What is Workflow?

All too often, we hear and even use terms assuming others know exactly what we mean. One term used in the document industry is workflow- but what does it mean?

According to Wikipedia

A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations...

The flow being described often refers to a document that is being transferred from one step to another.

A workflow is a model to represent real work for further assessment, e.g., for describing a reliably repeatable sequence of operations. More abstractly, a workflow is a pattern of activity enabled by a systematic organization of resources, defined roles and mass, energy and information flows, into a work process that can be documented and learned. Workflows are designed to achieve processing intents of some sort, such as physical transformation, service provision, or information processing. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workflow )

Why is Workflow Important to Me?

Understanding workflow and its connection to documents allows companies to map current processes then actively simplify the steps involved. While some redundancy in process can be a safeguard against errors, unnecessary steps may be costing your company significant resources.

Some document management programs can directly impact your workflow by electronically transferring documents from one step to another- and can even be programmed to repeat these steps automatically. Over time, the initial cost of a document management program will be more than offset by the time and resource savings to your company- provided you analyze and measure your workflow.