FlowForma FAQs

Yes. FlowForma is built natively on Microsoft 365 and installs into your own tenant. SharePoint Online and Microsoft Entra ID are required, as they provide storage and identity. Other Microsoft services — such as Teams, Outlook, and Power BI — are optional; they enhance FlowForma but aren't needed to run it.

Yes. FlowForma uses SharePoint Online as its foundation. Workflow data and generated documents are stored in SharePoint document libraries, and process permissions build on SharePoint's permission model. Using SharePoint means your data never leaves your Microsoft 365 environment and is governed by the security and access controls you already have in place.

FlowForma works with organizations on Microsoft 365 plans that include SharePoint Online and Microsoft Entra ID.

Yes. FlowForma works with Microsoft Teams, so users can receive notifications, action approvals, and launch and complete workflows without leaving Teams. This lets process work happen inside the app your teams already use every day.

Yes. FlowForma integrates with Outlook for email notifications and email-based approvals, so approvers are alerted and can act on tasks directly from their inbox, and workflow documents can be attached to outgoing communications.

Yes. FlowForma uses Microsoft Entra ID for authentication and identity. Users sign in with their existing Microsoft 365 accounts through single sign-on, and FlowForma respects the users and security groups you already manage in Entra when assigning tasks and permissions.

FlowForma works within the Microsoft ecosystem and uses Microsoft's APIs, including Microsoft Graph, to work with Microsoft 365 data such as users, groups, and content where a process needs it.

Yes — they're complementary. Power Automate is well suited to simple, task-to-task automation between apps, while FlowForma handles complex, multi-step human processes that need forms, approvals, routing, and documents. Many customers use both, and FlowForma can work alongside Power Automate through its connector on the Microsoft Connector Framework, so an event in one can trigger the other.

They solve different problems. Power Apps is a low-code platform for building custom applications, which typically needs developer skills. FlowForma is a 100% no-code platform focused on forms, workflow, and document generation, designed so business users can build and manage complex processes themselves. Many organizations choose FlowForma when they want process automation without building and maintaining a custom app.

Microsoft Lists can be used alongside FlowForma — for example, as a source or destination for reference data. FlowForma's forms and workflow engine go well beyond a list, adding validation, conditional logic, approvals, routing, and document generation that Lists alone don't provide.

Yes. Documents that FlowForma generates or collects are stored in your SharePoint document libraries, where they benefit from SharePoint versioning, metadata, and permissions. You can point a workflow at your existing libraries and folders, so FlowForma fits your current SharePoint structure rather than replacing it.

It's worth distinguishing two things. “FlowForma Copilot” is FlowForma's own AI process builder that creates workflows from a plain-English description. “Microsoft Copilot” is Microsoft's AI assistant across Microsoft 365. They're complementary: FlowForma's AI is focused on building and running your automated processes, while Microsoft Copilot assists across the wider Microsoft 365 experience.

Yes. FlowForma can integrate with Microsoft Dynamics 365 through its no-code Web API connector, since Dynamics exposes a REST API. This lets a workflow pull records from or push data into Dynamics — for example, kicking off an onboarding process when a record is created — without custom code.

FlowForma includes its own no-code analytics feature, FlowForma Insights, for process and business dashboards. If you also use Power BI, it can connect to the underlying process data in your Azure database and SharePoint to build custom reports alongside Insights.

Approvals can be actioned in Microsoft Teams through notifications, so approvers can respond where they already work. For more complex processes — multi-stage routing, conditional logic, or moving a process backward and forward — FlowForma's own approval steps are used within the workflow.

Yes. FlowForma is a SharePoint application that installs directly into your own Microsoft 365 environment rather than a separate hosted cloud. It's built on SharePoint because that keeps all of your process data, documents, and files inside your own tenant, governed by the security, permissions, and compliance controls you already have — so there's no new data silo and no new security sign-off to get started. It's a key reason FlowForma is trusted in regulated industries like finance and healthcare.

FlowForma is built on SharePoint Online as part of Microsoft 365, which provides its storage, document libraries, and permission model.

FlowForma stores the documents it generates or collects in your SharePoint document libraries, where they keep SharePoint's versioning, metadata, and permissions. Workflow data is held in SharePoint too, and you can point a process at your existing libraries and folders so FlowForma fits your current structure rather than replacing it. Microsoft Lists can also be used alongside FlowForma as a source or destination for reference data.

Yes. Microsoft has retired SharePoint Designer and classic SharePoint workflows, leaving many organizations needing a modern, supported way to automate. FlowForma is a 100% no-code replacement that runs natively on SharePoint, so business users can rebuild and extend those processes — with forms, approvals, routing, and document generation — without SharePoint Designer or custom code. It's a common migration path alongside FlowForma's InfoPath and Nintex replacement work.

