Feb 23 2022
Here’s a rundown of why you should give Workload a chance against the incumbent tools.
Workload is definitely the newest of the new kids on the block. It was started in 2019 by me (Bryan Golkhajeh) and my co-founder - Mike Bodnyk. We each had prior careers that involved automating tasks such as reporting data to clients and transacting customer orders. Fed up with the rat race, we decided to quit our jobs and build our own company.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing, however. We tried out a few ideas that failed before landing on something that “stuck”. After learning about the Zapier Experts Program, we applied and were accepted. The program allowed us to help hundreds of small businesses across the globe with their automation needs. In doing so, we became automation experts and power-users of the Zapier platform. Along the way we noticed a few shortcomings about the Zapier platform and which then led us to discovering a whole world of other tools, including Integromat (now called Make).
Even still, these tools didn’t solve all the problems met by an automation expert. We needed a tool that was intuitive, fast to set up, allowed for switching between user accounts, easy to use looping and iterating through groups of tasks. We wanted to build something of a “Tableau but for automation experts”.
In February of 2021, we wrote the first lines of Workload’s code. We wanted to make a functional prototype that could make an API request and move the data from one tool to the next in an orchestrated manner. I won’t go into all the technical details here, but let’s just say it is not a trivial feat to build an automation tool. We had to account for every type of API response including nested JSON responses. This is not something you can build using Bubble in a weekend like we originally thought.
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Now that most of the technical details of building the product are behind us, our feature set is starting to take shape. At the highest level, Workload is a workflow automation platform. It is designed to connect common business apps together and move data between them in a directed “flow”. Each “flow” is kicked off by a triggering event. A trigger can be something as generic as time of day. For example, every Friday at 5pm, do something. You could even set it to trigger off events inside of specific apps. An example of that would be every time a new task shows up in Todoist, do something.
The something part can be whatever you decide. If a new task shows up in Todoist, you can add the task details to a channel in Slack, you can throw the data output into a Google Sheet or even send an SMS message to someone. The possibilities are almost limitless!
This may all sound complicated, but it’s really not. Our easy to use drag and drop editor makes building these workflows as easy as designing a flowchart at work. If you can arrange tiles into a sequential order, or if you’ve ever made a mind map, you can definitely automate your repetitive workflows and integrate multiple apps together.
I mean really fast. From the moment you open the editor, which loads fast, to choosing apps to connect (over 1,000 of them to choose from) to getting data to updating and changing the layout. Everything moves 10x faster on the screen compared to the other two tools. We are currently adding keyboard shortcuts to do things like add a new step to the workflow, delete the last step from a workflow and save a workflow (we already have that one, actually).
As a power user of automation tools, there is nothing more frustrating than not having all the data you need to test a workflow with. What I mean by this, let’s say you have a workflow that requires two branches of logic. If this happens, do X, but if a nested value is Y, then do Z instead. Everything in the first part goes smoothly because you have the initial trigger data and you can build out that part. The issue is when you need to build the latter half…the branch. You don’t have a sample to work with that shows the nested value of Y, so you can’t build Z without adding a whole new trigger. If you are building on behalf of a client, you may have to coordinate time with them to have them do the trigger action to produce the data you need. In Workload, you can add that sample data right into the editor, no problem.
At any place in the workflow. You can also break a connection line and insert a step in between existing steps and reconnect them without having to delete anything first. We wanted to make sure users could preserve the work they already did while adding steps to it. It was a major pain point for us when we were using other tools.
The other tools we used only offered bits and pieces of the API you were working with. If for example, you wanted to delete something as part of the workflow's last step, you always have to use a custom webhook to set that up. Most of Workload’s app integrations support the entire API library. We’re also adding in a way to develop on top of our tool right in the editor. If we don’t have an app, or a function you need, you can just do it right from the editor and have it merged with our code on the fly. No more signing up for a developer account to use a clunky dev platform.
Having extensively used all three of these tools over the past 3 years, I’ve come to the following conclusions:
Workload is better suited for advanced workflow automation inside larger businesses. It’s a robust nocode tool and even though there is a learning curve to understand all of the concepts (adding a video library to overcome this!) – it is worth the effort!
Integromat is best to use if you are doing some advanced workflow building, but need some out-of-the-box scenarios and functionality with minimal customizations. Integromat’s pricing is budget friendly for smaller organizations and creators. It has a great bang for the buck!
Zapier is better suited for beginners who are just getting their feet wet with automating workflows. Because it is simpler to use and has more of an “opinionated” design and architecture, it’s geared for small businesses and entrepreneurs who are looking for predesigned integrations that are already done for you.
Although Workload is a newer tool, it already has over 1,000 integrations and advanced features that were lacking in the other competitor tools on the market. It was built by automation experts for automation experts and advanced users who are looking to have more power at their fingertips. When comparing pricing, Workload is actually a great value even though the plans start at $49/mo. This is because you get more tasks and features compared to the other two tools offering at similar price points.
Zapier and Integromat are also fine choices if you are just getting started or if you need a little extra horsepower beyond the basic workflow. Once you are ready to take automation to a professional level, Workload may be the right option for you.
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