Episode 515: Approval on Contract through Workflow! (Improved version)

"Contract flow" and "Decision making Flow" are popular in 2016 as well

This is the last post of this year. We were able to deliver Business Templates every week in 2016 as well. This is also thanks to the "support message" and "Like" from the readers.

Yes. We will try harder next year (2017) as well.

Well, this blog has disclosed over 500 articles (and nearly 800 templates) over the past seven years so far, what kind of articles were read well in this year of 2016? I immediately examined the access log of this year.

<Top 5 Articles>

• 2010-11-12: Making an Extensive Agreement History List with an Agreement Workflow
• 2015-07-06: National Identification Number in Workflow (4)
• 2011-10-03: Fault! Report It Through Workflow!
• 2013-03-25: How to Design a Workflow Chart of decision making by the Boss and Their Boss: part 2
• 2011-05-02: Processing Ringi Approvals Simultaneously

Again, online approval (paperless) on "Contracts" and "Decision-making request" seems to be a popular agenda. (Note: This is the result of the Japanese version)

How do I write it at the present time? "Contract approval flow"

However, this article was written already six years ago.

As being in a position of a person who draws Business Processes every day, I cannot stop thinking that "I would recommend a different Process now". (Though it cannot be helped to be "often read", because it comes at the top when searching for "contract workflow" in Google search in Japanese, currently...)


So, in the last article of this year, I would like to rework the "Contract approval Process" in a simple way.

[Contract approval Process (2010-11-12)]

Episode 514: Politicians should Show Us "Productivity Improvement" Practically!

Work-life balance of politicians and bureaucrats

As in other developed countries, Japan is also facing the limits of existing "welfare state line".

In other words, every political parties agree on the basic policy of "streamlining the administration" (simple and efficient government). Cannot go against the flow of the times.

* Through the chain of bankruptcies that occurred in the 1930s (the Great Depression), human beings denied "laissez-faireism" and affirmed "social security" by a big government. After the economic stagnation (Oil crisis) that occurred in the 1970s, human beings to be aware of "inefficiency of welfare state" and accepted a recurrence to a "competitive society" in a smaller government. Securing of tax revenue became difficult for corporate activities since the 1990s cross country border. While maintenance of infrastructure and medical expenses increase, and as a result, the existing "welfare state line" would not go on.

However, "Discussions on administrative efficiency improvement in the National Assembly" does not mesh at all.

The direction of reforms to be discussed is diverse, for example, 1) to stop "Hanko administration", 2) to promote the "privatization of special purpose entities", and 3) to unify the collection of health insurance, pensions and income taxes". However in any direction it seems that it is not easy to form an agreement on "how to make it smaller" or "the procedure to shrink" the government that has grown big.

As a result, the Diet members repeat similar questions and the Cabinet repeats the same answers.

"Questions" are submitted at midnight, "Responses" are created in the middle of the night, "briefing to Minister " is held early in the morning. The National Assembly itself is promoting 'enlargement of administration'. "Productivity improvement" they say is already a nonsense.

How to make question by Diet members

In the first place, the work of Diet members is not "performing in the galleries" to be looking good on TV. To the private sector, the committee deliberations seem merely 'long-term meeting' which detains people who are paid high hourly wages like the Minister from 9 o'clock in the morning to late evening. What do the investors think if the "Board of Directors" was held from morning till evening, and ended up with some of the directors "appealing to leave away"?

If they feel that there are matters to correct about the Cabinet submission bill and national politics in general, they should use more "written question" than "verbal question". And, they should refer to past questions (FAQ) (not like a private FAQ site), when asking questions. If they dare to ask the same question, they can ask "Is there any change in the answer contents of FAQ-20161213-01?" Then the Cabinet will simply click "No".

There is no qualification for talking about "national interest" for a member who only claims "deliberation time is short". (Rather, the number of questions should be his or her KPI.)

[Cabinet answer creation]

Episode 513: Business Process to Ensure Quality of Posted Articles

"Cannot see the Business Process in the Field"？

In autumn 2016, "Plagiaristic act" by "curated media" is reported sensationally in Japan.

Originally, "content curation" is worthwhile, so as "curation tools / platforms" which enables anyone to post their curated contents. However, a site management company (listed company) mass-produces contents curation articles through cloud-sourcing, and the fact that plagiarism has been instructed during the outsourcing of article writing is brought to the light.

