Workflow Sample: Sales

Showing posts with label Sales. Show all posts

Operation: Creation of Icons, Production of Posters, etc.

With the new Business Process definition, "requests" from internal company are now managed centrally.

Those requests of designing from such as the marketing department, the product development department, the sales department, ... are now efficiently handled as a "team". In addition, I suppose that the designers have become interested in each other's work so that contribute to the skill improvement of each designer.

Reference：Episode 574: Business Improvement in SaaS Vendor Operation (Part 1)、Episode 575: Business Improvement in SaaS Vendor Operation (Part 2)

Challenge: Cases where Not In Time for Delivery Schedule

However, there are still cases where it will not be in time for the "delivery date".

For example, when a request of "in a haste" comes, "regular requests" are affected. Particularly when large projects such as "release of new service" or "preparation of new campaign" become in action, various "requests in hurry" will occur. As a result, "regular projects that are flexible to deadlines" will not be in time for the due date.

It should be "a design team that can keep up production schedules" even by utilizing external resources.

[Designing request-Outsourcing]

Business: Design Production

A design team where "requests" from in-house come in one after another.

By improving the "Request form" (Starting step) of design creation, it has become possible to handle requests more stably than before. (Reference: "Episode 574: Business Improvement in SaaS Vendor Operation (Part 1)")

As we also prepared an automatic start event (Message Start Event), cases where the Process of "Designing request" is used as "sub-process" have increased as well. In other words, cooperation between business processes has been automated with API POST communication, by placing "call event" and "standby event" in the Business Process diagram (main process) of Sales department or Manufacturing department. (In short, the Process is started with data such as "title of requested item" or "details of requested work", and data such as "design report text" and "deliverable file" is returned at the same time when the work is completed.)

Furthermore, as we also opened to in-house the sample of the main Process to call out the "sub-process", designing work in various departments are to be integrated into the Process of "Designing request" in the future.

Challenge: Skills do not Improved

"Number of Issues been in charge" and "total amount" have been visualized for each designer. In addition, since veteran designers now control on work progress of "designers" as "receptionist", young designers will not commit "no-check delivery" (delivered without checked by anyone).

However, intrinsic? measure of value in designing is "quality".

With this Business Process as it is, I feel worry that the degree of satisfaction for designs in-house will be going down.

Is it impossible to become a Business Process capable of improving skills of the team as a whole a little more? Since we are improving its independency as a "Design request handling process", we would like to think about a mechanism that leads to skill improvement, not just a Business Process for simply to handle numbers of work.

Example of Business Process to call out [Designing request]

[Designing request-Reviewing]

Operation: Design work

The work of a design team is extensive.

There may be small projects such as "changing icons in SaaS products" and adding them, and there may be also major projects such as "interface development of new SaaS functions".

However... in addition to those, there may be a case where they are requested publishing of a "Customer story article" written by the sales team on the Website, and furthermore, to create a flyer containing the story. Moreover, for an exhibition planned by marketing team, there might occur project of Web contents production, and creation of posters , and so on...

After all, it can be said that it is "a team that continuously being asked for helping hands?" from the entire company.

Challenge: Efficiency Improve on Work that Occurred Passively

It is true that the design team is certainly demanded by everybody.

However, it is inevitable to be said that what they are doing is unobtrusive compared to the fact that the direct division "product development division" and "sales and marketing department" are acting on a daily basis. For example, it is like gift wrapping service counter in a department store. They are keep on giving decorations on outputs of the store as they are asked to do so. And when they notice, "passive attitude" has ingrained on themselves.

Even if they grumbled that if it was the architectural industry, rather, the "designers will move actively, and the engineering group such as "structural" or "environmental" would be passive, "demands from internal company" won't be gone... First of all, I'd like to consider a way to do this passive job in a handsome manner. (Since, even in accounting, human resource department, or IT department, they are handling these "passive job" brilliantly...)

Business Template: [Designing Request]

Too many input errors?

