Microsoft Visio is the industry standard for business process modeling, but you might want something different. Something a little more… agile. Just because it’s the most widely used, doesn’t mean it’s the best.

The main reason it’s so widely used is that it’s packaged with Office 365 and often comes pre-installed with enterprise tech suites.

If you’re tired of Visio’s lack of integration, lack of macOS compatibility, and sky-high price point, then you should consider investigating one of the many Visio alternatives out there (like Process Street!) and asking yourself what they can do for you.

There are a lot of options for different use cases; in this article, we’ll take a look at some of the best Visio alternatives and talk about why they might be a better choice.

Here’s a breakdown of the article:

• What is Microsoft Visio?
• What should business process modeling software be good at?
• Best Visio alternatives
• Using Process Street to implement business process modeling

You’re probably all-too-familiar with Microsoft Visio, but for the sake of clarity, let’s start with a quick overview.
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This is a guest post from Hugh Beaulac, a content strategist at MC2 who also works as a social media manager. With over 6 years of digital marketing experience, Hugh helps small and medium businesses grow online and likes to share his tips and tricks with top-notch marketing blogs like Wordstream, CrazyEgg, and Semrush. Follow him on Twitter to read his latest articles on Instagram marketing.

In the era of social media, when over 2.82 billion people have at least one social media account, email marketing isn’t the most obvious marketing tool.

It’s no wonder that more and more brands use social media platforms to promote their products and services as their target audience is active on these channels.

But here’s the thing: Although email is one of the oldest messaging channels, it still matters.

Why? Because nearly all social media users have active email accounts.

Recent Hubspot report claims that email marketing is still effective: 99% of customers check their email every day, 73% of people claim that email is the preferred communication channel to receive branded news and offers, and 59% of customers say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions.

For marketers, this means that combining social media and email marketing is a must. And with the growing popularity of Instagram marketing, there’s a perfect way to connect with engaged users and get more email list subscribers.

In this Process Street article, we’re covering:

• Why use Instagram to get email list subscribers
• Make the most out of your Instagram bio
• Give your customers a reason to share an email
• Use Instagram Stories to promote sign-ups
• Reach potential subscribers who don’t follow
• Benefits of Instagram marketing
• The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Marketing

Let’s take a look at four effective ways to grow your email list with Instagram.
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Do you use a daily task checklist?

If yes, then why?

Why not, then why not?

This was the question we, at Process Street, posed to top business experts across the globe.

With this question in mind, I noticed after a Star Wars movie marathon – yes I am a Sci-Fi nerd – that even Han and Chewie used checklists.

If chewie uses them, why wouldn’t you use them?

In all serious though, checklists have been shown to give profound benefits in all manner of industries. For example:

• Pre-flight checklists aid aviation safety to such an extent that checklist misuse has been attributed to three major airline accidents in three months
• Surgical checklists reduce mortality by 22% post surgey
• $10 billion is lost annually from US process industries due to human error that would have been avoided via checklists

Checklists in general are remarkable. But what about daily task checklists? Well, thats what we strove to find out.

Here, you will find the results of our in-depth examination, exploring the usefulness of checklists exercised on a daily basis.

We present to you our findings, outlined as 15 daily task checklist benefits.

You can click on the links below to be directed to the relevant section. Alternatively, grab a coffee, sit back and take the time to read all we have to say to ascertain a thorough understanding of our findings.

• Daily task checklist: What is a daily task checklist?
• Daily checklist benefit 1, productivity improvements
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 2, organizational improvements
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 3, keeping track of your daily tasks
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 4, improving teamwork
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 5, increased transparency
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 6, improved work quality
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 7, greater efficiency
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 8, improved time management
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 9, error reduction
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 10, improved work consistency
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 11, improved work effectiveness
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 12, planning improvements
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 13, smoother workflows and processes
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 14, accountability improvements
• Daily Task Checklist: Daily checklist benefit 15, a happier you
• Daily Task Checklist: Why not?
• Use Process Street as your task manager and checklist maker

Let’s get started!
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Modern technology is extraordinary.

