Digitize a purchase order request in under 1 hour

Conor McGrath00:04

Thanks for joining us for another FlowForma virtual workshop, where you'll see another significant business process digitized in under one hour. I'm Conor McGrath, Digital Marketing Executive at FlowForma, and I'm joined once again by my colleagues David Shanley, Product Specialist, and Stewart Miller, Territory Manager.

Conor McGrath00:42

We want to show how easy FlowForma is to use, and how it lets you digitize processes quickly, gain rapid adoption and get an early return on your investment. We've some polls, and please send in your questions while David and Stewart build the process. We have people joining from North America, Europe and Africa today.

Conor McGrath02:14

Before today, we asked which process you'd like to see digitized, and there was a clear winner: 36% of registrants want to see a purchase order request automated.

Conor McGrath02:33

Next, what process challenges are you facing? 43% say their process is currently paper-based, 29% have poor communication with suppliers and third parties, 14% have a lack of mobile accessibility, and 14% say information is submitted incorrectly or even lost. These are all common challenges prospects come to us with.

David Shanley03:26

Are you surprised, Stewart, that the purchase order request came in top?

Stewart Miller03:35

No, I'm not. How do you feel about digitizing it, Dave?

David Shanley04:05

It'll be tight, but we'll get there.

Stewart Miller04:22

If your process wasn't chosen, you'll still learn a huge amount about the flexibility and agility of the solution. The second process was an approval process, and there are approvals within a purchase order request, so it covers the majority of what you asked for.

Stewart Miller05:04

Every organization runs purchase order requests. It isn't industry specific, and the audience today reflects that. It's also a painful process done manually: emails back and forth, documents passing between parties, multiple approval levels, signing and data collection. It's one of the most common processes our customers digitize, because it tends to be cross-functional.

David Shanley06:13

Do you have an example of how scalable FlowForma is within organizations?

Stewart Miller06:19

It's highly scalable. Customers start with one process and in some cases go on to digitize hundreds. The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has digitized well over 200 processes and has a paperless finance department. A well-known UK construction company has digitized over 400 flows, supported by less than one member of its IT team, with business users doing the building.

Stewart Miller07:44

Every customer has different objectives, but the common feedback is how quick and easy it is to digitize manual processes. Customers get processes into production self-sufficiently, then move on quickly to digitize more, from departmental and cross-functional processes to ones that include external organizations.

David Shanley09:47

We're building a purchase order request. This is the landing page of the FlowForma app in a trial environment, but in reality users won't come here. The links behind these tiles can be surfaced on your intranet, and you can embed list views in a SharePoint team site so people see the processes that need their attention, plus reporting for a holistic overview.

David Shanley11:00

The header is customizable, with your logo and data from the form. Underneath is the step bar. Here it moves sequentially from the PO request through level one approval and so on, but steps can also run in parallel. The step you're currently engaged in is always shown in white.

David Shanley11:54

Supplier is a list lookup. If I choose Other as the PO type, a question change rule asks me what it is. Question change rules fire on the trigger question, when the user makes a selection or keys in a value.

David Shanley12:25

The table uses two SharePoint lists, a category list and a category item list, which are very simple to manage and maintain, similar to Excel. Choose a category in the first column and you only see that category's items. Enter a quantity and price and it calculates the total, and a file upload attaches a quote.

David Shanley13:29

There's a data validation rule: if the total is less than 500, it won't let me submit. And if the requisition total is over 2,500, a hide/show step rule brings in level two approval. Step-level rules fire when you submit or save, so you can send an email to the next approver or assign a step to a specific person.

David Shanley14:54

On level one approval, I can push the data from the first step through, or give the approver view permissions to review it. You get one clear form, so you can always see where you sit in the process. If the approver rejects it, a hide/show step rule closes off the remaining steps, and I could email the initiator the reason.

David Shanley15:54

If they request an amendment, the purchase order is still in play. On submit, a pass-back rule sends it to the first step, a hide/show rule shows the comments, and a set question value rule copies them across, so the requester can make the change and resubmit.

David Shanley16:52

On the happy path it moves to PO raised, where the values are copied into a fixed table that isn't editable, by design. Then goods received has an extra column to acknowledge delivery. Purchase orders vary a lot between companies, but what matters is how easily you can create tables and move through an approval process.

Stewart Miller17:44

And that covers the approval process too, which about 28% of attendees were looking for.

David Shanley17:57

In the admin section I create a new process flow called Purchase Order Request, with a prefix that goes ahead of every form ID. It opens in Flow Designer, a three-in-one toolkit that combines forms, workflow and document generation in a single build interface, and you apply your business logic with 100% no code.

David Shanley18:46

The single interface matters for maintenance as well as speed. With other tools you knit disparate elements together, and even the person who built it can struggle to change it six or nine months later. This is a lot more intuitive to change.

Stewart Miller19:25

Our first question, from Denise: what mobile capability is there?

David Shanley19:31

We have a mobile app for iOS and Android with offline capabilities. The data is cached in the form on your device and uploaded back to SharePoint once you have connectivity. It's used a lot in construction for on-site processes.

David Shanley19:57

I add the steps: PO request, level one approval, level two approval, PO raised and goods received. I'm assigning each to myself for the build, but you can assign a step to a specific person or a SharePoint group, or use step assign rules to do it dynamically. You could add more, such as an invoice matching step.

