Workflow Sample

Accepting the participation application on "Web Forms", sending an "Invoice" automatically.

Anyone would think such "labor saving using IT", nowadays.
A Web site which is totally automated by connecting a 'Web form' and a 'Payment system' can be created easily, If limited to a particular method of payment to "PayPal" or "Google Wallet".

However in fact, for an event of about 50 or 100 people, you would like to correspond on the phone and by e-mail. Why?
In short, it is because there will be various demands (exceptions) such as "invoicing for corporation name" or "Cash payment of day of the event". If humans response, they could handle anything flexibly. (Though mistakes would occur, of course ...)

The Business process below is a Workflow that humans make the payment confirmation operations.
Taking over the participation application data received in the Google Spreadsheet, humans do the subsequent processing. Specifically speaking, humans confirm the settlement completion by "Invoicing + Bank Transfer" or "PayPal Credit Card" or "Handing Cash on the Day".

Excellent point of it is that an "Invoice PDF" will be sent automatically when the participation applicant designate "invoicing + bank transfer".

[Invoicing flow]

In most of SFA (Sales force Automation), "Deal data" is registered.

The status of each deal is visualized, and the "Future Orders" can be foreseen in good accuracy. Specifically, the negotiating price and orders accuracy such as '20%/ 80%/ 100%', will be registered. The definition of "Deal" to be registered is various depending on Companies.

'This gonna be a 'deal' soon, but...'

However, this "determination of to be registered or not" is quite tricky. Some Sales people aggressively register deals in "the level of yet just talking", and others register when the deal 'the orders comes in sight'.

The Boss would say, "All of them! Register all of them!"

The following Business Process is a little bit different in approach to activity records.
Here, instead of "the point of view of deals", it records the sales history in "the point of view of the talks (contacts)". Don't need special 'determination', just register day-to day talking activities. Recording when finish talking (on the way back) on visiting or on the phone or meeting over the Internet. I might call it 'Daily Report of Sales'. It is also good to name this business process 'Visit Report flow', for companies which their sales are based on visiting.

[Talks Report flow for Visualizing Opportunity]

[Talks Report flow for Visualizing Opportunity: '1. Talk Registration' screen]

You will find if you have a closer look at the Business Flow Diagram, it is assumed that 'Sales Activities' will be managed in the following classification

Stage of not a clear deal opportunity.
Stage of a clear deal opportunity.

That is, when the deal opportunity becomes clear, it switches to a system that manages the status of the deal as well as most SFA. In this sample, it manages the activities before the submission of a quote as "in the point of view of Talks (contacts)", and after the initial quote has submitted, switches to 'deal management process'.

You will find in actual operation, that anyone can analysis the time which took from a lead to negotiation (the initial quote). Needless to say, this is extremely important data for each salesman and for the company.

[Download]

Business Template: Talks Report flow for Visualizing Opportunity

Watching Business Negotiation over Cloud (2011-07-18)
Share Sales Information in a Simple Business Process (2012-02-20)
Age of Cloud-based Workflow Capable of Running Even a Core System of 1 Million Dollar Worth (2013-04-08)

<<Related Articles>>

'What should I do this analog feel Expense Reimbursement Claim, somehow...?'

There are many people who 'struggle' with paper receipts once a month.
Taxi fare. Entry fee for the seminar. Stationery money that when the equipment ran out and rushed to the store. Employees enter the price on of the receipts into Excel. And when all the entering is finished, the employee prints it, and signs it, then submits it to the Boss. The Boss vaguely looks over the paper, and signs it, then a person in Accounting Department re-enters the numbers into Excel again. When you think about it, you will find it is quite ridiculous.

Settlement out-of-pocket money, has become a "traditional business" in the company of many.

Reimbursement of out-of-pocket money, has become a "traditional operation" in many companies.
So, there often is a large room for operating efficiency.

However, expense reimbursement operation is also a sensitive operation that is directly linked to handling cash. So-called "the internal control system" is also very important. The result of operating efficiency improvement must not end up with raising the probability of occurrence of fraud or mistake. I say the business process is indescribably profound. Returns on investment in improvement activities is very large, but commensurate BPM skills are required for people in charge of the improving.

