Intranet Management Software Blog

Defining Business Processes

In every working environment, there are often multiple understandings of both a process and a requirement - so how are they defined and how do we deliver them online?

Having worked within a corporate IT environment now for the past 5 years, with the latter being responsible for delivering web based applications to a high standard, across a business of multiple Intranets, with some 17,000 users. It can be difficult to gather the correct information and requirements that are needed to develop a detailed specification and ultimately a precise application.

Often, a customer has an understanding of how their business process should be managed online. However, how do we verify that this is the RIGHT way to manage their process? After all, an online process needs to be simple, straight forward and user friendly, otherwise, who would use it? With Claromentis’ InfoCapture application, workflow becomes easy to manage in a controlled environment. Out of the box, the application operates with defined boundaries, which makes the build and configuration of simple forms very straight forward. But what happens when we need to push the boundaries?

With some additional bespoke “plug-in” code (written in PHP), the boundaries of InfoCapture can be… expanded, but ONLY by a competent developer with access to the “guts” of the application. I found myself commonly defining bespoke coding into specifications, allowing customers to add additional steps into their processes in order to incorporate “features” that they couldn’t imagine having available in any paper form process, or in the default InfoCapture application. In simple terms, this often pushes out both coding and testing timescales, making projects much longer and more complex to deliver. So what happens when the “Out of box” experience requires additional code in order to meet customer expectations?

In more recent Claromentis releases, InfoCapture has grown to incorporate features that I feel were powered by our ability to “Push the boundaries”. Regular feedback and collaborative working with the supplier I feel helped us to better understand the InfoCapture application and put ideas forward for improvements to be shared by all customers. The overhaul of InfoCapture required more comprehensive reporting, straight forward wizards to build and manage forms, stylish skins to promote corporate workflows and a better permission structure.

With InfoCapture providing the majority of our Intranets online forms, I would certainly await the next batch of improvements to the application; maybe we’ll see the inclusion of some of the more common plug-ins into the core application code with simple wizard based builders in the admin panel? Maybe a more comprehensive permission structure to include better default roles to the typical “Reporter and Handler” that can be found at present? Hopefully Claromentis 6.0 will hold the answers…

Comments welcome as always.

Craig

E-form Services Babcock, Customer, infocapture

I come across an issue regularly when creating Infocapture (Process Manager) projects…

How to name the statuses appropriately?

I’ve so far concluded the following;

It depends on the project that you are creating

• How complex is the project
• How critical is the process that the project will control

It depends on the audience of the project and who will be interacting with the project

• Users with limited technical understanding or IT competence may require very simple status titles to ensure that they are not confused
• More technically competent users may be confused by a very simple status naming convention

It depends on the workflow within the project

• If the work flow is very simple, you are likely to  have statuses that reflect this.
• If the work flow is complex (perhaps even requiring an approval process), your statuses will be used to assist in the implementation of this.

Here is an example I’ve just run into…

The first status of almost every project is something along the lines of…

• New
• Submitted
• Received

All of those first status titles tells the users a single value of where the issue/ticket is at… but it’s static… it doesn’t say what it’s awaiting for…

What does “New” mean…other than it’s new… Who’’s attention is it pending?  Is it pending attention at all?  Does it require approval?  If so, by who??

Sure, we can send notifications to the person it’s pending some attention from, but what about everyone else who see’s this… what does it mean to everyone else?

In an attempt to provide clarity on this to all users, I tend to create statuses with a dual title…

• New - Pending IT
• Submitted - Awaiting Approval
• Received - Being Processed by IT

However, in doing so, I think it’s easy to potentially get carried away and end up with a status such as…

• New - Pending further information from IT before being approved and sent to HR

My solution - A compromise…

1. Chose clear and meaningful statuses that are targeted to the audiences that will be involved in the project.  “Dual statuses” help achieve this… (see examples above)
2. Try not to define static statuses such as “New” or “Approved” - These are only likely to mean something to a percentage of the overall audience.
3. Use the description fields within the form to describe the work flow and process to all users.
4. Be clear in your notifications to users about what they should be doing in order to get the ticket moved forward

I would be interested in hearing alternative opinions and approaches…

Prod-Process e-forms, infocapture, processes, statuses

If you didn’t know already, the Claromentis Infocapture application has the ability to extend it’s framework with the aid of plug-ins.  Plug-ins are add-ons to the application, allowing you to do almost anything with data that the application collects or manages.  You can use a plug-in to import data into the e-form automatically, export the data to 3rd party application/database or file, provide extended field verification and form checking, perform advanced calculations and data manipulation amongst an almost endless variety of other system process enhancing capabilities.

But the use of plugins doesn’t just stop there…

When you think about integrating the InfoCapture Application with another (or several) of the other applications within the Claromentis Framework, plug-ins step into a whole new league .

The InfoCapture Application can already integrate easily with Claromentis Sales Manager, to embed e-forms within pages about each company (to work in conjunction with Contact and Opportunity management), but combine that with InfoCapture plug-ins, and not only are you extending in the CRM system by intergrating with Infocapture, but you have the ability to extend it even further with the use of plug-ins.

I should also not fail to mention that InfoCapture and the Claromentis Document Manager application are also close friends, with linking to documents available within e-forms as standard(while still applying the correct document permissions!).

So where else can this go…

InfoCapture has envolved over the years to become such an adaptable data collection application, it could sit comfortably with so many of the Claromentis Applications.

You could use InfoCapture with other applications such as…

• Creating Special Calendar Events (Calendar)
• Booking meeting rooms (Room Booking)
• Booking holidays (Holiday Planner)
• Managing your email (Webmail)
• Managing your un-qualified sales leads (CRM)

The list could go on….

Imagine combining the Claromentis Project Manager Application with InfoCapture, and using plug-ins to extend the capabilities of them both.

The effectiveness of easily customizable and incredibly powerful e-forms solution combined with a project management application is a sure guarantee to gaining a decent ROI.  How many other project management applications allow such flexibility and extendability with the aid of an application like Claromentis InfoCapture and plug-ins?

So I ask the question again… how powerful are InfoCapute plug-ins??

And the answer appears to be… incredibly so….

Prod-Process e-forms, extending, infocapture, plugins