On this Digital Workplace Today Podcast Tatiana Baquero – Senior Knowledge Management Consultant at Portal Solutions talks with us all about workflows. This is Tatiana’s first appearance on the Digital Workplace Today Podcast and we’re excited to share her workflow expertise with our listeners.
Listen to this episode to hear it all, or read the show notes for an overview of the conversation and links to some of the key items we discussed.
 |
 |
SHOW NOTES
Setting the Stage: What are Workflows?
Our show this week begins with Tatiana going over the basics of workflows. “In order to understand what a workflow is,” she says, “it’s important to understand what a process is.” Processes are simply series of steps that have specific objectives, goals, and roles that are involved in order to complete the process. Workflows are the automation of these processes, often by using powerful solutions such as Sharepoint Online or Nintex.
By implementing SharePoint workflows, organizations can much more efficiently achieve their ultimate process objectives.
When Do Workflows Work Out Best?
In order to successfully create and execute a workflow, Tatiana tells us, “a business process” must be “well defined from the start.” Things like roles, specific steps, documents and forms needed, when and to who notifications must be sent all must be as clearly planned out as possible from the start. Without well defined processes it can become much more difficult to build out successful workflows.
What Are Some Ways to Avoid the Biggest Pitfalls When Building Workflows?
Tatiana tells us about three main things to do to avoid problems when building workflows. First, she says, it is very important to document your process from the beginning. Focusing on that and each of the different elements of the workflow is key.
Second, organizations need to understand that implementing a workflow takes time. It takes multiple iterations to get to a final state, because it is important to check that you have all of the different things that you need to achieve your desired functionality.
Lastly, test test test. A lot of testing is needed to make sure that a workflow works as expected.
Listen For More…
Listen to the full podcast to hear our full conversation with Tatiana including discussions about how workflows help businesses save money and time, the importance of workflow user training, the most common complaints about workflows both from the developer and user side, a dive deeper into using Nintex for workflow building, and more!
MOMENT OF THE WEEK
Recently, Microsoft announced the availability of SharePoint Server 2016 Release Candidate. Over 5,000 people tested out the beta and helped give feedback to improve Sharepoint Server and move it from beta testing the release candidate stage.
Tatiana also reminded us that Microsoft Sharepoint 2016 now has a specific release “period” set for Spring 2016. The release is nearly here!
DON’T FORGET…
If you missed our last episode, head over to listen to our conversation with COO Dale Tuttle about democratizing data analysis with Power BI. In the podcast prior to that, we spoke with CEO Daniel Cohen-Dumani about the evolution and future of Sharepoint.
Microsoft’s legal team created a product called Matter Center which is a legal focused extension of SharePoint in Office 365 to allow the management of legal matters and documents. Microsoft has decided to open source this product, and it is available on GitHub. If you’re thinking about using SharePoint for legal, for an attorney, or for a law firm, it’s an excellent, very affordable alternative.
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
Do you enjoy listening to our conversation on the latest trends and insights in the digital workplace?
Consider subscribing to the Digital Workplace Today podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.
And if you can, take a moment to review the podcast. Your feedback is helpful, and we’d love to hear what topics you would like us to cover in future episodes.
