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What did it look like? The day you realized your teams need workflow management software. Was there a collaboration issue or a feedback session that lasted forever? Maybe time management caused trouble again?
I bet it actually wasn’t a single day but multiple days and multiple issues stacking up. You’ve likely seen how it impacts productivity when access control means chasing down approvals from a specific person that might be offline. Or when project planning involves info spread out over multiple, endless emails. Automated workflows help with all this.
In this article, I’ll give you an overview of workflow management software – how it improves your business processes through automation, keeps your team focused, and comes with various feature bundles that match your needs.
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Workflow management systems keep your processes neat and streamlined. Your teams get quick access to what they need, and they can spend more time doing the stuff they excel at instead of endless admin. Here are the main perks of a workflow management solution:
As your business grows, repetitive processes become more complex, and it takes more admin work to keep them organized. But consider how much more your team could be doing with repetitive tasks off their plate!
I know what it’s like to have basic tasks spread over endless discussions and sprawling email threads that become tasks in themselves. Good workflow management software reroutes your efforts towards what’s essential. Conversations stay efficient, proofing is a walk in the park.
Roles? Customizable. Documents? Easily managed and organized. Great workflow management tools have access control built-in, so you can grant access to specific people whenever you need to. Notifications are instant and easily adjusted, keeping all your team members in the loop with virtually no effort.
A workflow management tool improves collaboration and helps you avoid overstuffed inboxes. But above all else, it gives your teams more confidence and control.
Planable makes it easy to create custom workflows for your marketing content. Planning, proofing, and approval are all wrapped into a single, intuitive multitool. Less admin work, more ideas.
Content workflows in Planable
Teams collaborate better and have more efficient conversations as they automate workflows for all sorts of writing, with everything available in a visual content calendar that covers social media, newsletters, articles, briefs, ebooks, press releases, and beyond.
Content calendar in Planable
Key features:
Workspace sharing permissions in Planable
Multiple levels of approval in Planable
Getting approval from clients and stakeholders only takes a couple of clicks. You can invite them each to their separate ecosystem in a designated workspace, while also keeping endless edits in check with the lock after approval feature.
Feedback upon a blog article with suggestions & annotations in Planable
Apart from its capabilities as a workflow that support smooth team collaboration, Planable also gives you the best feedback features out there. So you content is always in tip-top shape when you’re done. Use real-time comments, clear text suggestions that can be accepted with one-click, and annotations to debate over longer blocks of text.
What’s more, teams that handle social media can use Planable to create and schedule content across all important platforms: Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Google Business Profile.
Drawbacks: Planable doesn’t have any CMS integrations for website publishing, but you can manually mark a post as published, to keep things in order.
Pricing: Planable offers four pricing plans, with the free one supporting 50 posts and access to all the features. You can use it with no time limit. Paid tiers start at $11/user/month.
Asana is great for keeping different teams on the same page and managing extensive projects with lots of moving parts. It’s got plenty of templates, shared calendars, simple progress tracking, and over 100 app integrations.
Users appreciate these key features:
Drawbacks: Asana isn’t the best option when dealing with large files like videos and there’s no integration option for accounting or invoicing. It’s also difficult to migrate data outside the app and if you want to switch views, you’ll need a paid plan.
Pricing: Asana five plans and their small team plan is free. However, it comes with limits on file sizes and users, while tasks, projects, and messages are unlimited. The Starter plan (€10.99) adds different views, a workflow builder, and 250 automations, while the Advanced version (€24.99) increases the number of automations and includes proofing plus approvals.
Monday is a work management tool that helps growing businesses scale efficiently. Teams can build powerful customizable workflows with simple blocks that can be dragged and dropped. Assigning tasks is effortless, as is monitoring them.
Monday’s key features include:
Drawbacks: Limited reporting and security, especially on the free plan. Same goes for third-party integrations.
Pricing: Monday offers five plans. There’s a free one, but it only works for two users so you might want to upgrade if you need to add more team members or features like calendar views, automations, and shareable boards. Their next plans are $24 and $30/mo.
Trello helps teams collaborate by organizing projects visually, into boards, and it’s used by businesses of all sizes. Its system of customizable boards, cards, and lists is great for project managers who are Kanban appreciators and great for integrating with third-party apps.
Trello’s best-liked features include:
Drawbacks: Compared to other similar tools, Trello isn’t super-versatile and you might need a paid plan to cover needs that come with a more complicated business process.
