How Digitizing Workflow Will Transform Your Business

Introduction:

It’s the 21st century. No business has any business using paper for all its processes. Paper slows companies down and gives competing organizations the edge.

A vice president at Hewlett Packard once wrote, “The way an organization manages its information will be the difference between rising above and falling behind in an increasingly competitive market.”

Digitizing information is the first step. Making the switch from paperwork to GoCanvas mobile forms can make a huge difference in efficiency, accuracy, and ultimately the bottom line for any business — large or small.

But there is much more a company can do to ensure its competitiveness. Improving and automating workflow is the next stage in the evolution and growth of a company that is digital-first.

Workflow automation takes information traditionally captured and shared via paperwork and moves it to mobile devices — thus automating how that information is shared and built upon, which saves time, increases accountability, and reduces errors.

“It is essential to push the right information to the right person at the right time, rather than force them to go search for it,” said logistics software company CEO Tom McLeod. And he’s entirely correct.

Consider how much time you could save if inspection reports, work/service orders, audits and timecards could be automatically sent to the next person to add their data, comments, approvals, etc., and then that person could forward it to someone else for their input without even having to think about it.

One estimate says that each employee spends 11 hours per week storing, retrieving, or looking for paperwork that has gone missing. 

The Big Picture 

Take a look at the row of filing cabinets lining the back of your office. Those filing cabinets are not only taking up valuable real estate, but they are also likely to be full of documents that you don’t reference often. In fact, studies show that more than 85 percent of what is filed is never looked at again. What’s more, some of your filed documents may be duplicated information that you have stored somewhere else.

In addition, a recent survey from PwC found that 7.5 percent of all documents are lost. Add up all that time storing, retrieving, or looking for information that has gone missing and you’re looking at a significant time investment; one estimate is 11 hours per employee per week!

A recent survey of field service providers found that efficiency is the top strategic initiative for service companies, but 35 percent are not using any sort of field software solution to automate their workflows and processes.

Chapter 1: Eliminate Delays in Workflow Processes and Documentations

The good news? A well-conceived workflow automation system can solve many common problems.

It’s the next logical step for a mobile workforce — to allow field technicians, drivers, or other remote workers to be just as connected to the back office as someone sitting at a desk there. Real-time access to scheduling information — and automatic updates if something changes — keeps employees in the know. Immediate digital transfer of estimates, invoices and work/service orders means customers don’t have to wait around to find out how much a job will cost them or how to pay.

In this ebook, you’ll learn about three major ways to harness the power of workflow digitization and automation to benefit your company:

• Eliminate delays in processes: No more waiting for timesheets to be signed or for estimates to be approved; working across locations and time zones is just as easy as if all your employees were in the same place.
• Achieve checks and balances in approval processes: Ensure that expense reports, equipment checkouts, and maintenance reports are reviewed immediately by the right people.
• Take advantage of richer data: Photos, diagrams, signatures, and bar codes can all be easily implemented with digital forms.

In this eBook, you’ll learn how workflow automation can be put to the most effective use for your business — to improve your bottom line and boost the top line.

Consider this common example. At the end of the week, employees take their completed paper time cards and turn them into the office or to a supervisor. But then that information has to be re-keyed into a computer, checked for accuracy, and approved by another supervisor.

Even one small delay in this process can put a lot of pressure on key employees. Great Lakes Fusion, a growing construction company, sometimes had timecards arriving as late as Monday, and with payroll going out on Tuesday the compressed schedule caused serious stress for the back office.

With GoCanvas, though, time cards can be filled out directly from an employee’s mobile device, and with the GoCanvas Workflow tool, the timecard automatically gets sent to the correct supervisor’s devices, and he or she can look it over and sign off on it immediately.

Paper And Mobile Face Off In Our Side-By-Side Comparison… 

Paper Forms	Mobile Forms
Tom, a service tech, uses a  paper time card to log his hours throughout the week.	Tom, a service tech, uses the GoCanvas Timesheet App to log his hours throughout the week on his mobile device.
Monday morning, Marge, the office manager, realizes she hasn’t received Tom’s time card, which delays payroll processing	Required fields on the app means he can’t skip fields, ensuring ALL info is entered, and since it is typed, everything is neat and automatically calculated.
Tom drives back to the office and drops the worn, handwritten paper time card off on Marge’s desk.	Tom then uses the automated  Workflow function to send his timesheet to his supervisor, for approval.
The next day, as Marge keys in the info, she can’t make out some of the figures. Plus, there’s no supervisor signature and he is out until Wednesday.	Jason receives an alert, whether in or out of the office. He can review, sign and forward to Marge at the office in minutes.
The paper time card is finally approved at 4 pm and Marge completes payroll that evening — one full day late.	Marge has everything she needs to complete payroll on time and is a happy camper!
Payroll completed… Several headaches later and a full day late.	Payroll completed… The process using GoCanvas mobile apps only took minutes!

The U.S. Department of Labor plans to propose new federal overtime rules in 2019, which will require employees making less than a certain amount (to be announced) who didn’t previously track their hours to start doing so. If you have employees who fall within this group, you may need to implement a whole new timecard system. Why not start with a digital one to avoid the hassles and inefficiencies of paper?