Because FlowForma installs into your own Microsoft 365 tenant, setup is handled by your administrators as part of your normal SharePoint governance.

FlowForma stores process data and documents in SharePoint using your existing libraries and structure, so it works within the environment you already govern rather than creating a separate sprawl.

Yes. FlowForma is built to meet enterprise security requirements by combining the security of Microsoft 365 with FlowForma's own application controls. Because it installs inside your own Microsoft 365 tenant rather than a hosted third-party cloud, authentication, authorization, and encryption are inherited from your existing Microsoft environment. FlowForma adds workflow- and step-level permissions, full audit logging, and secure development practices with regular product updates, and its Information Security Management System is ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified.

FlowForma is not a hosted solution — it installs directly into your own Microsoft 365 and SharePoint environment, so the data your processes create stays under your control. Workflow definitions, forms, generated documents, workflow history, and uploaded files are all stored in your own SharePoint. Reporting data for FlowForma Insights is held in your organization's own Azure database. AI prompts are processed as one-time requests through Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service and are not retained.

Yes. Because your data resides in your Microsoft 365 and SharePoint environment, it is protected by Microsoft's encryption at rest, and data in transit is encrypted over HTTPS/TLS. FlowForma relies on Microsoft's platform encryption rather than storing your data elsewhere.

No. FlowForma's AI features use Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service, and your prompts and data are not used to train any AI models. Each AI request is processed as a one-time transaction — the model does not store or learn from your information, and processing stays within Microsoft's compliance boundary. This is why FlowForma's AI can be used by organizations in highly regulated industries.

Yes. FlowForma uses your existing Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) identity, so users sign in with the same Microsoft 365 credentials they already use — there's no separate FlowForma login to manage. Any identity provider or federation you've configured in Entra ID applies automatically, and users and groups are provisioned through Entra.

Yes. FlowForma inherits multi-factor authentication directly from your Microsoft 365 sign-in. Because access is governed by Microsoft Entra ID, any MFA and Conditional Access policies your organization enforces in Microsoft 365 apply to FlowForma automatically, with nothing extra to configure.

FlowForma manages permissions through a combination of SharePoint permissions and its own Security Wizard. You can set access at the process level and at the individual step level — restricting a process to specific SharePoint groups, or preventing a named user from ever seeing a confidential step such as a manager's review. Administrator, form, and approver permissions are all controlled within the same framework.

Because FlowForma installs into each customer's own Microsoft 365 tenant, data isolation is built in by design. Your workflows, forms, and documents live entirely within your tenant's boundary; authentication is handled by your own Microsoft Entra ID; and storage sits in your own SharePoint and Azure. FlowForma does not pool customer data in a shared multi-tenant database.

Yes. A detailed audit trail is an out-of-the-box feature for every process, capturing who did what and when, right down to the second. It logs workflow history, step submissions, approvals, business rule executions, e-signature captures, delegations, and AI activity. Administrator actions are recorded within FlowForma, and sign-in and authentication events are captured by Microsoft 365.

FlowForma supports compliance in two ways. First, because your data stays in your own Microsoft 365 environment, you inherit your organization's existing compliance posture and the Microsoft capabilities behind frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO. Second, FlowForma's own Information Security Management System is ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified. Standardized workflows, approval hierarchies, and full audit trails then help you evidence compliance.

Because your process data lives in your own SharePoint and Microsoft 365 environment, backup and retention follow your organization's existing Microsoft 365 backup policies and any backup tooling you already use — so you retain full control.

FlowForma delivers product updates as a managed service, so new features and fixes are rolled out without you having to manage installs. Updates are designed to maintain backwards compatibility, so your existing processes keep running.

FlowForma follows secure development practices and ongoing vulnerability management as part of its ISO/IEC 27001-certified security program.

FlowForma Governance provides IT with a central hub to oversee all automation activities in a controlled manner. IT can create secure sandbox environments for business users to build and test processes without any risk to live systems. This framework empowers business experts while allowing IT to act as a final gatekeeper for production environments.

Yes, FlowForma fully supports a standard software development lifecycle with separate sandbox, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), and production environments. An HR Manager, for instance, can build a new process in a sandbox, request it to be moved to UAT for sign-off, and then have IT promote the final version into the live production environment. This ensures changes are properly tested before going live.

IT acts as the gatekeeper over production environments. A business user can build and test a process in their sandbox, but must request that it be promoted. This allows IT to review, test, and approve the process, minimizing operational risk while still achieving the benefits of a no-code platform.

A full, detailed audit trail is an out-of-the-box feature for every process, requiring no extra configuration. The audit trail captures every action, including who did what and when, right down to the second, which is critical for regulatory compliance and external audits. This is a key reason FlowForma is used in highly regulated industries.

The Security Wizard allows you to set granular permissions at both the process level and the individual step level. You can restrict access to a process to specific SharePoint groups or even deny a specific individual from ever seeing a confidential step, like a manager's review. This ensures that sensitive data, such as HR or financial information, is only seen by the right people.

