'm not sure what they were looking at, they said they liked UiPath from the first day and that's why they're sticking with UiPath now.

What other advice do I have?

Maybe in the future, we might switch to the cloud, however, for now, we have an on-prem deployment. We're using the most recent version of the product.

We do not use UiPath's AI functionality in our organization yet. We are not using all the UiPath apps right now.

My advice to potential new users is that the first thing that they should do is they should go to the Academy just to get familiar with the tool and how they can use it. Then, move through to the next steps.

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

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Founder at Pi Square
Real User
Good training, and easy to automate processes that can have immediate ROI
Pros and Cons
  • "I really like that I am able to tell the story, using Orchestrator, how humans work, how bots work, and how humans and bots work together."
  • "UiPath should offer an on-demand cloud-type model where you can get bots for five minutes, ten minutes, an hour, or whatever duration you need."

What is our primary use case?

We use attended and unattended bots, Orchestrator, and Studio for development.

We're seeing increasing adoption of Studio because more people see how easy and straightforward it is to use a lot of the features. It helps that UiPath training is free. Our entire team, including our salespeople, have gone through the training. It's free and it makes a big difference. For the salespeople, they're able to talk more intelligently about RPA.

On a scale of one to five, judging how beneficial it is, I would rate the training a five, for sure. In fact, I have taken a lot of ideas from their training to educate my customers about RPA. When it comes to RPA, a lot of it is education because some of them don't know exactly how automation can be done. I've told UiPath that I use their training in my presentation, and it is great.

We are working with a technology company called Rammer, Rammer.ai. What the Rammer software does is listen to conversations to learn the details of what is being discussed. A third-party system is used to transcribe the conversation into text, then Rammer will learn the details without much training. It knows the topics, it understands what is talked about the most, talked about the least, how much we are adhering to the script if it's a call center use case, or if it is a simple meeting use case then it knows who is assigned what tasks, it recognizes the follow-ups, and it knows the summary of the discussion. All of this is summarized in a nice, consumable manner. So now, when a bot knows all of this information, it goes into Orchestrator, logs all these activities that are picked up by unattended bots downstream, and they trigger all those processes back. So it's a massive consumption of all of those heavy use cases.

We have not yet run automations in a virtual environment, although we do have customers who are asking for it. We are not sure if we will need UiPath's help for this yet because we haven't tried it.

With respect to how easy it is to automate our company's processes, on a scale of one to five, I would rate it a five. Really, it depends on how clearly we understand the requirements. So a lot of times we are able to find process gaps, which wasn't the case earlier before we started thinking about automation in this manner. I would say the ease of use is actually dependent on some of those factors as well.

Usually, starting is the biggest challenge for most people, and I think this is because it is in a trial environment and there is a lack of documentation, with multiple people doing one part of a small subset of a task. There are these challenges and then if none of them are documented, you need to figure out the process flow. From person one, where does it go? This can change when people can do multiple things.

It becomes a very complex web to understand and navigate through. We need to understand the task and how it should be performed. For developing the robot, it's very important to have the clarity upfront, otherwise, we cannot code them. That is the biggest challenge, I feel.

From the point that a UiPath license is purchased until the first bot is ready is almost immediate. This is because we usually start with a PoC on a small scale, just to see if automation with this approach makes sense. By the end of the PoC, we'll normally know exactly how many bots are needed. Sometimes it is on us, more than the customer when we cannot estimate every process that is outside of the departments and division that we work with because we just work at finance. For example, we can't just estimate what marketing would use, and so on. That will sometimes delay things.

What is most valuable?

The attended and unattended classification and simplicity are great, and it's easy to explain to people. Right off the bat, the task performing the lowest granular entity is very clearly defined, which is something that I like.

I really like that I am able to tell the story, using Orchestrator, how humans work, how bots work, and how humans and bots work together. Orchestrator really tells a lot more than just being a simple task manager.

What needs improvement?

In future releases of this solution, I would like to see more packaged solutions.

We would like to see intelligence built into the core. Specifically, we would like to see the recognition of human to human conversations. That intelligence would be great because we have some very important use cases in that space that we are seeing. Our focus is moving closer to one hundred percent in that space, as all of our new work is related to conversations.

UiPath should offer an on-demand cloud-type model where you can get bots for five minutes, ten minutes, an hour, or whatever duration you need.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

With respect to the stability, on a scale from one to five, I would rate this solution a five.