Process of Curated Article Production

There indeed was a Disclaimer note, i.e.

We are completely not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, benefits, conformity to specific purposes, or anything else regarding the information in this article and the user's judgment for using this information.

However, since the particular site was curation concerning "wellness", "Moral" was questioned rather than "copyright infringement". And, as a result, the CEO apologized as "there was a problem in the process of article creation".

DeNA press releass: Statement by CEO

some parts of our manual and directions to writers could be interpreted as suggesting plagiarizing other websites. I cannot view this as being morally correct ... I promise to fundamentally change our operations of these media and create a process which I can completely place my faith in.

I do not know whether it is truth or not, but probably "he did not really see the business process". (I want to believe so.) Then, what kind of business process should he have build if the operating company needs to write articles responsible for?

[Article Creation process]

Episode 512: The Shortest Business Process in the World?

"I want to try business flow designing..."

In the world of "programming" it is said that "the only way to learn it is to write a program". In fact, everyone writes a program that displays a string "Hello World" at start learning programming. Similarly to this, "try to draw a Business Process" is very important even in the world of "modeling".

The following Business Process is started by "receive mail", and it ends with "chat post".

In the commonplace, a Business Process begins with some sort of "trigger", and several "Steps" follow after it. Whereas, there is only one processing step of "Post to chat" in this example. And, that is a "processing by computer" (automatic processing), so there is no "handling by human" at all. (What a heck!)

[Chat Post flow]

Episode 511: Automatically Generate Transfer Slip File (Excel-CSV)

"It's so troublesome to enter billing data..."

Logs such as bank deposits and withdrawals and card payments have become "automatic journalizing", and "accounting input work" became quite easier compared to before.

However, in terms of "sales" in particular, it is too late to wait for the timing of "deposit". After all, it is desirable to record it as "sales as accounts receivable" at the time of "invoice" issuance... Rather, it's a must.

• 2016 - 11 - 22: Accounts receivable 120,000 / Sales 120,000 = Website creation (for company A)
• 2016 - 12 - 31: Saving deposit 120,000 / Accounts receivable 120,000 = Website creation (for company A)

Incidentally, on the contrary, there are cases where cannot include in "sales" at the time of issuing "Invoice" (even at the time of "deposit").

• 2016 - 12 - 31: Saving deposit 120,000 / Advance received 120,000 = Maintenance 2017 - 01 - 2017 - 12 (for Company A)
• 2017-01-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-01 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)
• 2017-02-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-02 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)
• 2017-03-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-03 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)
• 2017-04-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-04 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)
• 2017-05-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-05 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)
• 2017-06-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-06 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)
• 2017-07-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-07 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)
• 2017-08-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-08 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)
• 2017-09-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-09 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)
• 2017-10-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-10 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)
• 2017-11-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-11 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)
• 2017-12-01: Advance received 10,000 / sales 10,000 = 2017-12 of Maintenance 2017-01 to 2017-12 (for company A)

The creation method and creation timing of so-called "transfer slips" (transfer records) varies depending not only on the type of industry but also on company policy. Even so, the work itself should certainly be "automated".

In the following Workflow, at the moment when the "Invoice" is approved by the supervisor,

• Receipt PDF will be emailed to he customer,
• Multiple line "transfer records" are automatically calculated
• The import file is automatically generated.

Accounting staff can finish "input work" by only uploading the automatically generated Excel-CSV file to the accounting system.

[Invoice Issuance flow]

Episode 510: "Post Facto Approval" in Expense Report Flow is Good Enough

"Because of the corporate card, it is difficult to grasp the entire expenses"

Business process improvement will reduce "wasteful work" and "time-consuming procedures". However, along with that, "checking by human" tends to be inadequate.

It sure will be a problem if "a loophole (fraud method) has been created as a result of promoting work efficiency" in high occurrence work of "Four major apps" which are;

• Expense reimbursement flow
• Procurement purchasing flow
• Attendance report flow
• Request for decision flow

However, there is often a trade-off relationship between "labor saving and unmanning" and "strengthening the check system." After all, must seek "compromise to suit each company".


The Expense reimbursement flow below is a monthly application type business flow that mainly aiming "reimbursing out-of-pocket expense".

