Protect your brand image

The newly onboard employees are usually very keen to make observations in the workplace. They want to know how you run, how you guide and treat employees, and how efficiently things run. If not careful, your new employees or job candidates might develop a bad impression of your company. This could have a direct effect on your organizational culture and image. With the HR workflow software in place, however, you can appear more organized in the eyes of newly hired employees. It supervises them for you by displaying their workload for each day. If everyone seems to know what they were hired to do, it will give the impression that you are professional and orderly. The automated system speeds things up, ensuring that each step of the hiring process is done in a timely and systematic manner.

Software comes in handy in an emergency recruitment process

If there is a vacancy that needs to be filled in quickly, your business will handle it quickly if it has a recruitment workflow technology. A manual onboarding procedure would be so difficult to run in such a circumstance. The onboarding program consists of two things. First, the HR manager has to develop the onboarding workflow template. This means that they have to breakdown the entire process into small stages and then add it to the workflow automation software. Once this happens, there can be more officers tackling the procedure on the backend. Hence, the HR head would be relieved of some stress and would be more confident that an emergency job positioning would start and end successfully.

Onboarding workflow software boosts communication

Modern people are conversant with technological devices, apps, and software. By the time they attend the interview, they expect you to have used a given form of technology to get in touch with them. For instance, you could ask them to send their cover letters via mobile or email. As a result, job candidates will perceive your communication process as streamlined and efficient. The Recruitment workflow software puts all participants on the same page. Thus, every worker will be keen to do what is expected of them as the interview process continues. At the same time, candidates will look sharper rather than confused and lost. There will be clear steps explained to them even before they walk in the interview room. The hired ones will also enjoy the automated job orientation process and new hire onboarding portal.

The software simplifies the auditing process

Your HR manager might want to review the original documents gathered during the initial onboarding process. If the process is automated, the documents can be retrieved and audited quickly. The same cannot be said of the manual onboarding tasks handling. The manual filing procedure is less convenient, especially, if the documents you want to review were shared throughout a whole year onboarding program. The HR workflow software saves time that could otherwise be spent searching for old paperwork. With just a few mouse clicks, the hiring official could recover the data they require to proceed with the remaining part of their onboarding program.

This is why you need the CMW Tracker onboarding workflow software. It can be provided to you for 30-day trial period. Do not hesitate to request your trial period today! CMW Lab will automate more than just your recruitment process.

The post Recruitment workflow: How to Tackle Effective Employee Onboarding Workflow appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

An administrative assistant wears a vast variety of proverbial hats to ensure the smooth running of an office or business. Their tasks may involve checking email, answering phones, dealing with office supply orders, managing employees, and much more.

It is easy to see how having so many different tasks can become daunting. This is where new software can really reduce some of the important, but tedious, burdens often placed on the administrative assistant.

There are two main types of software, that can reduce the burden and streamline administrative operations. Low-code workflow management software, like CMW Tracker, provides easy-to-use software tools that allow you to create custom processes and workspaces with drag and drop simplicity.

With this type of software, you can easily manage different aspects of a task easier. All information can be gathered into a single workspace that all relevant parties can access. You can create custom notifications and allow for document sharing remotely.

Automation software is another important tool that can really improve the efficiency of administrative workflows. This software allows you to automate various aspects of business operations, which takes the burden off the administrative assistant and allows them to spend their time on other, more important tasks.

Let’s take a look at some of the most obvious workflows that will benefit from workflow management software as well as automation.

Correspondence Handling

One of the most common tasks an administrative assistant is correspondence handling. This can take a range of forms from actual physical mail, to phone calls and emails. This can take up a significant part of someone’s day and thus this is another area, which can greatly benefit from automation.

Automation software can provide form responses to common interactions. You can use the software to create custom templates that make it easier to send out professional responses without a ton of time involved. Automation software can also make it easier to discern between correspondence that needs immediate attention and that which can be put on the proverbial back burner.

CMW Tracker makes it a snap to design and automate your common administrative workflows.

Schedule Management

Another common task that often falls to the administrative assistant is responsible for is the setting of meetings and appointments for various parties within the business. It is important that the administrative assistant has access to all employee calendars so as to ensure no scheduling conflicts with meetings.

Say, for example, a boss communicates to the administrative assistant that numerous clients are coming in for meetings on a given day. Once this information is given, the administrative assistant will need to note this and then provide reminders to all parties involved.

With automation software, this can be done far more quickly and with far less effort from the administrative assistant. They can enter details about meetings and appointments and the software will automatically put this on a master schedule. The administrative assistant can even automate reminders as well.

Managing Databases

Though not all administrative assistants manage databases, it is common for assistants to be responsible for keeping customer information and other important data up-to-date.

It isn’t uncommon for a supervisor to hand their assistant a sheet of paper with data on it from a call or meeting. This information then needs to be entered into the database.

With automation software, you can more easily import this information into a centralized database, where it is properly organized and kept current and accurate. Especially when it comes to digital information, automation software can dramatically improve the efficiency of this process. It can automatically pull in new information and add it to the appropriate databases without the need for manual entry.

