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What is a Document Management Workflow?

Comidor Team — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 14:38:53 +0000

The volume of documents can quickly become overwhelming in the day-to-day operations of modern business. Fortunately, document management workflows offer a systematic approach to sorting through the chaos, providing a structured framework for handling and processing essential paperwork with ease and efficiency.

In this blog, we’ll define document management workflows, and explain their significance, the steps involved, benefits, and real-world applications.

Ready to learn more? Let’s go!

What are Document Management Workflows?

Document management workflows are structured sequences of tasks designed to streamline the creation, review, approval, and distribution of documents within an organization. These workflows ensure that documents move seamlessly through various stages, eliminating bottlenecks and reducing manual intervention. From capturing initial data to archiving final versions, every step is orchestrated to optimize efficiency and accuracy.

Now that we’ve defined document management workflows, let’s delve into the specific steps and elements that comprise these workflows.

The Steps in a Document Management Workflow

Understanding a document workflow is the first step in business process automation (BPA). The exact function will depend on your industry, document type, and regulations that may apply.

Generally speaking, a document management workflow contains a few simple elements:

Document Capture: The process begins with capturing documents from various sources, including emails, scanners, or cloud storage.
Indexing and Classification: Documents are then indexed and classified based on predefined criteria, making them easily searchable and retrievable.
Document Routing: Next, documents are routed to the appropriate stakeholders for review, approval, or further action.
Collaboration and Editing: Stakeholders collaborate on documents, making necessary edits and providing feedback.
Approval Workflow: Documents undergo approval workflows, ensuring compliance with organizational policies and standards.
Distribution: Approved documents are distributed to relevant parties via email, shared folders, or document management systems.
Archiving and Retrieval: Finally, documents are archived for future reference and retrieval, maintaining a comprehensive audit trail.

Having outlined the steps involved, let’s explore the many benefits that document management workflows offer businesses.

The Benefits of Document Management Workflows

Adopting a document management workflow can provide a wide range of benefits for a business, such as:

Enhanced Efficiency: By automating repetitive tasks and streamlining data-related processes, document management workflows significantly improve operational efficiency.
Reduced Errors: Standardized workflows minimize the risk of errors and ensure consistency in document handling.
Improved Collaboration: Workflows facilitate seamless collaboration among teams, enabling real-time sharing and feedback on documents.
Compliance and Security: Document management workflows enforce compliance with regulatory requirements and enhance data security by controlling access to sensitive information.
Workflow optimation: Document management workflows can optimize workflows by introducing automation and lessening the time and effort involved in manual tasks.
Cost Savings: By reducing paper usage, streamlining processes, and minimizing manual intervention, workflows contribute to cost savings over time.

The last thing to cover is how businesses can use document management workflows. In the next section, you’ll find the most popular use cases.

Use Cases of Document Management Workflows

Document management workflows can be adapted to fit the distinct needs of any industry or organization. Let’s examine some real-world applications:

Accounts Payable Processing

Automating invoice processing workflows can streamline accounts payable operations, reducing cycle times and improving accuracy. Companies utilize document management workflows to digitize invoices upon receipt, automatically routing them for approval based on predefined criteria.

Through integration with receipt OCR technology, businesses can efficiently record expenses by extracting relevant data from receipts, eliminating manual data entry, and minimizing errors. This streamlined approach accelerates expense management and invoice processing, optimizing cash flow and enhancing vendor relationships.

Contract Management

Document management workflows simplify contract creation, review, and approval processes, enabling faster contract lifecycles. Companies leverage workflows to automate contract generation based on predefined templates, facilitating collaboration among stakeholders for review and negotiation.

With version control and audit trails, businesses ensure compliance with contractual obligations and minimize the risk of errors or discrepancies. By streamlining the contract management process, organizations reduce administrative overhead and expedite time-to-signature, thereby accelerating revenue generation and mitigating legal risks.

HR Onboarding

Automating HR onboarding workflows accelerates the onboarding process, ensuring a seamless experience for new hires while minimizing administrative overhead. Companies utilize document management workflows to streamline the collection and processing of new hire documents, including employment contracts, tax forms, and employee handbooks.

