Kissflow is a low-code platform for custom application development tailored to business operations. Kissflow empowers process owners and IT developers to automate and build processes and applications for internal business operations.
$1,500
per month 50 Users
Power Apps
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
PowerApps is a low code / rapid application development product from Microsoft that allows users to quickly build apps.
We've used Kissflow [School Cloud] in order to track parent requests for transportation in the SpEd department. It has been user friendly for parents to input a request and staff to review, double check school sites and locations, and set up specific routes to meet the needs of students and communicate the info back to parents.
PowerApps is well suited for "quick-wins" and fast prototypes of business solutions. It also is beneficial for situations where business partners and developers work together - it allows the business folks to provide a "quick-and-dirty" prototype which is then fleshed-out by developers that are trained experts on the platform. The interactive and easy to understand representation of the solution allows business partners to "see" the solution and add, remove, or correct aspects of it themselves. It provides a common view and understanding of the actual solution across business units and tech teams. PowerApps, being a low-code\no-code platform is not well suited for business processes that require many complex computations or large amounts of custom code - such as solutions that are better architected as Web Site or "full-blown" desktop solutions. There are solutions that are just not easy or quick to accomplish in a low-code\no-code platform. Enterprise Architects should know the difference, however business partners often try to create a solution and only when stuck because it becomes too complex do they engage a tech team for assistance - at which point there are sunk-costs involved and hinderences to re-platforming the solution
They know what they are. You aren't going to get a Workflow program that also wants to be a CRM. You will get the equivalent of an electronic assistant going from station to station, taking care of business and giving you the end result.
Paper. It reduces the amount of paper needed for menial tasks tremendously. You can automate an entire process. As an educational institution, you may still need paper copies, but you aren't waiting for John Doe to sign Line 3, then Jane Doe to initial, and so on and so on with a paper form.
Tracking. If you need to know where things are in the process, the fact that this program is dedicated to workflow makes it incredibly easy to identify where people are in the sales flow.
Customer appreciation. When your workflow is stronger, faster, and better, the customers feel it. They feel like you are right there with them and getting things moving.
Power Apps has formats that are pre-built that don't require any coding which makes it easier to achieve your vision. This does become a challenge if your App needs don't fit into that format.
We deal with a ton of data so the fact that you can connect to any data source in addition to their pre-stablished data connections makes the process a breeze.
The online learning resources and tutorials are helpful as well for those who are tech savvy.
Workflow Design: There isn't a copy/paste function when creating the workflow, and you can't move a workflow task between parallel branches. This becomes a pain point when an item has 98% of what you need, but you can't copy it and place it in another branch to make the last tweaks. Instead, it needs to be completely recreated
Interface: While I like the current design features, which make it easy for an end-user to find their tasks and items, it would be nice to also have some flexibility within the platform. Things like being able to groups apps under a category or tailoring the look and feel of the page a little more would be a welcome addition.
The system has room to grow as it's limited by not being able to edit POs after they've been approved. The system is great for registrations and syncing to other systems while including the attachments. The reporting from Kissflow is also easy to setup to link to other platforms such as Looker
PowerApps is a great solution and I have spent the last year familiarizing myself with the platform and building custom applications to complete a whole range of tasks such as asset management, custom invoice generation, and item restriction tracking. We as a company have barely begun to scratch the surface of what can be achieved with PowerApps.
I haven't encountered a need for support with KiSSFLOW. It's not a perfect platform, but it's functional, dependable, and reasonably intuitive. I can't fault a support team just because their product works!
The community forums are extremely responsive to questions asked, there is a good body of online documentation and many community posts to draw from. Although the platform has changed, which means some of the posts are out of date and the solutions provided aren't relevant. Of relevance, I read over 400 articles plus documentation to get this first app built in SharePoint, move it to SQL and make it work exactly the way it should.
KiSSFLOW is much easier to set up, less coding and easier to explain to those that are being trained. The company already had SharePoint, but it is a very difficult system to set up. A class had to be taken, along with getting books in order to understand the process of the workflow. With KiSSFLOW, it is simple to understand, the helpdesk is quick with their response, help topics are laid out simply and you can even talk with someone on that side to ask your questions. Overall, KiSSFLOW is a much easier workflow and system to use.
Much cheaper, much more customizable, and easier to use. There is not much of a learning curve and the licensing cost is much cheaper. PowerApps does one thing very well, whereas other platforms are mediocre. There is much more customization possible for your in-house workflows that you can build yourself vs using NetSuite engineers to build it for you.
The only real hard number savings that we have had with KiSSFLOW is the money we have saved in forms being printed, especially multi-part forms. So for a small college like us that it probably in the $5000 to $10000 per year range. We have certainly saved money in increased efficiencies of the processes that we have moved to KiSSFLOW. But that is harder to calculate.
It has given us a focal point for development. We now have the possibility of connecting to mobile and the default SharePoint online interface isn't always easy to manipulate. PowerApps has given us an opportunity to improve our user experience.
An improved user experience has given us a better shot at compliance. When users don't fight the environment, they don't gravitate towards workarounds or non-compliance.
As lists and libraries change, the platform scales pretty well.
Having users with the capability to create their own forms and tools has dialed back the app dev need (there is a balance though) and distributed power to the process architects and people who actually need the solutions in the first place—much more efficient model of service delivery: self-service.
