Digitize an onboarding process in under 1 hour

Conor McGrath00:03

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

Conor McGrath00:39

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. Please be as interactive as possible: answer the polls and send in your questions while David and Stewart build today's process.

Conor McGrath02:14

Before today, we asked which process you'd like to see automated, and there was a clear winner with 33% of the votes: an onboarding process.

Stewart Miller02:53

I'm not surprised. Onboarding isn't industry specific, it applies to every organization, and we all know it's a painful process. Think of all the emails going back and forth, the documents, the approvals, sometimes multiple approvals, the signing and the data collection. It's extremely time consuming, so digitizing it is a big win.

David Shanley03:45

Why wouldn't organizations just use their existing systems to build their onboarding process?

Stewart Miller03:59

A common reason is how inflexible HR systems are. Everyone brings people into the business in their own way, across several functions, so you need flexibility. Adding an HR module can be expensive and can take up to six months, and you can't reuse that investment.

Stewart Miller04:44

FlowForma is 100% no code. Customers start with one process and go on to digitize many more with the same investment, because the commercial model includes unlimited processes. Business owners build them, so you don't need to be an IT guru or a developer, and that makes the organization a lot more agile.

Stewart Miller05:49

The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine started with one process and has gone on to digitize over 200 themselves. Enough chat, Dave. Shall we get on with it?

David Shanley06:54

This is the dashboard of the FlowForma app in Microsoft 365. The onboarding tile starts the process. It's simply a link, so you can surface it on your intranet, as a desktop icon or in an email.

David Shanley07:37

The header is customizable, with your logo and data from the form. Underneath, the step bar shows where you are. A step is a block of content you assign to a person or group. After the new hire details and manager approval, three smaller steps, sign-off of documents, IT prep and security access, run in parallel, then the welcome pack is prepared.

David Shanley09:05

The question types line up with native SharePoint data types, plus our own custom types. Primary language is a SharePoint list lookup. Choose Other and a question change rule shows a field asking what it is. Question change rules fire when the trigger question is updated, and they determine the path the user takes.

David Shanley10:02

Email matters, because you'll be communicating with this person, so there's a confirm email field. If the two don't match, a data validation rule stops the step being submitted.

David Shanley10:39

Region is another list lookup. Choose EMEA and it filters a second list to show only EMEA work locations. Cascading lists like this channel how the user moves through the process and reduce errors. Then pick a department, and a get list data rule filters by location and department and pulls in the right manager.

David Shanley12:17

There are step-level rules too, which fire when you submit or save. When I submit, one assigns the second step to the manager and another sends them an email with a link straight to their step.

Stewart Miller12:58

Our first question, from Jessica: can you use this on your mobile?

David Shanley13:10

Yes. There's a mobile app for iOS and Android, and you don't have to build the process separately for it. It's done for you automatically, and it has offline capabilities, so you can take part from anywhere at any time.

David Shanley13:34

On the second step, the manager decides whether to approve. I can give them view permissions on the first step to see what was entered. If they say no, a comments field appears, and on submit a rule passes the form back to the first step with the manager's comments embedded, so the requester can make the change and resubmit.

David Shanley14:46

Once the manager approves, the form moves into the parallel steps, which different people can complete at the same time. There's a file upload and an induction meeting date. IT prep has a new username, the activation date, and a dynamic repeating table, where each column is its own sub-question and the user can add and remove rows.

David Shanley15:49

The first column is a list lookup for computer accessories or technology, which filters the items in the next column. It's very simple to set up on SharePoint, in a matter of minutes, but very impactful for the end user. The security access table is fixed: it maps a list into the first column, and users can't add or remove rows, so they have to engage with each one.

David Shanley17:08

When I say yes to the final step and submit, a generate document rule creates a Word welcome pack populated with content from the form. FlowForma's add-in for Word lets you place tokens from the process anywhere in a template.

David Shanley18:08

It's a huge time saver, especially for HR processes with contracts. You can add rules down to a single paragraph, such as only showing a section if the department is IT. If it isn't, the document contracts, so you always get a document that reflects that case.

Stewart Miller18:51

We have a bit of a skeptic in the audience, but it's a great question. Andrew is asking: is this really 100% no code?

David Shanley19:09

Yes, it is. The only way to show you is to show you, so you'll see that now when we start our build.

David Shanley19:21

I create a new process called New Onboarding and it opens in Flow Designer, a three-in-one toolkit that combines forms, workflow and document generation in a single build interface. A lot of tools use canvas-based technology, where you knit form and workflow components together, and the more complex the process, the harder that is to manage. This is designed from the ground up for process owners.

David Shanley20:36

First I add the steps: new hire details, manager approval, sign-off of documents, IT prep, security access and the welcome pack. I assign each to myself for now. You can assign a step to a person or a SharePoint group, or use a step assign rule to do it dynamically.

David Shanley22:04

Then I add questions to each step. You can reuse questions and steps, or copy a step, such as an approval, and repurpose it. There are lots of question types, including Dynamics CRM and SQL Server lookups, repeating tables, digital and wet signatures and barcodes, but 80 to 90% of the time you'll use three or four of them.

David Shanley24:37

This was the winning process, but the ones that came second, third and fourth have a similar structure: an initial step loaded with data collection, then gates or approvals that may pass back to a previous step. You'll see the same rules used over and over again, whatever the process.

