Nowadays, as it rises, every business comes to workflow automation sooner or later. Workflow automation solves several business problems at once:
- slow speed of work;
- small sales and turnover;
- frequent mistakes due to the human factor;
- burnout of employees due to overload and performing tedious routine tasks;
- poor-quality collection of statistics and, as a result, erroneous planning of business goals.
On the way to workflow automation, you can use a couple of methods: a complete cycle of application development from scratch or shortening the application development cycle using no-code.
With no-code development, you don't have to write code for your application from scratch. You can quickly create a business application using ready-made templates with this approach. In addition, there are platforms with real-time source code generation using neural networks.
Today, the concept of no-code includes the ability not only to create web and mobile applications but also to create robots and bots, automatic deployment in various cloud storages, build a database and business logic, as well as integrations with a vast number of the most popular services and payment systems. It reduces development time and development budget tenfold.
Steps for your workflow automation success
This article tried to reveal the steps on the path to successful workflow automation of your business using no-code technologies. Use this checklist to get started today.
1. Set a goal for the workflow automation
Before automating your business workflow, it is essential to establish its purpose. Ask yourself questions:
- What is the main task that workflow automation should solve?
- By what indicators could I understand that I have achieved my goal?
- Do I now need to automate the entire workflow of my company or just a separate set of business processes? Which ones?
- Is it stable long-term automation with a future or a temporary solution?
- What budget can I allocate for automation?
- Can I afford to hire a development team, or do I still need to cut costs?
Answering these questions will help you avoid future problems during and after the implementation of automation. If you carry out the analysis correctly, you will not be faced with a situation where there is a suitcase without a handle, which is a pity to throw away and inconvenient to carry further.
2. Create a list of business processes
The main task of automating business processes is the organization of work in each specific segment of the company. Therefore, the list of business processes that need automation in the first place. Perhaps, not all business processes of your company need to be automated in order to achieve the desired goal, but only a few or the processes of one department.
For example, you have your own outerwear sewing business: a design department, raw materials supply, a workshop and seamstresses, and a marketing department. And you have noticed that your seamstresses can no longer cope with the volume of orders, and the delivery date of the batch is shifting. You conducted a survey and determined that it is difficult for them to navigate an expanded model range and quickly learn to produce new models of high quality. What can help in such a situation: revising the work schedule, changing the duration and number of shifts, revising wages, hiring new employees?
Better to create an application to delve into tasks outside of working hours, on the way to work, and in the workflow to be more prepared. It can show each sewist update, a video with a sample creation, comments, upload old and new patterns at any time, including a direct chat with the head and other employees.
Determine what business processes you need in your application, and with this understanding, you can move on.
3. Create a map of business processing interactions
Now that you have a list of all relevant business processes for automation, put them on a blank sheet in the form of blocks to properly build connections between them. At what points do they intersect and join? How do they dock, with what tools? How do you control that the docking was successful and the processes continue to work? Visual representation in the form of a diagram will help you better understand how your company's business processes are arranged, which stages are crucial, and what should be paid attention to in the automation process.
4. Clarify checklists and KPI of your business processes
Here you need to raise the checklists and KPIs of your employees, revise if they are outdated, or create if they are missing at all. Answer to such questions for each participant in the business process that you want to automate:
- What steps does each participant in the business process take?
- What data is required for each participant in the business process to perform their work?
- What milestones determine how he progresses?
- What result of a participant's work in the business process do you get at the output?
- How is the editing process, if any?
Having accurate and understandable checklists and prescribed KPIs will speed up any software development project.
5. Appoint your employee for the automation managing
No-code constructors allow your employees to build applications themselves or contact no-code developers for assembly and only oversee the process of creating an application.In any case, you will need to select an employee responsible for the automation process. Of course, it is better if it is a person with basic technical knowledge and, most importantly, a person who knows and understands all the company's business processes well.
6. Search no-code platform options
Every year no-code technologies are developing, and there are more and more offers on the market of no-code constructors and platforms. Also, their functionality is expanding: you can collect both a simple landing page and a full-fledged website with dynamic content (for example, the backend of our site is built on our no-code platform); an app for ordering food, which will be fully synchronized with the app for couriers, a complex CRM from scratch, etc. Familiarize yourself with the best no-code platforms and choose the one that best suits your workflow automation task. The article has collected the best no-code platforms and tools in 2022.
7. Contact AppMaster.io for the best solution
Our no-code platform has an all-in-one concept, so AppMaster.io is the best solution for building most types of applications. Using our no-code constructor, you can build a real backend that will be identical to the backend in applications written using the classic development method. AppMaster.io generates human-readable code that can be exported if needed. We have created a convenient business process editor to assemble a complex application in a few days. The assembly uses simple drag-and-drop constructors: drag and drop elements onto the stage and customize them. You can connect many integrations with other services to your application. Now there are more than 40 modules on the platform to speed up your application development. Edits to the assembled application are made in real-time. After making edits, you do not have to re-publish the mobile application on marketplaces; all modifications will be published automatically. It's incredibly convenient. Our Health Care Monitor and error reporting system (logs) keeps your finger on the pulse of the application and makes instant fixes. That is why, on AppMaster.io, you can build an application of any complexity, even a "new Facebook."
Conclusion
You can automate your company's workflow economically and quickly with no-code constructors and no-code tools. Beforehand, it is worth going through several steps for the automation process to be as optimal and successful as possible:
- setting the ultimate goal of workflow automation;
- compiling a list of your company's business processes;
- creating a map of the interaction of business processes;
- clarification of checklists and KPIs of business processes;
- the appointment of a person responsible for the supervision of automation;
- familiarization with options for no-code constructors and platforms;
- selection of the most functional platform, such as AppMaster.io.
You can start automating your workflow with us at AppMaster.io. We will accompany the process and help you at every step according to your wishes. Also, we have a great affiliate program for no-code developers. Don't hesitate to contact us to find out more.
The future of business is no-code!