Automation Anywhere vs. ActiveBatch
Automation Anywhere Enterprise and ActiveBatch Workload Automation are both intelligent automation tools, leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence to optimize the performance of business processes. Automation Anywhere, like most RPA tools, operates at the user interface level. However, ActiveBatch Workload Automation goes beyond simplistic RPA platforms and allows IT to orchestrate enterprise processes between disparate tools and technologies using reliable, programmatic integrations. Workload automation platforms provide drag-and-drop job development and orchestration, cross-platform batch job execution (Windows, Linux, UNIX, IBM iSeries Mainframes, and more), and unified monitoring of critical processes, application performance, and IT infrastructure.
Both products offer intuitive user interfaces to automate repetitive tasks, including on-premises thick clients, web interfaces, and mobile applications. But, ActiveBatch takes a more secure and reliable approach by providing business end-users with a Self-Service Portal interface rather than complete access to the development environment. This prevents any improper use of features and ensures smooth operations without compromising on function and visibility.
Other workload automation alternatives: UiPath, Blue Prism, Workfusion, Pega, SAP
How Licensing Impacts Efficiency
Automation Anywhere's licensing follows a user-based model, while ActiveBatch follows a usage-based model. Scaling these two automation environments will impact costs in different ways.
Let’s explain. Each licensing model is an indicator of the core strengths of each product. While robotic process automation tools like Automation Anywhere automate the workloads of a single human, Workload Automation tools like ActiveBatch are designed to automate end-to-end processes, regardless of the people, systems, or technologies at hand. This all falls back to the shift left argument for automation: think of automation as prologue, not postscript. Instead of distributing a tool to users who require portions of their daily tasks to be automated, ActiveBatch can automate end-to-end processes from the ground up. Let’s explore a case study below.
Case Study: RPA vs. Workload Automation
Suppose an IT help desk has several agents, each responsible for managing incidents in ServiceNow. A common type of ticket involves business users requesting cloud systems in Microsoft Azure. While enterprise RPA tools may help the agents automate some of the manual tasks in loading the Azure console and selecting the proper configurations, ActiveBatch automates the underlying processes. ActiveBatch can automatically provision the Azure system to spec as a direct result of the ticket being created, then update the ticket, and auto-terminate the machine after a set period. Just like that, ActiveBatch automated the same process but now saves the agents from receiving repetitive tickets of this type at all.
What's more, if the robotic process automation software runs into an error, a user might have to jump in and manually handle the process from the beginning. With ActiveBatch, all historical data and output is recorded and multi-step workflows can checkpoint and restart from any point. The result is better control, greater flexibility, and a process automation solution that can truly automate anything – from scheduling scripts of any programming language, to open source platform integration, to business intelligence processing using ETL tasks.
Combining No-Code Steps with Code-Based Actions
Another key benefit of ActiveBatch Workload Automation is in its ability to integrate existing script investments into new, no-code workflows. Easily switch between scripts of any language (Python, PowerShell, VBS, and any other licensed languages) and drag-and-drop workflow steps that eliminate the need for additional scripting. This seamless integration provides ultimate flexibility. Plus, hundreds of direct integrations and low-code API accessibility means new applications or technologies can be added to the automation environment in minutes.
Demand More from Your Process Automation.