AutoHotkey Community

Just wondering if there were any experts out there that do it full time in paid work?

One of the problems is: people suffer in pain doing repetetive and have no idea that all (or at least a huge amount) could be automated!

Would be interesting to know.

Depends on your definition of doing it full-time. I have AHK applications that run full-time in my work and i am regularly developing new code using AHK. I am not constricted to use only AHK though.

Between 2007 and 2015 i did a mix of PHP and AHK(Mostly AHK) full time in a financial institution. Look for automation work in insurance and banking. I still do automation just with different tools. My AHK experience was highly valued

@Gio @tank what other tools did you guys use?
I'm looking at other tools to use as well (AHK is always King for me)
Would be interested to know what you use otherwise.

Automation anywhere and blue prism

Worked for SIEMENS EWSD Digital Telephone Switching Network , work was done in minutes rather than hours
( Basic idea I always used: a GUI with Edit, input known variables and get result, math and string manipulation )

i used to do ahk full time for like 8 years but management changed and i hated them

I would like to continue this topic and discuss resources available to learn UIPath, Blue Prism etc. It seems that Autohotkey community is extremely well developed and solutions are constantly shared. It would be interesting to know if there are any possibilities to learn blue prism or other automation platforms the same way as you can learn Autohotkey. I personally always support open source solutions because they are much better and more value is delivered. Any ideas where to find such information on other automation platforms and learn how they function, preferably for free

Blue Priam is a paid product. I am not aware of a trial or student license. UIPath has free training and product download. Blue Prism has a rather steep learning curve but is a very good product. It is most popular in the EU with Automation AnyWhere right behind it.
UIPath is gaining popularity because learning to use it is free.

omar wrote:Just wondering if there were any experts out there that do it full time in paid work?

One of the problems is: people suffer in pain doing repetetive and have no idea that all (or at least a huge amount) could be automated!

Would be interesting to know.

The people I've been around and seen use AutoHotkey in the workplace (along with .bat files, Winbatch, AutoIt, VBScript, PowerShell, etc...) have been IT or quasi IT types (business or admin people doing IT tasks). People that didn't formally study programming, but needed to do tasks that involved scripting or programming. So, they used AutoHotkey (and similar tools) to help them do their job, though they weren't paid specifically as a programmer.

In addition, if you Google for freelancers, you will see there are AutoHotkey experts for hire or programmers that use AutoHotkey to deliver paid solutions. Therefore the question seems to be a matter of skill. Likely there are also various professional programmers that got their start in AutoHotkey and it was the basis for how they learned programming.

tank wrote:Blue Priam is a paid product. I am not aware of a trial or student license. UIPath has free training and product download. Blue Prism has a rather steep learning curve but is a very good product. It is most popular in the EU with Automation AnyWhere right behind it.
UIPath is gaining popularity because learning to use it is free.

UIPath appears quite interesting, though not so much as something a person gets into as a hobby, casually, or as a time saver type of thing. AutoHotkey is like something you trip over or find accidentally, realize it's very useful, then possibly get hooked on it.

UiPath's Community Edition terms seem a bit tricky. Looks like you can play with it on an individual level or single computer, but if you bring it into the workplace, best cough up the dough. And for a company or business, seems like UiPath would defintely have to be a planned business decision, as oppose to something the secretary or IT guy snuck in as a time saver.

Edit- Watched a video about (Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in action, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV8lM9SIFQ8
Looks like an expert in AutoHotkey could have automated such a process for a company. Unless they need a non-Windows or cross-platform solution, a company could have debatably hired an AutoHotkey freelancer. Seems partially an issue of marketing and awareness, that more companies don't know the possibilities (for automation) or various options they have for getting a job or task done. That UiPath can utilize AutoHotkey is definitely an advantage for them.

UIPath, Blue Prism all are coming from AutoIT from what I understand.

As my personal interest is in Blue Prism can anyone please compare Blue Prism to AHK and it which ways Blue Prism is better/worser? From initial information that I have there is no programming with Blue Prism, one only has to create process charts and then system takes care of the rest. However I could be wrong because I have seen only videos of the actual process.

Also does anyone know any sites or publications covering Blue Prism topic?

Blue Prism is developed as flow charts with objects having properties. I am not aware of any public documentation

I use AHK at my job at a bank, I automated most of my job because we go through around 1500 repetitive transactions each day! Unfortunately my boss and his boss are both in their 60's and they don't understand technology and get super scared when they hear automation so my skills are not as valued as they should be! So instead I am taking a path towards getting certified with Pega Robotics to become a Robotics System Architect, I think once I get certified I will be able to get an opportunity to implement automation projects within the bank, but for now they don't take me seriously (25 years old) but they only value me as a business analyst, they are too scared to embrace the tech opportunities I can create for them in terms of cost savings and efficiency and reducing volumes of manual transactions. Ahh well we all encounter barriers as long as I don't give up I am confident one day I will push to the top in my office!

always sell the money abd business problem.... never sell the tech

i've been building Macros at my new job. Makes the job easier, faster and for the most part error proof.

I started learning, on AHK, and that's all I use for now.

I also feel there's probably a good business incentive to go into businesses and sell them the idea of automation for their repetitive tasks.