When it comes to work, sometimes we wish things could just get done on their own.
Well, now they can! Introducing: <a href="https://help.qatalog.com/hc/en-us/articles/15167685106829" rel="follow">Triggers</a>.
Triggers are automated actions that happen in the background of your Qatalog. You can set them up by choosing an event that triggers a desired action, and Qatalog will do the rest. You can use them for things like:
<ul>
<li>Sending welcome emails to new members of an Item (such as a project, client, or campaign)</li>
<li>Creating a Slack channel anytime a new Item is added</li>
<li>Publishing an announcement Thread when an Item&rsquo;s status changes</li>
</ul>
Read on to discover more updates, or <a href="https://qatalog.chilipiper.com/book/round-robin-queue" rel="follow">book a call</a> with our friendly team to learn more.
<h3>What else is new?</h3>
<ul>
<li>Externally share Workflows: You can now invite people outside of your organization to fill out a Workflow, without inviting them to join your Qatalog.</li>
<li>Default sub-tasks: Admins can now add sub-tasks when they create a default task on a Module.</li>
<li>OpenAI Workflow steps: Now you can include text generation from OpenAI as a step in your Workflows.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Keep up to date on everything Qatalog</h3>
If you want more updates on all things Qatalog, you can subscribe to our monthly newsletter by entering your email on the menu to your right.
Haven&rsquo;t tried Qatalog yet? Sign up for a <a href="https://qatalog.com/login?origin=signup" rel="follow">free 14-day trial</a>.

Here’s what we’ve launched or updated in Qatalog in the past month.

