Online news publishing house uses Zoho Flow to manage website engagement.
- INDUSTRYOnline Media
- TYPEB2C
The company
In 2014, a few friends started OpIndia in Delhi, India. According to the CEO, their intention was to utilize facts and opinions in order to present an alternative perspective that challenges the dominance of a specific narrative in the mainstream media. The core team of OpIndia had three members, but over the years they have grown to a team of 40. The majority of their team consists of writers and editors who cover a variety of topics including, but not limited to, current affairs, economics, politics, sports, and entertainment. Their major content consumers are Indians who love reading opinionated articles, analysis of issues, news reports, and fact-checked articles.
The need for a reliable communication platform
To provide readers with relevant and timely access to news, they needed a good content editorial process, which brought out the need for a robust and stable communication channel between the writers and editors. This ensures the news is delivered in a timely and accurate manner, enabling readers to stay informed of the latest developments
"Since our start, we have never had a physical office. For all our communications, we rely on a communication platform. In our current setup, a writer will share their work with the editor for review before publishing it on our WordPress website. So, we need a reliable and steady communication platform." — Rahul Roushan, CEO, OpIndia
During their initial days, they managed their communications via Google Hangout and emails. As they started to grow, CEO, Rahul Roushan, realized they required a systematic communication setup.
This is when they moved from Google Hangout to Slack. With the help of a Slack plugin, they were able to integrate their WordPress website with Slack. This helped them receive their website engagement notifications in real time.
The need for a unified communication platform
Integrating their website with Slack helped them stay on top of the engagements happening on their website, but now they faced another challenge. The team had to toggle between multiple windows to execute a simple task, which often resulted in them losing track of their work. To solve this, Roushan started exploring the market for a unified communications platform.
"Being a developer's platform, Slack offers multiple plugins to integrate with WordPress. But it is an expensive platform and does not offer a unified UI experience." — Rahul Roushan, CEO, OpIndia
In their search for a unified communication platform, they found Zoho Workplace. As a suite, it offered them native integrations between Zoho Cliq, Zoho Mail, Zoho Workdrive, and its other apps under a single interface. They were happy as it ticked all their boxes, however, they wanted customized integrations for their specific requirements. They continued to explore Zoho's ecosystem and discovered Zoho Flow.
The solution: Integration simplified by Zoho Flow
Initially, Roushan spent a few hours exploring Zoho Flow, understanding its capabilities, and learning how to use them. Once he got a basic understanding of the platform, he created his first flow by integrating WordPress and Zoho Cliq.
In a short time, Roushan was able to replicate and even upgrade his old workflows with Flow's advanced capabilities. He integrated WordPress and Zoho Cliq using webhooks and decisions.
"Zoho Flow is an easy-to-use, very intuitive, and comprehensive integration platform. It helped us integrate Zoho Workplace with WordPress without writing a single line of code. Now, we do not miss Slack anymore, thanks to Zoho Flow and Zoho Workplace." — Rahul Roushan, CEO, OpIndia
Benefits and ROI
With the integration between their WordPress site and their Zoho communication apps, OpIndia is now able to stay updated with its website engagements without having to switch between multiple tabs. Employees no longer worry about losing their place while working, so news articles are being produced at an improved rate which satisfies their readers.
Looking forward
OpIndia is happy with their Zoho Flow integration. Roushan champions the intuitive design and simple interface. In fact, the OpIndia team was so impressed that they are also exploring ways to streamline their other business processes using Zoho Flow.