How is an Open Source Workflow Management System Beneficial For Businesses?

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By: Manish Shewaramani

How an Open Source Workflow Management System (WfMS) Beneficial For Businesses?

An organization includes various departments that work in unison for proper functioning. Every organization has a hierarchy system that allows for proper coordination, efficiency, functioning, etc. Defining these hierarchies makes it easier in allotting the tasks to the different teams and individuals.

Apart from that, the hierarchy of the workflow management system makes task execution much easier. The ultimate goal of the workflow management system is to derive the expected results after completing a specific task.

Workflow Management – A Brief

Different industries prefer using workflow management software that enables defining the tasks in simple steps for easier and more efficient execution. In simple words, workflow management is about getting work done in a simplified way through a determined mechanism.

In an organization, workflow determines the ability, capability, financial viability to handle the project effectively. Apart from that, it simplifies the process of engaging with vendors, sending invoices, sharing documents, and also the project follow-ups after completion.

Many organizations prefer a specific system for managing their workflow with a predefined set of business rules. The powerful workflow management system eliminates the risk of human errors by introducing automation on the complex process and minimizes human intervention.

All You Need To Know About Workflow Management Software (WfMS)

Workflow management software (WfMS) is a pre-designed system with the ability to execute large projects through automated actions and custom business applications. The objective of WfMS is to perform the most rigorous tasks in improved efficiency, highly focused, and more accountable way to achieve the results without much ado.

WfMs is a well-optimized workflow tool that will assist business leaders to organize their business operations with the help of a systematic framework. In today’s business world, you can find 3 main types of workflow management tools which are listed below.

  • Human-Centric: It is a kind of system that handles & manages tasks that involve human interaction as input.
  • Document-Centric: In this type of system, processes of an organization that are carried performed by holding documents as input are managed.
  • Integration-Centric: In this type of system, processes and functionalities which require a minimal contribution of humans are managed.

Workflow management is not a new thing for industries and organizations; it has been in practice right from the 1900s. In the recent past, as businesses started moving towards digitization workflow management gained interest among their business leaders. Also, workflow management introduces automation in business processes and this makes this software one of the essential tools for modern businesses.

Experts have predicted that automated strategies will raise more than 30% by the year 2028. If you are in a dilemma on introducing WfMS, well stop thinking and start introducing WfMS now.

Who Prefers Open Source Workflow Management System?

There are different types of organizations that involve various stages or departments that work in unison for their growth. This workflow management software is helpful for all types of small or big corporations or individual users.

The main purpose of implementing this workflow management software is for keeping the track of all the real-time events that take place within the organization. This software allows in maintaining the details for the processing, reporting, executing the different tasks at various stages.

Different types of businesses require this workflow management system. The food and beverage industry will have to depend heavily on the workflow software for task completion at various stages.

The banks rely on this software for ensuring transaction reliability. The airline industry does not have to depend on workflow management software for its process handling.

Benefits of having an open-source workflow management system

Apart from offering more secure and easy to set up features open source workflow management system matches all other features offered by the managed workflow system. Organizations preferring open source management systems can avail more benefits than managed workflow systems, but all you need to is adequate knowledge to handle it.

This section illustrates the benefits an organization can gain through an open source management system in brief.

1. Cost Reduction

It doesn’t matter whether you going for managed or open source workflow management system, it always helps to clear the busywork of an employee. With such handy software, employees can focus more on their big-time projects rather than spending a significant amount of time clearing their desks.

When compared with a managed workflow system, open source will cut-cost the amount along by eliminating the barrenness of doing the repetitive task of employees.

2. Seamless Integration

When compared with managed workflow, an open source workflow management system is intentionally designed to integrate with a wide range of systems and various tools easily. Owing to that, business leaders would find it so easy to handle other parts of your business operation from a single system.

With such seamless integration, data and other business resources can be easily distributed across multiple systems.

3. Well-improved Compliance

A powerful workflow management system acts as a guard and strictly obeys all the commands provided by the organization. In addition, the system helps to store and maintain infallible records which can be easily restored for analysis and to take important business decisions.

Since the system automates the workflow and follows compliance fully it eliminates the possibility of human errors and gets rid of the risk of missing vital processes.

Besides, the workflow management system exchanges data automatically through ‘Single Source of Truth’ and reduces a significant amount of time spent on copy-pasting the data from one system to another.

4. Easy to Customize

Unlike the managed system, an open source workflow system is designed to serve businesses as a foundation. So an organization can customize the workflow system according to their requirements and needs.

Having a professional team of IT experts will help an organization to build and customize the tool to solve the problems which they face.

5. Easy Collaboration

In the olden days, staff was supposed to spend a significant amount of time extracting the hidden data or information from the resources like slides, channels, and spreadsheets. But, now the workflow management system eases those operations and helps staff to engage with more thoughtful & useful conversation.

