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Workflow Definition, Benefits, and Preparation 4 Country View Road Malvern, PA 19355 800.223.7036 610.647.5930 S www.sct.com Workflow definition, benefits, and preparation An SCT White Paper EWHT-005 (02/03) SCT, Banner, PowerCAMPUS, and the circle P logo are registered trademarks; and the SCT logo, SCT Plus, SCT Matrix, SCT Campus Pipeline, and Luminis are trademarks, of Systems & Computer Technology Corporation or one or more of its wholly owned subsidiaries. All other products and company names referenced herein are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright © 2003 Systems & Computer Technology Corporation. All rights reserved. Workflow (cont.) What is Workflow? Most colleges and universities today practice workflow of some kind, either manually or with software applications. Admitting a student, for example, requires more than one person (and more than one department) to find the prospect, review the application, compile the financial aid package, and send the offer letter. The process of passing information along and responding to it is a type of workflow. However, more often than not, the process grinds to a halt when one of those papers languishes in a participant’s in-box. A software-based workflow management system would speed this process—and hundreds of others like it—and elevate its quality by automating, simplifying, measuring, directing, and managing the flow of information from department to department across the enterprise. There are many different definitions of workflow. For consistency, SCT follows the definition put forth by the respected Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC): The coalition also states that a true workflow management system must have the following criteria: • Define, create, and manage the execution of workflows with software • Run on one or more workflow engines • Interpret the process definition • Interact with workflow participants • Invoke IT tools and applications where required In addition, workflow solutions comprise data, people, tools, and activities. 1. The data within a workflow management system are either application-specific or process-specific. Data can be a word- processed document, a spreadsheet, an image, a voice message, or a database extract. 2. People are the agents, or participants, within a process who perform specific tasks in a specific order as defined by business rules and conditions. 3. Tasks within a workflow application are completed by tools. These can be business applications such as a financial information system or personal productivity products like a commercial spreadsheet. 4. Activities are the assignments to be completed by agents in order to achieve the business goal. The benefits of workflow are numerous: • Elimination of the paper chase • Improved performance of routine tasks • Reduced cost to complete repetitive activities • Reduction in processing time by minimizing time lost between activities • Reduced errors and omissions and expedited data entry • Increased quality of processes delivered • Support of documentation of existing processes or creation of new ones • Facilitation of work among departments • Integration of multiple processes that cross departments and applications • Tracking of the status of work in process and provision of statistics • Enhanced communication between users and developers Discerning Workflow from Other Solutions Workflow and workgroup solutions are often confused. Workflow and workgroup solutions both enable the transfer and sharing of information. However, workflow enables the process knowledge that supports management and routing where workgroup technology typically does not. SCT, Banner, PowerCAMPUS, and the circle P logo are registered trademarks; and the SCT logo, SCT Plus, SCT Matrix, SCT Campus Pipeline, and Luminis are trademarks, of Systems & Computer Technology Corporation or one or more of its wholly owned subsidiaries. All other products and company names referenced herein are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright © 2003 Systems & Computer Technology Corporation. All rights reserved. Workflow (cont.) Another common area of confusion is between event processing and workflow. An example of event processing is when an employee gives birth and the system prompts the new parent with questions about insurance coverage and change of beneficiary. Simply going from screen to screen within an application, however, is not workflow. Moving from application to application and from department to department across the enterprise characterizes workflow. Consider what happens when a university hires a student to fill a work/ study position. In addition to the human resources functions to be accomplished, the university must also call upon the financial aid office to verify the student’s eligibility; the purchasing department to acquire any necessary equipment; the facilities management department to secure accommodations; and the information systems department to order access cards and e-mail privileges. Most true workflow solutions are built around either e-mail or a database. e-Mail, or message-based, workflow is easy to learn, convenient for supporting remote users, and effective for small groups. It is flexible and can run on multiple platforms and support multiple software applications. However, the drawbacks of message-based workflow become apparent once a message is launched. Where did it go? Who has it now? Who gets it next? What am I supposed to be doing in the meantime? Database or production workflow, on the other hand, supports high-volume, mission-critical activities by maintaining process information on the database or application server. While more training is required to learn a production workflow system than an e- mail-based system, the derived benefits are many. Production workflow systems are predominantly utilized to model and implement structured business processes. The most effective and efficient workflow solutions combine e-mail and database functionality. More progressive solutions provide even more features with greater benefits. About SCT Workflow SCT Workflow allows college and university administrators to automate, simplify, direct, and manage the flow of information across their institutions. It is the first product delivery in SCT’s suite of relationship leverage solutions that is designed with component-based technology. These solutions provide information that help institutions compete more effectively, operate more efficiently, and make better decisions, while providing more personalized services to all their constituents. Using SCT Workflow, colleges and universities are able to graphically define and implement business processes through an easy-to- use object-oriented interface into a workflow, making work more visible, reducing errors, providing process consistency, and increasing communication across the enterprise. SCT Workflow integrates with SCT Banner® administrative systems to maximize SCT Banner’s inherent efficiencies to quickly accomplish these processes. SCT Workflow is an enterprise application meaning external systems can be integrated within a single business process. SCT Workflow improves business process effectiveness by: • Providing tools for documenting existing and future business processes • Reducing process cycle times as well as errors and omissions • Providing consistent implementation of business processes across an enterprise with the ability to make departmental exceptions • Integrating with internal and external third-party applications allowing for automatically accomplishing tasks across all “silos” of information Additionally, SCT Workflow electronic documents are created as customized SCT Banner forms and are designed to replace paper forms. These electronic documents can be “In each of our three cases, SCT Workflow shared across an organization dependent on any given workflow process. The information reduced paper processing, reduced the stored within a workflow transaction is not posted to the SCT Banner databases until all number of manual intervention steps approvals are received. required, and reduced errors in processing. We are very excited about the prospects of SCT Workflow Beta Sites using SCT Workflow in our SCT Banner SCT Workflow was beta-tested by Miami University, Virginia Tech, and the State environment.” University of New York (SUNY) centralized Student Information and Campus —Darrow Neves, Associate Director, Administrative Systems (SICAS) center. The workflow product matured through each of University Application, Miami Computing the beta sites and software modifications were based on client feedback. and Information Services SCT, Banner, PowerCAMPUS, and the circle P logo are registered trademarks; and the SCT logo, SCT Plus, SCT Matrix, SCT Campus Pipeline, and Luminis are trademarks, of Systems & Computer Technology Corporation or one or more of its wholly owned subsidiaries. All other products and company names referenced herein are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright © 2003 Systems & Computer Technology Corporation. All rights reserved. Workflow (cont.) Miami University utilized SCT Workflow to help automate three business processes during their beta engagement: profile updates (address, person, name changes), financial aid verification update, and recruiting of a college work/study student. The workflows ranged from a one-step workflow for profile updates to a complex process for hiring college work/study
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