ionBIZ X Make.com: The future of ERP automation is modular

At ionBIZ, we believe that a powerful ERP system is the backbone of your business. But we also believe that no software is an island.
That's why we embrace Make (formerly Integromat): a flexible no-code automation platform. Make allows us not only to optimize ionBIZ's built-in functionality, but also to seamlessly connect it with other tools essential to modern business operations.
In short: we look beyond ionBIZ to provide our customers - and ourselves - with the very best application capabilities.

Make makes ionBIZ better: our favorite automations

Make's strength lies in its connectivity. By using ionBIZ as a central hub, we create smart flows that increase efficiency, streamline alerts and eliminate manual tasks.

This is possible thanks to ionBIZ's exceptionally broad and deep (OData) API capabilities. This API acts as an open door to all your data and functionality, making virtually anything possible when combined with Make.

1. Enhanced communication and context-alert

Make ensures that critical ionBIZ data gets directly to the right place and to the right person, often via Slack.

• Critical ticket alerts: as soon as a ticket with critical priority is created, Make sends an alert directly to Slack. The alert shows the customer name, the title as a clickable link to the ticket in our ionBIZ instance, and the description in a separate thread.
• Absence insight for resource planning: daily Make posts a list of names, and start/stop times of approved leave, in a general Slack channel for resources that are absent on the current date.

2. Efficiency in document processing and integration

Manual administration is time-consuming. Make automates this, often in conjunction with Google services:

• Automated purchase invoice flow
  • Purchase invoices are dropped into a Google Drive folder.
  • Make reads these PDFs and adds a line to a Google Sheet with customer name, date, file name and total value.
  • When a new line is added, an expense/purchase invoice is automatically created in ionBIZ.
  • The PDFs are then moved to another folder.

• Project creation and document structure:
  • When a new project is created by processing a sales quote, Make automatically places the 'sales quote text header' text in a note on the project.
  • Make searches the network folder structure for a folder per client (created if necessary), and creates a new folder in it for this project

Smart data services and enrichment

By using external APIs, Make can enrich data in ionBIZ, something that would slow down standard ERP functionality:

• Distance calculation for mileage reimbursement: We use a free online service such as GeoApify or another maps API to calculate the driving distance between two addresses. This automatically sets the mileage fee on a project based on the selected company address and the relation project address.
• Nuclear isotope reporting: for one of our clients, Make calculates GBq and Cu values with a specific decay formula. The current values are then posted to custom fields of the Isotope resource in ionBIZ.

Future integration opportunities

Our Make vision does not stop here. We are constantly exploring ways to further enhance the ionBIZ experience. Here are some ideas that are still untested but should be feasible:

• Deactivation resource & ticket re-assignment: When a resource is deactivated, automatically reassign their unclosed tickets to a specified resource and tag the new resource on unread notes.
• Project document management: When creating a new project, automatically create a new folder on GoogleDrive/OneDrive and add the direct URL to this folder to the 'hyperlink' field of the project.
• Automated exchange rates: Use online API endpoints for exchange rates to automatically enter new exchange rates on ionBIZ currencies.
• Notification on open approvals: Send an alert to approvers when cost or other records have been ready for approval for x number of days without action.

In short, Make is the key for us to make ionBIZ not only efficient, but also extremely flexible. It proves that the best ERP solution is the one that is open to smart third-party integrations.