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Espressive Barista vs ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
665
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (2nd), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
Espressive Barista
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (38th), AI-Powered Chatbots (9th), AI-Agents for HR (4th)
ManageEngine SupportCenter ...
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (28th)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
Jim Lobao - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager for End User Support Services at Five9
Has helped enhance our support ability, reduced our resolution time, and reduced our service desk costs
Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement. We haven't yet found anything that resembles true AI that can learn autonomously without human intervention. However, Barista does help us identify and address some of these areas, allowing my team to step in and create intents and responses to questions. When a user asks a question that Barista doesn't immediately understand, we can recognize the pattern, capture it, and link it to a common intent. This is highly beneficial for acquiring such data, but it's a reactive approach and still requires curation. Natural language processing still has some way to go. One of our challenges is that our internal employees haven't yet adopted a natural way of interacting with Barista. Getting people to be concise and to the point, rather than being verbose as if they were interacting with a human, has been an ongoing challenge. While they may feel comfortable being conversational in Slack, expecting a human-like response, Barista is a different entity. Barista isn't interested in their recent vacation; it just wants to know they're locked out of their account. So, some users may assume Barista understands their intent when they say, "I'm back from vacation and locked out of my account." Barista, however, may interpret this as a request for the holiday schedule. Therefore, we're gradually educating our users to adapt their communication style for better success with Barista. Conversely, we desire Barista to adapt its behavior based on the interaction, the language used, and the way people communicate. I wholeheartedly desire an AI that can continuously learn and adapt to our organization's evolving needs. This is the most challenging aspect, as it involves understanding our organization's terminology, procedures, and toolsets. We've made significant progress in this area. However, from an NLP standpoint, we still face challenges with our nearly 3,000 Slack channel users, each with their unique communication styles. People ask questions in various ways, and sometimes there are misunderstandings. They want to interact with us naturally. However, we still struggle with natural language processing. People don't always realize that the bot is a virtual agent designed to be concise and efficient. Sometimes, less is more. It's been a difficult transition for people to grasp that they're conversing with a virtual agent, not a human. They still expect human-like interactions, such as discussing their weekend or holidays or simply pasting screenshots of errors. However, the bot can't interpret screenshots. If they provide the error code and some context about the application, the bot can better understand the issue. So, the key challenge is bridging the gap between human expectations and the bot's capabilities in terms of natural interaction.
reviewer2650164 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP of IT at a aerospace/defense firm with 51-200 employees
Manual ticketing features hinder workflow, but cost-effective ticket management is ensured
We just use it because it's more trouble to rip it out than to replace it with a more expensive tool. I would not recommend this product to others. If budget is a concern, it might be suitable but it doesn’t excite. Hence, I would rate it a four out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Automation Anywhere is stable."
"It has helped us to save a lot of FTEs for our solutions that we have provided to our companies. Suppose a job which was done by a group of eight to nine people on a daily basis for 24 hours was taking a lot of time, so we created a bot with Automation Anywhere. It was done with a bot working 24/7. It reduced the numbers of guys required to do that process."
"Automation Anywhere is very simple to use; the features are very simple, the application is light, and overall I love it."
"One thing I really like is the the recorder where you can connect with multiple systems. The OCR is also good."
"For business professionals, it automates repetitive tasks and enhances efficiency and cost savings."
"Automation Anywhere has excellent features."
"The most valuable feature is the power of AI Technologies involved in Automation Anywhere's IQBot - such as Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Fuzzy Logic, and Machine Learning."
"Automation Anywhere IQ Bot is very strong in comparison to other vendors because Automation introduced this intelligent document processing product a long time ago, which is one of its unique features."
"With respect to its natural language processing capabilities, it recognizes things that you wouldn't think it would recognize. Even in cases where it doesn't, it's pretty easy to go in and make the adjustments that are needed."
"This is one of the few tools that live up to the sales reps' hype when it comes to integrating with ServiceNow."
"When it comes to neutral language processing and conversational AI, it's very good, very solid... We all have different ways of speaking or writing in English and the application does a very solid job of recognizing what's being asked regardless of how it's being asked."
"We have the ability to alter phrases, create new phrases, or enhance phrases, or change paths. From the dashboard, we are able to get a lot of information we need about what people are asking, where they are dropping off from conversations, and where they do not get the information they need."
"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
"The bot is pretty easy to update and keep up to date. Espressive itself is pretty easy to work with."