By automating document routing and approval, HR teams can efficiently coordinate and automate tasks across departments, such as IT provisioning and benefits enrollment. This standardized approach enhances the onboarding experience, improves compliance with regulatory requirements, and empowers HR professionals to focus on strategic initiatives that drive employee engagement and retention.

Customer Service

Document management workflows enable customer support teams to handle inquiries and resolve issues more efficiently by providing quick access to relevant information. Companies implement workflows to centralize customer communications and documentation, ensuring that agents have instant access to case histories, product manuals, and troubleshooting guides.

By automating customer service requests, businesses can expedite resolution times and enhance customer satisfaction. Additionally, integrated analytics tools enable organizations to gain insights into customer interactions, identify trends, and proactively address recurring issues, fostering long-term customer loyalty and advocacy.

Conclusion

In conclusion, document management workflows are essential tools for modern businesses aiming to enhance efficiency and streamline operations. By automating key processes—from document capture to archiving—organizations can significantly reduce errors, improve collaboration, and ensure compliance.

The adaptability of these workflows allows them to be tailored to the specific needs of various industries, making them invaluable across diverse applications such as accounts payable, contract management, HR onboarding, and customer service. By implementing a structured document management workflow, businesses not only save time and reduce costs but also position themselves for sustained growth and improved productivity.

Ready to Experience the Power of Workflow Automation for Document Management?

Comidor offers powerful solutions for automating document management workflows, and streamlining business processes to improve efficiency and reduce manual tasks. With Comidor’s platform, organizations can automate document generation, storage, approvals, and distribution, ensuring seamless collaboration and tracking. Its intelligent automation tools enable businesses to process and analyze documents, centralize document handling, enforce compliance, and minimize errors. By reducing administrative burdens and speeding up approvals, Comidor enhances productivity and helps businesses stay organized and agile in a fast-paced environment. Start your free trial today and experience the benefits of workflow automation firsthand!

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Intelligent Document Processing: What You Need To Know

Comidor Team — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 14:23:53 +0000

Leveraging technology to support handling workload becomes necessary, for any type or size of business. Whether you run an eCommerce business, blockchain startup, retail shop, or financial organization, implementing AI-based systems is key to staying relevant in the global market.

Intelligent document processing (IDP) is a breakthrough in developing an efficient working environment and supporting employees’ productivity. Companies can save countless hours by automating repetitive tasks and building fast, accurate, and safe systems for employees and clients.

Many small businesses may still be doubtful about implementing IDP software in their offices as it may be costly. But, if you aim for long-term success, IDP software is definitely worth investing in.

Below, we compiled the essentials of intelligent document processing and its benefits to help you understand better and wash away your doubts. Shall we get started?

What Is Intelligent Document Processing (IDP)?

Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) is an AI-powered, cloud-based, and automated technology to process documents from various formats and sources. IDP uses Natural Language Processing, Image Recognition, Predictive Modeling, and Deep Learning in organizing unstructured data.

The advanced technology of IDP systems allows organizations to easily and quickly organize images, words, pdfs, online forms, paper, and more. The key capability of IDP is that it can mimic human abilities in sorting, segmenting, and processing documents.

With the implementation of Machine Learning and language processing, IDP can see the context of any document. It can be used in any workflow automation solution as it is very helpful for document contextualizing and processing.

How IDP Works

The leading actor behind intelligent document processing is the processor. It must have advanced and knowledgeable systems that can handle significant responsibilities in processing documents from multiple sources and formats.

Documents will undergo checking stages by a processor. It will check whether there are errors and unmatched data to be fixed. A processor will also ensure that the data from various sources are present and in order.

As IDP carries a significant role, it must have a high-level attention-to-detail system. Companies can benefit significantly by utilizing the systems in their working funnels. IDP can cut countless times by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, which makes it worth every investment.

