[HN Gopher] Show HN: Workflow86 - An AI business analyst and aut...
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Show HN: Workflow86 - An AI business analyst and automation
engineer
Hey HN, We built Workflow86 to help teams build and automate their
internal business processes and workflows using drag and drop
components like forms, tasks, tables and nodes for business logic,
API requests, running custom code etc. It works as a standalone
process/workflow automation tool, or as a workflow customization
layer on top of existing apps and systems like HRIS, CRM and ERP.
One common problem we hear from users is that no-code still has a
significant learning curve, and it can take some time to understand
how to properly build something. Users also needed help with
knowing what to build in the first place, or what a process might
or should look like. To solve this, we've integrated an AI that
acts as a business analyst/consultant and workflow automation
engineer. This AI is powered by a combination of Large Language
Models and lots of prompt engineering, RAG and prompt chaining
techniques we developed along the way. See a demo of it in action
here:
https://www.loom.com/share/fdbd5ad64c8f4071a062ecaa6a6d01f1?... In
business analyst/consultant mode, the AI helps users brainstorm
ideas, identify and discover processes and draft what a process
should look like. Like a business analyst/consultant, the AI works
to pull and extract information and details from the user by asking
the right questions rather than rely on the user's instructions
alone. Once the required information has been gathered, the AI
goes into engineer mode: it will plan and then build the entire
workflow by selecting the right nodes, connecting them together and
then fully configuring every single node individually as well. This
includes writing custom code and API requests using stored
credentials when required. Once a workflow is built, edits can be
done manually or by asking the AI to adjust the workflow at any
time (e.g., "Add a compensation band check before final approval").
The AI has full context of the current state of the workflow, so it
can "patch" in any changes like adding new nodes, rewriting
existing nodes and so on. Some use cases we've seen from customers
include building: - automated compliance checks for new CRM leads -
custom international contractor onboarding workflows on top of a
HRIS - automated vendor risk assessment before ERP updates Try it
out and let us know how the AI performs and any other feedback you
have! Full docs can be found at https://docs.workflow86.com
Author : taaron
Score : 18 points
Date : 2025-01-30 17:05 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.workflow86.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.workflow86.com)
| bananamansion wrote:
| are you using n8n for the workflow builder?
| taaron wrote:
| Nope, we built the workflow builder entirely ourselves, but I
| guess most workflow builders do end up looking very similar!
| causal wrote:
| That strikes me as a surprising choice given the amount of
| prebuilt integrations with n8n
| taaron wrote:
| One factor in hindsight for doing this in-house was we did
| find out that AI can struggle with understanding and
| navigating existing workflow builders that were built and
| optimized for human usage and comprehension e.g. what nodes
| are available, the options that can set inside of those
| nodes and even how they are named had quite an impact on
| whether the AI could reliably form valid workflows on its
| own.
| causal wrote:
| Slick UI, curious how practical the workflows actually are. My
| suspicion is that this is automating the part humans would want
| to do (designing the workflow), whereas most of the hours put
| into workflow automation is integration (90% of which is not
| going to be a clean REST API).
|
| That said, maybe this would be really valuable to someone doing a
| greenfield project without needing to back into existing
| workflows. Either way, cool project.
| taaron wrote:
| Integrations are definitely the toughest part of the
| implementation. That being said, I'm pretty optimistic on (1)
| AI getting better at writing the code/REST API calls or making
| it a lot easier or (2) the sort of browser agents we've seen
| with Open AI Operator, Claude Computer Use etc get good enough
| to integrate via the UI layer vs the API level.
| taaron wrote:
| Some new users are encountering issues with the AI during
| onboarding - if you do encounter an error, you can always try out
| the AI again by just click the glowing purple button on the right
| of any workflow canvas! This seems to be due to some rate limit
| issues from the uptick in self-serve sign-ups and hopefully
| should be resolved soon.
| 65 wrote:
| How is this better than Zapier?
| taaron wrote:
| Because we started with a focus on orchestrating forms and
| tasks, I'd say we're more suited for complex, long-running
| workflows that involve a lot of stop/start steps assigned to
| different teams (e.g. review and approvals) mixed with
| automation in between.
|
| We actually integrate with Zapier i.e. you can trigger a
| workflow from Zapier, and we can trigger a zap from within a
| workflow.
|
| While Zapier has also done some great work in the AI space, I'd
| also say our Ai builder goes a lot further in being able to
| fully set up a workflow and then continue to help users edit,
| change and refine them at any point. We're able to do this
| because a lot more of the moving parts are internal to
| Workflow86 (forms, tables, tasks etc), so the AI has more
| context and control over what it can do.
| chinathrow wrote:
| Looks like your product might be a perfect acquisition target
| for Zapier then ;)
| ttul wrote:
| Oh god, anything would be better than Zapier. They are so laden
| with legacy bloat; their UX is slow and cumbersome. A classic
| case of enshitification.
| todsacerdoti wrote:
| You should add 2500 app integrations to Workflow86 via Pipedream
| Connect -- https://pipedream.com/connect
| taaron wrote:
| Very interesting will definitely check it out!
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