Integrações
DataScope & ProcessPlan

I spend a lot of time writing documentation, processes, and step-by-step guides to begin and complete projects. Regardless of how simple a process is, it always has many moving parts—and inevitably, something might be missed.But the problem is, documenting something takes so long. Most of my clients want documentation saved in files they can edit later, because they—like you—believe that they’ll keep on top of these processes. But I know from experience that most organizations don’t. I think that’s because these processes are abstracted away in documents, instead of turned into actionable, living tasks and projects.Read MoreProcessPlan fixes all that.ProcessPlan lets you create repeatable processes for your businesses, turn each step into a task, and assign the processes to different people in your organization. It lets you save each of these processes as repeatable templates. And unlike your favourite task manager, these processes can be of varying complexity or length. They can trigger actions with third-party integrations, or actions can trigger the processes to begin. And best of all, if you ever need to update your processes, your changes will automatically apply of those existing processes in progress across your organization.So how does this work?To demo ProcessPlan, I pretended I was one of my clients. I set myself up as a print publisher, with a variety of different tasks. These processes included “post an event to the website,” “add a blog post to the website,” “book an event and schedule tickets for sale,” and “new employee hire.” ProcessPlan also has several sample processes that you may find immediately useful, like “New Client Process,” “Quote Process,” and “New Technology Evaluation.”Adding a process was easy. I could either import these processes from the existing library, or create a new one. Creating a process is similar to creating a mind map. (In fact, if you like mind mapping your tasks, you’ll immediately understand how to create branched processes in ProcessPlan.)Each process includes a series of tasks, and those tasks can have multiple potential actions assigned to them. You do this by creating multiple node branches, just like you would in a mind map. Each node’s branches are the potential paths down a process.Each task can also include a series of resources or sub-tasks, so you can add a checklist. This is really handy for processes where you might have laborious tasks along the way that each require further attention before they’re complete. For example, when I wrote out how to add content to a website, I did everything in one process.This was easy, in my case. I could ask if you want to create a page or a blog post. Depending what your answer is, I show you a different task. The next task could include a series of sub-tasks with the buttons you need to click in the interface to perform the required steps to upload content.Once that’s all done, I could have a final step to submit that blog post for approval. I can assign each of these tasks to the same user (which can be dynamic—as in, you can assign it to “the user who completed the previous task). The person I assign these tasks to will see them automatically populate their dashboard when they log in to ProcessPlan.This is where things get really interesting, though. At this point in my process, an editor needs to take over. The next task is to review the content and make sure it doesn’t require a rewrite. I can assign that task to the editor, automatically, and it will end up in the editor’s dashboard. The original author will be unaware of this changeover, and simply won’t have to complete any more tasks.At that point, if the piece is ready to go, the editor can click the button that says everything is approved and ready to go, then follow the process to schedule the content’s publication. However, if the piece needs another rewrite, the editor that can also click that option. My map then creates a rewrite task and assigns it to the original author, complete with the editor’s notes—all right in ProcessPlan itself.If the editor and the author needed to collaborate on these changes, they could even send each other comments about the specific task. And those comments will be there on the permanent record if there ever needs to be an audit of the process itself.I’m sure you can see how powerful this gets, and why you might want to use ProcessPlan for any of your internal processes.ProcessPlan has a few more trick up its sleeve.For one, although you can start a process from ProcessPlan itself, you can also trigger it with a variety of webhooks. If you want to start a new process every time a new customer is added to your CRM of choice, you can do that. If you want to be alerted when you’re running low on stock, you can integrate your process with your inventory system and have it ping any time there’s low stock detected. You could even start a process when an web form is completed.These automations don’t end there, though. You can also use automations when a task or process is started or completed. You can do everything from send a text message or an email to launching a Zapier hook, with a multitude of triggers for every step along the way.Finally, ProcessPlan lets managers get a birds-eye view of everything happening by running a series of reports to see what processes are in progress, which are running behind, and which are late. These processes are colour-coded and easy to see at a glance.ProcessPlan also includes apps for Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android. In my experience, tasks updated almost instantly and were reflected in my dashboard and in my processes right away with nearly-instant sync between applications.There’s one more thing that I love about ProcessPlan. Let’s say that your writer begins the process for submitting a blog post to that online magazine, and the editor has received the copy. But you forgot a step! You want to add it to all future instances of the process, so now the editor always remembers to brew a fresh cup of coffee before he begins the article review process.When you add “Brew a fresh cup of coffee” as a task, and hit the Save button, that task is immediately propagated to all existing processes in progress. So your editor will get that reminder for the two editing jobs that are currently in process, and they’ll never forget to get their precious dose of caffeine.ProcessPlan offers an invaluable service for businesses who are starting to feel bogged down by process, and might be the best way to keep track of those repeatable projects you’re always taking on at the office. Now, excuse me while I finish off this article and complete this task. My editor’s waiting to begin his part of this process.