We don't see many failures, and this is partly because of our approach. We start by creating something called a heat map, which I learned in some of the training from UiPath. The training clearly explains how to handle errors. It includes which process to automate fully and which processes should be automated partially, with a human in the loop.

We start with the right approach. We understand the process and we have the heat mapping that gives us full clarity of where the exception flows are and how to handle them. So when you do that, it becomes second nature to handle those exceptions. We are pretty comfortable, and we are applying the best practices, which adds to the stability. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Talking about our own people, we have roughly sixty-five who are either developers or architects. For our customers, the number is growing all the time. The requests for training and setting up workshops for them comes to us every week, basically from different customers. We don't know the extent of automation beyond the people we work with because there are other vendors like us who are also there, so we don't have the exact number but what is refreshing to see is that even VP level or senior-level employees are interested in learning. They ask us if we can hold a workshop for their entire team, whether they're doing the development of bots or not. Hopefully, that will increase the numbers, but right now I don't have an estimate on the total number of customers. I only know on our side.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have tremendous support from UiPath. We can say that from our perspective, we are very fortunate to be in the Pacific Northwest and that team is one of the best. It doesn't matter if we are big or small, they help everyone. So every time we have an issue or a challenge, whether it's engineering, presales, architecture, or development, we get all the support.

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

Our customers usually don't know much about RPA, so one of our jobs is to educate them on it to get them interested. Gradually when they understand, it moves forward.

How was the initial setup?

In the majority of cases, the initial setup of this solution is simple to medium in terms of complexity. We are finding very few complex scenarios at the moment.

I think the overall architecture is simple. It is very clear and very straightforward. UiPath's product team is doing a great job in is creating a lot of very out of the box integrations and analytics, and that always helps. That is good, but I think if people are not trained yet and they think that it's easy, drag-and-drop, and simplistic, those folks struggle a lot.

We've seen that people think "Oh yeah, it's just some scripts and drag and drop so we can do this easily" and that misconception exists. We don't treat it as an easy scenario, so we gave it all the respect that proper Python code, a data science problem, or a highly complex situation deserves. When you approach it that way, it's at best at a medium complexity.

In general, we treat it right in the middle. It's not that straightforward, but the architecture is simple enough that the development complexity is medium. That's the simple and medium combination.

What was our ROI?

When it comes to ROI, for some scenarios it's immediate on the day you go to production. Doing the math, if it is automating thirty hours of work in a week, it is going to be the moment you turn on the switch.

Sometimes when the expectation is set at a different level, the KPIs are different. It may be that the customer is looking to have an "X million" dollar cost saving. It just depends on how you're defining the KPIs. So in those scenarios, obviously it'll build up to that saving.

A lot of people talk about the total cost of ownership as being a real saving or real value for products. So there are just all these different layers of complexity in that. I mean in theory it is immediate at the moment you turn on the switch, but then you need to consider the bigger picture, and it's not a straight answer. It'll be different.

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

The most important tip that I would share with respect to the licensing is that you should not think of a bot as being able to do only one thing. You should always consider the downtime and utilize the bots properly. That's the way you can have exponential ROI from just that one simple investment.

Even though these bots don't really cost much, you still want to say there are resources like a dedicated machine that is there, there are electricity and all kinds of resources that also go into it. So the overall cost, we should look at that. If a bot is doing ten hours' worth of work in five minutes, there are twenty-three-plus hours work that the bot can actually do. So, think of orchestration.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Some of our customers have tried different solutions. There are some customers who have even tried a lot of competing products and they're not satisfied. They have a very low expectation from what automation should or could do. So for us, that's even harder in terms of educating them.

People who don't know anything about this kind of automation, sometimes it's a little bit simpler to just run them through an hour or two of our workshop, but people who already know about it may have set their mind in a certain manner. Sometimes for those customers, the customers with experience in other solutions, are usually a little bit more difficult to convince. They have doubts that have come about because of whatever they've been using, and they don't fully understand the capabilities because UiPath does things very differently from others.

So on both ends, education is a challenge.

What other advice do I have?

