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5 Reasons to Organize Professional Development Approvals with a Google Form Workflow

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The hallmark of a healthy work environment is when a company invests in the professional development of its employees. This is an important aspect of the HR Manager’s role as they need to have a pool of talents that is responsive to the ever changing challenges companies face.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, organizing trainings and seminars has been particularly challenging due to physical distancing measures and reduced mobility of the public. Fortunately, training sessions are no longer confined in physical halls. The move towards online solutions also made it possible to hold conferences via cloud-based communication tools like Google Meet, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams.

The past six months saw events normally held in big stadiums move towards virtual gatherings. Jen, an HR Manager, saw enough opportunities for her remote employees to attend symposia and conferences to further develop their skills. Suddenly, IT companies offered certification programs that can be completed at home.

Jen needed a way to organize and track the professional development programs employees were enrolled in. This is why she was ecstatic when she stumbled upon Form Workflow Plus in the G Suite Marketplace. It’s an add-on and web app for automating approval workflows. Here are 5 ways Jen managed her HR tasks using a Google Form workflow:

A Google Form workflow linked to a Google Sheet are powerful organizational tools

Besides tracking the online courses and certification programs, Jen also needed an approval process so line managers also have visibility on the progress of their employees. She designed a Google Form to capture these details then channeled each entry into a Google Sheet. This provided better organization as the important information was gathered in a single place.

All Jen needed to do was share the Google Sheet to line managers for easy collaboration. As the team scaled up, though, Jen realized she needed a better solution to automate the workflow.

Use a third party workflow app to automate approval processes

Form Workflow Plus is designed to run with G Suite apps to bring the workflow automation process to a whole new level. It sports a modern UI and with 3 steps, a basic workflow can be up and running.

The beauty of using this add-on is that it can be run on a sheet collecting Google Form responses. Each form entry triggers the workflow automation. Talk about seamless integration!

Built in conditional approvals for routing requests

Form Workflow Plus is feature packed to make sure it can accommodate a variety of use cases. A professional development approval workflow, for example, would need requests routed to line managers or to a group of reviewers based on registration fees. This can be easily set up on the add-on with a few clicks!

A powerful web app for admins and workflow creators

Jen loved the web app included in Form Workflow Plus. This gave her a one-stop shop for managing workflows, users, as well as the billing aspect of their subscription! It uses Google’s authentication process so she’s confident that company information is securely protected.

Best of all, the web app gave her an easy way to track request status. It has a dashboard showing how many requests were approved or awaiting reviewer action.

Form Workflow Plus requires no coding skills with a robust support system

Form Workflow Plus is actively developed with updates pushed automatically and readily available. Designed for ease of setup, it requires no coding skills.

It has a well curated Help Center and for urgent questions, a team of responsive Customer Success Managers can be reached at support@wizy.io. Form Workflow Plus is available for a 14-day free trial here.

Marko Arcega5 Reasons to Organize Professional Development Approvals with a Google Form Workflow
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5 Ways You Can Automate Workflows with Google Apps

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Managing remote teams has become a global trend. With this, the office setup has seen creative ways to address approval processes, namely, the shift to cloud-based and digital solutions. However, dealing with a piling number of leave requests, purchase orders, or budget approvals remains an organizational challenge.

What many don’t realize is that there are online tools that can help ease this burden. A Gmail (or Google) account for example, is a powerful key to accessing apps for workflow management. Here are 5 ways you can free up time by efficiently managing workflows using Google apps.

Capture request details with Google Forms and organize them with Google Sheets

Workflows start with capturing the essential information of a request. Instead of filling up paper forms, the digital way uses clickable links and online resources. As admins or managers, Google Forms is an effective tool for designing forms for leave requests, purchase orders, invoicing, etc. You can easily share these via email, shareable link, or even embed them in your website.

You can track responses from the Google Forms interface or link it to a Google Sheet. The ability to use spreadsheet tools such as filtering data or applying array formulas makes for a powerful duo for organizing requests.

Setup your workflow with Google Forms, Google Sheets, and Gmail

So you have a Google Form collecting responses on a Google Sheet. What’s next? Google apps such as Sheets and Forms are built for online collaboration. You can find the ever present Share button at the top right corner of these apps pages.

The sheet where responses are collected can be shared with the relevant people. They can manually run through the collected responses and indicate approval using built in features such as comments or notes. The admin can then use Gmail to notify requesters about the approval status.

The above scenario introduces a degree of organization when managing digital requests. There are still potential problems though when teams scale up or the approval workflow requires multiple steps of reviewers. This is where an approval workflow comes in handy.

Use a workflow app to automate your approval processes

A workflow app automates the repetitive tasks of organizing requests, informing reviewers, and notifying requesters. An effective workflow app must be built around ease of setup, native integration with existing apps (i.e., G Suite or Gmail), and feature-packed to accommodate complex multi-step approval workflows.