Yes, the Governance Hub provides IT with a complete overview of all processes, app environments, and sandboxes across the entire organization. This central visibility allows IT to understand how the tool is being used and provide advice where needed. Dashboards in FlowForma Insights also provide a high-level view of process performance and volumes.

You can make changes to a copy of the process in a safe sandbox environment. Once you have tested the new version in UAT and are ready to deploy it, you can promote it to the live environment with the click of a button. This process replaces the old version seamlessly, ensuring there is no disruption to daily business operations.

AI Agent Rules are AI steps you place inside a FlowForma workflow to carry out an instruction. You give the agent a plain-English instruction, such as “read this invoice and extract the supplier name and total amount,” and it performs that action. Agents can read documents, extract structured data, validate content, and return the results to a form or another system.

AI agents are perfect for processes that rely on reading documents, as they can automatically read uploaded PDFs or Word documents, extract key information like premiums, coverage details, or contract clauses, and populate that data directly into your workflow forms. This eliminates hours of manual data entry and reduces the risk of human error. For example, AI can compile a quote comparison report by reading quotes from three different insurers automatically.

The AI Summarization Agent can be triggered at any stage in a workflow to provide a real-time, natural language summary of the process so far. This summary highlights key decisions made, identifies any blockers or unusual activity, and includes relevant comments or data. It's an excellent tool for improving auditing and giving stakeholders a quick, easy-to-digest update on a process's status.

Smart Assistants provide AI-powered help for both the people building processes and the people using them. For builders, the assistant offers guided setup and auto-suggestions to streamline configuration. For process users, it allows them to use natural language to start a workflow (e.g., “I want to make an insurance claim”) and provides AI-led assistance with form filling, requiring zero training to engage with complex processes.

No, your data remains secure and is not used for training. FlowForma uses Microsoft's OpenAI services, which means the AI does not store or learn from any information about your organization. Each AI request is a one-time transaction, ensuring your data privacy and confidentiality are maintained.

Yes, the AI within FlowForma Insights is designed to analyze your process data to automatically highlight delays, inefficiencies, and bottlenecks. It can analyze usage patterns and suggest process improvements, turning raw data into actionable intelligence. This allows you to make smarter, data-driven decisions to continuously optimize your operations.

Yes, you can configure an AI agent to make recommendations or decisions based on predefined criteria. For an insurance claim, you could instruct the agent: “You are an insurance claims evaluator. Return 'Approved' or 'Denied' based on the following eligibility criteria.” While a human will always be needed for final oversight, this can dramatically speed up the initial evaluation and filtering of requests.

FlowForma Copilot is an AI process builder inside FlowForma. You describe a process in plain English and Copilot generates a first-draft workflow in the FlowForma designer, which you then refine. It works without coding or technical skills.

You can interact with Copilot in several ways. You can simply type a description of your process (e.g., “Build me a three-step approval process for purchase requests”), upload an existing paper-based form or a process diagram, or even take a photo of a whiteboard session and feed it to Copilot. It will then interpret your input and build the corresponding process structure.

Yes, the process Copilot creates is just a starting point that you can easily refine. You can continue to use natural language to prompt changes, such as “add a fourth step for CEO approval” or “change the priority question to severity.” You can also switch to the traditional drag-and-drop designer to make more detailed adjustments to the questions and business logic.

Not necessarily. Copilot is designed to help even if you aren't a subject matter expert, as it draws on a wealth of industry best practices to guide you. If you need to build an offboarding process for HR but don't know all the steps, you can ask Copilot to build one for a third-level education institute, and it will give you a solid, standards-based template to start from.

Copilot can interpret a variety of inputs to understand your process. This includes paper-based forms, PDF documents, flowchart diagrams, swim lane diagrams, and even photos of a whiteboard where you've sketched out a process. This flexibility allows you to start from whatever existing process documentation you have.

Copilot is a tool that both business and tech teams can use together to quickly map out and visualize a process. A business user can describe what they need in plain English, see it built instantly, and give real-time feedback to a technical resource. This collaborative approach ensures everyone is on the same page and dramatically speeds up the requirements-gathering phase.

Copilot's main purpose is to fast-track the initial creation of the process structure and its high-level components. While it builds a very functional starting point, you will likely want to use the flow designer to fine-tune the details, such as configuring specific business rules, setting up integrations, or branding the forms. It gets you 80% of the way there in a matter of seconds.

The FlowForma Ambient Process Discovery Agent turns spoken conversations from meetings into draft workflows. It listens during a discussion, captures the steps and decisions described, and produces a structured process in the FlowForma designer for review.

You can have a normal conversation during a team meeting to map out a process, and the agent listens in the background without disrupting your flow. It captures all the steps, decisions, and details discussed during the conversation. Within minutes of the meeting ending, it provides a structured, ready-to-review process in the FlowForma designer.