We are very excited about the new things that have been announced recently. There is the integration with AI, with AI fabric. There is Studio X, which has pre-built APIs with Microsoft Office and all the other Salesforce integrations that they've come up with. These are very exciting because that will increase adoption even more. People already understand unattended and attended automation, and now with Studio X being available so easily, and with analytics being part of its fabric, it's going in the right direction.

We have a very nice step-by-step flowchart that explains how to approach or what processes to automate first of all, and what are the chances of change or variations and all of that. While we are developing this, we at least are following the best practices from all the training that we received to ensure that we have taken that int consideration and we have not picked the process that is hard to automate, or which should not be automated. Then, it's more of a system change or any transformation that the customer should do first and then do automation. Basically, we should not do automation for the sake of it.

At my company, we don't work with any other RPAs. When it comes to customers choosing this solution, it should depend on the use case. If there is a strategic advance that they need to get and they need to really think of analytics and intelligent automation, UiPath makes a very compelling case. I think that it is important to choose your solution wisely and do it based on your use cases.

From a cost perspective, there is a big difference between the attended and unattended bots. One is twenty-five percent the cost of the other, which is a massive difference. Our customers use both, and we like this a lot because the way we utilize attended and unattended bots are the right way to do it. If you need to do multitasking and handle a lot of tasks, the choices vary.

Specifically from a pricing point of view, I think it is justified. When I first heard the price, and obviously I didn't ask about the duration or subscription levels, I thought it was a monthly price. Hearing that, I thought that it was cheap. Later, I was told that it was an annual fee. So for me, I understand that my customers can afford this price, and I am happy with that.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

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.
PeerSpot user
RPA UIPath Trainee at a non-profit with 11-50 employees
Real User
Easy to use, easy to set up, and offers good Document Understanding
Pros and Cons
  • "It's low code/no code which makes it very easy to work with."
  • "More videos are required. There are basic videos that can help you learn about the product, however, there need to be more in-depth videos to help you through certain tasks."

What is our primary use case?

I've created an app for conversions and exchange rates. Every day I need the exchange rate of a certain currency and I use the API free exchange and UiPath.

It's also used for the reconciliation of invoices.

I've used it for the creation of an onboarding bot for employees to be onboarded onto a website with a remote system. I used AWS and a virtual machine and created a Google Form from there, and used UiPath's computer vision to do onboarding activities and extract data from files. PDF files can then be entered into the remote system. UiPath can be used to fill the forms.

It can be used for web extraction tasks as well, for example, for booking flights, where you can extract the flight details for particular search criteria and place them into an Excel sheet.

It can also be used to extract data from invoices in order to populate an Excel sheet, for a portable format. I've created a process that used documents as a learning model and extracted the invoices, using logic to output the transactions. 

Another use case I tried was extracting data from Amazon based on exact data. The same can be done on Linkedin using the Linkedin API. I'm fine-tuning and extracting data, putting the outputs on Google Sheets.

I've experimented with many use cases and automated many processes. 

What is most valuable?

It's low code/no code which makes it very easy to work with. 

Building automation using UiPath is easy. If I see a video or some instructions, I can do it. Things are doable. You learn. If there are use cases or there is information online, you can replicate the process.

Adding activities is easy. All of these partners are integrated into UiPath now - including AWS and G-suite. You have activities already built right into UiPath and they are working to make everything as low-cost as possible.

Then you have OCRs which offer the Document Understanding. I can do a PDF extraction using just OCR in a normal way.

I love the Document Understanding. You can see whether a document is valid or not. You can accept or reject. I came up with a .NET background. I used to write so many lines of code for doing a certain thing. Here, you have a for a loop. You don’t need so much code.

I remember when I used to work for a UK client, a gas utility, and at that time we used a read-through data driver, and got the Excel data, and again validated everything. However, for that, we used to write around two, three pages of code. Now, using UiPath, you just do a real Excel activity and you get the entire sheet. Automation has made our lives easier.

I can scale automation without having to pay attention to infrastructure. Now, since the cloud has come into the picture, everyone is going to the cloud and everything is easier but with the new cloud partners like Google, AWS, Azure, and Oracle. A company may not have its own on-premise orchestrator.

Earlier, you needed three servers for production, testing, and development. Since UiPath has both cloud orchestrated and on-premise, it's easier for organizations to use less physical space. For smaller organizations, they can go to the cloud. For larger they can have their on-premise orchestrator. It’s flexible.

