Published on the 08/11/2016 | Written by Donovan Jackson
DIY integration for digital transformation at the individual level…
Generally, when talking data migration or integration, thoughts tend to turn towards enterprise software and the many challenges associated with getting multiple disparate systems to play nicely together. But while on a far smaller scale, most of us have similar problems in our personal lives – particularly with the explosion of cloud apps which many use on a day to day basis. Tibco, one of the big names in enterprise integration, has turned its attention to the lower end of the scale with its Simplr, an application targeted at improving personal productivity by connecting the various apps that help get us through the day.
Call it ‘digital transformation for the individual’, if you will. Tibco calls it a ‘personal automation application for connecting cloud apps, managing and moving data across apps, creating forms, and more’. It’s available on a fremium model and certainly looks fascinating.
The application includes a DIY tool to automate repetitive tasks, and build forms and flows to collect, manage, and move data from people and applications, without coding – a ‘point and shoot’ approach apparently does the trick.
That there is a need for ‘personal digital transformation’ and tools to make the process easier is, perhaps, intuitively obvious – we’ve all struggled with moving information from one app to another, either in personal or professional lives. In a piece titled ‘Digital transformation is not science fiction any more’, Forbes pointed out that DT is indeed something that happens at the individual level: ‘if you do pretty much anything on a phone or a computer, you’re part of it. Have you read an e-book? Listened to streaming music? Watched a cute cat video on YouTube? And those are just personal choices: living the digital lifestyle. It’s disrupted your daily routine. With a billion Facebook users and six billion mobile phones, you are probably on board’.
The Institute for Digital Transformation (apparently, that too is a thing) has a piece titled ‘Why you’re the key to digital transformation’. If that’s the case, where better to start than with personal productivity tools and apps.
In a statement, Tibco CTO Matt Quinn said the company has leveraged its cred in integration and workflow automation for businesses and individual users. “Simplr does not require a technical skill level; this is Tibco for everyone.” He said the Simplr application streamlines business processes and increases productivity without relying on IT teams or coding.
From demand generation campaigns and content marketing tasks to event planning and social media processes, Simplr promises to help by linking cloud applications and automating tasks, gather information from people with an online forms tool and connect apps including Evernote, Gmail, Google Sheets, Salesforce, Marketo, Twitter, JIRA, Slack, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey, Spotfire, and others.
It also collects, manages, and moves data between cloud apps with flows, while Tibco’s Expresso mobile app can be used to publish data from within Simplr flows and subscribe to them as contextualised push notifications. Probably does the dishes, too.
Go on then. Digitally transform yourself – but only if you have an iOS device, as Simplr is available on the iStore.
