Creator

A beginner's guide to
Workflow Automation
Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 03

What is workflow automation? .......................................................................................................... 04

Why is it needed?....................................................................................................................................... 05

Benefits of workflow automation...................................................................................................... 07

What to look for in a workflow automation software?.............................................................. 08

Low-code for workflow automation ............................................................................................... 09

Customer stories ...................................................................................................................................... 13

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 17

About us ........................................................................................................................................................ 18

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Introduction
Problem solving is fundamental to human beings. From the wheel to the World
Wide Web, humans have always been about solving problems to make life easier.
However, this isn't a one-step process; there's a structure to it.

This structure is what workflows are all about—creating a flow or a framework to

accomplish a task successfully.

So what, then, is workflow automation?

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Workflow automation
The process of automating a series of actions to complete a task with little to no
human intervention is called workflow automation. In simpler words, it's automating
repetitive tasks to make your work easier, with the help of software or digital tools.

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Why is it needed?
Consumers today expect results faster, and automation is the only way to deliver. By
automating frequently occurring tasks, organizations can save time, effort, and
money.

By delivering quality work quickly and accurately, businesses gain an advantage

over competitors relying on manual processes. This is why we need workflow
automation.

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that

automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the
efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an
inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

- Bill Gates

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 Workflow automation isn't a magic solution that'll change your business altogether.
It's more of a catalyst to help you reduce your workload, invest time on things that
matter, and save on costs—but only when applied to an already optimized system.

Based on our experience, before automating workflows, there are a few steps to
follow:

Identify repetitive tasks

Define your requirements clearly

Sketch a workflow of the processes that you'd like to automate.

Choose workflow automation software that suits your needs

Train stakeholders on the software

Create workflows as simple or complex as you want

And then you're done!

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Benefits of workflow
automation
Having a workflow automation process in place can immensely benefit your
business.

Boosts productivity
By automating redundant processes, employees can save time on
menial tasks and focus on solving more complex problems.

Reduces manual errors

With automated processes, errors can be avoided, and even if they
occur, the system will notify you of where the error is, so you can fix
them quickly.

Increases transparency
By defining workflows for internal communication, every detail can be
shared, tracked, and accessed across departments by every
stakeholder in real time, providing complete visibility.

Enhances customer satisfaction

Setting up workflow rules to automatically route support tickets based
on priority helps resolve issues faster and provides a valuable
experience for customers.

There is plenty of workflow automation software in the industry that provides the
benefits we mentioned above, and much more. But how do you find the right
workflow automation software? While it depends on a lot of factors, like your
business needs, your technical skills, resources, pricing, and more, there are a few
things you shouldn't compromise on. We'll go into this in more detail in the next
section.

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What to look for in workflow
automation software
An ideal workflow automation solution should be easy to use, have excellent
analytics features, and suit your business needs. We've compiled a list of 6 essential
features you should look out for when making your choice:

Ease of use
The software you choose must be simple to use by people of all
technical levels. A tool with a drag-and-drop interface is ideally suited
for this.

Role-based controls
While creating approval workflows, having access controls based on
organizational hierarchy will help you better secure data.

Dashboards & reports

You should be able to visualize key performance indicators, and analyze
business data with interactive charts, gauges, tables, and more, within a
few clicks.

Seamless Integrations
Choose systems that have prebuilt integrations with ERPs, payment
gateways, third-party vendors, and authentication services.

Mobile support
For in-the-field jobs, mobile support is crucial. Look for a system that
supports easy mobile access.

Additional capabilities
In case you'd like to incorporate more functionalities, the platform
should provide options like APIs and custom functions, to make your
process as customizable as possible.

You won't find these features or flexibility in any packaged solutions, which is where
low-code comes into the picture.

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6
8
Low-code for workflow
automation
Low-code is a way of designing and developing applications that allows users with
little to no programming knowledge to build apps with prebuilt code snippets or
blocks and a drag-and-drop visual interface. A low-code approach to development
means the technical resources required to build an application are minimal. The
speed at which you can develop on low-code means you can plan your digital
transformation journey in a more agile and cost-effective manner.

Why low-code? Low-code's intuitive development platform enables businesses to

adapt to market changes quickly, which in turn gives them an advantage over their
competitors. Faster time to market, legacy system modernization, zero deployment,
and high security are just a few of the other reasons why an increasing number of
businesses are choosing low-code platforms for their business or digital
transformation projects.

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6
9
 Going strong for over 15 years, Zoho Creator is a low-code platform that allows users
to build complex workflows with its simple drag-and-drop interface. Its rich suite of
features, like prebuilt integrations, multiplatform support, access controls, and
guided scripting, makes it easier to design and automate workflows for every
process. Using Zoho Creator's workflow automation tools, you can get more done in
less time and build scalable workflow solutions.

Moreover, Zoho Creator's latest feature, Blueprint, helps you map out your
processes—specifying each step, deciding who's in charge of what, setting
conditions, and automating actions which will help you manage all your workflows
seamlessly.

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 Zoho Creator is equipped with workflows for every need:

Forms
Forms are the basic structure for creating any application on our visual
workflow builder. They let you import data, add fields, set triggers, and
perform actions. In short, they help you make sense of your data; all
visually.