UiPath enables me to implement end-to-end automation starting with process analysis and then robot building and finally monitoring of automation. There are many process mining tasks, capture tasks, mining, et cetera. More things have to be automated - such as deploying, managing, and enhancing for continual improvement. It has all the components.

For a beginner, end-to-end coverage may not be essential. When we talk about automation, we should know what can be automated so that we ease our lives and that doesn't mean we have to remove the resources. You don’t have to involve the employees. You just need to simplify the task so that there is continual improvement. Users should consider not only, how to automate but what needs to be automated. If it is automated, how it can be improved gradually and what are the returns? Sometimes that doesn’t necessarily mean you need end-to-end. You just need simplicity.

I do use the attended automation. For some processes, I use the attended automation for testing purposes. I use the attended if I'm using UiPath assistant, otherwise, it's normally background processes that are unattended.

Attended automation will be for Document Understanding when I'm training a robot, for example, for what is the format or validating the time I'm using attended one. If I'm asking a user for particular search criteria, or for currency exchange it's mixed but mostly unattended.

Both attended and unattended work together - the human as well as the robot. However, it depends on the scenario. Unattended means you are not dependent on any human resources.

The orchestrated cloud, which is a SaaS, it's quite helpful. If I just want to install UiPath studio in my system and I'm least bothered about what environment it should be, what infrastructure should be, where I'm going to deploy, it is quite useful and quite easy when there is a SaaS option available.

I’ve used the AI functionality for sentiment analysis such as getting reviews from the websites about a particular product or service.

UiPath offers great object detection where you have a magistrate and you can detect whether you want to detect the people. If you want to extract how many people are there in that image, for example, during a social distancing sort of event, that can be used for object detection. I've used object detection for images in terms of extracting a number of people.

I’ve trained the system to read different types of invoice formats. I've used the email or Document Understanding that can read separate invoices, receipts, utilities, et cetera. I’ve used the solution to create processes for invoice reconciliation.

The AI functionality is quite easy to use. For tollgates, for example, when they charge for tolls, the solution can be utilized for seeing the number plate, and through the image, get the data, extract the number of data from the numbers plate, use the driver information from the number plate of the car, et cetera. It becomes a very easy AI model. Without any type of knowledge in AI, you can use those out-of-the-box functionalities.

The more training you do with machine learning, the better results you get in the end.

I use the automation cloud feature.

We are not bothered about any patches or any work that has to be done to maintain the infrastructure; the vendor does it.

The automation cloud offering has helped decrease time to value, however, since I have not deployed real-time projects, I cannot give exact numbers on the decrease. That said, from my experience, I feel that it is true.

It’s my understanding that the automation cloud offering helps to decrease UiPath's overall cost of ownership, however, at this time, I just use the free version.

The solution enables you to be better and better with cloud features that are quite accessible.

In terms of UiPath Apps, I have used them, however, just for my own purposes, for my own training purposes, as I was learning. It is easy to use and pretty much drag and drop. For the basic things, the user can do a lot with minimal training. You can do everything with low code and less coding knowledge as well. A person may not be technically sound, however, even with minimum knowledge, they can create apps using UiPath apps. That's the interesting part of UiPath apps.

UiPath reduces the cost of digital transformation. It does not require expensive or complex application upgrades or IT support.

UiPath has reduced human error. For example, let's say I'm filling a form using a document. Typos, errors, spelling mismatches, et cetera, are reduced when it is handled by automation. When we automate this process, the robot minimizes the error since a human is not involved in this case of data entry. It will extract whatever data there is in that document and it will fill in the form. Similarly, for calculating Excel data, we can avoid calculation errors.

What needs improvement?

More videos are required. There are basic videos that can help you learn about the product, however, there need to be more in-depth videos to help you through certain tasks. For example, I was trying to use an API for conversion. I was doing it for a single transaction, one by one. There can be cases where it will not go for a simple conversion or simple transaction, and it will be a bulk action. In that case, I may need to upload a file. I was searching for an upload control however, I could not find anything to assist me.  It would have been helpful to find some sort of instructional video for this task. The file upload, where you upload a file and select a file so that you can extract data all those things based on that file is a commonly used feature - and yet, that was missing. 

