Today, business process automation is not just considered by bigger organizations but by SMBs too. And why not? When you can have a process that can do your work while reducing your overheads in the long run, why wouldn’t you choose one? Business process automation (BPA) is a process that uses a software program or platform instead of human intervention to improve your cost and workflow efficiency. It can be implemented in various stages/processes of your organization like Marketing, Sales, Project Management, or any other process that needs automation. Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 offers many modules and distributions that can help you automate your business process easily. Let’s look at some of them in this article.
What can a Business Process Automation do for your Organization?
• Can streamline your processes. Put an end to that disorder. Manage and monitor your processes from a centralized business automation solution.
• Know exactly who has done what. When the entire process is streamlined and transparent you are enforcing accountability.
• Minimize errors. To err is human indeed. When you eliminate more work from humans, you can also expect a lot less to go wrong in a process.
• Reduce costs. Yes – the most important benefit of implementing a business process automation tool. When errors and human hours are reduced, your costs can drastically decrease.
How Drupal makes Business Automation easier?
Drupal powers millions of websites for organizations ranging from SMBs to very large enterprises. Every one of which already use or will eventually need a business process automation solution. Being an open-source content management system, Drupal allows for easy customized integrations to meet every organization’s requirements. Drupal has modules and distributions that can help organizations to integrate their websites with many popular and not-so-popular BPA solutions. The integration is so seamless that it feels like you’re working with a single solution. For companies that have very unique specifications, a custom integration can be built on Drupal because of its open-source framework. Let us look at some of the top Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 modules and distributions that can integrate with different business automation solutions available in the market.
Marketo MA
Marketo is one of the most popular digital marketing tools that can take care of your lead management, email marketing, consumer marketing and mobile marketing needs. Marketo users swear by its simplicity, ease of use and setting up and claim that it is a great tool for SMBs. The Drupal 8 Marketo MA module enables you to add marketing tracking capabilities to your Drupal website. Lead data can also be captured during user registration via webform integrations. You will require to have an active Marketo account and of course, an installation of Drupal 8 (or 9).
Salesforce Suite
Claiming to be the world’s number one Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution, Salesforce allows you to efficiently organize and manipulate your customer data using cloud computing. Right from sales and marketing to customer service, Salesforce enables organizations to put customers at the center of everything you do and satisfying them. With the Drupal Salesforce Suite module, you can synchronize Drupal entities like users, nodes, etc. with Salesforce CRM’s objects like contacts, organizations, etc. You can export Drupal data into your Salesforce CRM and import Salesforce data into your Drupal website effectively. Any updates can be performed in real time or asynchronously.
Maestro
Have a workflow and need a perfect solution to automate it? Drupal’s Maestro module lets you automate your workflow processes with a visual flowchart that you can drag, drop, and connect. Sure, it can be used in content workflow processes too to track and moderate content revisions. But it mainly shines in more complicated business processes and use cases. Maestro can be extended to add custom functions and logic to suit every business structure. It integrates well with other significant Drupal features like Webforms, content types, triggers, rules, and more.
RedHen CRM
A very humble and flexible CRM with functionality for handling your contacts, organizations and relationships between them, Redhen CRM was initially built for common non-profit needs. Redhen CRM is a Drupal based CRM and a completely open-source one which makes it easy to mold into your organization’s requirements. It also allows for some modern functionalities like engagement tracking, customizable donation forms, etc. It not just behaves like you have integrated your website with a business automation tool; you can actually integrate Redhen CRM with other CRMs for extended functionalities like Salesforce, Blackbaud, etc. This Drupal module is compatible with Drupal 8 but does not support Drupal 9 yet.
MailChimp
Did you know that about 1 billion emails are sent through MailChimp every day? MailChimp is an email marketing service through which you can send marketing and informational emails to your opted-in customers. You can create multiple email campaigns, use their email campaign designer, email templates, data analysis, generate reports, segment audiences and much more with MailChimp. With the Drupal MailChimp module, your users can choose to opt-into (or out of) any email list they want to and you can generate and send email campaigns right from your Drupal website. The Mailchimp Drupal module supports Drupal 7 and 8 but is not compatible with Drupal 9.
Drupal PM (Project Management) Module
This can be termed as a distribution rather than just a module as it consists of a suite of modules that help in generating the various components it serves. The Drupal Project Management module offers components like organizations, tasks, teams, projects, tickets, expenses, notes and time tracking. These components allow easy integration with other Drupal modules as well. It serves as a great work planning and organizing tool for organizations.
Hubspot
An inbound marketing tool, Hubspot is an easy to use automation software that lets you attract visitors to your website, track and convert leads to customers. It also allows for easy integration with other automation tools like CRMs, email marketing tools, analytics tools, etc. You can also use it as your email marketing, social media publishing and ad-tracking tool too. The Drupal 8 Hubspot integration module integrates with Webform and Hubspot API and submits Webforms to Hubspot’s lead management system or email marketing campaigns. This module supports Drupal 8 but not Drupal 9 as of now.
