admin, Autor w serwisie Dew-X

Business background

We were contacted by a law firm that handles many of its clients’ cases at the same time.

The goal was to optimize the flow of cases and control them.

A particular challenge was the different time taken to complete the tasks:

critically short – in the case of verification of incoming cases and handling of objections,
unpredictably long – in the cases in court (such cases can last for months, often even years).

Some tasks are performed inside the company and some are outsourced.

Solution

Dew-X turned out to be a bull’s eye.

A nine-step process was established: from registration, through verification, various specialist activities such as objections, setting dates for hearings, and ending with recording the verdict.

The forms are built to anticipate all possible contingencies, including adding multiple files at different stages of the process.

Two standard features of Dew-X deserve separate attention, which came in handy in this case:

Ability to control the completion date of a given task.
Well, when designing a process, we can set a default date, after which the task will return to the previous activity or be automatically terminated. These declared dates may be very distant. In this case, for one of the steps, it was set to 43,800 hours, or 5 years 🙂
Of course, nothing prevents you from completing it earlier or shortening the default deadline by submitting this task.
Possibility of involving external persons in the process in a given Organization.
You can read more about it in chapter Roles i Users Knowledgebases.

Above standard

The law firm reported one need that could not be satisfied within the standard Dew-X functionalities.
They wanted cases to be set automatically after the client fills out the form on the website.

This functionality was provided by the BlueDew team as separate, paid order.

Permissions

This is a very important point. Security considerations are obvious, but being aware of permissions also opens up organizational possibilities.

Let’s start by describing the roles that appear in Dew-X .

Owner [Owner] – is the person with the broadest permissions. The default is someone who founded the Organization, but this role can be delegated to another person.

Administrator [Admin] – a person with broad privileges. Depending on whether it is from within the organization or from its environment (more on this later), it is distinguished from the Owner by three features:

There can be many Administrators
Cannot delete a given Organization
They do not see how much disk space a given Organization takes (in fact, it is the space occupied by all organizations of a given Owner) and cannot enlarge this space

Members – people who can participate in the processes of a given Organization and use its file archive, but are deprived of administrative and ownership functions. The Owner and administrators are members of the organization at the same time, in the sense that in order to perform a standard activity (participation in processes or using a file archive, they do not have to have separate accounts).

As we noted earlier, administrators, but also members can assume two statuses in a given Organization:

to be inside the Organization
to be outside the Organization

If a given Member is from the outside of the Organization (not from inside it), he has no access to the list of other members of a given Organization. This creates a number of organizational opportunities, e.g. creating a customer support system (they will become members outside the Organization) and they will not be able to display its members other than those who are in contact with them in the process.

The permissions for given roles are listed in the table below:

Document Archive

In the case of Files Archive, the Owner and Administrators (Admin) of a given Organization have full permissions by default. Other users should be authorized to access documents in particular directories / folders (search and preview) and optionally to add, edit and delete files and folders.

Is it little or a lot of space?

As lawyers say – it depends.

Many processes are not accompanied by documents. Such processes weigh little. 1 GB may therefore be enough for years, and additionally assuming that not all of them have to be archived, it may turn out that by gradually removing old instances of processes, there will never be a need to enlarge the space.

The situation is different with processes in which documents (PDF) and other types of files appear. In the case of documents, their weight depends on many factors, e.g. the number of pages, whether they are scans, how they were made, whether they contain graphics, are they in color, etc., etc.

In the popular invoice flow process, it may look like this – an invoice generated from the accounting system usually weighs 30-100 KB, and an amateur scan with a cell 200-500 KB. Our experience shows that on average you can take 200 KB per document. Simply put, this means that 1 GB is enough for 5,000 invoices. This is really a lot – if your company has 100 cost invoices a month, the free space will be enough even for several years. Later, you will have to spend a dozen or so dollars … a year for the next package of space. It is bearable.

Of course, if audio files (e.g., helpdesk calls), video (e.g. monitoring recordings), AutoCAD (e.g. 3D projects) are added to your processes, the free space will run out quickly and you may have to pay several hundred dollars a year for additional packages.

For Dew-X, we chose Google Cloud Region Warsaw.
The first technology hub in Central and Eastern Europe for a global provider of public clouds, which was created thanks to the cooperation of Google and the National Cloud.

We already know that we deal with workflow every day, which does not mean that we always need tools other than those provided by nature. When we think about a large company, it is quite obvious that such a tool will be useful. But where is the limit?

We’ve thought about it many times, and it’s still in the pre-Dew-X era.

Does the number of employees criterion make sense?

This is often accepted. So, are 20 people working with computers enough? Or maybe 10 is enough, but in a territorially dispersed mode (now a significant part of the population is territorially dispersed)?
Then we found that the border is 50 people, but probably more because of budgetary possibilities, because licenses and implementations are expensive.

