Document Workflow Automation for a US Consumer Products Company

Summary

A US consumer products company wanted to streamline document management and business processes by introducing an approval workflow into its SharePoint Online intranet — one that tracks the number of approval rounds, sends recurring reminders when approvals stall, and lets users create new approval requests from existing ones quickly. INNERLUXES built a three-stage approval workflow and a companion reminder workflow, accelerating document-driven operations and increasing employee accountability.

About the Client

The Client is a US consumer products company.

The Challenge

The Client commissioned INNERLUXES to streamline document management and business processes by introducing an approval workflow into the company's intranet, based on SharePoint Online. The workflow had to track the number of approval rounds and send recurring reminders to participants if it was not completed. The Client also needed a fast, easy way to create new approval requests based on existing ones.

The Solution

INNERLUXES's team undertook the task of creating the approval workflow and also built a reminder workflow to enable automated reminders to the workflow participants.

The Client had used InfoPath forms that contained mostly Single Line Text fields. These were not suitable for the new workflows' request approval forms, so INNERLUXES's team changed field types and added new fields. To customize the forms, our SharePoint experts used JSLink.

The team used SharePoint Designer 2013 to create the approval workflow for the Tool Evaluation Reports list and to implement workflow transitions. The approval workflow contained three stages: Initial Draft, Learning and Tool Review, and Completed.

INNERLUXES's team allowed the approval workflow to start both manually and automatically. It started automatically when a list item was modified or a new item was added to the list.

To set up the approval workflow manually, the initiator filled in a request form and picked reviewers. Our team also enabled users to add comments when filling in the request form and when approving or rejecting a document. Upon completion of the request form, an automatic email notification was generated and sent to the workflow participants asking them to review a document, with the initiator's email address in cc. When all participants approved the item, the workflow completed and they received an automatic notification. The notification also showed the workflow stage and the approval round.

The reminder workflow was designed to send reminders to participants every 5 days if they hadn't clicked Approve or Reject.

Our team also enabled users to create a duplicate of an item, saving time by not having to re-enter all the fields in the request form when a previously approved document needed only minor changes.

The Results

• The Client received two workflows that accelerated document-induced business operations.
• Knowing the number of approval rounds enabled the Client to analyze and optimize its approval process.
• Item duplication simplified approving minor changes to previously approved documents.
• Reminders increased the accountability of the Client's employees in document management.

Technologies and Tools

SharePoint Online, SharePoint Designer 2013, JavaScript.