Workflow app on iPad Pro

[G.4]

How many are using the Workflow app on their iPad Pro? I just started over the holiday break and so far I have to say that it has definitely added a lot of "Pro" features to my iPad. Meaning that I can get a lot more done for work than I ever thought I could. I use to feel like working on my iPad was fine for light stuff, but I was always much more productive on my laptop. This app is changing that!

 

[muchospanish]

Can you give some examples? I've tried it a few times but I haven't found it that helpful. I might be under-utilizing it, though.

 

[bigtruck1369]

Federico Viticci and Fraser Spiers did a great multi-episode rundown of Workflow on their Canvas podcast (https://www.relay.fm/canvas) and I highly recommend it. I'll have to go back through to listen to it all again!

 

[G.4]

Can you give some examples? I've tried it a few times but I haven't found it that helpful. I might be under-utilizing it, though.

Yes absolutely. My best suggestion is to use your iPad Pro only for work one week (that is, if you aspire to do such a thing going forward). And every time you find yourself frustrated or annoyed that you have to jump around or go through too many steps to do something, just jot it down on a scratch paper. Then, at the end of the week, go into Workflow and play around with how you may be able to accomplish those tasks through creating some workflows. For me, it's fixed 90% of them. For example: I use Outlook on my laptop and flag emails for follow up later in the week. That works great because I can also add a reminder to that flagged email with just a right click or two. I then move the email into a folder to keep my inbox uncluttered. With my iPad I can flag an email just fine, but to remind myself to follow up on it later is another process altogether. I have to launch the Reminders app, or FantastiCal in my case, then create a new reminder, set a date and time, and then name it something that will remind me it is an email of some sort (most likely the subject line of the original email). That is time-consuming when you add up dozens of times I do this every day I am at work. So I created a Workflow that when I press the share button while reading an email, I can choose to run a workflow that automatically grabs the subject line from the email and creates a new reminder with the body of the email in the notes of the reminder. It then prompts me to type a date and time to follow up on it in natural language rather than using a date picker. Next I just press "done". I am then returned to my email inbox without ever leaving the email app. The entire process now only takes about 20 to 30 seconds and again, I never even have to leave the app. I have several others that I use as well and I can tell you that workflow, along with a keyboard, has really turned my iPad Pro into a productivity machine. In fact, I only travel with it now for work and I leave my laptop docked at home with its external monitors. Only to be used for really labor-intensive tasks like building complex spreadsheets or data mining with programs that don't run on iPad.

 

[G.4]

Federico Viticci and Fraser Spiers did a great multi-episode rundown of Workflow on their Canvas podcast (https://www.relay.fm/canvas) and I highly recommend it. I'll have to go back through to listen to it all again!

I will check that out, thanks! Federico's post on A Year with iPad Pro is what inspired me to use mine more for every day work rather than just media consumption.

 

[Ashraf Ilman]

Yes absolutely. My best suggestion is to use your iPad Pro only for work one week (that is, if you aspire to do such a thing going forward). And every time you find yourself frustrated or annoyed that you have to jump around or go through too many steps to do something, just jot it down on a scratch paper. Then, at the end of the week, go into Workflow and play around with how you may be able to accomplish those tasks through creating some workflows. For me, it's fixed 90% of them. For example: I use Outlook on my laptop and flag emails for follow up later in the week. That works great because I can also add a reminder to that flagged email with just a right click or two. I then move the email into a folder to keep my inbox uncluttered. With my iPad I can flag an email just fine, but to remind myself to follow up on it later is another process altogether. I have to launch the Reminders app, or FantastiCal in my case, then create a new reminder, set a date and time, and then name it something that will remind me it is an email of some sort (most likely the subject line of the original email). That is time-consuming when you add up dozens of times I do this every day I am at work. So I created a Workflow that when I press the share button while reading an email, I can choose to run a workflow that automatically grabs the subject line from the email and creates a new reminder with the body of the email in the notes of the reminder. It then prompts me to type a date and time to follow up on it in natural language rather than using a date picker. Next I just press "done". I am then returned to my email inbox without ever leaving the email app. The entire process now only takes about 20 to 30 seconds and again, I never even have to leave the app. I have several others that I use as well and I can tell you that workflow, along with a keyboard, has really turned my iPad Pro into a productivity machine. In fact, I only travel with it now for work and I leave my laptop docked at home with its external monitors. Only to be used for really labor-intensive tasks like building complex spreadsheets or data mining with programs that don't run on iPad.

This is actually a very excellent tip. Thank you!

 

[muchospanish]

So I created a Workflow that when I press the share button while reading an email, I can choose to run a workflow that automatically grabs the subject line from the email and creates a new reminder with the body of the email in the notes of the reminder. It then prompts me to type a date and time to follow up on it in natural language rather than using a date picker. Next I just press "done". I am then returned to my email inbox without ever leaving the email app. The entire process now only takes about 20 to 30 seconds and again, I never even have to leave the app.

That is a great example. I'll give that Outlook one a try this weekend. I'd like to put the body of several Outlook emails into a note in Notes each week.

 

[G.4]

That is a great example. I'll give that Outlook one a try this weekend. I'd like to put the body of several Outlook emails into a note in Notes each week.

You can definitely do that in Workflow. Another example is things that are more project specific. This week I am working on developing a new program for one of our clients. It requires taking a lot of pictures, which I can do with my phone, but I need to remember specifics about what each picture was about. So I need to name them, which you can't do in the photos app on your phone. So I created a Workflow where I take a picture, then from the share sheet I can with just one press of a button choose to upload to drop box to a specific folder (without having to choose it every time, since I know it will stay the same I already specified it in the Workflow) and I am prompted to name the photo. Once I do name it, I'm returned to the camera app without having to leave it. Takes about 10 seconds each time and I can stay focused on the task at hand while keeping my important photos organized. Talk about a lifesaver!

 

[muchospanish]

That's another one that I also have to do all the time. I always saved it to Pixelmator, named it, and then sent it to iCloud Drive. Thanks.

[Update: ]

I just created a workflow to resize and save images to different websites I manage, using Transmit to choose the destination. This is an annoying task so I look forward to using it.