WordFlow: transforming documents into enriched webpages

Word and PDF documents have enabled us to communicate ideas for more than 25 years, however, the ways we organise and publish them is in stagnation.

We all know the pain of sieving through multiple versions of downloaded documents to find the correct file. For organisations, it’s difficult to continuously update their website with current documents and it negatively impacts on customers who download them.

WordFlow is the first to automatically transform Word and PDF documents into secure, easy-to-navigate, cloud-based webpages.

Following the release of the Banking Royal Commission Report, WordFlow transformed the 1,200-page document into a website using its specialised conversion and enrichment engine.

“We do about 100 pages every two or three minutes, it’s very fast,” says Bruce, CEO & Founder of WordFlow.

Emerging from the corporate world, Bruce and Co-Founder Caroline Trotman, COO of WordFlow and Stone & Chalk Board Member, both encountered the same issue. They kept seeing attractive web design prioritised over ease of access to content that formed the backbone of organisations.

They noticed a pattern where migrating information to the web involved applying a ‘digital lipstick,’ where the backend was old and attached to new. In other words, they still had Word and PDF documents attached to their websites.

To make matters worse, organisations generally have their information spread across multiple systems, holding these documents “in captivity,” explains Bruce.

This presents a huge risk as business decisions can be made based on outdated information. In fact, many issues uncovered in the Banking Royal Commission occurred as a result of operational failures.

WordFlow seized the opportunity to “redefine the document,” says Bruce. WordFlow removes this complexity by bringing all required information into one place and making significant information just one or two clicks away.

How does the technology work?

Well, first thing’s first; there is absolutely no downloading – all you need is internet and a (portable) device.

WordFlow webpages function like any other website: the table of contents from documents becomes the webpage navigation panel. Automated tags effectively classify every page of every document and enable filtered search to give detailed and accurate results.

Interactive features include: pop-up glossary terms and acronym definitions, an accessibility panel featuring zoom capabilities, options to adjust colour-vision, as well as features to help the hearing-impaired.

For the 26% of Australian households that don’t speak English at home, WordFlow automatically translates any webpage into any one of 104 different languages.

With its digital edition of the Banking Royal Commission Final Report, WordFlow generated links to relevant legislation and published commentary, related images and videos. There’s no need to leave the webpage, as everything’s there at your fingertips.

“With analytics incorporated into every webpage, organisations can gather human behaviour from any site automatically,” explains Caroline. This enables marketers and publishers to know what is working, and what can be improved to enrich user engagement.

Working from the centre of gravity for fintech

“We are the biggest fans of Stone & Chalk,” exclaim the pair.

Whilst WordFlow is a scale up, the reputational benefit of being associated with Stone & Chalk has helped immensely. “It’s very hard to engage with massive organisations when you’re a smaller company,” says Bruce.

One of the biggest challenges when building a business is finding the right people, Caroline explains. “The difference with Stone & Chalk is that you can bring people into a small company, whilst still enabling them to be part of a big, professional and very welcoming community.”

She admits that being at Stone & Chalk makes the recruitment process much easier, especially when you’re surrounded by dedicated “developers and business founders, which has made a significant difference attracting and retaining good people.”

Alongside WordFlow, Caroline proudly contributes her directorial visions to the Stone & Chalk board. She explains that being a resident representative on the Board “gives us a chance to give back. It’s also the ideal way to feed through to the Board what the residents are thinking and feeling, as well as the strategies that Stone & Chalk needs to pursue to attract and support residents.”

“Being a resident also gives you a unique perspective, because you’re living and breathing the place every day. It’s also good for the residents to know they have a voice.”

What’s next for WordFlow?

Only six weeks into 2019, WordFlow was able to secure a new business in significant insurance companies. So, it’s not surprising they have ambitious plans to open offices in the UK during the second half of this year to continue to grow.

There’s also the potential to explore further developments to the software such as in AI, natural language processing, and machine learning.

“We have the best team,” smiles Bruce, “and with them, there is just so much we can do,” agrees Caroline.

Updated December 2019: WordFlow has changed its name to 1WordFlow.

30 April 2019