So cash

It is difficult to buy and implement a workflow system for less than 10,000 euros. Usually, budgets oscillate around 25,000 euros, and even those for 100,000 euros are not uncommon. The costs of subsequent maintenance are also remarkable. Let’s add to that now the internal cost, because without a lot of involvement of people from inside the company, no implementation will be successful. Result? You have to agree that this is not a path for everyone.

Needs

Let us not think for a moment about costs, but about needs (this approach is often found in literature and commercial processes, and quite unique in practice). Let’s imagine a micro entrepreneur that provides services to one customer. Will he need a document flow system? I don’t think so.
Okay, a micro with a few employees or subcontractors, providing services to many clients? Rather yes – in such an organization there are processes with a repetitive structure, e.g. customer service: complaints, support, vacation requests. Such an entity often uses external resources: accounting offices, human resources, lawyers, etc., which opens the way to further processes.
Will this entrepreneur buy the system offered in the traditional model? Probably not.
How much does he have to grow to be able to do it? Stay small? – not yet. Medium? – you can start looking.

And this is the first niche that Dew-X fills

Now let’s think about organizations that, even if they have money, for completely different purposes than the optimization of internal processes. It’s hard to name them all, but let’s try: associations, foundations, universities, chambers, councils, schools, sports clubs, non-profit organizations, etc. etc.

And this is the second niche

Hmmm, it is not appropriate to finish with two – usually three or five are indicated … so let’s go:

companies, e.g. consulting companies, which will offer support in the implementation of Dew-X for a fee
companies that, by adding Dew-X implementation as part of a wider service of process optimization at their clients, will increase the value provided
people or companies that will develop ready-made processes in Dew-X from the comfort of their home or office and will offer them (the same repeatedly) to customers – this functionality is there! Search the Knowledge Base or wait for the appropriate entry

Is it over?

No. Until now, such systems have not been available for free – we hope that there will be people who will discover completely new applications, and we also have a whole list of unrealized development ideas that may open up new application possibilities.

So who should be interested in Dew-X?

Companies and organizations that want, but for various reasons (e.g. financial or competency), have not implemented the workflow at all
Entities with a system in which some workflow processes have been omitted as part of the implementation documents and cases, and their implementation for various reasons in the current solution is impossible or not recommended
Advisors, consultants and workflow enthusiasts

Do you remember how Mr. Jourdain, the character of Molière’s comedy, was surprised to find himself speaking in prose?

The same is with workflow. Workflow is a way of information flow between various objects taking part in its processing. In a narrower sense, it is a definition of the way documents flow between employees performing a certain set of activities.

So each of us has been participating in workflow for many years. Whether we like it or not, workflow is part of our life, both private and professional.

Why did we not realize this? Probably because it has become common to think that we can only talk about workflow when we think about electronic document and case workflow systems. This should not be the case, of course, because most of the flows take place outside of them, even in quite modern and computerized organizations. Information flows from mouth to mouth, on boards or in the form of paper documents. Besides, not only workflow systems support the workflow – these functions are taken by e-mail programs, CRMs, shared files, DMSs, ERPs, etc., etc.

However, where the flow of information, documents, and tasks is carried out according to appropriate management procedures and is repeatable, it is best to check the software called workflow management system (WfMS or WFMS) or Business Process Management System (BPMS).

They are the ones we most often use to support popular business processes, such as:

Cost invoice workflow
Incoming correspondence
Purchase requests
Vacation requests
Support / support
Complaints handling
Acceptance of contracts

And that’s what Dew-X does. In a simple and intuitive way. For free!

Instructions for using the Dew-X system can be found in section Knowledge Base available from the main menu of the website

User manual

You can easily search for topics that interest you.

The manual will be updated on a regular basis.

Case handling

Business background

Solution

Above standard

Workflow

BPM

Document Workflow

Process Management

Business Processes

Process Optimization

BPMS

DMS

Document Archive

Document Management

Digital Transformation

Low-code

No-code

Roles in the system

Permissions

The permissions for given roles are listed in the table below:

Document Archive

How much is 1GB?

Is it little or a lot of space?

Who are document workflow systems for?

Does the number of employees criterion make sense?

So cash

Needs

And this is the first niche that Dew-X fills

And this is the second niche

Is it over?

So who should be interested in Dew-X?

Workflow is like prose

Manual

Instructions for using the Dew-X system can be found in section Knowledge Base available from the main menu of the website

Case handling

Business background

Solution

Above standard

Workflow

BPM

Document Workflow

Process Management

Business Processes

Process Optimization

BPMS

DMS

Document Archive

Document Management

Digital Transformation

Low-code

No-code

Roles in the system

Permissions

The permissions for given roles are listed in the table below:

Document Archive

How much is 1GB?

Is it little or a lot of space?

Where documents and processes are stored

Who are document workflow systems for?

Does the number of employees criterion make sense?

So cash

Needs

And this is the first niche that Dew-X fills

And this is the second niche

Is it over?

So who should be interested in Dew-X?

Workflow is like prose

Manual

Instructions for using the Dew-X system can be found in section Knowledge Base available from the main menu of the website