How Vestergaard brought transparency to a contracts process where compliance is critical

Sean00:05

I'm Sean, territory manager at FlowForma. With me are Sergio Ferraz, head of internal audit and compliance at Vestergaard, and Paul Stone, solutions architect at FlowForma. Thank you for joining us.

Sean00:17

Sergio, thank you for your time today. Can you tell us a little about Vestergaard and your role there?

Sergio Ferraz00:22

Thank you, Sean. I'm very happy to be here and to share our experience with FlowForma. Vestergaard is a small global health company that works with NGOs and local governments, dedicated to improving the health of vulnerable people. We're about 130 people, most of us in sales or operations. The company started as a Danish company, and today it's headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, with small offices in the US, Kenya, India and Vietnam.

Sergio Ferraz01:17

We have three types of products. The most important are insecticide-treated mosquito nets, which people use to fight malaria. We also have water filters, which let children and families in Africa and Asia drink clean water straight away. And a small division produces treated food storage bags, which protect grain and maize from insects so farmers can keep them longer.

Sergio Ferraz02:07

My role is head of internal audit and compliance. I'm the only person in this function, so efficient business processes are very important to me, and that's where FlowForma comes in.

Sean02:29

I know your contracts management process was key for you. Can you give us an overview of what it involves, and the pain points you were experiencing?

Sergio Ferraz02:41

Our clients in those geographies are mainly distributors, and we also have agents who help us secure sales. We need contracts with all those third parties. Before FlowForma, we didn't have a structured process. Salespeople would request a contract from compliance or legal, and everything was done by email, in a very unstructured way. We never knew who had to do what, or when, and information was duplicated across thousands of emails. People were frustrated, because their requests weren't being handled on time.

Sergio Ferraz03:44

We also didn't have a database or repository where we could look up information, report on it and produce statistics. From a compliance point of view, requirements were very difficult to meet. Compliance is about documenting and proving things, and making sure we have the right information and follow the right steps. And the business was suffering, because contracts took longer than expected to be approved. As soon as I joined, I saw it wasn't a sustainable process.

Sean04:39

What did you identify as the key requirements for a solution to digitize these processes?

Sergio Ferraz04:44

The company's strategy is to go with SharePoint, so I had to stay as much as possible with a SharePoint-compatible solution. Budget is a constraint, so it couldn't be too expensive. And I needed to fix the issues I just mentioned: I wanted a structured workflow, and a database we could report on, with meaningful statistics for management.

Sergio Ferraz05:29

Because I'm the only person in this function, with a tight budget and no huge IT department, I also wanted something easy to use, configure and maintain: code-free. I started looking in the SharePoint store, came across FlowForma, and contacted them. After several calls where they showed me the application, I immediately saw the benefits we could achieve easily and quickly, so we decided to buy the licenses.

Sergio Ferraz06:22

We started with three processes, all related to contracts for agents and distributors: one to create a contract, then separate ones for a renewal or a termination. We wanted to separate them so each request would have one contract and one record in the database, making it easier to report on and extract the data.

Sean07:03

Vestergaard has staff in various locations, so I presume the mobile apps were a nice feature for you as well?

Sergio Ferraz07:12

They are. Salespeople are always on the move, so having a cloud-based application on SharePoint lets them access it from anywhere. Internet connections can be a challenge in the geographies we work in, but where there's internet, it's very easy to access the information.

Sean07:40

How has implementing FlowForma impacted the process, and the organization?

Sergio Ferraz07:51

We achieved what we wanted: a very structured process that clearly shows who has to act, and when. A salesperson puts a request through. It goes to the managing director of the business unit, then to me in compliance for due diligence, then back to sales to add the information needed to draft the contract. Then it goes to legal to work with sales on finalizing it, and back and forth between them for the signatures, first the third party's and then ours. We wanted those as separate steps, so we could easily see where we stood.

Sergio Ferraz09:12

Finally, it comes back to me as a check: I make sure all the data is properly entered in the metadata fields, and the right documents are scanned and attached. Then a record is created in the database, with the main information and links to the final executed contract.

Sergio Ferraz09:50

So the compliance requirements were met, because I could prove everything we did. My due diligence files are attached in the system, with dates and the names of people who acted. And we got rid of all the duplicated emails. Everything is kept in the system, and the main information goes into a simple database that we can open or download in Excel for reporting.

Sean10:47

How long did it take you to train yourself up and build out that process?

Sergio Ferraz10:58

Literally a day or two. Once the system was up and running, I spent a bit of time and started creating the flows. FlowForma's consultants were available to help me find the best way to meet our business requirements. Sometimes it was difficult, because I'm not really a technical person, but the consultants always found a solution. I'm very happy with how things went.

Sean11:44

Thank you, Sergio. It's really interesting to hear about your digital transformation journey. Now I'll hand over to my colleague Paul Stone for a quick overview and demo of FlowForma.

Paul Stone12:03

Thank you, Sean. FlowForma lets you build systems that bring together workflow, forms and documents in a single solution on top of Microsoft SharePoint. It's designed for ease of use, both for configuration, as Sergio mentioned, and for end users, so they adopt processes quickly and handle change more rapidly. It's configured with a no-code tool, so process owners like Sergio, who know their business best, can build solutions themselves. Mobile apps come out of the box, so you can use it in your browser or on your mobile devices.

Paul Stone13:40

We see three classes of processes. Everyday processes are simple and take five to ten days from scratch to a live system, but each one's return is small, so you implement several. Organization-specific processes, where Sergio's compliance process fits, are specific to your industry or company and often run on spreadsheets and email chains, which brings operational risk. FlowForma lets you digitize them quickly and gain a central repository for all the data and documents. The biggest return comes from customer experience processes, which extend out to your customers and suppliers.

Paul Stone15:24

For compliance specifically, FlowForma reduces operational risk by controlling who carries out each task, and validating the data captured, so it's accurate. It provides transparency, because every action toward a business goal is recorded: who approved a contract, who signed it off. You can record non-compliance events, where policies are breached, and plan mitigating actions.

Paul Stone16:30

The system automatically keeps an audit record, which is very useful for internal or external regulators. And it reduces regulatory overhead: handling regulations with spreadsheets and email chains takes significant effort, but automating the steps reduces it. Because everything is captured in a central database, you can measure risk and improve efficiency.

Paul Stone17:29

Common compliance and risk challenges FlowForma solves include incident recording, supplier onboarding and auditing, employee and client onboarding, risk assessments, know-your-customer checks, complaints management from your public website, and GDPR information requests, all fully audited.

Paul Stone19:01

FlowForma is accessed through a web browser or our mobile apps, with nothing to install, and it uses SharePoint as its secure database for all data and documents. I'll start an incident management process. A form in FlowForma is much more than a paper form: it combines a workflow and a form. Across the top is the step bar, a simple view of the workflow, so the business user can see where they are, what's happened and what's likely to happen next.

Paul Stone20:43

The step bar is dynamic: as you capture data and reach decision points, steps are included or excluded. Each step is assigned to a resource, and only that person can carry it out. Below it is the electronic form, capturing the data for this step, with mandatory fields, help text to guide the user, fields that appear depending on answers, and tables of data.

Paul Stone23:05

When I submit, the system moves to the next step, and actions can run in between: here it generates an incident report as a PDF and sends emails. The reviewer can accept or reject the report. If they reject it, the form loops back with a message explaining why. You can delegate work to others, and everything is logged in the audit trail.

Paul Stone24:44

When I say the incident was reported to the authority, new fields appear for the date, the body notified, and a document, which is uploaded into SharePoint under its security. If an investigation report is expected, another step is added automatically. The system directs users down the right path with mandatory fields and validation, so everything a regulator needs is captured, with a full audit log.

Paul Stone26:21

This is the Flow Designer, the tool Sergio would have used to configure his contracts workflow. It doesn't use a flow chart by default, because it captures not just the steps but all the data within them and the business rules that act on it. To add a step, I name it and save, then drag it to the right place. Then I add a question, the data to capture, make it mandatory, and add help text.

Paul Stone27:55

The real power is business rules, which carry out actions based on the data. This one changes the path of the workflow: if the name equals Paul, hide the incident review step, and it disappears from the step bar. Another assigns a step to a person or group, for example the manager of the department where the incident happened. All our rules share the same structure: a condition, and an action.

Paul Stone29:35

One interesting rule generates documents from templates. We built a Microsoft Word plugin that shows the workflow in a side panel, so you can merge data captured in the form into your Word document, like a traditional mail merge. The result is a PDF uploaded to SharePoint and linked to the workflow. You can also include paragraphs conditionally, for example clauses in an employee contract.

Paul Stone31:32

FlowForma can also integrate with back-end systems. Sergio didn't need to, but many clients use business rules to integrate with SharePoint lists and document libraries, or SQL Server, so you can look up a client in your back-end system and pull their data into the form. Integration rules are easy too: pick a source, and map its columns to the questions in your form.

Paul Stone32:52

Reporting lets you monitor efficiency. You set benchmark durations for processes and steps, then see which are running late, and click through to the forms. You can identify bottlenecks, often approval steps, and see who the process is sitting with, so you know whether it's a resource issue or a workflow problem.

Paul Stone34:12

Every form also has an audit trail, showing when the process started, when rules ran, and every action through to completion, in a clean, easy-to-read format for regulators who aren't familiar with FlowForma.