In this example, it is devised so that approval can be obtained for expenses which do not require settlement as reimbursable out-of-pocket costs at the same time. This is an idea that it will eliminate advance approval about "payment with credit card" and "travel expenses receiving temporary payment".

The applicant himself will have the effect of not only "saving labor" in one application, but also "becoming aware of how much company expenses is using each month".

[Expense and Out-of-pocket costs report]

Episode 509: Submit Year-end Adjustment Document through Cloud-based Workflow

'What a cumbersome it is to fill in year-end adjustment paper!'

In Japan, workers in every enterprise are instructed submission of "two sheets of document" at the end of year. Looking at that annual paper, a salary earner would think to oneself 'Ah, this year is going to end soon...' And once starts filling in the paper, he or she would be irritated for its cumbersomeness. (And then later, administrative staff would deeply sigh for too many omissions of entry...)

=[EDEIE] Acceptance and confirmation of Application for (Change in) Exemption for Dependents of Employment Income Earner
'Is it OK to write "Same as above" in the column of Address of Family member?'
'Do I write "Same as submitted number" into the column for Personal number?'
'I am not sure about the date of birth of all of my family...'

= [DIPEIE] Acceptance and confirmation of Application for Deduction for Insurance Premiums for Employment Income Earner and Application for Special Exemption for Spouse of Employment Income Earner
'Life insurance with Term insurance rider... wordy...'
'Medical payments and personal injury protection ...wordier...'
'Management Organization for Postal Savings and Postal Life Insurance... too wordy!

It sure is an once-a-year "seasonal event", but it won't be a fun. Suppose 50 million workers nationwide would be irritated for 30 minutes, how much of GDP would be lost? (Need to break away from "handwriting" at least...)

* Incidentally, when it comes to wasting of "100 million sheets of paper" and "storage for it", it will be ended up with "Approval for provision by electronic or magnetic means". In short, it requires submission of "Application for approval on the provision of descriptions concerning withholding by electronic or magnetic means" (Japanese description only), which I would like to mention about at other chances...

The following two Workflows are schemes that an applicant makes application, and administrative accepts and confirms. Everything will be completed online.

And for the next year, applicants will be able to "Start a new Process with these data". Everyone who makes application through this Workflow will be required only to rewrite "HEISEI 28" (Japanese calender year) to "HEISEI 29" at [EDEIE], and "HEISEI 27" to "HEISEI 28" at [DIPEIE]. (Unless change in family member or in insurance policy.)

[Dependent Exemption Application / Insurance Premium Deduction]

Episode 508: Officialize Corporate Names in "Customer Master" by Corporate Number API

"Enter the official company name!"

You should manage suppliers or customers in "Master file". However, even if you keep saying "Register the official company name!" there will be differences such as

• Upper case or lower case letter
• Double byte or single byte character
• Space in between or not

Since October 2015, Japanese government (National Tax Agency) has allocated "Corporate Number" to each and every enterprise in Japan. There, "official company names" (trade names), etc. are strictly managed. And Web-API that can be used free of charge has also been operating. That is almost an "infrastructure", so you have no choice not to use it.

The following Workflow is a scheme of automatic appending of "Customer code" and "Customer name" to SpreadSheet, by entering new customer information. Although it takes a little labor, "official company names" are secured by entering "Corporate number". It has a very significant meaning that it will relieve you from "name-based aggregation" and "data cleaning".

Yes, it will keep "big data" from being ended up in being "big noise-data".

[Customer Master Appending]

Episode 507: Manage Schedules by "Federated Calendar"!

"Oh, I did it again... double-booked..."

From Business meeting by visit and face-to-face, I have shifted my work style to "Online negotiation" using 'Google Hangout', etc. I used to feel "My schedule is full!" for having three meetings in a day. But now, even if I have six appointments that is twice as much than before, I still have leeway. However, even though I have achieved so-called "Improvement of productivity" in the aspect of the number of meetings, new challenges are becoming conspicuous which is "Schedule adjustment has become complicated"...


The following Workflow is a Business flow of 'Product demo'.

The basic flow is, capable sales rep to undertake corresponding of "product demo requests" (desired date and time) from the customer voluntarily. For actual 'schedule adjustment', it is done on the phone or by emails. Then when the schedule is fixed, you input it into [2. Demo Date], the second Step.

