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Workflow Management

Workflow Management with bitfarm-Archiv

Document bound electronic operating processes

If an electronic document filing system is well or­gani­zed, struc­tu­red lo­gi­cal­ly and com­pre­hen­sib­ly for all par­tici­pants, the fi­ling and re­trie­val of do­cu­ments can be sig­ni­fi­cant­ly acc­ele­ra­ted af­ter a short fa­milia­riza­tion peri­od. With bitfarm-Archiv document management, work­flows (= document proces­ses) such as elec­tro­nic in­voice veri­fi­ca­ti­on, con­tract ma­nage­ment and pro­cure­ment ma­nage­ment can be analyzed & op­ti­mi­zed.

The pro­ces­ses that can be ar­ran­ged more clear­ly, more trans­pa­rent­ly and more effi­ci­ent­ly through the use of a DMS al­so in­clu­de re­sub­mis­si­ons in hu­man re­sour­ces (learn more about document management system for human resources), re­lease and pub­li­ca­tion pro­ces­ses for do­cu­men­ta­tion and ma­ny more.

With bitfarm-Archiv DMS the cus­tomer al­ways recei­ves the com­plete software. He is free to de­cide which func­ti­ons to use at which time. Of­ten the DMS is first in­tro­du­ced as a pure ar­chive sys­tem and la­ter, when the users are fami­li­ar with the DMS, ex­ten­ded func­ti­ons such as work­flow ma­nage­ment are ad­ded.

Your company - your pace

bitfarm-Archiv document ma­nage­ment sca­les very fle­xib­ly over­all. It can be ope­ra­ted as a simp­le ar­chi­ving sys­tem with most func­tions dis­ab­led.

How­ever, as a cross-platform sys­tem for do­cu­ment-re­la­ted in­for­ma­tion and its pro­ces­ses, it can also acquire a cen­tral po­si­ti­on in the com­pa­ny and thus be­come an im­por­tant com­po­nent of bu­si­ness pro­cess ma­nage­ment or pro­duct life­cyc­le ma­nage­ment.

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document distribution

In bitfarm-Archiv, do­cu­ments can be dis­tri­bu­ted ma­nu­al­ly or au­to­ma­ti­cal­ly by ser­ver rule ac­cor­ding to con­tent, ca­te­go­ry / sto­rage lo­ca­tion, or ac­cor­ding to field va­ri­ab­les and user in­put to the res­pon­sib­le em­ploy­ees.

The do­cu­ment tem­plate can al­so be ba­sed on time cri­te­ria. The li­cen­se-free bitfarm-Archiv DMS, for examp­le, en­ab­les ef­fec­tive con­tract ma­nage­ment by au­to­ma­ti­cal­ly cal­cu­la­ting pos­sib­le con­tract ter­mi­na­ti­on da­tes and sub­mit­ting them to the res­pon­sib­le em­ploy­ees for re­view in good time.

Processing: Resub­mission & Workflow Cascades

The re­sub­mis­sion func­tion au­to­ma­ti­cal­ly pro­vi­des each em­ploy­ee with the do­cu­ments he or she needs to edit, in­cluding the work in­struc­tion. The do­cu­ments are al­ways in the same place in the ar­chive so that they can be found and read by other users.

If a user re­cei­ves new do­cu­ments for pro­ces­sing in his task list, he is au­to­ma­ti­cal­ly no­ti­fied by the sys­tem, even if he has not ope­ned the DMS client.

Once the pro­ces­sing by a user has been com­ple­ted, bitfarm-Archiv de­ter­mines the next pro­ces­sor and for­wards the do­cu­ment un­til the pre­de­fi­ned work­flow has been com­ple­ted.

Work­flows can be de­fined not only for in­di­vi­dual users, but al­so at group le­vel. Here, the sys­tem of­fers va­rious pro­ces­sing modes, such as cu­mu­la­tive or al­ter­na­tive, in or­der to en­ab­le the cre­ati­on of a wi­de va­ri­ety of sce­na­rios.