Pricing: Trello has four plans, with the free one including most of its essential features. Storage is unlimited but files need to stay under 10MB. Paid plans start at $5 and they might be a good bet if you’re looking for more control over views and permissions. They also bring increased file size, data exporting, and organization-wide permissions.
Adobe’s Workfront is a workflow management tool fit for larger companies that need things lined up between different departments. It helps marketing pros and project managers create workflows that are simpler and more efficient. If you plan on using it on your phone, there’s no browser support so you’ll have to go with the app (good with iOS and Android devices).
Workfront helps managers deliver better, at scale, with these key features:
Drawbacks: Task management seems to be the biggest issue, mainly because of the cluttered UI and fairly steep learning curve. There also isn’t much room for customization when it comes to reporting.
Pricing: Workfront has three plans, none of which are free. The upside is that all three come with most of the available features, from work management to approval and reporting. There’s more of a difference when it comes to add-ons and storage. The downside? Plan prices aren’t available upfront. You’ll have to add your details and request a quote to get exact numbers.
With Zapier, you can automate repetitive tasks even if you use multi-step workflows. Inside the app, they’re called zaps and you customize them with a simple drag and drop. No coding.
A wide range of professionals work with Zapier: from marketers, IT managers, and customer service folks to recruiters, salespeople, and small business owners who want to scale quickly. There’s no mobile app yet, but there are various workarounds. The web and desktop apps work with most browsers and operating systems.
Here’s what users value the most:
Drawbacks: Integrations can be tricky – new apps are being added constantly, but some of the bigger ones still cause issues. Users also say that tech support is unreliable.
Pricing: Zapier has five plans, including a free one that stays free forever. It includes a visual editor and custom test records for process automation, but no multi-step Zaps or shared workspaces. The middle plans range from $20/mo to $69/mo, with the Professional plan at $49/mo being the most geared towards collaborative workflow management.
Basecamp helps teams of all sizes handle project management, collaboration, and communication in a single place. It’s especially useful for medium-size teams since there’s no extra cost for adding new members. But purely as workflow automation software, it’s got limited options without external integrations.
Some of Basecamp’s most talked-about features include:
Drawbacks: Project tracking is very limited, so if reporting, insights, and analytics are what you’re after, you might need a different tool. No time tracking, either. And if your team needs to create custom workflows, you’re likely to find the customization options pretty sparse.
Pricing: While Basecamp doesn’t have a plan that stays free beyond 30 days, the offer is split into just two plans, fit for a small business or a medium to large business. The basic plan is $15 per user per month, with 500 GB of storage and free invites for guests. The Pro Unlimited plan is a fixed-price tool: $349/mo billed monthly for unlimited users, priority support, more storage, and more permission control.
If you and your team think in spreadsheets, Airtable could be your best bet. It helps teams manage sophisticated projects by combining project management, database features, and spreadsheet functionality into a single tool. Developers are often fans, not just because of data visualization features but because automation tools are in-built and versatile.
Key features that come with Airtable:
Drawbacks: Load speed and media embedding generally aren’t stellar. Plus, if you’re considering workflow management from the mobile version, Airtable might not be the best choice. Features are limited on the mobile app and the UI can feel a little clunky.
Pricing: Airtable has a free plan that covers the basics, like 100 workflow automation runs per month, and revision/run history going back 2 weeks. Upgrading to the Team plan ($24/mo) gives you more control over views, customization, and extensions, while the Business plan ($54/mo) brings detailed admin controls and unlimited workspaces.
Planable makes it super-easy to automate your custom collaboration and approval workflows. Teams stay on track thanks to email and app notifications, solid version control, and a powerful Universal Content feature bundle that brings all your content to a single calendar. Check out some reviews on Software Advice.
Workflow management means that you determine your workflows, get them in order, and keep tweaking for optimization. You also decide what can be automated and what can’t, or if there’s a mix at play. Most importantly, you shift workflows by priority. Errors and repetitions go down and team members stay connected to the big picture and to each other.
The best workflow management software for you personally is the one that prioritizes features in the same order that you do. These features help manage projects better:
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Irina is a freelance senior copywriter & content writer with an advertising agency background. If she’s not rummaging for good synonyms, she’s probably watching a sitcom or listening to radio dramas with plucky amateur detectives. She loves collage, doing crosswords on paper and shazamming the birds outside her window.
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