Where Automation Can Help
The Cobalt Company
Association & certification software with proactive, highly responsive customer support & decades of Dynamics expertise.
One of the most common (and tantalizing) marketing promises in the air today is that AI and other applications can automate the tricky-boring-manual-repetitive parts of our work.
In this edition of AMS + we’re going to try and move beyond the high-level marketing blurbs about automating the worries of your work life away. Let’s get a little more serious — and specific — about how automation can make an actual difference with the core business processes for your association staff.
We’ve been blogging and making tutorial videos about the possibilities and benefits of Power Automate for associations for years. We’ve got valuable content in our webinar archives, too. You might like this take on the value of the Microsoft Power Platform for associations.
But in this edition of AMS + let’s look at ...
By the way … if you’re not familiar with Power Automate, it’s one component of the Microsoft Power Platform. Along with tools like Power BI (Business Intelligence), it integrates seamlessly with the Microsoft tools you’re already familiar with (Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, etc.) and thousands of other popular apps and platforms. Our Power Automate licensing post is a comprehensive look at what it does, and what it costs.
Power Automate’s Integrations Have Huge Value for Associations
So many associations have made significant investments in custom tools and applications to handle complex or highly specialized business processes. There are inevitably questions about whether to keep those tools, rebuild them, or explore other options in the process of implementing a new AMS or CRM. Our team at Cobalt loves the opportunity hidden inside those challenging decisions.
For one thing, that fits with our strategy of helping association teams use the transition to a new system as a time to look carefully at all their major processes. There are often better, more efficient ways of doing things teams just don’t know about because they’re busy doing their work, or changing is hard, or a dozen other good reasons.
Even better, the expanding possibilities for integrations and automation have changed the landscape for associations. We love finding better ways to minimize headaches or manual tasks without a huge, additional investment or tons of change management. Here’s a great, recent example.
Associations are very interested in using the Microsoft Power Platform to automate business processes. It’s easier for more of their staff to access and use than ever before. It drives down costs and helps team members regain control of their time.?
But there's a lot of value in your staff's expertise and comfort with older, more familiar tools like Excel. We fully appreciate the importance and staying power of Microsoft Excel.? In fact, we have a saying around here: "Excel Never Dies!"? Excel was born in 1985 and it’s here to stay, but with the Power Platform it’s capable of a lot more than most associations know.
Recently a prospect described to us the agony they felt during a build-versus-buy decision. They used a homegrown Excel tool to handle one of their essential business processes. They’d spent over a decade building and using this tool.? All of their staff had been trained to use it and it worked very effectively … But it required some time-consuming copy-pasting and manual data entry that left them prone to expensive user errors.
They were wrestling between investing in a costly new tool on the one hand ... or the risk of an extensive redesign of their current tool. Both options posed a major upfront risk to investment.?
Once we understood their real needs, we used our Power Platform experience to engineer a third option. Leave the Excel tool in place. Extract the data they need through a Power Platform and Excel integration on the backend. It will do precisely what they need — and update their system and other downstream data through automation.?
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No need to retrain their staff. The burdensome, repetitive tasks get automated reliably. And they’ve eliminated the costly manual error factor.?
We use these types of approaches for many of our own internal processes at Cobalt! So many of these opportunities are there for any of us to take advantage of — sometimes we just need to be willing to reframe the problem.
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Power Automate alone has endless integration possibilities. If you or your crew are seasoned Excel wizards, check out our short Power Automate + Excel Integration overview video!
Automate the Sticking Points in Your Approval Processes
Does your membership application process have some spots that slow things down? You’re not the only association team to deal with that, trust us.
We’ve seen just what a time-saver and headache-reducer it can be to automate parts of the application approval process. Our updated post outlines clear step-by-step instructions for setting up a new approval flow with Power Automate.
Automate Queries in Your Association Networking Tools
In your team’s quest to keep improving member engagement and the overall quality of your member experience, we’ve got a compelling suggestion — improve your networking solution.
Power Automate plays a central role in this creative integration idea that will make it easier for your members to connect with mentors, a mentee, or others in your association network. Read more in our post: 2024 Member Engagement Strategy: Automate Networking Matches.
Getting More from Your AMS
We’re only covering some recent highlights here from our automation-for-association content. We have tons of out-of-the-box suggestions for membership organizations and we’re always happy to look at unique challenges that need creative solutions.
Take a small next step for your team and members and schedule a quick introduction call with one of our Power Platform and AMS experts at Cobalt. We want to cut through the marketing chatter and general promises about efficiency and get right to the real benefits for your association. Connect for a quick introduction call.