Its excellent point (seemingly, even though it seems sober) is that "the fixed schedule will be automatically appended to Google Calendar". It is very easy-to-understand to see schedules info on the calendar. (Or, it is very hard-to-understand if it was data list like CSV.) This will reduce the occurrence of 'Double-booking' significantly.

Moreover, *direct links to "Issue details page of Questetra" are embedded in the calendar so that you can smoothly move to the Step of [3. Demo Implementation Report].
* ${var[applicationRoot]}OR/ProcessInstance/listView?processInstanceId=#{processInstanceId}

[Product Demo flow]

Episode 506: Secure File Sharing with External Partner

"Please share the presentation materials in PPT format with me, instead of PDF."

In-house sharing of files... Companies of nowadays would use "Cloud storage". (Besides, there used to be "File servers"...)

However, in cases where file sharing "with an associated company or an agency" or "in collaborative project", there will be troubles since the other party is not "In-house". Suppose if you share by "email attachment", there will be problems like, not being shared until demanded, or annoyed with unnecessary files, or hesitate to share for not being requested. (In the first place, there are anxieties in terms of security in email protocol.)

For those cases, you ought utilizing accounts of Google, which one billion people use.

Create a folder for the project in "Google Drive", and add "Google Accounts" of all the members of the project team in Share setting of the folder.
(And make a wish that every member has got an account...)


The following is a mechanism to upload files that have been approved through team Workflow, to "Google Drive" automatically.

If some members of the team were users of "G Suite" (Google Apps) and "external sharing' was permitted, you would simply use Questetra standard [Service Task (Google Drive)] (M229). Whereas, in this case here, it is assumed to be operated with common accounts of gmail.com / googlemail.com.

[File Approval flow]

Episode 505: "Settlement by Credit", Even for Private Lessons

"Monthly settlement confirmation, oh, bother..."

Trouble concerning settlement would never end. Even though 'Online banking' has become convenient, still it takes some sort of effort.

Furthermore, work of "dunning" occurs if "unpaid" occurred. This is not just 'laborious'(increase of steps), it will be a burden to mental health for both the debtor and the creditor. Why can't it be "electronic settlement" furthermore?


The following Business Process Definition is a Workflow of credit card settlement on "monthly tuition for piano lesson".

In this example, 'fee according to the number of lessons' (instead of 'fixed monthly tuition') will be charged at the end of months. It is like, for example, 2000JPY for the month in which two lessons have given, 5000 JPY for five lessons. (We use "Stripe" for online settlement.)

When you realize electronic settlement for lesson fees with this Workflow, you will no longer have to hand-deliver the "invoice" to your students. For the parents of the student, they will not need to go to the bank to make a remittance of the lesson fee every month.

By the way, "Questetra BPM Suite", a Cloud-based Workflow, is free of charge for a use by 'less than ten staffs'. However, you should be careful that the service will be stopped if an interval of logins exceeds 15 days. But that won't be a problem, as long as you login after each lesson to write "date of lesson" (information for charging).

[Lesson Fee Credit Charge]

Episode 504: Auto-saving of Audit Documents to Dropbox!

"What a cumbersome it is to submit documents to the audit firm!"

Even though staff of a business company may think so, it is tough for auditors as well. They are worrying endlessly that if there is any way to ease this 'battle against a mountain of documents'...

• "Necessary documents are missing" or,
• "Unnecessary documents are mixed"

If such situations occur frequently, it will crack their minds...

In the Workflow below, quotations that resulted in a contract will be shared in real time. It's nothing so special, just a scheme that digital file to be uploaded successively to a folder in Dropbox which is managed by the audit firm. This is so-called "Unmanning".

In addition, there won't be mistakes, since no human being to select "necessary documents" to put into copying machine. And searching for files is also easy.

Therefore, it increases matters that they can invest in advance, and occasions of visiting auditees would be reduced.

Isn't it wonderful?


* This example is almost the same as "Episode 499: Why am I Unsure about General Situation of Submitted Quotations?". (Just one auto-step has been added)
* To add this Step to existing Process Model, you obtain [Add-on XML], and import it into a Model as function addition file (Process Model file) in advance.

[Quotation Creation flow-Dropbox]

Episode 503: "Master Reference" is for Eliminating the Fluctuation! (kintone version)

"Want to manage the Customer Master in kintone!"

