Cloud-based, paperless workflows are the future of office efficiency, while poorly indexed, illegible files are stuck firmly in the pre-SaaS era, where they belong. HR professionals take on a ton of different responsibilities throughout the day and deal with plenty of repetitive, complex tasks.

Relying on your own brain (as much as you’d want to think you can) and bits of paper stuck to your monitor just isn’t the way to get things done. Some businesses are still a little slow on the uptake, but it’s obvious that what we need is a smart, foolproof solution that is immune to the silly mistakes we’re so prone to making. That solution is software-as a-service (SaaS).

Let’s take a look at:

• Top 23 HR tools
• Benefits of using HR tools
• Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS)
• Key features of HR tools
• How to choose an HR tool

A 2017 study from Pew Research found that more than 70% of the U.S. is scared that robots are going to take over our lives. And, while we can’t perfectly predict the emergence of a Skynet singularity, we can say with some certainty that technology is set to take over the repetitive, dehumanizing elements of our jobs instead of putting us out of work.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a strategic priority for 84% of businesses, and in some cases has been used to improve sales team efficiency by over 50%. Even I’ve used AI in the past to generate hundreds of relevant hashtags for social media posts at the click of a button.

It was once the stuff of utopian science fiction and huge enterprises, but now practically anyone can take advantage.

For this post, we will dive into 20 different applications of AI in the real world:

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Every team needs an agile process. Or two.

Maybe some teams can get by without strictly following documented processes every day, but when it comes to agile software development teams, it’s simply not an option to operate in the dark.

Since software is complex and easy to mess up, processes mean the difference between a great product and a crappy one. Without processes, software teams will spend more time squashing bugs and dealing with support headaches than they will actually developing the product…

The exact reason we created Process Street is to help businesses avoid that nightmarish cycle, and, of course, we use Process Street ourselves to help run the agile processes behind the scenes.

We use regular agile processes like:

• Daily standup meeting
• Sprint planning
• Sprint turnover
• Sprint retrospective

We also run routine QA processes like:

• GitHub pull request procedure
• Weekly WordPress maintenance
• SSL certificate renewal

And, finally, we have a set of training processes:

• Developer onboarding
• How to set up your development environment
• Pull request review failed procedure
• Pull request merge procedure

These are all regular tasks for the team, and the reason they were created was because we found they have a high margin for error.

Scroll down to find the exact processes we use.

If you want to tighten up the way your software team works, hit your sprint targets, and efficiently train new development hires, then this post will show you how. We even reveal the exact processes we use and a workflow diagram detailing the journey an issue takes from start to end.
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Keeping everyone on the same page in your business is easy with today’s technology. Using cloud-based calendars, you can have everyone synced up all the time from any device. In this post, I will go through our favorite setups to ensure your team never misses a meeting again.

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Scaling a business requires a joint effort between many stakeholders. 

This necessity for effective teamwork means that companies need to put the right people in the right positions.

Human resources departments need to have effective systems in place to execute core HR functions – especially in recruitment and onboarding. 

In this post for Process Street, we’re going to take a close look at how human resource management systems (HRMS) work and how they can give your company a leading edge in the war for talent. 

• What is HRMS?
• 5 essential benefits of HRMS
• Challenges of integrating an HRMS
• How to get started with an HRMS
• Integrating your HRMS with simple workflow software

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Microsoft SharePoint is a bit like a Swiss army knife. It has a ton of different functions, some of which are useful, and some that aren’t. If you’re using SharePoint or one of several SharePoint alternatives and you’re not careful, you might wind up with a tool that’s so bloated with features it doesn’t really succeed at any of them.

As SharePoint consultant Jason Masterman says, “Customers are [implementing SharePoint] because they own it. It’s not that they’re doing research and choosing [SharePoint]. They’re doing it because they own it.” In a 2013 survey, only 6% of respondents reported completing a successful SharePoint project. In 2015, that number was up—but just to a mere 11%.

We think more than 11% of users deserve to be happy with their workflow tool. So we looked at 7 SharePoint alternatives and examined how they stack up in terms of price, capability, and user-friendliness. Here’s what we found.

