How to enable workflow automation for teams without code

• What is workflow automation?
• The benefits of workflow automation
• Implementing workflow automation in 5 steps
• Best practices in workflow automation
• Find your no-code solution today

What can you do to make your organization more productive? You could find new staff, invest in better equipment, or introduce new training courses. Before you get too carried away, though, there might be a much simpler option. Lots of businesses’ productivity is slowed thanks to repetitive manual admin tasks.

Today, we’re going to talk about the trick to cutting out manual tasks: Workflow automation. Implemented correctly, and this will allow you to focus on more important, growth-related activities. Better still, you can even use workflow automation without any coding knowledge.  Wondering how? Let’s jump in!

What is workflow automation?

Workflow automation is crucial to IT operations

Innovative businesses worldwide are making the most of the latest tech solutions. This ranges from the lakehouse platform—supporting better data warehousing—to the latest SaaS conferencing tools. Workflow automation is another example of this innovation.

The technology automates repetitive admin tasks, bringing organizational change. Every department, from marketing to human resources, can see benefits.

What’s more, workflow automation technology is highly intuitive and simple. You don’t need to be a coding expert to carry out tasks. Most tools are equipped with drag-and-drop interfaces, allowing users to carry out automated tasks with ease.

This increased accessibility means that no barrier prevents employees from making the most of this technology. Staff can easily jump in and carry out any automation that they need.

According to research by Formstack:

• 51% of workers spend two hours or more on repetitive tasks
• 86% prefer digital forms over paper
• 74% feel their organization isn’t ready to quickly adapt and scale operations to take advantage of opportunities in the market
• 72% of employees think inefficient processes affect their work

Only 4% of organizations have reached the ideal of a fully automated and digitized workplace. Clearly, organizations struggle to implement workflow automation effectively. Importantly, they found that organizations with a fully automated and digitized workplace empower their employees with no-code tools.

The benefits of workflow automation

Workflow automation can bring many benefits. First and foremost, it helps lower the risk of human error. Repetitive manual tasks are not only time-consuming but also boring. It’s not uncommon for employees’ minds to wander to other things. This can result in costly mistakes. Automation tools never get bored. They’ll carry out pre-programmed tasks to the letter.

Aside from reduced errors, automation can also significantly improve collaboration. Employees often juggle many different methods to communicate and exchange data both internally and with partners and customers. This includes email, clean room technology, SMS, and conferencing tools. With so many different collaboration tools, It can be easy for staff to lose track of messages and files, causing communication disruption and damaging collaboration.

Luckily, automation tools can keep logs of conversions across different applications. This ensures fluid and effective communication between teammates.

These are just a few points that illustrate the benefits of a no-code platform. There are, however, many other advantages, ranging from increased data security to greater flexibility. The best thing is that you can start reaping these rewards as soon you jump into the software.

Implementing workflow automation in 5 steps

Hopefully, we can all agree that workflow automation brings many benefits. But how can you implement the technology effectively? Begin by following these simple steps.

1. Begin with setting objectives

Creating a solid plan will help you throughout the automation process.

To outline a goal, you need to think about various factors. These include:

• Know the problem: What issues do you want your automation to solve? e.g., improve the efficiency of your customer service, boost the effectiveness of your marketing, improve communication between remote employees, or something else?
• Create measurable goals: What key performance indicators (KPIs) can best help you measure your success in meeting your goal?
• The scale of automation: Which workflows need to be automated? Are you aiming for organization-wide automation or focusing on individual processes?
• Understand the budget: How much can you allocate towards achieving your goals?

There’s no rush — take your time with the planning phase. Once you’ve properly addressed each of these points, you’ll create a stronger base for your automation.

2. List all business processes

Get down to the nitty-gritty by detailing your work processes.

So, you’ve got a clear goal. Now, it’s time to be a little more granular. Look internally at all the processes you’ll need to automate to achieve your goals. Don’t get too carried away at this stage–automation is great, but some processes should still be handled manually.

To get a strong understanding of the task at hand, create a list of all business processes. Assess each process individually and determine whether it should be handled manually or automated.