In Closing

These aren’t, of course, the only aspects of administrative workflows that can benefit from automation and other workflow management solutions. These are just some of the most common and obvious areas where this software can be incredibly useful. Software solutions that use low-code offerings to allow people to more easily create custom workspaces and workflows, as well as automation software, can really improve the efficiency of an administrative assistant.

Administrative assistants are often tasked with a wide range of different job responsibilities, all of which are important, but some of them are more redundant and time-consuming than others. Using automation and workflow management software can allow the assistant to better handle their varied tasks and automate different elements to reduce the amount of time they spend on redundant tasks like data entry.

The post Common Administrative Workflows That Need Automation appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

While this is, of course, a boon to any e-commerce site, there is a lot that goes into operating a secure, effective, and efficient e-commerce site. Especially in light of the competition one faces from huge companies like Amazon.

This is why e-commerce companies need to use every tool at their disposal to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their business operations. This is where e-commerce workflow management software can prove so beneficial.

E-commerce workflow management software takes a wide range of forms from comprehensive and complex suites of software that require a lot of technical knowledge, to Low-code solutions that are more versatile. CMW Lab workflow management and automation software is a great solution for companies large and small.

Let’s briefly take a look at the top 5 reasons that you need effective and efficient e-commerce workflow management solutions.

Easier Management of Vendor Accounts

Regardless of our business, it takes resources for it to operate. This means we have financial relationships with outside providers and this requires management and tracking.

For an e-commerce site, vendors play a much larger role and need to be onboarded as quickly and efficiently as possible. Using workflow management tools to handle vendor management is a great way to dramatically streamline this process and make it more transparent as well.

You can upload contract templates to a workflow server that acts as a centralized workspace for all involved parties. This gives everyone access to all the documents and information they need to initiate and approve a vendor onboarding or make some sort of change.

Automate Your Listings

Most e-commerce sites regularly update their listings when new products are added or older products are discontinued. Automating this process saves a ton of time and hassle and helps to ensure that your e-commerce site is also up-to-date and accurate about your inventory.

Workflow automation software allows you to automate many aspects of this process with ease, from managing inventory data to updating listings on your e-commerce site.

Automate Returns and Cancellations

Sometimes people make mistakes when they place an order or the product they ordered wasn’t to their liking. This is when a process of order cancellation or return is initiated. Major e-commerce sites like Amazon have an automated process to manage this and there is no reason you shouldn’t as well.

Having automated cancellation and return policies allows you to offer the security and convenience that large stores offer, even if you are just starting out. This is important when the competition is so stiff.

You can automate this process by having notifications sent to the warehouse in the event of a return or cancellation. This will, in turn, update your inventory and provide notifications to the appropriate parties to ensure timely completion of the process.

Customer Feedback and Complaints

No matter how good we think our business runs, there is room for improvement and customers may have comments or suggestions. These are invaluable and shouldn’t be ignored, especially if you want repeat business.

A delay in a refund or a response to a relevant query can negatively influence your reputation and the likelihood that someone will shop at your e-commerce store again.

Automating the process of complaints and comments, sending the correspondence to the appropriate party, and responding to customers in a timely manner is an incredibly important part of customer service and client retention.

Streamline Internal Processes

E-commerce workflow management software can also help you streamline and enhance the efficiency of the underlying processes of an e-commerce business. Software automation can prove very useful for a wide range of internal business functions.

For example, using automation software to automate invoice approvals if certain standards or conditions are met helps ensure that accounts are paid in a timely manner. This reduces the number of labor hours that go into the approval process and helps it come to fruition far more quickly.

In Closing

E-commerce is one of the fastest-growing retail sectors. More people than ever before rely on e-commerce solutions for many of the products and services they use on a daily basis. This is why it is so important for any e-commerce store to have solid e-commerce management plans. Using software that allows for centralization and automation allows an e-commerce establishment to run far more efficiently, effectively, and securely. It provides us with the tools we need to create processes that will allow us to compete with larger operations.

The post 5 Reasons Why e-Commerce Workflow Management is So Vital appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

Read this article to learn more about the workflow automation basics and the workflow automation software benefits for your business.

What is Workflow Automation?

Workflow automation is a set of activities ranging from workflow analysis and design to process automation, where tasks, data, or files are routed between people, bots, or systems based on the pre-defined business rules.

The “workflow” term is also frequently used to describe the methods, patterns, and activities organization and structure for the group members and the steps, that allow getting the task done. Workflow automation is defined as structuring the duty to fulfill it and consequently achieve the goals. For individuals, a workflow is a set of steps to get the results successfully. For small and big groups, a workflow is understood as a set of responsibilities assigned to each member, which they must accomplish to receive the group benefits or to achieve common objectives that can benefit the team. There are many workflow automation examples, and they can widely vary from following a cooking recipe to establishing office tasks. Companies that apply workflow management techniques and workflow automation in industries such as sales, marketing, and HR, get significant benefits since this approach involves organization, commitment, and discipline to fulfill the duties.

To compile a useful and efficient workflow, you need some indispensable components. First, you need to know the required data and materials for each process step. Second, you have to determine an algorithm — a process — for the people or software (in the case of workflow automation) to follow. Finally, you should define a result that justifies the effort, time, and data used to complete the process. Knowing the importance of these workflow automation components, you should carefully and thoroughly set up each element, as wrong calculations lead to invalid results.

Workflow Automation History

The first «workflow automation» term usage can be traced back to the 1920s, but it had been studied before by Frederick Taylor and Henry Gantt – both were mechanical engineers and management consultants. Originally they focused on this concept for manufacturing, and over the years it became omnipresent, it was used even in the family affairs domain. After the work of W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran, a bigger new concept of workflow started to develop in the 1980s. Since its theorization, workflow management development has been increasingly supported by technology. For instance, new workflow approaches were designed with the dawn of typewriters and photocopiers as they revolutionized communication, goal setting, and productivity. The internet was also among the drivers to design the new workflow management methods.

The first workflow automation systems created in the 1990s efficiently replaced the basic paper-based processes with electronic ones. By the end of the 1990s, advanced features like modeling tools, business rules, and more became a must-have for workflow automation tools. In 2005, the BPM (Business Process Management) methodology was developed, which started a modern workflow automation era, still ongoing.

Workflow Examples and Ideas

There are many processes samples in which workflow automation can be used to efficiently achieve a goal. Finance, human resources, and marketing are some of the fields where you can form a structured workflow of different steps some of which can be performed by a digital tool. For instance, employee onboarding and offboarding, purchase requests, and client intakes can be easily organized to obtain high-quality results by following the workflow efficiently.

At this point, we get to appreciate the workflow automation value. Workflow automation, therefore, implies using digital tools to automate repetitive tasks. Digitizing data and creating steps for software to follow is commonly deemed to be difficult, but you can easily learn how to use the workflow automation software to boost your team productivity and performance. Getting used to the digital format and applying it to all the data and workflow steps can take a bit of time but is relatively easy. Make sure that every workflow automation improvement iteration brings you additional benefits. Besides, all the tangible benefits the users get from workflow automation software usually motivate them to master the software and make the most out of it.

In some industries workflow technology might have been slow to get traction. No matter the case, the situation is changing once and for all. Many business areas are capitalizing on new technology and report great workflow automation experience:

• Accounts payable workflow automation is a reliable way to avoid invoice approval delays and late payments due to inefficient, outdated processes. Learn more about the reliable accounts payable workflow essential elements, and eliminate the inefficient manual invoice and document matching.


• Marketing automation workflows empower time-strapped teams with effective collaboration and enable marketers to track and manage marketing campaigns and activities, build better customer relationships, boost lead generation, and dramatically increase revenue.


• Legal workflow automation is a proven approach to improve performance, cut costs and error rates, and make your legal department a responsive contributor to corporate success. Using a workflow software like CMW Tracker, you can easily embed best legal practices in the legal department workflows, and enforce compliance, process visibility, and efficiency across your entire company.


• Insurance workflow automation helps to speed up claim processing and perform other insurance operations more accurately and efficiently. Workflow management software verifies form data and collected information while ensuring that every stakeholder can respond to a claim and approve the necessary documents as quickly as possible.


• Government workflow automation drives operational efficiency and citizen satisfaction. Nowadays many government agencies digitize their services and ensure that every citizen request triggers a specific workflow basing on the set business rules. Once triggered, an automated government workflow handles all the necessary notifications, payments, and approvals, ensures back-end efficiency, and speeds up service delivery.


• Mortgage workflow automation and compliance solutions are widely used by mortgage originators and servicers to ensure loan data accuracy, completeness, and compliance, streamline the mortgage origination and loan servicing processes, and differentiate their service quality.


• Property management workflow automation ensures process transparency and improves insights on your real estate business. Workflow-based property management software helps you keep property management operations and facilities maintenance resilient and discover new opportunities for effective space utilization and tenant experience, thus improving your real estate ROI.


• Clinical workflow automation solutions deliver huge advantages in enhancing patient care and safety and help clinics address the increased patient inflow due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the rising need to curtail healthcare costs.


• Education workflow automation reduces routine work and saves the staff time for more important tasks, cuts the human error margin, which has tangible consequences for both students and administrators. Workflow automation solutions for education help to handle admission, financial aid, course scheduling, and other critical processes properly and as quickly.


• Contract management workflow automation implies running your contract processes using contract management software rather than manually moving contracts through each step of the workflow. With automation, legal and other teams involved in contracts can save time, improve collaboration, enjoy quick and efficient contract creation, and instant access to contract data.

Key Benefits of Workflow Automation

The idea of these digital tools is to work with all the data offices have about clients, tasks, and their services to perform routine activities without human effort. The purpose is not to eliminate employees who did the repetitive tasks, or to replace them with software, but to take advantage of their talents, experience, and knowledge and focus them on new activities to achieve the goals sooner. Workflow automation has brought significant benefits for those who apply it in their daily work. One of the benefits is improved team efficiency as monotonous tasks are done by digital instruments while humans focus on non-repetitive tasks that need their abilities to get done. This efficiency translates into better productivity and quality in the long run and more workflow automation advantages.

Workflow automation also helps teams coordinate their efforts better, to get rid of any disorganization. Finally, workflow automation can improve the output accuracy, thanks to minimal or no errors from the software output. Hence the necessity for meticulous input data control. Seeing these benefits more and more entrepreneurs, team leaders, SMBs, and big companies adopt workflow automation in their business.

