Workflow Automation and Data Sharing Made Easy with Citizen Developers

Enterprise citizen developers live and work in interesting times. In the past, “end users” could not build important business applications on their own.

Team and departmental-level app development was the sole domain of the IT group.

Kintone enables corporate citizen developers to build enterprise-grade systems that directly impact business operations. Please refer to Citizen Developers: The Experts In How We Succeed for a quick primer on how easily this can be accomplished.

Corporate Manager Perspectives

Citizen developers often hear: “Our department cannot get the budget to build a new system. We have to live with what we have.”

This may be followed by management perspectives such as: “The IT group will not approve our request to build an app. The last time a department tried that, IT had to spend half-a-year untangling the mess that was made.”

Kintone brings positive news on both fronts. Please refer to Company Managers: Business Process Automation Made Easy to learn how corporate citizen developers can address both of these perspectives the move forward with their app development initiatives.

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Increasing Team Productivity: The Challenges

The list of issues that can reduce a team’s productivity is expansive. Key areas of impact include: 

• Individual files, data and spreadsheets need to be shared within process steps yet are available only within static repositories.

• Collaborative work processes exist as manual steps and function without the benefit of automated workflow efficiency. 

• Process steps can involve employees who work in other departments and are not directly linked to the core team.

Increasing Team Productivity: The Solution

Kintone's aPaaS (application Platform as a Service) provides citizen developers with the capability to personally develop and deploy IT department-approved applications that address each of these challenges.

• Each team member has a personal online workspace that is serviced through the Kintone cloud. Individual process participants engage in team workspaces through centrally-managed access privileges.

• Individual and team workspaces can be connected through specifically-define workflow steps, real-time file sharing and task-completion status monitoring.

• Corporate citizen developers implement their systems through the use of Kintone’s visually-driven interface. Elegant and comprehensive applications can be easily built without coding.

Throughout the system development process, end-user app access, data security and workflow management can be implemented in ways that are consistent with the IT department’s security policies. 

Increasing Team Efficiency: The Challenges

Workflow gaps and process-completion bottlenecks often exist within manual systems. Key areas of impact include: 

• Daily work activities are sequenced without a team member having knowledge of “what is most important to complete first." 

• Process step “handoffs” from one team member to another occur in unstructured or ad-hoc ways.

• No workflow analytics or real-time monitoring capabilities are in place to identify and correct process inefficiencies.

Increases In Team Efficiency: The Solution

Applications built by corporate citizen developers map out team member workflows at the step-by-step layer. From this start, both an individual’s workflow steps and the overall business process can be viewed holistically.

• Process micro-steps are automated inside each individual’s workspace. When task handoffs are necessary, process information and files are automatically transferred to the correct team members’ workspaces. 

• “Immediate action requested” and automated task to-do lists are displayed inside the individual’s These micro-steps can be sequenced to produce the most efficient personal work environment.

• Workflow dashboards are automatically updated and can be viewed in real time. Inefficiencies in team data sharing can be determined then addressed. Process bottlenecks can be bypassed. Workflow inefficiencies can be identified and resolved. 

 Learn more about Kintone's workflow management solution: