Modern workflow automation without the migration headache

Hannah Colley00:06

Hello everyone, and welcome to today's webinar. I'm Hannah, digital marketing and events specialist here at FlowForma, and I'll be your host today. A few tips before we start: this webinar is being recorded, and if you need any help during the session you can email info@flowforma.com. Your lines are muted, but we want to keep this as interactive as possible, so use the chat and question boxes throughout. We'll also have a poll and a survey at the end.

Hannah Colley00:51

Here's our agenda. We'll start by welcoming our speakers, then a quick summary of FlowForma and why we're here, followed by a live demo. Then we'll move on to mini case studies from our customers, look at migration patterns and timelines, and finish with a live Q&A with our senior solutions consultant.

Hannah Colley01:25

Let's meet our speakers. Today we're joined by Robbie and Niamh. Niamh is head of marketing at FlowForma and is passionate about helping organizations understand how automation can drive better outcomes and continuous improvement. And Robbie is our senior solutions consultant, helping organizations understand how modern, AI-powered automation platforms transform processes, improve efficiency, and support their digital transformation goals. I'll pass you over to Niamh, and if you need any help, pop a message in the chat.

Niamh Lordan02:12

Thanks, Hannah, and thank you to everyone who registered. This is a very popular topic right now: organizations are either looking to move away from a legacy platform, or to introduce a modern platform alongside what they already have to fill gaps. We're delighted to be here to help you evaluate.

Niamh Lordan02:40

Some of you we've been talking to recently and some we haven't, so a little about us. FlowForma is a software company headquartered in Dublin, with offices in the US and the UK, and our products are used by over 300,000 users globally across sectors including public sector, manufacturing, healthcare, and construction. We were first to market with a no-code workflow automation tool, and from day one we've been passionate about empowering the business user alongside IT to digitalize at speed. The last couple of years have been very exciting: we've been transforming our platform with AI features to help organizations digitalize faster than ever. There's never been a better time to evaluate platforms.

Niamh Lordan04:25

Let's ground ourselves in the challenges people are having. Robbie talks to organizations every day about moving off legacy systems, and we hear the frustration. These are pain points the community tells us about with legacy systems that might have been in place for 10 or 15 years. A lot of work has been invested in them, but they just don't work for the way organizations need to work anymore.

Niamh Lordan05:17

The first thing people raise when they ask for a trial or demo is cost. We've had a lot of people come to us recently who were using a legacy DPA platform that's now end of life, and their licensing bills are doubling. In one case Robbie came across, the bill had quadrupled from the previous year. Whatever ROI they had is gone. On the licensing side, people are also struggling with consumption pricing on some legacy tools, which makes it very hard for IT managers to predict budgets. Robbie, what are you hearing about the lack of innovation?

Robbie Kane06:38

Cost is definitely the starting point for a lot of organizations, but once you get into the detail, the bigger issue is often confidence in the platform. A lot of teams feel they're investing in systems that simply haven't evolved. One customer told me recently they hadn't seen any meaningful innovation in their workflow platform for over seven years. That has a knock-on effect: IT teams spend more time maintaining aging workflows than delivering new value to the business. Small changes become risky, processes become fragile, and over time workarounds build up everywhere.

Robbie Kane07:16

So cost and budgeting are major drivers, but the deeper concern is that organizations don't want to migrate from one limiting platform into another. They want a modern system that's easier to maintain, easier to change, and has a clear roadmap. That's where FlowForma becomes attractive: it gives you a way to move from the burden of a legacy system to a platform that's AI-enabled, easier to govern, and built to keep improving.

Niamh Lordan07:49

Those are the big points we're hearing, especially from Nintex on-premises and InfoPath users, who hopefully have migrated by now, because InfoPath is completely end of life at the end of next week.

Niamh Lordan08:09

People are in a painful position: they have to replace. But our advice is to see this as an opportunity. We don't want to see people moving from one system to a look-alike. We're helping organizations take this as a chance to improve how they do process, by moving from a legacy system to a modern workflow platform.

Niamh Lordan08:45

When we talk to prospects, what they want from a modern platform is AI-powered and all in one: forms, workflow, AI, and insights living in one system. And they want AI in two ways. First, AI to deploy processes much faster, which Robbie will show in his demo. Second, AI that supports the execution of processes: completing steps, validating data, and removing errors. The future of automation isn't fully automated. It's human in the loop, with people making decisions and AI supporting the process.