All these benefits come in handy for every small business or larger company striving to stay in the market. The competition is tough in every industry, there are always competitors who could beat your business. So, a structured workflow distributing similar tasks between the team members can make the difference between a successful company and one that is on the brink of its existence. As previously said, workflow management systems are designed for the teams to work like a well-oiled machine that will not stop even if one member fails. Thanks to different specialists collaborating on the same project with the help of digital tools, the amount of manual repetitive and tedious work is reduced and people can focus on achieving the business goals.

Therefore, embracing technology and the daily advancements it brings to our society can help your business succeed. Some companies and businesses still work using traditional work approaches, but these are simply not efficient enough to cover the massive potential client base. At this point, the company faces a dilemma of embracing the technology or being overwhelmed by the clients constantly trying to get more. Those who persist are ready to embrace the new.

How to Work With and Without Workflow Automation

Resource Management

Manual workflows: expensive human resources handle too many mundane tasks, prone to missing the deadlines and mistakes.

With workflow automation: un-billable and repetitive tasks are automated and the employees focus their efforts on high-value work. Automated workflows notify users when they need to carry out a task.

Transparency and Traceability

Manual workflows: different teams and departments frequently build their manual workflows that are difficult to track and audit and not visible to the rest of the business.

With workflow automation: a complete audit trail becomes a snap, as all interaction is fully logged and you can easily check who did what and when. Even more, an automated workflow is transparent for all the stakeholders, meanwhile, all workflow complexity is taken away from the end-users — employees are assigned the tasks automatically when they have to complete a workflow step.

Compliance and Risk Management

Manual workflows: processes can be circumnavigated with ease, which poses high risks to businesses that require reliable and compliant procedures.

Manual workflows are difficult to track and their complete audit trail is difficult to obtain.

With workflow automation: automated workflows always match your business procedures and ensure compliance with business rules, mandatory steps, and security settings. Even more, you can easily standardize best practices to benefit your business.

Efficiency and Productivity

Manual workflows: gathering information from people is difficult and slows down the process, there is no single source of truth, and employee collaboration is disintegrated across emails and messengers.

With workflow automation: forms capture and validate the required data defining the necessary workflow path. Team efficiency and performance are increased thanks to a centralized workspace for employees, automated workflows, and knowledge.

This workflow mechanism has brought tremendous transparency in many tasks throughout the organization. CMW Tracker provides a huge set of workflow options, designating team members to different tasks, tracking issues, requests/approval management, etc. In short, I can say that CMW Tracker has made many tasks simplified and raised their efficiency organization-wide. — Technical Support Executive, Communication | Read the Full Review

How to Implement Workflow Automation

Best-practice organizations ensure their processes are reviewed consistently to ensure optimization and identify further improvement opportunities (although employees across the organization can submit improvements opportunities for consideration). The process improvement portfolio process will include strategy-related criteria for prioritization and selection, standardized performance measures, forecasting based on historical trends, and structured project/portfolio reviews. Holly Lyke-Ho-Gland, a principal research lead at APQC
Specializes in best practices in business processes, change management, corporate strategy, and R&D

Workflow Automation Trends

The key to success in achieving LOB (line-of-business) and workflow efficiency has evolved due to different trends that company leaders should embrace. Some common trends allow to enhance effectiveness and get the most of a workflow system. The key workflow automation trends to keep in mind:

1. Many businesses use robotic process automation (RPA) and workflow technologies together. In this scenario, some tasks are done by bots, some — by humans, while task assignment and flow are managed by a workflow automation app.
2. Businesses start to realize that simply changing from paper-based workflow to digital workflow doesn’t bring enough benefits for the business. Hence, they tend to consider modern workflow management systems capable of processing data efficiently during the approval process, obviating the document exchange steps.
3. Gartner encourages CIOs to implement integrated digital platforms, that can consolidate a wide range of digital technologies and give even more synergetic benefits.

The most important workflow software trend in 2021 is the technology “democratization”. Nowadays workflow technology democratization expands widely thanks to low-code platforms, which empower non-IT professionals to build their business workflow automation apps and make them available in the cloud.

Low-code Workflow Automation

You can switch to a low-code workflow software such as CMW Tracker to manage your business processes correctly. Low-code solutions offer the line-of-business leaders a chance to relieve some pressure and solve problems along the way. This trend helps to identify a workflow that works best in your scenario and makes the automatization efforts such as cross-product endeavors easier, allowing managers to better see core insights in the system. Low-code workflow software allows power-users without coding skills to adjust running workflows and ultimately makes department challenges more visible to the leaders, offering an instant solution that drives efficiency and success.

Low-code workflow solutions have a very tangible impact across the company. This is management approach interconnects the line-of-business leaders to all the different departments and team members. This connection improves efficiency and productivity in almost any working scenario. With low-code workflow tools, the responsibility is not put on a single team member who could jeopardize project success. This management approach decomposes decision-making between every team member, which ensures rapid and parallel problem-solving. Each department can now solve any problem while considering widely how the solution will help others in completing their next task. This insight expansion is the key to company success, as employees get to fully invest in their objectives thanks to appreciating the importance of their work. Business owners adopt low-code workflow automation because they understand that their employees are important gears that need to function in unity and drive the machine — the company or business — to productivity.

