Path to successful process implementation

As with any project or software implementation, planning is critical. Before you begin building your first process, it’s important to:

  1. Identify roles and responsibilities.
  2. Document your process.
  3. Identify key process metrics.

Note — For a thorough overview of planning and implementing a business process automation/optimization project, refer to the BPM article.

Identifying roles and responsibilities

There will be key individuals who are assigned to the following roles and perform the duties as required. It’s entirely possible for a single individual to fill multiple roles, but it’s important to identify them before beginning process development and rollout:

  • Process Owner(s) — For each process you define in Nutrient Workflow Automation, there should be at least one person who is responsible for the overall process that will be automated. This person tends to be a manager or key individual within a department for whom you will be creating the processes. For instance, say you are building a capital expenditure process. The process owner would be the person in your finance department. They are the person who currently manages it now and will do so in the future, even when it’s created in Workflow Automation. This person will define how the process works, approve changes to the process flow, and so on.
  • System Owner — The person who is responsible for bringing Nutrient Workflow Automation into your organization. This individual will be the champion of Workflow Automation within your organization and act as the primary liaison with necessary individuals for whom you are automating the process (for example, process owners). They may also be responsible for coordinating rollouts to end users, end user training, end user communication, and so on.
  • Administrator(s) — These individuals will be integral to your success in implementing Nutrient Workflow Automation in your organization. Typically, this person (or people) will be responsible for:
    • Security setup configuration
    • Process setup/configuration
    • Form design and development
    • Reporting definition
      Additionally, this individual should be a subject matter expert (SME) to whom end users can direct questions or issues. They will serve as the primary point of contact for Nutrient if problems arise. Ideally, this person should have an IT or IS background to ensure they can collaborate effectively with your technical support team.
  • IT Contact/Support — Depending on the size of your organization, this could be one or many individuals or departments. The primary responsibility of this individual will be to:
    • Install and maintain web server installation. This individual should have excellent knowledge of Internet Information Server (IIS), Windows authentication and security, and so on.
    • Install and maintain database server installation. Depending on your environment, this person should be well versed in installing a SQL Server or Oracle database, applying indexes, running backups, LDAP/Active Directory, and so on.

Process documentation

Regardless of your organization’s size, it’s vital to document your processes. Even if a process was documented previously, the transition to Workflow Automation often introduces subtle variations or changes in roles and responsibilities that didn’t exist when the process was originally established.

Documenting a process doesn’t need to be a complex procedure or require a new set of tools. A whiteboard, pencil and paper, or a Visio diagram all work fine.

Refer to the mapping your Workflow guide for further details.

Note — Your development time and time to implementation will be exponentially faster if you have a well-documented process before building it in Workflow Automation.

Refer to the how to document a process guide for additional guidance.

Metrics

To measure the success of your process, define what you’d like to measure while you document your process. For example, do you need daily reports on what approvals are pending? Do you need monthly reports on the total number of approvals versus rejections in a process?

By asking these questions first, it’s possible to add these specific measurable points into the definition of the process by adding certain statuses (milestones) or possibly altering your process to make it easier to report on. If a status or data element is never captured in the process, you won’t be able to report on it.