For example, banks can use IDP to support their employees. They can check and assess loan applicants’ data to see whether or not they’re eligible to get a loan. Automated systems and technologies like AI and BPM allow financial employees to finish tasks faster, and they can allocate more time to more demanding tasks.

IDP Stages and Components

In completing high-responsibility tasks, IDP has some stages and components that each play a crucial role. Companies and organizations that invest in utilizing IDP must be knowledgeable about them to make the best use of it.

1. Pre-processing

The data collection process belongs to the pre-processing stage. A company may have digital and paper-based data sources, so the first task is to make the data source equal.

Most IDPs have built-in features to connect with other business tools, such as scanners. So, companies can integrate their scanner with IDP software to automatically convert physical copies into digital formats.

2. Processing

After collecting and gathering the data from digital documents, IDP software will read, identify, and clean up the data.

It may perform several tasks, including Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Some examples of OCR processes are extracting text from images and image enhancement.

3. Classification and data extraction

The next stage is data classification. Implementing natural language processing algorithms in IDP software helps analyze data elements and takes only relevant ones.

For example, in assessing loan applications, the IDP system identifies personal information on the applicants, including names, addresses, tax returns, and credit history. It analyzes and decides whether or not applicants are eligible to get the loan.

When the classification process is done, IDP software extracts the crucial data using various methods. The method depends on what data needs to be extracted, such as template-based extra traction and rules-based extraction.

Machine Learning is one of the most used methods to extract data. It automatically takes out and gathers crucial data from pre-processing and classified documents. Companies can store the extracted data for further necessity.

4. Data validation

IDP software automatically validates the previous process’s relevant data according to the systems. The system may also correct technical mistakes, such as fixing typos or misspellings and adjusting documents to specific formatting. Companies can also take the extra mile by checking and validating data manually to ensure that everything included is accurate.

5. Integration

Companies can integrate IDP software into other business-related applications, such as ERPs and document management software. It can also assist users in delivering insights along with the document.

Integrating IDP and other business programs helps quicken operations and make accurate decisions. Moreover, IDP software may also help companies to predict results for particular tasks, such as making loan approval.

6. BI and analytics

The data processed with IDP software can support and enrich Business Intelligence (BI) and analytics. As data management solutions, BI and analytics can collect data from IDP software to be analyzed further and present the results using statistics. Integrating IDP software, BI, and analytics systems helps businesses make better and more accurate decisions.

Core Benefits of IDP

With sophisticated technology, IDP has many benefits for companies from various fields, such as financial institutions, health organizations, transportation agencies, and supply chain companies.

Those utilizing IDP software can achieve over 90% accuracy in processing documents. Not stopping there, you will see more benefits of implementing it. Below we round up four core benefits of adjusting Intelligent Document Processing software in your digital workplace.

1. Boost efficiency

It’s undeniable that using IDP software can boost workflow efficiency. Employees can avoid repetitive work that takes them a lot of time to finish.

IDP software helps automate repetitive work and allows employees to be more productive. They can allocate more time to do other significant tasks and get more jobs done by the end of the month,

2. Enhance data quality and usability

IDP software helps companies enhance data quality by gathering data from various sources and taking only the relevant ones. It also can identify, analyze, and process data automatically and accurately.

Moreover, IDP software can take care of trivial mistakes, such as correcting misspellings and adjusting the data into specific formats. While employees can take hours to finish the job, IDP software helps them save countless times by making everything automatic and efficient.

3. Promotes and scales automation

IDP software is powered by Artificial Intelligence, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computer Vision (CV), and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Such qualities become a solid reason IDP software is worth investing in for companies.

They can boost company credibility and professionalism by promoting automated workflows. Companies can also integrate IDP software with existing tools to support their business. Best of all, it helps them stay relevant and ahead of competitors in a fast-paced digitized society.

4. Improve compliance and security

The sophisticated technology supporting IDP software provides a secure environment to process and store data, especially those related to clients’ personal information.

IDP software has protection algorithms that protect processed and stored data against unauthorized access.