8 Must-have Features of Every Workflow Automation System

1. Since workflow consists of several steps that must be followed to complete a process, or responsibilities that must be shared between the team members to achieve a common goal, the workflow automation software you choose should be able to visually represent these steps or responsibilities. This makes structuring and organizing the tasks easier thanks to a visible map of what and when to do. The diagram view eliminates disorganization as everybody sees the same data the leader sees, which improves productivity and instills order.
2. A workflow automation system should also be easy to use. Well-designed web forms assure the necessary clarity, straightforwardness, friendly interface, responsiveness, and accessibility that the users need to perform well. Any digital solution for workflow automation must have these features.

3. Cloud-based workflow automation software is a perfect choice for small and big companies alike. Employees can access the software anywhere and anytime, without worrying about losing all their files if their device malfunctions. Note that SaaS workflow automation software is usually cloud-based and additionally lowers up-front costs in comparison with building a private corporate cloud.
4. Another feature this software should include is SLA status indicators allowing the leaders and staff to see the current tasks progress that you’re all working on.
5. The twenty-first-century generation has gotten used to receiving information in an easy-to-digest visual way. The progress of your company tasks should be visible in a graphical view, allowing you to measure, appreciate, reward, and encourage the team’s collaborative effort. Constant notifications are always necessary. Whether it is on your mobile, or via e-mail, you should always receive notifications when tasks are completed, meetings are coming, and more. You must be aware of all the things happening, and notifications are efficient reminders of what has been done and what still needs to be done.

6. But notifications mean nothing if no reports are produced. Your business progress must be periodically shown in charts and statistics. This provides you an organized and accurate overview of the employees are currently working on. These two features combined will help you to be in control of everything that is happening.
7. Parallel workflows are an excellent way your workflow automation software can show current progress because it breaks with the traditional step-by-step approach. Developers have understood that in most cases individuals who want to achieve a common project goal do complete tasks at the same time. Therefore, a parallel workflow will show the progress of several tasks to understand the progress of the whole project.
8. But even though there are common goals and achievements, not all the information that is being handled is meant to be shared with all your business or organization staff members. This is the reason why role-based access control is one of the greatest features your workflow automation system must come with. An excellent software should have the option to change user access rights at any time. You, as a business or company owner, can choose with whom you want to share information.

Last but not least, your ideal workflow automation software should be able to integrate your automated workflows with other services to organize activities better.

Why Choose the CMW Lab Workflow Automation Software?

Among several options for business management, CMW Tracker stands out from the crowd. It is an incredible next-generation software that will help your team complete their tasks and make your company departments truly interconnected. Naturally, this software has an elegant and easy-to-use graphical workflow modeling tool to better visualize the workflow and supports Excel-like formulas. CMW Tracker also features a top-notch web form designer to design intuitive interfaces with adjustable tabs and fields; data export to Microsoft Word or Excel. A secure cloud-based technology ensures your peace of mind and robust data storage. SLA status indicators show the status of the ongoing project. Convenient Outlook-style visual hints help you master CMW Tracker. You can create reports, statistics, and analytics to measure the current work progress; create sequential and parallel workflows; set different access levels for each role; share documents with stakeholders to improve communication between different parties. The software boasts many other services that can be integrated. No surprise businesses chose CMW Tracker to improve workflows and improve or establish intercommunication. Its many features ensure that business owners get perfect results.

I have used CMW Tracker for almost two years now to automate workflow across the Engineering business unit in our organization. This software is used across almost every single business unit in Upper Trinity. It has enabled teams to reduce the time taken to calculate expenses on projects as well as time incurred on business processes. – Sr. Electronics Technician, Upper Trinity Regional Water District | Read the Full Review

CMW Lab offers a 30-day trial to experience the highest level of quality and efficacy of the product. For many people, this cloud-based workflow automation system will mean gradual working environment improvement as tasks can be done by more employees. By doing less routine work and focusing on areas where specialists are needed, achieving goals will be easier.

Conclusion

Workflow management automation is the right step towards growth and success. It relieves the line-of-business leaders from pressuring tasks and can distribute them between team members while giving them a sense of importance in solving the issues. Workflow management is used for almost a hundred years, with new techniques and improvements being developed. It allows everyone, from entrepreneurs to company owners, to achieve their goals based on organizing and structuring a process into different steps that can be done by humans and workflow automation solutions. Workflow automation widens the angle of view for leaders and personnel, so they can accomplish the goals quicker and better. Every company should embrace workflow automation services and management software. This technology not only increases the success rate but also improves product accuracy and quality by reducing the time and effort spent on each task.

With the development of new technologies, workflow management systems and theory can be further improved. All this allows increasing customer satisfaction, while workers get better self-esteem and business owners get peace of mind. It is never too late to change the way your office, business, or organization works. Workflow automation system integration would mean positive changes and outcomes.

The post Getting Started with Workflow Automation Software appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

Fast forward to today and there are options for building applications that even allow people with little to no technical experience the ability to create their own application. And when paired with no- or low-code workflow management software like CMW Tracker, the process of development and implementation becomes a lot easier.

With no- or low-code workflow management software, you can easily manage the various aspects of application development, release, and updating, without the need for a ton of coding knowledge or technical ability. Let’s look at some of the proven steps to creating a solid app development workflow, which will help streamline and simplify the process of development, testing, and ultimately, the release of your mobile app.

