Your business practices encompass how you manage your enterprise. You can start the analyses of your processes by collecting information about your enterprise. This information helps you to determine the types of processes that you could automate.
Information you collect about your processes can be formatted into a flowchart. A flowchart can help you to identify reusable elements, the beginning and the end of record life cycles, and the parts of the life cycle that can be managed by a workflow process.
You could diagram your business process on paper, on a blackboard, or using a graphics software program to create a flowchart. Writing or diagramming a
business practice helps you to analyze it. It also provides you with a map of your process flows that you can use when you create a workflow process. Your goal is to produce a detailed diagram that shows all of the routes that a record can take through your enterprise during its life cycle.
Your research must include the following information:
❑ The names of the people who interact with records during a process
❑ The processes that are used to manage specific document
❑ The document that enter the process, and where the document go when they exit the process
❑ The data that are import/transfer in during a process
❑ The length of time it takes for a document to go through a process
❑ The parts of your current process that are working well and should be kept
❑ The parts of your current process that are not working well and should be changed or removed
As you document your business process, make note of trouble spots, such as undocumented procedures, or different ways to complete the same task. Address these issues and refine your business processes before you create and implement a workflow process.
