Visualizing workflows is key to business process improvement. Process modeling provides a bird’s eye view of operations, enabling teams to optimize performance.
But not all tools are created equal. This article explores the top process modeling software to streamline workflows and unlock efficiencies across your organization.
I’m going to explain how the right visual process modeling tools can help you document current states, identify bottlenecks, facilitate collaboration, and drive continual improvement through data-driven insights.
Creately makes business process modeling incredibly fast, easy, and collaborative. Its versatile set of features help teams visualize, analyze, and optimize workflows.
Right away, you’ll notice how quick modeling is in Creately. The 1-click create and connect, along with separate shape libraries mean you can map processes 4x faster than traditional software. Finding even complex BPMN shapes is also simpler. The properties panel also lets you rapidly modify flows, change task types, and create loops.
One standout advantage of Creately is the real-time collaboration tools. These allow teams and clients to co-edit diagrams, see changes and provide feedback instantly. This fosters alignment, whether explaining processes or presenting models in meetings.
To fast-track creation, Creately offers templates for common methodologies like BPMN. From basic to advanced, these can be tailored to your needs in minutes. Now those new to process mapping can build professional diagrams quickly.
Beyond BPMN, Creately supports process modeling techniques like UML, flowcharts, data flow diagrams, role matrices, Gantt charts, and more. This flexibility means Creately can handle any process visualization need.
In summary, Creately excels as a versatile yet intuitive process modeling platform. The software simplifies workflow mapping for individuals and teams alike.
With a customer base including Netflix, Amazon, NASA, Disney, and PayPal, Creately has proven itself as a process mapping tool up to enterprise-grade demands.
Zoho Creator stands out as a powerful business process modeling and management platform thanks to its intuitive blueprint builder, low-code flexibility, and ability to create customizable and scalable solutions.
The blueprint builder makes it easy for anyone to map processes step-by-step, specifying details and assigning tasks. This ensures every part of a workflow is clearly defined, enhancing transparency across teams.
As a business process management tool, Zoho Creator enables building process-driven apps and automating repetitive work. This boosts productivity by streamlining operations, reducing errors, and managing data more efficiently.
A key advantage of Zoho Creator is its low-code environment. The user-friendly drag and drop interface allows anyone to automate workflows without coding expertise. This makes robust process automation accessible to users of all skill levels.
Zoho Creator is also highly customizable, letting you tailor workflows with the specific features your business needs. It seamlessly adapts as your processes evolve, making Zoho Creator a scalable long-term solution.
The platform enables integrating workflows across tools and systems for end-to-end process management. Real-time collaboration capabilities keep everyone aligned during modeling and execution.
Zoho offers a range of AI-based business solutions, including its AI software development platform that lets you build intelligent applications.
And the great thing is there is no need to write complex formulas or code algorithms because the AI features are already built in.
You can simply drag and drop the AI features to start automating processes, driving insights, predicting outcomes, and gauging customer interactions.
While it may not offer the depth of specialized tools like Creately, Zoho Creator excels at accessible, adaptable process automation. The low-code flexibility makes it easy for teams to optimize and streamline operations tailored to their unique needs.
Process Street is a modern SOP and BPM software used by big players in the industry. One of the coolest things about Process Street is how incredibly simple it makes creating and managing processes.
Whether it’s a routine daily task like tidying up the office or a complex multi-step process like an IT audit, Process Street has you covered.
The best part is you don’t have to build processes from scratch if you don’t want to. Process Street has a massive library of templates used by leading companies you can use as a starting point. Now you can work as efficiently as the big players just by customizing their proven processes for your needs.
From there, you can add all the specifics that make sense for your business. Set task details, deadlines, assign people, and if you want to get advanced, the sky’s the limit. Think conditional logic, multi-level approvals, integrations with thousands of apps – you name it.
Once your process is ready, Process Street automatically turns it into a checklist and routes tasks to the right people wherever they are. It lets everyone know their responsibilities and deadlines, bringing in the tools they already use every day. Like automatically sending a contract to a new hire via eSignature tools.
The process moves from person to person, keeping everyone in sync. It’s like having a workflow assistant guiding your team through cross-functional processes to make sure jobs get done right, on time, and with much less effort.
But one of the most innovative aspects of Process Street is Process AI, which is an AI workflow automation tool that takes workflow automation to the next level.
Process AI incorporates advanced natural language processing to truly understand your business needs and quickly generate customized workflows tailored specifically to you.
Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, Process AI asks clarifying questions and draws on your unique requirements to build workflows that are a perfect fit. The AI workflow generator is like having an automation expert on your team that learns your processes and preferences.
Once generated, these intelligent workflows incorporate features like due dates, assignments, approvals, conditional logic, data hand-offs, and more to mimic how people naturally work.