Create a Functional Prototype

You don’t want to release an untested app to the public. This increases the likelihood that your app will be a failure. You need to create a basic, functional prototype of the mobile application that you can test and try out to find any potential bugs and issues. There are things you can find out about an application, such as issues with the user interface, when you have a prototype you can actually manipulate.

Additionally, it is highly recommended that you test your app out on a wide range of devices. This means different tablets, smartphones, laptops, and the like. This way, you can find any issues in the rendering of the application on specific devices. You don’t want to be surprised with these things after release.

Manage Your App Development Workflow

Workflow management software can help you simplify the process of mobile app development. With this software, you can create a custom workflow where you lay out a detailed list of step-by-step instructions as to how the process needs to be unveiled. This helps ensure that all parties involved are working from the same knowledge base.

The automated development process is a highly important part of your app development project, but especially when it comes to mobile apps. People have high expectations for how user-friendly and easy to navigate an application should be. Creating simple prototypes and using these environments to test and retest your app will help you identify areas where the app can be improved and any areas where you might need to go back to the proverbial drawing board. You want to make sure it renders well across devices and that it is as easy to navigate for the user as possible. It needs to have an interface that makes sense, is intuitive, and looks good regardless of where it is accessed from.

Use Workflow Software to Track and Improve the Application

Once the application has been released, workflow software can still play a hugely important role. You can use information and metrics to set up a solid, well-defined workflow that will ensure that your app runs smoothly and takes user experience into account. You are likely to need to update or add to your application at a future time and with workflow software, you can more easily create a solid process for how to do these things.

You can also use metrics to help you troubleshoot any issues users may have with your application and fix them. It will also allow you to see how well your app does among different demographics of the public and you can use this information to update, upgrade, and better streamline your mobile app.

In Closing

Creating a mobile app is easier than ever before, but at the same time, users have higher expectations about functionality and ease of use. This is why it is so important to have a solid development process and to use things like workflow software during the development and testing of the application. This helps ensure that when the app is ultimately released, it will have fewer issues.

This software and a solid plan of action allow you to create simple prototypes of your application that you can then test out for the user interface as well as how it renders on other devices. You can also use these tools to create solid workflows around the development, testing, and ultimate release of the application. The software is also valuable in helping you track metrics and other data that gives you an idea of how users actually interact with the app and how you can improve their experience.

The post Mobile App Development Workflow – Steps to Success appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

All of these things allow our business to operate more efficiently and transparently. But how do you know which software is the right option for you? We recommend no- and low-code workflow management software like Comindware Tracker, as it doesn’t have the learning curve that other software has. Additionally, it is a powerful suite of tools that allow you to streamline and better manage various aspects of your business.

Let’s take a look at some of the most important features that basic workflow software should have.

Low- or No-Code

There are a lot of powerful, versatile workflow management systems, but not all of them are created equal and this doesn’t just mean the variety of features they offer. Some workflow management software is highly technical. This means that only those who have a detailed understanding of coding and technology can really make the most use of this software. If others at the business are to use at least basic workflow software, generally someone with expertise must first set everything up. This is a bottleneck that is unnecessary.

Like we mentioned earlier, Comindware Tracker is a low-code workflow management tool. What this means is that you don’t need a ton of technical or coding knowledge to use all the features of this software. This makes the software far more versatile and relieves your IT department from having to take part in every step of the workflow process development.

Importation of Documents and Data

If possible, you want a suite of software tools that will easily allow you to access important data, documents, and other information. More businesses than ever before are moving to a paperless office. This means that all their records, plans, and documentation is kept digitally. In days gone by, to digitize our office would take many days or weeks of scanning and data entry. Not only does this take a ton of time, but it can also leave room for human error.

With software that imports this information automatically, you can really streamline the process, improving efficiency and reducing the chance of human error.

Custom Workspaces

It is vital that the basic workflow software you choose allows you to create custom workspaces. With this feature, you can create a space where all relevant parties can access the same information and data. These workspaces allow for secure communication between relevant parties and will also facilitate the transfer of data, documents, or other information like approval forms.

Mobile and Email Notifications

Today’s office is busier than ever before and most of us are inundated with communications, some of which need our immediate input, others can wait until a later time. But how do we know what is important and what isn’t? Bottlenecks in processes often come because someone is unaware that a process is waiting for their input and approval.

Software that allows you to create custom email notifications makes this all a lot easier. You can set up notifications that will alert relevant parties that something needs their input.

Ability to Integrate with Other Software

Most of us don’t use just one suite of software to manage our company. The last thing we want is to get stuck with a suite of software that is incompatible with other important tools. You want to make sure that the workflow software you choose is one that allows for easy integration with outer software and third-party tools.

In Closing

It can be intimidating to choose a workflow management software suite since there are just so many options out there. Knowing the most important features to look for in basic workflow software will make the process of choosing the best tools for your business a lot easier. Looking for software solutions that don’t require a ton of coding knowledge makes the tools more versatile. You also want to look for software that has the ability to create a custom workspace, set up notifications, import and automate document and data collection, as well as integrate with other tools.