The Business Process Sample below has a trick that generates [Expense Reimbursement Claim Form.pdf] automatically in the middle of the Workflow.

[Expense Claim flow-Form Auto-Generation]

When you have succeeded "Cloud Computing" of the Workflow, you surely will want to make "Workflow for email queries corresponding" as well.

The reasons are simple.

Can correspond from anywhere. (When you are out or at home)
Can grasp who is corresponding (The point of view of real-time monitoring)
Can find where the bottleneck is (The point of view of performance aggregation)

However, when you run the Workflow in practice, you will notice that "flow of obtaining advice from internal" is more important than "flow of assigning respondent".
That is for example, if queried "Is the server down?", the contact person doesn't even know about it. Also, when an inquiry comes saying "I want to ask something technical about...", the contact person has absolutely no choice to seek advice from the technical department. And how soon you can respond to queries of this kind will affect the reliability of the company.

The following Workflow, "Query Response Operation flow" is enclosed a very simple "Advice Request flow". It is very excellent.

[Query Response Operation flow]

"Speeding up! Speeding up! Speeding up!"
'Make THIS a Concurrent Processing by multiple persons!'
'Make THIS automated with Conditional Expression instead of visual judgement by human!'

It is not a few cases that to identify the bottleneck of Business Processing and consider about 'Parallel Processing' or 'Automation of Process'. Or it is rather 'a mainstream'. In many businesses, it is desirable That a series of the processing be completed quickly.

In the other hand,,, there are some processes to be retained on its way intentionally. To give a typical example, it is "Expense Claim flow".
That is, it does not matter the time between starting to write the claim and submitting the claim. It is okay if the claim would be submitted before the deadline.

So, how could you make all the employees to submit the claim until every 5th of the month?

[Expense Claim flow]

The Workflow template of last week (*) was very simple.
In its recoil, the Workflow template of this time is very complicated.
* Standardization on 'Proposal Creation' in Workflow

"Questetra BPM Suite", a Cloud-based Workflow, is of course categorized in product type of 'Workflow System', but on the other hand, it is a 'Business Process Management System'(BPMS) as well.

A 'Business Process Management System'(BPMS) is a tool to help 'Business Process Management Activity'(BPM Activity, a Management concept of continuous improvement of the Workflow). It is characterized a Business System would be ready automatically by drawing Business Process with Drag & Drop. What is epoch-making of it, is that managers of the frontline or general workers (system users) can improve the Business Process by themselves. You may call it a "Magic Tool".

The Workflow Diagram below represents so-called 'the Core Business Process'.
Begins with [Order acceptance] by sales personnel, ends at [Settlement Confirmation] by Management department. Using a BPMS, such a Business Process can be systemize in an instant.

However, it is a wide variety of business by its industry, categories, company size or company culture, even speaking in short that from 'Orders' throughout 'Service Providing' to 'Billing' and 'Payment Confirmation'. Also, the business Process to be is ever-changing in accordance with the changes in the business environment. In the coming age, it is important "to continue to change the system", rather than "to make a good system".

<Features>

Simple business manual is written on each of the processing screen.
In the important working process an alert will be sent by email also.
The total value of during particular input is complemented by automatic calculation.
PDF invoice which business data is inserted is generated automatically.
The next Billing Process is reserved if the same type invoice will be also issued in the next month.
Quote data will be carried over automatically from the Quotation Process.
Online sales data is automatically captured.

[Orders-Operation-Bill Issuance]

April 1st,,, it's the beginning of new fiscal year in Japan.
Students move up to new school year, new working member of society celebrate their first day, and businessmen set a new goal for the year.

Needless to say, it is a great opportunity to revise 'Business Processes'.
However, it is already April 1st, and I think it is thoughtless that recommending complicated method of business improvement, today. So, I would like to show you easy-to-start digitization of "Reviewing on Proposals", in the following. You can draw a Workflow Diagram in half an hour, and in another half you can bring it running on Workflow system.

When you running this "Reviewing on Proposals", proposals in the team will be visualized steadily.
That is, it visualizes and records "who is writing a proposal of what, whatever pointed out, and how he/she is trying to improve it". Also, it makes easier to write a new proposal when proposal data be accumulated day by day. Simply searching for well-written proposal of the past, and referring to it.

[Proposal flow]