While it’s getting more popular lately, Keep is one Google’s of less popular products. It’s been around since 2013, and is a 100% free way to manage your tasks and store information.

What’s more, it links seamlessly with Gmail!

Because of this, you can now use Keep and Gmail together to create a lightweight task management system that lives inside your inbox. If you’re the sort of person who likes to start each day on to-do list / inbox zero and you’re striving to be more productive, you’ll love this.

This Process Street post will be covering:

• How to use Google Keep
• Using Google Keep with Gmail
• Google Keep tips and tricks
• Using Gmail as a to-do list

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Whether it’s regular stand-up meetings with your team, customer communication, delivering feedback, demoing a new feature, or leading a webinar, screen sharing apps are so useful in the remote workplace that finding the best fit for your needs is an important task.

Well you’re in luck, as there are many offerings to choose from, not least due to the recent explosion of remote work around the globe.

In this Process Street article, I’ll be covering all of the best screen sharing apps (including those with remote desktop access), with advice on price, features, and what each tool is best used for.

Here’s a quick list of the screen sharing & remote desktop software I’ll be looking at:

• Zoom (for a popular, secure, intuitive, feature-ful remote team choice)
• Google Meet (for more cloud storage)
• Microsoft Teams (for a focus on internal communication)
• Slack (for convenience if you’re already Slack-centric)
• Screenleap (for sharing screens with anyone)
• Join.me (for frictionless new user access)
• GoToMeeting (for better security & encryption)
• Whereby (for better control over who enters your rooms)
• Mikogo (for a quick, simple, browser-based solution)
• Demodesk (for sales calls and presentations)
• Drovio (for creative collaboration)

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The customer lifecycle begins with awareness and matures to advocacy, from the first interaction with your brand, to an evangelized super-user who raves about and recommends your product to friends, family and associates.

This Process Street article focuses on the customer lifecycle management – how to understand the different stages of the customer’s lifecycle, and guide them from initial awareness to long-term advocacy, with the help of tech.

Optimal customer lifecycle management is vital as this can maximize customer lifetime value (CLV) by boosting customer retention. This, in turn, will bolster your bottom-line by:

1. Selling to an existing customer base: There’s a 60-70% chance of selling to an existing customer base relative to a 5-20% chance of selling to new prospects.
2. Increasing customer retention: A mere 5% increase in customer retention is enough to raise a company’s profits by 75%.

Getting customer lifecycle management right can be tough. To help you, we’ve put together this list of essential tools to complete your customer lifecycle software stack, for optimal customer lifecycle management.

Each tool is chosen as per the customer lifecycle stage it’s best used for. Each customer lifecycle stage will have differing aims, which means it’s vital you use the right tools to meet your objectives. For this article, we’ve done the work for you.

• Understanding the customer lifecycle in detail
• Customer lifecycle software to help build brand awareness
• Customer lifecycle software to promote customer engagement
• Customer lifecycle software to ease customer evaluation
• Customer lifecycle software to help your customers make a purchase
• Customer lifecycle software tools to use post-purchase
• Customer lifecycle software tools to promote customer advocacy

Let’s dive right in!
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Research shows that a 5% increase in customer retention rates can boost profits by 55%.

With this in mind, when it comes to customer success, it’s important you play your cards right to retain your customers.

In this Process Street article, we draw from McKinsey & Company’s post, Introducing customer success 2.0: The new growth engine. What’s more, thinking about customer success, we ask, how can you ensure you’re implementing customer success 2.0 strategies?

To help you get started, I’ve put together your essential software stack to execute customer success 2.0. Using this list, you can easily execute the five critical elements that’ll instill a customer success philosophy in your organization. But before all, let’s quickly recap the basics, and define the difference between customer success 1.0 and 2.0.

Click on the relevant subheader to jump to your section of choice, alternatively scroll down to read all we have to say.

• Customer success 2.0 vs. customer success 1.0
• Customer success 2.0 software stack to execute the McKinsey Model
• Comparing customer success 1.0 with customer success 2.0 in practice

Let’s jump right to it
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