En­hanced Busi­ness Solutions

Occa­sio­nal­ly it hap­pens that tasks can­not be im­ple­men­ted solely with the exis­ting con­fi­gu­ra­tion op­ti­ons of the DMS. With the help of its ex­ten­sive in­ter­faces and scrip­ting op­ti­ons as well as the bitfarm-Archiv Tool­box, bitfarm-Archiv can al­so be used to or­ches­tra­te com­plex do­cu­ment pro­ces­ses by in­cor­po­ra­ting exis­ting bu­si­ness ap­pli­ca­ti­ons or ex­ter­nal pro­cess events.

Simp­le script plug-ins can be used to con­trol that new or mo­di­fied do­cu­ments ad­just the sta­tus of an as­so­ci­ated do­cu­ment ac­cor­ding­ly. For examp­le, if you di­gi­tal­ly print a proof of de­li­ve­ry in­to the DMS and la­ter scan the sig­ned proof in­to the sys­tem, it re­cog­ni­zes the ori­gi­nal do­cu­ment and au­to­ma­ti­cal­ly marks it as "done". A book­marked search for all "not com­ple­ted" proofs of de­li­ve­ry pro­vi­des em­ploy­ees with an over­view of un­de­li­ve­red ship­ments. An es­ca­la­tion sce­na­rio can also be im­ple­men­ted with a cor­res­pon­ding book­mark "not com­ple­ted and ol­der than 5 days".

Controlling & Documentation

The cur­rent sta­tus of a do­cu­ment is recorded using sta­tus fields and but­tons. In ad­di­tion, va­ri­ous gra­phi­cal tools such as no­tes and stamps are avail­able to add notes to do­cu­ments.

The sys­tem al­so cre­ates a his­to­ry for each do­cu­ment, which au­to­ma­ti­cal­ly logs all pro­ces­sing steps and chan­ges.

Invoice workflow

The cap­ture and au­to­ma­tic dis­tri­bu­tion of in­coming in­voi­ces is one of the clas­sic work­flows of elec­tro­nic do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment and for ma­ny com­pa­nies is the en­try in­to the DMS-based or­ga­ni­sa­tion of do­cu­ment pro­ces­ses. The ad­van­ta­ges are ob­vious.

The DMS must there­by of­fer enough con­figu­ra­tion pos­si­bili­ties so that the elec­tro­nic work­flow can re­pre­sent all sta­ti­ons of the pre­vi­ous in­voice exa­mi­na­ti­on and - pro­ces­sing. With bitfarm-Archiv DMS, the cus­to­mer re­cei­ves a work­flow en­gine that can be fle­xib­ly adap­ted, sup­ports com­plex sce­na­ri­os with case dis­tinc­ti­ons, se­quen­ti­al and pa­ral­lel pro­ces­ses and can im­ple­ment es­ca­la­tion sta­ges.

QM workflows according to ISO 9001

The work­flow func­ti­ons in­te­gra­ted in bitfarm-Archiv Enterprise can al­so be u­sed to im­ple­ment the re­quire­ments for qua­li­ty ma­nage­ment ac­cor­ding to DIN EN ISO 9001 ff. For this pur­pose, a do­cu­ment is cre­ated as usu­al in the word pro­ces­sing pro­gram and sto­red di­rec­tly in­to the DMS. The au­thor edits the do­cu­ment with the func­ti­on "Edit ori­gi­nal file". He is sup­por­ted by ex­ten­ded ECM func­ti­ons such as ver­si­o­ning and check-in/ check-out.

Once pro­ces­sing is com­ple­te, the do­cu­ment is au­to­ma­ti­cal­ly sub­mit­ted to an exa­mi­ner or a group of exa­mi­ners. If the draft does not meet ex­pec­ta­ti­ons, it is re­tur­ned with sug­ges­ti­ons for im­pro­ve­ment. The pro­cess is re­pea­ted un­til the do­cu­ment is ac­cep­ted.

Re­vie­wed do­cu­ments can then go through fur­ther pro­ces­ses, such as ap­pro­val and pub­li­ca­ti­on. Af­ter ap­pro­val and pub­li­ca­ti­on, the ol­der ver­si­on of a do­cu­ment is re­pla­ced in the sys­tem, so that users on­ly see the cur­rent docu­ment.