Gartner Critical Capabilites RPA 2019

Licensed for Distribution
Critical Capabilities for Robotic Process Automation

Published 3 December 2019 - ID G00385052 - 59 min read
By Analysts Derek Miers, Cathy Tornbohm, Marc Kerremans, Saikat Ray
As enterprise architecture and technology innovation leaders look for ways to improve efficiency
and integrate legacy systems, RPA continues to grow its footprint. Here, we examine the use
cases and critical capabilities that differentiate the products in this market.
Overview
Key Findings
■ With all the hype surrounding the robotic process automation market, most organizations are
buying from one of the three big vendors in this market; however, there are other strong,
competitive products in the market with innovative features.
■ We have identified 10 key areas of functionality related to RPA, which we’ve split into three
categories of capability: “core” (must have), “critical” (should have) and “tangential” (adjacent to
and, often, used in conjunction with RPA).
■ In this fast-moving, competitive market, there was little to differentiate among the weighted scores
of the top 10 products in the use cases we assessed. As the vendors jockey for position and try to
leapfrog each other’s offerings, there is a miniature arms race going on in every capability. Most
established vendors are gradually expanding the scope of their product offerings, usually filling
gaps in their tangential capabilities through third-party partnerships.
Recommendations
Enterprise architecture (EA) and technology innovation leaders assessing RPA tools and techniques
used to enable technology-based digital business transformations should:
■ Explore the relative merits of different products in the market by distinguishing between the needs
of citizen developers and those required for effective reuse/scale across the enterprise.
■ Optimize the likelihood of a successful RPA initiative by defining the enterprise’s corporate use
cases and the capabilities essential to the business. Aligning them to strategic objectives and the
business outcomes expected will help with choosing the right product for the long term.
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■ Maximize ROI by prioritizing and selecting an RPA suite that has broader functional capabilities to
support the primary business use cases. Paying close attention to the reality of tangential
capabilities, such as broader process automation and machine learning, will help look past the
initial proof of concept to derive lasting value from RPA investments.
■ Use Gartner’s online Critical Capabilities tool to vary the individual capability weightings and to
understand the impact on the shortlisted vendors.
Strategic Planning Assumption

Through 2021, 40% of enterprises will have robotic process automation (RPA) “buyer’s remorse,” due
to misaligned, siloed usage and inability to scale.
What You Need to Know

Technology innovation leaders should leverage RPA to automate predictable, rule-based tasks by
mimicking the ways humans interact with the user interface (UI) of applications. RPA is a tactical tool
that is most effective when applications are used in a manual task lack or have incomplete APIs. It is
not suitable for rapidly evolving or poorly understood business processes.
In this analysis, we score and rank the vendors based purely on product capability. We gave vendors
three use-case examples, and based our scoring, rankings and weightings on what the vendors
demonstrated to us. We made this emphasis clear to all the participating vendors, before and during
their formal product use-case demonstrations.
This analysis complements the “Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation Software,” which
highlights a broad set of factors, including vendor viability, vision, marketing and geographic focus of
the vendors that offer these products. Pay particular attention to the introductory sections in the full
document before the Magic Quadrant graphic. The other key area to examine is the RPA Market
Constraints section, which expands on the cautions with regard to RPA tools.
Because of the rapid evolution of this market and the multiple releases since we started the RPA
Magic Quadrant analysis in December 2018, this research reassesses vendors’ products that had
shipped commercially by 15 July 2019. Some vendors have introduced new versions or added
functions since then.
Gartner has identified 10 RPA critical capabilities, which we use in this analysis to differentiate
between the most popular products on the market. We have split these capabilities into three groups
(each defined capability used throughout this research is written in initial capitals to represent that
definition):
■ Core: All products must have these capabilities — Automation Development, Integration Features
and Control Panel/Dashboard. These core capabilities are central to the operation of an RPA
product.
■ Critical: Capabilities that support the RPA development and deployment — Here, the focus is on
Component/Script Library, Security, Resilience and Error Recovery, as well as capturing and dealing
with Identifying Change Impacts in the environment.
■ Tangential: These capabilities are not part of RPA per se, but are closely related — Artificial
Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML)/Natural Language Processing (NLP), alongside wider
Business Rules/Process Automation, and, finally, Optical Character Recognition (OCR). These
three capability groups reside in adjacent technology areas that a vendor may have developed or
might provide through a partnership.
For each defined capability, the analyst team identified a set of supporting elements of functionality
and, for each those, we developed a specific scoring spectrum or method. Within each capability, the
supporting features were then weighted to reflect the analyst teams’ collective view of the relative
importance, because some sets of features are more important than others. Best scores for a
capability were achieved when the vendor had developed its own functionality and delivered it as a
part of its RPA tooling (without additional licensing). When functionality was sourced externally
and/or additional licensing was required, the functionality score was marked down from the highest
level achievable in the scoring spectrum.
Gartner also identified the three most common uses cases for RPA to filter and prioritize the features
that provide the greatest level of impact:
■ Integration via UI. This use case focuses on the “unattended” use case of RPA, where the intention
is to simply move data between two applications in a relatively ad hoc fashion.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration. This use case is really all about integrating several cooperating sets
of components to move data “en masse” between one application and another. The features
necessary for this use case are similar to those needed to build an “API façade” — effectively
reusing discrete RPA automations for that last mile of integration.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers. This is primarily focused on the “attended” scenario where RPA is
used to enhance the ability of knowledge workers to get work done, typically saving them time by
assembling needed information to better serve customers.
The capabilities are weighted to emphasize the needs of each of these three use cases. For each use
case, each capability and individual score, we undertook a quartile analysis to distinguish between
lower quartile, second, third and top-quartile performances. We used that analysis to draw out the
differentiation in the text of our reviews.
Analysis
Critical Capabilities Use-Case Graphics
Figure 1. Vendors’ Product Scores for the Integration via UI Use Case
Source: Gartner (December 2019)
Figure 2. Vendors’ Product Scores for the Large-Scale Data Migration Use Case
Figure 3. Vendors’ Product Scores for the Augment Knowledge Workers Use Case
Vendors
Another Monday
Product Evaluated: AM Ensemble Version 1.6.2.0, released 5 June 2019
Another Monday’s AM Ensemble product is composed of several components, including AM

Conductor, AM Composer, AM Muse and AM Console. The product uses a well-defined architectural
set of building blocks to separate technical implementation parameters from the mechanisms used
to access underlying applications. This makes it much easier to change the overall environment and
guarantee traceability at the application, window or element level. This also includes complete
traceability and fast detection of third-party applications.
On security, Another Monday delivers a cloud/on-premises-agnostic infrastructure that is highly

scalable, with strong security and high-level encryption. Within the Automation Development
capability, a smart image recognition component is introduced that is especially helpful in remote
desktop environments such as Citrix. Furthermore, a self-trained neural network identifies the type of
the object (e.g., button, label or input) and uses the most suitable object within reach.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 3.94 (Good). Another Monday scored strongly in the core capabilities of this use
case — Automation Development, Integration, Control Panel/Dashboard and Resilience and Error
Recovery. Another Monday had best-in-class scores for integration between cloud-based
automations and elements inside the organizational firewall. Supporting features, such as the
Component Library, received upper-quartile scores, which included a best-in-class score for
componentization of the business environment, allowing for easy reuse and composition of
objects, process building blocks and processes.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.72 (Good). Strong scores on Integration Features and Automation
Development propelled the overall rating here. It was held back by relatively basic features around
tangential capabilities, such as Business Rules, and broader Process Automation. This is not the
best use case for AM Ensemble, because it focuses on the real-time manipulation of data with
distributed agents that take on behaviors for getting work done.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.82 (Good). Although Another Monday did not quite achieve the
top quartile for this use case, it did achieve a top-quartile performance in the Component/Script
Library. Scores for Automation Development, Integration Features, Control Panel, Identifying
Change Impacts, Security, and Resilience and Error Recovery were all essentially good. However,
slightly lower-than-average scores around AI/ML/NLP and Business Rules/Process Automation
detracted from the scores. OCR features are based on preintegrated Tesseract, although through
separate licensing, Another Monday can also do support integration with third-party libraries, such
as ABBYY and Nuance. Perhaps the standout feature here involved the machine vision mechanism
to identify text fields and their related labels.
AntWorks
Product Evaluated: ANTstein SQUARE, released 1 May 2019
AntWorks’ ANTstein platform is offered as a single license, with modules that buyers can choose
either as a set of Lego-style components, or as a fully integrated stack. The platform is built around
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delivers a top-quartile performance for
OCR, but needs to improve in other areas. The OCR functionality is based on a technique built over a
combination of image recognition and pattern recognition powered by “fractal science.” It can handle
object read, table read, text read, handprint read, signature read, notary-stamp read, checkbox and
bubble box read.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 3.30 (Good). Within the Automation Development area at the heart of this use
case, ANTstein has a unique selling point in the form “process fragments” or “micro-processes”
that are set up with preconditions that trigger when the fragment runs. This is a remarkably flexible
approach, which could be further enhanced by the vendor. The use case score is somewhat pulled
down by the Component/Script Library capabilities.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 2.82 (Fair). A part of the underlying OCR functionality is a proprietary
data capture engine. However, the relatively basic Integration Features (compared with the other
vendors) holds back performance in this area. Automation Development is fundamentally sound,
with a great deal of flexibility around the different strings of tasks in a function box. However, there
was little support for long-running process automation, with no graphical canvas to support that
need. Moreover, there was little external support for integration with a business process
management (BPM) suite to overcome this challenge.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.21 (Good). The lower relative scores for measuring the
Identifying Change Impacts, Resilience and Recovery, and the Component/Script Library, are offset
by the better-than-average scores for tangential capabilities, such as OCR and AI/ML/NLP. The
availability of proprietary natural language modeling (NLM) helps in inferences and derivative data
points from paragraphs. This is not based on semantic sequences of words; instead, it applies
patterns to tokenize the sequence.
Automation Anywhere
Product Evaluated: Automation Anywhere Enterprise A2019/A2019, Cloud Edition v.11.3.1.2
This produce was released in April 2019 and has since been updated several times. A2019 leverages
associated components Automation Anywhere IQ Bot v.6.5 (May 2019), Automation Anywhere Bot
Insight (released May 2019; now embedded in A2019 core platform), along with the Automation
Anywhere Bot Store (continuously updated) and Automation Anywhere Mobile Application (May
2019).
The core of the Automation Anywhere tooling focuses on the development of an integration script —
an automation that is referred to as a “bot,” which is then executed by a “bot-runner.” This naming
methodology is quite different from the prevailing language used in the market. Each of these
automations
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Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 3.99 (Good). In the top quartile for this use case, Automation Anywhere
Enterprise scored strongly in Automation Development and Security. The vendor also scored well
for its Control Panel, Integration Features and the Component/Script Library. With the release of
the A2019 version, a browser-based development environment was introduced to enable the user
to switch between a script view and the new process-oriented view of that automation.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.55 (Good). The position of Automation Anywhere was driven by its
strong Automation Development capability and Integration Features, as well as upper-quartile
scores for Security. Within the Automation Development environment, there are relatively good
features for variable handling, including direct support for the array data type, which is useful when
dealing with large volumes of data. It was held back by its relatively moderate scores for inbound
integration — where developed process automations are consumed by external applications.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.93 (Good). Again, Automation Anywhere sits in the top quartile of
products for this use case. This was primarily driven by top-quartile scores for its tangential
capabilities (AI/ML/NLP and OCR), as well as the Automation Development and Security
capabilities. The features of Automation Anywhere IQ Bot now more readily support the knowledge
worker extracting context from documents and reusing that information directly within the
automation. Preintegrated components in the drag-and-drop development environment support
tighter integration with standard, third-party applications.
AutomationEdge
Product Evaluated: AutomationEdge v.5.3, released 8 July 2019
The platform components consist of AutomationEdge Server, Process Studio (Workflow/Bot

