Workflow software tames today's torrent of information - documents, images, email, voice mail - through your company, creating structure, logic and efficiency where there was chaos. Here are five true-life workflow stories. Read them. You'll find your company.
Workflow software automates the everyday processes of a business. It regiments the transfer of information between the people who need it. It simplifies employees' lives.
Installing a workflow system that works is not easy. Every company does business differently. You can't compare workflow products like you do high-speed scanners. What you can do is ask workflow vendors for some customer phone numbers. We did. We asked the customers how they use it. What they like about it. What they would have done differently. What they need now.
Here are their stories.
Following the Paper's Trail
There are few office environments as hectic as Newsday's, the sixth largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States. Each day the big-city tabloid pulls together more than 80 pages of editorial and advertising for more than 500,000 readers in Queens and Long Island New York. This means organizing lots of different items from a great number of sources in very little time.
Phil Rugile, Newsday's director of information systems, says losing stuff even briefly is more than just bad news. "If we lose an ad, or run a wrong ad, it means lost revenue," says Rugile. "We need to know where the materials are at all times."
Newsday started using workflow in early 1995. They picked Dataflow from Cascade Systems (Andover, MA 508-749-7000). It handles all types of data from text, graphic and image files, to ads and postscripted pages. It tracks items taken from a database and creates customizable reports.
Newsday began using Dataflow in their advertising department to keep track of materials advertisers sent in. The major reason Newsday picked Cascade was because it works on multiple platforms. "There wasn't any other high-powered workflow product that fit our needs and worked on a Macintosh platform," says Rugile.
Dataflow's job tracking feature gives up-to-the-minute status of where a document is in the job cycle. It displays who has the job and which workstation the job is currently on. It provides a complete audit trail of each job. Rugile says they even track physical documents that haven't been digitized. "We added a barcode interface that tracks things to different people's desks. So even if we can't see something on-line, we still know where it is."
The ad traffic workflow was so successful, Newsday moved their editorial processes to Dataflow. When images are ready from the photo department, they enter them into the workflow to be matched with text, put into a layout with the text and advertising, postscripted and then sent to the printer. In a workflow process where minutes can be the difference between scooping the competition and blowing a deadline, every bit helps.
Workflow Checks Into
Alberta's Library
Think libraries are outdated paper-centric dinosaurs of the 20th century?
Think again. The University of Alberta, Canada's largest interlibrary loan lending system, is linking the best of their past repositories of information and the future of new networks using workflow.
The library is turning their stacks of books from a document warehouse to an information service center. They selected Logical Software Solutions' (Calverton, MD 301-595-2033) FlowMan workflow software and Network Support (Ottawa, ON 613-226-5571), a systems integrator, to develop an internet document delivery service they call Relais.
Relais is an automated electronic document ordering, processing and delivery workflow system that uses imaging, document management and workflow technologies. Instead of researchers having to go to the physical building and dig through stacks of journals, Alberta's library staff takes their document order, finds the pertinent information from the stacks, scans it into a digital file and sends it off either electronically or physically.
The whole process is elegant in its simplicity. First, researchers place document orders directly to the library via a Web-based electronic form, telephone, fax or through regular old snail mail. When requesting the document, they indicate how they want the information passed back to them -- fax, courier, FTP, or directly to their desktop via the Internet. The library files 110,000 information requests annually. They serve more than 50 client institutions and tens of thousands of researchers throughout North America.
Mary Clare MacKeigan of Network Support says FlowMan worked well with the ever-changing role of the library's duty. "It has great flexibility to change the workflow rules," says MacKeigan. "This is important for evolving structures."
Besides just being a good old-fashioned idea, the Relais/FlowMan system has shown real results. Electronic requests reduce the time taken to generate a request by more than 50%. About 2,500 hours a year. People don't have to make electronic requests during normal business hours -- the server is always open. This helps mad academics who pull late hours and keeps libraries in business for the next century.
Colonial Life Bets Their
Insurance on Workflow
Colonial Life of South Carolina sells payroll deduction insurance to individuals. They use Optika's (Colorado Springs, CO, 719-548-9800) FilePower Workflow Management System to make sure their customers get the best service possible.
