Robotic Process Automation Products and Comparison

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has taken place in almost every sector, such as manufacturing, health, finance, human resources, and e-commerce. Nowadays, RPA increases work efficiency and productivity. At the stage of corporate decision to work with automation, “Which product is suitable for us?” and “What are the differences between products on the market?” are natural to have such questions. Every business wants the best efficiency while its business processes are taking place; at this point, it is essential to work with the right product. Blue Prism, Kofax RPA, VooDoo RPA, UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and OpenRPA are RPA products that play an essential role in successfully automating processes. We are ready to answer your questions about the basic features of these products, in which sectors they are more prominent, the differences between them, and the aspects that make them stand out.

Blue Prism was established in 2001 by a group of process automation experts in the UK. Then, they started work on RPA for back Office work, a gap in automation, and launched their first product in 2003. Until 2017, Blue Prism software worked on customers’ servers. Then with the new version, it started to work with clouds such as Amazon, Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Microsoft .NET Framework, Blue Prism supports any platform (host, Windows, WPF, Java, web, etc.). Since process coding is automated in the backend, it enables users without software knowledge to create processes. Every software robot consists of two main components:

• Process Studio
• Object Studio

Blue Prism is used in banking, finance, insurance, law, public, and health sectors.

Kofax Inc. is a California-based smart automation software company. In 2013, it was added to the RPA sector as Kofax RPA. It can create a process in a few days without any software development and can work in integration with different ERP systems.

In Kofax RPA Design Studio, processes can be created test and debugged. With the Control Room, the robot is followed, and more than one robot can work on the same server in Kofax RPA architecture. The host computer can be accessed from a robot server. As a result, the robot is remotely controllable.

Kofax RPA is used in banking, health, human resources, insurance, and many more sectors.

VooDoo RPA was produced in 2018 by OneZero Intelligent Technology company, established by Ahmet Hayran, İlkhan Cüceloğlu in Turkey. While producing software for institutions, they discovered some common points and produced a robot. Firstly, this robot was only visual test automation; then, they realized that non-technical business units of enterprises had the potential to solve their processes. This RPA product consists of three main components and additional modules.

VooDoo Studio

VooDoo Robot

VooDoo Integrated Console

Additional Modules

With VooDoo RPA it is possible to create an end-to-end process without the need for code. . This product, which can be used at the enterprise level, automates high-volume repetitive tasks and can generate processes by creating millions of different scenarios. It has two modes, Attended and Unattended; while working with employees like a team worker in attended mode, it can work from physical or virtual servers in the unattended mode without human intervention. It can be programmed any time the robot wants to work, which is done via the Integrated Console (UC).

Thanks to OCR (Optical Character Reading) with VooDoo RPA, it is possible to work with OCR tools such as Tesseract , MODI, TOCR and LeadTools . It also has Native OCR technology embedded in it. Web and mobile consoles are available. It has Rest API support.

VooDoo RPA is used in banking, manufacturing, the public sector, e-commerce, and many more.

UiPath was founded in Romania in 2005 by Daniel Dines and Marius Tîrcă. This product consists of three main components:

• UiPath Studio
• UiPath Robot
• UiPath Orchestrator

It integrates with Artificial Intelligence and combines computer screens with APIs by reading them with Computer Vision (CV). It can pull data from a screen or scanned document with OCR (Optical Character Reading) engines. Processes are monitored, developed and managed with the orchestrator.

UiPath is used in banking, healthcare, manufacturing, e-commerce, and telecommunications industries.

Automation Anywhere was established in the United States in 2003 by Mihir Shukla, Neeti Mehta Shukla, Ankur Kothari ve Rushabh Parmani in San Jose, California. It consists of three main components.

• Control room
• Create a bot
• Running a bot

Three Automations There are Anywhere bots; IQ bot, Meta Bot, and Task Bot. It can be used in sectors such as Finance, Human Resources, Sales, and Production.

OpenRPA is an open-source integrated automation platform established by OpenIAP in 2019. It is similar to UiPath in the interface because they use the same Windows software, Windows Workflow Foundation. The entire platform is made by Microservice architecture.

Blue Prism consists of four main components:

• Process Chart
• Process Studio
• Object Studio
• Application Modeler

The process diagram creates flowcharts. The Process Studio is the part where the diagrams of the processes are formed. In Object Studio, other applications are communicated to automate tasks. The application modeler is the function of creating application models with the object studio.

• Blue Prism offers Plug & Play access without any code or enhancement.
• By creating job queues. It follows the number of robots working in the queue and makes arrangements according to the workflows.
• Chrome and Firefox .
• OCR Tesseract . This way, it recognizes complex texts.
• Provides API integration with Google, AWS, IBM and Microsoft.