What’s new on Qatalog: April 2023

When it comes to your company&rsquo;s tool stack, has the approach been to introduce just one more piece of software to solve the problem? And then another? And then another?&nbsp;
If so, you&rsquo;re not alone. The latest research from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.okta.com/sites/default/files/2022-02/Businesses-at-Work-2022-Annual-Report.pdf">Okta</a> found that large companies are using an average of <a href="https://www.okta.com/uk/businesses-at-work/">211 applications</a>. Of course, the intention here is to improve productivity. But SaaS sprawl on this scale typically has the opposite effect. It complicates workflows, restricts access to vital information, and wastes everyone&rsquo;s valuable time.&nbsp;
Our&nbsp;<a href="https://language.work/research/workgeist/">research with Cornell University</a> found that employees waste an hour every day trying to locate information hidden away in these apps, and more than 40% of workers report spending too much time switching between tools. Worse yet, employees aren&rsquo;t just losing time from navigating different tools, but also from the loss of focus that follows, which harms their productivity further.&nbsp;
This is what we call the productivity paradox &mdash; where software is actually harming productivity. Solutions that were designed to simplify our lives and help us work better are having the opposite effect. Teams are suffering from endless pings and notifications, restricted access to important information, and the stress that arises from navigating dozens of apps every day.
It&rsquo;s time to change the way you work for the better. It&rsquo;s time to rethink digital business systems, to move towards new tools that work the way your business does, that centralize your information, make knowledge-sharing seamless, and unlock revenue potential.
Enter the era of the Work Hub.
<h3 dir="ltr">What is a Work Hub?</h3>
Qatalog&rsquo;s Work Hub is an operating system to run your business, where everything is connected in one place. Instead of scattering your people, processes, and knowledge across dozens of apps, a Work Hub centralizes them in a clearly structured and seamlessly connected platform.&nbsp;
But we know that every business is unique, with different customers, employees, structures, industries, markets, processes, goals, and communication styles. That&rsquo;s why your Work Hub adapts to meet your business&rsquo;s unique needs, with an interface and structure tailored to the way your teams work, and without unnecessary features or complications.&nbsp;
Your Work Hub also uses your company&rsquo;s internal terminology, so teams don&rsquo;t have to familiarize themselves with a dictionary of new words. For example, if your marketing team prefers &ldquo;campaigns&rdquo; instead of &ldquo;projects,&rdquo; and your product team &ldquo;sprints&rdquo; instead of &ldquo;phases,&rdquo; your Work Hub reflects this.
<h3 dir="ltr">How are different businesses using Work Hubs?</h3>
Tech start-ups, marketing agencies, manufacturing companies, fintech firms, and more, are using Qatalog to <a href="https://qatalog.com/blog/post/how-to-fix-saas-sprawl/">reduce SaaS sprawl</a> by building a bespoke Work Hub. Here are some examples of how different businesses might set up their Work Hub:
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">Marketing and design agencies. Marketing and design agencies often create Work Hubs where they can store information about their clients, manage and collaborate on projects, document and automate SOPs, and create a pipeline system for new business. We&rsquo;ve also seen some customers create a Services Module to centralize information related to the different services they offer.</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">Recruitment firms. For recruitment firms, a Work Hub provides a bespoke platform to manage their clients, roles, and prospective candidates, where everything is connected. These Modules ensure consistency of data input and make it quick and easy to get an overview of all their open roles, which of their clients are hiring, and which candidates are actively looking for roles.&nbsp;</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">Tech start-ups. There&rsquo;s a bit more variation in terms of how tech start-ups use Qatalog, as it depends on the sector and business model. Generally speaking, it&rsquo;s quite common to see them use it to help them track and manage their different products and features, which gives engineering, product, and marketing teams a space to collaborate, make decisions, and share updates. Often they will create a system to manage their prospective and existing customers too, making it easy for the product teams to view feedback.</li>
</ul>
As you&rsquo;d expect, we also use Qatalog internally, and some of our team members have created some Modules to manage more of our internal operations, such as: 
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="2">Vendor management. Our operations team built a vendor management system within Qatalog to track all of the subscriptions, suppliers, software tools, and other third-party suppliers we work with. If anything needs renewing, or there are questions about a supplier, they take place in context, attached to the vendor in question. </li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="2">Events. Our people team created an Events Module, to keep everyone informed about upcoming internal events and how to get involved in them. For example, we used it to plan our most recent offsite in Italy, and it gave us a central hub for people to ask questions, share the agenda, and communicate key information. </li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="2">Content pipeline. Our marketing team created a content production pipeline for our blog. It sounds simple, but it&rsquo;s really helped streamline our workflow and increase visibility of what&rsquo;s coming.</li>
</ul>
<h3 dir="ltr">How a Work Hub works</h3>
Traditional custom software requires anywhere from a few weeks to several months to design and build. However, thanks to Qatalog&rsquo;s AI-powered builder, you can create your custom Work Hub in minutes. Let&rsquo;s talk more about how this customizable system works.