The post Basic Workflow Software – Must-have Features and More appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

This shows just how important this process is, but sadly it is often overlooked by business administrators. This is a huge mistake. Workflow design allows you to lay out a process, step-by-step and locate points where decisions or changes may need to be made. This helps create a template for how to go about a given process.

When broken down like this, it is easy to see how important this is. Current and new employees benefit greatly from a solid workflow design. There needs to be attention paid to detail and different decision points marked along the way.

This doesn’t mean this has to be done by hand though. Doing this manually leaves a lot of room for error and it takes a lot longer than it needs to take. Software like Comindware’s workflow design and management software gives you the tools you need to create streamlined processes that give you the flexibility and details of each process.

Designing Good Workflows

All workflows have a starting point. Just think of a process. What is the starting point? This is the initiation. It may happen in a variety of ways. Someone might make a web query, filling out a form, or the importation of information like a spreadsheet.

With workflow management software all information and data move along with the process. Automation software allows you to easily capture and use this data. These tools provide a powerful set of tools that allow you to enhance and improve the efficiency of any process. It also allows for transparency, which can help with strategic goals and planning.

One thing this software allows you to do is to create a visual representation of a workflow process. This gives you the ability to see how each step flows to the next and how the process flows from start to finish.

Best Practices

Just like with anything, there are best practices when designing a workflow. These are steps that you can use to help ensure that you have a solid, well-considered workflow that will benefit the process. One of the best ways to handle workflow design is to start simple. Not all processes are simple but this is a good way to begin with the design process. Try a process that has just a few steps that are easy to understand.

From here, you can begin to develop more complicated processes that have more steps and parties involved. You should also focus on newer tasks and those that need approval from multiple parties. By doing this, you can reduce the amount of time it takes to get all the different approvals and verifications.

At any point in a process where a decision needs to be made, you should create a node. This will give a prompt that something needs to be more closely addressed and managed. There may be processes that have multiple nodes that need different parties to approve or make decisions.

Any task that has been completed should be marked as done. This will reduce confusion and show where in the process you are.

Basics

If you know how to create a flowchart, you have the basic tools you need to create a simple workflow. Prompt approvals are incredibly important. For example, if you are trying to manage client or vendor payments, you need to have multiple prompts that require approval or contact with the client or vendor.

This will help ensure that all payments are paid or collected in a timely manner. This is not only better for the bottom line; it can improve relationships with clients and vendors by ensuring timely payment and receipt as well as regular communication.

Being able to look at your workflow in a flowchart style is incredibly helpful. It gives you a visual representation that shows you the business process in a way you might not otherwise be able to see it. Prompts and automatic notifications to stakeholders and relevant employees help reduce inefficiency in the process or decision train.

Workflow software dramatically simplifies that process of creating streamlined, efficient, and easy-to-understand processes. This helps keep the business flowing smoothly, it improves transparency, and the ability to create prompts helps you keep your obligations in a more timely manner, improving your relationships with customers and vendors alike. This software also enhances transparency and the data stored in this software is vital in strategic planning and to see how you are doing to reach any business goals.

The post How to Build a Generis Workflow appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

However, the acquisition of quality content, while important, isn’t much if you don’t have a good strategy for how to sustain and manage a consistent content workflow.

For most businesses, the first thing you will need to do is ensure that you have a number of content writers that can create consistent messaging and useful content that meets your standards. Relying on one writer can be dangerous as if they drop off, your content creation will come to a halt.

Having a team of quality writers, however, isn’t enough, you will also need a Content Management System (CMS) workflow that will help aid in adding, publishing, and editing content as needed.

If all you needed was a writer who could publish content, there wouldn’t be much need to create a special workflow for content creation; however, it is really more complicated than it might seem.

Workflow management software like Comindware Tracker can be used in the content management system process to help manage roles and approvals, to assign content to different writers, to assign editing and reviewing, and the like.

Let’s take a look at the considerations you will need to take into account when you are creating a CMS workflow.

Tips for Creating a Solid CMS Workflow

First, you will need to develop a content strategy. What type of content do you want to provide and why? What type of audience are you speaking to? Who will write this content and where will it be distributed?

The answers to these questions will greatly inform your CMS.

One way to do this is to talk to people who actually use your website or products and services. What type of information are they looking for? Asking the actual user what they need and expect is something that, sadly, not enough businesses do. By asking the people actually consuming the content what they are looking for will help you create useful content for your audience.

Setting CMS roles is also important. This is where you will assign the various parties involved in content creation and publishing their tools. This will usually involve the content writer, the editor or reviewer, and the person who is responsible for publishing and distributing content.

Don’t forget to audit your own processes. After you have implemented a CMS process, you will want to review it to make sure that you are covering all necessary steps and that you aren’t doing anything redundant.

The post Tips for CMS Workflow Management appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

Let’s take a look at these questions in a bit more detail.

Creative Workflow Management Benefits

Before we touch on the benefits of creative workflow management, let’s quickly define what creative workflow management even is. This refers to a process whereby the creative elements of the business (writing articles, creating logos or designs, making videos) are structured into a process that can be broken down into individual steps. This allows creative managers the ability to better oversee the creative employees and help keep their endeavors within the framework of the developed process.