David Shanley21:04

Then I add questions to each step. First, a separator to tell users the purchase order must be for a minimum of 500 euro. There are lots of question types, including SharePoint list lookups, Dynamics CRM, entity data management, SQL Server lookups, repeating tables, digital and wet signatures, barcode scanners and geolocation.

David Shanley22:35

Requested by is a person field set to the current user, then a project code, a supplier lookup on a SharePoint list of suppliers, and a PO type choice with an Other option. If Other is chosen I need to know what it is, so I add a question for that too.

David Shanley24:17

Another separator marks the purchase order section, then the repeating table. Tables can be difficult to work with in a lot of systems, but they're easy here. Each sub-question is its own column, and you can apply business rules within the table. The first column is a category lookup.

Stewart Miller25:51

Paula asks how quickly a user can be trained on this, because you're very used to doing it.

David Shanley26:17

The training we provide is two days, and it gets you up to speed. It's a very intuitive tool and not a steep learning curve compared with a lot of the tools out there. We also have SureStart, a collaborative build of your first process with FlowForma.

Stewart Miller26:52

We hand-hold you. SureStart gets your first process up and running, alongside a couple of days' training, and from that you'll be self-sufficient in digitizing your own processes.

David Shanley27:22

I filter the item column by the chosen category, then add quantity with a minimum of one, price as a currency in euro, and a calculated total that's simply quantity multiplied by price. Outside the table, a total calculated question adds up the totals column. Then a separator tells users level two approval is required over 2,500, plus a field for the level one approver's comments if it passes back.

David Shanley30:44

With form preview on, I can see the form being built out as I add questions. Level one approval gets an approve choice with approve, reject and request amendment, plus a reason for rejection and amendment comments. Level two gets its own approve choice.

David Shanley32:16

For PO raised and goods received, I reuse tables I've already built. You can reuse and repurpose questions and steps, or make copies of steps and change them.

David Shanley33:04

Now the rules. I make requested by read-only, and hide other PO type by default. On the trigger question, a hide/show rule shows it if the PO type is Other. There's a lot of depth, but workflow control rules are the ones you'll use the most. At any point I can run a test form to see my rules in action.

Stewart Miller35:19

Another question, from Andre, about integration with other systems.

David Shanley35:24

We have a no-code rule that calls Azure Logic Apps, so if the system is in the cloud and has a connector, it's very easy to integrate. We also have a new no-code rule for talking to external web APIs, which caters for most, if not all, systems.

David Shanley36:02

On the total, a data validation rule stops the step being submitted if it's less than 500. A hide/show step rule hides level two approval if the total is less than 2,500, so that step isn't engaged with. On level one approval, hide/show rules show the rejection reason or the amendment comments depending on the choice, and a reject hides all the subsequent steps.

Stewart Miller39:44

So you can improve the process continuously. If you release a process and get feedback from a department, you just go back in and amend it.

David Shanley40:07

If approval is request amendment, a step-level pass-back rule sends it back one step. A hide/show rule shows the level one approver's comments on the first step, and a set question value rule copies the comments across. You can always see where each rule sits and why.

David Shanley42:18

Testing it: 10,000 needs level two approval, 700 only needs level one, and under 500 I'm not allowed to submit. Request an amendment and it goes back to the first step with the comments embedded. Approve it and it moves through.

Stewart Miller43:26

Stephen asks what document generation capability there is.

David Shanley43:33

Document generation is integral to FlowForma. You can use any Word document template and populate it with content from the process, including images and wet signatures, then push it to a document repository. With the add-in for Word you position your cursor and pull in attributes, and rules can remove content that isn't relevant, so the document contracts to fit.

David Shanley44:41

Finally, I map the repeating table from the first step to PO raised, overwriting the rows, and then on to goods received. Cascading lists can work outside a table too, and a get list data rule could pull through a description for each item. How detailed you go is up to you.

David Shanley48:16

Because you're working in a single build interface, it's easy to go back into a process six months or a year later and change it, whether you built it or someone else did.

Stewart Miller48:51

Very good. That took about 40 minutes today. Well done.

Conor McGrath49:04

That's three in a row within the hour. Last poll: what's most important to you from digitizing your processes? 67% chose integration with other systems, a clear winner, followed by the ability to automate in-house.

Conor McGrath50:41

Someone asks whether they can include external parties, such as regulators and insurers, in their processes.

David Shanley50:54

Absolutely. Third parties can take part with secure or anonymous access. Anonymous access is used a lot by sports bodies for police vetting, for example, with an anonymous first step feeding an internal process, while suppliers might use secure access. Both can be used right through a process.

Conor McGrath51:36

Our processes often need changes. Could we make them in-house?

David Shanley51:53

Absolutely. It's designed from the ground up for process owners and is 100% no code, and because it's a single interface, anyone can go in and make the changes.

Conor McGrath52:19

How soon could I see an ROI from implementing FlowForma?

Stewart Miller52:38

It's one of the main reasons customers choose us, because processes get into production fast. AC Immune in Switzerland took 22 hours to digitize HR onboarding and release it into the business, all within six weeks, and has gone on to digitize many other processes. On average you're looking at around six weeks to start getting an ROI.

Conor McGrath53:43

We'll follow up on any questions we didn't get to. You can book a one-to-one call with our process experts or sign up for a free 14-day trial at flowforma.com. Thanks, David and Stewart, and congratulations on knocking it out of the park again.