WebCon Business Process Suite 5.0

Use cases:

• Scenario of use
• Business benefits

System description:

• End-user interface
• Workflow engine 
• Process performance monitoring and reporting
• Integration with 3rd party software and hardware
• Barcodes
• Document scanners and the OCR
• Security

WebCon Business Process Suite 5.0 is the newest version of the cutting edge Business Process Management and Document Management System. This powerful platform allows our customers to increase the performance of their companies by optimizing business processes and automating documents management.

WebCon Business Process Suite 5.0 features: 

• highly efficient, scalable and flexible workflow engine using a dedicated SQL database - for millions of elements and thousands of end users,

• graphical interface for business process modelling, creating forms and workflow design - so the end users and IT can see their business processes eye to eye,

• predefined actions and acceptation rules - to reduce delivery time and cut costs of implementation,

• advanced process monitoring and analysis - to identify bottlenecks quickly and improve processes as they run,

• marking documents with barcodes - to improve documents handling within the system,

• scanning and the OCR of documents - to reduce input time and serve advanced search capabilities,

• bi-directional integration with Active Directory, SharePoint lists, SQL and Oracle databases as well as third party systems - to integrate with company's IT environment seamlessly.

WebCon Business Process Suite 5.0 uses the Microsoft SharePoint platform's end user interface.

WebCon Business Process Suite is commonly used to manage the document flow within the company. The system handles all document flow stages, i.e.: 

• document registration,
• marking the paper document with a barcode and automated scanning,
• OCR - character recognition within the scanned document,
• document verification,
• analytical description of the document (i.e. cost assigning),
• multi-level acceptation,
• archiving the document and its attachements. 

The usual scenario of further use of WebCon Business Process Suite is to automate more complex business processes within customers' companies, i.e.:

• setting and maintaining credit limits on a base of payers behavioral analysis,
• automated minimal and optimal stock levels setting for product groups (including the acceptance process).

As the WebCon Business Process Suite handles the integration with various databases and IT systems well, it is often used to integrate many systems, becoming a backbone for enterprise's IT infrastructure. It may be used, for example, as a middleware between the ERP and WMS systems, or the ERP and the e-Commerce platform.

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION

Customer using the WebCon Business Process Suite:

   
End user interface of WebCon Business Process Suite 5.0.

WORKFLOW ENGINE
The workflow engine developed by WebCon Solutions is the very heart of WebCon Business Process Suite. It is responsible for accurate, efficient and secure handling of all processes and interactions between the system and its users. The engine uses a dedicated Microsoft® SQL Server® database to store all the process metadata (covering processes states, forms and their data, ...). For the performance required to handle billions of documents and thousands of users, the system is able to use separate databases in order to store document attachements (i.e. document scans).

One of the most important tasks for the workflow engine is to handle apropriately all the changes that often affect business processes. WebCon Business Process Suite delivers graphical tools for business process modelling that is available to the IT department of our customers. It allows not only to modify and optimize the existing workflows, but also to create a new ones. WebCon Business Process Suite handles work delegation, vacations and temporary replacements as well as changing assignement of processes in case of permanent unavailability of an employee. The task handling engine covers all the usual business cases, i.e. one-of-many or all-of-many approvals.

WebCon Business Process Suite supports multilingual companies, capital groups and similarly organized companies.

Business Process modelling in the WebCon Business Process Suite 5.0.

BUSINESS PROCESS REPORTING AND MONITORING
Automating business processes having no ability to monitor them and analyze their performance would make no sense at all. WebCon Business Suite therefore renders it possible to constantly improve your business serving all the information about the performance of your employees and efficiency of processes. All the data regarding business activities covered by the system is stored in the Microsoft® SQL Server® database, and are easily accessible for the business intelligence applications. Moreover, there is an OLAP analytical area available optionally, to let the end system users monitor and report their activity right at the level of Microsoft® SharePoint® portal or Microsoft® Office Excel® spreadsheet. 

