What is Nintex Workflow?
Nintex workflow is one of a suite of tools offered by Nintex. Its main aim is to simplify and democratize the creation of work processes, ensuring efficient, high-quality support for business activities.
The notion of workflow is quite broad, and can encompass a wide range of activities. To name just a few, there are processes for document life-cycle management (creation, validation, review or even archiving), for managing and tracking annual appraisals, expense reports or invoice processing.
To understand how a workflow is structured with Nintex, and at the same time to grasp all the power of this apparent simplicity, it is necessary to specify the 3 main basic components which structure it:
- Actions or steps: the very basis of a Nintex workflow are these little tiles that you can place and move throughout the workflow. They define the very essence of what will be executed afterwards.
- Data: what the workflow will have to process during execution. This means knowing the type of data to be processed, as well as its origin and source.
- Rules and business logic: help define which actions need to be added, and the order in which they need to be completed to meet the initial requirement. They will also provide information on any dependencies that may exist between the various steps.
The elimination of manual processes coupled with the optimization of digital processes offered by Nintex will save considerable time for the teams concerned, enabling them to dedicate resources to more strategic and important tasks.
Nintex is a solution that can be used by both professional developers and non-IT employees motivated by the idea of automating their business processes. The latter, also known as Citizen Developers, do not necessarily have any prior technical knowledge. The tool’s ability to target a very wide audience makes it much easier to reach all the different stakeholders in a company, making its adoption all the easier.
Why use Nintex Workflow in your company?
Since its creation in 2006, Nintex is a business which has dedicated itself above all to the digitalization of its customers and partners, offering solutions for implementing and improving the various processes that make up and drive businesses. Drawing on its years of experience, the company offers the Nintex Workflow tool, which has been constantly tested, validated and improved over the years.
Nintex Workflow is a tool which, when coupled with systems already in place (such as Microsoft, Salesforce or SAP), will reveal its full power when it comes to automating repetitive and/or complex tasks across all company strata.
By equipping themselves with such a tool, it’s not simply a matter of digitizing workflows that will be implemented, but a whole new landscape of possibilities that will take shape for companies:
Automation and rationalization:
Everything is done transparently. The tool’s ease of use, including the visual diagram, will enable users – technical or otherwise – to create and manage workflows in a centralized, structured way (version management system available).
Information consolidation:
Flow of information to and from other systems used by the company. This will enable information to be kept up to date and stored in different places, thus avoiding data conflicts.
This point addresses a critical issue for companies today: data integrity must be preserved and ensured in order to function, exist and survive.
Analytics:
Powerful analytical functions to generate reports on individual steps and performance. The aim is to be able to quickly identify and intervene on bottlenecks (data flow hindered or completely stopped at a certain point in the process) and optimize performance.
The benefits of Nintex Workflow
Whether On-Prem or in the cloud, the primary objective of Nintex workflow is to automate, simplify and optimize business processes. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the benefits of adopting this solution:
No-code solution:
A workflow concept and design using an intuitive solution, not lines of code, is all it takes to set up a workflow that meets a specific need.
One of the major strengths of this tool is that it offers a user-friendly environment, enabling users to exploit the full power of the tool through a simple visual representation – a diagram with an intuitive interface onto which they can simply drag-and-drop the steps required for the process to run smoothly. This visualization will also clarify the entire workflow that will be implemented: all stages, stakeholders and dependencies will be clearly shown on the diagram.
Reduce the risk of error:
Automating tasks significantly reduces the risk of human error. You’ll set up a system that repeats itself identically over the course of each iteration, with the option of including exceptions, stop conditions or different progression paths depending on the result of a previous step. Snowball effect: a potentially significant time saving in terms of time spent correcting errors that might otherwise have occurred.
Personalization:
It is also possible to personalize workflows and forms – if there is interaction with users at runtime – by integrating CSS (particularly for corporate identity) or code in custom actions.
Reuse and maintenance:
Workflows generated with this tool are easy to deploy and maintain over time. Having a visual diagram and the ability to add descriptions to the various actions added facilitates maintenance not only by the author of the workflow, but also by anyone else.
How does Nintex Workflow work?
Nintex Workflow can work in 3 different ways:
- In “OnPremise” mode (hosted locally on your servers) via the Nintex K2 solution based on SharePoint OnPremise data.
- In “M365” mode with Nintex Cloud for M365.
- In “Cloud Nintex” mode with Nintex Cloud.
Depending on your needs and constraints, these 3 options may offer different advantages and disadvantages. This will be the subject of one of our next articles, where we’ll give you more information.
Steps for installing Nintex Workflow with SharePoint
Nintex Workflow can be used in both cloud and on-premise modes, locally on your servers. The installation procedure is radically different depending on which mode you choose.
Configuring Nintex Cloud for SharePoint Online
This is more of a configuration than an installation. Several steps are required on the Microsoft 365 administration platform (SharePoint Online admin) in order to operate Nintex “apps” from any Sharepoint Online site (or just some, as required).
Please note that the procedure is quite lengthy and requires administrator rights on the M365 platform. It is therefore important to have all these permissions and to make the necessary arrangements for product configuration.
We recommend the use of several tenants (at least one development tenant) to configure the platform and fully understand what is involved.
The detailed procedure can be found here on the official Nintex website.
Configuring Nintex K2 for SharePoint OnPremise
This is an installation of a platform dedicated to workflow management on a SharePoint OnPremise environment. This platform will replace the SharePoint OnPremise workflow engine, which will be obsolete in August 2026. In this way, you separate your platform into 2 “zones”, one dedicated to SharePoint and the other to your Nintex K2 workflow engine.
This will not only give you a platform maintained by the vendors (Microsoft / Nintex), but also a more compartmentalized and scalable environment, which should also deliver better workflow performance (one of the weak points of many configurations using SharePoint OnPremise’s native workflow engine).
The procedure is quite complex and requires real SharePoint / Nintex administration skills. It is advisable to consider several environments to validate the installation in your company. Indeed, the configuration may vary slightly depending on the current rules in your organization. In particular, bear in mind that you’ll need to have a valid certificate authorizing wildcards (sub-domains) to be able to use the Nintex K2 solution (need to deploy apps with sub-domain usage).
There are several installation modes available here.
Alternatives to Nintex Workflow
There are several alternatives to Nintex Workflow and Nintex Forms. The best known is the Power Platform included with Microsoft 365 tools.
The reason for this is simple: it’s the equivalent, but integrated directly into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, and SharePoint Online in particular. This solution is best suited to workflows that are fully integrated with Microsoft 365 tools, and for those who want to keep additional license/subscription costs to a minimum (this solution is for simple use cases directly integrated into your M365 licenses, but beware: depending on your needs and complexity, you may need to opt for products that require additional costs (premium licenses or “pay as you go” plans).
Other solutions such as UIPath, Appian or even other Microsoft services like Azure Logic App have other specific features and advantages/disadvantages.
Qim info helps you set up workflows with Nintex
Workflow automation trends for the coming years include the growing presence of AI and RPA. Intelligent automation is becoming an increasingly strategic choice for companies, and this will be reflected in the tools they equip themselves with to address this need.
Our customers have been using these solutions – particularly Nintex – for many years, and we have been able to help them evolve towards digital solutions tailored to their needs and in line with industry trends. Qim Info’s expertise will enable us to advise and support you in your project.