In the workflow system, "input errors" in human steps can not be avoided.

For example, if it is a workflow step that requires input of two date values "Bill issuance date" and "Payment due date", mistakes tend to occur such as;

Enter the date of one year ago as leaving the date after duplicating data
Enter Bill issuance date and Payment due date inversely

(You'd better to calculate the actual occurrence rate, occasionally.)

Of course, it may be careless of the person in charge who made mistake. Alternatively, if you were highly concentrated, you could enter without making mistakes during that moment. However, I have to say it is rather difficult to keep on doing 100 cases or 1000 without mistakes. If you have numerous input items, it may be difficult even for 5 or 10 cases without mistakes.

Configure initial values

If it is possible to set "Initial value" as a function of the system, you should actively use it.

In the Cloud-based workflow, "Questetra BPM Suite", you can set "Three days after today" and "last day of the next month" as the initial value of Date data items. Although it is ineffective in the case of "data duplication", it is a very effective method when flowing new Issue data to the business process.

＜Setting screen＞

[Date Input Form Test]

Too many input errors?

In the workflow system, "input errors" in human steps can not be avoided.

For example, if it is a workflow step that requires input of two numerical values "unit price" and "quantity", mistakes tend to occur such as;

1200 is input which is a numerical value one digit less of 12000.
Enter the quantity in the place where the unit price to be entered.

Configure maximum and minimum values

If it is possible to set "limitation to the input value" as a function of the system, you should actively use it.

In the Cloud-based workflow, "Questetra BPM Suite", you can set "maximum value" and "minimum value" for Numeric data items. If you have limited the input value of "unit price" to "10,000 JPY - 100,000 JPY", the occurrence rate of incorrect input "1200 JPY" can be reduced to zero by that input restriction.

[Setting screen]

[Alert on a mistake]

[Numeric Input Form Test]

In the last three articles of

I mentioned the difference and respective implementation method of

A) Automatically advance to the "next Step" in the Business Process
B) Make "certain Step" within a Business Processes to be processed unattended

regarding automation within a "Business Process".

In this (final) article, I am going to organize about the automation between Business Processes.

Connection between Business Processes

Positions of Business Processes

Until now, we discussed focusing on "individual Business Processes" such as "Estimate Approval process" and "Order Receipt process". However, in order to promote automation (improvement of productivity) in the company-wide, we must consider about "connectivity between Business Processes".

On such a stage, it is a shortcut for improvement discussion that enumerating the internal "Business Processes" as much as possible in advance.

That is, the overall viewing would reveal the position and dependency of each Business Process, and the way it should be of the "inputs" and "outputs" of each Business Process would become clear. Along with, it would also clarify the operation method and direction of improvement that the responsible person (Process Owner) of the Business Process should aim for.

Enumerating Business Processes

So, what kind of "Business Processes" are there inside the company?

It goes without saying that it varies greatly depending on the business contents and organization size. At the same time, you should suppose that there is no one who can grasp all the business details in the company. In other words, regardless of who is in charge of "enumerating Business Processes", on-site hearings in certain extent will be required.

And when enumerating the survey results, it is important to enumerate by categories so as to make it easy to see the whole.

As a methodology in practice, it is necessary to map in-house Business Processes utilizing the cost categorization upon calculating the profit and loss of the compan such as "manufacturing cost", "selling expenses" and "general administrative expenses", in addition to the Process classification method of the research institution.

[APQC Process Classification Framework]

Develop Vision and Strategy
Develop and Manage Products and Services
Market and Sell Products and Services
Deliver Products and Services
Manage Customer Service
Develop and Manage Human Capital
Manage Information Technology
Manage Financial Resources
Acquire, Construct, and Manage Assets
Manage Enterprise Risk, Compliance, and Resiliency
Manage External Relationships
Develop and Manage Business Capabilities

[Quote Creation and Approval-Order Report launcher]

[Order Report-Launched by Quote flow]

In the article before the last, "Episode 518: What is Automation of Business Process (Part 1)", I mentioned about two aspects regarding automation of Business Process, such as;

[A] Automation of handing over of Issue information between Processes
[B] Automation of processing in certain Step

Also, in the last article, "Episode 519: What is Automation of Business Process (Part 2)", I mentioned about the scope and implementation method of "[A] Automation of handing over".

