How to Document a Process

If you are moving from a manual to automated process, it is extremely important to identify every task that is completed within a given process. Although a given a task may not be represented in the workflow built into Integrify, it is still part of the process in some fashion and all responsible parties will need to understand what is required of him/her when they are assigned a task to complete in Integrify.

Documenting the process does not require the use of special tools or costly software (any word processor or spreadsheet will do). The following example is just a bulleted list of the steps a company needs to put into place for an approval process when employees make purchases. The workflow proceeds as follows:

• An employee will start the Purchase Order Request and be taken to the first task which
  is the P.O. Request Form. The requester will enter into the form information about the
  item(s) that need to be purchased, such as the type, quantity, and cost.
• Once the P.O. Request Form is complete, the requester’s manager is assigned the task,
  Manager’s Approval. In this task the manager will chose whether to approve the
  request, deny the request, or ask the requester to revise the form.
• If the manager denies the request, the manager is taken to a form to the task, Manager
  Deny Comments to explain why the request was denied.
• The manager may request more information fro the requester and in that case, the
  manager is taken to the task, Needs Revision Comments where the manager describes
  the additional information needed, then the original form is assigned to the requester to
  update.
• If the manager approves the request and the order is for less than $10,000, the flow
  proceeds to the task, Approval Notification, which sends out an email to the requester
  notifying them that the request was approved. After the email is sent the purchasing
  department receives the task Purchasing Dept. Form where they enter in the
  information about the order that was placed.
• If the manager approves the request and the order is greater than $10,000, the CFO is
  given the task, CFO Approval where the CFO can either approve or deny the request.
• If the CFO approves the request, the task, Approval Notification sends out an email
  notifying the requester that the order was approved.
• Once the Approval Notification task completes, the task, Purchasing Department is
  assigned to the purchasing department and they complete a form indicating the order and
  shipping information.
• After the purchasing department competes the Purchasing Department form, the task,
  Order Placed Notification is started which send an email to the requester informing
  them that the order has been placed.
• The workflow will end if either the manager or the CFO rejects the request, or when the
  Order Placed Notification is sent out.

Once the steps have been document, it is very helpful to have a visual representation of the process flow. If you have Microsoft Office Visio, using it will be the easiest way to create a workflow chart. If you do not own a copy of Visio, Microsoft Word’s “AutoShapes” will let you draw simple shapes and arrows. There are also many freely downloadable programs to create drawings such as Dia or UML Pad.

Below is a Visio diagram for the purchase order example that we will use:

Now that your process has been well defined and you know what tasks are required within your workflow, it recommended to record, at a minimum, the following additional attributes for each task:

• Task Name
• Task Type/Purpose
• Recipient(s)
• Start Rules

Other items you might want to consider for each task might be:

• Verbiage/text for email notifications for each task
• Alternate Display options for each task
• Recipient rules if conditions exist that only certain recipients of a task are assigned based on data
• Do all task need to be displayed in the Task History?

You can create a simple chart like the following to have on hand while you are building your process:

Now that have a well defined process it is time to begin your initial process build in Integrify.