The main benefit is a massive time saving for both business and IT teams. It allows you to skip lengthy, formal process mapping workshops and the tedious task of creating manual documentation. This accelerates the move from idea to automation significantly.

The agent is designed to capture every detail discussed, ensuring that no steps, ideas, or requirements are missed or forgotten. By capturing the process as it's being naturally discussed, it often results in a more complete and accurate representation of how the work is actually done.

The output is a ready-to-use workflow structure within the FlowForma platform. You can then open this workflow in the flow designer to make any final tweaks, add specific business logic, or configure integrations before making it live. It essentially automates the entire process documentation and initial build phase.

This tool is incredibly useful for business analysts, operations leaders, and IT teams who are responsible for documenting and automating processes. It helps anyone who has ever sat through long workshops trying to get stakeholders to agree on a process map. It makes the process of discovery and documentation collaborative and effortless.

No, it empowers them. The agent captures the expertise shared by process experts during a conversation, turning their knowledge directly into a functional workflow without the need for a separate documentation step. It makes the transfer of knowledge from the expert to the automation platform seamless and immediate.

FlowForma integrates natively with Microsoft 365, SharePoint, and Teams, and connects to ERP, CRM, HR, and other business systems. It can connect to any cloud or on-premise application that exposes a standard REST or SOAP API, using a no-code Web API connector.

No, you do not. FlowForma includes a no-code Web API system that was designed to allow business users and analysts to build integrations without writing any code. This empowers your team to connect systems and keep data flowing without creating a bottleneck for your IT developers.

It's a straightforward process where you first get an example of the data response (usually in JSON format) from the system you want to connect to. You then paste this example response into the no-code business rule in FlowForma and visually map the data fields (like 'name' or 'email') to the corresponding questions in your form. Once mapped, the rule is ready to use.

Yes, FlowForma can be configured to have a bidirectional exchange of information with a SQL database. You can use stored procedures to pull master data from your database to populate form questions or to push data collected in a workflow back into your database for reporting and analytics. This is a common method for integrating with legacy or on-premise systems.

Yes, this is possible through the FlowForma connector on the Microsoft Connector Framework. You can set up triggers in your other business systems, so that an event—like a new customer being added to your CRM—can automatically kick off a related FlowForma process, such as a client onboarding workflow. This creates seamless, end-to-end automation across your entire tech stack.

Integrations eliminate the need for employees to manually re-key information between different systems, which is a major source of errors and inefficiency. By pulling data directly from a single source of truth (like your ERP), you ensure the information in your workflow is always accurate and consistent. This also pre-fills forms for users, which reduces administrative work and saves significant time.

Yes, for ultimate flexibility, FlowForma provides an Extensibility Framework. This allows your developers to use JavaScript to create custom product extensions, such as new question types or highly specific business rules that interact with the FlowForma Web API. This option is there for unique scenarios that go beyond the capabilities of the no-code connectors.

FlowForma Forms are no-code digital forms used to collect data at each step of a process. Business users build and edit forms without code, and FlowForma connects them to workflows and document generation. Forms support validation, conditional logic, and pre-population from other systems.

The forms have built-in data validation rules that check information in real-time as the user is typing. You can make fields required to prevent incomplete submissions and use conditional logic to guide users to only the most relevant questions. This ensures that the data going into your process is accurate from the very start.

Yes, forms can automatically interact with your back-office systems, like a CRM or ERP, to pre-populate fields with existing data. For example, when an employee starts an expense claim, the form could automatically pull their name and department from your HR system. This saves time, reduces manual entry, and improves data consistency.

Yes, all forms are mobile-friendly and can be accessed anywhere, anytime through the FlowForma Mobile App for iOS and Android. The app also supports full offline capability, allowing users in the field without internet access to continue filling out forms and completing tasks. They can then submit their work once they regain connectivity.

FlowForma forms support a wide range of advanced fields beyond simple text boxes. This includes repeating tables for entering line items like expenses or cost estimates, wet signature fields for sign-offs, and location questions that capture GPS coordinates. You can even embed spreadsheet-like functionality directly into a form with calculated columns and running totals.

Yes, the FlowForma Engage feature allows you to securely share forms with external stakeholders like customers, suppliers, or students. You can embed a public link on your website for processes like customer onboarding or student applications. This allows external users to submit information without needing an internal company account.

AI is used to accelerate and simplify form interactions in several ways. AI can summarize form inputs, provide dynamic language translation, and enable voice-to-text data entry. Additionally, AI Agent Rules can read uploaded documents and automatically extract data to fill in form fields for the user, saving significant time and effort.

FlowForma Document Generation creates documents automatically from workflow data using a no-code Microsoft Word add-in. FlowForma populates a Word template with data collected in a form or workflow, then outputs the finished document, which can be converted to PDF. It is used for contracts, quotes, reports, and similar documents.

AI plays a crucial role by ensuring documents are automatically filled, summarized, and tailored using live data from workflows. It automates data extraction and validation to produce intelligent, customized digital documents with greater speed, accuracy, and compliance. Specific AI features that enhance document creation include Copilot, Discovery Agent, AI Summarization, and AI Agent Rules.

FlowForma Document Generation is used by various roles across an organization. HR professionals can automate onboarding documents and approvals, while finance and procurement teams can streamline invoice generation and contracts. For IT and compliance leaders, it helps manage workflow deployment, ensure documents meet regulatory and audit requirements, and maintain secure audit trails.

No, you do not need any coding knowledge or prior experience. FlowForma is a no-code solution, allowing you to create and manage documents without relying on IT support. You can configure professional templates using the no-code Microsoft Word add-in.

FlowForma provides robust security and helps streamline compliance by automatically tracking document versions, approvals, and audit trails. This ensures that all generated documents adhere to internal policies and regulatory standards. Documents can be distributed securely and easily converted to PDF format, which reduces manual errors.

Yes, the feature is designed to scale across departments by integrating with Microsoft 365 and other enterprise systems. This ensures security, consistency, and efficiency as you expand its use. The broader FlowForma platform is built to connect with thousands of applications, ensuring that data flows smoothly across your entire digital ecosystem.

FlowForma Insights is the analytics feature in FlowForma. Process owners build dashboards and reports on process data without code, and an AI assistant lets you query the data in natural language. Data is drawn from the organization's own Azure database and updates as process steps complete.

It is designed specifically for process owners who need visibility into their processes and business leaders who need real-time visibility into their overarching operations. The no-code, no-configuration interface empowers non-technical users to build their own dashboards in minutes. This puts the power of data analysis directly into the hands of the people who manage the processes.

The Insights feature includes an AI Data Assistant that lets you explore your dashboard data simply by asking questions in natural language. The AI also works in the background to automatically analyze your data, instantly highlighting process delays, inefficiencies, and usage patterns that you can act on to improve performance. This helps you make smarter, faster decisions.

Process Insights focus on the performance of your automated workflows, helping you track metrics like what's on time versus overdue, the most-used workflows, and end-to-end process timelines. Business Insights allow you to go further by using the data collected within your forms to create intelligent charts about your actual business operations. For example, you could analyze spending trends from expense claim forms.

You can create dynamic dashboards at the touch of a button, in just a matter of minutes. The no-code interface allows you to simply select the chart type you want, choose the data you want to analyze from your processes, and the chart will appear instantly. This makes it easy to explore your data and build tailored reports without any delay.

Yes, you can easily share your insights with others to drive collaboration and ensure everyone is aligned on performance. You also have the option to keep your dashboards private if you want to focus on your own unique analysis. This flexibility allows you to use the tool for both team-wide reporting and individual data exploration.

Yes, FlowForma Insights provides real-time visibility into your ongoing processes and business data. The dashboards are powered by your organization's own Azure DB, which is updated every time a step in a process is completed. This means your senior leadership team can make confident decisions based on the most current information available.

FlowForma helps organizations achieve and maintain regulatory compliance by automating and standardizing business processes without coding. Built on Microsoft 365, it ensures consistency, transparency, and accountability across workflows through features such as automated approval processes, detailed audit trails, and secure document management. Its integration with SharePoint enables controlled access, versioning, and retention of records, while real-time reporting and dashboards support ongoing compliance monitoring. Leveraging Microsoft's security infrastructure, FlowForma also helps protect sensitive data in line with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO standards, making it a valuable tool for industries such as healthcare, construction, finance, and the public sector.

FlowForma's Compliance module logs every significant action within a workflow—such as form starts, step submissions, business rule executions, e-signature captures, delegations, and pass-backs—recording who did what and when. This provides a transparent, granular view of the entire process. You can enable auditing at different levels—globally, on specific flows, or even on individual business rules—so that only relevant events are logged.

FlowForma has achieved ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification, which covers its Information Security Management System (ISMS) and services such as Process Automation built on Microsoft 365. This certification was accredited by Certification Europe in May 2023.

Organizations use FlowForma to automate a wide range of compliance-related workflows, including audit approvals, risk assessments, health and safety reporting, incident management, and regulatory submissions—helping ensure all procedures meet required standards.

FlowForma allows organizations to define strict approval hierarchies and routing rules, ensuring that critical compliance steps are reviewed and authorized only by designated personnel.

Absolutely. FlowForma preserves all process data, form submissions, and document versions, creating a secure and retrievable history to satisfy regulatory audits and inspections.

Because FlowForma is a no-code platform, organizations can quickly update workflows, forms, and approval processes to reflect new or updated regulations, minimizing risk and ensuring ongoing compliance.

