It’s never easy to make a change. The same is as true in business as it is anywhere, and there’s really a lot that changes in business all too often. However, not every change has to be so difficult: for example, taking on a business workflow automation platform can be a great experience. While it requires effort to implement a change like an automation tool, there’s a lot that can be gained, and the effort isn’t so steep a requirement that it takes away from all the benefits. Workflow automation can have a number of approaches, of course, but the main approach that produces powerful results is the use of ready-made solutions or automation platforms that can plug into your existing workflow. There are a number of these in existence, but not every single one is best for your business. To help narrow down the search, you can read below to look at some of the most useful (and widely used) tools on the workflow automation market, and to find the one that suits your needs best.
ProcessMaker
If you’re a fan of visual flowcharts (and models compliant with BPMN 2.0) and an open-source environment, then ProcessMaker may be for you. Offering a specialty end-to-end banking solution as one of their main products, this particular low-code BPM tool is made for intelligent workflow automation and even for white-labeling the services of an automation platform. Using forms to capture, display, and aggregate data for decision-makers, ProcessMaker offers dashboard insights with customizable charts and reports. ProcessMaker even takes monitoring workflows a step further by monitoring the activity of stakeholders and triggering notifications or even tasks upon the completion of certain business process conditions. Even using the analysis engine to validate your process designs before implementation is a huge win: visuals and logic come together to make this feature an intelligent solution for checking the syntax of your own processes.
Camunda
Camunda has a suite of tools that include cloud workflow automation as well as an on-premise platform for automation of business processes. But before all that, you can use their online tool Cawemo to plan and design a specific process in the BPMN 2.0 modeling standard. Dragging and dropping BPMN elements within this first tool collaboratively (and for free) can help you come up with the perfect starting process for your actual workflow, and by moving this design into the Camunda modeler, you can start to use real deployable features. Once you’ve done the design work, Camunda’s automation platform can establish an end-to-end process from that model that incorporates and orchestrates various components including microservices, the APIs used to connect them, RPA bots, and even the actual human labor that goes into any given process. By accounting for the various factors that feed into a full-fledged process, as well as using resources like the Decision Engine, your process can be made business-ready without ever having to compromise the various elements that make up your functional workflow.
Kissflow
Designed for people with zero experience in coding, the self-serve workflow platform from Kissflow allows for no-code solutions like automated workflow routing, third-party integrations, service level agreements, and even algorithmic task assignment to serve the needs of your business. Report on your process’s performance, set access roles for your teammates, and utilize webhooks, APIs, and Zapier integrations to make the platform do the work for you. Businesses whose business is done on mobile can benefit from using Kissflow’s workflow tool, which changes to fit any screen and any device. Their software boasts easy onboarding, and with the visual workflow builder this couldn’t be any more true.
Flokzu
With all the robust features a workflow software should have, Flokzu works entirely within the cloud to provide better overall security, as well as to leave your on-premise resources wide open for use. The objective KPI reporting aids in decision-making approaches of various types, and the low-code (and no-code) features of the automation platform can be tested out using Flokzu’s Sandbox environment — with the ability to make this new version of a process if the tests prove it to be a better iteration. Flokzu’s task management for each user consists of an inbox that assigns and contextualizes tasks for each person working on the team.
Nintex
It’s near impossible to imagine managing complex workflows manually in a time when tools like Nintex can do it for you. This enterprise-class software automates workflows and implements communication channels, data repositories, and more all to enhance the design and deployment of your business process. Document management, remote collaboration, and the ability to use the tool in the cloud or on-premise make this platform all the more attractive to business users from anywhere and everywhere. Additionally, Nintex offers RPA integrations to make your workflows all the more convenient and productive.
Conclusion
It might be hard to see change as a good thing in some circles, but when you’re making a change that will benefit your business in the long run, it’s a little easier to appreciate. That’s why automation is becoming so ubiquitous in the business world — and that’s why it’s a good option for many organizations like yours. The main goal of the change should be to build a better workflow, a better business process. If you do that just right, using one of the tools made to help you automate, you’ll later see the wealth of benefits that come with it.