Qatalog&rsquo;s building blocks are called &ldquo;Modules&rdquo; and they usually reflect the core pillars of your business. For example, if you&rsquo;re a marketing agency, one of your Modules might be called &ldquo;clients.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The Module would help you organize your clients&rsquo; information in a consistent format. This might include the company&rsquo;s name, industry, size, contract value, account lead, and so on. It would also help to centralize critical information you do with your client, such as scope of work agreements or contracts. If you ever need to find these documents, you know exactly where to look.
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/bezlImVmFkYceBEyogC5jpK77qFm5kKbcRj8rF5AOcp1QQRGlNhBBs0y3tBoXf-T2OkTzKogKLQPLUxt_GIwiIF2oBkWiCUEsA4ZvudLUZZR7E0NTYbHYHGvcJjyAbLu6B34WaTdg0YOa2YkhGGqnw" width="624" height="391">
You can also customize and configure your Modules any way you want to suit your needs. For example, a SaaS start-up might have a Module for its subscribers with fields that specifies how long a user has been a subscriber for and what tier they pay for.&nbsp;
Having these building blocks in place makes it really easy to scale because every time you get a new client or onboard a new customer, your Module makes sure you&rsquo;re consistently capturing the right information. And you&rsquo;re not bound by your Module&rsquo;s initial configuration, either &mdash; you can add or remove features and adjust the format whenever you need to.
You can also create relationships between different Modules to further streamline your workflow. For example, let&rsquo;s say you&rsquo;re a financial services company that relies on external contractors for legal counsel. You can create a Module called &ldquo;Contractors&rdquo; to record the different contractors you work with, including details about their areas of specialization, hourly rates, and where they&rsquo;re based.&nbsp;
Now, when you create a new case (using a Case Module), you&rsquo;ll have the option to link the case to the client it relates to and to the relevant contractor that&rsquo;s working on it. This means when you view a case, you can instantly see which client it&rsquo;s for, which internal team members are working on it, and which external contractors are engaged. And if you need information about any of them, it&rsquo;s all in the same system, just a click away.&nbsp;
<img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/J5hjouUpJ-IOgJRWt8JFhSRmVgPznTtk03YuuwAyX_Nj-XdGzfeO7rcmyvh3b7TcYhrga8JqNFdpz1sGcbF1oqi2e34SLV5zUIepv_QgsPPQ5FBAwDg5_QEhpcvqbXzV3QH0yHHmVShYYRPOIZh4zw" width="624" height="388">
As you can see, this structure of Modules allows you to create a Work Hub, where everything is connected and all your information is centralized. If someone on your team needs context around a client or project, they can refer to the relevant Item. Qatalog makes information sharing a breeze and gives you complete visibility into the context of your workflows.
<h3 dir="ltr">What are the benefits of a Work Hub?</h3>
Still wondering whether a Work Hub is right for you? Here are the top benefits of building your own custom virtual workspace with Qatalog.&nbsp;
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">Streamline your tool stack. <a href="https://language.work/research/workgeist/">More than half of workers</a> have trouble finding the information they need, context-switching is disrupting their workflow, and having dozens of subscriptions puts a strain on your budget. With Qatalog, you can radically simplify your tech stack, saving money, improving productivity, and centralizing your information and processes in a single, connected Work Hub. </li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">It's tailored to you. Until now, custom software has typically been a luxury that only tech giants like Shopify, Stripe, and Amazon, can afford. They realized that off-the-shelf solutions don&rsquo;t cut it, so they used their enormous in-house tech teams to create solutions tailored to their business.&nbsp;Qatalog has&nbsp;<a href="https://qatalog.com/blog/post/why-everyone-should-have-access-to-custom-software/">democratized access to custom software</a>, so every business can build a solution that&rsquo;s precisely configured to meet their needs. The structure and processes will match your company&rsquo;s unique workflow, and it&rsquo;ll use the same terminology that your teams use internally. By creating the features you need in your custom Work Hub, you can also avoid the need for additional tools to patch any gaps. </li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">Scale your system. Qatalog&rsquo;s modular structure makes scaling your workflows and processes seamless. Whenever you onboard a new client or start a new project, your relevant Modules will make sure all the important information is collected consistently. And as your business grows and evolves, you can create new Modules to manage new types of work and information. Qatalog also avoids the classic problem with most customizable tools, where it descends into chaos once you reach a certain size. This is because the permission system in Qatalog mirrors their roles in your organization, so you can keep adding new users without worrying they&rsquo;re going to break the entire structure you&rsquo;ve created.&nbsp; </li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">Make work visible and accessible to everyone. With a Work Hub, if a team member needs to access information on a project, client, or product, they can simply click on the relevant project item to instantly get context around it or ask a question to the relevant team.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
The good news is that it&rsquo;s also quick and easy to get started. Just let us know what kind of business you're in, and Qatalog AI will create your centralized Work Hub to manage your processes and run your operations. If it needs more fine-tuning, we&rsquo;ll be on hand to help you.
When you&rsquo;re ready to escape the productivity paradox, book a call with our&nbsp;<a href="https://qatalog.chilipiper.com/book/round-robin-queue?utm_medium=organic-social&amp;utm_source=blog&amp;utm_campaign=blog&amp;utm_content=you-need-work-hub" rel="follow">customer team</a>.