Niamh Lordan10:02

One more thing for anyone considering platforms: speed is a great evaluation point, but governance matters too. If you're moving to a modern system, empowering citizen developers, and using AI, make sure the platforms you look at have a governance module that helps IT leaders see how the platform and AI are being used. There's never been a better time to evaluate, so use it as an opportunity to improve. We'll touch on how some of our customers did that later in the webinar.

Niamh Lordan11:02

Robbie, you're talking to people evaluating vendors every day, and they're probably looking at three to five. What's on their checklist when they come to you?

Robbie Kane11:22

The checklist is usually very consistent. They're not just looking for another form builder. They want something that helps them move quickly, reduces reliance on IT, and gives the business more control without creating risk. The first thing we hear is time to value. If you're replacing a legacy system, you don't want a long rebuild project. You want your first processes live quickly, prove value, and expand from there.

Robbie Kane11:49

The second is no-code design. Business teams know their processes best, but they've often had to rely on developers to make changes. FlowForma gives process owners the ability to build and adapt workflows themselves, with the right governance around it. AI is becoming a big part of the buying decision, but practical AI, not AI for its own sake: being able to generate processes from prompts, screenshots, diagrams, or existing documentation takes a lot of effort out of a migration, as you'll see in my demo.

Robbie Kane12:27

The platform still needs to handle real business processes: approvals, tasks, rules, escalations, document generation, audit trails, and more complex routing. Visibility is another key point. Customers want dashboards that show where the work is, who owns it, what's overdue, and where bottlenecks are forming. And it has to connect into the wider business, whether that's Microsoft 365, SharePoint, APIs, databases, ERP systems, or reporting tools. That's why organizations choose FlowForma: fast deployment, 100% no code, practical AI, a powerful workflow engine, real-time visibility, integration, governance, and a platform that works for both business users and IT.

Niamh Lordan13:18

We have a buyer's guide for anyone evaluating platforms, which you'll find in our guides section.

Niamh Lordan13:31

This is what everyone's been waiting for. Robbie, can you talk our audience through the platform at a high level before you show it?

Robbie Kane13:50

This slide shows how FlowForma fits operationally within an organization. At the top are the participants who interact with enterprise processes: employees, managers, customers, suppliers, compliance and operational teams, and external stakeholders through our Engage module. Those interactions feed into the FlowForma platform, which acts as an orchestration layer across the process lifecycle. At its core are forms, workflow orchestration, reporting, and insights.

Robbie Kane14:26

On top of that sits the AI automation layer, where Copilot, AI agents, and AI assistants support process design, automation, validation, document handling, and user guidance. Underneath sits the enterprise integration layer, connecting workflows to Microsoft 365, APIs, databases, ERP systems, and the wider enterprise. On the left are the inputs the platform works with: forms, process diagrams, documents, operational data, and other structured and unstructured inputs. In a moment, we'll take what would be a legacy system and design a prompt around it. The goal is a governed outcome: automated workflows, better visibility, consistency, reporting, auditability, and scalable process orchestration.

Niamh Lordan15:28

That's what we mean by an all-in-one solution, and it's AI powered. Some people on the call may not be ready to use AI, or may not be allowed to in their sector right now, so you can turn it on or off as an organization.

Robbie Kane15:53

There's even the option to bring your own AI if you have your own organizational LLM. There are multiple options.

Robbie Kane16:27

Some context for what you're about to see. One reason workflow migration feels daunting is the perceived time and effort involved. You may have processes running in tools like Nintex, InfoPath, Kissflow, or other legacy platforms, and the big question is how much work it will take to rebuild them, validate them, and get people live again. I want to prove to you that your migration can be painless. Instead of a manual rebuild from a blank canvas, we can use process material you already have: an old form, a screenshot, a process map, an SOP, or a document describing how the process works.

Robbie Kane17:15

In this example I'm using a purchase requisition and spend approval form, a typical legacy form with request details, supplier information, item lines, financial details, business justification, and supporting documents. Rather than recreating every field and step manually, I can upload the screenshot into FlowForma Copilot with a simple instruction. The prompt is intentionally light. I'm not defining every field, rule, and exception upfront; I'm giving Copilot the objective and core stages: employee submission, manager review, procurement review, and finance approval.