Creative workers often strive to create the best content that meets the needs of the business and provides something of value for the customer. Given the nature of perfectionism, it can make it difficult for the creative to let a project go. The ability to set a hard deadline can reduce the issues with a project never being done.

Creative management helps ensure that content is delivered on time, within the allocated budget, and that it also meets the needs of the client.

There is also transparency in creative workflow management that gives all parties a clear understanding of what is expected of them and when. It creates a goal of the creative end product and defines the steps that will need to be taken to achieve said goals.

The Downsides of Creative Workflow Management

The downsides of this may be fairly easy to see. Creatives, by their nature, do not work within a rigid framework in the same way as most other workers. They may feel stifled if there are too many rules, steps, reports, and the like. If you choose to use creative workflow management, you will need to find a way to balance their need for creative freedom with the ability to produce creative work in a timely manner that meets the needs of the business.

Many creative employees don’t like standardized and report-heavy work and following an organized workflow requires regular communication, reporting on progress, and the like. Many creatives feel that this constant reporting reduces their ability to concentrate on the creative work assigned to them, interrupting their creative process.

Creatives also often have trouble with meeting rigid timelines and goals as for many, creative work isn’t something that can be done in as structured of a way as other forms of work. This doesn’t mean they cannot take direction and meet deadlines, but there shouldn’t be an excessive amount of management interference with the actual creative process if possible.

The Verdict

So, knowing the main pros and cons of creative workflow management, we return to our initial question: is it evil? The frustrating answer is it depends. If the creative workflow management isn’t designed with input from the creatives or is too rigid for them to be able to perform their creative endeavors, then yes, it is evil because it stifles the creative and ultimately makes them less able to provide for the company what they need.

However, if the creative workflow management is well designed and takes into account the varied needs and abilities of the creative workers, it can be a great way to help keep creatives on task and also provide a way to better oversee this content production in a way that ensures the timely and budget-appropriate provision of creative content. Creative workflows can be created using workflow management software, such as that offered by Comindware, which allows you to customize and automate many aspects of the process.

Whether or not this is something you will want to implement into your workplace will depend on the type of work you do as well as the creative talent you have on staff. Understanding the pros and cons and how to make the best of this management style will give you the information you need to know whether this is something you should introduce to your workplace or not.

The post Is Creative Workflow Evil? appeared first on CMW Lab Blog.

The organizational structure breaks down labor within an organization. This may be into teams or different departments and this information can be incredibly useful in helping create a more efficient and thoughtful workflow design that will improve productivity and outcomes.

What is the Relationship Between Organizational Structure and Workflow?

It can be said that workflow analysis and design are the microelements of the more macro-organizational structure. Let’s break this down a little more.

There are horizontal and vertical organizational structures. These will denote the relationships between departments and management within each department.

The people who power the organizational structure are the people who will be relied upon to carry out workflows for various business functions. It allows management to better streamline operations, reduce redundancy in tasks, and create greater transparency in responsibility and reporting chains.

All businesses have a division of labor that denotes different specialties, responsibilities, and levels of authority. A good structure has all labor well organized into groups or departments that can then be subdivided to work on particular projects or tasks. These smaller groups will then report their work and result back up the chain.

Since workflows will often entail interdependencies between different parts of the organizational structure, you will need a good workflow design and this can best be handled through the implementation of well-developed workflow automation software. Offerings like CMW Tracker give you a wide range of options that let you customize the software and use the tools to design efficient and logical workflows that will help you complete projects and reach goals easier.

Types of Organizational Structures

There are a few main types of organizational structure: functional, divisional, hybrid, and matrix-like, and oriented-process structures. Let’s take a brief look at each of these in turn.

A functional structure delegates processes to employees or team members that handle related tasks. For a workplace that has a stable workforce, this is a great way to organize routines that make organizing tasks easier and more efficient.

Divisional structures involve grouping people or tasks based on factors like the product or service being developed or the region of the world or country they are working in. This will group people based on a product or location.

A hybrid structure is one in which both product/service and location are used in developing the division of labor in the organization.

Matrix-like structures use both functional and divisional structures at the same time. This generally means that a lower employee will report to both a function and product manager.

Finally, oriented-process structures provide the most versatile way to manage organizational structure. Units work together towards a common project goal and are categorized as such.

In Closing

The type of organizational structure you use will depend on the nature of your business. However, whichever type of structure ends up working best for you, will help create a workable division of labor that dictates who works on what task and also determines the reporting and authority chain. This division of labor can also make it easier to create thoughtful workflow designs that utilize technology and organizational know-how to better organize the company and ensure that tasks are completed in an effective and efficient manner.

Workflow management software by CMW Lab makes it a snap to design your own workflows and automate them quickly.

Designing a quality workflow that takes into account the varied nature of your particular organizational structure will help ensure that you complete the project faster, the correct parties are involved and in the proverbial loop about where a project stands and what is expected of them. Utilizing workflow automation software in this process can further reduce the amount of time spent on redundant or time-consuming tasks and can help a company become better organized and develop strategies that help them more effectively reach their goals.

Businesses that understand the complex, but important relationship between organizational structure and workflow design can use this information to develop a more logical and useful organizational structure and develop workflow strategies that will best prepare employees to reach strategic goals and plans.

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