After all, without the advancements that have been made over the last 50 years, you wouldn’t be reading this post!

This is exactly why, when asked what has brought the biggest improvements to our lives, four-in-ten Americans said “technology”.

But we’ve reached a critical juncture.

There’s so much technology now. I would dare to say there’s even too many apps, pieces of software, and gadgets we’re using.

From different teams in an organization all using varying project management software, to spreading important information that really should be hosted in one place across a multitude of platforms, using too much software in the workplace can make things incredibly confusing. Not to mention overwhelming.

In reality, we could all do with a digital declutter, using only the essential applications, and ensure we’re utilizing those applications (such as Process Street!) intelligently.

This, in a nutshell, is digital minimalism – and it’s what I’ll deep dive into during the following sections:

• What is digital minimalism?
• The authority on digital minimalism: Cal Newport
• The benefits of being a digital minimalist
• How to become a digital minimalist yourself
• Best practices for the digital declutter process
• Use Process Street – your all-in-one BPM solution

Ready to take back control of your work and life with digital minimalism, feel less like a robot, and even find a little zen along the way?

Let’s go.

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Fleet management is so much more than simply owning and operating vehicles. It’s a complex interplay of many different factors and optimizations – much like the concept of business process management.

In recent years, more and more tools for fleet management optimization are emerging. Fleet management is changing.

Projected growth of the fleet management industry to about $30 billion by 2022 is largely driven by advances in technology – and the rate at which fleet management companies adopt this emerging technology will largely impact the rate of this projected growth.

And it seems fleet management companies are aware of this.

The National Conference of State Fleet Administrators (NCSFA) recommended in a 2018 survey of 44 state and university fleet participants that fleet management companies begin implementing “robust fleet management policies and procedures” as well as “accelerating the implementation of technology to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of fleet management practices”.

That same survey showed that 38% of repairs and 39% of preventative maintenance work were insourced, on top of the in-house work that is done as part of routine fleet management. Just another incentive to tighten up your processes and streamline all of that manual work with a good, solid process.

In this article, we’ll be looking at how you can use Process Street to implement robust fleet management policies and procedures. I’ll cover:

• What is fleet management?
• What is fleet management software?
• Fleet management templates
• Using Process Street for fleet management

Let’s start by making sure we’re all on the same page; what exactly is fleet management?
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This is a guest post by Rahul Varshneya, the co-founder and President of Arkenea. Rahul has been featured as a technology thought leader in numerous media channels such as Bloomberg TV, Forbes, HuffPost, Inc, among others.

Several organizations use a wide range of tools to execute and monitor their internal processes. These systems are interfaced by human agents who pass on the data output from one system as input to the next system in the pipeline.

Because of the non-automatic nature of manual execution, manual data entry work makes these processes slow and error-prone.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had these interfaces taken care of automatically?

That’s right, we are talking about Robotic Process Automation (RPA) – a transformational paradigm that optimizes such processes by automating repetitive, rule-driven tasks.

According to Forrester Research, RPA market revenue is expected to gross $1 Billion USD in 2019.

With RPA and by using RPA tools, your internal processes can be finished faster and more efficiently. It would free your agents from trivial data entry and data exchange tasks so you could deploy them to do more strategic process initiatives.

In this article, we at Process Street will present 5 best practices for RPA. We will then introduce our favorite RPA tools, so you can walk away with actionable robotically automated processes.

This article has been structured as the following:

• How does Robotic Process Automation eliminate tasks from structured environments?
• Software silos and how they affect your teams
• How to break silos with the implementation of Robotic Process Automation
• How to achieve exceptional results with Robotic Process Automation implementation
• RPA tools: Process Street’s top four RPA tools
• How you can use Process Street’s RPA tool capabilities

Let’s get started!

