The POWER Trifector Solution for Document Automation
The environment in which we operate has significantly changed. Businesses in [add your location here] have been driven to embrace remote working. Every good business is constantly on the hunt for new ways to improve their efficiency, keep their costs down, and increase productivity and profit and decrease risk. What if we told you that you might be sitting on a goldmine of opportunity? Having Microsoft 365 is bit like owning a spaceship. You know what it's used for, but how to use it? Let's unpack it a bit further. Most Common Problems The most common problems we hear of through our IT Alliance network around the country are:
Making the most of Your Microsoft 365 Sharepoint and Power Automate are both free with your business Subscription. Did you know you could use them in these ways? Microsoft SharePoint – SharePoint (their free document management system) can seem overly complicated because it can offer so much. But it doesn’t need to be so scary. You can start small and use more functionality as needed or as you grow. Basically, it’s a platform that offers content management and collaboration. It helps with reducing duplicate files, gives you remote access (needed more than ever!) and allows you to work on the same document at the same time. Find out more about SharePoint here: https://ita.co.nz/sharepoint-shakedown Microsoft Power Automate is another free app that allows you to automate workflows across applications. You can use it to connect email and instant message alerts, synchronize files between applications, copy files from one service to another, collect data from one app and store it in another, and much more. Templates are available to get you started. Efficiency is key for sustained success across businesses and Power Automate assists this by simplifying workflows with the automation of repetitive tasks. Power Apps - is a low-code application development platform that integrates with Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Azure and more. With Power Apps, web and mobile applications can be built without writing code. Instead, you can use pre-built templates and components with drag-and-drop simplicity. Power Apps has been described as a bit like a meal delivery kit. The ingredients are pre-measured and chopped. The instructions are ready to go. All you have to do is prep and cook. Because Power Apps has advanced logic and rules built-in, development time is cut by 70%. In some cases, it takes just a few hours to build an app. Or you can customize one of the pre-built templates in just minutes. Plus, Power apps connects to hundreds of business systems and databases. Here are some impressive statistics to show how Power apps is super useful.
Real Business, Real Change Quality Food Services is the largest exporter of butter pastry in NZ. Up until a few years ago they were struggling with their documents and approvals as they were complicated and manual. They used SharePoint to create an online document management system that had version control, search features and navigation that made finding documents and using them easier. You could track your changes so that everyone was always up to speed on any project. Power Automate helped QFS to automate their business processes and approvals using tailored notifications and automated data entry, saving plenty of time and increasing the accuracy of the approval process. Power apps helped to collect information and display where everything was in the process so that the project could be managed much more easily. All of this saved them time, money and decreased their risk significantly. Where to from here? If you have a process that you are helps make your document management process a little less of a headache, speak to your I.T professional here or you are welcome to register to attend our next Empower Session here.
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Meet Quality Food Southland
Meet Quality Food Southland or QFS for short. What started as a humble bakery and Café in the 1900's by Annie C Miller, grew into New Zealand's leading manufacturer in butter-based bakery products and sauces. They are the largest exporter of butter pastry in NZ. Up until a few years ago they were struggling with their systems and processes. Document Management and Approvals headache! Their document management and approval systems were completely manual. This meant a LOT of paperwork, and complex filing systems as each product version had to be kept on hand. There could be many iterations which make things complicated. Their approval process was also a headache. QFS had eight different approval processes. At each stage, approval had to be signed off by three different signatories. As you can imagine there was a lot of paper, storage and wasted time, not to mention the risk of making a mistake, was really high. Aiming for Change Ideally, the team at QFS were keen to make a few improvements. Document storage and security were key. They wanted to get rid of the complex document folder structure while managing and keeping all their file changes. They wanted to replace the manual time-consuming approval process for an online version, complete with change notifications, tracked changes and approval process stage indicators. Essentially, they wanted to have the process more manageable, consistent and streamlined. Empowering QFS with Microsoft After consulting with an IT Alliance Member, the QFS team decided that the best course of action was to have these seasoned professionals cook up a nicely balanced solution using some Microsoft products called SharePoint, Power Automate, and power apps. These were all available through having Microsoft 365. SharePoint helped create an online document management system that had version control, search features and navigation that made finding documents and using them easier. It even had a check in and out function. You could track your changes so that everyone was always up to speed on any project. Power Automate helped QFS to automate their business processes and approvals using tailored notifications and automated data entry, saving plenty of time and increasing the accuracy of the approval process. Power apps helped to collect information and display where everything was in the process so that the project could be managed much more easily. The End Result QFS ended up with a very slick looking web-based system thanks to Microsoft 365 and its added products. The best part is that it is all in one place. The new system stores all documents, manages document check-in/out, maintains all version history and records document changes. It allows users to check-out a document, make the required changes then completes the document approval process from start to finish. It includes notifications to stakeholders, updates progress and document control lists throughout the process. On approval, it creates a pdf version and stores it in a duplicate SharePoint suite used by “view only” staff. The result helps their business run more efficiently, with less risk. Sounds too good to be true, right? If you are ready to empower your business with Microsoft Products like these, you can reach out to your local IT Alliance Partner for a free consultation. Click here. |
AuthorVictoria Murgatroyd-McNoe has been working in the IT sector helping businesses achieve their technology goals for over 20 years. Archives
October 2022
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