Robbie Kane17:50

Copilot creates an initial structure, and I can keep working with it, for example asking it to add a senior approval step where spend is over 5,000. It becomes interactive: Copilot gets the draft in place, then I refine it, add business rules, adjust the approval logic, and shape the process around how the organization actually works. That's the key migration point. You're not facing a long, painful rebuild. You take artifacts you already have, generate a working starting point quickly, and improve the process as part of the migration.

Robbie Kane19:03

So in FlowForma, I'm starting from scratch. I create a new process, call it Purchase requisition, and open Copilot. I upload the screenshot of the legacy form and supplement it with a prompt I've prepared: create a purchase requisition and spend approval process that lets employees request goods, services, software, equipment, and supplier costs; capture request details, supplier information, line items, estimated costs, business justification, and supporting quotes; and include four steps: employee submission, line manager review, procurement review, and finance approval.

Robbie Kane20:59

Copilot plays it back: it will set up four clear steps from employee submission through line manager, procurement, and finance review, capture the request details, supplier data, line items, costs, justification, and quotes, and include an item table and validation so approvals are well informed and auditable. Because we're a SharePoint application, you see every data point you'd expect: options, cost center, validation codes, and person or group questions, all designed automatically.

Robbie Kane21:52

Next, refining. I deliberately left out a step, so I ask Copilot to add a fifth step for senior approval when the total purchase amount is over 5,000. Through natural language, you can give feedback, remove things, add data points, and add steps. Think of it through the lens of your migration: take screenshots of your existing legacy systems, describe the process, and that's how you'll develop and migrate your processes in FlowForma, quickly.

Robbie Kane23:05

It's added the fifth step, so I click Build, and you can see how quickly I've gone from a legacy system and a description to a fully built process. Now in the flow designer, I'll show the no-code logic. Senior approval should only apply when the value is over 5,000, so I hide that step by default, add a number question called Total requested to step one, and add a show/hide business rule: when Total requested is greater than 5,000, show the Senior approval step.

Robbie Kane25:00

In FlowForma you can create a test form from any point in the process. Here it's a four-step process, but when the total requested goes over 5,000 it becomes five steps and senior approval kicks in. In a very short time, from a screenshot and a light prompt describing the stakeholders and data points, I've gone from a blank canvas to a fully built process. From there you can use the depth of FlowForma's functionality to not only migrate the process, but significantly improve it.

Niamh Lordan25:58

That's really powerful, Robbie. And you don't need to be technical to do this. Anyone who owns a process can, right?

Robbie Kane26:06

That's the great thing, and that's the power of the prompt. Someone in finance or HR knows better than a technical resource what the process should involve and achieve. If you can type that in plain English and add a screenshot of your existing system, a flowchart, or a paper-based process as a PDF, you can get this far in a very short time, and migrate processes at real speed, which is what we see with clients who switch to FlowForma from legacy systems.

Niamh Lordan26:47

And this is just as valid if you're not on a legacy system and have processes that need automating, or you need to add a new platform. It's exactly the same, as long as you have a diagram, a procedure document, or even a photo of your process.

Robbie Kane27:11

We've even seen clients run sessions in a boardroom, sketch the process on a whiteboard, photograph it, and use that along with the meeting notes. You can see how quickly you can get going with those artifacts.

Niamh Lordan27:30

People sometimes tell us they have very complex processes in their legacy systems and worry about the effort to bring them over to a modern tool. But it's actually not that much work. Do you want to touch on that?

Robbie Kane27:48

Any of our existing clients coming from Nintex will recognize this: teams coming from Nintex tend to overstate the complexity of their processes. There's some overlap in terminology. What's typically branded as complex there, we tend not to find complex once it's converted into FlowForma. It's a lot simpler than clients expect.

Niamh Lordan28:35

For today's demo, Robbie was showing how easy it is to move existing processes from legacy to modern. Within the platform you also have insights and AI agents, and if anyone wants to see them working, you can set up a demo call with us afterward. Today is about showing how easy it is to make the transition.

Robbie Kane29:10

Exactly: showing how quickly you can go from a blank canvas to a scaffolded process using those artifacts, and improve on where you're coming from.

Niamh Lordan29:25

We won't dwell on this slide for long because we want to get into real-world case studies, but these are the reasons people choose FlowForma when they're evaluating. One I'll touch on: I recently interviewed a director at one of our customers, and she said they chose FlowForma because it was the only platform they could find where they didn't have to redesign their process to automate it. Because our workflow and rules engines are so powerful, you can digitalize very complex processes, and if you want to keep them exactly as they are, you can replicate them in FlowForma.

