Workflow Management
Your approval route, drawn once and followed every time.
Write the steps a document must pass - who decides, under which conditions, how long they have - attach the route to a voucher type, and watch documents move through it.
Workflow Management lets you draw the route a document must follow before it counts. You write the steps once - who decides, how many of them must agree, under which conditions, and how long they have. Then you attach the route to a voucher type, such as a purchase order or a payment. Each document is sent through it on submit. A diagram shows the route and where each document stands. Notifications go out at each step, and overdue steps escalate. The Workflow Manager shows every document still on its way.
Why use it
- You rely on people remembering who must sign a purchase orderHere the route is written once and every document follows it.
- You cannot tell where a document is stuckHere the Workflow Manager shows the step it waits at and who it waits on.
- You want large orders checked by more people than small onesHere a condition decides which steps are created for each document.
- You find out a step was ignored for a weekHere an overdue step is escalated to the person you named.
- You explain your approval process again to every new joinerHere the route diagram shows everybody the same picture.
Key advantages
Conditions are read against the saved document and its lines, so the route follows real values, not a person's memory of the rules.
A step can need one, all or a share of its approvers, so a committee decision is enforced by the software.
Notification rules send a chosen e-mail template to the right people at each event, through the company's own mail account.
A background job finds overdue steps and escalates them once to the people you named, so nothing waits forever unnoticed.
The web uses the desktop's own workflow tables, so a route written on either side runs on the other.
Six workflow reports open in the standard report viewer and drill from a status to the document's step history.
Business benefits
Consistent approvals
Every document of a type passes the same checks, every time.
Spend under control
Purchase orders and payments count only after the right people approve them.
Bottlenecks visible
You see which step and which person is holding documents up.
Process you can show
The route diagram and step history show an auditor how decisions are made.
Where it is used
Purchase orders above a set value need the plant head and the finance head.
A condition creates the extra step only for those orders, and both must approve before the order counts.
Quotations sometimes go out before the sales manager sees them.
The quotation enters its route on submit and waits at the manager's step until it is approved.
Payments to vendors are approved over e-mail with no record.
Each payment follows its route, approvers decide in the inbox with remarks, and the history is kept.
What it costs, and what it saves
The price list could not be read just now; the pricing page shows today's price.
What it replaces
- Documents that skip a required check
- Time spent finding where a document is stuck
- Approval steps forgotten while people are away
- Re-explaining the approval process to each new staff member
Work out your saving
Your own figures, 26 working days a month. An estimate, not a promise. User licences are priced separately.
What it does for you
Routes with any number of steps and conditions.
A diagram of the route, so everybody sees the same picture.
Notifications at each step, and escalation when one is overdue.
A Workflow Manager showing where every document stands.
A work-flow dashboard: the steps and approvals waiting for you, and what is late.