Note that RPA does not aim to eliminate jobs. It aims to reduce the burden of mundane and repetitive tasks of the existing staff so they can work on more strategic initiatives.
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In July 2018, the number of active Google Drive users surged into the billions.

This means the number of users had increased by 200 million within just one year.

One reason for Google Drive’s success is its extensive usability. You can send emails, create spreadsheets, arrange meetings, update your calendar, create slideshows, and produce text documents.

It is with this function, produce text documents that we begin this Process Street article comparing a Google Docs checklist with a Process Street checklist.

You see, like Process Street, Google has recognized the benefits checklists bring at both a business and a personal level. Google has made it possible to create checklists with its text document function.

Our questions driving this article are:

• Why would you want to create a Google Docs checklist?
• How would you go about creating a Google Docs checklists?
• Is a Google Docs checklist right for you and your business?

If you are new to checklists, Google Docs, and Process Street, then this is the article for you.

You can click on any of the below subheaders to jump to the relevant section.

• What is a Google Docs checklist?
• Make a checklist in Goole Docs
• The benefits of using a Google Docs checklists
• Checklist template: What a checklist template is and our top Google Docs checklist templates
• Google Docs vs Process Street
• Process Street: How we can help you with your checklists

Shall we get started?

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Duties. Deliverables. Deadlines.

No matter if an employee is working as part of a tiny startup based in the CEO’s basement, or a multinational company with offices across the globe, there are important tasks that each and every employee needs to knock out the park.

But how can companies ensure their employees can complete tasks effectively? And that employees aren’t creating a backlog of work for themselves, which could decrease overall productivity by up to 68%?

Answer: An employee task list.

At least, that’s what countless top, thriving companies have told us after we asked them about their task list and checklist habits.

In this post – which is the next part in Process Street‘s series investigating how, why, and in what ways successful businesses use lists for their workflows – I’ll deep dive into the nitty-gritty of employee task lists. Plus, you’ll get the exclusive opportunity to discover the never-seen-before findings from our in-depth research.

Just read through the following sections:

• What is an employee task list?
• What jobs require an employee task list?
• How is an employee task list useful?
• Why marketing teams around the globe utilize employee task lists
• Employee task list best practices: Crushing duties & deadlines
• Use Process Street to create a superpowered employee task list!

However, before delving into our findings, I’ll first define exactly what an employee task list is.

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The modern workforce is, quite literally, movers and shakers.

No matter if self-bought or company-bought, employees are using mobile devices to work from while in the office, going from meeting-to-meeting, traveling cross-country to attend conferences, and even when working from home.

But for some (read: the security-minded), this is a little worrisome. With employees using personal and portable devices for work purposes, security hazards are aplenty. Theft. Security breaches. Data loss.

I needn’t go on.

It’s why 75% of CIOs view mobile security for organizations as not only a headache but a significant problem.

Though, with modern problems come modern solutions.

In this super informative post, I’ll be discussing EMM: Enterprise mobility management. It’s what every organization needs to know about, incorporate, and sustain so that its business remains security breach-free. Just read through the following sections to get acquainted with all-things EMM:

• What is EMM (enterprise mobility management)?
• BYOD and the benefits of enterprise mobility management
• Device management: The EMM best practices
• How Process Street can help your organization with EMM!

Now, let’s stop dilly-dallying and get started!

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Guest post by Deana Kovac (Deana Kovač), an internet marketing specialist at Point Visible, a digital agency providing custom blogger outreach services. In her free time, she enjoys listening to music and singing karaoke, and she just cannot start her day without a hot cup of coffee.

Content optimization improves an existing page so it serves its intended reader and business goal more effectively. This content optimization fix shows how to fix underperforming content without tossing it out: diagnose why the page falls short, strengthen the answer, repair technical friction, and measure the result. The process uses two stages: identify weak content with evidence, then apply six focused improvements.