Since Rocketgenius acquired Gravity Flow, adding it to our WordPress plugin portfolio alongside Gravity Forms, we’ve been sharing how this tool can help our users.

To help with that, this post discusses a number of case studies, showcasing how organizations have used Gravity Flow in addition to Gravity Forms to save money, reduce workloads, cut down on missed opportunities, and generally become more efficient.

Among the case studies, you’ll learn how a charity eliminated around 200 work hours and saved thousands of dollars a month by creating custom workflows for their paper-based processes, and how a medical group freed up staff to work on more important tasks so that more patients could be seen.

If that’s already piqued your interest, you can jump straight to the Gravity Flow website to see for yourself how you can build custom workflows to automate your form-based business processes with this Gravity Forms Add-On. Equally, you can read on for Gravity Flow case studies…

About Gravity Flow

As mentioned, Gravity Flow is an add-on for Gravity Forms that’s now part of the Rocketgenius portfolio.

Once installed on your WordPress site, Gravity Flow lets you create custom workflows for automating your form-based business processes.

An example of such a workflow could be for approving workplace vacation requests.

Once an employee submits a vacation request via a form built with Gravity Forms, a member of the HR team can be automatically notified so that they can check if the employee has enough leave left to cover the time off requested.

Then, if they can confirm that’s the case, the employee’s manager is notified that a valid vacation request has been submitted.

The manager can then check the team’s schedule to see if it’s OK for the employee to take the requested days off work. If they can, the employee will then be automatically notified that their request has been approved.

The workflow can also include extra steps that may need to be taken if there’s a rejection at any point in the workflow, such as the employee not having enough days of paid time off left. If that happens, the form will be automatically returned to the employee so they can modify their request.

That’s just an example of a simple workflow you can build with Gravity Flow, but it should give you an idea of what this tool is capable of.

Gravity Flow Case Studies

The case studies below give you more of an insight into what’s possible with Gravity Forms and Gravity Flow.

Charity Saves Time and Money by Replacing Paper-Based System

The PAALS (Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services) charity trains assistance dogs to support various groups, including individuals with disabilities, veterans with PTSD, and autistic children. Thanks to Gravity Flow, they were able to replace a very inefficient paper-based system with custom online workflows. Communications were sped up, money was saved, and more people were helped.

The Problem

PAALS used a paper-based system that sometimes consisted of scraps of paper being passed around the office to process requests from the public and potential clients and volunteers.

This lack of a systemized approach meant requests and communications often fell through the cracks. There was also no reliable record of requests being received or fulfilled.

Due to this, they couldn’t train as many service animals or provide animal-assisted educational and recreational activities as quickly or as often as they’d like.

The Solution

After implementing Gravity Forms and Gravity Flow, PAALS were able to process their communication workflows using online forms instead of their old paper-based system.

Initially, they were able to use Gravity Flow to digitize 12 different processes via custom online form-based workflows, including volunteer applications, summer camp registrations, and general inquiries.

Requests and applications are now submitted online via forms on their website created with Gravity Forms. The Gravity Flow workflows then route form entries to the appropriate staff for action, such as responding or approving.

Gravity Flow allows each request to be monitored as it goes through the workflow while also providing a permanent record of who did what and when. PAALS also uses Gravity PDF to generate electronic and/or paper copies of requests when needed.

Due to their success, PAALS plans to create more workflows in Gravity Flow in the future.

The Benefits

PAALS estimated that creating these Gravity Flow workflows has saved them a considerable amount of time – up to 150 to 210 hours per month.

This includes 40 to 60 hours per month that were spent on finding, recovering, and redoing dropped or lost requests and applications. Around 20 to 30 hours per month were saved from efficiencies in processing requests, and another 10 to 20 hours per month from being able to determine the status of requests and applications quickly.

A further 80 to 100 hours per month were saved due to a reduction in phone call queries that are now prevented by the notifications that are sent out by the workflows.

According to PAALs, based on an hourly rate of $15 an hour, this implementation led to monthly savings of $2,250 to $3,150 (or about 7% to 10% of their monthly budget) due to the reduction in staff hours spent processing communications.

