Claris Connect Flows

The arrows in the developer’s quiver are forever increasing. As Claris FileMaker developers, the recent addition to ours is Claris Connect. More on the specific technology later: let’s for a moment, think about your current IT systems.

In at least one way or another, your systems were built to enhance your business’s workflow. Ultimately IT is a means to an end – and in our minds, that end is the process by which information is managed. To drill down one level further, when we say workflows, we are talking about multiple steps forming ‘flows’ of actions.

Flows Power your Business

Flows can be simple – a few steps – or highly complex and full of business logic. Either way, flows address your business needs. A flow can be the steps required to add a new client to your mailing list, send an internal email to the factory to check the status of a client’s order, or even comprise a detailed, multi-step customer service campaign.

There are two subtlety different types of flows: user prompted and automated. We all know the user type – when you press a button, something happens. There are others, in this modern day, where the machine is smart enough to know when the flow needs to run. Some are simple automated routines set to a clock, others tap into machine learning and artificial intelligence to drive triggers to action.

Automated flows, we’d argue, are critically important for many businesses perpetually strapped for time. Fewer clicks, more productivity.

Beyond just creating flows – automated and user-initiated – what’s next for those of us creating and leveraging technology?

Claris is Glad You Asked

Today’s digital transformation is more than re-inventing the wheel and developing your own systems functions. Gone are the days of single-platform businesses running on one technology alone. Rather, today’s technology work makes best use of existing systems, and incorporates external systems’ flows as well.

These external systems are better known as Software as a Service (SaaS).

The modern digital currency allows for trading of knowledge, services, and functions via software; this exchange isn’t delivered for a one-time purchase, but rather as a regular micro-fee for access and use.

This is where Claris Connect fits in – it is meant to facilitate stitching together different technologies, and to allow problem-solvers and digital-transformers to quickly bridge SaaS tools together. Rather than having to turn to a developer to write an integration from scratch, Claris Connect allows its users to configure connections quickly and easily.

This custom code is required to make calls to these SAAS, via their Application Programming Interface (API).

Claris Connect is an Integration Platform as a Service (IPaaS) Solution.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve been building integrations to many of the popular, and not so popular, SAAS APIs for years – but with Claris Connect, now we can focus on optimizing the flow, rather than the complexity of the code behind it.

We at Codence see Claris Connect as a huge step forward in the journey of our client’s digital transformation. This will be the new era of innovation via automation.

Where do you start?

For a simple exercise – next time you’re using your current system, think about each button click, and each step in a rote process, and ask yourself if that click could be automated, saving your time for better, more productive tasks.

Likewise, next, consider a process where you work with more than one technology. Would it help if they could share data, step through a process, and automate both together?

We think you’ll be surprised at how a simple automation, either from your local system or in tandem with SaaS technologies, can improve your work, and give you back valuable time to focus on the important things.

As developers, sure, it’s great to be able to turn to Claris Connect to save time in plugging systems together – just that this is not the final target. It’s all about flows, and helping our clients automate work beyond the walls of a single FileMaker app.