Niamh Lordan30:33

We're also hearing a lot about no code. Even heads of IT tell us the demand for automation is so great that they can't meet it with legacy tools like Nintex on-premises, but they also can't meet it with Power Apps because they don't have enough technical people. So they come to us wanting a user-friendly no-code solution within the Microsoft ecosystem, and that's where we fit in very well.

Niamh Lordan31:09

Let's move on to three mini case studies, which will be helpful for anyone wanting to hear how their peers moved away from legacy systems and came out the other side with great results.

Niamh Lordan31:34

This is one I love. Sarah works at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services: public administration in the US, 6,000 people across 160 offices. They came to us a few years ago because they'd built a lot in InfoPath, which was going end of life, and they also had a lot of manual processes. That's a big challenge in an organization that size. Sarah's shopping list was complex core processes that needed digitalizing, a modern platform, the ability to scale automation, and, as a public body, something budget-friendly and all in one. She had looked at Power Apps and other solutions that were becoming too expensive on the consumption side. She evaluated a few platforms and chose FlowForma.

Robbie Kane33:05

For Utah, moving from InfoPath to FlowForma wasn't just a replacement. Their contracts process went from taking months to being approved in as little as one to five days. They gained full audit visibility and stronger metadata capture, and they had zero issues in their last audit. They also avoided the cost and complexity of multiple Power Platform add-ons, while enabling non-developer admins to manage and improve workflows themselves.

Niamh Lordan33:35

They're still scaling automation, with thousands of processes in play, and they're big fans. The more they automate, the more the managers love the system.

Niamh Lordan34:00

We have a lot of public administration and education registrants, so a few months ago we interviewed Will, information services manager at Morley College, a big college in London with 11,000 students and 600 staff. Their IT team has around 12 people, but only two are digitizing and automating. Like Utah, InfoPath was going end of life, and they were also using Nintex. They couldn't keep up with demand for automation from the faculties, and automation kept getting delayed because IT was keeping the lights on everywhere else. Data visibility was poor, and lots of errors in form submissions meant a lot of validation afterward.

Niamh Lordan35:10

They onboarded FlowForma, replaced InfoPath, and are also replacing Nintex, which is a great consolidation story: two costs rolled into one. At Morley, processes that used to take hours now take minutes, and the user experience has improved massively, for students onboarding and signing up to courses, for staff booking time off, and every process in between.

Niamh Lordan36:04

Our last one is a recent customer Robbie onboarded and supported: Beaufort County. They were on Nintex on-premises and faced massive bills to stay on it. They couldn't scale, it was difficult to maintain, and there were governance issues. Robbie, how far have they got?

Robbie Kane36:45

Beaufort County is a great example because they wanted more than a Nintex replacement. They wanted their own teams to build, manage, and improve processes without heavy reliance on IT. After initial training and with support from FlowForma, using Copilot as you saw in the demo, they migrated at speed. In their first month they moved around 20 complex processes across, and they now plan to scale automation further across the organization.

Niamh Lordan37:19

With around a thousand people across multiple offices, that's great to see, and more and more organizations want to empower the business to digitalize without depending on IT. We have lots of other success stories, so if you're in another sector, we can share a peer story with you after the webinar.

Niamh Lordan37:51

People on the call may be thinking: I need to move off my legacy platform, but I'm worried about how much work it is and what order everything happens in. Robbie, share your recipe for success.

Robbie Kane38:10

Once organizations decide to move away from a legacy platform, the next concern is the migration itself. Where do we start? How much effort is involved? Which processes go first? How do we avoid disruption? This is where FlowForma brings a proven formula. It starts with a dedicated migration expert, so you're not left to figure it out alone. We work with you from assessment through to go-live, helping you understand what you have today, identify the right priorities, and shape a practical migration plan.

Robbie Kane38:45

Second, we enable your team. FlowForma training, using Copilot, gives your builders the confidence to replicate and improve legacy processes quickly, so simpler workflows can be moved by your own team without turning the process into a massive project. Third, we support the more complex work with migration credits: 10,000 credits, equivalent to 10 days of professional services, used flexibly across process builds, forms, rules, integration, mapping, and workflow sessions. Your team moves quickly on the straightforward processes, and FlowForma experts help with the heavier or higher-priority ones.

