Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Document and automate your operations playbooks and business processes

workflow86.com

41–45 of 45 posts

Re: Show HN: Document and automate your operations playbooks and business processes

#41

I couldn't tell from an initial review of the feature set, but does this product incorporate any sort of digital signature / approval process? And I don't mean integration with DocuSign or similar, but something built in (and legally compliant). This feature alone has been a pain point for me for years when it comes to document flow and approvals, usually because of exorbitant pricing for per-user signing. Contract d…

All of these requirements does make sense, in the context of contract management. Do check Zoho Contracts - https://www.zoho.com/contracts/

It has all of your stated problems solved and comes with a fair cost.

Re: Show HN: Document and automate your operations playbooks and business processes

#42
I'm a software engineer who has a hospital COO for a parent, my mom! Earlier in the pandemic she asked me about building an app to help with managing vaccination of hospital staff, something that spreadsheets and other ad hoc tools were being used for, that was pretty clumsy. I said that it'd be best to find existing products, creating something like that would definitely be beyond a one-man project (for me at least) but something so specific might be hard to find and it might be best to make due. I mentioned your product to her as something to keep an eye on as it might fit similar uses cases.

After reading your top comment, it got me thinking about the world of SaaS and no-code products like yours working together. It seems products like Zapier are used to automate and share data between apps, but that type of integration seems to require connections between each pair of products. Smaller products might get left out. Could there be demand for a product that maintains data in a middle ground between a set of products, allowing for a hub and spoke model of managing data? This would move the source of truth to a middle ground that could be easily shared, if the right no-code management layer existed on top of it. Maybe something like this already exists?

Good luck, your product looks great! I look forward to seeing how the world is changed by the democratization of creating apps.

Re: Show HN: Document and automate your operations playbooks and business processes

#43
post #38
post #37

Looks interesting...how does this compare to something like Zapier?

Pretty different to Zapier. I'd say Zapier is very focused on piping data between different apps and tools, and is fantastic for establishing those connections. Our focus is on consolidating and running as much of the core operations and logic in a playbook or process in one platform. This means you can build, run and manage more of your operations from one centralized "command center" rather than having to glue mult…

I have had a peruse of the product website, but I'm still kind of confused having never used a product in this niche before. When I hear "operations", as a developer/administrator I think of things like DB migrations, data archiving, crisis management, routine deploy related tasks, system and software upgrades, metrics/monitoring and associated tooling, etc.

At first blush, I can't work out how a website would be particularly helpful in orchestrating those type of actions.

Can you give some examples of "operations" that fall right in your wheelhouse?

Re: Show HN: Document and automate your operations playbooks and business processes

#44

I'm a software engineer who has a hospital COO for a parent, my mom! Earlier in the pandemic she asked me about building an app to help with managing vaccination of hospital staff, something that spreadsheets and other ad hoc tools were being used for, that was pretty clumsy. I said that it'd be best to find existing products, creating something like that would definitely be beyond a one-man project (for me at least)…

Thank you! Really interesting point re the "data middle ground". I guess the problem has always been with the "spokes" to connect that data middle ground/"hub" to other apps. This has either required pre-built integrations (e.g. apps on Zapier) or interacting with APIs (not easy for non-technical people).

The lack of a "source of truth" is definitely one issue we identified with many processes. If your process is 8+ different SaaS tools duct taped together, maintaining consistency in data as it travels from app to app is always going to be challenging.

Re: Show HN: Document and automate your operations playbooks and business processes

#45
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty different to Zapier. I'd say Zapier is very focused on piping data between different apps and tools, and is fantastic for establishing those connections. Our focus is on consolidating and running as much of the core operations and logic in a playbook or process in one platform. This means you can build, run and manage more of your operations from one centralized "command center" rather than having to glue mult…

I have had a peruse of the product website, but I'm still kind of confused having never used a product in this niche before. When I hear "operations", as a developer/administrator I think of things like DB migrations, data archiving, crisis management, routine deploy related tasks, system and software upgrades, metrics/monitoring and associated tooling, etc. At first blush, I can't work out how a website would be par…

Sure, by "operations" we essentially mean a collection of processes which governs the right way to do something. It could be, for example, the steps you want a developer to take when making a pull request, or how a reported bug or vulnerability should be handled.

For many teams, these processes are undocumented or loosely documented, so what needs to be done, in what order and when is difficult to understand, manage and scale.

Workflow86 allows you to document and map out these processes with modules that can automate parts of the process (e.g. calculations, logic, sending emails, making API requests) or request human input (e.g. approvals, review, decision making). Once you've build out a process, you essentially have a functional piece of software that when started, can run that process from start to finish for you.

One example that we use internally is this process for PR requests: https://app.workflow86.com/template/2b9ae31f-d29d-4198-a7b2-...

Here we've taken the "checklist" which we might have otherwise stored say in Confluence, and turned it into am interactive form instead. When the form is submitted, a further checklist is assigned for the dev to complete once merged into prod. Email notifications and slack messages are automated along the way to keep the team informed. There is some logic to see if it rates as potentially risky and warning notifications accordingly.

And here is another for handling data breach response: https://app.workflow86.com/template/26d48842-26cd-48bb-af51-...

Post reply on HN