Variables enable information to flow between tasks without tedious data re-entry. Approvals bring in the right people at the right steps. Conditional logic skips unnecessary work when conditions change.
Process AI goes beyond basic task automation to handle more advanced work like analyzing documents, transforming data, gauging sentiment, and translating languages. By integrating sophisticated AI capabilities, Process Street is able to automate intricate processes from end to end with minimal ongoing management.
Monday.com is a versatile work operating system that makes visualizing and automating workflows incredibly simple. While not a dedicated process mapping tool, it complements mapping by turning those workflow steps into actionable tasks.
Process mapping is also easy in Monday.com. You can visually lay out all the steps in a process providing a clear picture of the current workflow. From there, you can map an ideal workflow for gap analysis between current and desired states. This streamlines identifying the most efficient path to optimize processes.
Monday.com also integrates nicely with Six Sigma process improvement. It supports the DMAIC methodology to define, measure, analyze, improve and control processes that aren’t meeting expectations. Applying DMAIC through Monday.com accelerates enhancing those workflows.
In general, Monday.com turns complexity into simplicity. It improves collaboration with centralized documentation that breaks down logical process flows using easy to follow symbols. This aids in decision making, problem solving, and contingency planning.
Monday.com also shines at facilitating team communication and coordination. You can build workflows, assign tasks, set notifications and alerts, and monitor for bottlenecks. Storing process maps ensures everyone can execute plans seamlessly.
With an emphasis on usability and automation, Monday.com is perfect for process improvement teams and project managers alike. It brings workflow diagrams to life by linking them with real work execution.
Lucidchart is a versatile visual solution designed to help organizations map and improve their processes. With support for major process modeling techniques, it’s a great fit for companies of all sizes and industries looking to optimize workflows.
One of Lucidchart’s strengths is its support for Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) diagrams. BPMN represents the gold standard for process mapping with its standardized shapes and syntax. Lucidchart makes adopting BPMN easy through dedicated shape libraries and quick-start templates that automate much of the setup.
In addition to BPMN, Lucidchart supports Universal Process Notation (UPN). UPN uses simplified building blocks focused on who, what, when, why, and how. This technique allows any team member to grasp the process flow quickly without learning complex notation.
Lucidchart also provides the flexibility to create custom process flowcharts. These diagrams don’t adhere to strict notation standards, enabling you to visualize processes freely.
Where Lucidchart really shines is enabling real-time collaboration during mapping. Team members can co-edit diagrams, watching edits appear in real-time. This facilitates alignment whether you’re explaining processes or reviewing models with stakeholders.
With its balance of process modeling power and usability, Lucidchart is an ideal solution for enterprises looking to understand and optimize their workflows. The platform scales to meet the needs of organizations of all sizes.
To automate your business models and create workflows, nothing is a better option than Nintex. The most attractive feature of this process modelling software is it does not require any coding or technical knowledge. Just drag and drop and your business workflow will be in front of you within minutes.
Not only just workflows, but you can also build apps as quickly as 15 minutes with end-to-end process intelligent automation. Although a free demo of this tool is also available businesses use the paid version to get better results and deep analytics.
Every company wants to build a strong connection between workers and clients. For this, Tallyfy is the best suitable option. Unlike other process modeling software, it is the simplest and most effective business model that can create workflows within minutes.
Without any complexity and coding, this platform allows business owners to capture and automate their flowchart diagrams in a short span of time.
Tallyfy offers simple and real automation with a visual dashboard for your company. Moreover, it is the only modeling software that runs the status of the latest version of every workflow in its automation tools.
Do you in need of modelling software that provides end-to-end workflows for your company with approval management and a secure ticketing system.
This platform is specially designed for business owners who have no experience in coding and have little technical knowledge. With the help of Kissflow, you can build your own team, collaborate with others and get reports on everything.
More to this, Kissflow is one of the most powerful platforms on the internet today that provides easy access to workflows and no-coding tools. You can also communicate with one another through the online chat system and build a strong business team together.
For those who are in search of exclusive process management resources, Pipefy is the only powerful platform.
With custom integrations and EPRs, you can build a seamless flow of processes for your company. You can even keep things in a single place and synchronize your team to integrate your business growth.
To run marketing campaigns and create ready-to-use workflows, Creatio is the best platform of all. Its diverse applications of templates and workflows give business owners complete freedom of sales.
You do not need any coding experience, no special skills, or pre-panned workflow to start with Creatio.
Do you know what is that one business model that almost every company uses? Yes, Quixy is the one. It’s a no-code app development platform that can business owners in manufacturing and monitoring business processes.
The most unique feature of this platform is it helps you in budding the fastest digital workspace in which an organization can manage, and optimize all workflows.
With the Microsoft 365 Visio platform, companies can work anywhere at any time. There is full freedom of remote work for all business owners and yes, they can collaborate with the help of the Visio web app.
