Workflow Sample

'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]

"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]

"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]

"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]

"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]

"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]

"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]