Nintex Workflow for Fast and Efficient Workflow Development
March 30, 2017
Nintex Workflow for Fast and Efficient Workflow Development
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Nintex Workflow for Sharepoint
Overall Satisfaction with Nintex Workflow
I have used Nintex Workflow at multiple companies. In most cases, it is used across the entire organization, but some departments use it more than others. There are many scenarios Nintex Workflow can be useful for since it adds behavior to SharePoint without the need to write code. However, approval processes are one of the most common uses.
Pros
- Nintex Workflow allows users to create workflows very quickly and easily compared to SharePoint Designer. The graphical editor also makes workflows much easier to maintain and troubleshoot.
- Complex processes that would normally take several steps in SharePoint Designer can be done simply in Nintex Workflow, allowing for more complex workflows and extended functionality. Simple workflows can even be created by users with little IT experience.
- SharePoint is complex and rapidly changing, so having the ability to easily and consistently create and edit workflows is invaluable. It also empowers business users to create their own workflows, which is very useful. When workflows are done by IT or someone outside of the company, it can be difficult to get the requirements exactly right and a lot of time is spent communicating them. With Nintex and a little training, business users don't need to outsource simple workflows.
- Nintex allows great tracking and auditing capabilities out of the box that makes monitoring and maintaining workflows much easier.
- There is a lot of great documentation on the Nintex Connect website to assist with workflow development and troubleshooting. Many business scenarios are also addressed in the forums as well.
- Nintex workflows are very portable and can be easily exported and imported to other sites.
Cons
- Most of what can be accomplished in Nintex Workflow can be accomplished using SharePoint Designer in some way, so some find it difficult to justify the expense. It is essentially a giant "easy" button for workflows.
- The Office 365 version of Nintex is missing several features that are available on premises.
- While Nintex does integrate with InfoPath, it isn't seamless. There are some timing issues and other workarounds needed in many cases, such as adding pauses to a workflow after certain steps due to some actions happening in batch by Microsoft and other actions happening in batch by Nintex.
- The main selling point for Nintex Workflow is the amount of time saved. This allows projects to be done sooner, thus meeting deadlines easier. It also means that employees spend less time creating workflows and have more time to allocate elsewhere.
- The learning curve for Nintex Workflow is easier than SharePoint Designer, so new employees and those transitioning to SharePoint will provide value sooner.
- The value provided by Nintex Workflow is seen immediately.
- Some users required to create workflows may simply be unable to invest the time needed to learn SharePoint Designer if SharePoint is not their primary responsibility (and this is the case for most). Thus, Nintex Workflow allows these users to do things they couldn't previously.
- SharePoint Designer and Microsoft Flow
Most of this review compares Nintex Workflow to SharePoint Designer, as that is what it replaces. However, as stated previously, you can use both. Nintex will usually be the tool of choice though, since it is much faster and easier for most tasks. There are only a few things SharePoint Designer is better for.
Microsoft Flow is the direction Microsoft is headed in regards to workflows. Eventually they will do away with SharePoint Designer. Flow is still in it's infancy though, and still has a long way to go before it can match what designer/Nintex workflows can accomplish. One advantage of Flow right now is that it can access many data sources easily, even sources such as Salesforce, Twitter, Facebook and many more. However, at the time of this review it still is very difficult to use for complex workflows. This is mainly due to 2 limitations: flows can't start other flows and steps cannot be moved around. This makes it very cumbersome to use Flow in complex processes.
Microsoft Flow is the direction Microsoft is headed in regards to workflows. Eventually they will do away with SharePoint Designer. Flow is still in it's infancy though, and still has a long way to go before it can match what designer/Nintex workflows can accomplish. One advantage of Flow right now is that it can access many data sources easily, even sources such as Salesforce, Twitter, Facebook and many more. However, at the time of this review it still is very difficult to use for complex workflows. This is mainly due to 2 limitations: flows can't start other flows and steps cannot be moved around. This makes it very cumbersome to use Flow in complex processes.
Nintex Feature Ratings
Using Nintex Workflow
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using | None |
- The Flexi-task option is extremely useful and my favorite feature of Nintex Workflow. It lets users configure processes very precisely. The ability to send reminders and escalate or delegate tasks is invaluable and this action makes it very easy to do.
- Looping is very useful in Nintex. For SharePoint 2010 users, this isn't even possible in SharePoint Designer. Even in SharePoint 2013, Nintex still makes it easier to see what is happening. In SharePoint 2013, conditions are more difficult to work with if you need to have multiple nested if statements. Nintex makes both easy to work with.
- The State Machine action is very useful for creating flexible workflows that can be stopped and re-started at any point in the workflow.
- The InfoPath integration is a bit clunky. Nintex can't read the InfoPath form, only SharePoint, so the form must promote the fields needed into SharePoint in order for Nintex Workflow to access them. Sometimes data types (especially names in Active Directory) are difficult to do this with.
- The approval processes requires users to navigate to another screen in SharePoint to approve a task. This can be a problem especially when users are approving a form, since they need to view the form separately then go back to their email and then to SharePoint to complete the approval. A workaround can be created in InfoPath using a web service to auto-complete the task from a button on the form, but it isn't very elegant or intuitive.
- There are some timing issues that require workarounds, such as adding pauses in between certain steps. This is due to some actions being handled in batch by Microsoft separately from actions handled in batch by Nintex.
Yes, but I don't use it
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