designer), web UI, dashboards and reporting component. Apart from the common components of
RPA, Automation Edge platform include a library of ready-made connectors to various IT systems,
service desks and monitoring tools. This reflects the historical roots of AutomationEdge in the IT
process automation arena.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 3.04 (Good). AutomationEdge received a moderate rating for its Integration
Features and Component Script Library. Compared with other vendors, AutomationEdge still needs
to upgrade its capabilities around Automation Development, Control Panel/Dashboard and
Resilience/Error
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■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 2.84 (Good). AutomationEdge’s strength in data security, along with
its moderate Integration Features helped its score. It was held back by bottom-quartile scores for
Automation Development, Resilience/Error Recovery, and broader BPM and Business Rules. For
this use case, AutomationEdge showed strong data security features. From an Automation
Development point of view, its strongest features were its WebSPY and DesktopSPY, as well as a
library of adapters and actions for different IT systems and cloud-based business applications.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.01 (Good). AutomationEdge has relatively strong capabilities in
AI/ML/NLP. It also has moderate OCR capabilities through the integration of third-party product
providers. However, it does not have any native functionality around Business Rules or broader
Process Automation. On the plus side, AutomationEdge has user-friendly, built-in features to
support the development models that incorporate ML and predictive analytics, along with out-of-
the-box support for R and Python script libraries. These may be used for several predictive
analytics algorithms that cater to use cases such as help desk ticket classifications.
Blue Prism
Products Evaluated: Blue Prism v.6.5 (released April 2019) and Thoughtonomy Evolution Edition R3
(released March 2019)
The core of the Blue Prism offering is an RPA tool based on configured “objects” that manage the
interaction and the interfaces to external applications that help customers drive reuse and more
easily support changes to those systems. These objects become components in individual process
automations, with work items moved between shared queues. This style of automation is most
commonly called “unattended RPA.” With upper-quartile scores for the core capabilities of
Automation Development, Integration Features and Control Panel/Dashboard, the vendor is in a
strong position for all three use cases.
Blue Prism also scores well in the critical capabilities, with top-quartile appearances for the
Component/Script Library and Identifying Change Impacts, and excellent scores in Resilience and
Security. However, Blue Prism scored comparatively low for its tangential capabilities — particularly
AI/ML/NLP and OCR. By relying on external providers for much of this functionality, the vendor leaves
opportunities for differentiation on the table. It also has gaps in its product set around task/process
discovery and screen recorders.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via IU: 3.97 (Good). Blue Prism’s top-quartile rating in this area derives from a strong
rating for Automation Development and the overall approach taken to RPA. The objects created
also provide a single point of reference for changes needed when target applications inevitably
evolve. With the recent acquisition of Thoughtonomy, Blue Prism now provides the core RPA
platform as a cloud-based automation environment.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.98 (Good). The best-in-class performance in this use case is
primarily due to excellent scores for Integration Features and Automation Development. The core
process engine embedded in the product enables a strong score in the Business Rules and
Process Automation space. All process automations are directly callable via custom Web Services
Description Language (WSDL), which is generated out-of-the-box and helps drive reuse.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.78 (Good). Without compelling human-in-the-loop features, Blue
Prism has a significant problem supporting this use case. Blue Prism has historically focused on
unattended automation and does not have separate pricing for attended bots. To some extent, this
is plugged with the new cloud offering from the Thoughtonomy acquisition, but that involves
additional licensing. Similarly, the vendor has integrated TrustPortal to provide a UI, but this also
requires additional licensing. The other major drawbacks for this use case were lower-quartile
scores for AI/ML/NLP and below-average scores for OCR. Collectively, these two capabilities drag
down the performance of what was otherwise a strong overall score, based on best-in-class
Automation Development and strong Integration Features.
Datamatics
Products Evaluated: Datamatics TruBot Version 3.0.0 (released 25 November 2018), and three
related, but separately licensed tools, TruCap+, TruBot Neuro and TruBot Analytics; Datamatics also
offers a bundled license for TruBot and TruCap+
Datamatics TruBot itself consists of three elements — TruBot Cockpit, TruBot Designer and the
runtime components for the automations. Alongside that come a data capture solution (TruCap+)
and TruBot Analytics to provide a dashboard that monitors efficiency and effectiveness. TruBot
Neuro also has several components — TruAI Text, TruAI Pattern and TruAI Vision — which can be
integrated depending on client needs. Although all these differentiated components sound
interesting, they are licensed separately from the core RPA tooling. Rather than rolling them together
and licensing appropriately for an easy-to-consume whole product, customers must understand what
all these pieces are capable of, license them and integrate them to make their own flavor of RPA.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 2.36 (Fair). The major drawbacks for TruBot were in the areas of Automation
Development, as well as relatively basic Integration Features. Compared with other products, the
Control Panel and Component/Script Library features were in the lower quartile across the
products evaluated. Ultimately, all automations are turned into C# code. Although citizen
developers can record the steps using a built-in recorder tool, the Automation Development
environment is held back by the perception that these integration scripts should remain editable by
software developers. Although that may suit IT developers, it puts off the need to develop suitable
abstractions
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■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 2.41 (Fair). The Datamatics platform scored in the bottom quartile,
when compared with competitors. Resilience and Error Recovery were a high point in this use case
for Datamatics. Minimal capabilities around wider business process representation and internally
configured business rules also dragged it down.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 2.70 (Fair). In this category, tangential capabilities such as
AI/ML/NLP and OCR have higher weightings. However, although Datamatics has its own OCR
tooling and a range of ML-related capabilities, these are all separate platforms that require
separate licensing and configuration. Although these were high points in its scoring, when
compared with other products, below average ratings in Automation Development and Integration
Features constrain the overall rating.
EdgeVerve Systems
Products Evaluated: AssistEdge RPA17.x (released November 2018), along with related AssistEdge
Engage (released June 2019) and AssistEdge Discover (released February 2019)
All three products have separate licensing and costings. The core AssistEdge RPA product
incorporates good drag-and-drop graphical modeling capabilities in Automation Development,
alongside similarly well-featured Control Panel/Dashboard and solid Integration Features. It also has
competent, but not stellar, Security features and reasonable Component/Script Library features. It
does all of this moderately well, without being best in class in any of them. As a result, the product
comes in the middle of the pack across all RPA use cases.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 3.69 (Good). Superb features for process-mining and task discovery tooling
contributed to a strong score for Automation Development. Another bright point is in the area of
Resilience and Error Recovery. However, other aspects of the Automation Development capability
held it back — for example, compared with other leading vendors, debugging and data
manipulation scored a little lower.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.64 (Good). As a part of its Integration Features, EdgeVerve provides
the ability to consume any developed integration through a Representational State Transfer (REST)
interface. This sort of functionality is increasingly important to organizations moving data from
one system to another. It’s also highly relevant to those building an API façade to drive broader
reuse of an aging legacy infrastructure and move forward with digital transformation initiatives.
Again, above average scores in these sorts of areas are held back by lower comparative scores in
Automation Development.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.67 (Good). Comparatively speaking, AssistEdge provides a solid,
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HelpSystems
Product Evaluated: HelpSystems Automate Enterprise, Version 11.1.30.3, released April 2019
HelpSystems Automate Enterprise uses a central server, which installs as two Windows services, one
for execution and the other for management. These services use a common database as a
datastore. Automate Enterprise also has “Process Agents” that will run wherever Java is supported.
Thick-client management and design tools connect to the management service. Although
competent, their relatively low ratings across our three use cases indicate that there is room for
improvement — especially process discovery within Automation Development and Integration
Features.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via IU: 2.78 (Fair). HelpSystems offers a basic RPA product with core capabilities that
include task builder, workflow designer, management console and process agents. Its functionality
for Automation Development, Control Panel/Dashboard and Integration Features were below
average across virtually all elements for this use case. On the other hand, those looking for a
simple workflow designer to support basic task automation may like the combination of manual
process recorder, drag-and-drop utilities with viable UI integration.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 2.70 (Fair). HelpSystems’ below-average scores across Automation
Development and Integration Features carry through to this use case. Its relatively strong areas
around Security and Resilience/Error Recovery help it a little, but were not quite enough to elevate
it to the next level for this use case. HelpSystems’ strong error detection in tasks and workflows,
and its ability to trigger “On Step Error” events, enables it to find and recover exceptions effectively.
Its data security features depend on its AES256 algorithm to encrypt the data at rest and in transit.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 2.39 (Fair). HelpSystems lacks any advanced capabilities in
AI/ML/NLP, but have some basic, embedded OCR features. Combined with below-average scores
for other key capabilities, such as Automation Development, Integration Features and
Component/Script Library, it clearly has room for improvement.
Jacada
Product Evaluated: Jacada Interact v.11.4 (June 2019) incorporates RPA tooling and other elements,
such the Automation Bot (attended/unattended) and Repository Builder v.3.0 (April 2018)
Jacada’s RPA solution components focus on supporting the corporate contact center, which makes
use of attended automation. Jacada Interact comprises two high-level components:
■ Interact Server — A centralized component responsible for powering the Automation Designer,
Jacada’s design team designer for building automations, as well as bot monitoring, reporting and
deployment.
■ A distributed component built in .NET to run automations and applications — Deployed locally, this
component runs on either a physical desktop, a virtual machine/virtual desktop infrastructure
(VM/VDI), as well as terminal server sessions powered on Microsoft Server.
Reflecting its focus on the corporate contact center, the vendor gets strong ratings for its tangential
capabilities, such as AI/ML/NLP, Process Automation and OCR.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via IU: 3.22 (Good). Jacada offers a niche RPA product with core attended capabilities.
The product received good ratings in Automation Development and Integration Features, but these
were held back by below-average comparative ratings for Security, Resilience/Error Recovery and
Control Panel/Dashboards capabilities. Jacada Interact, along with the automation designer,
provides a good, intuitive user experience (UX) for customers, enabling rapid UI integrations.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.09 (Good). Jacada’s below-average rating across Security,
Resilience/Error Recovery and Control Panel/Dashboards also carry through this use case to earn
it an overall fair rating. Its Automation Development and Integration Features were competent
enough, and wider Process Automation features were strong, but this was not quite enough to
elevate it to the next level for this use case. In terms of data, Jacada Interact supports all primitive
types, custom objects, and collections (of custom or primitive types), as well as dynamic data
types, which enable runtime allocation of variables.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.20 (Good). Jacada received good scores in AI/ML/NLP and OCR
capabilities, which are important for this use case. Jacada uses NLP, knowledge and insight
extraction, sentiment analysis and computer vision to design and manage intelligent assistants
and chatbots. Its automation hub provides bot control, intent fulfillment and channel support for
the intelligent assistants. These services come with connectors to AI platforms that enable
customers to easily leverage relevant features within the Jacada automation hub. In keeping with
its customer contact center focus, Jacada also has Jacada Phone Gateway, enabling your
chatbots to support text-to-voice and voice-to-text communication services in real time. It also
received good scores for Automation Development and Integration Features. However, there are
still opportunities to improve around Identifying Change Impacts and Resilience/Error Recovery.
continuing
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Product Evaluated: Kofax RPA 10.6 (formerly known as Kofax Kapow), released 12 July 2019
Kofax provides one of the strongest products in the market. Since the RPA Magic Quadrant, the
vendor has improved significantly, with advances across many of the capabilities assessed in this
analysis. With strong Automation Development tooling and Integration Features, it is well placed to
leverage its clear strengths in OCR tooling, broader Process Automation, as well as AI/ML/NLP. Of
course, there are features that could do with improving; however, in the overall assessment, it was
one of just two products to feature in the upper quartiles of all three use cases. It scored in the upper
two quartiles of nine out of the 10 capabilities assessed in this research. The one area that held it
back was the Identifying Change Impacts capability, which was the notable exception in an otherwise
strong set of ratings.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via IU: 3.97 (Good). Kofax scores in the top quartile, based on strengths in Automation
Development and Integration Features. The reuse of process fragments and snippets within the
Automation Development environment were exemplary, along with excellent data manipulation
features. One differentiating feature was the ability to strip the headers from an Excel spreadsheet
and then automatically create matching data variables in the script. Virtually all other products
require developers to manually create and name each data variable one by one. Apart from the
time saved, this feature also helps reduce the number of errors that can creep into automations.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.89 (Good). The strength of Kofax in this use case derives from its
scores in Integration Features — especially those that enable RPA integrations to be consumed by
external resources. Each developed RPA integration comes with its own out-of-the-box WSDL and
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) for direct consumption. This enables easy componentization
of the resources needed for complex, large-scale data migration. It also enables the IT
organization to quickly assemble an API façade enabling external systems to consume those last-
mile integration components to access legacy systems that do not have effective APIs.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 4.00 (Excellent). Again, it is in the top quartile for this use case.
This time, the strength of Kofax-associated OCR offerings (natively developed, rather than
insourced from OCR platforms) and related ML capabilities complement the Automation
Development, Integration Features and overall Resilience to take the top spot.
Kryon
Product Evaluated: The Kryon product is composed of Kryon RPA Platform v.19.3 and Kryon Process
Discovery v.19.3, both released in July 2019.
The Kryon RPA Platform incorporates the Kryon Server (including Kryon Admin), Kryon Robots
(unattended
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service discovery and identification of
application interfaces, delivering top-quartile introspection features. Kryon Process Discovery also
gets best-in-class scores for task discovery in Automation Development. Complementing that, the
Component/Script Library integrates directly with Kryon Process Discovery to support modification
and appending of automations, enabling users to update relevant portions of an automation, without
the need to update the complete process.
Use-Case Ratings:
Integration via UI: 3.45 (Good). Kryon’s rating for this use case lies in its strong scores for Integration
Features and Automation Development. It was held back by relatively basic Control Panel/Dashboard
functionality. Kryon Process Discovery tooling supports the easy importation of identified processes,
along with all variants and actions, contributing to the Automation Development rating.
Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.41 (Good). Kryon’s score for large-scale data migration is supported
by the excellent score in Business Rules/Process Automation, along with strong scores on
Integration Features and Automation Development. However, the overall score for this use case was
constrained somewhat by the features to handle unexpected system events and business
exceptions. Moreover, the key differentiating features of Kryon Process Discovery are far less
relevant to this use case.
Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.55 (Good). The top-quartile score for AI/ML/NLP — primarily for
Kryon Process Discovery — are driven by the use of high-precision neural networks and fast
convolutional networks, NLP and long short-term memory (LSTM). The overall rating was held back
by below-average scores for the Component/Script Library and OCR.
NICE
Product Evaluated: NICE Advanced Process Automation v.7.1 suite, released in June 2019 includes
NICE Robotics Automation, NICE Desktop Automation and NICE Desktop Analytics.
The core of NICE’s RPA platform consists of Robotic Client, Desktop Analytics and Automation
Finder, Back-end server for orchestration and development environment. All the NICE robots can
execute multiple types of automation flows. NICE differentiates itself in the RPA market with
embedded process discovery and analytics functions in its RPA platform, which focuses mostly on
the attended-automation market. Overall, the vendor scored in the top quartile for Automation
Development, Control Panel/Dashboard, Identifying Change Impacts, Resilience and Error Recovery,
as well as Security. It also scored strongly in Integration, AI/ML/NLP and Business Process
Automation. It was held back by below-average scores for OCR and Component/Script Library.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 3.96 (Good). Top-quartile scores in Automation Development, Control
Panel/Dashboard
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support its position in Automation Development. NICE’s proprietary shape analysis, visual drag-
and-drop designer, and strong recording capabilities propel its overall rating.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.87 (Good). Again, comparatively Integration Features held NICE
back a bit, which were counteracted by top quartile performances for Automation Development
and Resilience/Error Recovery. Features such as integration layer monitoring and troubleshooting
using NICE’s Connectivity Watcher are all good, but it was the inbound integration, which let the
product down a little, as did functionality around integrating between cloud and on-premises.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.78 (Good). NICE received excellent ratings in the AI/ML/NLP
capability, compared with others, but achieved only a fair rating for OCR and a good rating in the
Component/Script Library capability. Given this more evenly weighted use case, these were
enough to hold back NICE from taking one of the top-quartile places. NICE’s Desktop Analytics
solution, along with its proprietary Automation Finder, use proprietary ML algorithms to identify
opportunities for the development pipeline. NICE Automation suite comes with out-of-the-box
integrations with the main cloud platforms — Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Analytics
Cloud and Microsoft Azure. NICE also provides its own chatbots, which cleanly integrate with its
RPA tooling, but are licensed separately.
NTT
Products Evaluated: WinActor v.6.1 (June 2019), WinDirector v.2.1 (June 2019) and WinActor
Manager on Cloud v.2.0 (May 2019)
The NTT product set is composed of a core WinActor product that provides the ability to both create
and execute automations. Historically, NTT has focused primarily on supporting individual users with
easy-to-use Automation Development and accessible Integration Features, which they need on their
desktop. The core RPA tool (WinActor) focuses on automating repetitive tasks that use common
office productivity tools, such as email and spreadsheets. More recently, NTT has brought out further
tooling to enable coordination across those users and with resources in the cloud. WinDirector is a
client/server product used to coordinate activity across WinActor clients, whereas WinActor Manager
is designed to support integration, management and governance from the cloud. When compared
with other products in this analysis, the NTT product set appears in the lower quartile across virtually
all of the capabilities assessed.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 2.37 (Fair). At the level of the individual employee, WinActor makes it easy to
create simple procedural constructs to take data from one environment and paste into another.
However, this accessibility it eclipsed by the depth of functionality available in competitive
products in areas such as the Control Panel/Dashboard, Integration Features and Automation
Development. For example, when comparing Automation Development against competitors, we
look at several subdimensions, including the core development environment, debugging of
integration scripts and manipulating data in an automation. When compared with competitive
products, NTT has provided limited levels of functionality across each one of those
subdimensions.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 2.47 (Fair). NTT received bottom quartile scores on all the
capabilities that drive this large-scale data migration use case. With improved Integration Features
delivered in recent versions, the product still delivers minimal levels of functionality, compared
with other products, although it does provide basic connections with external workflow products
through REST APIs. NTT also has a sister BPM product that lifts its score a little. Resilience and
Error Recovery are still challenged with rudimentary functionality.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 2.24 (Fair). This use case implies the need for strong tangential
capabilities, such as AI/ML/NLP and OCR. Again, NTT has relatively limited functionality to offer
compared with others, although the product does use ML functionality for analyzing log files. This
functionality is used to help clients prioritize their development pipelines. The Component/Script
Library capabilities are minimal, compared with other vendors. In comparison with other offerings,
there are limited master data functionality, basic Integration Features and lower-quartile scores for
Automation Development. As a result, NTT again features in the bottom quartile for this use case.
Pegasystems
Product Evaluated: Pega Robotic Automation 19.1.3, released 15 July 2019
Pegasystems’ RPA platform consists of Robot Studio, Robot Runtime and Pega Robot manager. The
product also takes a relatively unusual approach to RPA. Pega uses “object-level injection” alongside
UI-level interaction for both Attended and Unattended RPA. This gives Pega deeper access to the
applications and controls needed for automation and removes some of the brittleness of those
integrations. Pega-augmented robotics (attended) runs on client Microsoft Windows desktops,
including Azure-based Microsoft cloud desktop clients. The Pega Robot Studio integrated
development environment (IDE) is on-premises only; however, it can run on a physical or virtual
Windows resource.
Pega Robot Manager, as with all Pega Platform applications, will run anywhere that Pegasystems’
cloud offering — Pega Infinity — can operate. That means a customer can deploy on their own private
cloud, a partner-managed cloud, or Pega’s managed cloud. Pega has a broad set of process
automation functionality — indeed, a fully blown intelligent business process management suite
(iBPMS) — that is licensed separately through the Pega Infinity brand, but also includes the RPA
functionality. Therefore, we have limited our assessment to the Pega Robotic Automation product,
with additional credit for the wider Pega Infinity functionality at the next level up. It does not include
functionality
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Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 3.76 (Good). Although the evaluation was of its RPA product, separate from the
umbrella Pega Infinity platform, the product still scores strongly for capabilities around
Automation Development, Control Panel/Dashboard and Integration. The overall Automation
Development environment delivers a fluid user experience, linking directly to the shared data
structure at the core of Pega Infinity.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.89 (Good). Pega scored strongly for the core Integration Features
necessary for this use case and its tangential Business Rules/Process Automation capabilities
were best-in-class. Strong scores in Resilience and Error Recovery also contributed to a top-
quartile performance in this use case. Again, the Pega Infinity platform easily handles this sort of
use case, working well with the more tactically focused Pega Robotic Platform, using object-level
injection for integration with legacy systems.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.76 (Good). For this “attended RPA” use case, we deem Pega’s all-
around performance as fitting in the second quartile. Although there is a lot more functionality in
Pega Infinity to support this use case, it was deemed out of scope for this assessment as it
involved further levels of licensing beyond the RPA platform. As a result, Pega scored moderately
on its tangential capabilities around AI/ML/NLP area. On the plus side, Pega has bundled and
included ABBYY for OCR within the base license. A top-quartile performance in the
Component/Script Library also contributed to the rating.
Servicetrace
Product Evaluated: Servicetrace XceleratorOne (X1) Version 5.2, released 10 July 2019
Servicetrace was one of the vendors that showed a major step forward, compared with the product
reviewed for the RPA Magic Quadrant 2019 itself three quarters earlier. At the core, Servicetrace X1
delivers a secure environment in which customers run their automations. The X1 Server dynamically
provisions any number of parallel X1 Bots that run as a Windows service. These services execute
either on a user’s desktop, or completely hidden in the background. The entire environment — from a
clustered server all the way to the execution of automations on target machines — is secured through
strong encryption.
Another core differentiating feature of Servicetrace X1 is the fact that it is built on top of a robust,
open-source BPM platform that brings support for long-running automations alongside the task-
focused automation of RPA. On top of that, the vendor has demonstrated a robust understanding of
the needs for governance in the RPA program, with effective componentry to register called
applications, start to track their use in their RPA initiatives and prioritize improvement opportunities.
Use-Case
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■ Integration via UI: 3.97 (Good). Overall, the product scored relatively well, compared with all
others, but just didn’t quite make it into our top quartile. The core of this use case is driven by a
focus on the core capabilities of Automation Development, Integration Features and Control
Panel/Dashboard. For Servicetrace, scores in Security, Component/Script Library, Identifying
Change Impacts and Resilience/Error Recovery were all top quartile, as were Business
Rules/Process Automation (BPM). From an Integration Features point of view, task-level
integration leverages the native machine vision capability, which is complemented by RESTful API-
level integration to consume and be consumed by external applications.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.85 (Good). When it comes to threading together multiple
components necessary for large-scale data migration, Servicetrace has a strong differentiator in
the form of the included BPM suite that the product is based on. Within that, it uses the
“Transaction” feature of Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) to encapsulate all the
elements of an individual task-level integration. This enables a neat mechanism for encapsulation
of the components with the wider BPMN process providing the framework for the end-to-end data
migration.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.93 (Good). Although Servicetrace gets top-quartile scores when
looking across all elements of both tangential and critical capabilities, it was held back a little by
the scores in the core capabilities area — Automation Development, Integration Features and
Control Panel/Dashboard. However, inherent support for longer-running business processes
provides a strong basis for this attended automation focus. And, in contrast with other vendors
with distinct BPM offerings, Servicetrace includes this BPM environment in its RPA offering.
Softomotive
Products Evaluated: ProcessRobot 2018.1.2 (released October 2018) and WinAutomation v.8.0
(released June 2018)
WinAutomation is a stand-alone, desktop, serverless product, whereas ProcessRobot is a server-