Takeaway

The advent of technology has provided businesses with sophisticated machines to assist their job and lessen the burden on their shoulders. They can adjust automated systems to handle work tasks and provide instant responses to customers.

Intelligent document processing (IDP) is worth investing in to catch up to more prominent competitors. It can be an excellent solution for any company to satisfy their customers and grow their business.

Author bio:
Adela Belin is a content marketer and blogger at Writers Per Hour. She is passionate about sharing stories with the hope to make a difference in people’s lives and contribute to their personal and professional growth. Find her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

The post Intelligent Document Processing: What You Need To Know appeared first on Comidor Low-code Automation Platform.

10 Must-have Document Management Software Features

Marketing Team — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 08:21:22 +0000

There are many document management systems with various features. New technologies come up every day and offer plenty of possibilities for the users. With so many choices, the decision-makers are baffled and often overlook the essence of the Document Management Software Solutions. Document Management Software is a system that is used to store, manage and organize documents. It can be used by an individual, business, or organization to store and manage their documents. The essence for an organization is to be able to preserve, define, store, index, update and explore legacy or the newly produced organization knowledge. To achieve that a decent document management system should have features like document security, version control, document sharing, and collaboration among others.

Before diving into the features that are important for Document Management Software to have, let’s describe what document management software is in more detail.

Document Management Software Definition

Document Management Software is a type of enterprise content management software that helps organizations manage documents, emails, and other types of information. It also helps organizations to find the information they need quickly. It can be used to manage and store documents in an organized manner, track, and share all types of data from different sources. The main objective of document management software is to reduce the risk of misplacing or losing a document because it can contain important information that may be needed for future reference. What’s more, these tools are designed in a way that allows you to store copies of your documents in remote locations. This gives you a higher level of security if something goes wrong with your physical storage space.

There are many document management software available in the marketplace that can address a wide range of needs. Document management software can be used to address the following needs:

Providing an overview of all the documents in your organization, including their status and who is responsible for them
Providing easy access to documents when you need them
Ensuring that sensitive information is not shared with those without the necessary rights
Tracking how often a document is accessed and by whom
Reminding users when they are due to update or review a document

Document Management Software Features

1. Web access

In this time when the internet is so prevalent, users must have access to their documents from anywhere. A web-based document management system provides fast and easy access to files and folders which is important in this era of the internet. There is a number of Document Management Software features that help with web access to these documents thanks. These include:

Mobile access – to view or edit documents on mobile devices
Cloud storage – to store documents in the cloud
File sharing – to share folders or individual files with others

2. Document Search

Each user has many files and must be able to search them really fast by using only a few letters of what he’s looking for. Document Management Software helps in storing documents in an organized way so that they can be easily retrieved when needed. Document Search is a feature of Document Management Software that allows users to search through the stored content.

The document search feature can be used for finding content by name, date, author, or other metadata like tags. It also provides a preview of the document before opening it and has some advanced features like highlighting text within the document and exporting files in PDF or Word format.

3. Drag and drop Features

Drag and drop – this feature is a must-have Document Management Software feature. It allows you to drag and drop files from one folder to another folder or even from one application to another application. When it comes to Document Management Software, the drag and drop feature that allows users to drag and drop files from their desktop into the online document management system is a time-efficient utility.

4. Embedded viewer and editor

The Document Management Software provides an embedded viewer and editor which allows the user to view, edit and save the document from within the software. The embedded viewer lets you view and edit documents without having to open them in another window or download them – this saves time as you don’t need to switch between tabs or applications.

With an embedded viewer and editor, there is no need to download any file to your desktop. Quick open and edit your files online.

5. Versioning

Another important functionality of a Document Management System is versioning. Versioning allows users to store previous file versions, have access to all versions of the document, compare them, and revert to an older version if needed. What’s more, users can see the owner and upload date/time! Versioning is a powerful Document Management Software feature that can help you to keep track of changes in your documents over time.

6. File Locking

File locking is an important feature for Document Management Software. It prevents users from making changes to a locked file until the user who had locked it, unlocks it.