"kintone" is a Cloud-based Database that is popular in Japan. Comparing to the "Google Spreadsheet" which is likewise a simple Cloud-based database, it is easy to use for beginners of the Cloud computing even though it has some functional limitation.

And "Customer management" is one of the most common kintone use applications.


The following Workflow is a synchronization process for updating "Customer Master on the Workflow platform" in referencing "Customer Master on kintone". It is exactly the same flow of the previous article "Episode 502: "Master Reference" is for Eliminating the Fluctuation!". Automatically runs at five o'clock in every morning.

The only difference is that it refers to "the Master on kintone", instead of "the Master on Google SpreadSheet".

[Customer Master Synchronization-kintone]

Episode 502: "Master Reference" is for Eliminating the Fluctuation!

"Fluctuation" occurs frequently to corporate name!

Destination data in a Quotation or an Invoice differs like "Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation" or "Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp." or "NTT Corporation" ... Yet, the SELECT method must be adopted for an input form in Quote creation flow or Billing flow (instead of TEXT form). Otherwise, data that are not worthy to be aggregated would be accumulated, on and on.

Even though we manage so-called "Customer Master" in a Spreadsheet...


In the following Workflow, it is devised that a "Customer Master for Workflow platform" to be updated automatically with data in a Google Spreadsheet. The "Customer Master" will be maintained to be always up-to-date.

* The Auto-step (Service Task) referred to [Sheet reference] which is utilized here, will become available by feature expansion with [Addon XML] beforehand. (v11.1: 2016-09-05)

[Customer Master Synchronization]

Episode 501: You Don't Know the Spending of Budget?

"How much money did we spend on Entertainment expense, this period?"

Serving as a Sales Manager, one should precisely know "Current total amount of external expenses that have approved". If possible, a Manager should recognize "Spending that not needed to be approved" as well. (In plain words, to keep tracking on "pocket money book" of Sales Department diligently... Formally speaking, it is "Budget management".)

In the following Workflow, "Total expenditure until then" will be indicated on the side at the time Approval request coming around. Specifically, spendings recorded in "Budget consumption logs", which is a Google Sheet (commonly called Pocket Money book), will be summed automatically. Moreover, at the moment of approving newly on a spending, the approved expenditure will be appended automatically to "Budget consumption log".


If you want the Budget consumption log to be more accurate, you will be required operational devising such as,

• to remove the approval log that has not been consumed actually
• to append manually for irregular small expenses

or improvement of Business Process such as

• to create a mechanism of automatic appending from "Advertising flow" which approval is not required
• to create a mechanism of automatic appending the items of expenditure corresponding to the budget consumption from Expense reimbursement flow

However, it is a great progress that knowing just the approximation of the total amount.

Incidentally, you will be able to build "dedicated Cloud-approval" in half a day, using this sample. You may use that system at your own home, assigning the husband as the applicant and the wife as the approver.

[Approval Request flow]

Episode 500: Manual Input is A Must for Transfer Slip?

A Wave of Cloud computing is surging over Accounting systems, last few years.

In Japan, the start out of "Cloud service" by a long-established software company was a major impact. Specifically, "Yayoi online" entered into a marketplace formed by "MF Cloud" and "freee" in July, 2015. In these systems, functions that are oriented to medium or large enterprises have been enhanced, and these are tools not only for "Startup companies" or for "Sole proprietorship".

The most advantage of these systems is their capability of retrieving "detail data" of "bank statement" and "credit card" collectively. That is, All of the detail records are automatically fetched as sales slip and payment slip. Moreover, accounting titles that should have been entered manually by accounting staffs have been set beforehand by "automatic journal entry function". (Improvement on performance of automatic Journal entry is discernibly.)


However, it will not be so easy for such Cloud accounting systems to automate generating slips which according to human judgment.

* Indeed, regarding "not allocate to sales deeming as advance received" or "allocate to sales as account receivable", who made the judgment and when should be recorded precisely. (Deterrence of accounting fraud, internal control)

The following Business Process is an accounting Workflow related to advance received. It is a mechanism that automatically generates twelve "transfer slip data", for example, upon receiving "service fee of twelve months" in advance.

It is a flow of;

1. Accounting staff determines as "advance received"
2. Supervisor approves on it
3. Bookkeeping staff registers "transfer slip data"

[Advance-received Registration]

Episode 499: Why am I Unsure about General Situation of Submitted Quotations?

