You know you need Business Process Management when…

Related imageWith many new technologies, business users may have one or two pain points they’re looking to immediately solve, but they may wonder how else their new tools can be put to use. There is no limit to how you can leverage a business process management (BPM) solution like WEBCON, which can have an impact on every project and team within your company. Of course, each real-life business scenario you look to streamline and automate brings with it a different set of challenges and obstacles — which is why your approach to the problem, how you design and architect your solution, and the tools you leverage should all be carefully considered.

The following is a list of 12 real-life scenarios that are common to most organizations — highlighting how the WEBCOM solution can help address their unique challenges and obstacles:

1. You are leaving on vacation and have dozens of ongoing tasks in various processes

Objectives might include assigning active tasks to the designated substitutes and granting them access to necessary resources, while assigning tasks and privileges simultaneously to both the absent employee and their substitute. Additionally, when the vacation ends, all tasks and privileges temporarily assigned to a substitute should be returned to the original user.

How WEBCON BPS helps: WEBCON provides an integrated substitution system, if needed for each process separately. It also has the ability to obtain information about substitutions from external systems, and defines who may assign substitutions to whom.

2. Your company has been reorganized, and you are now a head of department

Objectives might include an overview of every task and document assigned to your direct and indirect subordinates, with access to the history of each task, as well as the ability to reorganize duties and access privileges.

How WEBCON BPS helps: With WEBCON, access to tasks, documents and workflow elements is granted based on the most recent company structure, which is loaded automatically from the Active Directory or any other system.

3. A new sales procedure has been introduced, but you have hundreds of purchase requests in various stages of completion

Objectives might include that the new company procedure requires all purchases to be handled by the sales department. Changes should be introduced on the testing environment first, and once approved, transferred to the production environment.

How WEBCON BPS helps: By default, all changes with WEBCON to the process definition are applied to all ongoing workflow elements, altering behavior of ongoing processes by moving updates from TEST to PROD environments. In the ENTERPRISE version, licenses for DEV and TEST environments are provided free of charge.

4. A complex workflow for placing orders, with more than a dozen steps and forms, requires the addition of an extra element

Objectives might include introducing an additional field onto every form in a clearly visible spot, to be used to specify the priority of the order, and affecting both desktop and mobile versions.

How WEBCON BPS helps: With WEBCON, the system allows for modifying the default positioning of form fields, as well as their visibility and accessibility settings on individual steps. By default, the mobile form inherits settings of its web counterpart.

5. The legal department needs a system for automatically generating and archiving agreements

Objectives might include generating agreements according to templates designed with Microsoft Word, with data loaded directly from a CRM. The finished agreement should be converted to PDF and have a digital signature applied, with a scanned paper document signed by both parties kept in the system and treated as the final document.

How WEBCON BPS helps: The WEBCON Word Add-in allows simultaneous work on Word documents, and generates and updates documents using custom templates. Data placed in Microsoft Office documents can be loaded from external systems and can be presented in table form. Additionally, Word and PDF attachments can be signed with a digital certificate from the Central Certificate Store, or by using the DocuSign component.

6. Certain users are experiencing inexplicably long loading times

Objectives might include a rapid diagnosis to pinpoint the cause of this issue.

How WEBCON BPS helps: WEBCON provides a complex system for gathering global and individual statistics, with two logging levels (debug i trace) to quickly identify the source of the problem: external factor, Web Service, business rule, suboptimal query. Every time the form is loaded, detailed information is  presented about obtaining data used in form fields and queries to the database.

7. The company’s vacation planning application should also be available on mobile devices

Objectives might include delivery of an app for registering and approving vacation dates as quickly and inexpensively as possible, working on iOS, Android, and for the 3 people still using a Windows Phone.

How WEBCON BPS helps: Mobile apps are available to download for free in their app stores. By default, every business application designed in WEBCON BPS is compatible with mobile devices, with a native, user-friendly interface that displays workflow element lists identically to desktop Web Parts, with a form display that has been optimized for mobile devices.

8. One of your departments still deliver documents in paper form

Objectives might include immediate and automatic access to information about the document: the consignment note number, total weight of the delivered goods, and order number.

How WEBCON BPS helps: WEBCON includes an integrated optical character recognition (OCR) module based on artificial neural network algorithms, which continues to learn on its own. Providing the system with a few examples of paper documents and specifying where to find the desired data is enough for it to identify patterns and recognize those fields on future documents.

9. It is necessary to migrate the SharePoint environment to a newer version

Objectives might include keeping migration costs as low as possible, and ensuring that during the migration, the system should be running continuously and remain relatively unimpeded. Additionally, graphic design or programming adjustments should be reduced to a bare minimum, and returning to the previous version of the system should be possible as a part of a security procedure.

How WEBCON BPS helps: WEBCON BPS has supported all SharePoint versions from WSS 2.0 up to SharePoint Enterprise 2019, allowing effortless migration. The newest versions of WEBCON BPS will always support the most recent and the preceding version of the SharePoint platform. Switching between the supported versions of SharePoint does not hinder the workflow engine in any way.

10. From now on, incoming and outgoing documents must be marked and archived

Objectives might include fast authentication and identification of incoming and outgoing documents (both physical and electronic), as well as quick access to crucial information regarding the document’s history (author, sender, send date, recipient, purpose, location of the original document).

How WEBCON BPS helps: Integrated system for applying barcodes to documents. Cooperates with barcode printers (e.g. ZEBRA). Applying 2D codes to generated MS Word and PDF documents as well as form printouts. Documents that are received via e-mail, scanned or placed in network folders are automatically queued for OCR processing, and then added as attachments to workflow elements.

11. You need a graphic status report on the key processes in your company

Objectives might include the need for management to have a tool that is both fast and easy to interpret (i.e. administration dashboard), with graphic visualizations available on mobile devices and the ability to provide detailed information, as requested.

How WEBCON BPS helps: Integrated Web Parts allow various charts to be generated based on metadata in workflow elements. With WEBCON, no programming is required for chart creation. All charts are available on mobile devices, and allow detailed analysis, with comprehensive data viewable in a table after clicking the char.

12. Since the introduction of ISO standard in your company, all active processes must be continuously documented

Objectives might include every process defined in the system having detailed, standardized documentation, with all documentation updated one day after implementing changes, at the latest.

How WEBCON BPS helps: WEBCON includes built-in mechanisms for generating standardized process documentation. In addition to the description, a graphic visualization of the process is also generated, and the administrator may include annotations at various stages of a processes’ creation (e.g. after making an adjustment) to enhance the level of detail in the documentation.

Want to learn more about WEBCON BPS and why their customers love their product? Check out their online references, scan through their many case studies, or get started with an online demo or trial.

WEBCON logo and "Workflow, But Better" tagline

Christian Buckley
