Workflows in action: Three examples of how new inriver functionality can drive operational efficiency for PIM users

We’ve had a great response since the launch of our Workflows and Workspaces functionality at PIMPoint 2024. Our customer success and business systems analysts have had many conversations with existing inriver customers and partners about how this functionality is empowering them to work smarter and more effectively across their product information management lifecycle.

Wondering how you could use inriver workflows and workspaces?

In this article, we’d like to share with you some examples of how our customers and partners are looking to implement workflows in many different industries. We hope these use cases will inspire you and help you think about the ways it might super-charge your efficiency. You’ll find examples from the fashion, engineering and cosmetics industries below. But first, a reminder of the key terminology:

Recap: what exactly do we mean by workflows and workspaces?

If you’re new to the concept of workflows and workspaces, you can find links to some useful resources at the bottom of this article. But the core concept is simple: a PIM expert builds an automated workflow based on a number of “assignments” - steps that must be carried out by PIM users based on configurable event triggers. When a PIM user logs in to inriver, they are automatically presented with a simple list of the assignments that need their attention. They carry out those assignments in a “workspace” - a user interface that is relevant to the task at hand. This could be a custom-built workspace or one of the default ones available within inriver. The PIM expert defines which workspace should be used for each assignment when they set up the workflow.

Some assignments may take place in parallel – for example one user may be adding the imagery to a product while another is translating the text into French. Conversely, some assignments will only be triggered when others have been completed – for example a manager may be prompted to approve a new product for publication only after all of the relevant images, text and translations have been added by other personnel.

Use case 1. Multi-language management in the beauty industry

Our first example comes from a global cosmetics brand which uses the inriver platform to manage content in a huge range of different languages. The ability to support this level of granularity per product within inriver is enormously valuable to the customer because they operate in markets worldwide, but it has created some frustration for PIM users who are specialists in a given language. The team adding and adjusting text in Swedish, for example, must scroll through text in many other languages before they can locate the content they need to add or update.

Up till now, the customer would have needed to develop and maintain customizations to present each language specialist with an interface that only showed text that’s relevant to them. Now, with workflows and workspaces, they are exploring the use of tailored workspaces instead of customized UIs. The aim is that each user is presented with a list of assignments that require their attention, reducing the amount of complex searches they need to perform. Clicking on an assignment takes them to a workspace pre-populated with the product that needs attention and shows only the fields and language-specific text that they need to review or add.

The new workflows functionality should significantly reduce development time, costs and future maintenance overheads. It should also give content teams all over the world a shortcut to the materials most relevant to their roles. Put simply, everyone can get more done in their day, with less frustration.

Use case 2. Simplifying the data onboarding process in the engineering sector

Our second example is a million miles from cosmetics as it hails from a major engineering firm. The business receives product dimension information from its suppliers (length, height and width) and uses these to calculate overall volume. However, the data provided is often missing or transposed, for example with the width measurement posted as length. A validation step is therefore required for every product on-boarded to their PIM.

Today, this process requires export of data for all new products into an Excel spreadsheet for checking. The validated or corrected data was then re-imported into inriver. The customer is exploring the use of workflows and a new workspace to significantly streamline this process by presenting users with just the products and fields that need to be validated or completed. There’s no longer a need to go outside the inriver environment.

Use case 3. Product readiness workflows in the fashion industry

Product photographs play a very important role in the marketing and sales process for the majority of our customers and the fashion industry is no exception. One of our customers that manufactures clothing has struggled to ensure all necessary images have been taken, uploaded and tagged in the PIM before their products are shipped from the warehouse to the different markets and retailers. Each retail partner has different photographic requirements in terms of angles, poses, on/off model images etc. For full accessibility and product discovery, the images also need to be accompanied by descriptive text and category tags. The personnel in charge of supervising the photography sessions are not PIM specialists and images were often lost, overlooked, or mis-categorized in the transfer of data to the PIM.

Now, this use case can be easily fulfilled by configuring workflows and workspaces to develop a simplified UI for non-specialist PIM users to upload and manage imagery per product. Simple instructions can be included on-screen in the workspace. Users will see only the fields that are relevant to completing that assignment. They’ll be prompted to add descriptive text where relevant, with the option to use AI to generate the text and tags through inriver Inspire.

Ready to get started with workflows and workspaces?

These three examples are just some of the ways that our customers are exploring to simplify their operational processes with workflows and workspaces. We’d love to hear more of your examples!

If you haven’t had a chance to get up-close with workflows yet, remember that there’s a whole range of materials available to help you get started, including these Community articles:

• Working on assignments belonging to a workflow
• Announcing the first release of workflows 
• Creating and managing workflows 
• Workflows at a glance 
• Handling workflows as an admin in Control Center 

There’s also an Academy course ready for you to take: Workflows and workspaces Academy course