FlowForma workflow automation routes work between people and systems without code. FlowForma handles approvals, notifications, delegation, escalation, and audit trails, and supports multi-step processes that move backward for revisions or forward for approvals.

FlowForma automates tasks such as approvals, routing documents to the right people, and sending notifications to keep work moving. If a task is overdue and at risk of breaching its service level agreement (SLA), the workflow can send automated reminders or escalate the task to a supervisor to ensure accountability. This removes the need for manual follow-ups and emails.

Yes, FlowForma is designed to manage cross-departmental tasks and eliminate bottlenecks between teams. You can create a core “master” process and then deploy slightly different versions to various faculties, allowing for tailored adjustments while maintaining a standardized university-wide workflow. This approach empowers individual departments while ensuring central governance.

FlowForma provides complete visibility through real-time dashboards that show where every process is, who is responsible for the next step, and if it is on schedule. These dashboards allow managers to see the volume of work at each stage of a process and identify bottlenecks before they cause major delays. This eliminates the “finger-pointing” that happens with manual, email-based processes.

No, you do not need any coding skills as FlowForma is a 100% no-code platform. The intuitive interface allows business users and process experts to build and maintain their own workflows using simple drag-and-drop actions. This enables the experts who understand the process most deeply to design their own solutions independently, while still involving IT when needed to ensure governance and compliance.

Yes, FlowForma excels at managing complex processes that are not strictly linear. A workflow can easily be sent backward to a previous step if a manager requests more information or a correction needs to be made. This flexibility is crucial for real-world approval cycles where revisions are common.

Yes, using the FlowForma Engage feature, a workflow can be initiated by an external stakeholder through a public link on your website. For example, a student could fill out an application form, which then automatically kicks off an internal review and approval workflow within the university. This feature is widely used by our higher education and insurance clients for student applications and customer claims submissions.

FlowForma is a no-code business process automation platform built for Microsoft 365. Organizations use FlowForma to build forms, automate approval workflows, generate documents, and integrate with SharePoint without writing code. It runs inside a customer's own Microsoft 365 tenant rather than as a separate hosted service.

FlowForma is designed for business users—the process experts in departments like HR, Finance, and Operations—to build their own automated solutions. It takes the burden off the IT department, allowing them to provide governance while business managers create and test processes in a controlled environment. This self-service model helps scale automation across the organization.

Organizations can automate processes in a matter of days or weeks, not months. As part of the onboarding service, FlowForma's team works with you to build out your first process, ensuring you see value quickly. Some customers have automated as many as 55 processes in a single year due to the speed of development.

Your data is always secure because FlowForma is not a hosted solution; it installs directly into your own Microsoft 365 and SharePoint environment. This means all data, documents, and files generated by your processes remain under your control and are protected by your existing security policies. This is a key reason why FlowForma is trusted by clients in highly regulated industries like finance and healthcare.

Yes, FlowForma is specifically designed to handle complex, multi-step processes that other tools struggle with. It easily manages workflows that involve external stakeholders, require moving backward and forward for approvals, and integrate with multiple other systems. Many customers choose FlowForma because of its ability to automate these challenging, real-world scenarios.

Absolutely. The licensing model is designed to let you start small and scale up as you see success. The Essentials package allows you to automate up to three processes, which is a great starting point for targeting a few high-value areas like HR offboarding or contract approvals. You can then move to a larger plan as adoption grows across other departments.

Customers often report a significant return on investment after digitalizing just three processes in FlowForma. The ROI comes from reduced administrative errors, faster process completion times, and freeing up staff from manual work to focus on more valuable tasks. For example, one college reduced administrative errors dramatically.

FlowForma can automate the entire submission-to-quote process, replacing fragmented emails with a single, standardized workflow. You can send a link to clients to gather information, and then automatically email quotation requests to multiple insurers at once. This standardizes the process and saves significant administrative time.

Yes, this is a key time-saving feature of FlowForma. AI agents can read quote documents sent back from different insurers, automatically extract key details like premiums and coverage, and compile them into a professional quote comparison report. This eliminates the need for your team to manually copy and paste information into a Word document.

FlowForma provides complete visibility through dashboards that track the real-time status of every claim. You can see who is responsible for the next action, how long it has been with them, and if it is on track to meet its SLA. The system can also send automatic reminders or escalate overdue tasks to a supervisor to ensure accountability.

Yes, you can embed a FlowForma link directly on your website for clients to submit claims or other information. This provides a standardized form that ensures you get all the required details upfront, preventing incomplete submissions. The data is then automatically sent into your internal workflow for processing.

Yes, FlowForma can integrate with any third-party system that offers a REST API connection, including platforms like Applied Systems. This allows your automated workflows to pull client information from or push updated data into your core management system. This reduces manual data re-entry and ensures consistency across your systems.

