Plugged In: The Smart Workflow Series

If you listen closely, you can almost hear it.

Every city has a pulse - a rhythm made up of work orders, service requests, asset updates, purchase approvals, and inspection logs.

That pulse is data in motion.

The question is: does it flow, or does it just move around? Too often, municipal systems shuffle information like playing cards, passing it from one department to another without ever establishing a genuine connection. What looks like “data movement” is really “data management theatre.” The same request appears in three systems, edited by five people, and reported six different ways.

A Smart Workflow changes that dynamic. It gives data a purpose and a path.

When a field inspection updates the condition of a water main in GIS, the data is automatically updated in the asset valuation of the ERP.

When finance approves a purchase order, the approval is automatically reflected in the maintenance schedule, triggering work assignments and inventory checks, all without requiring human intervention.

It’s not magic. Its design.

At Spatial DNA, we see workflows not as automations, but as conversations. Each connected system plays its part in a single, continuous story. GIS provides the where, ERP defines the cost, CRM connects the people, and asset management drives the action. Together, they tell the truth about how a city really operates.

One city we recently worked with discovered that its “data latency” wasn’t a network problem — it was a workflow problem.

Information wasn’t slow; it was trapped. Once we redefined the flows, linking their work management, GIS, and finance systems, their monthly reporting cycle dropped from three weeks to three days.

Data doesn’t just need to move faster. It needs to move smarter.

When workflows are built intentionally, they don’t just connect systems - they connect the story of a city to the people running it.

Stay tuned for next week’s post: