It’s valuable to model your business processes, but you shouldn’t stop there, because your customers only get value from processes that you perform. So what’s next?
Documented processes are a great basis for automation and making processes run smoothly. For smooth process execution, there’s Effektif. This video tutorial shows you how to use Effektif to run a business process you've modelled.
I’ve documented my processes, what’s next? (YouTube) - 5m 24s
Transcript
By the end of this tutorial, you’ll know how to publish a process in Effektif, and start a new case to run the process. You will also learn how to use forms and automatic assignments to help people use your process successfully.
Process model
It’s easy to get started with Effektif, so it doesn’t matter which tool you use to model your processes.
To start with, here’s an existing process model for a simple document approval workflow, shown here in Effektif’s process editor.
I’m going to use this familiar example to show you how to bring a model to life by running it.
Running the process
The first step is to publish the first version of the process, so we can start a new case.
Publishing the process for the first time creates version 1. Here’s how you start a case:
This is the case view that shows information about the case.
You can use the activity stream on the right to view and add information about the case. Let’s upload the report and add a comment.
The tasks list on the left shows a single task, which is the first step in the approval process.
When you open the task, you can see more information about it.
For this example, we want Alice to review the report by tomorrow.
Now Alice will have received an email notification containing a link she can use to open this page, and choose between the Approve and Reject buttons defined in the process model.
The Reject button creates a new Correct report task which should be assigned to Ben, who prepared the report.
Note that the decision to Reject is clearly recorded in the activity stream, with a time stamp.
Once you have a process that you can run, so that people can collaborate on cases, the next step is to improve the process to make it easier to use.
Improving the model
To make changes to an existing process, open it in the process editor.
The first thing you can improve is how a new case starts. You can use a trigger form to capture information that is required to handle the case.
By selecting a form trigger, you can choose which information is used to start a case.
The first thing we’ll use the file upload for, is to name a new case with the file name.
Next, let’s add automatic assignment and a due date.
In the process editor, select a task on the diagram to configure it.
Use the Assignment tab to configure automatic assignment. For example, we can choose Alice from the list so that the review task is always assigned to her when someone creates a new case.
However, it’s better to use the Managers group that I set-up for my organisation, so that other managers are candidates for the task for when Alice is not available.
Use the Reminders tab to set a default due date.
Let’s set the assignee for the other task as well.
This task is different, because a different person should correct the report for each case. We call this kind of case-specific assignment a ‘role’.
You can define a new role, which is set by assigning the task to someone, or use a role defined by a form variable - such as, the report author for this process.
Running the new version
This is all starting to get too abstract to follow, which means that it’s time to try out these changes by publishing the process and starting a new case.
Now we are starting a new case with the trigger form we set-up earlier.
This time, the case name is generated from the uploaded file’s name.
The activity stream shows the trigger form data, with a link that Alice can use to view the report.
The Review report task is now assigned to Alice, and has a due date.
Conclusion
Modelling a process is only the first step: running the process is what’s next.
When you run a process in Effektif, you get a variety of tools to help people work together productively, in a web-based environment that you can use to continually improve the process.
With even this simple example, you can see how Effektif brings a process model to life. Imagine what you could do with your own specific business processes!
Go to effektif.com and sign up for a free trial, so you can try it for yourself.