Of course, there are plenty of other examples of how workflow automation can help eliminate delays. Consider the cable installation company, whose salesperson must get approval on a job estimate from her supervisor before sharing it with the customer. With a paper form, that approval could take hours — or days if it gets buried under something else on the supervisor’s desk. The more people need to touch a specific form, and the more days it takes, the more likely you are to have something go wrong.

Or take the case of an inspector for a trucking company, who spots several problems during the course of his inspection and needs to communicate his findings to the service technician team.

With GoCanvas Workflow, job estimates and inspection information can be captured digitally. Each section is immediately saved and stored in the cloud. Whoever needs to see the next section is notified on their smartphone or tablet, which ensures the form doesn’t get ignored.

And it’s easy to implement. One trucking company that wanted to add Workflow to an existing GoCanvas app was able to do so in just five minutes! 

Certarus, a North American leading CNG transportation company, has to manage employees from Calgary, Canada, to Houston, Texas.

The company decided to turn most of its paperwork — from time cards to vacation requests to invoices — into one single GoCanvas app that all employees can access from their mobile phones.

Since implementation, Certarus’ 35 employees have made more than 15,000 submissions through the app. Imagine the time it would take to handle, process, and file 15,000 paper forms. 

Soon after the initial implementation, Certarus added Workflow to its app so that supervisors can easily sign off and approve forms. Now it’s simple to get a second set of eyes on invoices, time cards, and more, in an app that employees and managers are already completely comfortable with, on a device that’s already at employees’ fingertips

Chapter 2: Achieve Checks and Balances in Approval Processes

Typically, a form needs to be seen by more than just the person who filled it out. And in some industries, notably construction, inspection forms have to make their way between multiple users for input, feedback, and approval before work can continue.

It’s not hard to see how paperwork can get lost, slow down processes, or introduce uncertainty.

Perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than in the world of expense reporting. IT professional Aijaz Shaikh writes:

“When employees submit their expenses for their manager to approve and for the accounting team to process, they often feel like they lose visibility of what happens next in the process. Their biggest question is when they’ll be reimbursed for their expenses. It often leads to late payment that staff has to bear.” 

Indeed, whether it’s handing a stack of papers and receipts, or faxing info to the main office, the result is the same: lots of room for lost pieces, errors, and delays.

But with GoCanvas Workflow, a digital report is sent immediately to the employee’s manager, who can review the report, check for any typos or inconsistencies, and approve it or send it back to the employee to fix.

This takes seconds, whether the employee is across the hallway — or around the world. And there’s no chance that a form can get lost on the way or sent to the wrong person.

Of course, inspections and expense reporting are just two areas where multiple users can and should weigh in. Other areas where defined checks and balances can be helpful include manufacturing, where quality assurance professionals can flag a problem and send a note back to the line so that the person responsible can make the needed fix and sign off that it’s been addressed.

Or consider the benefits of a detailed digital equipment check-in and check-out log: with GoCanvas Workflow, supervisors can approve equipment check-out requests to ensure that a crucial piece of equipment isn’t double-booked. They can also approve check-ins to confirm that equipment is physically present when — and where — the employee says it is. The result? No more lost equipment and an end to costly downtime.

Chapter 3: Take Advantage of Richer Data

Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words. If a plumbing issue is more complicated than a simple leaky faucet, it could take a long time for a plumber to precisely describe it in words — oftentimes a service provider will resort to shorthand and not fully describe the situation. But one photograph can illustrate the problem at a glance.

One New England construction company would take digital photos to go with their paperwork, but then employees needed to spend hours matching photos to forms.

But by going digital, you can take the photos directly within your mobile form. The photo is always attached and included with the form for easy reference — and it’s stored safely in the cloud.

And just because you’re using a digital form instead of paper doesn’t mean you can’t include a signature. With GoCanvas, a customer, employee, or supervisor just signs right on the screen using his or her finger.

GoCanvas also incorporates barcodes (so users can scan a barcode on a display and retrieve information, such as how much inventory should be stocked in that space); and can capture GPS coordinates, do calculations, and harness reference data to pre-populate forms with the correct information.

Workflow adds to the ability to capture rich data — like photos, signatures, and GPS coordinates — by making it easy for multiple people to add that data. Perhaps one employee sends a photo from his location at the first worksite but a second employee needs to add another photo or a signature. With Workflow, that process is automated and takes just seconds.

Conclusion:

If you’re still using paper, your business is falling seriously behind the competition. Digital information isn’t just easier to find, sort, and manage, but represents a whole new way of working, where the information you need at any given moment comes directly to you instead of waiting to be sought out. Workflow automation saves time, increases accountability, and reduces errors by making it easy for multiple people to access, contribute to, and approve important documents. 

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

GoCanvas has helped a variety of businesses across multiple industries transform their safety processes and rethink their efficiency, ultimately saving them money. Why not do the same? Reach out to one of our experts today to kickstart your process revolution.