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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Rahul Varshneya is 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 for execution and monitoring of 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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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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This is a guest post from Harry Southworth, a professional writer and editor.

Creating an e-commerce store is easy nowadays. But, making it a success and earning money with it is much more complicated. It takes a lot for an e-commerce business to turn into a successful website.

Only with an effective e-commerce strategy can this be done. If you’re new to e-commerce and have no strategy in place, you must learn – and fast.

At Process Street, we say: what better way is there to learn than from books?

Books can speed up the process and teach you everything from how to connect with a customer to how to market your e-commerce business. Many successful people have decided to put their words on paper, which is why you now have many e-commerce books to choose from.

We present you with the list of the best e-commerce books out there today to save you sieving through endless content. This article has been structured as below:

• Ecommerce strategy: What is e-business?
• Ecommerce strategy: The best books for starting a business
• How Process Street can help you with your e-business

Shall we get started?
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Content is worth big bucks.

Think about it.

Netflix rakes in $18 billion in revenue a year with their video content. Similarly, YouTube makes $16-$25 billion in annual revenue. Meanwhile, the blog for all things tech, TechCrunch, was bought by AOL in 2010 for a whopping $25 million.

But what, exactly, is content? What is a content creator? And what is the purpose of creating content?

The subject matter can be a little confusing.

That’s why this blog post will get you right up to speed. 🚴‍♂️

I’ll cover what content is, what a content creator is, the benefits of content, examples of work from the best content creators, and I’ll even give you insider tips and tricks to becoming a stellar content creator yourself! Just read through the below sections:

• What does content mean?
• What is a content creator?
• Content creators: The hows and whys
• Examples from the best content creators
• How you can be a stellar content creator with Process Street! 👌

Let’s not waste any more time and dive straight in.

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Job loss.

Insolvency.

Falling asset prices.

Complete market standstill.

Ring any bells?

You remember, as clearly as I do, the economic disaster of 2008. A global financial crisis; what could have caused such an economic catastrophe?

One hypothesis: Financial audit failures.

As concluded by the Financial Crises Inquiry Commission (FCIC), financial audit failures were found to have played a significant part in the financial crash.

Just like the FCIC, we at Process Street understand the importance of standards enforced by financial audit processes.

This article has been structured into two sections. The first section looks at the financial audit. The second section considers the International Standards on Auditing (ISA).

The ISA standards are a specific set of rules that operate globally.

Here’s a more thorough breakdown:

• The financial audit: What are financial audits?
• The financial audit: What are the International Standards on Auditing (ISA)?
• The financial audit: The benefits of International Standards on Auditing (ISA)
• How you can use Process Street to help with your external auditing processes
• ISA audit checklist

In the last section of this article, you will get your hands on our nifty ISA audit checklist for free.

You can use this template to conduct an internal check on your finances audits against the International Standards on Auditing. This checklist will save your organization a heap of time, worry, and money.
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Decisions.

We make a lot of them.

From deciding what we want to wear in the morning to making a bold, life-altering decision like starting a small business, we have to make decisions day in, day out.

In fact, we humans make over 35,000 decisions that we’re remotely conscious of per day.

But not all of those decisions will be smart ones – leading to bad, negative, or even downright harmful consequences.

How can we learn to bypass those bad decisions and, instead, become intelligent decision makers?

DECIDE.

No, that’s not me shouting at you and telling you to decide – it’s me introducing you to a decision making framework and process called DECIDE.

DECIDE has personally helped me make better decisions day-to-day which is why, in this post, I’ll be describing why intelligent people make poor decisions, what DECIDE is and how it came about, and how you can apply DECIDE to both your life and business!

All you have to do is read through the below sections:

• What’s the reason for poor decision making skills?
• What is the DECIDE decision making process?
• DECIDE: 6-steps for making good decisions
• How to make decisions in life and business with DECIDE
• How Process Street can help you win in life and business!

Make the right choice and read on.

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What are audit procedures? Can you define the term with a single definition?

How are audit procedures relevant to your business?

How would you go about implementing audit procedures?

I will stop with the interrogation. I hope though, I have you thinking – I mean really thinking – about the term audit procedure. From my own experience, most people hear the term audit and have a general idea of what this is. But when it comes to defining the term or implementing audit procedures in a business, they struggle.