based enterprise RPA solution. These products support attended and unattended automation
scenarios. Unfortunately, the recently released ProcessRobot 2019.1.1 and Win Automation v.9.0 just
missed the cutoff deadline for the Critical Capabilities update, so this review is based on the same
product data we explored as a part of the RPA Magic Quadrant. Even with that misalignment,
ProcessRobot still exhibits best-in-class capabilities around Error Recovery and Resilience, and also
offers solid performance in the Component and Script Library area. Rather than developing its own
ML or OCR technologies, Softomotive has chosen to integrate ProcessRobot and WinAutomation
with external products, which usually require additional configuration and licensing.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 3.44 (Good). The focus of the WinAutomation development environment is on
capturing and configuring the script. It incorporates features that support a functional version
control mechanism and a “Diff tool” to easily highlight changes between versions. Using a UiSpy,
the developer can easily identify and interact with the metadata of an application. Although the
product incorporates some strong capabilities around data manipulation, some gaps begin to
appear, when compared with other products that are pushing ahead with integrated functionality
around process/task discovery and wider governance. With the tight focus on the script
development and the reuse of blocks within that, a graphical process modeling tool would also
have helped lift its scores.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.24 (Good). Resilience and Error Recovery are important for this use
case, and Softomotive showed best-in-class levels of functionality. However, the core of the use
case is around Integration Features, where Softomotive scored only adequately. Although the
product can easily consume APIs as a part of an integration, when introspecting an application,
the UiSpy tooling sets the focus firmly on the UI level, instead of setting out to identify any
underlying methods and APIs. Although it is possible to internally configure business rules as a
part of the process, the lack of a broader process-modeling canvas affected the scores in this use
case.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.45 (Good). Again, there was a satisfactory all-around
performance, but with little to differentiate the product set, compared with other leading products.
Because the tooling leverages external providers for ML, NLP and OCR that also limits the product
in terms of differentiation. The Component/Script Library was good; however, given the knowledge
worker/attended RPA focus, that capability figured lower in the weightings for the use case.
Similarly, Resilience and Error Recovery were strong, but weighted lower in this analysis.
UiPath
Products Evaluated: UiPath 2019 fast Track (v.2019 4.4), released 25 April 2019 and UiPath 2019.6
updates as of 25 June 2019, along with UiPath Go!, UiPath’s marketplace for partner and customer
collaboration; UiPath offered its Cloud Platform as a SaaS service, in public preview since 4 June
2019
The core of UiPath’s platform consists of Studio, Orchestrator and Robot components. Some of the
highlights of the latest versions include Git integration with Studio, direct integration with all
Microsoft Office 365 components, Lotus Notes emails, and real-time monitoring and execution
snapshots in Orchestrator. In addition, UiPath now offers fully automated deployments of
Orchestrator and Robots in Azure, AWS and Google Cloud. These are available directly from the
Azure Marketplace and will shortly be delivered in the Google and AWS Marketplace. The
Orchestrator deployment includes a full, scalable, managed cloud database, identity services
integration
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Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 4.12 (Excellent). With top-quartile performance in Automation Development,
Integration Features, Control Panel/Dashboard and Resilience/Error Recovery, it’s not surprising
that UiPath got best-in-class scores this use case. Overall, best-in-class user intuitive interface and
easy UI-level integration with number of applications stand out to customers evaluating the
product.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.96 (Good). Again, top-quartile scores for the key capabilities of
Integration, Automation Development and Resilience/Error Recovery helped propel UiPath to
another top-quartile performance. The only thing that held it back was the lack of direct support
for longer-running processes and business rules that partners typically provide. Although the
partner ecosystem enables a developer to bring in best-in-class BPM and rule engines, that usually
involves additional licensing. From a reuse point of view, the drag-and-drop functionality here is
useful — as long as you are working within the UiPath environment. However, having developed
automations and segments thereof, we would have expected easier external consumption
mechanisms of those pieces (without having to configure the REST API every time).
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 3.91 (Good). UiPath received excellent scores on its Automation
Development capabilities and Integration Features, along with Security and Error Recovery.
Because UiPath have focused on partners to deliver tangential capabilities, such as BPM,
AI/ML/NLP and OCR. These tangential capabilities are mostly preintegrated into the UiPath
environment. However, that external sourcing also limits the opportunity for differentiation.
UiPath’s AI/ML/NLP capabilities depend on customers adopting do-it-yourself approaches to ML.
The vendor has not yet provided ready-built components for easy consumption.
WorkFusion
Product Evaluated: WorkFusion Intelligent Automation Cloud (released July 2019) incorporates
support for three distinct editions:
■ Express — free, single-bot desktop product
■ Business — RPA-only offering supports single server on-premises or in the cloud to enable
attended and unattended automation
■ Enterprise (formerly SPA) — includes full range of ML capabilities delivered on-premises, via
private cloud or through the public cloud
All editions can be purchased within an Intelligent Automation Cloud license.
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and disaster recovery. The product set incorporates a thick-client desktop development environment
that includes Recorder, Object inspector, a software development kit and local bot execution
environment for testing and debugging. When compared with products across the market,
WorkFusion received top-quartile scores for Integration, Control Panel, Component/Script Library,
Security, ML/NLP and OCR. Compared with other top products, it was held back somewhat by gaps
around process/task discovery, affecting the Automation Development capability.
Use-Case Ratings:
■ Integration via UI: 3.92 (Good). Strong performances across virtually all capabilities were held
back a little by the Resilience and Error Recovery. Also, comparative scores for the Automation
Development environment were strong, but not quite the top-quartile place for this use case. The
usual screen recorders are complemented by the UI Inspector tool, which supports fine-grained
tuning of the automation, enabling easy editing and refinement of automations.
■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.89 (Good). The Component/Script Library incorporates a