UiPath apps may be able to increase the number of automation I can create while reducing the time it takes to create them. However, they need to elaborate on the process. I need more articles on that. From the point of view of the person developing the automation, I need more details on writing the correct code or doing the automation, which I hope will be coming in the next releases.

They require an improvement in the IEP. I don't know whether it's a bug or something. I find that, with drag and drop, you have to drag it in a particular fashion. 

When they add new features, they should offer some in-depth sessions on them to help people get comfortable with the changes. 

It would always be helpful to have new partnerships between UiPath and different cloud vendors. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I started using the solution in February of this year.

I am on a gap year. I used to work for an IT company, and I have taken a gap. To re-skill myself I started learning UiPath. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is quite good. You have other options, such as Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism. UiPath will be like coming out with new revisions in the coming years that will continue to compete with those.

Even now, it's quite stable and quite reliable, even if the changes which are coming, in the much of the deployment, are felt good. There are frequent revisions. I have no experience in other automation, however, from what I've seen, even as it changes, it's stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is quite good. It has alliances with different cloud vendors so that you can scale your robots. You can have different instances, different new virtual machines, and in the cloud. You're not concerned about what to install and you just pay as you use. The cloud vendors make it very scalable. 

Once I am employed, I do plan to increase usage.

How are customer service and support?

I use the forum for any queries. I didn't face user technical problems for any robots that I am using. I have not been in direct contact with technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. 

You just go to UiPath.com and register with your user ID or any email ID. From there, you install the UiPath Studio and you set your workflows. Once you publish, you get it in your orchestrator, attach the process, create a job. And then you run it. 

It's quite easy to create a workflow, publish it, and deploy it in the orchestrator. Next, you have to tag the correct robot, the correct machine, and the correct sponsor. In any environment you want.

For small processes, the deployment would hardly take a few minutes to deploy.

Maintenance is light for the cloud instances and really does not need much. The cloud vendors do the work, however, users need to pay for the services which they use.

What about the implementation team?

I handled the initial setup myself. I did not need an integrator or consultant. 

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

I can't speak to the exact pricing of the product as I am using a free version of it right now. I'm not paying any licensing fees to UiPath.

I shouldn't say you need licenses for many things for today, however, for working on Visual Studio, if you want to automate something, you need a license, which costs you around 5,000 to 6,000 Rupees. If you want to do some extra Microsoft office activities. You need the maximum office license, which is 70,000 Rupees. That said, with UiPath, you need not have Microsoft Office installed. You can still read the data and extract the data in an Excel format. You can then share the data from those automation activities with no third-party license cost and no software licenses.

UiPath can help save costs in an organization. There are so many legacy systems wherein you have so much data migration, and many things which are done manually can be automated and you can save resources while doing something new. 

What other advice do I have?

I'm just an end-user. 

My first experience with automation was, "Okay, which product to learn?". After all the reviews and reading, I decided to start with UiPath. My previous background was .NET web development. I was a full-stack web developer with seven-plus years of experience and I found that I really like when a product is built on a .NET framework. I realized that "Okay, it's better to do something, learn something and I have a background of the platform so let's start from there".

When I started using this product, I found the academy was quite open, and in the forum, there were people who were training as well. I found that while I may not get 100% of the answers I need, 85% to 90% of the time the answer is there if you search. 

Many people do not know RP automation, and it's great that they have these free resources - which is rare for such a product. Each region has a chapter where people working in this area come and share their knowledge and experiences.

Currently, I'm using the 2019 version of the solution. It's not the latest, however, it's not much older. I'm using the enterprise as well, which is free for 60 days. I started using UiPath apps as well. I'm learning so I use the cloud orchestrator to deploy my processors. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
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
Associate Consultant at Capgemini
Real User
User-friendly interface, saves us time and money, and the support is good
Pros and Cons
  • "In addition to savings in time and cost, UiPath further saves us money because of the reduction in human error."
  • "Many of the features that UiPath has are good, although better documentation is required for them."

What is our primary use case?

I use this solution to automate business processes that are rule-based. This includes the automation of different applications and background processes, such as posting invoices.

How has it helped my organization?

UiPath makes it very easy to develop automations. The interface is user-friendly and makes it easy to perform operations or use services, whether it is a database or another product. We can perform tasks on Microsoft Azure, for example. Many operations can be completed using inbuilt packages.

