Workflow Sample

Since around the year 2000, 'Workflows' have been a major stepping forward in the area of;

Decision making and Approval
Expense Report
Travel Expenses Reimbursement

and have been contributing to a significant reduction in office work labors. Some folks call these 'Three major applications of workflow'.

It has been digitized (onlined), records have been remain automatically, and the aggregate has become extremely faster.

Later, office work has been digitized one after another along with improving the environment, such as an internal LAN.

Working hours, attendance reporting
Procurement and Asset Management
Application of Internal Affairs and Communications
Recruiting

These have come to be into the workflow as well. Especially, cross-department Workflow, and business between remote locations they are very significant to be digitized.

Now, the cloud computing era of today.
Workflow is not limited to internal operations.
That is, operations of responding to an inquiry from the outside became able to be operated in the Workflow system as well. Specifically, "Product inquiry" or "Complaint", "Request for Quote" or "Personal Information Protection Counter", can now be processed electronically in accordance with operating procedures (business processes) as well.

In the following workflow definition, it is possible to be incorporated in the same flow by the connective setting, such as (external trigger) inquiries on the Web site or by e-mail, as well as queries on Facebook and Twitter, etc.. It can be branched to 'Translation' or 'advisory' in the middle of the Workflow.
By the way, it is the uniqueness of "Questetra BPM Suite", the Cloud based Workflow, that providing flexible improvement on 'operations that cooperating with external system'. (Free accounts are ready to go!)

[Corresponding Query flow]

An accommodation booking system. Messages are mechanical though it is not bad at it.
Reminders come in 10 days in advance, and once more the day before. Or a questionnaire email arrives 'the next day after returning home'...

But, what if there was a heartwarming sentence added?
'How was the walk to Kinkakuji on the day you leave? Since light rain was falling, all of us employees had been worried.' Such thoughtfulness would make a tourist happy. This is what we call hospitality.

The following is an example of Reservation Management flow with 'human processing' added.

[Booking flow]

In the manufacturing industry and the construction industry or B2C business, FAX is still active.
Here, we would like to introduce a mechanism to automatically send FAX of the "business documents in a workflow" via the Internet. When all is said, FAX sender achieve Paperless. In addition, all FAX transmission related information such as transmission date-time and transmitting data, will be as are recorded automatically! (Easy visualization to Operational efficiency indicators as well.)

It may sound cool somehow, but calmly thinking, it is wrong that the fact that the routing of

Printout by the MFP, then
Scan the paper and send a FAX by the same MFP

has not been eradicated until now, in this year of 2012 which "2001: A Space Odyssey" of course is supposed to be finished even "2010: Odyssey Two".

[Internet FAX Outbound]

'I don't need fax anymore!' (anachronism)

Yeah, that's right!
That's right, okay, but... we still need it...

Although many companies and enterprises dismiss 'FAX machine to waste paper', but they are introducing the "Internet FAX". There are various services provided in Japan such as eFax, BizFAX, D-FAX, Paperless FAX or Toones. Simply, you can save the FAX machine Price / Supplies expense / Communication expense. Needless to say, it is easy to circulars and to save.

Furthermore here, we would like to introduce a sample to efficiently process 'received FAX' (Image data).

[Internet FAX]

Will it be possible to build the Core System over a Workflow?

It will be possible if it is with a Workflow of nowadays. Though it is controversial that how far a Workflow should be functional, the Non-programing technology of today is really amazing. Especially in a department or company of up to 500 people, employees who know the reality of day-to-day operations should "build it by themselves". I dare to say that you surely can get a better one than "made-to-order system of 10 million yen budget".

The following Workflow definition is "Bill Creation flow (including reporting the Order and reporting the Service provided)" for 'Questetra, Inc.', a Japanese SaaS business company.

72 Data items.
One of them is Table type (length variable).
Has a mechanism to send an email which business data have been inserted in the middle of the process.
Has a mechanism for the automatic PDF document generation.
Has a mechanism for the automatic starting monthly Billing flow.
Has a mechanism for the automatic approval when passing the deadline.
Has a mechanism for the automatic starting triggered by 'an email from an external'
Has a mechanism of labor saving of input by indicating prospect according to input user or input time.

If you would build this by made-to-order, maybe it will cost '2 people working a whole month on only the requirements definition'. And later, it will cost 'never less than 10 people working a whole month on designing, development and testing'.

[Bill Creation flow]

Let's automate invoice issuance. Yeah, let's do it.

Because data items to be describe on the invoice have been saved as the approval information in the Workflow, all you have to do is to insert them into the template of PDF.

By the way, here we are going to make the framework of Invoice Issuance flow.

Of course in the future, we aim to connect to 'Delivery flow' or 'Service Providing flow' which goes to issue invoices, but now, to begin with, we are going to visualize "Invoice issuance situation".

[Invoice Issuance flow]

When it comes to creating Quote, it is better (1+)quick, (2+)beautiful, (3+)inexpensive.

I don't want those (3-)expensive quote, even if they are (1+)quick and (2+)beautiful.
I don't want those (2-)ugly quote, even if they are (1+)quick and (3+)inexpensive.

At least, I never want (1-)slow quote. "Quick response" is the fundamental of business.

The following workflow is " Quote Issuance Approval flow" to respond quickly to e-mail received in the Request for Quotation.
It takes the full advantage of New Features of Ver. 9 of the Cloud Based Workflow "Questetra BPM Suite"that is released yesterday (2012-08-21).

[Quote Issuance Approval flow]