The sole purpose of Visio is to ease the method of programming by providing easy-to-understand visuals to its users.
Flowlu is a sophisticated and full suite of organizational management solutions that handle initiatives, CRM, finance, collaboration, and data. Flowlu also offers an integrated project management system, including timekeeping, Agile-based tools, income and expenditure predictions, Kanban, and Gantt charts.
With Flowlu, we are always aware of how our business is performing. Additionally, we can identify any constraints in workflows and take the required actions.
Quickbase is an app development platform that integrates organizations and technical teams by allowing problem solvers of any specialized experience to design a network of apps reliably, efficiently, and economically.
Additionally, Quickbase offers a low-code functional agility platform that assists businesses in enhancing their operations via real-time analytics and automation across sophisticated processes and state-of-the-art platforms.
In terms of its limitations, reports are difficult to format. For example, if you want to transfer any reports to clients in an organization, you would need to incorporate third-party technologies.
Appian is a platform for low-code development geared for enterprises of all dimensions. It allows users to create numerous apps for BPM. The main features include case management, 3-step app development, and application incorporation.
Its low-code platform enables consumers to automate complicated operations and design device-independent custom applications.
However, we found that the UX design requires more refinement. The delivery approach should be simplified, particularly the consolidation of layout and designer. It’s also expensive for small and medium-sized businesses.
Smartsheet is the business platform for flexible work. Additionally, the premier cloud-based work management solution enables businesses and groups to plan continuously, perform, and report on tasks at a level, delivering more robust processes, creative solutions, and improved organizational outcomes.
Smartsheet is designed using spreadsheets. Smartsheet has nearly all of the capabilities of a spreadsheet. Every project or group of tasks you wish to organize in the application begins with a sheet. In addition, if users have prior experience with more traditional project management software, the initial installation may feel a bit odd.
For instance, rather than generating a range of activities within an activity list, we can establish an action on one of the sheet’s rows and then initiate more tasks, which can be indented to develop a uniform relationship.
Smartsheet is quite capable; however, it doesn’t perform some tasks out of the box. For example, time-keeping, accounting, and sophisticated resource management capabilities are not employed.
Also, the app doesn’t get updated in real-time as you and your teammates make adjustments to your projects.
Kintone is a personalized platform for the workplace that centralizes your team’s data, processes, and discussions for a more simplified work experience.
Kintone is a no-code organizational application solution that enables non-technical individuals to build robust applications. Furthermore, Kintone consumers can create applications that automate enterprise processes, facilitate collaboration on projects/activities, and rapidly report on sophisticated data via clicks rather than code.
In order to facilitate business users, Kintone delivers hundreds of pre-built apps for several use cases, including CRM, inventory control, and more, for corporate consumers who need to get started immediately. H
ProcessMaker is an open-source BPM and process management application that enables experts to framework authorization workflows via a drag-and-drop UI.
The products support enterprises in creating, automating, and implementing organizational processes of varying dimensions. The system includes a report builder for generating digital receipts, letters, approvals, bills, and partnerships.
Integrify is a low-code process automation system that assists organizations in developing automated operations, designing dynamic forms, building automated portals, monitoring progress through dashboards, and analysing task-based audit trails.
In addition, Integrify is intended for enterprises that must rapidly deploy and manage automated systems to replace humans process and optimize operational transparency in domains including IT, human resources, marketing, logistics, and finance. The main features of Integrify are as follows:
The system incorporates the open API and can interact with most enterprise programs, including ERP, CRM, and HRIS.
It enables consumers to quickly transfer data between platforms as part of any operation.
Additionally, cloud, personal cloud, and premise alternatives are available.
Furthermore, Integrify provides an extensive implementation service, process design consulting, and training.
On the other hand, there are a few constraints too, like inflexibility with regard to changing intake versions. Some of the administration interfaces are not user-friendly, making it easy to ignore basic settings while designing a process.
Using process modeling software can really boost productivity and communication at work. Creating visual models of workflows helps employees grasp the sequence of steps in tasks or projects at a glance.
It also enables managers to spot potential improvements. But not all process modeling tools are created equal. The key is finding one tailored to your business needs.
The ideal software should align with the methodologies your teams use, like BPMN or flowcharts. It should be intuitive enough for beginners to pick up quickly. But also pack robust features for power users.
Look for built-in collaboration capabilities too. This allows teams to work together on models in real-time. The ability to turn process maps into executable checklists is also invaluable.
Of course, the specifics depend on your goals. Do you want in-depth data analytics? AI-driven automation? Comprehensive integration capabilities?
Spend time assessing your must-haves. And don’t be afraid to try out a few options. The right process modeling software can do wonders for transparency, efficiency and productivity. But the key is finding the best fit.