"How much is the total of Quotations that have been submitted currently?"

Sales budget, which all the Sales managers care about. Even not being a Sales manager, there are many people who care about company's sales progress.

• How many Quotations have been submitted?
• How much is the total of those Quotations?
• How many Orders will be reported among them?

As a matter of course, if you would like to forecast the "Sales", "Quotation tracking" is essential.

"How many of what Issues in which Step?" will be obvious if the progress of series of Quoting operations, such as "Drafting", "Approval" and "Win-loss Report", have been managed (in a Workflow). Even "Order rate" can be calculated easily by aggregating of past Issues that flowed through the Workflow. (Or rather, "Productivity of the Sales Department" should be questioned if they don't know the total price of submitted Quotations...)

The following Workflow is a "Quotation Creation flow" that begins with "1. Drafting Quotation" and ends at "4. Win-loss Report". (Want to connect to "Billing Process" in the future...)

Once a Quotation operation has started, things that must be done at the moment ("to approve on a draft of Quotation", "to submit the Quotation to the customer", etc.) will be clarified for both of Sales manager and salesperson. There will never be "Useless waiting time". And of course, never be omissions or oversights.

And the directors on board would make check for "Quotations that have been submitted and waiting for Win-loss report" (Quotations that staying at the 4th Step) in every quarterly results.

[Quotation Creation flow]

Episode 498: Variations of Data Processing at Automated Step (Part 5)

"Want to share translated document with the team..."

Indeed, "Share by Email" is not so bad. A translated sentences would be shared quickly with the team by a setting to send automatically to Team ML (Mailing List) upon completion of translating. Feedback about mistranslated or brushing up might be obtained.

However, it would not be happy that when a person who has received an email wants to reply, he or she must reply by email. Enterprise Social Networking is the mainstream for in-house information exchange, nowadays.


The Workflow definition below, it is devised to post to [OpenChat], which is an Enterprise Social Networking of Questetra, upon completion of translating. It allows co-workers to Like immediately on a High-quality translation.

[Translation Process-OpenChat Post]

Episode 497: Variations of Data Processing at Automated Step (Part 4)

• Instruction manual sentences that described in multiple language
• Manuscripts of Website (HTML)
• Source codes

A Creation flow for these drafts ought to be devised to record (not only "Number of characters", also) "Hash value" automatically.

A Hash value is a "Message digest". It is also referred to as "fingerprint". In short, it generates "32 of hexadecimal characters" (in the case of MD5 method) from any data instantly, allowing to validate data falsification of even a single character. (For more details, please see Wikipedia, etc.)

In the following workflow, [Auto-steps](Service Task) of "Hash generation (MD5)" and "Hash generation (SHA256)" have been arranged. Both of them will be available when you conduct feature expansion with [Addon XML]. (Questetra BPM Suite v11.1. Releasing in early September?)

[Translation Process-Hash Value]

Episode 496: Variations of Data Processing at Automated Step (Part 3)

I definitely want an Auto-step icon that is needed in this business!

Everybody who designs Business Processes (Modeling) tends to desire to automate various processing.

In version 11.1 of Cloud-based Workflow, "Questetra BPM Suite", which we are going to release at the end of August 2016, you will be able to use additional Auto-step icons. More specifically, your original auto-step icons will be available by; obtaining packaged "Add-on XML" and importing it as Additional feature file (Process Model file).

You will get these &#91;Add-on XML&#93; mostly by

• Downloading from Questetra's Website
• Provision from third-party

Whereas, it will be also capable of creating yourself, as you can guess from the words of "Add-on XML".

The following is the same "Translation Process" workflow that I have introduced you in the last post. And in which I made a substitution to &#91;Script Step&#93; with self-made &#91;Auto-Step&#93;.

[Translation Process-Add-on]

Episode 495: Variations of Data Processing at Automated Step (Part 2)

• A) A document before translation
• B) A document after translation

Want to record the "number of characters" of these automatically.

If "a human is required to count the number of characters", you will never implement this operation. However, if "a Workflow system would tell the number automatically", you might think of leaving it as a record...


In "Questetra BPM Suite", a Cloud-based Workflow, you can easily add automatic processing of the following, since Auto-step icons have been incorporated in it in advance.