For whatever activity we want to perform, it only involves using the drag-and-drop capability, so it is easy to do. Anybody can do it. No programming-specific knowledge, like .NET, is required.

It is easy to develop custom components, which makes life easier.

UiPath allows us to implement end-to-end automation starting with the process analysis and ending with the monitoring. This is important to us because for any new process that we identify, using the task capture methods helps us to gather the documents that are required to automate it. After we develop the automation in Studio, we can easily monitor it using Orchestrator. It is helpful to have a complete solution from start to end, with all of the features that it has.

Using automation means that we increase our process output with minimal effort, which is something that every company wants to do because there is a saving in terms of manpower. It is definitely helpful in our organization.

The amount of time or cost savings depends on the process. For example, some processes that take four or five people to complete can be done using a single bot. Also, people can only work six or seven hours a day, whereas, with automation, the bot can run 24 hours a day. Not only is the process done more quickly but at less cost.

Attended automation has helped to scale RPA benefits because we have some scenarios where human collaboration is required. These are business-critical processes, so any level of automation is important for us.

In addition to savings in time and cost, UiPath further saves us money because of the reduction in human error. When a human is performing a task, mistakes happen. When the bots are used, there are no errors and when the number of mistakes is reduced, the business has more income.

UiPath has helped to speed up digital transformation, although hosting it requires IT support. For example, if UiPath needs to be updated or our infrastructure needs to be expanded, then it requires the help of IT support.

What is most valuable?

One of the things that I like is that they keep adding new features, such as machine learning models. For example, if you are reading a PDF copy of an invoice then the RPA should be able to identify and understand it. Rather than using rules to identify different formats for different kinds of invoices, machine learning and AI should be involved.

We are using the AI functionality and it gives us the ability to have more automation, saving more time and manual effort, and at less cost. This is possible because UiPath provides pre-built and pre-trained AI models that we can import, depending on the use case.

Some of the processes we have implemented are very complex, and these are the ones that we need AI for. Some of them involve human interaction and cover use cases such as taking different formats of invoices and pushing them to SAP. We have had good success when working with the machine learning capabilities.

The Action Center and Task Manager are very good for business users. The features are helpful because these days, business users are expecting more than a simple rule-based operation in RPA systems.

UiPath Studio integrates well with third-party tools such as Git. It is easy to maintain code from within Studio.

What needs improvement?

Many of the features that UiPath has are good, although better documentation is required for them.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using UiPath for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have had issues with previous versions but the latest updates have resolved my problems. As of now, the stability is very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is very good in UiPath.

We have five UiPath users in our project; one is a lead, another is a manager, there are two developers and a consultant. At this point, I'm not sure if we plan to increase our usage.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have been in contact with technical support in the past, and I would rate them a ten out of ten. They respond very nicely and help to resolve our problems.

How was the initial setup?

When we deploy processes, it takes about half an hour. It varies depending on the process but half an hour is the average per activity.

UiPath is easy to maintain and support. We have a support team and QA teams, and they are responsible for monitoring the processes and the bots. They will check the activities that take place in production.

What about the implementation team?

The number of staff required for maintenance depends on the architecture that the client has.

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

The licensing model is very good.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We chose UiPath because it is more flexible and has better licensing terms than some competing products.

What other advice do I have?

We use some third-party tools in conjunction with UiPath. For example, to maintain the code and for versioning control, we use Git. We have two or three years of experience with Git and not only is it compatible with UiPath, but it is also easy to use.

My advice for anybody who is implementing UiPath is to start with the documentation. There is a lot of good documentation that includes best practices and plenty of examples. Using the documentation, one can easily learn UiPath.

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
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Intuitive and logical solution that has some of the best training available
Pros and Cons
  • "We're able to handle some of our tax and HR processes, the volumes of the documents or new hires at a tremendous speed compared to how we used to do it manually in the past."
  • "I think in the Studio, as in building automations, it takes a lot of clicks and there's a lot of options and I think sometimes there's just too much. It should be more simplified on the user interface."

What is our primary use case?

We use Studio and Orchestrator. I personally use unattended bots but we're releasing one of the largest attended implementations right now.  

For the most part, it's still in the back office, finance, and accounting, that's typically where we've been starting. That's where for me, as an inexperienced developer, is easier for me to get started.

How has it helped my organization?

We're able to handle some of our tax and HR processes, the volumes of the documents or new hires at a tremendous speed compared to how we used to do it manually in the past.