PAALS also estimated they saved $8,000 to $10,000 by using Gravity Flow to create the workflows instead of hiring a web developer to build a custom solution.

By saving time and money, not to mention speeding up their workflows and reducing lost applications, PAALs can now help more people by training more service dogs.

Staff Hours and Paper Saved by Going Digital with Gravity Flow

A paper-based system for internal employee requests was a significant drain on resources at Sacramento Ear, Nose & Throat Surgical and Medical Group, Inc. Switching to online automated workflows created with Gravity Flow reduced costs and the burden on staff.

The Problem

Sacramento Ear, Nose & Throat Surgical and Medical Group, Inc. was experiencing a large administrative burden due to its paper-based system. Despite two staff members being deployed to process the employee requests for overtime, mileage and expense reimbursements, business card orders, and more, bottlenecks still occurred.

As part of the workflow, the two staff members had to verify all process steps and scan documents into the system. As they had other duties, there was a constant backlog of requests in addition to a significant impact on productivity in other areas of the business.

The Solution

Gravity Flow was used to create more efficient and automated workflows for the internal processes.

In one workflow, an employee can make an initial request via a form built with Gravity Forms. The request is then forwarded to the supervisor with appropriate notifications sent.

If approved, the request progresses on to management; if not, it is returned to the employee for an update.

If management rejects the request, the workflow ends, and the employee is notified. If approved, the request is be forwarded to the HR department for processing.

The Benefits

The Gravity Flow workflows were a success. The two staff members who were dealing with the paper requests switched to focusing on the routing rules inside Gravity Flow and their other duties.

Sacramento Ear, Nose & Throat Surgical and Medical Group, Inc. estimate that this has saved them over $4,000 per month due to increased productivity. Savings were also made from reduced printer toner and paper usage.

The IT Director of Sacramento Ear, Nose & Throat Surgical and Medical Group, Inc. found that Gravity Flow was not only easy to implement but also benefited the organization significantly.

Creating an End-to-End Online Reservation and Payment Collection Solution

By using Gravity Flow and other compatible tools, a tour agency was able to reduce the manual input required for bookings while also giving staff members an easy way to see their daily schedule and the status of bookings.

The Problem

A tour company wanted to take their reservation and payment collection system online. The company needed to accept credit card payments at the initial tour booking form submission but not collect the payment until the tour had been provided, which in some cases, could be months after the booking was made.

The Solution

Gravity Forms was used to create custom online forms to accept the bookings while triggers were used in Gravity Flow to reauthorize credit cards a few days before the tour commences to check the payment method provided when the booking was made was still valid. Another workflow trigger was used to collect the payment the day after the tour finished.

Gravity View was also used with Gravity Flow to display Gravity Forms submissions on the front end of the site so that tour guides could see their daily schedule. Gravity View was also used to display the payment status of tour bookings so staff could take action if needed and then update the workflow in Gravity Flow.

The Benefits

Gravity Flow significantly streamlined the tour agency’s manual processes. Thanks to the use of Gravity View, the status of every booking could easily be seen at any time by staff. Payment methods were automatically verified before tour commencement to avoid missed payments. Payments were then automatically collected when the tour had been delivered.

A creative use of Gravity Forms, Gravity Flow, and other compatible add-ons took a labor-intensive, inefficient system online, making it easier to collect payments and check the status of bookings.

Summary

As we’ve just seen in these case studies, Gravity Flow really excels when it comes to taking inefficient paper-based workflows and putting them online to reduce workload and costs and eliminate lost submissions.

Even if you’re already using online forms in your workflows, adding Gravity Flow to your stack can deliver great results. Moving form submissions through custom workflows, sending email and SMS notifications when needed, and using conditional logic to steer the submission through a workflow could help you respond to your customers and clients faster, cut down on lost communications, and integrate with third-party systems.

If you have any form-based processes or workflows that aren’t online or are inefficient, there’s a good chance that Gravity Flow could help you change that.

To find out more, visit the Gravity Flow site today.