INTEGRATION WITH 3rd PARTY SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE
WebCon Business Process Suite offers great flexibility and openness as it covers two-way integration with Microsoft SQL and Oracle databases, the Active Directory and SharePoint lists. It also renders it possible to use the webservices or API of 3rd party solution. Usually the integration is performed in order to create system dictionaries (as the list of customers of products - usually found in the ERP) but also to add documents or trigger processes in other systems (i.e. to enter the purchase invoice to the ERP after it has  been approved and described within the workflow system). The integration can be done both on-line and off-line.

WebCon Businsess Process Suite also offers webservices allowing to i.e. control the start or processing of tasks from within another system.  

We have been succesfully integrating the system with various ERP vendors, such as:

• IFS
• Microsoft Dynamics AX
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV
• SAP
• Comarch CDN XL

BARCODES
Each document in the system has got a unique signature assigned to it. The signature can be easily transfered to the paper document with the use of automatically printed barcode stickers. Once the document is marked with such a sticker it can be easily found using the barcode scanners. The barcode itself is also used in order to pair the document scan with the electronic document. WebCon Business Process Suite - throught the optionally available WebCon Barcode Framework extension - handles bot 2D and 3D bacrodes printing and scanning.

Operation confirmation and barcode assignement screen.

DOCUMENT SCANNERS AND THE OCR
Using dedicated document scanners results in faster document entry into the system and higher quality scans. WebCon Business Process Suite allows to scan documents manually directly from the SharePoint website or automatically. Standard flatbed scanners can be used as well as multifuncion devices and - finally - document scanners.

WebCon Business Process Suite uses the ABBYY Finereader engine in order to offer the OCR support. It allows scanned documents to be indexed and searched through. The OCR can also be used in order to automate the document input into the system.

Example of a dedicated document scanner - Kodak ScanStation 500.

SECURITY
WebCon Business Process Suite guarantees the security of processed data. The authorization is done using the Active Directory (single-sign-on) user profiles. Permissions can be set on a level of user or a user group. System logs all the activities done within it.

 SCENARIO OF USE

WebCon Business Process Suite 5.0 allows business processes and document flows modeling. A few of most commonly automated of them are listed below:

• Automated credit limit setting,
• Automated customer discount granting,
• Automated minimal and optimal stoch level setting,
• Help Desk process automation
• Cost (purchase) invoice description and approval document flow,
• Purchase proposals approval process, 
• Incoming and outgoing correpsondence handling process,
• Business trip aproval and settlement,
• Vacation appliances approval,
• Claims handling process,
• ...

BUSINESS BENEFITS

 For the company:

• Best practices are applied to every business process in the company,
• Procedures are being executed,
• Fast information flow within the company's departments,
• Saving on paper and supplies,
• Great reduction on lost documents,
• Control over process steps,
• Ability to group and search for documents,
• On-line access to documents from virtually everywhere,
• Control over access permissions to documents,
• Full history of acceptations and changes done to each document. 

For the accounting department:

• Paper invoices are delievered to accounting right after the deliver and never get lost, 
• Each document is easily identified with the barcode,
• Each document is described properly in the system,
• Quality of analytical description is significantly raised,
• Posting is performed automatically in the ERP or Accounting software once the document is verified,
• Full control over every document and it's state within the approval process. 

For department managers:

• All incoming and outgoing correspondence is well organized,
• Notification i made for each action to be taken (approval of the document, correpsondence to be read),
• Cost (analytical) description is done within a system - not manually,
• Every document is accessbile through a web browser:
• control over expenses,
• up-to-date information on invoices and payments status,
• Comparison of expenses and revenues with budgeted values.

For the secretariate:

• Simple way of registering correspondence,
• Automated notification on new elements,
• Automated handling of:
• Department managers,
• Approval paths for each document type,
• Permission levels for documents and information,
• ...
• Automated recognition of scanned documents and binding them to their electronic counterparts.