What is Workflow

Workflow is a mapped, documented series of steps necessary to achieve a repeatable and recurrent goal. A process is a set of activities that includes the workflow and other factors, such as people, tools, and reports. Workflows are more predictable and orderly, making them easier to automate.

Automate day-to-day internal tasks using workflow to eliminate repetitive work, remove bottlenecks, reduce errors, eliminate busywork, and increase productivity across the company. More efficient operations drive millions in cost savings.

Workflows help organizations organize, track, and optimize the processes they rely on every day. They are the reusable instruction manuals of the business world, saving time and resources on every repetitive task.

This may be a checklist that someone in human resources completes during the onboarding process, the procedure a sales team member follows when moving a lead through the sales pipeline, or even the steps of a fully automated expense reimbursement process.

Simple or Complex

Workflows range from simple tasks that can be performed by individuals to massive processes that involve hundreds of team members across business units. Despite this variation, all workflows are repeatable.

Consider 2 similar scenarios:

• Claim is made by an employee against expenses incurred. It goes to accounts team, someone verifies the amount against the sanctioned expense limits of the employee, ensures all the bills are attached and then pays the amount due.
• Claim is made against an existing insurance policy for a car accident. The insurance claim processing team member will verify that the claim is against a live policy and against a loss which is covered, he will share a list of garages where the claimant can take the car for inspection for loss. He will arrange for the visit of a loss assessor in the garage, get the report from the assessor and so on till the claim is settled.

In both cases each time similar series of steps are completed. These steps form what is called a workflow or a set of workflows which is part of the process.

Types of workflows

Sequential workflows occur when each step depends on the completion of a previous step. Rules-based workflows using conditional logic (if this then that kind) are an example of a type of sequential workflow.

Parallel workflows occur when multiple tasks can be performed concurrently. These workflows also referred to as state workflows, are sometimes dependent on each other.

Rule driven workflows. Similar to sequential workflows, except progress is governed by more sophisticated conditions. In this model, moving from one task to the next involves rules similar to those in conditional programming, with “if,” “else if,” “else,” case statements, or traditional logic evaluating rule statements as true or false.

Benefits

Benefits of using workflows

• Make processes more efficient
• Measure work performance and productivity
• Improve collaboration
• Delegate effectively

How to get started with workflows

• Identification of the process to be automated
• Design and documentation of the process
• Diagramming and implementation the workflow

Few workflow examples

Insurance claim settlement
Log claim for insurance, verify documentation, verify entitlement, damage assessment, legal procedures and compliance, limits and approvals, settlement.

Employee onboarding
As an important part of the repetitive hiring process, employee onboarding requires a standardized procedure for welcoming new hires, communicating them what they need to know about the company and their responsibilities, and integrating them into the workforce.

Expense reimbursement
A common and ongoing workplace activity. Using a workflow for expense reimbursement to track requests, receipts, and payment status can help set expectations and streamline the whole process.

Leave approval
Application for leave, checking the leave balance and eligibility, checking if the applicant is in notice period, if anyone on leave has assigned responsibilities to the applicant, any approvals required etc.

Sales pipeline
In sales, lead generation, opportunity research and assessment, follow-up, proposal writing, and negotiation are all repetitive tasks that are easy to organize into a workflow, making the whole sales pipeline more efficient and standardized

Get Started

Start creating and managing workflows today
Whether you need to make sure new team members are engaged, streamline your expenses, or generate and close leads more quickly, workflow management applications can help. Workflows can make you more agile and collaborative, improve employee performance, bring about transparency, improve compliance, boost productivity and profitability, all while automating repetitive tasks and creating useful documentation for critical processes.

Deploy effective workflow management solutions
JurniTech offers workflow management solutions to solve problems across every business unit.