Top 5 Enhancements to Workflow and Why Your Workflow Needs Them

More and more companies are realizing the tremendous value workflow provides to their organization. Syntergy has been developing workflow solutions for Content Server for 17 years now. Over that time there have been five enhancements that customers consistently value more than others. We have determined that the reason they value these enhancements over others is because they are easy to implement, they provide excellent value and they are key components of most workflows.

  1. Email Step: The email step is part of Syntergy's Workflow Steps module.  Workflow Steps extends workflow capability by adding steps to the work step palette.  The email step is popular because it provides much more capability than the standard workflow email functionality.  Syntergy's email step allows attachments and designation of recipients from attributes or by email address.  People outside of the organization can receive workflow information via email without being added to the Content Server user community.  Dynamic attribute values can be embedded in the email title and message body.  Organizations work within email all the time and the email step brings this familiarity to Content Server workflow.
  2. Enhanced Workflow Forms: Form views have been a major contributor to the success of Content Workflow implementations.  Workflow designers can provide a custom interface to users that is specific to the organizations needs.  However, there are limitations to forms that can cause headaches for designers and users.  Syntergy’s Enhanced form step increases the functionality of form views by allowing users to easily and intuitively work with attachments, workflow attributes, comments and dispositions. A nice feature is that the enhanced form step lets users save form input without being forced to complete a step. Form designers can add the ability to submit dispositions.  Forms can be dynamically assigned to multiple users and groups. These major enhancements are the things that lead to intuitive forms and ultimately to user acceptance of workflow implementations.
  3. Escalation: Workflow Escalation allows you to systematically manage workflow tasks that are late or need to be reassigned. Tasks that are not completed within the assigned due date can be automatically processed, based on the escalation criteria that you define.  Late workflow steps can be reassigned to another user or they can be automatically completed.  A workflow manager no longer needs to stay on top of tasks that are not completed. Workflow Escalation makes it easy to ensure that workflows continue when someone is on vacation, traveling, or too busy to complete their tasks.
  4. Enhanced Proxy: In-Box Proxy maintains continuity of business operations while key personnel are unavailable. This maintainability is essential to any organization because it saves costs by keeping business processes moving. Content Server Workflow and Task Lists provide the framework for automating business processes. Individual workflow steps and task list tasks are the foundation pieces that associate work with people. When the responsible people for steps and tasks are unavailable the processes and affected people are put on hold creating expensive inefficiencies. In-Box Proxy provides the solution to this problem.

    In-Box Proxy supports advanced proxy scheduling, proxies can be set-up days, weeks or months in advance of planned absences, e.g. vacations, conventions, jury duty, etc.  It also allows for multiple proxies with overlapping or concurrent access to the original assignee's work.
  5. Workflow Map Printing: How many times have you wished you could print a Content Server Workflow Map or cut and pasted several screen shots to make a complete workflow map? It would be so much easier to explain and review the workflow processes with the project team. Even troubleshooting can be easier.

    To solve this problem we have developed Workflow Map Printer to allow a user to generate a JPEG image of a Content Server Workflow Map. Simply navigate to the workflow map to print, select where to save the image in Content Server and then have the module generate the JPEG image. Once you have the JPEG image you can print, e-mail or use it in documentation.
Syntergy has been developing workflow solutions for 17 years.  We have four main workflow products – Workflow Steps, Workflow Escalation, In-Box Proxy and Workflow Map Printer.  Organizations have seen the value of Content Server Workflow.  Syntergy has the additional solutions you need to build the workflows that match the way your organization operates.  For more information on these Syntergy products visit our website at https://www.syntergy.com/products/workflow/ or email infosyntergy.com.