Workflow White Paper

What is Workflow?
More than just procedural documents, that workflow process is defined formally in the workflow computer system. The process is managed by a computer program that assigns the work, passes it on, and tracks its progress.
The workflow process is traditionally defined in office terms—moving the paper, processing the order, issuing the invoice. But the same principles and tools apply to filling the order from the warehouse, approving a payment request to the bank, and notify people to report an error in the inbound order processing.

With the automated workflow management system:

• Work doesn’t get misplaced or stalled—expediters are rarely required to recover from errors or mismanagement of the work.
• The managers can focus on staff and business issues, such as individual performance, optimal procedures, and special cases, rather than the routine assignment of tasks. The army of assistants is no longer required to deliver and track the work.

• The procedures are formally documented and followed exactly, ensuring that the work is performed in the way planned by management, meeting all business and regulatory requirements.

• The best person (or agent) is assigned to do each case, and the most important cases are assigned first. Users don’t waste time choosing which item to work on, perhaps procrastinating on important but difficult cases.
• Parallel processing, where two or more tasks are performed concurrently, is far more practical than in a traditional, manual workflow.
• With the best person doing the most important work following the correct procedures, not only is the business conducted more effectively, but also costs are lowered and the service to the customers is generally better. With the work equitably distributed and the confidence that they are always working on the “right” thing, users are happier. Therefore workflow is good for the company, good for the customers, and good for the users.

Standard Task (Single Step Tasks):
These are the tasks that requires one step function, either notification or a single action need to be performed. The tasks are related to one business object and in turn to one method. The tasks are designed to send the workitem to the Agent, who can be a single person or an organizational unit. The agent determination can be hard-coded or can follow a simple algorithm.
Templates (Assembly line Tasks) :
Much work, even office procedures, can be processed in an assembly line, where there each step in the process is simple and specialized. One person may enter data. The next person may check the data. The next may retrieve the Vendor's banking information. The system may automatically retrieve the current customer status—
recent orders, accounts payable, etc. When all of the information has been consolidated, a specialist may evaluate whether to make the payment. And so forth. Most of the steps are simple. Training is minimized. Staffing is often flexible, because few steps require specialized skills and or authority. However, an effort is required to move the work between steps, time is lost waiting at each step, and there are more chances that the work will be lost or misplaced. The sequential execution of tasks is referred as workflow templates.
Distribution:
As mentioned before, There are a variety of methods to distribute the work to the participants. Work may be preassigned, and then selected from the “in box” by the user. Or to be generic, an organizational unit may be assigned to the task and the system will dynamically decide the agents (or users) assigned to those objects. The example of the organizational objects are Job, Role, Organizational unit or User group. By and large the standard way of assigning work is using assignment of role, which is relatively simple to be handled at the user provisioning as against to the changes to the workflow itself.
Completion
When the work is completed, the normal conclusion is to change the status (from waiting for decision to either approved or rejected, or from waiting for input to ready for checking). Each workflow process has its unique way to move the work to the next step in the process, but most commonly triggered by the 'completion' of that step. The completion status can be achieved by mere execution or may be sought explicitly. But one thing should be taken into account is that the completion of the workflow does not mean the successful completion of the transaction as they are completely two different threads.
Logging and tracking
Workflow systems typically record the processing history, and provide a detailed information on each and every step that is being carried out and their statuses. This is a standard part of the workflow and very useful in case of audit. However, proper planning is needed to decide on the archival mechanism, as these log files could become really unmanageable.
Control
One of the big advantages of an automated work management system is the control of the process, manifest by the procedures that are implemented by the system, and the record keeping to report on the process.
Professional productivity
By many definitions, professional work cannot be measured—it is work that varies from case to case, requiring judgment, rather than a routine operation.