For instance, whilst an automated chatbot might make sense for customer support, customers might not be keen. A better solution could be to improve communications by switching from a landline to a virtual PBX system.

To help with this stage, ask yourself some questions. Could automation increase productivity? Would an automated system provide you with the accuracy needed, or does a task need human oversight?

Let’s imagine a scenario. After an internal audit, you find that HR spends around five hours processing payroll during each payment period. This involves calculating payroll, dealing with taxes, and managing payments. What’s more, you find that occasional mistakes have required time-consuming corrections.

After careful consultation, you determine that an automated solution would significantly increase productivity. Equally important, automation cuts down the risk of human error and ensures accurate payments.

With careful internal assessments such as this, you can find the most effective ways to utilize workflow automation.

3. Identify measurable goals and KPIs

Each department may have different metrics to measure success by

You now know which business processes you need to automate to support your goals. Great — but the planning isn’t done yet. Now, you need a way of measuring your success. Is automation working, or do you need to tweak your approach?

To find these answers, you need measurable goals and relevant KPIs. Instead of a goal of ‘spending less time on admin’, you’d aim to ‘reduce time spent on admin tasks by 20%’.

To support your decision-making in choosing the right KPIs, consider the following points.

• How can you improve data modeling to help monitor your process effectively?
• What subgoals indicate incremental progress?
• What individual goals can you set for employees who interact with automation software?

4. Appoint an automation manager

An automation manager will oversee all automation in your organization. They’ll ensure that processes are being handled correctly and monitor progress towards automation goals.

An automation manager is an important role, and you should assess candidates carefully. They’ll be in charge of overseeing the implementation of your no-code platform.  Technical knowledge is an important factor to consider. While automation tools don’t require a tech expert, knowledge of software helps to ensure that they implement automation processes properly.

5. Choose the best workflow automation

With Baserow, you can easily automate processes across your entire organization.

Once you’ve carried out adequate planning, it’s time to begin the process of your implementation. But there’s still one consideration—you need to choose an automation tool! There are many solutions to choose from, so it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by choice.

Remember that not all automation tools can guarantee the same levels of quality. To find the right solution, you first carefully need to assess the options that are available to you. Firstly, does software require any coding knowledge to be used properly?

If so, this should be immediately discounted. All staff need to be able to use workflow automation. If a user needs to be an expert coder to use the software, it will probably be inaccessible to a large part of your workforce.

Other important considerations should include:

• Does a tool integrate with other essential team software, such as your cloud data management solution, your customer relationship management system, or your internal communications platform?
• Is a solution affordable while still maintaining quality?
• Does the software feature intuitive drag-and-drop menus?

If you can’t answer ‘yes’ to each of these points when assessing a solution, it’s probably a good idea to look elsewhere.

Best practices in workflow automation

So, you’ve implemented your workflow automation. Next, you want to ensure long-term success. With that in mind, here are a few best practices to help you utilize workflow automation.

• Anticipate failures: Things won’t always go to plan with your automation. Of course, you can’t anticipate all problems, but planning will help you address issues more effectively. Map out each step of your workflow. For each stage, list what might go wrong.
• Ensure help is on hand: As mentioned, the right workflow solution should be intuitive and easy to use. However, introducing any new system to the workplace will mean that employees need some time to adjust. You wouldn’t, for example, introduce a resilient distributed data system without first answering the question, “What is the RDD approach?” Make sure that your automation manager is on hand to answer any questions.
• Carry out regular workflow audits: Ensuring long-term success means keeping a close eye on your workflow over time. Are you meeting your goals regularly and on time? Are your teams functioning well and collaborating? Are any bottlenecks hindering your progress? Carrying out a regular audit (every six months or so) will help you answer these questions.

Find your no-code solution today

We really can’t overstate the benefits of automation. From better collaboration to greater flexibility, automation truly is the key to boosting productivity. As we’ve explored, you don’t need to be a coding expert to make use of this technology. You can jump in and see the benefits from day one.

Baserow’s solution brings all the advantages explored in this article and more. Why not sign up today and start making use of our comprehensive no-code solution?

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