Imagine a multinational conglomerate that does not have a suitable document management system and where all business processes can only be mapped on paper. Suppose some document types (such as departmental instructions or health and safety instructions) must be approved and reviewed by two or more different entities before the document can be published to all employees. In such an environment, releasing a document is a lengthy process that lacks transparency and structure, adding to the cost and loss of time.
The Digital Workflow – The Perfect Tool For Automating Your Business Processes
A workflow represents a series of tasks that result in a result. In the document management context, the term workflow can be defined as follows: the automated movement of documents or elements through a sequence of actions or tasks that belong to a business process.
With the help of workflows, employees can automatically and transparently manage documents and project tasks (task assignment, publication, approval). Business process efficiency and productivity can be viewed and improved with one click.
Concentrate On The Work And Not On The Management Of The Tasks
Project approvals and document reviews can be coordinated digitally, minimizing costs and time while making the work environment more transparent and structured. For example, you can add a workflow to a document library, or configure it only for a specific type of file to route a document to a specific group for approval.
Input And Output Management Made Easy With Workflows
Every day, companies receive numerous documents by post, email or simply via Microsoft Teams. The management of all these incoming documents is referred to as input management. On the other hand, there are many documents that have to be sent to customers and partners, such as invoices, purchase orders or contracts. All activities that are necessary for shipping are called output management. At first glance, input and output management are very different and cannot be viewed as a single process.
In reality, however, it is different. Incoming mail processing and the shipping process are linked and form an entire business process that has an input and an event (output). Let’s take a closer look at the example of an insurance company, namely the process “cancel insurance contract”. The input, in this case, is the cancellation letter that is created and sent by the customer. As soon as the letter reaches the company, the process, which includes several work steps, starts. At the end of this process, a cancellation confirmation is generated and sent to the customer. Imagine how long this process can take if all steps have to be done manually. An eternity! This creates dissatisfaction among customers and has a negative impact on the company’s image. Hire a SharePoint Consulting company to do it for you efficiently.
To avoid this, you can automate and accelerate your processes with the help of artificial intelligence and the use of digital workflows. In the figure below you can see the process flow, which takes place automatically with the help of Microsoft 365 applications – SharePoint and Power Automate. In this case, SharePoint is used as a document management system for storage, filing and archiving, and Power Automate for the smooth running of the digital workflows or flows.
Also Read About: 22 Common SharePoint Terminology Every User Should Know
After the receptionist has received the letter, he has to scan it. This is the input that triggers the following process. The auto-classification of the document by content type is done by the entity extraction method via Power Automate. The keywords are read out and the relevant properties (metadata) are extracted. The document is then automatically stored in the folder predefined for this content type. As soon as a new document ends up in the SharePoint library, the approval process starts, which sends the document to the responsible employee for review and approval.
A new task is created and an email notification is sent. If required, the employee can also be notified via Microsoft Teams. When the person responsible has approved the letter of termination, another workflow – collecting signatures – is started. This workflow creates another task and informs the department head, again via email and/or teams, that a document should be signed by him. As soon as the department head has signed the document, the approval process starts.
This is the output of this process. that a document should be signed by him. As soon as the department head has signed the document, the approval process starts. This flow enables the document to be archived according to predefined rules and automatically sends an email to the customer confirming their cancellation. This is the output of this process.
In this way, other processes can also be mapped in order to design your input and output management effectively and to speed up the processes. In this way, you can keep communication with your customers and partners simple and fast in the long term without sacrificing quality.
The SharePoint services providers help to make Workflows and Power Automate Flows do almost everything for you. Professional and skilled teams like Al Rafay Consulting provide assistance to get most out of this online platform.