Free workflow software: 6 options for your team

Essential features of free workflow software

There are lots of different reasons to use workflow software for your repeatable processes. 

Some teams need a central space where they can visualize their workflow and ensure they’re following the same steps. Others need to monitor their progress to help team members plan their work and keep their clients up to date. Some need a workflow diagram to illustrate their project plan. And others know that a powerful piece of workflow software can show them the weaknesses in their processes and the opportunities to improve them.  

Whatever your motivation for searching for workflow software, there are must-have features to look for. 

Regardless of the price tag, workflow software should have the following: 

• The right number of users for your team: Workflow management software should help you view and follow the same fixed process as your colleagues. This means you need as many seats as there are people on your team. Unfortunately, free tools often limit the number of users you can add. This means not everyone can view or modify the workflow, restricting your ability to collaborate. 
• Additional customization and automation tools: The best workflow software lets you build your process from the ground up so you can tailor your system to your team. It also helps you work more efficiently and productively by automating some of the manual aspects of your process. Automation and customization might be available to test out on a free trial, but you’ll likely have to pay for them after that. 
• Workflow tracking features: As you move tasks through your workflow in a software tool, it should gather data to report on the time it took, the people who were involved, and the number of revisions you had to make. When you can view this data, you can identify bottlenecks and common issues and plan ways to avoid them on your next project. You’ll rarely get this level of reporting and risk management with a free tool, which leaves you with less of the concrete data you need to inform your management decisions. 

Ideally, your workflow software should boost productivity, help your team share ideas, and give you the complete overview you need to preempt any issues with your project work. 

Because free software often lacks the features you need to achieve these goals, I tend to recommend it for small teams, people running small businesses, or people who need a quick, temporary solution — like for a one-off project. But if your business is larger, you have overlapping workflows, or you have a complex process where the quality of the results really matters, free software is rarely the best solution. 

Now, let’s look in detail at what you can expect from the workflow software tools that fit a modest budget, as well as the affordable upgrades you can take advantage of on a paid plan. 

1. Wrike: Workflow software for unlimited users

Wrike is a work management platform with all the features you need to build, share, and track your workflows. Over 20,000 companies use Wrike as their go-to workflow management software, including Walmart Canada, Sony Pictures Television, and Siemens Smart Infrastructure. Wrike is free for teams that need to save on workflow software. We also offer a range of pricing plans to fit your budget, which I’ll discuss in detail later. 

What can you do with Wrike’s free plan?  

Wrike’s free plan includes a default workflow, intelligent project and task management, multiple work views, and the ability to sync between desktop and mobile apps. Most importantly, the number of users who can collaborate is unlimited, so you can implement your basic workflow across a large team. Our free features include: 

• Task and subtask management to break down your projects into actionable steps, populate your workflow, clarify responsibilities, and effortlessly delegate to your team
• Use case project templates to simplify your complex processes and make it easier to kick off your workflow
• Smart search to quickly locate the tasks or deliverables you want to check in on
• Custom work views so you can display your workflow as a table or a Kanban board, which shows your workflow status in real time and at a glance
• Email integration and notifications to keep your team up to date with the latest movements in the workflow
• Enterprise-grade security to protect your sensitive data

Customize your workflows for your team

With Wrike’s custom item types, you can create template tasks and workflows that truly reflect the process you go through before you reach the end of your workflow. When you make a library of detailed task types and workflows for the jobs that frequently land on your desk, it’s faster and easier to set up a workspace that gives everyone the clarity they need. 

While free tools will usually add color coding and assignee names and let you rename the columns of a Kanban board, Wrike offers an unbeatable level of detail. For example, rather than a team-wide workflow where all your tasks pass through the same levels of “Requested,” “In progress,” “In review,” and “Completed,” you can set up more complex workflows for client work that needs multiple rounds of reviews and approvals. 

What’s more, the task cards within your workflow won’t just symbolize your work; they’ll include all the files, discussion, and progress information in one place, so you can see what’s going on behind the task status. 

Wrike’s advanced filtering and cross-tagging features are ideal for complex workflows. Even if multiple teams are working on the same task, cross-tagging lets them view the task card and the same working versions of the file in multiple dashboards — without unnecessary duplication. Your shared workflows are always up to date, and you’re always looking at the very latest version of your work. 

Automate your request and approval processes

With Wrike, you can automate your workflows from end to end, eliminating the manual tasks that could otherwise take you away from creative or innovative work. 

Our custom request forms gather information about a client’s requirements right at the beginning of the project. They have custom fields for requested dates, essential files, and an overview of the work that needs to be done. When submitted, you have all the information you need to begin work, and you can even use the forms to kick off an entire workflow for the task. 

Then, when it’s time to review and approve your work, Wrike will automatically notify someone with approval authority. They can view their pending tasks, drill down into the task history, and approve it with one click. 

Here, simple when/then automation rules make your process crystal clear. When the approver marks the task complete, it can be filed or sent to the client as necessary. When they request revisions, the person responsible can be tagged with an @mention, and they’ll be notified so they can make the changes as soon as possible. Tools like these make all the difference in your efficiency at the crucial bookends of your project. With Wrike, you know you can kick off your workflows more smoothly and bring them to a close more efficiently, predictably, and collaboratively. 

Integrate all your tools for a seamless workflow

Wrike Integrate is an add-on that can automate business processes, connect to cloud and on-premises apps, and add custom automations to every stage of your workflow. 

When you build your workflows in Wrike, you can include as many apps as you need, which helps you close all the gaps where a task could slip through.Users on the Business plan can also access the full batch of our Work Intelligence® features. Our AI monitors your workflow and recognizes common patterns, including the time it takes to complete tasks, the capacity each team member has for new work, and the routes your files take through the workflow. 

We then use this information to suggest workflow integrations and automations that could streamline your process even further, helping you consistently expand and develop your process.

Our AI project risk prediction also keeps you on track with alerts, so there are no nasty surprises when a deadline is due.

View your workflow from every angle 

Wrike’s free plan includes customizable table and Kanban views to suit most workflows. However, on a paid plan, you can switch between even more workflow views to find the visualization that works best for your team. Both a Team and Business plan workspace can include: 

• A dynamic Gantt chart showing the critical path to the end of your project
• Dashboards for your teams, subteams, and individual users showing their upcoming tasks 
• Team calendar views synced to your project updates to coordinate your schedules at a glance

Plus, when you define dependencies for the tasks in your workflow, the schedule for the subsequent tasks will automatically update across every visualization when the first due date changes. This means you can be sure the timeline you’re looking at is accurate across every workflow view you use. 

Hone your workflows with comprehensive reporting

I’ve mentioned before that a truly powerful workflow software platform will inform your management decisions with a granular breakdown of the way your workflow is performing. With Wrike, you can automatically generate real-time reports by filtering the data from your workflows to show you the most important information.

For example, if you want to reassure yourself that your project work is on track, set Wrike to generate a weekly report with information from your time tracking and the percentage progress on each of the tasks in your workflow. This can quickly show you if your next milestone is still feasible, or if you need to reallocate resources to make the deadline. 

Wrike pricing

• Free plan: For unlimited users 
• Team plan: $10 per user per month 
• Business plan: $24.80 per user per month 
• Enterprise and Pinnacle plan: Custom pricing available

Contact Wrike’s customer service team to learn more about how we can help your work flow. Or, try a plan for free for 14 days, with no credit card required.