10 Benefits of NoCode and of TimeTonic

Simplification, Freedom, Centralisation, Automation... our CEO, Jean-Michel Durocher, explores the 10 most import benefits of NoCode and of TimeTonic
Jean-Michel Durocher
June 28, 2023
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1 | Simplify the interface for users.

For security/data protection reasons, but also to improve quality and acceptance, security, productivity and customer satisfaction.

The simpler the interface and the more it is tailored to the needs of the teams, the more the tool is used.

The more complex and cumbersome the interface, the less the tool is used.

If the tool is essential to the safety of users, they are putting themselves at risk by not using it. For example, Groupe Qualiconsult uses TimeTonic and its native mobile application, which works in offline mode, to improve #QHSE (Quality, Hygiene, Health, Environment) audits.

If the tool is essential to productivity, not using it can have a huge impact on profitability. For example, ENGIE Solutions France uses TimeTonic to schedule and manage work and has cut the average time taken to install IOT equipment for smart-buildings and energy savings by a factor of three, from three weeks to one.

If the tool is essential to customer satisfaction, not using it can have a lasting effect on the business. For example, Equans France recreated a new CMMS (maintenance management system) with TimeTonic and went from 10 years of customer complaints to 100% customer satisfaction for the maintenance of the Dijon tram.

2 | Being free

Not being dependent on a publisher, consultant or developer...

How many frustrations because a feature is missing from a tool that is essential to your business, how many delays because an expert is not available, how much money spent on a simple modification...

With a complete Nocode tool, you can create your own databases, automations and digital tools yourself, without needing to be an expert.

Generate a PDF document (estimate, invoice, contract, report, etc.) from a Word or Excel template.

Send an e-mail notification or alert.

Create input or modification forms.

And if a feature is missing, thanks to APIs and tools like #Zapier, it's usually possible to add it in a matter of minutes: automatic translation, character recognition, integration with a Google calendar or Calendly, etc.

To manage customers, projects, human resources, general services, stocks, customer tickets, validation workflows, QHSE audits, activity reports, customised tools for managing maintenance or site reserves, etc.

Why accept the limitations and dangers of spreadsheets, the rigidity of off-the-shelf tools that are so difficult and time-consuming to integrate and customise, and the costs and time involved in software development?

Of course, an expert in your field will save you time, a simple tool that's easy to integrate will help you in your day-to-day work, and good developers will allow you to add features that you can't find anywhere else.

But it's so liberating to be able to :

  • Create a database as easily as with a spreadsheet
  • Automate workflows and processes by creating conditional views and automatic notifications in just a few clicks
  • View and manipulate data in the right format (forms, tables, kanbans, calendars, timelines, Gantt charts, maps, dashboards)
  • Protect and simplify access by isolating data in mirror views filtered by user.
  • Create a mobile solution that works offline.

3 | Centralise information

Note: For Nocode platforms with a datafirst approach only.

Anyone who juggles dozens of spreadsheets and tools, who has to constantly copy and re-enter information, a source of errors and frustration, instantly understands the advantage of having a single source of truth.

A collaborative visual database offers the immense advantage of centralising information, data, files and processes in one place, making them available for consultation by all authorised personnel and avoiding duplicate, triple or quadruple re-entries...

This makes it possible to create a common repository, accessible both by platform users and by the company's other tools, via the appropriate API connections.

All customers, contacts, teams, invoices, quotes, exchanges, emails, contracts, products, support tickets, bugs, timesheets, equipment, appointments, inventories, quality controls, reports, claims, anomalies, receipts, etc. can all be easily found at once.

What's more, once the other tools have been interfaced, their data becomes accessible in the central database, either as reads and/or writes.

All of a sudden, these tools become visual, collaborative and agile.

An old, rigid ERP can continue to be used by the CFO, but day-to-day teams can work in Kanban view, timeline view, Gantt view, generate dynamic dashboards, automate forms and documents, and create workflows in just .... a few seconds!

You can instantly add fields, statuses, comments, files and links between data, which is often virtually impossible with applications still running on AS400, traditional software or SaaS.

In short, simplify, automate and improve all your internal processes.

We are moving from a rigid architecture, impossible to update without an army of external consultants and experts and months of waiting, to an open, dynamic platform that responds at a moment's notice to the needs of business teams.

And whatever the breakthroughs in AI, remaining in control of your data will always remain critical, especially as it is essential for driving the models.
And choosing a highly secure, sovereign platform hosted in France is more important than ever.