Paul Stone35:15

E-signatures capture a person's sign-off on the audit record. In this employee onboarding process, when the manager accepts the new hire's details, the system asks them to revalidate their credentials, to confirm they really are the person pressing submit. Then a series of steps run in parallel: HR uploads signed contracts, IT grants system access, and security issues a pass. We support simple workflows and complex ones, with parallel tasks and workflows interacting.

Paul Stone37:31

FlowForma can also handle external interactions. Here I upload a document for an external reviewer to approve, enter their email address and a response date, and send it. The approval step can't be completed internally, because it's waiting on them. They receive an email with a link, and approve or reject the document with comments, without needing any login. When they submit, the information comes straight back into my secure Office 365 environment.

Paul Stone40:50

In our enterprise edition we've introduced collaborative work management, for larger teams. A compliance team, for example, would have an area showing all the processes it can start, personal work lists of tasks assigned to each user, and a dashboard of every process they're involved in. It gives a helicopter view for the digital workplace, and lets you allocate work within teams based on capacity.

Sean42:58

We have time for Q&A. Sergio, how did staff react to the contracts process going digital, and were they bought in?

Sergio Ferraz43:21

People saw it very positively, and saw the advantage of a structured process and workflow. Of course, some want more or less, and some take a bit longer to adjust, but overall the buy-in was very satisfactory.

Sean44:05

Paul: we'd like greater transparency in our processes. Where should we start, and what could we achieve quickly?

Paul Stone44:11

It's really easy to get started. You need to understand the business goal you're aiming for, and your process. We promote a prototyping approach: build something quickly, have end users review it, and refine it. Our SureStart program, which Sergio used, helps you deploy your first process quickly and get feedback. As soon as you do, auditing kicks in and you start getting the benefits.

Sean45:28

Sergio, is your process flexible, so changes can be made easily?

Sergio Ferraz45:33

Yes, the system lets us make changes and improvements, and we're making some enhancements now. FlowForma also recently released a feature to upgrade forms created before a change. The most important thing is to have very clear ideas of what you want to achieve and what the process looks like.

Paul Stone46:42

And FlowForma lets you be creative, so whatever you design is the most efficient way of achieving your business goals.

Sean47:08

We have a few questions on integration. Can FlowForma pull data from other systems?

Paul Stone47:20

Yes. Out of the box we integrate with SharePoint, which is our database, and with things like SQL Server. And because FlowForma is extensible, you can add custom business rules to integrate with SAP or any other back-office or document management system.

Sean47:59

If we use InfoPath, would moving to FlowForma be difficult?

Paul Stone48:05

InfoPath is just a forms tool; to add workflow you have to code it. FlowForma is quite a bit ahead in technology, and moving InfoPath solutions across is straightforward. We have a converter tool that brings across around 50% of a typical InfoPath form straight away, and a number of clients have done it very effectively.

Sean48:58

What's the difference between FlowForma and Microsoft Flow?

Paul Stone49:05

Microsoft Flow is a great tool, but quite different. FlowForma is about human workflows: people working together through forms to achieve a business goal. Flow is an automation and integration tool for cloud services in Office 365, and it's relatively technical, while FlowForma is a no-code tool for business users. We like Flow so much that we built a connector so you can use the two together.

Sean50:17

Can you create invoices with FlowForma, and assign tasks to a group and send notifications?

Sergio Ferraz50:36

On notifications, yes: at the end of each step, the system notifies the person who needs to act, and some steps also inform other people for information, or so they can add information.

Paul Stone51:03

And the Word templating tool I showed you can create invoices. Clients use it for invoices, purchase orders and any document you can create in Word, merging in the form data to generate a PDF that can be emailed or saved in SharePoint.

Sean51:50

How does external collaboration work?

Paul Stone51:57

Normally all the data captured in FlowForma is stored in your own SharePoint tenant. For external access, we provide a managed service running on our own Azure infrastructure, which allows anonymous access. That's why you can send a link in an automatic email to members of the public or suppliers, who fill in details without a login, and the details pass into a form with a full internal workflow.

Sean53:25

A last one for Sergio: having built your process yourself, what advice would you give people looking to automate their processes?

Sergio Ferraz53:35

The most important thing is to have clear ideas of what you want to achieve. The system can do a great deal, but first be clear on what needs to be done, and balance it with your resources and the maturity of the people involved. For example, we're considering generating our contracts automatically from fields filled in across the steps, which would save even more time, but it has to be balanced with people's maturity, and done step by step.

Sean54:46

We're reaching the end of our hour, so we won't get to every question; if yours wasn't answered, we'll contact you directly. You can email info@flowforma.com, fill in the contact form on our website, or book a one-to-one demo with one of our experts. A short survey will pop up at the end, and we'd greatly appreciate your feedback. Thank you all for attending, and thank you, Sergio and Paul.