In this article, I would like to organize the range to which "[B] Automation of processing" can be applied and the implementation method.

What kind of "processing" can be automated

Complete automation (Auto-Step)

Likewise the idea of "[A] Automation of handing over" is that leaving the delivery of Issue information from a certain Step to the next one to a computer, it leaves the "work inside certain Step" to the computer in "[B] Automation of processing".

Even in "Quote Creation and Approval" which is a Business Process with a high degree of human dependence, for example, it is possible to leave processing in Steps to the computer, such as

creating Quote PDF file,
sending email with file attachment,
posting summary of the Quote to Enterprise social network.

* Incidentally, it may be easy to understand with an expression that (instead of using the term of 'automation') "part of Step of Business Process to be unmanned", as long as it is not necessary to contrast with "[A] Automation of handing over."

Partial automation

On the other hand, there are some Steps that not to be automated completely.

For example, in the Step of "Creating a Quotation" in "Quote Creation and Approval" Business Process, supporting function such as

Calculate total amount
Calculate consumption tax amount

would contribute to labor saving of work. However, in this case, the Step of "Creating the Quote" is not unmanned, as some human input (human interface) is necessary. Therefore, it can be said that such Steps should be classified as "human Step".

[Quote Creation and Approval]

In "What is Automation of Business Process (Part 1)", the previous article, I described about two aspects on automating Business Process, such as

[A] Automate the delivery of Issues information between Processes
[B] Automate processing in certain Step

In this article, I would like to organize the scope of application of "[A] automation of delivery".
* Regarding "[B] automation of processing", I will describe in the next article.

What kind of "delivery" can be automated

How to define a Flow

In order to smoothly deliver "Issue information" in daily work, (as a matter of course) "Flow of work" must be defined.

In the age where Issue information was managed by "paper" or "signboard", it was sufficient that "Business flow" has been described in natural languages (sentences) such as business manuals. However, to let the computers do delivery, "business flow" is needed to be defined in a "manner that computers can recognize".

In other words, it can be said "the Flows comprehensible by the computer" are the applicable range of "[A] automation of delivery".

[Order Reporting flow-email notification]

What is a "Business Process" in the first place?

A Business Process is a sequence of "several Steps".

For example, in the Orders reporting Process that occurs daily on many companies, it is formed with Steps such as;

[1] Sales department employee: register the contents of the order
[2] Sales leader: Confirm the order details
[3] Sales department manager: approve the order details

Automation, two aspects

And today, "automation of Business Process" which became popular as a topic under the keyword "productivity improvement" is discussed in either or both of the meaning of;

[A] Automation of handing over of Issue information between Processes
[B] Automation of processing in certain Step

What is "A: Automation of handing over"?

The antonym of "automatic" is "manual" or "labored", and after all, it can be said that "something that is not a human being" will be responsible for handing over. Today, "Automation with computers and the Internet" is the basic.

It can be said that these functions are necessary condition. In such an environment of automation, It will be transmitted automatically, i.e.;

If the output of the Step of [1] is input, it will go to the Step of [2]
If the output of the Step of [2] is input, it will go to the Step of [3]

As a matter of course, it is necessary to set Business flow in advance. And also, in reality, it is prerequisite that individual Issue information is managed in "digital data" (paperless).

"Handover" by Workflow

And today there are many products that correspond to splitting and looping of flow.