Kofax RPA consists of two components:

• Design Studio
• Management Console

The Design Studio creates visual processes without the need for code. It processes documents using Artificial Intelligence (AI) with Cognitive Document Automation (CDA). You can examine and analyze all processes in detail. In the Control Room, the robot is monitored and controlled. Kofax RPA has a comprehensive security control system and finds items within an application with Smart Screen Automation. Google Vision can integrate with the Artificial Intelligence of cognitive parties such as IBM Watson.

Kofax provides an OCR engine for extracting text from images. Additionally, it reads the document via the CDA mentioned above. It has a recorder and provides Participated and Unattended automation. It is Cloud , SaaS, and Web-based.

Kofax can be more difficult for beginners as it involves a lot of branching and nested loops.

VooDoo RPA consists of three main components and additional modules:

• VooDoo Studio
• VooDoo Robot
• Integrated Console (UC)
• Additional modules

VooDoo below The enterprise architecture of RPA is shown.

VooDoo Studio enables process creation to occur with visuals through recording devices. This makes it a user-friendly application. The processes created in the studio with VooDoo Robot work like a human, even without human errors, in an attended or unattended mode.

The desired task is dropped into the graphics area with drag-and-drop to improve the visual processing steps. These process steps are then transformed into a visual workflow chart. In addition, it is possible to create a workflow with a recording device.

Recorders are used to record the desired actions and convert them into a series of processes. UiPath has several recorder features. These are basic registration, desktop recording, web registration, and citrix registration. There are more than 300 events in UiPath.

Room is a web-based app similar to the orchestrator mentioned in UiPath. Controls bots. It gives an analysis of bots and checks how many bots are running and how many failures or successes they are running. In addition, you can configure license management. There are two types of licenses in Automation Anywhere.

With a developer license, you can create, edit and run bots. The bot can also work with the run license, but no changes can be made.

Creating bots is done in desktop-based applications. Bot Runner is the machine on which the bot is run; there can be more than one bot running.

There are three types of recorders. These are registrars for Windows applications, Web, and Object.

Kofax RPA, VooDoo RPA, UiPath, and Automation Anywhere have recorders, while Blue Prism does not. In UiPath, VooDoo RPA, and OpenRPA, recorders easily capture the user’s on-screen actions and then script them. It is possible to do this with the help of a record button. Kofax RPA has one recorder.  Automation Anywhere has three recorders; for desktop or web applications.

The architecture of Kofax RPA, VooDoo RPA, Automation Anywhere , OpenRPA and Blue Prism is client-server. UiPath architecture is web-based.

Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism provide only app-based reachability. Kofax RPA, VooDoo RPA, UiPath, and OpenRPA provide both application- and web-based presence.

Automation Anywhere offers script-based design only. It is possible to do visual process design with Kofax RPA, VooDoo RPA, UiPath, Blue Prism, OpenRPA.

Automation Anywhere is based on Microsoft, UiPath, and OpenRPA with several core technologies such as Sharepoint, Cabana, and Elasticsearch, Blue Prism is only based on C#, and VooDoo RPA is also based on C#, C++, and Phyton. Kofax RPA is based on java.

Kofax RPA, Automation Anywhere, UiPath, VooDoo RPA, and OpenRPA provide users with both front and back-office robots, but Blue Prism only has a back-office automation robot. This also means an unattended robot.

The remote monitoring feature is a feature that should be used in some cases while the robot is working. VooDoo RPA can monitor this feature from the integrated console. It is possible to see the robot’s operation from the VooDoo Screen of UC by taking screenshots.

The notification service is a feature that most robots do not have. The robot may need human interaction in some decision-making moments. VooDoo’s Connect mobile app can be activated here to send notifications to the authorized person’s phone and send data from the phone to the robot’s machine.

Blue Prism, Kofax RPA, Automation Anywhere, UiPath, VooDoo RPA and OpenRPA have moderate cognitive abilities.

Optical Character Reading is an essential part of automation. When using the Blue Prism Tesseract OCR tool, Kofax RPA, VooDoo RPA, Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and OpenRPA can use both their own and integrated OCR engines.

Automation Anywhere ensures reasonable accuracy. Kofax RPA, Blue Prism, UiPath, and OpenRPA provide web, desktop, and Citrix automation. VooDoo RPA delivers higher accuracy with its OCR technology.

Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism are costly. While Kofax RPA, UiPath, and OpenRPA are less expensive than this two automation, VooDoo RPA ranks first in terms of price performance.

With the return of Robotic Process Automation not only in corporate workplaces but also in SMEs, the need has arisen to get information about the products in the market and to compare. The reliability of the products is examined in terms of the technology at the base, accuracy rates, and price performance. Each product is very successful in its field. Among them, VooDoo RPA, which entered the sector later, is advancing rapidly by showing itself with its more innovative aspect.

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