Stan Dowd, Colonial Life's systems' director, says Optika's software is integrated into other procedures in the company's system. Powerflow's scalable integration tools work with many third-party applications. "We worked it into a mainframe to LAN to mainframe type application. Information is pulled from one database and put into the workflow, worked on, then sent back to the database."
Information is collected from mainframe on-line collection systems. Then a folder is created and routed through the organization based on the culled information. Colonial Life produces more than 600,000 new policies every year.
They have around 10 million images on-line in their databases. They are running workflow on Windows 3.1 with designs to eventually switch to Windows NT. The image and workflow indices are stored on Hewlett-Packard mainframes running Sybase .
Colonial likes the Builder and Manager components. Builder requires no programming or scripting. This makes life easier when routes need to be changed or processes updated. The workflow designer is only required to understand the work process activities and relationships.
Once the workflow is created, changes can be made to the flow while work is in process without disrupting the users or the work flowing through the system.
Builder uses objects like triggers, sub-flows and tasks that can be reused by any process. Because Builder doesn't replicate source objects, it eliminates version control issues and still lets multiple people simultaneous access a single object. Powerflow allows a customizable user interface, or form, for managing and presenting information to users in a workflow process.
Optika's Manager component lets management study work processes using charts and flow bars. This makes administering users, roles, queues and processes more intuitive. Manager shows the work flowing through the process as it happens and lets users redirect, eliminate or add work within a particular queue or process.
Ruby Tuesday Hangs Their Name on Keyfile
Managing a restaurant is difficult. There are inventories to check, employee shifts to juggle and menus to update. Then multiply these things by 392 and you have some idea of what the management at the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain, headquartered in Mobile, Alabama do. They keep track of almost 400 different restaurants across the country.
This takes more than just calling to check to see if everyone has enough ketchup. Varied business processes number in the hundreds or even thousands. It's John Lapeyrouse's job to make it simple. He's Ruby Tuesday's director of technology and information services. He uses Keyfile's Keyflow (Nashua, NH 603-883-3800) to make it happen. "The best part is that workflow puts a structure in place," says Lapeyrouse. "Without it we would have chaos."
One feature Lapeyrouse likes about Keyflow is its ability to track many workflows at once. He can track the progress of dozens of different intertwining workflows throughout the organization. He can also change them as different factors affect a workflow or new workflows need to be designed.
The Keyfile software handles multiple file formats. "Say we wanted to explore the possibility of adding outdoor patio seating to our restaurants. The Keyfile software can handle blueprints and photo images to help us collaborate on making such a decision. Approvals take less time than they used to."
In April, Keyfile upgraded Keyflow. The 1.1 version, which Ruby Tuesday beta-tested, includes client support for Microsoft Exchange 5.0. Lapeyrouse is impressed with how Keyflow fits into his continually evolving workflow. "We are pleased with Keyflow, especially with its flexibility and seamless integration. This new solution will allow us to fully leverage our investment in Exchange. The addition of integrated workflow will let our employees work more effectively and efficiently," says Lapeyrouse.
ESS Software Works for Employees
W.H. Brady & Co. in Milwaukee, WI makes industrial stickers. Lots of industrial stickers. TONS of industrial stickers. Airlines buy stickers to label every airplane part they own. Electronic trade organizations label every transistor they use.
With everyone focused on the production of stickers, the 15-20 employees of W.H. Brady's human resources department was swamped with keeping everyone up-to-date with the personal records of the 1,200 workers. They had to answer inquiries from employees about things like salary review dates and medical forms.
Their answer was do-it-yourself workflow. Instead of taking workers to the paper mountain, they made the mountain digital and took it to the workers.
HRMS director Tim Llewellyn and his staff switched their paper applications to a digital information system using software from ESS (Peabody, MA 508-977-9800). The employee self-service software is installed on kiosks in common areas like the cafeteria. At the touch of a button, employees can access their personnel records.
"This saves time for both the HR employees and everyone else who accesses records like their W-4 forms, medical forms and time sheets," says Llewellyn. Employees enter their Social Security number and a four digit PIN to get to their records. "It's easier than using an ATM machine," he says, "and it frees up the HR department to work on other things."