For example, the following Business Process definition (setting of Business flow) expresses

[1] Sales department staff: register the contents of the order
[1x] Sales department staff: Re-register the contents of the order (Reworking on rejected issue)
[2] Sales leader: Confirm the order details
[3] Sales department manager: approve the order details
[4] Sales department manager: Report on the content of Issue over 1 million yen to supervisory directors

(According to International Standard Notation BPMN: Business Process Model and Notation)

[Order Reporting flow]

"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)]

"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]

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;

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

[Advance-received Registration]

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]

Arranging a button for downloading CSV for MS Excel. (previous post)

From the aspect of a person who has to input data into an Accounting system, the "Download button" is very helpful. It allows to add so-called "Journal slip" data snappy to an Excel file. The business efficiency differs greatly depending on "there is" or "isn't" a button. The difference is to take only five minutes for inputting daily accounts receivable, or one whole hour.

However, it is yet a closed to personal process since it is an operation that "to append to an Excel file". The know-hows, which should be associated to the Step, such as "Where is the latest file?" or "Tips and knacks for the work" or "Technique for the case where minor modifications are required", these are tend to be individualism. (As well as anxieties for omission, or miss-copying or fraud.)

The following Workflow is a mechanism of auto-appending of multiple Journal slip data, which have been generated automatically, to Google SpreadSheet. (Either "MF Cloud-accounting" or "Freee",) throwing data to any of Cloud based accounting software, it is very convenient if "Journal slip" was managed uniformly on the Cloud.

By the way, in the first place, it should be the job for the Workflow system that to aggregate the issues which flowed on the Workflow. "List of Issues", for example, total and average of each property are aggregated. However,in a case where each Issue generates "uncertain number of slips", it is difficult to correspond the needs of demanding an aggregation on the "slips". Another table of "List of slips" should be prepared separately in such a case.

Here, we use the "Sheets API v4", which appeared in May 2016.

[Sales Report-SpreadSheet cooperation]

How do I make "Slip data" federated?

In the Latest post, we succeeded to auto-generate some sheets of "Transfer slip" upon reporting orders. Yet, it doesn't mean a thing if they are not entered to "Accounting software".

Well, should I rather say "Cloud-based accounting software" than "Accounting software", for the coming age?

However, unfortunately there are only few Cloud-based accounting software which allows "API access from external" as of 2016. Therefore, I would like to consider to utilize "File import" feature which is supported in every software efficiently.

(Though, REST API over OAuth will be supported in any software service after a year or two.)

Incidentally, although this Business Process is almost the same as the one in the latest post, it has been added a Step of "Superior's approval" for the sake of more practical use.

[Sales Report-CSV Download]

"Debits? Credits? ... What is that? Tastes good?"

Indeed, there are some programmers who show "Allergic reaction" against "Finance and accounting terminology".

However, these are words which working adults should know. Even in the "Information Technology Engineers Examination", which certifies basic IT skills, these terms appear frequently.

Incidentally, there will be nothing wrong if you call them as "Left column, right column" in practice. Both of the column are merely a "breakdown table of assets". If you consist to describe concretely, it will be sufficient to consider that "Left column: Breakdown of cash and cash-like assets", "Right column: Breakdown of assets which must be paid (debt) and which are not needed to be paid."

So... How each of "Breakdown table of assets" (Balance sheet) will be transitioning, in a case that a Cloud service providing company

sold service provisioning for twelve months
agreed on April 1st, for 120,000 JPY
paid on May 30th

For example...

In April, it can be regarded as "increasing of asset for one month of service worth (10.000 JPY)" since they have already provided their service (not yet paid, though.) It is so-called "Selling on credit". (Account receivable) And it will keep on changing on and after May...

[Sales Reporting]

I introduced a fully automated Workflow that is

> to update the Workflow platform common "Client Master" by receiving JSON response from kintone API,

in the last post.

In this post, I would like to introduce how to

> Update the "Client Master" in kintone by sending JSON data to kintone API.

More specifically, it is a mechanism that suppliers (customer code and customer name) is added to the "customer master" on the kintone, upon the moment when a start of trading in the "Credit Management Workflow" has been approved.