It’s a great way of blocking the modification of files. If you lock a file, no one else can move, edit, delete this file. Except for blocking file modifications, file locking may prevent two people from editing the same file at the same time, which can cause data loss and other issues. The software locks the file when it detects that someone else is working on it and unlocks it once they are done with the edits,

7. Sharing and rating

A great Document Management System should give users the ability to share any folder or file with their team, or specific users and be able to rate its value. Thus, business collaboration is more effective than ever, while each user can relate a document with tasks, opportunities, or contracts from the CRM package and any other entity.

Sharing documents is a great way to collaborate with teams, but it can also be a source of frustration if not done correctly. Good Document Management Software should allow users to share documents easily and securely. In addition, Document Management Software also can have a rating system where users can rate each document on a predefined scale. This rating system helps in keeping track of which documents are popular among employees and which ones need improvement.

Thus, collaboration is more effective than ever, while each user can relate a document with tasks, opportunities, or contracts from the CRM package and any other entity.

8. Files and folders rights

File and folder rights are a vital part of any Document Management Software. In a Document Management System, there must be the possibility to define who has access to the folders and the files but also must define the editing rights, so not all users can modify specific files. Assigning editing rights allows you to control what your team can do with the documents that they are working on. For example, if you have the sales team working on a document, you can restrict them from editing the document’s title and description or from deleting the document.

9. Document linking

Document linking is the process of connecting documents, files, or other data sources that are stored in different locations so that you can access them from one central location. This allows you to access one document from another, or link the document with any other relevant record inside the Document Management Software. This way, documents can be more easily searched for and accessed later on.

10. Inform mechanism

Inform mechanism is a Document Management Software feature that provides users with the ability to send a notification when new documents are created or modified in the system. Users can notify about any file or folder update with direct notification messages through the Document Management system.

Enhance your Business Collaboration with Comidor Document Management System

Comidor DMS makes it easy to share creative ideas and knowledge within your company. Plus, you can make your team more productive by uploading files and sharing content with them in real-time, thus saving them valuable time. Engage your team in brainstorming sessions, and create meaningful connections with your team members.

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Cloud Document Management System: Fact or Fiction?

Marketing Team — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 08:27:57 +0000

People have the tendency to believe. They believe in an idea, a concept, a technology or a bedtime story. If they like the story, they don’t care of facts or proofs.

Since the beginning of the IT era, new innovations, models or tools have fulfilled any possible dream inside techno believers’ minds. This is basically due to the fact that always, with the exception of Walt Disney, the techno vendor incepts the idea and then injects it to believers’ minds. For the idea to be “catchy” there must always be some troubled situation, a villain, a princess and a savior prince. But as always a dream can become a nightmare when the villain prevails and the princess left alone without her prince (and the white horse…)

Cloud Document Management System is probably the most indicative case of transforming a dream to a nightmare. Cloud DMS had all the ingredients of a blockbuster. There is the troubled situation where the princess has to digitize and version practically everything from her paper-piles, there is the arch-villain cutting trees somewhere in the Amazon rain forest and you have myriad vendor princes willing to save the princess by offering their Cloud Document Management System!

The truth is that the majority of the Cloud Document Management Systems cannot cope with the 21^st century business environment. To survive in this environment you have to collaborate and to manage your documents. But, managing documents is not what used to be a decade ago. Nowadays a knowledge worker needs to:

be notified (at near real time) about which document has been modified and by whom in her activity stream.
View, edit, delete based on her role lock the document (subject to her role’s access rights)
distribute the document (WITHOUT SENDING E-MAIL)
define access rights for a document
have full versioning capability
choose the desired document’s version to download and work upon
link a document to a task, project, customer, CRM, Project Management, Business Intelligence or any other business entity
upload a document to the company’ wiki

DMS era has gone. It has been passed to business oblivion since the advent of collaboration platforms. It is a natural evolution (successful mutation) that the IT-nature undergone to cope with the fast-paced knowledge economy and constant demand of boosting productivity. In this economy, you prevail by circulating “knowledge commodities” rather than simply copying and storing…

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