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Why are document workflows important?
Being able to organise workflows around a document is crucial. Thanks to workflows, organisations ensure that tasks, process dures, steps inside and outside the organisation are not only completed in a structured way, but also enforced.
In this way, organisations ensure that agreements are kept, certain steps are always taken and that everything follows an established structure.
As organisations are increasingly in chains and thus collaborate more with other organisations, getting a grip on processes around documents is crucial.
Moreover, workflows are the foundation for an organisation not only to work efficiently, but also to be compliant. After all, it makes steps taken, actions and procedures involving documents easily transparent afterwards.
Organisations without workflow often face document loss or that certain steps or actions have not been taken (often without anyone knowing). There is no grip, no control and so it can cost an organisation money and negatively affects quality.
What is a document workflow?
A document workflow is a process belonging to a document of one or more steps. Each step contains a possible action, whether automated or not.
In actions, there are roughly two flavours:
- A human (manual) operation
- An automated operation
A human manual act is, for example, reading and approving a document or (digitally) signing a document.
An automated operation is, for example, adding a watermark, merging documents, converting to PDF or, for example, sending the document to a specific person.
These steps can also follow one another, creating an entire process, the document workflow. So it's really about who, what and when in the process around a document.
The possibilities of a document workflow
With M-Files, you can very sophisticated and at the same time very easily set up a workflow via a drag and drop principle. You can adjust steps or change conditions, sequences and consequences of certain steps and actions very intuitively.
The great thing is that within M-Files, this has been made so user-friendly that process owners can arrange this themselves. IT departments are thus spared and who knows the process better than the people directly involved?
Moreover, M-Files makes processes visually clear in this way, making it even easier to set them up and further optimise them.
A document workflow can support a wide range of processes, some examples below:
- Document archiving
- Contract approvals
- Quality management procedures
- Onboarding new employees
The benefits of document workflows
With document workflows, organisations cleverly create more control and higher efficiency. We list the main benefits of document workflows for you.
Process capture & enforcement
Many processes in organisation happen spontaneously and manually. Thanks to document workflows, these processes happen in a structured way and, more importantly, you can enforce processes. For example, a contract cannot be signed until it has first been approved.
Visual insight
In M-Files, organisations visualise processes and the underlying steps and actions. This creates a nice overview and provides insight into possible optimisations and improvements.
Make organisation lean
Because processes are transparent and can be adjusted quickly, organisations quickly discover bottlenecks and waiting boxes. This allows organisations to easily optimise their processes.
Manage documents like never before.