What is most valuable?

I like the layout and design of the Studio using the RPA framework. It makes sense to me. It's very easy to get started. I've been a fan of the current debugger. I know that UiPath is releasing an updating debugger but I think that's been very intuitive for me as well.

I would rate the ease of use of the platform for automating my company’s processes a four out of five because, for me, there's still a lot of clicks and keystrokes I need to do for development. I know that UiPath is releasing StudioX, which is something that is needed, for people like me who aren't super technical.

I would rate UiPath Academy RPA training a five out of five. It's one of the best. Compared to its competitors, it's intuitive and it's robust.

It's everything that UiPath is moving forward towards, intelligent, machine learning, and AI. I embrace the fact that the direction it's going especially for me personally.

What needs improvement?

I think in the Studio, as in building automations, it takes a lot of clicks and there's a lot of options and I think sometimes there's just too much. It should be more simplified on the user interface.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

As far as our practice, we have over 150 consultants in the States and over 350 in India. We also have a team in Europe. Overall, we have over 3,000 RPA consultants. UiPath is probably close to about a third that would be UiPath competent.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't had to contact their technical support. I go through my SMEs. 

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

We're always challenging ourselves to be more efficient and effective in the workforce. We also recognized that some of our businesses needed to do things better, faster and cheaper. RPA was a natural solution. For us, as a large organization, we want to learn about all of the top competitor solutions. UiPath is in the top-ranked quadrant regularly so it is an obvious choice.

Because of the market demands of Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism and UiPath, we had to invest in learning all three equally. I don't know the exact reason we went with UiPath, I can ask our clients. 

How was the initial setup?

The implementation process was easier than the competitors.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a 100% ROI. We do automation to deliver a faster ROI than traditional software. As a firm, we saved over 2 million dollars a year now from using RPA.

What other advice do I have?

Regarding both attended and unattended bots, I think there are places for both and it comes back to the purpose of what you're automating. I think attended is going to be great for the casual users of applications. It's a lot of the call centers and even some of the system developers. The unattended are places where you can really find those scaling volumes and processes. Typically back-office functions are unattended.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. There's always room for improvement. For me, it's very intuitive and logical. I grew up with a little bit more of a technical background so for me, it fits in well with my needs.

I would encourage someone considering this solution to use UiPath, especially if they're automated and especially with UiPath's new one-click cloud solution. It's so fast for them to get started. I would encourage them to be up and running in the same database to try it out.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
Senior Consultant at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Attended robots guide our users saving them time, minimizing training, and reducing errors
Pros and Cons
  • "We did not have to do a lot of customization because the standard UiPath activities fit our needs."
  • "I find it difficult to set up the Orchestrator and it should be more user-friendly for non-technical people."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the Studio, which is for developing the robots, and we deploy to Orchestrator.

We went through a large SAP transformation and we had a lot of issues getting the users to accept the new systems. They were issues related to the adoption of new systems. We decided to build these attended bots in order to guide the users through the system. Essentially, it is navigation or guidance assistance. By helping the users with proper data entry and design, flowing in a logical sequence that is easy for the user to follow, it minimizes end-user training.

Running our automations in a virtual environment is something that we had tried during our PoC. Currently, we have attended bots deployed in more than twenty thousand laptops, and eventually, we're planning to have more than eighty thousand deployments. Because of the large scale, initially, we were having a lot of challenges because of things that go on with the users' machines. We wanted to explore Citrix because there is just one virtual environment that every user logs on to, and then run the processes from there. Unfortunately, it did not work for us. We were seeing a lot of issues and felt that it was much more stable deploying individually to each laptop, instead of using Citrix.

With respect to how easy it is to automate our company's processes, on a scale of one to five, I would rate this solution a four. There is always room for improvement.

On a scale of one to five, judging how beneficial it is, I would rate the training a five. The material is very sequential and logical. You don't get lost because you just follow the modules from beginner to intermediate to advanced. You cover everything from end-to-end, and it is very structured.

From the point that we purchased our UiPath license until we had our first robot was approximately one year. This included our pilot project, then the development and the UAT. When we went live in production there were three thousand users. 

How has it helped my organization?