FlowForma is a SharePoint application that installs directly into your own Microsoft 365 environment, so it is not a hosted solution. All data generated by your processes, including client information and documents, belongs to you and is always stored within your existing, secure ecosystem.

Yes, once a claim is submitted and processed internally, FlowForma can automatically generate the required documents and email them to the correct insurer. The workflow can use AI to extract the insurer's name from the initial submission and then route the claim information to them automatically. This ensures claims are registered with insurers quickly and consistently.

FlowForma's Engage feature is perfect for this, as it lets you securely include external people, like students, in your workflows. You can place a public link on your university website for applications, which students can complete and submit without needing an internal account. This is widely used by our higher education clients for student registration, funding requests, and more.

Yes, FlowForma creates a structured workflow for processes like offboarding, with a full audit trail for legal compliance. Dashboards provide complete visibility, showing exactly who is responsible for each task and if it's completed, which eliminates “finger-pointing” and ensures accountability. This is critical for meeting any regulatory requirements.

This is a core strength of FlowForma, which is a 100% no-code platform designed for business users. Staff can build and manage their own workflows using a simple drag-and-drop interface or even by giving instructions in plain English with the AI Copilot. This reduces the burden on IT and allows departments to create solutions tailored to their specific needs.

FlowForma allows you to create a “master” process and then deploy variations of it to different faculties or departments. This allows each faculty to make minor adjustments to fit their specific needs while still following the core, standardized workflow. This approach gives departments autonomy while ensuring university-wide consistency and governance.

Yes, FlowForma is not a hosted solution; it installs directly into your own secure Microsoft 365 and SharePoint environment. All data, documents, and files generated by your processes remain under your control and are protected by your existing security policies. This means no new security sign-offs are required to get started.

Yes, FlowForma can integrate with any third-party system, like Banner or your ERP, as long as it offers a REST API connection. This allows your automated workflows to pull student data from or push financial information into your core systems. This eliminates the need for staff to manually re-key the same information across different applications.

Absolutely, finance processes are a common use case for FlowForma in universities. You can replace paper forms for things like expense claims or purchase requests with digital forms that automatically route for approval. This creates a transparent process where everyone can see the status of a request, reducing delays and manual follow-up.

Yes, FlowForma excels at connecting disparate systems to create seamless, end-to-end workflows. Using its no-code API manager, it can pull client data from your CRM and push transaction details to your core banking system, acting as the central engine for the process. This gives you a standardized approach without needing to replace the specialized systems you already use.

FlowForma is not a hosted solution; it installs directly into your own secure Microsoft 365 environment, so your data never leaves your control. This ensures all your existing security protocols and data residency policies are automatically applied without needing new infrastructure sign-offs. We host none of your data, which is why we are trusted by clients in heavily regulated industries.

FlowForma provides a full and detailed audit trail for every process automatically, right out of the box. Every single action is captured, showing who did what and when, right down to the second. This ensures you are always prepared for both internal and external auditors without needing to build any custom tracking.

Yes, FlowForma's document generation feature can automatically create final documents from a template, convert them to PDF format, and save them to a secure, read-only location. This can help meet compliance requirements, such as ensuring certain documents cannot be edited once they are finalized and approved. You control all permissions from within the workflow.

Yes, FlowForma's built-in AI agents can read PDF documents like invoices or client statements and automatically extract the specific information you need. You simply give the AI agent instructions in plain English, such as “extract the supplier name and invoice total,” and it populates the data into your form. This saves hours of manual data entry for your team.

FlowForma is an ideal tool for visually mapping and then automating complex client-facing workflows. You can design the entire process, from an advisor setting up a profile to connecting with a custodian via an API call to pull in account data. This helps your business and tech teams work together to define and build the ideal user experience.

No coding skills are needed, as FlowForma is a 100% no-code platform designed to empower business users and analysts. The intuitive, drag-and-drop interface and AI Copilot allow non-technical staff to build, test, and maintain their own processes. This frees up your developers to focus on other high-value projects.

FlowForma helps NHS organizations replace manual processes that use paper or spreadsheets with a single, standard digital system. It is especially useful for complicated workflows that involve people from different departments, like HR, finance, and procurement.

FlowForma is different from tools like RPA because it is designed for processes that need input and decisions from multiple people, not just for repetitive tasks. While your finance system may have its own forms, FlowForma is for processes that don't have a current system or need to connect many different departments together. It also offers a fixed price, which can be an advantage over tools like the Microsoft Power Platform that may have variable costs.

Several NHS organizations use FlowForma to manage their operational processes. Key examples include the Northwest London Procurement Services, which uses the tool across nine different trusts, and Blackpool Teaching Hospital, where it is used to run about 100 different operational processes. FlowForma also works with large hospitals in Ireland and the United States.

