We are looking for automation processes and we read about automation anywhere . We do have regular automated functional testing tool. Why cant we use them in production versus buying huge license product such as automation anywhere ? Writing automation in functional testing tool involves development effort but it heavily reduces license cost versus automation anywhere RPA.
Can someone expertise in automation anywhere please explain how RPA is different in these perspective ?
The biggest hype over the RPA technologies is that it is relatively easier to create automation with those tools (they are almost like scratch programming, using diagram flow to create common tasks and processes) so even business people can own the robot and edit when necessary. Of course this depends heavily on the complexity of the process.
Companies nowadays are creating RPA team's to create a repository of objects (think of libraries of code) or API's and then the business units with lower level of programming skills can just develop their specific process using those objects pre-made by the real developers ;)
Automation Anywhere comes with lot of features to handle complex business scenarios such as validating data and entering data into a database test automation tools focus on screen automation to pass test cases while tools like AA user to do automation + implementing desicion making steps
Choose RPA tool for functional testing only when :-
if you need proper analysis of ROI or business and other Operational Analytics based on some input like price.
if you need Surface Automation using RDP or citrix.
The key difference between automated testing tools and a full service RPA, like Automation Anywhere, is the intention of making this a production level solution. RPA is intended to be scaled to touch various levels in your organization. It is not designed to only be ran attended on one local machine. AA treats created bots just like a well-tuned development department, with built-in version control, scheduling, and even ROI analytics on the use of those bots. If you only have a few processes that you want to automate, then I would suggest investigating the use of automated testing tools that could run on a dedicated vm. But if your organization is wanting to setup and allow for multiple bot creators, scheduling and prioritizing unattended bot runners, all while maintaining appropriate change control oversight then going with a full service RPA solution is probably more appropriate.
As a side note, I am an IT auditor for a public company that has just started using Automation Anywhere. Their product is mature enough and has enough appropriate production level controls that we are comfortable with allowing it to handle financial data in an unattended state. RPA tools like this one are certainly intended for your more intermediate users. The interface is easy for a non-programmer, but advanced users also have available features that make it more powerful. I doubt most automated testing tools are as portable or user friendly.
You can also try out their community edition or watch some of their videos for free.
Automation anywhere and automation testing are two different concept.
Main focus of the automation anywhere is automate the Repetitive tasks. e.g Download the email attachment and upload to OneDrive.
If you are looking for automate the testing and create test cases for the application with fail or pass results then go for Selenium.
Automation anywhere has cognitive automation, you do an action couple of times like copying the customer name from pdf file to the 3rd column of excel sheet and your bots will learn it to do it automatically for thousands of records. You can't expect it to happen via traditional web or API automation tools. This is just one example, there are many complex business scenarios which can't be done via test automation tools.