subprocess library enabling a versioned repository of common reusable processes. These can be
dynamically configured to address the unique needs of varying business processes with
dependencies tracked by the repository. Overall, strong scores were let down a little by the
comparison with competitor Automation Development environments and Resilience/Error
Recovery. There is also a top-quartile rating for its broader Business Rules and Process
Automation capabilities.
■ Augment Knowledge Workers: 4.01 (Excellent). Top-quartile performance for this use case,
primarily as a result of its strong capabilities around the Integration, Component/Script Library,
OCR and out-of-the-box functionality for AI/ML/NLP. Indeed, WorkFusion had one of the strongest
offerings in the ML and NLP arena. Furthermore, WorkFusion was the only vendor to demonstrate
a deep understanding of ML applied to the context of the business process itself. WorkFusion
include AutoML features to enable business people to identify patterns in data and documents and
train ML algorithms.
Context
The RPA market is rapidly expanding, and the competitive landscape is in flux. Among the top 10
players, nine changed their relative market share position between 2017 and 2018. Nearly all
demonstrated at least double-digit growth rates, with four growing in the triple digits (see “Market
Share Analysis: Robotic Process Automation, Worldwide, 2018”). As a market, RPA is still relatively
small, with a total revenue of slightly less than $850 million in 2018. However, RPA is the fastest-
growing software subsegment officially tracked by Gartner, with year-over-year growth of more than
63% in 2018. RPA has risen to the second-most-searched term on Gartner’s website, an improvement
from
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To simplify selection, and help ensure that they make the right choices, organizations should
consider their longer-term objectives, and the pace at which they want to achieve them. This will help
them narrow down the selection process and home in on those vendors that can provide the
technology to support the associated solution. To narrow their selections further, organizations
should focus not only on what is extremely important to them, but also on what is differentiating. The
critical capabilities featured in this research reflect such areas, whereas the use cases represent
scenarios in which such areas of primary and secondary differentiation play a critical role.
Product/Service Class Definition