In simple words, a workflow system boosts the morale among the employees and enables them to focus on their productivity.

Visit Why Should You Consider Implementing Workflow Management Systems for Your Business? to explore more reasons for considering workflow management systems for your organization.

Functions Of A Concise Open Source Workflow Management System

Implementing open-source workflow management software is very beneficial for the organization for their business development. The different functions executed by the concise workflow management software include:

1. Access controls

Different individuals are involved in the various steps within the organization. It is important for regulating the interaction between these individuals or teams. The admin can give access to the specific users that will have access to handling the sensitive data and different non-overlapping operations and processes within the organization.

2. Automation of business process

Integration of the human intervention in the different tasks might lead to the incorporation of errors. Automation of various processes in the organization can help in enhancing productivity, reducing costs, reducing errors, etc.

3. Calendar management

Various tasks are involved in the organization that is time-bound and these timelines should be followed for gaining the benefits. It is important to track the various meetings between the individual teams, persons, parties or collaborators, etc. The organization also needs to keep the track of the dates for the timelines for various processes and deadlines.

4. Compliance tracking

Every organization needs to follow the rules and regulations set by the regulatory authorities for gaining compliance. For this compliance, the organization needs to provide several documents for the different procedures, operations, processes followed within the organization.

Workflow management software ensures that all the required documents are made available and no rules and regulations are broken.

5. Document management

The competitive corporate world needs to maintain the thousands of documents online as well as offline for recording the thousands of tasks undertaken daily. Effective documentation is essential as it keeps a record of all the activities taking place in the business and is also required for tracking the business development.

The workflow management software has the key functioning of maintaining these documents and allowing the organization to move towards success and achieving its goals.

6. Improved communication

Proper and effective functioning of the organization includes the various processes going simultaneously involving the various teams. For delivering the best performance there should be good communication between the different teams as it acts as the backbone of success.

Miscommunication can lead to conveying wrong details that can adversely affect business growth. Implementing good and robust workflow management software will minimize the communication gap and enable a strong collaboration between the different teams for efficient working.

7. Form management

An effective form management system is essential for storing the data from the different processes involved in the organization. Proper maintaining forms and documents make the processing of the data easier while handling the systems.

It also leads to decreased human intervention to various processes leading to decreased errors. This is essential when the organization generates and stores millions of bytes of data daily.

8. KPI-based reports

When the organization includes several operations and processes ongoing simultaneously, they need to maintain the records instantaneously using the KPIs. Keeping track of all these data helps in enhancing productivity. The different KPI indicators make all the reports available on the programmed dashboard.

These indicators can be managed by the user to define the requirements and allow the workflow management system to work in coordination.

9. Notification and reminders

As the workflow management system includes the calendar for keeping the track of all the important tasks, it also provides reminders and notifications for the different tasks. It helps in providing the notification for the execution of the upcoming tasks.

While using the automated tasks for the different processes, the workflow management system allows in keeping the check on the different individual processes and provides an advantage of monitoring all the processes at a glance and notifications and reminders for each stage.

10. Analysis and reporting

The workflow management software keeps the track of all the processes and also performs analysis for the different processes. It generated the reports for the different analyses performed. These analyses and reports are essential for making crucial decisions.

These reports are also important for deciding the future steps based on the results gained at each stage.

11. SLA status indicator

As the importance of using this software is gaining importance, the use of the software dashboard is also gaining importance due to its reliability. These indicators help the users understand the process of the different tasks based on their importance.

It helps the user to set the objective for different tasks and work in a specific direction to achieve their goals.

Tips To Select Right Workflow Management System

Well, it’s not an easy task to pick the right workflow management software for your business; it will take professional assistance and also consumes a significant amount of time for full installation.

Take a look over the tips on how to select the right WfMS for your business.

  • Choose the workflow management software with a simple setup, so that you may not need to worry about complex installation and about seeking professional help for installation.
  • Go for Intuitive. Yes! Instead of preferring software with complex design with codes for access, go for the WfMS being intuitive to its users. By doing so, anyone can easily access the management software without any tech background.
  • Prefer Web-based Integration. Opting WfMS has the right type of integration capability among the integration types REST API, In-Built, and IaaS-Friendly. Each integration type has its own pros and cons; pick the one that suits well for your business.

Bottom Line

The competitive world looks for consistent development. Implementing open sources workflow management is beneficial for the organization in the long term. This workflow management allows in gaining the best results in the form of enhanced productivity, revenue growth, improved performance, multi-disciplinary collaboration, etc.

There are different tools available for this workflow management, picking the right one based on the requirements, the organization can be beneficial for their business plan.

Say goodbye to data chaos and embrace the power of PIM/MDM to supercharge your business growth!