Workflow Automation Software

Millennia Group Blog

Captains of Industry are Building Conglomerations

via Flickr HRP2911I heard a story about how there is a push to bring the “Hipster” crowd to Eau Claire Wisconsin, a family oriented, affordable, city of 150,000+ in Northern Wisconsin.  My first response was that with current technology, people can choose to live wherever they want, so why not Eau Claire.  Having this opportunity is not a new concept and in fact, people working remotely is very commonplace already. 

However, what it brought to mind was that it’s not just your remote employees that you need to plan for these days.  Today some portion of your business process may be outsourced and you need to plan for those workers as well.  Where are those workers and how will they be included in the process?  How does your technology support this new conglomeration?

Who is part of your…

When Is Automated Workflow Justified?

There are dozens of processes that every employee must participate in during the typical work week. Review the budget, create the report, enterVia Flickr by Ian Carroll the new contract. When does it make sense to automate that process?

If the process happens every day all day, yes, automate it. If the process is complicated and prone to errors, yes automate that. What if the process only happens once a week or once a month? Let’s look at a few other key reasons to automate.

Having a flexible solution might help grow the company by attracting new business or expanding in a current area of focus. For instance, if a process requires a special skill set but those employees are difficult to hire, having a cloud based workflow might allow you to offer a work from home…

Active vs Final Documents – Co-habitation?

Via Flickr - Stuart BassilA technology issue that companies deal with on a regular basis is using one application for managing active or working documents and a separate application for the archived or final documents. Active being defined as documents in the creation or working stage and final being final or executed.

This situation exists because of how and why these documents are created, accessed and shared. Certain employees are document Creators and others are document Users and their needs are very different. The Holy Grail is one application to manage both. The reality is you need two applications. Let us explain why that is not a bad thing.

Speed and flexibility is demanded by the document Creators. The Creators just want to get their job done and get it done quickly. But that…

Fear of change is okay, if it only lasts 5 minutes

In a past era processes were set in stone. Assembly lines were created and they ran for three shifts a day year after year. Big mainframes were programmed and some of those programs still run today. Change was slow and methodical for both consumers and businesses.

Today, manufacturers and businesses of all types are struggling to meet the new era’s requirements and challenges including personalization and on-demand. The only way to manage in this environment is to have a workforce and applications that embrace and smooth the way for change – in 5 minutes or less.

Unfortunately most employees, even younger ones, fear change. The fear comes not only from having to learn something new, but also from a break in routine or loss of time. With the crazy busy schedules that most employees have…

Workflow Metrics, the Extra Benefit

via FlickrAll of our clients that have implemented our workflow solution have done so to improve their efficiency and profitability. However, it has become very apparent that there are significant added benefits derived from the process metrics reports that are generated. 

A quick definition of process metrics is the number and duration of activities throughout each workflow process, ie. how many completed and how long did it take. Additional measurements are possible depending on other data available within the system, such as completions by region, by person, by amount, etc.

At first glance, gathering the data and measuring the metrics seems like a big brother approach. However, when you look closely, this is a win win situation for the company and the employees and here are a few reasons why:

A win for the…

A Life Lesson – Sharing is Good

A Life Lesson - Sharing is GoodWhat are the needs of your employees to share documents with people outside of your company? They might share documents with customers, business partners, vendors, lawyers, bankers, government agencies and many other outside parties.

Your users want this to be easy – write an email, attach a document or two and hit send. Your executives want to make sure that the process is efficient, but also meets security and confidentiality requirements. The CIO doesn’t want the network to crash or the email system to bog down.

Companies that are using a shared network drive for document management can expect basic sharing to be easy for users (provided they can find the files they are looking for). Users will attach the files to an email, copy the files to a thumb drive or push the files to the cloud. There is generally…

Getting to Easy Is Hard

Getting to Easy Is HardOne goal of digital workflow is to simplify a process, to make it easier. To someone intimately involved in a longstanding business process, that process probably appears to be simple. Years of repetition and a history of managing the inevitable “twist” in the process or “rare” occurrence has resulted in it being perceived as easy. It’s only when there is a need to document the process that all eyes are opened to the actual complex process and the challenges ahead.

It’s not only the effort of understanding the true process that can be difficult, it is also designing a workflow process that isn’t more complicated and costly than the old way.  A poorly designed process could solve one issue extremely well, but over complicate two others. The good news is that there are technology tools available today that are flexible enough…

Wedded Bliss

Wedding Bliss

Over the past decade, Millennia Group has been involved in many large real estate developments around the country. We support the developer’s construction loan funding process. The simple explanation is that we help gather, organize and submit a digital copy of all the documentation that the bank requires before funding each construction loan draw request. These requests typically occur monthly.

The actual process is far more complicated and in fact is a marriage of documentation and data. This process happens to be one of the best examples of how document scanning married with data creates an incredibly powerful tool. In fact this should be the number one rule in document scanning.

In the construction loan funding example, the power comes from matching each scanned invoice to the correct construction budget line item. Being able to see the budget for each draw request and then immediately drill…