RPA tools link applications, eliminating keying errors, speeding up processes and increasing
productivity. The technology evolved from screen-scaping technologies many decades ago; however,
RPA emerged as a marketing term around 2010. Unlike traditional screen scraping, RPA products
typically interact with the metadata that drive modern applications at the UI level. Furthermore, RPA
products include capabilities to manage the development life cycle, as well as runtime administration
and monitoring.
Gartner has identified two primary deployment models for RPA platforms in enterprises:
■ Attended robots share a runtime environment with a human. These robots augment human
operators and are often triggered by local user activity or, less frequently, scheduled tasks. Such
use cases are common in call centers, for instance, where each operator would have the ability to
invoke the robot to help complete repetitive user tasks as the user encountered them.
■ Unattended robots have a dedicated, isolated runtime environment that is separate from all
human operators. These robots are triggered by schedules or remote activity —through an API, or
some observable event, such as the creation of a file in a directory or the arrival of an email into an
account monitored by the robot.
RPA products provide low-code (or no-code) design experiences for script authoring. Some products
include features that accelerate the authoring of automation logic by recording how a human
performs the task — recording the mouse and keyboard interactions to automatically generate a
script.
RPA tools enable the enterprise to:
■ Involve a full range of developer personas. From citizen developers (most commonly business
analysts, as well as business end users); departmental developers; and enterprise IT
professionals. Regardless of who is involved, there is still a need to manage the process
automation life cycle and track automations. However, RPA is frequently overlooked as a software
development platform, which leads to misconceptions around development complexity and
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requirements.
■ Develop integrations and automations that usually start with a tactical focus. RPA efforts often
start in departmental improvement initiatives — usually in the finance department — that seek to
reduce the mundane repetitive work. The focus is on the core capabilities described in this
research — automation development, out-of-the-box integration features (typically at the UI level),
and a control panel to manage the environment. Here, ease-of-use and quick-start features, such
as screen recorders and task discovery, are important.
■ Scale automation efforts across the business. Sooner or later, technology groups become
involved. They tend to look for strategic features that will help build enduring value from the
technology investment. This is where the critical capabilities, such as the Component/Script
Library and associated reuse, come into play. Security becomes increasingly important, as does
Error Recovery and Resilience. From an integration point of view, we start looking for mechanisms
to support consumption of developed automations — for example, through an easy-to-use API. All
automations should go through an audit phase to ensure proper governance. Although relatively
unimportant to individual use cases, these sorts of features are critical for the long-term
governance of RPA deployments. Tracking the applications and screens touched is critical.
Without that data, the organization can easily lose track.
■ Combine RPA with BPM and decision management tooling to support the core of
hyperautomation. If it can be automated, it probably should be automated, giving time back to the
people in the business to better support customers and value-adding work. Given that RPA moves
data between applications as needed, clearly an iBPMS qualifies as one of those applications. This
represents a route to optimal value — RPA gets data into and out of legacy applications, long-
running processes are managed by the BPM suite, and decision management tools can support
complex decision making. Decision-modeling technologies — especially those oriented around the
relatively new Decision Model and Notation (DMN) — simplify processes, as well as provide a
natural gateway for the application of ML directly into the business context.
Although RPA and BPM are enablers of the consumption of ML tools themselves, the core products
themselves are not all that intelligent. Despite the claims of some of the RPA vendors, there are only
limited opportunities to use ML in the core of RPA itself. The most common ways in which ML is
implemented in RPA products are (ranked by use in RPA tools):
■ Computer vision algorithms that identify application UI components. The most common use of
ML, RPA vendors use it to identify text boxes, buttons, icons, etc.
■ OCR to recognize typewritten text. Associated intelligent character recognition (ICR) is sometimes
used to interpret handwriting.
■ Automated business process/task discovery. Involves the identification of automation

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■ Augmented content analytics. Extends either computer vision or OCR to identify the position of
fields on documents, such as structured statements and customer or supplier invoices.
■ NLP and natural language generation (NLG). Used to support chatbot integration and/or virtual
personal assistants (VPAs).
Although some RPA vendors have developed their own ML approaches, many leverage open-source
libraries or integrate with services from megavendors, such as Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft.
Critical Capabilities Definition