• To combine string A and string B (M227)
• To Sum numeric A and numeric B (M227)
• To generate a PDF by embedding strings into Template PDF (M228)
• To store files at Google Drive (M229)

However, in order to automate an operation like this example of "Count the number of characters", you were required to place a versatile automated Step referred to as &#91;Script Task&#93; (Script Step) (M230), and to set Scripts (ECMA-Script/JavaScript) as its property. (As of Ver. 11.0)

[Translation Process-Characters Counter]

Episode 494: Variations of Data Processing at Automated Step (Part 1)

Processing a particular "Business data"
Converting a particular "Business data"
Retrieving the number of characters as a property of a particular "Business data"

Basically, a "Workflow system" automates "transactions" of Business data. I want to automate not only "transactions", but also "Tasks themselves" as far as possible.(To be unmanned) Especially, for "Mechanical routine"...

In "Questetra BPM Suite", a Cloud-based Workflow, using a feature of Auto-Step which has equipped originally, it is capable of server side processing, such as

• To combine String A and String B (M227)
• To sum Numeric A and Numeric B (M227)
• To generate PDF file embedding strings to a Template PDF (M228)
• To back up files tin Google Drive (M229)

However, it won't do for a "Processing that is more unique" even a little bit.

The "Character number counter" in the following Workflow is an automated Step that is, for example, to count the number of characters in String type data of X which has been entered at upstream Step, and to store the number into a Numeric type data item. (All done on the Server side) For such a case, you need to place a versatile Step which is referred to as [Script Step] (Script Task: M230), and to set a Script (ECMA-Script/JavaScript) into it. (as of version 11.0)

[Character Number Counter]

Episode 493: Managing Uses of Team Password (Sheets API v4)

Day-to-day work is full of Team passwords...

When you install a wifi router, you configure "Admin password". When you apply for online printing service, you register a "Business account". When you just buy a scanner, you are demanded "User registration". Despite I have grown up having been taught "Never share your password" since my childhood, there are lots of passwords that are inevitable to share in the real adult life! (And, top secret files are stored in the file server of the company...)


The following Workflow is a Business Process for managing "Team password".

You may regard it as a "Password manager" of an organization. It is devised to disclose a password after ten minutes when an employee makes a request. All the information, such as When it was used, Who used it, and Which password, will be recorded. (Moreover, "Password change" by the administrator will be recorded, as well.)

[Password Request]

Episode 492: Referring to Client Master SpreadSheet (Sheets API v4)

In many companies, "Client lists" are managed with spreadsheet software.

And I just think that "Google SpreadSheet" and "kintone", which are Cloud-based database, are utilized more and more now, comparing to 10 years ago when "Excel files" had been created as a matter of course. After all, at a reasonable price (or even for Free), you can enjoy the benefit of convenience,such as

• Accessible from anywhere at any time
• Minimize the risk of data lost
• No need to duplicate data to carry
• Access logs are preservable depending on the service plan

It would be grateful especially for the small and medium-sized and micro enterprises.

[API communication]

Moreover, you will be able to build a mechanism which an external system to refer a "Client list", using Cloud-based database. (API function: Application Programming Interface)

The following Workflow is an automated flow for retrieving a "Client list on Google SpreadSheet" into Workflow platform. In this example, "Client list" will be automatically synchronized every night at one o'clock. (The flow itself is almost the same as Synchronization with kintone which I introduced previously.)

[Client master Synchronization - SpreadSheet Integration]

Episode 491: Bank CSV Data into Google SpreadSheet

"Are you transcribing the banking logs?"

Every bank in Japan give you a booklet referred to "Passbook". When you insert it into an ATM, all the records of deposit and withdrawal will be printed on it fine and clear. However, as long as the "Passbook" is a paper booklet, people who are accessible to the information in it are limited. Yet, it is cumbersome to enter the data into "Bank book.xis" manually.

The following Business flow is an operation of exporting account activity to Google SpreadSheet.

It is a mechanism that automatically appending to specified SpreadSheet when importing "Account activity" which can be obtained through online service provided by the bank. In this example, a Script has been set to retrieve a tab delimited file in a format referred as "ANSER-API" which is widely used in Japanese Banks.

I would call this as "Online Passbook"... Isn't it convenient?

[Activity Log Registration]