4 | Automation & Workflow

Image generated with MidJourney

One of the most powerful advantages of NoCode and TimeTonic lies in the possibility of automating repetitive tasks, and thus avoiding errors and omissions due to manual processing or copying of data.

Most standard tools / ERPs pre-program a certain number of activities (updating an end date for a change in status, sending a document), but it is almost impossible to develop and complete them.

Hence the interest of NoCode. The ability to create your own automations. We distinguish 4 main types of automation:

External automation: It allows an action performed in one application to trigger an action in another application. For example, a form completed on a landing page triggers an update in a CRM.

Internal automation: This concerns tasks performed within a single application, such as generating documents, creating or modifying data, notifications, etc.

Data processing and #AI: Calculation is a feature that is often missing from NoCode platforms, but it is essential. In addition to formulas, you must be able to perform complex calculations, convert or correct data, analyze them, interpret them.

Digitization and automation of workflows. The need is to be able to interact with internal or external users by following a predefined process. For example, a purchase request must be able to be entered easily and then follow a process of validation, order, invoicing, payment, etc.

Finally, it will be necessary to be able to correctly manage access rights and generate statistics that will give a 360° view of all its improvements.

Let's dig into these automations with more details.

A - External automation

Platforms like Make or Zapier, for example, allow you to interface with more than 5,000 tools and create "triggers" (Trigger) and "actions" (Zap). The idea is brilliant and very simple is that rather than each tool creating a connection to each other tool, a tool that will create a connection to Zapier will automatically be compatible with all the other tools already connectable. And so the more compatible tools there are, the more interesting it is.

And what is so incredible is that the main platform does not need to know how to do everything. If it is well designed, it becomes possible to extend its possibilities almost infinitely, still without coding, and to integrate it effortlessly with the other internal tools that you use.

An appointment made in Calendly? Hop it is integrated into your lead table, a confirmation email is sent and your salesperson receives a notification with all the details of the prospect.

Need to automate the processing of an invoice or expense report? Create an automation that sends the document to be analyzed to Mindee via Zapier and the date, amount, category, supplier, VAT, etc. are extracted and added to your database. Magic.

But this comes at a cost of course, and potentially requires having to subscribe to and understand several other tools to do relatively standard tasks.

In some cases, it is therefore useful that your main NoCode platform also integrates direct integrations with other tools, when these are regularly used functionalities or when the amount of data to be processed is important, or when unfortunately the tool or the external service does not support Zapier.

This is why TimeTonic natively integrates access to alesforce (CRM), Navision (Microsoft), Serenytics (dashboards), Coupler.io (synchro Google sheet and Excel online) or for our broker and insurer friends connections to Edimessage and Importweb (insurance company) or to government APIs for finding effective beneficial owners, for example.

Another option: that the platform has its own automations.

B - Internal automation

Image generated with MidJourney

Enterprise-grade NoCode platforms like TimeTonic allow you to create native automations without going through external tools like Zapier or Make for common tasks (modifying data, creating records...). It's not only a saving of time and money, but also a simplification in management and follow-up.

And it might very well be required if you need to stay GDPR compliant, as Zapier for example is an American solution.

Your ideal platform should be able to for example:

  • Manage rules related to default values, selections and conditional values ​​(for example, the unit price is automatically added when selecting a product in a quote line).
  • Natively generate PDF documents (quote, invoice, report, contract...) from your data tables and a Word or Excel template.
  • Send calendar invitations
  • Create personalized emails with your content.

Example n° 1:

Your quote has been accepted. You change the status of the opportunity to "Closed Won". Automatically a celebratory message is broadcast to the team. An invoice follow-up line is created and the initial invoice itself is available and ready to be validated and sent. An email is sent to your sales admin informing them of the need to validate and send the initial invoice, with the link to the opportunity or the invoice, so that they can access it with a single click. Once validated, the invoice is sent to the customer by email or deposited on Chorus Pro.

Example n° 2:

Your insurance contracts have an expiry date, and you want to inform the customer 1 month before and add a follow-up task in the agenda of the sales manager associated with the account. Hop, settled in 2 simple automations of sending email and creating line.

Data processing and AI

Data processing and complex calculations are often the poor relations of NoCode platforms, and it then becomes mandatory to switch to LowCode or even just Code. Result: a significant loss of time, simplicity and maintainability and skyrocketing costs, because you have to go through experts for each modification.

To meet this recurring need, TimeTonic integrates two exciting, very powerful yet easy-to-use features: Excel automation and native chatGPT integration via the OpenAI API.

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