Automation Development
This is the way RPA users go about developing automations. In Automation Development, we
consider the overall development environment, features to support debugging automations and
mechanisms for data manipulation.
This core capability looks at the overall development environment — encompassing the look and feel
of the UI, graphical process modeling features, screen recorders, and process mining or task
discovery. Debugging involves everything from developer step-through functionality and breakpoint
features, to integrated test data and assessment of the impact on reused components, as well as
features to remotely debug and administer automations.
As regards data manipulation, there was a broad range of functionality available from vendors. At the
simplest level, some products support variables with only a local scope (within the automation in
hand). Most vendors support some sort of global variables functionality, and some of them support
extensions of those global variables in the automation in hand. Given that RPA usually involves
manipulating Excel spreadsheets, we also gave a small bonus to products that could automatically
create variables from the column header information in an Excel spreadsheet, thereby saving time for
developer. Similarly, a small bonus was allocated to products that supported an array data type —
this enables an entire spreadsheet to be read and manipulated.
Integration Features
Scope and features of a product’s out-of-the-box integration — inbound features such as surface-level
machine vision, UI metadata, consumption of APIs and app connectors, and introspection methods.
It also includes outbound integration — enabling external reuse of automations and components.
This core capability covers everything on a spectrum from screen scraping through metadata
interaction and robust API management. Introspection means exploring the capabilities of an
external application at the UI level, as well as the ability to inspect and discover the methods needed
to interact with application components. Outbound integration explores the product’s features for
exposing an automation through an API, from a simplistic, generic API to out-of-the-box, easy-to-
consume
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Control Panel/Dashboard
This is the way the environment is monitored and controlled. This covers everything from work
allocation to resources and monitoring of work throughput, as well as the central audit and logging of
transactions and dashboards that go with all of that.
The Control Panel/Dashboard is a core capability for all RPA products. Work allocation methods vary
from simplistic assignment of an item of work to a resource, to best-in-class mechanisms that
enable business people to prioritize across the enterprise. From a monitoring perspective, products
vary from users having to search for failed automations, to automated alerts when work fails
unexpectantly, and automatic remediation attempts. Features sought under this capability relate
more to the overall monitoring of the platform than integrated Resilience and Error Recovery
capabilities. From an audit point of view, products also varied considerably, again from the simplistic
level of logs maintained on a VM or PC, to comprehensive dashboards centrally maintained and
easily extended. Some products also preintegrated external analysis tools.
Component/Script Library
We looked for mechanisms to support reuse and management of components — everything from the
controlled deployment of automations, life cycle and version control to change identification and the
reuse of subelements of an automation.
The Component/Script Library capability is considered critical, but not core to RPA tools. Most
products incorporate some sort of repository tooling, either natively developed or externally provided
through partner products/technologies. We looked for features and sophistication that enabled
customers to package and distribute automations, maintaining versions, balance control and
governance with the democratization of the environment. Some of the vendors had basic
mechanisms; others developed advanced features to support users capturing and reusing elements
of their automations.
Identifying Change Impacts

This is all about the ability to predict which automations will be affected by planned changes in the
application/system ecosystem. With a few exceptions, most products do a relatively poor job.
Specifically, this capability is not about reacting to changes after the fact.
Most RPA environments leave it to customers to manually keep track of automations and the
systems/screens that they touch. Some vendors support this through their underlying approaches to
integrating external applications with centrally developed “objects” or “components.” This is tied up
with their underlying approaches to RPA. A few products can track down to the level of individual
screens accessed by RPA automations. This type of functionality becomes increasingly important to
avoid situations in which an organization cannot work out which part of the organization will stop
working when a new system of record is introduced, or a core application is upgraded.
Resilience and Error Recovery
This involves the overall integrity of the environment and how it handles errors, including exceptions
and errors in the moment, through redundancy and business continuity in case of downtime, or
unplanned events. It includes mechanisms for automated disaster recovery for the overall
environment.
Most products rely on a shared database as the mechanism for storing critical data. Some include
functionality for full disaster recovery with active-active and active-passive capabilities. For Error
Recovery of individual work items, we looked for the ability to easily build and deploy “try-catch”
functionality and layered exception handling with advanced alerting features to escalate to the best
person.
Security
The features that helped secure the environment, including credentials store and reuse, along with
data security and access control.
Although Security is seen as a critical capability, it was not particularly differentiating. With a one or
two exceptions at each end of the spectrum, most products were relatively on par with each other.
They provide secure user access, a secure/encrypted credentials store for reuse of application
security and some level of security/encryption for data at rest (and, in some cases, in motion).
Products either reuse relatively common frameworks, such as CyberArk, or the vendor has developed
its own encrypted credentials vault.
AI/ML/NLP
This involves how the tools leveraged ML and NLP technologies, covering how they were
implemented, and the value that was delivered to organizations as a result.
As discussed in our RPA Magic Quadrant, this is one of the biggest areas of confusion and hype,
which is mainly driven by the RPA vendors. The reality is that most of these products have used
some form of ML to support machine vision. We assessed how ML and NLP were delivered —
whether developed in-house, or preintegrated from an external provider. We assessed the number of
scenarios supported by ML/NLP and awarded stronger scores where out-of-the-box functionality was
provided to support that usage. Vendors that delivered own-developed ML and NLP functionality
tightly integrated with their RPA tooling also received higher scores. Scores were reduced when
vendors supplied this with a separate product that required additional licensing.
Business Rules/Process Automation

This includes support for wider business process automation and/or business rules. We explore
support for the wider automation of business processes (rather than just task-level data movement),
business rules and supporting features for federated organizational structures.
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shared queues and more dynamically composed versions thereof. Top marks went to vendors with
full-blown, tight integration with a BPM suite delivered as an integral part of RPA tooling. Around
business rules, we looked for any mechanisms to externalize business rules from the underlying
code, such as support for DMN or an external business rules component. Lastly, in support of these,
we explored any support for configuration of processes and rules to suit the needs of different
geographic locations or business units of federated organizational structures.
OCR
This involves how documents and text are “read.” Machine vision recognizes text, and some vendors
have sophisticated adjacent products supporting handwriting and pattern recognition alongside
traditional text. Some integrate third-party products; others include prebuilt facilities in the RPA tool.
Use Cases
Integration via UI
Organizations have a plethora of existing systems. Citizen developers and business analysts can
quickly extract related data from System 1 and make it available in System 2.
This involves:
■ Data transfer and/or matching between systems. They can be legacy systems, enterprise
applications or personal productivity tools (e.g., Excel).
■ Integration where no back-end integration or API is available — i.e., it is only possible via the
application’s UI.
■ Scenarios in which automation is later embedded in third-party applications.
Large-Scale Data Migration

An automation extracts data automatically from several systems, using carefully structured scripts to
access existing systems and other data sources for a new target system.
This involves:
■ System migration and (re)configuration involving multiple data sources
■ New systems development involving third-party applications and long-running processes
■ Pruning data from applications to ensure that only the relevant information is used (e.g., only
relevant emails, cases and news from news or other evolving websites)
Augment
We Knowledge
use cookies Workers
to deliver the best possible experience on our website. To learn more, visit our Privacy Policy. By
Automations extract information from related documents and systems, shaping it and preparing it
for consumption by knowledge workers at the point of need.
When interacting with a customer or external stakeholder, data and information from many systems
may be required. A knowledge worker typically accesses multiple systems to assemble this material.
That worker may also need to interact with many colleagues, each with his or her own systems. This
can take a long time and affect the customer’s experience significantly.
It involves:
■ Prechecking and structuring data for easy consumption
■ Provision of contextual information to support the customer case, which may include advice on
the best next action, or related scenarios
■ Delivering output to relevant applications, depending on the data, or steering actions on a

website/chatbot
Ultimately, this could lead to a situation in which a chatbot is interacting with the customer directly,
only handing off to a human knowledge worker when things occur outside its ability to handle
directly. As these different usage scenarios become more complicated, they may need more of the
tangential capabilities that are outside of our core definition of the RPA market. These include NLP,
ML, longer-running processes and OCR integrations/features.
Vendors Added and Dropped

This is the first year for this Critical Capabilities research, so this section is not relevant.
Inclusion Criteria
The inclusion criteria represent the specific attributes that analysts believe are necessary for
inclusion in this research. Vendors need to satisfy the following inclusion criteria:
■ Providers must have 2017 audited/reported annual tool licensing revenue of more than $8 million
per year. Or they need more than $5 million during the first half of 2018 in audited/reported tool
licensing revenue. Or they need to appear in the vendors considered section by at least 10% of
Gartner Peer Insight review in this market.
■ Independent software vendors (ISVs) must have tools positioned to address the market for RPA
tools (using Gartner’s definition of RPA). Such tools must address all three common use cases, as
well as have all the core capabilities and most of the critical capabilities (see the Market
Definition/Description section of this research).
■ Vendors must have active customers buying RPA tools during the past 12 months in at least two
major global regions, which are defined as Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); the
Asia/Pacific (APAC) region; North America; and South America.
■ Vendors must permit Gartner to acquire survey data from 10 customers. These customers should
represent production deployments of the product version shown in the vendor briefings and in
customer production for at least three months. Similarly, the product version on which the
questionnaire response and the use-case demos are based must have been generally available to
all customers for purchase since 1 December 2018.
Table 1: Weighting for Critical Capabilities in Use Cases
Integration Large-Scale Data Augment Knowledge

Critical Capabilities
via UI Migration Workers
Automation Development 50% 20% 24%
Integration Features 16% 55% 15%
Control Panel/Dashboard 8% 1% 2%
Component/Script Library 3% 1% 15%
Identifying Change Impacts 2% 0% 5%
Resilience and Error 8% 9% 6%

Recovery
Security 5% 2% 5%
AI/ML/NLP 2% 0% 12%
Business Rules/Process 2% 12% 4%

Automation
OCR 4% 0% 12%
We use cookies to deliver the best possible experience

Total 100% on our website. To100%
learn more, visit our Privacy Policy.
100% By
Integration Large-Scale Data Augment Knowledge
Critical Capabilities
via UI Migration Workers
As of November 2019
This methodology requires analysts to identify the critical capabilities for a class of
products/services. Each capability is then weighed in terms of its relative importance for specific
product/service use cases.
Critical Capabilities Rating

Table 2: Product/Service Rating on Critical Capabilities
Critical Another Automation Blue

AntWorks AutomationEdge
Capabilities Monday Anywhere Prism
Automation 4.0 3.7 4.2 3.2 4

Development
Integration 3.8 2.6 3.4 3.2 4

Features
Control 3.9 2.8 3.9 3.0 4

Panel/Dashboard
Component/Script 4.1 2.9 3.8 3.5 4

Library
Identifying 3.3 1.5 3.5 2.0 4

Change Impacts
Resilience and 4.3 2.7 3.8 2.0 4

Error Recovery
Security 4.4 3.6 4.6 3.6 4
AI/ML/NLP 3.4 3.3 4.0 3.1 2

Critical Another Automation Blue
Capabilities Monday Anywhere Prism
Business 2.3 2.3 2.7 1.0 3

Rules/Process
Automation
OCR 3.8 4.5 4.5 3.0 3
As of November 2019
Table 3 shows the product/service scores for each use case. The scores, which are generated by
multiplying the use-case weightings by the product/service ratings, summarize how well the critical
capabilities are met for each use case.
Table 3: Product Score in Use Cases
Use Another Automation Blue

Cases Monday Anywhere Prism
Integration 3.94 3.30 3.99 3.04 3.97

via UI
Large- 3.72 2.82 3.55 2.84 3.98

Scale Data
Migration
Augment 3.82 3.21 3.93 3.01 3.78

Knowledge
Workers
As of November 2019
To determine an overall score for each product/service in the use cases, multiply the ratings in Table
2 by the weightings shown in Table 1.
Critical Capabilities Methodology

This methodology requires analysts to identify the critical capabilities for a class of products or
services. Each capability is then weighted in terms of its relative importance for specific product or
service use cases. Next, products/services are rated in terms of how well they achieve each of the
critical capabilities. A score that summarizes how well they meet the critical capabilities for each use
case is then calculated for each product/service.
"Critical capabilities" are attributes that differentiate products/services in a class in terms of their
quality and performance. Gartner recommends that users consider the set of critical capabilities as
some of the most important criteria for acquisition decisions.
In defining the product/service category for evaluation, the analyst first identifies the leading uses for
the products/services in this market. What needs are end-users looking to fulfill, when considering
products/services in this market? Use cases should match common client deployment scenarios.
These distinct client scenarios define the Use Cases.
The analyst then identifies the critical capabilities. These capabilities are generalized groups of
features commonly required by this class of products/services. Each capability is assigned a level of
importance in fulfilling that particular need; some sets of features are more important than others,
depending on the use case being evaluated.
Each vendor’s product or service is evaluated in terms of how well it delivers each capability, on a
five-point scale. These ratings are displayed side-by-side for all vendors, allowing easy comparisons
between the different sets of features.
Ratings and summary scores range from 1.0 to 5.0:
1 = Poor or Absent: most or all defined requirements for a capability are not achieved
2 = Fair: some requirements are not achieved
3 = Good: meets requirements
4 = Excellent: meets or exceeds some requirements
5 = Outstanding: significantly exceeds requirements
To determine an overall score for each product in the use cases, the product ratings are multiplied by
the weightings to come up with the product score in use cases.
The critical capabilities Gartner has selected do not represent all capabilities for any product;
therefore, may not represent those most important for a specific use situation or business objective.
Clients should use a critical capabilities analysis as one of several sources of input about a product
before making a product/service decision.
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Gartner Critical Capabilites RPA 2019

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Critical Capabilities for Robotic Process Automation

Strategic Planning Assumption

What You Need to Know

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Another Monday’s AM Ensemble product is composed of several components, including AM

On security, Another Monday delivers a cloud/on-premises-agnostic infrastructure that is highly

The platform components consist of AutomationEdge Server, Process Studio (Workﬂow/Bot

WinAutomation is a stand-alone, desktop, serverless product, whereas ProcessRobot is a server-

■ Express — free, single-bot desktop product

All editions can be purchased within an Intelligent Automation Cloud license.

■ Large-Scale Data Migration: 3.89 (Good). The Component/Script Library incorporates a

Product/Service Class Deﬁnition

RPA tools enable the enterprise to:

■ Automated business process/task discovery. Involves the identiﬁcation of automation

Critical Capabilities Deﬁnition

Identifying Change Impacts

Business Rules/Process Automation

■ Scenarios in which automation is later embedded in third-party applications.

Large-Scale Data Migration

■ System migration and (re)conﬁguration involving multiple data sources

■ New systems development involving third-party applications and long-running processes

■ Prechecking and structuring data for easy consumption

■ Delivering output to relevant applications, depending on the data, or steering actions on a

Vendors Added and Dropped

Table 1: Weighting for Critical Capabilities in Use Cases

Integration Large-Scale Data Augment Knowledge

Automation Development 50% 20% 24%

Integration Features 16% 55% 15%

Component/Script Library 3% 1% 15%

Identifying Change Impacts 2% 0% 5%

Resilience and Error 8% 9% 6%

Business Rules/Process 2% 12% 4%

We use cookies to deliver the best possible experience

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Critical Capabilities Rating

Critical Another Automation Blue

Automation 4.0 3.7 4.2 3.2 4

Integration 3.8 2.6 3.4 3.2 4

Control 3.9 2.8 3.9 3.0 4

Component/Script 4.1 2.9 3.8 3.5 4

Identifying 3.3 1.5 3.5 2.0 4

Resilience and 4.3 2.7 3.8 2.0 4

Security 4.4 3.6 4.6 3.6 4

AI/ML/NLP 3.4 3.3 4.0 3.1 2

Business 2.3 2.3 2.7 1.0 3

OCR 3.8 4.5 4.5 3.0 3

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Table 3: Product Score in Use Cases

Use Another Automation Blue

Integration 3.94 3.30 3.99 3.04 3.97

Large- 3.72 2.82 3.55 2.84 3.98

Augment 3.82 3.21 3.93 3.01 3.78

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Critical Capabilities Methodology

Ratings and summary scores range from 1.0 to 5.0:

2 = Fair: some requirements are not achieved

3 = Good: meets requirements

4 = Excellent: meets or exceeds some requirements

5 = Outstanding: signiﬁcantly exceeds requirements

© 2018 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.

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