Do you face some kind of workflow related issues at the workplace?
Does it happen when you have not received a document from the other team yet? The team member has not checked the important email? The approval is still pending from the finance department?
Situations like that do take a great toll on the business productivity, efficiency, and process. It is imperative to follow seamless management of work to fill up any kind of gap.
What is required is the smooth flow of data, files, and process management within the enterprise system.
So, this is what you can expect from Workflow Management System to overcome most of the manual tasks hurdles and bring in a smooth flow of tasks.
Table of Contents
1. What is Workflow Management?
2. How Does Workflow Management Work?
3. Different Types of Workflow Management Solutions
4. What is Workflow Management Software?
5. Features of Workflow Management System
6. Benefits of Workflow Management Software
7. Why Consider Workflow Management Solution?
Introduction of Workflow Management?
Workflow Management is all about identifying, organizing, and coordinating a particular set of tasks to procure a favourable outcome. Simply say, it is the process of bringing automation to improve and optimize workflows. Doing the same will help you eliminate repetitive tasks, increase efficiency, remove bottlenecks, and decrease the set of errors.
A workflow includes several strategic steps to carry out a particular function within the system in a streamlined manner. Adopting this methodology will remove the manual approach from most of the tasks, improve system visibility, and increase work productivity.
How Does it Work and Help you?
Basically, Workflow Management is software that helps automate specific tasks within the organization. It helps sequencing tasks to manage the flow of work and increase efficiency.
Thus, to understand the working approach of this system, you need to look at the following points.
* At first, the workflow management system identifies and prioritized a particular task in a sequential manner based on specific conditions & rules.
* It helps analyze the overall process and see how to perform the task sequentially in an improved manner.
* Maps out the loopholes, delays, and all the bottlenecks.
* Workflow system is automated for a single piece of operation to manage the flow of work.
What are the Different Types of Workflow Management Solutions?
As you know, work in the enterprise system either works side by side i.e., parallel or in a sequential manner.
Just like in the case of the online retail framework, first, you offer the product, reaches the customers, they will add the products to the cart, and make payment to receive the same.
So, this particular is a sequential form of operation that needs to be done smoothly and without any hassle. Concerning the same, a workflow management system helps you streamline the task either parallel or in sequential form.
1. Sequential Workflows: It is the process in which the next step relies on the successful completion of the previous step. So, the system automates the functionality to make sure everything goes well in a sequence and that too quickly and efficiently.
2. Parallel Workflows: It is responsible for managing multiple tasks happening parallel with no glitch at all. The system makes sure every task that runs parallel is also performed in a proper sequence without facing any hurdle.
What is Workflow Management Software?
A Workflow Management System is a software tool designed for enterprises of all types to streamline routine business tasks.
The tasks within the organization could be related to:
* Customer-facing workflows (marketing, customer service)
* Priority tasks (HR, IT, Finance)
* Employee-centered tasks (HR)
* Primary workflow tasks (sales, marketing, finance, etc)
* Subsidiary tasks
A workflow management software eliminates the manual approach of handling the above-mentioned workflows. It helps the system stores data of the respective department and automate the sequence of tasks in a smooth manner.
Key Features of Workflow Management System Help your Business Grow
Now, let’s check out some incredible features of the workflow management system to better understand how does it work.
1. Intuitive Functioning: It is a simple straight-line process for any stakeholder to create a particular flow of work. Just add the concerned tasks, departments, responsibilities, and the flow to manage work effectively.
2. Simple Form Designer: Creating tasks and functionalities is simple with a workflow management solution. You just have to drag and drop the task, links, text, numbers, and other inputs.
3. Seamless Integration with Cloud: A technically advanced workflow management system is fully integrated with Cloud to manage operations smoothly. It allows you to integrate your sales, documents, reports, calendars, cash-flows, and other tasks to respective CMS, email, financial software, or stakeholder.
4. Reporting: Creating a workflow in the WMS is simple and straightforward. But sometimes, it takes longer than expected to perform a particular task. In such instances, utilize the KPI-based reporting functionality of software to overcome the obstacles.
5. Status Indicators: There could be a scenario that you are having more than 20 workflows running simultaneously on the system. When you think about checking the status of each workflow, you rely on the dashboard to view the same. On top of that, the status indicator feature of the software further allows you to get notified about the phase of each workflow. You can colour each workflow accordingly to measure the progress.
6. Parallel Branches of Workflows: All the workflows you see in the system are in a sequential manner. It is simple to see it all by checking the status where you find all the workflow sequences in a parallel manner.
Top Benefits of Workflow Management System
Implementing Workflow Management System within the organization is of course beneficial in terms of automation and streamlining.
Apart from that, there are other advantages as well that you should not ignore.
1. Improve Productivity & Connectivity
Clearly speaking, a workflow management system interconnects systems, people, applications, and software. It enables a working atmosphere that is connected, collaborated, and transparent. Employees can seamlessly communicate with each other, track performance, and share data easily.
The system helps the IT infrastructure connect as well to draw data from different tools and integrates the flow into one system. So, professionals need not access multiple applications to acquire the data and instead rely on WMS to see the details.
2. Reduce Operational Errors
Undoubtedly, with workflow management software you get a well-automated operational atmosphere. It allows you to see things and operational tasks to identify errors well in advance. As a result, there will be fewer mistakes at the workplace that further enhance productivity and efficiency.
3. Eliminate the Redundant Tasks
Prevent repetitive tasks at the workplace that can save much of your operational cost. As a matter of fact, redundant or repetitive tasks cost $5 trillion globally towards an extensive scale of enterprises. Moreover, an average working professional spends an average of 69 days per year on such mundane tasks.
With the workflow management system approach, there will be pre-defined business roles for every stakeholder. It leads to the elimination of repetitive tasks and automatically improves productivity to an optimum level.
4. Increased Set of Transparency & Control
With the implementation of the workflow management system, everything is crystal clear. Be it like employees roles and responsibilities, managers KPIs, and other sets of ownership.
In short, the tech-enabled software squeezes out the shadow tasks and brings transparency to an optimum level. With this, everyone knows what to do and what not to do.
Concluding Thoughts
Automation at the workplace is the key to ensuring success, growth, and improved ROI. Workplace Management Solution brings in a great deal of transparency, streamlined operations, flexibility, and automation to speed up tasks. It further helps connect teams, people, and applications to manage the seamless flow of data across the company.