"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"Given Barista's out-of-the-box content for common industry applications, the value is pretty good right from day one."
"The most valuable features are the ITIL compliance and billing."
"The product is very scalable and stable when used as a help desk once it is built out."
"Their tech support has been talking to us about expanding features like integrations with Microsoft Teams."
"When using it predominantly for a help desk solution, it seems like an absolutely fine product."
"The product teams are continuously on the products trying to improve them. If, for example, I ask for a change to be done in the software, the chances are in the next release it's going to be done and incorporated. It's this personal touch that I like."
"Their technical support has been very helpful and is very good."
"ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus works fine as a help desk software and is relatively inexpensive."
"We have found the reporting in this product to be very useful."
 

Cons

"Regarding the UI, once you're in some of the screens there are fixed dialogues. They are a set size, so there's a lot of horizontal scrolls and vertical scrolls."
"The Image Recognition functionality should be enhanced to improve the accuracy of checkboxes."
"Product support for our customers needs improvement. They should increase the support personnel."
"Automation Anywhere has to be integrated with machine learning and AI systems to read images and videos, then put the information into another format."
"Understanding what we wanted to do the tool after setup, that was complex."
"Integrations should be included with the analytics platforms and third-party SAP, enterprise-level applications, as well as if there are any built-in connectors where you can connect with the ERPs to automate the required teams."
"Though IQ Bot is the most powerful and effective cognitive OCR platform for data extraction in the market, still, there is a lot of scope for improvement as there are a lot of non-standard documents which do not give a high straight-through processing rate and accuracy."
"Better use case management to prevent each development from scratch would be an improvement."
"My only comment would be if they wanted to use this as an IT service management tool, maybe they could think about Barista making tickets and having change management and problem management capabilities."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"What would make things easier is more detail, out of the box, about what is helping out of the box. We're struggling a little bit to get that data. We want more information about what Barista has brought in that the employees are using, out of the box. We want more visibility into the things that we ourselves haven't done the interaction for."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"Expressive Barista could improve by adding native integration with WhatsApp, one of the top communication channels in South Africa. When we're trying to sell Barista to customers, we have to tell them that the solution doesn't have out-of-the-box support for WhatsApp. We can develop it, but then we need to have a conversation about how much that will cost."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"The business model for the company is to sell low and charge for customization, education or expertise."
"I would like to see some kind of project management or portfolio management in a future version."
"ManageEngine, in my experience, fosters that type of environment; it doesn't have an easy button, a graphic user interface, ease-of-use, and ease-of-dev — the product does not have any of that."
"They're pretty good but there's always room for improvement. There should be more templates that users can utilize immediately."
"The tech support is terrible and that seems to be a part of their business plan."
"There is no cloud-based version and it would be helpful if it were available."
"The product is very difficult to use and configure and requires specialists."
"ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus could improve on workflow automation features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have purchased licenses, but are trying to obtain more bot programmer licenses."
"Our annual licensing costs are about $500,000."
"It is the most economically friendly and it provides you with a lot of functions."
"Talk to your manager and try to procure an automation license for training. This will allow you to train people, so you can move to automation."
"Automation Anywhere offers a subscription-based licensing model for cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments."
"In terms of monetary savings, we automated a bot in three days that has saved us $30,000 in costs."
"The setup cost for this is onetime and licensing is based on your choice of product."
"The price of Automation Anywhere is a little higher than some of the competition, such as UiPath. However, depending on the use case and other factors we are able to receive some discounts."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"The solution is affordable."
"The price for the licensing is fair."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"The pricing isn't overly burdensome. It's going to be interesting to see how new models come in with new capabilities but, as it is, as a base system, it's pretty good."
"The licensing fees depend on different criteria, including options and sizing."
"ManageEngine products will always be the lowest cost in category as that is part of their business model."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Construction Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Healthcare Company
10%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business161
Midsize Enterprise86
Large Enterprise562
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise7
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus?
ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus is cheap, around two or three on a scale where ten is the most expensive.
What needs improvement with ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus?
ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus could improve on workflow automation features. Currently, everything is very manual, ...
What is your primary use case for ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus?
We use ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus primarily as a ticketing tool within our company.
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
No data available
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Information Not Available
Brickman Group, SVP Worldwide, Chicago Tribune, Sodexo, Constellation, Lowcost Holidays, Telesur, PayEx, Quintiq, Moblize, Oman Air, Intelligent Hospital Systems
Find out what your peers are saying about Espressive Barista vs. ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.