It is so much akin to conjugation that the French grammatical establishment nowadays calls that construction a tense, the futur proche.

There is no problem in using it : it’s standard French and it dates of old; the current usage, the same as it ever was, corresponds to that of the English verbal form in the progressive “to be going to” followed by an infinive.

Example

Ils vont faire les choses comme il faut dorénavant.
From now on they are going to do things right.

the French hadn’t so far realised they really had to contend with a new tense ; it’s most probably their recent studies of English grammar that woke them up to this new way of thinking!

It must be said, however, that not everyone is agreed upon considering this form as constituting a real tense.