This solution saves our users time. For example, on a standard SAP system where a user has no training, and you tell them to go and finish performing a transaction, it will take them between thirty and forty minutes. Now, with these attended bots, it is almost reduced to half. They can finish the same transaction with minimum training in probably fifteen minutes.

This solution has definitely reduced human errors. We have cleaned up the transaction screens and we help the user to focus on what is needed. We give them the right instructions to make sure that they enter the right information.

This solution is mainly used for navigation, position making, and reducing errors. It means that we have a quicker time to finish any transaction. We are a financial organization, so obviously, for us, it's important to record every sale that we make and every client that we have. It has significantly helped our client servers to reduce the time that they spend on these systems to finish a particular transaction.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of this solution is the ease of using it. This includes the way the activities are set up, and how easy it is to solve problems by searching with Google if we're stuck.

We did not have to do a lot of customization because the standard UiPath activities fit our needs. This is a big point for us because we end up customizing most of the products that we use just to satisfy our own business needs. In the case of Studio, we didn't have to create a lot of custom activities.

What needs improvement?

I find it difficult to set up the Orchestrator and it should be more user-friendly for non-technical people. I understand how we create packages and push them, but I find the maintenance hard to follow. As it is now, I have to contact our IT department, which takes two to three days. In the meantime, we just have to wait.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

With respect to the stability, on a scale from one to five, I would rate this solution a four. In terms of attended automation, we did have a lot of issues. We have requested lots of product enhancements, which then came through the pipeline. Initially, we did see a lot of issues and they had to make some changes to cater to our needs. Also, we have some more requests that have been put in the pipeline to make it a bit easier for us.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have about twenty people working with RPA in our organization. At this time we have automations running on more than twenty thousand laptops.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support for this solution is very good. They're very responsive.

We have had people working on-site at UiPath too, and they have been hands-on trying to see what we are solving. They have given us very good and very relevant suggestions, which has been helpful for us. 

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

We did not use another RPA prior to this solution.

We knew that we needed to invest in this solution based on user feedback. When we launched our new SAP system, everybody kept complaining about how difficult it was to use. There is a lot of training involved, but it's not like you can remember the training. We replaced fourteen hundred systems and put them into a single instance, so even if you are trained for weeks it is hard to remember all of it.

Basically, we needed something that was easier and helps us navigate through the systems so that we can complete our transactions. This solution does just that. It guides the user, waits for the user to give the right input based on what is expected, and then takes the user to the next relevant screen so that they can perform the transaction.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup has been complicated for us. After we went live in production, one of the issues we saw, but didn't realize initially, was that even though the tray was not open, by default though, if the bot is pushed onto a user's machine then it will be connected to the Orchestrator. Even though the user is not running the process, the bot always stayed connected. That was causing a large load on the Orchestrator and we didn't realize it until we started increasing from three thousand to twenty thousand users. That's when we were seeing a lot of timeouts. The production connection kept dropping and we were not able to figure out why. UiPath helped us to restructure the whole SQL database and the way we established the connections.

What was our ROI?

We have not yet seen ROI, although I think it's too early because we only went live two or three months ago. The big expansion in users was just this week, so it is too early for us to say.

We do know that we have been receiving very positive feedback so far. The users with machines where these bots are deployed have been saying it is very easy to use and there is minimal training required. It's out there, on the desktop or laptop, and they just have to launch by clicking the play button and the process starts. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

When we started this project, we explored Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere. I don't think that they were able to give us what we were looking for in terms of attended automation. When we looked at UiPath we found that it could satisfy all of our business requirements, which is why we chose this solution over the others.

What other advice do I have?

I am really excited about the new Studio X. Ours is a consulting firm where not everybody is tech-savvy, but everyone wants to get their hands into automation. UiPath is saying that it is going to be very easy. Even for people without a technical background at all, they will be able to build their own process and bot. I'm looking forward to seeing how our users are going to make use of that within the UI.

This solution is easy to use and adopt in an existing environment. The best part for us is that even though some features were lacking, the turnaround time to have them implemented was amazing. We have always coordinated with our UiPath partner to tell them what it is that we need. When we have requested features, we have found that in the next release they are added. We found this unique among vendors.

My advice to anyone who is researching this type of solution is to definitely go for it. There are a lot of materials out there which will help them make the decision. Our own journey showed that it was easy for us to use, learn, adopt, and finally deploy.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
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Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free UiPath Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.