FlowForma is a “no-code” tool, which means people in departments like procurement or HR can be trained to build and manage their own workflows without needing technical skills. Your IT team's main involvement is at the start to approve hosting it within your existing SharePoint system. After that, individual departments can take control of automating their own processes.

Yes, FlowForma is well-suited for collaboration across multiple NHS trusts. The system was used to create a single, standardized procurement process for the nine trusts in the Northwest London group, even though each had its own way of working. It could also be used for tasks like “collaborative project management,” to help different trust teams get approvals and share information for joint projects.

FlowForma is an approved vendor on the official NHS framework, which streamlines the purchasing process. The company is also looking to join new frameworks endorsed by NHS England to make procurement even easier for trusts. Additionally, the system is designed to meet NHS security needs by storing all data within the trust's own SharePoint site.

FlowForma is built for complex, multi-step processes like building a task order response. You can design a workflow that automatically sends the proposal through different internal teams for technical, pricing, and procurement approvals. The process can easily move backwards for revisions or forwards for the next sign-off, ensuring everyone contributes before the final document is created.

Yes, the FlowForma Engage feature lets you securely share just a single step of a process with external partners like subcontractors. They receive a public link to upload their information or documents without needing an account or access to your main SharePoint site. This is ideal for getting inputs while maintaining security.

Absolutely. FlowForma's document generation tool uses Microsoft Word templates to automatically create your final plan. It takes all the information entered into the forms during the workflow, including cost tables and technical approaches, and populates the document for you. The final output can then be saved as a PDF for submission to the customer.

Yes, FlowForma can easily import data from CSV files to populate tables within a form, which is perfect for uploading cost tables without manual data entry. FlowForma can perform calculations on this data, such as creating running totals for different columns. These populated tables can then be included directly in your final generated documents.

FlowForma allows you to manage permissions for document libraries and individual files directly from the workflow. You can set a rule to make files read-only or revoke a user's permissions once a step is approved. This ensures that once subcontractor data is approved, it is visible but can no longer be changed.

Yes, you can easily manage modifications within FlowForma. The system can be set up to pull data from the previous version of a form when a modification is initiated, so you only need to update the relevant sections. This saves you from having to retype all the original information for each new revision.

No, you do not need to rebuild anything, as FlowForma is designed to integrate seamlessly with your existing SharePoint architecture. You can simply point the workflow to your current document libraries and folders to save or retrieve files. FlowForma sits on top of your SharePoint structure; it doesn't replace it.

FlowForma and Power Automate are both used within the Microsoft ecosystem but suit different jobs. Power Automate is Microsoft's tool for connecting apps and automating task-to-task flows and simple approvals. FlowForma is a no-code platform for complex, multi-step human processes that combine forms, approvals, routing, and document generation, and it stores data in the customer's own SharePoint. Many organizations use both, and FlowForma can trigger or be triggered by Power Automate through the Microsoft Connector Framework.

FlowForma and Nintex are both no-code process automation platforms used with Microsoft 365 and SharePoint. FlowForma installs into the customer's own Microsoft 365 tenant, so data stays in the customer's SharePoint, and it combines forms, workflow, document generation, and AI in one product aimed at business users. Organizations moving off Nintex commonly evaluate FlowForma as an alternative.

FlowForma and Kissflow are both no-code process and workflow platforms. The main difference is architecture: Kissflow is a standalone cloud SaaS product, while FlowForma is built for Microsoft 365 and installs into the customer's own tenant, keeping data in their SharePoint. Organizations already invested in Microsoft 365 often prefer FlowForma so data and permissions stay within their existing environment.

FlowForma and ProcessMaker are both business process automation platforms. ProcessMaker is a standalone BPM platform often used for developer-supported, workflow-heavy automation. FlowForma is a no-code platform built for Microsoft 365 that business users manage themselves, with data held in the customer's own SharePoint. The choice usually comes down to whether an organization wants a Microsoft 365-native, no-code tool or a separate BPM system.

FlowForma and Power Apps solve different problems. Power Apps is Microsoft's low-code platform for building custom applications, which typically needs developer involvement. FlowForma is a no-code platform focused on forms, workflow, and document generation that business users build and maintain themselves. Organizations choose FlowForma when they want process automation without building and maintaining a custom app.

FlowForma is widely used to replace Microsoft InfoPath, which Microsoft has retired. Where InfoPath created SharePoint forms, FlowForma provides no-code forms plus workflow, approvals, document generation, and AI in one platform, and it runs on modern SharePoint Online. It is a common migration path for organizations still relying on InfoPath forms.

Custom development can build almost any process, but it requires developers to build and maintain, and changes depend on IT capacity. FlowForma lets business users build and change processes themselves with no code on top of Microsoft 365, while IT retains governance through sandboxes, testing, and production control. Organizations choose FlowForma to automate faster and reduce ongoing maintenance compared with custom-built solutions.