Robbie Kane39:39

Finally, we go live in phases. Rather than a risky big-bang migration, we move batches of processes over progressively. That reduces disruption, helps users adopt, and builds momentum internally. This isn't software you get and then it's good luck. It's partnership driven: expert guidance, Copilot-enabled training, flexible services support, and phased delivery to get you live quickly and safely.

Niamh Lordan40:11

We know this is a big project for organizations, and we can give you confidence with a platform that's proven to make it easy, plus this rollout strategy and a team to support you.

Hannah Colley40:47

We have a few questions already. We're slightly over time, but we'll take a few. First: we have a mix of Nintex, Kissflow, and a little InfoPath. Do we have to rebuild it all from scratch?

Robbie Kane41:11

No, absolutely not, and that was the purpose of the demo. If you have artifacts in your legacy systems, take screenshots of them. If there are process descriptions or SOPs lying around, feed them into FlowForma Copilot, and you'll quickly get a scaffolded version of the process that you can refine through natural language. My whole point was to go from a blank canvas to a fully built process using those artifacts in a very short time.

Hannah Colley41:53

Another one about AI: how is AI changing workflow automation compared to legacy platforms?

Niamh Lordan42:04

It's completely transforming how we work and automate, and there are two sides to it. As Robbie showed, AI takes you away from the blank canvas, so instead of mapping a process from scratch you can prompt or upload diagrams and automate it quickly. That removes a lot of the blockers people had in the past. Second, FlowForma AI agents deployed in your process can improve its quality and your data, completing steps based on rules you've created in FlowForma. So you digitize far quicker and deliver better outcomes for your staff, customers, and suppliers. It's a massive game changer.

Hannah Colley43:13

If you were starting a migration project today, what would you do first?

Robbie Kane43:24

Map your high-priority processes and phase them accordingly. From there, you can work with us on the consultancy side to decide what happens when. So the first step is to reach out to us, and we'll map it with you, putting together a phased workshop approach to plan everything out.

Hannah Colley44:00

What's the biggest mistake organizations make when replacing a workflow platform?

Niamh Lordan44:11

Don't replace like for like. Our advice is to choose a platform that's future-proof and has the AI features we've talked about. The future of automation is intelligent orchestration with the people who know their processes best.

Hannah Colley44:43

How are customers actually using AI in workflow today? Is it practical, or mostly hype?

Robbie Kane44:55

It's absolutely practical, not just hype. I always come back to human in the loop, where you use AI as the assistant to the person: saving administrative time, reducing errors, and dynamically routing the process. The hype is the idea that AI will do everything at the click of your fingers. What FlowForma does is let you embed AI in a process in a practical, guardrailed way, rather than unleashing AI on end users, and that can significantly reduce administrative overhead and manual errors.

Hannah Colley45:40

We'll take one or two more. Can modern no-code platforms really handle complex enterprise processes, or are they mainly for simple approvals?

Niamh Lordan45:53

Great question, and we still hear it. Sometimes people don't believe the power of no-code platforms and think they're just for simple processes. But we've built a very powerful workflow engine and rules engine, and large enterprise organizations use our platform for very complex processes: multiple stakeholders, multiple decision points, data pulled in and out, integrations with other systems, ISO and DORA compliance, everything like that. Sometimes people don't believe it until they see it, so if anyone has a complex process they'd like to see built in a no-code platform like ours, Robbie would be happy to do that.

Robbie Kane46:50

Challenge accepted. If you think your process is too complex, get in touch, and we'll show it to you delivered in a proof of concept.

Niamh Lordan47:12

One last thing before we wrap up. Whether you're planning to replace a legacy platform, add a new platform, or you're dealing with any of the challenges Robbie and I spoke about today, we're here to help. We're offering a one-to-one consultation with one of our migration experts, who have guided more than 100 organizations through successful migrations. It's available at no cost to everyone who attended. Tick the option in the poll, choose it in the post-event survey, or get in touch by email or on our website, and we'll be in touch this week.

Niamh Lordan48:06

While the poll is up, another question has come in: does this support ISO 9001? Yes, totally. Does it support process mapping? Yes, it does. Delivering audit plans? I'm not sure what type of audits they mean, but Grant Thornton uses our system for audits, the State of Utah's audits are done on FlowForma, and our product keeps an audit history trail, which our customers find very useful.

Hannah Colley48:54

It's a free consultation with no strings attached, so you can see what we could do for you. Thanks so much to Robbie and Niamh for a really exciting webinar and a great demo. Thank you all for joining us, and if you have any questions, just get in touch. Have a good rest of your day.