Flow is a Platform

“A platform enables. It helps others build value...Platforms help users create products, businesses, communities and networks of their own.”

Jeff Jarvis, What Would Google Do?

Flow was conceived and designed as a platform.

Flow is not a reporting, workflow, collaboration or other kind of tool precisely because it is an open platform. We would rather build a platform that can accommodate the best reporting tool in the world, adding value to the platform and providing users with the functionality they need through an interface with which they are familiar. We're good at building platforms that allow integration and extension.

This is the reason the platform can ‘borrow’ from other web applications in real time; we don’t want to dictate to our customers how they have to do things. Flow doesn't ‘lock in’ our customers – rather, it frees them to choose any tool for any purpose in the future whilst the common user interface minimises the effort and cost involved with implementing that tool.

For example, if there's a great manufacturing system reporting tool that meets your organisation's requirements, that’s fine; it can be embedded into Flow's user interface. We understand that there are tools out there that fit your requirements so well, or represent an investment already made so significant, that they're integral to your business. So we've made sure you can continue to see their benefits.

Equally this means that we're always looking for third party tools and applications to link to; if you have a great tool we should look at email us.

Flow has project management, forms design and business processes capabilities built in so it promotes action rather than just analysis. It's platform agnostic and can fit into existing security architectures.

We believe that the best way to deliver on the promise of the platform is through a browser interface. Client installed software has traditionally been functionally rich, but overall it can be a poor experience; users don’t use most of the advanced functionality and it’s often difficult to package and deploy. A browser front end means that every user can immediately get value; extend the platform, converse with their peers, get the data they need. The platform is personal, without any client software or the associated expense.