Keep It Simple, Stupid.” A term, which simply indicates that the simplest solution should be taken in a situation. This can be applied to anything – if your employee needs a5 paper, then you just get it for them. Don’t just leave it because you can’t be bothered. Finding the simplest suggestion is the best thing. This principle can be applied to one of the more challenging areas facing organizations, Workflow Automation for Forms and Processes.

Steps to build a “Best-in-Class” Integrated Workflow

5 important considerations when selecting a process automation tool:

Simplification- use what you have!

Find a tool that is easy for end-users!

Find a tool that integrates with your other systems!

Find a tool that gives you the Agility you need to react to changes in the business!

Find a tool that makes it easy for departments to create their own workflows!

What is the Role of Forms in Reengineering Workflow Processes?

How do we get the most recent version of the form to all employees?

How do I manage different versions of my forms?

How do we ensure that management responds to a form/request in a timely manner?

What is the workflow protocol when a first line manager is on vacation?

How long do we have to retain forms?

How do we dispose of requests/forms correctly?

Employees ask questions like:

What form do I use?

Where do I find the correct form?

Where is my form in the process?

What is the correct entry for that field?

Who do I give my form to?

My boss is on vacation, who do I give my form to?

Why do I have to reenter the same information on different forms or in different places?

Did I send that form? What did I send?

Steps to Build a Best-in-Class Integrated Workflow

We know where it is your organization needs to go, and but, how do organizations:

Reengineer business processes?

Share information between systems and departments?

Measure cycle times?

Receive status on processes?

React quickly and update processes when needed, and become more agile?

Selecting the Right Tool

Business users want to manage the design and execution of business processes.

Simplification- use what you have!

Your organization chose Microsoft, and it spent a lot of money on that infrastructure, so why not make use of it? If your firm is like most, you have Microsoft products running nearly every facet of the business. Your office automation platform runs on Microsoft (Office), your email system is Microsoft (Outlook); your databases are Microsoft (SQL, SharePoint). Pretty much everything runs on Microsoft technology! Find a business process automation tool that can leverage that existing Microsoft Infrastructure. To help those who use a full Microsoft system, they may want to look into gaining appliable knowledge that can provide a good solid background for a career by taking exams such as the ms-500 exam, which can help with using the Microsoft software.

Find a tool that is easy for end-users!

No one is going to use a new tool if it’s not easy. Pick a tool that uses an environment that end-users already know and understand. Far too many organizations select full featured, state of the art technologies, only to find out that end-uses refuse to use them. Or, that use of the new system has to be forced upon end-users in a way that causes internal strife/resistance. The tool has to be EASY for employees!

Find a tool that integrates with your other systems!

A wise philosopher once said: Automation for the sake of automation is folly (roughly translated)! If your business process automation system does not make it easy to integrate with your other systems, it’s not worth it. Start over! Again, Microsoft is prevalent in your firm, make sure the tool you select uses Microsoft as the basis for its technology, and that integrating with your ERP, HR, or CRM is simple and smooth.

Find a tool that makes it easy for departments to create their own workflows!

It seems like creating workflows with some tools require a PhD. Sure, there are tools with very advanced functionality, but If IT (or even worse, a consultant) has to be involved with creating every workflow, it could take forever! Choose a tool that someone in Operations can actually use, that’s the only way that you’ll have the agility to really make a difference.

Find a tool that gives you the Agility you need to react to changes in the business!

Where does K.I.S.S. fit in?

A tool that is Easy-to-Use for both end-users and management, that leverages your Existing Infrastructure, that individual departments to can use to Create their Own Workflows, and Quickly Change those Workflows as needed

Today, the vast majority of business processes in corporations and government organizations are performed manually using paper forms, fax, and electronic forms attached to emails. Larger companies may have legacy BPA/BPM systems in place (e.g., IBM, Appian, Metastorm (OpenText), Oracle, SAP, etc.), but these systems are too expensive to use on anything but the most mission critical business processes. In addition, employees often have to switch from application to application to carry out business processes (e.g., from email to Excel or Word, or to an ERP/CRM module, or to a workflow-based application such as an expense report management tool). All of this is highly inefficient and ineffective, resulting in wasted time and resources, significant unnecessary costs, and poor responsiveness to process participants (both internal and external to the company). Ultimately, this negatively impacts a company’s productivity and bottom line as well as its agility in the marketplace.

A K.I.S.S. solution to this challenge is to leverage the organization’s current email communications infrastructure (Microsoft Exchange/Outlook) and automate manual business processes within Outlook, an application in which users already spend a large percentage of their time and are completely familiar with the user interface. K.I.S.S. technology adds structured forms and workflow capabilities to Outlook, transforming corporate email from an informal, unstructured medium to a highly structured one, and enabling organizations to leverage email as an agile and ubiquitous BPA tool. Process templates and forms are easily designed and published by business users for use within the Outlook application, without requiring support from IT. Process participants never have to leave Outlook to participate in their portion of the process. Any data collected through the processes can be easily extracted and integrated with existing ERP/CRM applications and enterprise databases, enabling more timely and informed decisions associated with these processes.

With the K.I.S.S. solution, manual business processes can be quickly and easily automated within an environment (Microsoft Outlook) that is already well known and used by all participants, in a fraction of the time, and at a fraction of the cost of using legacy BPA/BPM systems. By automating these manual processes, the company will achieve significant time and cost savings through greater efficiencies, as well as more timely and accurate results.

Key benefits of a K.I.S.S. Workflow solution include:

Lower implementation costs and faster time to benefit versus legacy BPA/BPM systems – Legacy BPA/BPM systems are very expensive from a software purchase, implementation, and ongoing maintenance perspective. Implementing with a K.I.S.S. solution is much more cost- effective.

Ongoing cost savings due to efficiency and productivity increases – By automating existing manual processes, companies gain significant cost savings due to greater efficiencies and productivity across the organization as well as reduced opportunity costs (employees spend less time dealing with inefficient manual processes and more time on the higher priority, more strategic aspects of their job).

Greater ease of use, resulting in more rapid adoption of the automated business processes –applications are designed to be developed, deployed, and used by business users. Process forms, templates and business rules are designed using an intuitive graphical interface based on Microsoft InfoPath and are deployed within the ubiquitous Microsoft Outlook environment. This will result in faster and more complete adoption by the organization, leading to the corresponding cost and efficiency benefits.

Better, more informed decisions – By enabling the rapid automation of existing manual processes and collecting the data disseminated through these processes for integration with enterprise applications and databases, enables more timely and informed decisions associated with these processes.

A K.I.S.S. Solution is Available NOW at FORMVERSE K.I.S.S. My Workflow

Qualified organizations are invited to see a 30 Minute Demo of how this patented Workflow solution can save your company Time and Money

Contact Us:

askus@formverse,com

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