PowerApps is a low code / rapid application development product from Microsoft that allows users to quickly build apps.
$20
per month per user
UiPath Automation Platform
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
UiPath's agentic platform combines the company's Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution for automating repetitive tasks with agentic automation. By unifying agentic AI, automation, BPM, and process intelligence, the platform gives organizations control to design, run, and optimize new agentic processes.
PowerApps is well suited for "quick-wins" and fast prototypes of business solutions. It also is beneficial for situations where business partners and developers work together - it allows the business folks to provide a "quick-and-dirty" prototype which is then fleshed-out by developers that are trained experts on the platform. The interactive and easy to understand representation of the solution allows business partners to "see" the solution and add, remove, or correct aspects of it themselves. It provides a common view and understanding of the actual solution across business units and tech teams. PowerApps, being a low-code\no-code platform is not well suited for business processes that require many complex computations or large amounts of custom code - such as solutions that are better architected as Web Site or "full-blown" desktop solutions. There are solutions that are just not easy or quick to accomplish in a low-code\no-code platform. Enterprise Architects should know the difference, however business partners often try to create a solution and only when stuck because it becomes too complex do they engage a tech team for assistance - at which point there are sunk-costs involved and hinderences to re-platforming the solution
UiPath Automation Platform is well-suited for automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks such as invoice processing, data entry, and report generation. By using UiPath Automation Platform, employees can focus on more strategic tasks, which leads to increased efficiency. Additionally, UiPath Automation Platform is highly effective at automating rule-based processes, such as financial processes like bank statement reconciliation, account payable, and account receivable processes that follow a set of predetermined rules.
Power Apps has formats that are pre-built that don't require any coding which makes it easier to achieve your vision. This does become a challenge if your App needs don't fit into that format.
We deal with a ton of data so the fact that you can connect to any data source in addition to their pre-stablished data connections makes the process a breeze.
The online learning resources and tutorials are helpful as well for those who are tech savvy.
Any type of application can be automated (Desktop Application, Web Application and also applications reachable only via remote technologies such as Citrix, Remote Desktop and so on).
The writing of a process code takes place entirely through the use of objects. In the event that there were no objects capable of solving a particular problem, it is possible to use some languages of the .net platform such as: VB.net, C#.
It is easy to scale the solution by adding more robots to run a process in case the solution requires more performance in the future.
It can also be used by functional analysts to design the flow to be automated.
An academy is available online where basic and advanced courses can be taken. It is also possible to take a completely free basic certification.
As I mentioned, Excel automation is not very effective, there are a number of packages to add, but there is nothing as smooth as a good macro.
Working with selectors is certainly challenging and UiPath does a good job with that, but there is room for improvement since the interface could be smarter in selecting the right attributes and warn the user if something is not properly setup.
This platform has so much potential and have been garnering a lot of attention by proving benefits in terms of saving operational and manpower costs. I am sure with minute efforts we were able to achieve our ROI and the same is the case with many of our customers whom we have been working around Digital Automation initiatives.
PowerApps is a great solution and I have spent the last year familiarizing myself with the platform and building custom applications to complete a whole range of tasks such as asset management, custom invoice generation, and item restriction tracking. We as a company have barely begun to scratch the surface of what can be achieved with PowerApps.
There are two main reasons with this rating 1. UiPath Automation Platform requires the old school type of Change Weather management, Which actually eats a lot of time to manage and roll out the recent changes. There is not something kind of CI/CD when you are developing the things With UiPath Automation Platform. 2. Very high development and maintenance cost, which actually decrease its usability.
The community forums are extremely responsive to questions asked, there is a good body of online documentation and many community posts to draw from. Although the platform has changed, which means some of the posts are out of date and the solutions provided aren't relevant. Of relevance, I read over 400 articles plus documentation to get this first app built in SharePoint, move it to SQL and make it work exactly the way it should.
UiPath RPA has an exceptional studio interface. It has been a year and so since I am using UiPath RPA. Whether it is some my personal task to scrape information & links from the Journal or find a specific character string from multiple PDF collection using OCR, UiPath RPA has made its roots to our technological ecosystem
Video material supported by text. The training has evolved a lot in the past 3 years to become more attractive. Specific training tracks exist for the different roles in RPA development, where everyone is expected to learn basic development.
Much cheaper, much more customizable, and easier to use. There is not much of a learning curve and the licensing cost is much cheaper. PowerApps does one thing very well, whereas other platforms are mediocre. There is much more customization possible for your in-house workflows that you can build yourself vs using NetSuite engineers to build it for you.
As compared to other products, we require programming knowledge and concepts to work but UiPath is for everyone. It provides us extensive event logging at various stages and effective exception handling for applications and business. It increases our agility and enhances the overall productivity further by using the source control SVC. The solution that we implemented is also very scalable in terms of incorporating new requirements.
The open source tools require lots of IT effort in order to set up and maintain over time. UiPath is like a complete package and customer service is also active in terms of solving issues arising while automating procession on a day to day basis.
It has given us a focal point for development. We now have the possibility of connecting to mobile and the default SharePoint online interface isn't always easy to manipulate. PowerApps has given us an opportunity to improve our user experience.
An improved user experience has given us a better shot at compliance. When users don't fight the environment, they don't gravitate towards workarounds or non-compliance.
As lists and libraries change, the platform scales pretty well.
Having users with the capability to create their own forms and tools has dialed back the app dev need (there is a balance though) and distributed power to the process architects and people who actually need the solutions in the first place—much more efficient model of service delivery: self-service.