The very tools that were designed to improve productivity have done the opposite. Work Hubs are the answer.

Feeling the productivity paradox? You need a Work Hub

Are your tools making work harder? You need a Work Hub

Are you tired of managing complex processes across different departments? As a Chief of Staff, I know the struggle. I have oversight across finance, HR, and operations, and I have a stack of weekly, monthly, and quarterly processes that I need to keep track of and be on top of, many of which are sometimes lengthy multi-step processes.&nbsp;
Previously, I was a heavy Google Docs and Notion user. All of my to-do lists were on Notion, and I documented all of my processes in big Google Docs, where I would add any context if needed. The problem was this would quickly become out of date when a process changed and the Google Docs were often difficult for others to find. I also realized my instructions weren&rsquo;t as clear as I thought, when other people tried to follow them. Not to mention the fact there were lots of very manual processes involved.&nbsp;
Now, it&rsquo;s all become a lot easier. I use Qatalog&rsquo;s Workflows feature, which is designed to streamline, document, and automate routine processes. This means I never forget a step, I&rsquo;ve always got the context I need to complete a task, and large parts of the process are automated.&nbsp;
But the biggest benefit of doing this is that, even if I were to disappear into thin air, everything would keep working smoothly because there is an easy process to follow that&rsquo;s clearly documented for everyone else.&nbsp;
So, here are five ways that I use Workflows to automate my job:
<h3 dir="ltr" role="presentation">1 - Automated emails and Slack messages to share updates from a completed process</h3>
Example: When we have a new joiner, it&rsquo;s my job to create their email address. Once the email address is created, I need to let HR and the hiring lead know so they can start setting up their onboarding meetings. Previously, I&rsquo;d have to manually type this out every time. Now, I have a template for this that is pre-populated automatically with all the relevant information required about the new joiner, and the email (or Slack message) goes out automatically using the Workflow. All I have to do is press &lsquo;Next.&rsquo; 
<h3 dir="ltr" role="presentation">2 - Workflows are automatically assigned to me at the right time&nbsp;</h3>
Example: I use this in various ways. I have a weekly and monthly workflow with all the different tasks I need to complete over that period. Once I complete the last step in that Workflow, the next one is assigned to me straight away. This helps me prepare for next week and kick off the week well, as I know what&rsquo;s ahead, and makes it almost impossible to forget critical tasks. 
<h3 dir="ltr" role="presentation">3 - Streamlined compliance approvals&nbsp;</h3>
Example: We use workflows that allow team members to request new vendors, tools, and suppliers, as well as a payment for them. As each new request needs to be evaluated for SOC2 and ISO processes, we have set up approvals for this process. When a team member requests a new tool to use, it first goes to our security team to approve and identify what type of access is needed. After that has been approved, the requester needs to add the payment information and it goes to the finance team to approve and complete. Previously, all these steps would have been done in direct messages on Slack, and there would not have been the required steps for our certifications process. Now, the requester can see exactly in which stage the request is and what next steps still need to be done to complete the request. I know exactly when I am needed to jump in, as I&rsquo;m notified when it is time for me to approve my part of the Workflow.
<h3 dir="ltr" role="presentation">4 - Automated database updates</h3>
Example: Workflows can be used to create an &lsquo;item&rsquo; in Qatalog, which is essentially a record of anything you want. We use Qatalog to manage all of our vendors, where we store key information about them, such as the renewal date, owners, cost, data risk, and more. At the end of the new vendor request Workflow (mentioned above), a new item is automatically created in the system, with much of the information already populated. It helps to eliminate a tedious manual task and ensures consistency of information. This was one example, but you can also use Workflows to automatically create other items based on the inputs, such as Clients, Projects, Campaigns, Cases, Products, Orders, or Bug Reports.&nbsp;
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/NChIvUePRy2Tc5UwR3X8" alt="undefined">
<h3 dir="ltr" role="presentation">5 - Auto-assign tasks&nbsp;</h3>
Example: When you create a Workflow in Qatalog, you can specify tasks that need to be done by a particular person as part of the Workflow or as a result of it. These tasks are automatically assigned to the relevant person and will appear on their tasks page, so there&rsquo;s no need to add them manually to a separate task manager. I use this in a number of our onboarding Workflows, where there are certain tasks that our operations teams need to complete, and these are automatically assigned to the right person at the relevant point, without the new joiner having to do anything!
These are just five of the countless ways that I use Qatalog to automate my work. It helps me focus, I know exactly what I need to do next, and I don&rsquo;t have to worry that I&rsquo;ve forgotten anything. But more importantly, it means I can relax when I&rsquo;m on holiday because I know the team can execute these processes faultlessly when I&rsquo;m not working!&nbsp;
To learn more about how Qatalog could increase automation in your team, <a href="https://qatalog.chilipiper.com/book/round-robin-queue?utm_medium=organic-social&amp;utm_source=blog&amp;utm_campaign=blog&amp;utm_content=automate-my-job" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">book a call with our customer team</a>.

Learn how Qatalog's Chief of Staff has automated her role using Workflows.

Five ways I automate my job as Chief of Staff | Qatalog

Learn how Qatalog's Chief of Staff has automated large parts of her role using Workflows.

Five ways I automate my job as Chief of Staff

Work can be routine, and chances are, you find yourself doing the same tasks over and over again. Enter: <a href="https://help.qatalog.com/hc/en-us/articles/14235659819149-Recurring-Tasks" rel="follow">Recurring Tasks</a>.
Daily standups, weekly document updates, and monthly reminders will no longer slip through the cracks. Simply add a task, set it up to recur when you need to see it again, and never forget to do it.
Read on to discover more updates, or <a href="https://qatalog.chilipiper.com/book/round-robin-queue" rel="follow">book a call</a> with our friendly team to learn more.
<h3>What else is new?</h3>
<ul>
<li>We re-introduced the ability to mark a resource as key.</li>
<li>Threads can now be shared to a Slack channel of your choice, not just the one connected to an Item.</li>
<li>Navigation setup just got easier with &lsquo;drag and drop&rsquo; and improved nesting options.</li>
<li>Invite buttons are available in all items and browse views, for easy access.</li>
<li>People and Teams connections can now be shown as tabs on their profiles. An admin will need to enable this option on each Module&rsquo;s settings.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Keep up to date on everything Qatalog</h3>
If you want more updates on all things Qatalog, you can subscribe to our monthly newsletter by entering your email on the menu to your right.
Haven&rsquo;t tried Qatalog yet? Sign up for a <a href="https://qatalog.com/login?origin=signup" rel="follow">free 14-day trial</a>.

What’s new on Qatalog: March 2023

What else is new?

Keep up to date on everything Qatalog