Schedules
As the name suggests, this allows you to create workflows for tasks that
are built around different schedules, without any user input. You can set
up a schedule to send anniversary wishes to employees, welcome
emails to prospects, SMS notifications updating shipment details to
customers, and much more.

Approvals
This is a dedicated workflow builder for all approval requests, ranging
from assignment submission to visa documentation. You can add single
or multilevel approvals based on filters, and even add actions to be
performed upon approval or rejection.

Payments
All payment-related workflows, like selling subscriptions, collecting
registration fees, sending purchase orders, and more, can be created
using this option. All you have to do is configure a payment gateway, and
then create the payment workflow. And that's it—you're good to go with
all your financial transactions

Custom functions
For more complex workflows, you can use the functions feature, which
lets you create functions and invoke them using Java or Deluge (our
in-house scripting language) statements. This feature provides more
customizability options for professional developers and businesses that
require complex applications.

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 Moreover, to give you a high-level overview of all your workflows, you can access the
workflow dashboard. Here, your workflows are displayed based by date created,
and you can create, edit, enable, disable, and delete workflows directly from the
dashboard page.

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 Customer stories
Automating your core processes using Zoho Creator's workflow automation
platform can have a real impact on your business. Take a look at some of our top
customers' low-code stories.

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 Aboitiz Equity Venture is one of the largest conglomerates in Asia. It was started in
the late 1800s as a hemp trading business, and today its investments are
predominantly in banking and financial services. As the Aboitiz Group diversified
into many businesses, their commitment to sharing grew accordingly. However,
they didn’t have a proper system in place to track all their CSR activities.

With an increasing number of projects, Aboitiz management decided to find a more

efficient and effective way of managing them. To serve its diverse beneficiary base,
Aboitiz started looking for a low-code digital platform that would uniquely suit the
sectors they operate in—consumer goods, utilities, financials, and industrials. After
extensive research, they decided to implement Zoho Creator as the key platform to
realize their digital ambitions.

Zoho Creator enabled Aboitiz to roll out a full-fledged web and mobile CSR
application in just two months, which is used by all their business heads, finance
executives, and program leads. This end-to-end solution has more than 1,000
dynamic workflows that take care of the entire project management process,
without needing any manual supervision.

The employees at Aboitiz started by using a template to track their projects, with the
intent of modifying it to meet their requirements. As there were so many tasks that
could be performed without creating any code at all, they started using Zoho
Creator for automating each of their team’s processes. This was the turning point, as
these employees realized the possibilities of Zoho Creator, and built apps
themselves for all their internal processing needs.

We can now develop an application with complex workflows in

less than 2 weeks, and there's no need for us to set up databases.
Also, sharing of applications can be done in just a few clicks.

- Niry Chien Marañon

Software Engineer, Aboitiz Equity Ventures

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 Proovia is an independent family-run business based out of the UK. They offer their
customers services like distribution of goods, express and economy shipping,
transport, warehousing, and storage.

Before Zoho Creator, Proovia relied solely on spreadsheets. They spent a significant
amount of time and resources on managing their day-to-day tasks, instead of
focusing on improving their customer experience. As their business grew, it became
difficult to manage manually.

Proovia was introduced to Zoho Creator by our partner, APPZ Limited, in 2018. They
made the first prototype of Proovia's app in less than a week, and have been working
with Dragos, the founder, on adding features ever since.

The app started with two main features—notifications and route optimization, but
over the past 2 years they’ve added over 60 forms and hundreds of workflows to the
app.

As of today, they're able to create custom dashboards for different needs, which
resulted in easier access to critical information. In the application, they’ve
configured workflows to log their drivers' expenses during deliveries, auto-assign
delivery vans and routes, apply leave, and more. This has made it much easier for
managers to supervise their drivers.

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 A few more customer stories:

The Creator platform allows us to implement new features really

quickly, and at a relatively low cost. The team has a never-ending
list of ideas, and the ease of implementation means that we can
try them all out. If they work, we keep them, if they don't, we
throw them away and move on to the next thing.

- Keith
Appz Limited

Our life and the way we worked changed 100 percent. Now,
we work much faster, we save money, and we have improved
our workflows.

- Francisco Moreno
Group Travel

Zoho Creator has provided us the opportunity to create

bespoke workflow processes that would otherwise not be
possible with off-the-shelf software.

- Clinton Fisher
Manager, Floral Impressions

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 Conclusion
At Zoho Creator, we’ve always worked towards a single purpose—empowering users
to build functional apps with minimal coding expertise. We've helped 13,000+
brands create bespoke workflows and improve their end-to-end operations across a
variety of industries. With over 15 years of experience in catering to B2B
organizations, we have the best tools in the trade to help you improve your business.
You can get started with Creator by visiting the signup page. You can also check out
our prebuilt workflow templates to get started right away.

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 About us
Running a business is no mean feat, and we believe we can help. Rapidly build
custom applications that are a perfect fit for your business, or choose from our
extensive range of prebuilt apps and modify them. The best part? You don't have
to be a programmer. Just signup, pick a plan, and start building!

Great brands trust us:

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 Creator
www.zoho.com/creator

We’d love to talk! Reach out to us:

[email protected]

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