Workato is a business process automation platform that integrates all your company’s relevant software (ERP, CRM, HRIS, project management, ticketing…).
The Workato platform uses no-code and low-code designers , enabling, on paper, non-technical profiles to create their own automations. Nevertheless, even if you don’t need to know how to code to use it, Workato is still aimed at IT department staff.
Without directly talking about operational efficiency, profitability, resilience or productivity, this article will help you find out if Workato is right for your company OR NOT.
If you only had one thing to remember from this article on Workato
Workato is generally used by companies with more than 500 employees. If this is your situation, you’ve come to the right place to discover Workato. If you’re under 500, there are other alternatives, which we’ve listed in a comparative article.
Contact us if you think we have made a mistake in this article.
Introducing Workato
Workato is an American company founded in 2013 in San Francisco. Analyst Gartner classifies it in the IPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) box. However, you’ll find that Workato offers much broader functionality, such as task and workflow automation.
3 examples of use cases
Sales administration
By connecting all your sales and marketing tools. You can enrich your CRM, generate quotes from your quotation tools, send them automatically to the prospect, put them away, rename them in a drive, update the status in the CRM, follow up with the prospect – and all this effortlessly. The salesperson can concentrate on what’s most valuable: customer relations and building the offer.
Purchasing process
By integrating your inventory tracking, operations planning and accounting tools, you can create a dynamic purchasing approval circuit, triggered by a certain level of inventory or orders. In addition, Workato could handle supplier management and control throughout the process, as well as supplier invoice payment processing.
HR
Following a recruitment process that can also be managed with Workato. You can automate many of the tasks involved in onboarding a new employee, such as generating the contract, signing it, ordering a computer, creating accounts in the company’s various software applications, scheduling job training and any other relevant step.
Find out more in our article on process automation
Its 3 main functions
The Workato software consists of 3 major functions:
- Integration of enterprise applications and software via native connectors or APIs. You can connect software such as Salesforce, Slack, Google Sheets, Excel, Sage, Zendesk, SAP, Hubspot, Jira, Netsuite, Docusign…
- The automation of tasks in an organization’s internal processes.
Automation can be broken down into 2 parts:
- A single trigger. For example, receiving an email with the word “Request” in the subject line.
- A set of actions that follow on from each other in a linear fashion, with no turning back. However, conditions and filters are available to create different paths according to configurable criteria. For example, if the request contains the word logistics, then the request is sent to Marc, otherwise a transaction is created in the company’s ticketing tool.
- The creation and management of databases and applications or user interfaces to enable the simple digitization of certain activities.
Its functionalities are managed by no-code and low-code designers, enabling applications to be created easily and without code skills, to meet the needs of both IT and business departments.
What type of company is Workato designed for?
Like Microsoft Power Automate, Workato is a tool for companies with more than 500 employees and an in-house IT department, or with the means (budget and time) to call on Workato service providers.
Indeed, even if the designers are no-code and low-code (thus requiring little or no IT development skills). However, process automation does require a certain level of knowledge and skill. This constraint is notably linked to the complexity of IS architecture, system maintenance and the management of functional upgrades.
If you have fewer than 500 employees, we advise you to look at tools such as Lapala or Zapier. In fact, we’ve written an article comparing all automation software.
What are the advantages of Workato?
- Better control and simplified interconnections between all the software used in a company.
- Move away from convoluted software ergonomics to create a user experience focused on the essentials , by combining dedicated mini-applications, dashboards, forms, workflows, databases and automated tasks.
- Workato offers packaged models to make it easier to get to grips with the tool
- Carry out IT projects much more quickly, facilitating innovation in business departments. It’s a real alternative to specific developments to cover functional gaps between existing software, ERP, CRM, HRIS… Workato reports a 4-fold reduction in time to production.
- Intuitive designers (no-code and low-code).
- A secure platform (SOC 2 Type 2) with advanced governance features.
The main advantage and drawback: price and return on investment
On the Workato website, you won’t find the price. However, we can find information on the internet about the different prices. Workato’s first price is 10,000 dollars per year (about 800 dollars). But be aware that this is only the introductory price with limited functions. Other pricings are not public.
In some cases, however, price is a non-issue. In fact, Workato’s main advantage is its ROI aspect, i.e. its focus on return on investment. For example, if a Workato process enables you to save 1 day per month for the whole company. If one employee day costs a company of 500 people 100 dollars. Then Workato saves 50,000 dollars a month. To calculate the ROI, you then need to identify how much it cost to set up the process (IT department work, change management for the teams, etc.) and take into account the monthly cost of the tool.
Workato’s drawbacks
- At the same time, Workato is a tool that enables agility through shorter development times. However, depending on the way the IT department is organized, its availability and even its relationship with the business, this agility can disappear. Just last week, a Workato customer told me he had to wait 6 months before the IT department could study his automation needs.
- More of a risk than a disadvantage: while it’s true that production start-up times are much shorter, the IT department can quickly get bogged down in technical complexity, and spend more time maintaining than upgrading.
- It’s not really for companies with fewer than 500 employees. Both in terms of Workato management skills and price.
Examples of automation and digitalization
Workato covers a wide range of areas, from sales administration to logistics, purchasing, HR, customer service…
Sales administration
- Create, send, follow-up and sign quotations
- Ditto for invoices
- Ditto for contracts
- Automated sales reports
Accounting
- Payment management
- Payment reminders
- Monitoring cash receipts
- Importing invoices into accounting software
- Expense management
Marketing / Sales
- Automatic opportunity identification
- Qualifying requests in CRM
- Information gathering
- Making an appointment
Customer service
- Qualifying requests
- Handling certain customer requests
- Sending out questionnaires
- Reporting
- Monitoring quality indicators
Production management
- Alert and boost
- Collecting data
- Automated data entry
- Tidying up notes
- Planning
Purchasing
- Inventory tracking
- Alerting and notification
- Order entry
- Controlling the validation circuit
HR
- Notifications related to the recruitment process
- Leave request process management
- Onboarding management
Information systems
- Qualification of support requests
- Processing certain tickets
- Computer security alerts
Getting to grips with the tool
If you think Workato isn’t for you, let us introduce you to Lapala.
Lapapa, the human-centered automation platform
It’s easy to use, intuitive and no-code. Its configuration is not dependent on technical teams or the IT department.
Now you know all about Workato. Now it’s your turn! See you soon for more content!
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