Form Workflow Plus is one tool that meets the above criteria and even goes the extra mile by empowering users with a versatile web application. Designed by Wizy to work with G Suite and Gmail accounts, the add-on can be installed from the G Suite marketplace and run on Google Sheets. Its notable features include:

  • 3-step setup
  • Multi-step approval with the ability to assign multiple reviewers per step
  • Automated routing capability using conditions
  • Assign reviewer based on form entries
  • Customizable approval email
  • Creating a calendar event from request details
  • Requests tracking via web app or on the add-on sidebar

Our add-on has been installed by users across 30 countries spanning fields in finance, education, manufacturing, social works, etc. Form Workflow Plus has helped automate:

  • Leave requests
  • Budget approvals
  • Purchase orders
  • Contractor invoicing
  • Facilities rentals
  • Academic appeals
  • Patient care

Take advantage of Google’s Security and Privacy features

You can find third party apps to extend the functionality of apps such as Sheets, Forms, or Gmail on the G Suite marketplace. These are properly vetted by Google to meet its strict security and privacy requirements.

At Wizy, we’ve taken the necessary steps to make sure Form Workflow Plus meets Google’s standards. We’re trusted by reputable universities in the US, K-12 schools, logistics companies, and counselling centers to handle their validation processes.

Tap into a robust Support system to make sure your workflows work

Save precious time searching for solutions by reaching out to Google communities. Apps published on the G Suite marketplace usually include a support link if you need further assistance.

Form Workflow Plus has a well curated Help Center for how-to articles and video tutorials. You can access this resource here:

Also, reach out to our friendly Customer Success Managers via support@wizy.io or book a demo:

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Form Workflow Plus is Getting a New Look

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The Wizy Team is proud to announce that Form Workflow Plus is getting a redesigned User Interface! We’re in the final stages of rolling out an update to make the beloved workflow automation add-on sleeker and a whole lot easier to set up. Worry not for we haven’t removed any of the settings you’ve come to love. We simply reorganized them to streamline your setup experience.

We’re looking at launching these changes by week ending August 21st. Here are some of the features to look forward to:

We’ve added more Google Form sample templates

We’ve created sample templates for our most common use cases. Form Workflow Plus needs a Google Form linked to a Google Sheet to run. We made this the very first step in setting up your workflow. You can choose among the following templates:

  • Leave Request Form
  • Purchase Request Form
  • Budget Request Form
  • Room Booking Form

If you have an existing form, simply link it to the sheet.

Setup a basic workflow in 4 easy steps

Now more than ever, we’ve placed the user’s experience at the front and center of our UI redesign. Taking inspiration from user feedback, we’ve put the essential settings to create a basic workflow in a single tab. The setup flow would proceed as follows:

  1. Select form response sheet – Specify the sheet where the form responses are collected.
  2. Select requester’s email column – Don’t leave your requesters hanging! Here you can specify the column containing the requester email address. That way, they would receive email notifications at each step of the approval process.
  3. Set approval steps and reviewers – This is the heart of the basic setup where you specify the approval steps and conditional approvals. Add as many as you need depending on your use case.
  4. Save and activate workflow – Once you’re all set, clicking this button will save all changes done and activate your workflow. Each form submission will trigger the add-on and forward the details to your specified reviewers.

All Advanced Settings in a single tab

All the Advanced Settings that have made Form Workflow Plus a versatile tool are organized in a single tab. Once you’re set with the basic setup, you can further customize your workflow through the following settings:

  • Publish Google Form on the web app – Publishing the form allows users to easily find the organization’s forms in a single place in the web app.
  • Responses settings – You can activate On Hold, Final Approval, and Send Back To Requester
  • Approval Auto Reminder
  • Final Notification – Here you can specify a static list of people to be CC’d for the request’s final notification or specify a column containing the email address
  • Calendar Event Config – When activated, the final notification email will include an option to set a calendar event based on the request details.
  • Email Template – This allows the workflow creator to customize the approval email template
  • Email template language – We currently cater to English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, and Japanese languages.
  • Additional Remarks Config – You can add up to 4 remarks which would be visible to all reviewers

Deactivate the workflow to update settings

Activating the workflow would lock the workflow settings from any changes. If you need to update the basic or advanced setup, simply deactivate the workflow by toggling the activation button to the left then click on “Setup and Activate Workflow.”

Redesigned UI, the same 14-day Free Trial

If you haven’t started yet, Form Workflow Plus is a dynamic G Suite tool to automate your validation processes. Sign up for a 14-day free trial here.

You can also book a demo by clicking on this link!

Marko ArcegaForm Workflow Plus is Getting a New Look
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