If you are one of those people, then luck is in your favor for having stumbled on this article. In this article, we at Process Street will take a look at audit procedures, define what they are and how they are implemented.
We then turn our attention to a specific type of audit procedure, namely, the internal audit. Finally, I will introduce to you Process Street’s new, game-changing feature: approvals.

This article is structured as below:

• Audit procedures: What are they?
• Audit procedures: The auditing process
• Audit procedures: Four different types of auditing opinion
• Internal audit: What is an internal audit
• Internal audit: The benefits internal audits bring to your business
• Internal audit: Disasters caused by internal audit neglect
• How you can use Process Street to conduct an internal audit for your business
• Process Street’s approvals feature and its use-value for internal audits
• A whistle-stop tour through Process Street’s free internal audit template resources

In the section A whistle-stop tour through Process Street’s free internal audit templates, you are presented with 19 free templates. I have listed these templates below so that you can plunge right in. Keep reading for more information on each template.

1. Financial Audit Checklist
2. Environmental Accounting Internal Audit
3. Environmental Management Self Audit Checklist
4. Management Systems Audit Checklist
5. ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 Integrated Management System (IMS) Checklist
6. ISO 9001:2015 Internal Audit Checklist for Quality Management Systems
7. PPC Audit Checklist
8. Google Analytics Audit
9. Technical SEO Audit
10. UX Audit
11. ISO 27001 Information Security Management System (ISO27K ISMS) Audit Checklist
12. SQL Server Audit Checklist
13. Firewall Audit Checklist
14. Network SecurityAudit Checklist
15. Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Audit Checklist
16. Diversity Management Monthly Audit
17. Hotel Sustainability Audit
18. Laboratory Safety Procedure Audit
19. Retail Store Audit Checklist

Shall we get started?
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This is a guest post by Azat Eloyan. Azat is a digital marketer and mobile marketing enthusiast. With over 5 years’ experience in content marketing and SEO, he believes that valuable and informative content is the key.

He’s currently working as a marketing specialist at SendSMS, which is providing SMS marketing service globally.

We live in a digital-centric world.

There’s no doubt about it.

What’s also true is that the digital space is full of enormous data and content on scales never quite seen before.

According to a report from IBM Marketing Cloud, 90% of the total digital data worldwide was created within just two years, with an upward future trend being almost inevitable.

All this data and content provides a whole host of benefits to businesses, their salespeople, and their marketers. However, before businesses, salespeople, and marketers can truly take advantage of this vast swathe of data and content, they need to manage it correctly.

Which is where CRMs and marketing automation software come in.

But what are the differences between the two? And what will your business benefit from most?

Our digital-centric world doesn’t have to be a confusing digital-centric world.

That’s why, in this CRM vs marketing automation post, I’ll be discussing both CRMs and marketing automation software, how they differ, how they overlap, the benefits that they bring, and what the signs are when your business needs to start using either piece of software.

Navigate through the sections below to get the gist on CRMs and marketing automation software:

• What is the CRM definition?
• What purpose does CRM software serve for businesses?
• Four example uses of CRM software
• What is marketing automation?
• What are the benefits of marketing automation?
• Use Process Street with your CRM software or marketing automation software!
• Conclusion: In a digital-centric world, invest in the right software

Let’s get learning!

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Trump. Pineapples on pizza. Checklists.

What the public is divided on is incredibly varied.

To boot, how the public uses checklists varies even more. For instance, at Process Street, we use checklists for pretty much everything – not only because we’re a virtual team, but also because, well, we know they’re darn useful.

But we also know some organizations don’t use checklists to such a degree – they’re limiting themselves to only 2-3 checklists per team. Or, they’re using business software that wasn’t intended for checklists to create, manage, and house their checklists. (🤔)

We thought this was all very interesting.

That’s why we’ve done some qualitative research regarding how organizations around the globe are using checklists – specifically, employee checklists.

Dear reader, we’re bringing you some top-secret, never-seen-before material on how organizations really use employee checklists. In the below sections, you’ll find insightful comments from our participant pool:

• How organizations use employee checklists for daily tasks
• How do top marketing teams use employee checklists?
• What tools do organizations use for employee checklists?
• Best practices for building solid employee checklists
• Build superpowered employee checklists with Process Street!

Now, let’s get into it.

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