what is a workflow management system? - · pdf filewhat is a workflow management system? how...

What Is a Workflow Management System?

How Does a Workflow System Work?

A workflow management system is software that helps to define,administer and coordinate different business processes.Every company has a variety of such processes, alwaysinvolving several employees and systems. For example, a simpleuniversal workflow could control and supervise all requiredtasks or steps for a vacation or order request process. Thesetasks are vizualized as cubes with dependencies (see picture).

To stick with the vacation example: after the employee enters hispreferred dates in a specifically designed form, the departmentmanager will automatically receive an approval form through a web browser (picture). If the request is approved, the systemexports all necessary data to the HR system. The next step inthe workflow is to inform the employee – again in a specific form,where the simple workflow instance can be completed.

Why Do You Need a Workflow System?

How To Implement Your Own Workflows?

Workflow systems are used for transparent planning and controlof every part of an enterprise – especially where employees worktogether and share information. Email, Excel, meetings and othercostly manual coordination will be minimized and generalprocess efforts reduced. In a production environment, the systemwill increase productivity, improve quality and will allow visibilityanytime. Broadcasting and post-production are just two examples.

Your own workflows can be designed without programming.First you have to design forms and system interfaces with variousinput and output elements (picture) for the different roles in yourprocess. Then you have to connect all the tasks with dependenciesin order to define the sequence of the workflow steps. In this way,your own ‘workflow apps’ can be created quickly and easily, inorder to streamline any kind of production or managerial process.

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Content ManagementDuring a media production process, a variety ofassets such as video, audio tracks, graphics orsubtitles will be used. The workflow engine usesthe metadata in the archive or from an externalMAM to decide, which content has to be processedwhen, how and by whom. For the purposes ofdocumentation, Word and Excel files, quality checks,flowcharts or labels can be created, filed and thendistributed or printed. Search screens ensure that information about tapes and files can be foundquickly, no matter where they are stored or managed.

Order ManagementEach individual project or process has its owndistinct features. At the beginning of a workflowthe requirements are defined in an order formand/or calculated in a quotation (see picture 2).With this information, the system creates an individualworkflow instance, which includes all work stepsrequired to process the request. If a dependency ofa task is fulfilled, the job is delivered and can be edited individually, in bulk and/or with pre-definedtemplates. During the processing of the workflowthe system captures all data in order to allow reporting,invoicing or company-internal cost accounting.

Resource SchedulingThe high degree of automation and the extensivehelp functions serve to enable human decisionmaking. Therefore the scheduling system displaysthe current workflows in numerous differentviews in a web browser. These views (e.g. groupedby status or due date) are easy to understand, soyou can allocate the resources of your organizationoptimally. With one glance you can identifypossible bottlenecks, check how busy employees ordepartments are, and see what kind of costs are beingincurred. The scheduling system is a universallyapplicable tool for optimized resource planning.