Conor McGrath25:30

We've loads of questions coming in from over 200 attendees. Mikhail asks: can external organizations be part of the process?

Stewart Miller25:56

Yes. External organizations can take part anonymously or using secure access, at several points right through a process, and there's no overhead if they take part anonymously.

David Shanley26:22

Work location is a lookup on a two-column list, filtered to the chosen region. Department is a lookup too. The beauty of lookups is that anyone can maintain them in SharePoint, without going into the build, and existing forms reflect the change automatically.

David Shanley28:08

Manager is a person field, so we can assign the second step to them. Once we know the work location and department, a get list data rule filters a list and pulls through the right manager. If HR is chosen and the location is Dublin, it pulls in that manager.

David Shanley29:05

Rules fire on the trigger question. There's a lot of depth, but the ones you'll use most for question change rules are workflow control and some data integration rules. And there's training as part of our SureStart implementation program, so you'll know what each one does.

David Shanley29:50

If primary language equals Other, a hide/show rule shows the Other field. It's simple business logic with no coding: you drill down, pick the question and the value, and you can group conditions and actions. On confirm email, a data validation rule stops the step if the emails don't match.

David Shanley31:37

On department, a get list data rule filters by the chosen department and work location and maps the manager across, and I make that field read-only. At any point I can create a test form to see what I've built, and it all works.

Stewart Miller33:40

An important question: how are these questions and their flow agreed, and what if the people affected weren't consulted? Everybody should be involved in putting the process together. You can also use our Governance module, which controls the release of processes into the organization, so you put some cadence around it.

David Shanley34:40

On manager approval, if approval is no, show comments. At the step level, a step assign rule assigns the second step to the person named in the manager question, and an email rule sends them a custom email with tokens from the form and, most importantly, a link to it.

David Shanley36:23

You can also attach documents, or send emails on set dates to tie in with SLAs. On the second step, a pass-back rule sends the form back if approval is no, a hide/show rule reveals the manager'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 Shanley38:42

Sign-off of documents gets a file upload and an induction date. IT prep gets a new username, the activation date and an equipment repeating table. The equipment column is a SharePoint list lookup, and the item column is a cascading lookup filtered by the chosen equipment, then an asset tag and an installation required yes/no.

David Shanley42:15

Security access is a fixed repeating table, with an area column and an access granted checkbox. A get list data rule fires when the step starts and pulls the area list into the table, so I make that column read-only. The welcome pack step gets an induction training question and venue details, and a generate document rule could send the pack as a Word document or PDF.

David Shanley44:35

Let's test it. If approval is no, it shows the comments and passes back, and the manager's comments are embedded on the first step. Say yes and it moves on. Then I edit the process, add a parallel group and drag in the three steps, and they now run in parallel. It's all about prototyping with an agile tool.

David Shanley46:38

We're only scraping the surface. Visual form designer lets you change step colors and fonts and add your logo. Visual flow designer shows the process as a diagram you can start a build from, and it can produce a Word document capturing the build at a moment in time, for compliance and auditing.

Stewart Miller48:30

You built our process in 30 minutes, didn't you?

David Shanley48:33

Give or take. Managing forms matters too. Work items can reassign forms after a set time or when someone has too many, and process performance shows how every form is doing against SLAs, so you can free up bottlenecks. The Governance hub lets IT provision environments and decide what's promoted, with a lighter touch.

David Shanley50:11

A dashboard can also show your forms and, using execute SQL stored procedure rules, push data to SQL Server and pull it back into a Power BI report.

Stewart Miller50:52

Well done, Dave. If you didn't choose onboarding, I hope there was value in it, and we'd be delighted to talk one-to-one about your own processes. One question: what training is provided? Training is a standard, integral part of our SureStart implementation, because we want customers to be self-sufficient, like the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

David Shanley52:37

Someone asked how you edit the SharePoint lists. If you've worked with Excel, it's very easy: you edit the cells in each column, and you can migrate Excel structures and data across to SharePoint lists.

Conor McGrath53:19

That was really impressive. A quick last poll: what outcome matters most when you digitize your processes?

Stewart Miller54:46

The ability to automate processes in-house is a clear winner, and that's the number one reason customers choose FlowForma.

Conor McGrath55:02

Speed and integration are two key challenges too. Janice asked about integration with an existing HR system.

David Shanley56:06

If it's a cloud system with a connector, FlowForma Connect, using Azure Logic Apps, lets you interface with it from Flow Designer. If it's on-premises and there are REST APIs, we can create a custom connector. There's always a way.

Conor McGrath56:36

How soon could I see an ROI from implementing FlowForma?

Stewart Miller56:48

Very quickly. Some customers have had a process up and running within two weeks, so you see a return in weeks rather than months. A large hospital in Dublin digitized a lot of paper-based processes, around 900,000 pieces of paper.

Conor McGrath57:37

Do you have any tips to help us prioritize which processes to automate?

David Shanley57:48

If there's a specific pain point that needs addressing immediately, go for that. If not, look for a quick win: the process that will positively affect the most people across your organization. It gets people on board, gains you traction internally, and you can scale up from there.

Conor McGrath58:23

Any questions we didn't get to, we'll answer afterwards. You can take a free 14-day trial of FlowForma at flowforma.com/trial, or book a one-to-one call with our process experts. We set out to digitize the process in under an hour and we did it, so thank you, David and Stewart.