After all, it is configured that JSON string such as

{
  "app": "3",
  "record": {
    "customerCode": {
      "value": "9999999999999#www.example.com"
    },
    "customerName": {
      "value": "XYZ Inc"
    }
  }
}

POSTed to kintone API at the downstream of the Workflow.

* JSON: JavaScript Object Notation (Mass of data in which the pair of "key" and "value" have been enumerated)

[Credit Management]

"Customer list" is typical of "database". (Weather managed in paper or in computer.)

Data stored in "Database" is roughly classified into

A) Master information (Master type data)

Product master
Client master
Price list, etc.

B) Log information (Transaction type data)

Payment history
Orders record
Access log, etc.

And in day-to-day business, there are many occasions that you want to refer to data which is classified in A), master type data.

The following Business Process is a mechanism to synchronize "Client Master data" in the Workflow environment with client master information which is managed in "kintone", a Cloud Database, on a daily basis. (It may be considered as a Batch processing.) It is excellent for not only all the Steps having been automated, but also being capable of manually synchronization at any time.

After all, it becomes possible to refer the latest "Client Master" in a variety of business, such as "Estimate Process", "Order report Process", or "Billing Process". You might be able to eliminate so-called "name identification". (Moreover, it also has the meaning of auto-backup of data in kintone.)

[Client Master Synchronization]

The last time, I published a case of cooperation with "Corporate Identification Number System" (Web-API).

◇2015-12-07: Brush-up on Customer Master Data by "Corporate Identification Number System Web-API"

This Business Process is a mechanism to automatically check if "the Names of Businesses in connection have changed" or not every week. It is automatically started at six o'clock in every Sunday morning. Human beings can detect naturally something to be corrected has occurred in "Customer Master (XML)".

However, it is on the assumption that "all the company has a Corporate Number". That is, it makes inquiry about all the companies listed one by one toward the "Web-API system". In reality, there exist trade partners who do not have Corporate Number. (Sole traders, foreign companies, etc.)

In the following Business Process Definition, it tolerate the presence of dummy number of "9999999999999" (13-digit 9) in the "Customer Master".

That is, it is the rule that to register "13-digit 9" for the business partners like overseas clients that do not have a Corporate Number. In addition, it is devised to make request for 10 instances at one time, toward "Web-API system".

[Automatic check of Trade-name Registration in Customer Master #2]

"Company name (trade name) will be changed."
"Transaction company will be changed for a group restructuring."

You may have often received "Name change notification letters" from suppliers. However, it is really insecure to carry out maintenance on"Customer Master data", only relying on such a letter.

Since December 1st, 2015, the Japanese government has started running a "Web-API function" for the "Corporate Number system".

If the application side has obtained the "Corporate Number of business partners" (13-digit number), it is possible to refer the registration information such as the business name and location of the customer, at any time. In addition, it is now able to detect change information (processing segment), such as the "Name Change", "Merger", "Company dissolution".

The following workflow definition is a mechanism to automatically detect "Name changes", utilizing this "Web-API function".

Here, we assume that the "Business Partner Master" (Business-Connection. xml) is present on the Workflow platform. In other words, trade names that are registered in the "Business Partner Master" will be confirmed if it is as the same as the information registered in government. It is set to be automatically run every Sunday morning.

[Automatic check of Trade-name Registration in Customer Master]

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Pages

Operation: Creation of Icons, Production of Posters, etc.

Challenge: Cases where Not In Time for Delivery Schedule

Business: Design Production

Challenge: Skills do not Improved

Operation: Design work

Challenge: Efficiency Improve on Work that Occurred Passively

Too many input errors?

Configure initial values

Too many input errors?

Configure maximum and minimum values

Connection between Business Processes

Positions of Business Processes

Enumerating Business Processes

What kind of "processing" can be automated

Complete automation (Auto-Step)

Partial automation

What kind of "delivery" can be automated

How to define a Flow

What is a "Business Process" in the first place?

Automation, two aspects

What is "A: Automation of handing over"?

"Handover" by Workflow

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

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