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 The
power of workgroup interaction and communication can be best
utilised through the use of a structured, system-driven process.
Nilesh Gupta looks at the various Intranet options available
and votes for web forms as a convenient and widely available
information exchange tool
To
quote an enthusiastic writer —“Intranet is the latest
term to describe the use of the Internet’s protocols
and applications, not for accessing the vast resources on
the Internet, but for moving information within an organisation’s
boundaries.” Over the past few years intranets have evolved
to encompass knowledge management with the aid of enterprise
information portals, vertical portals, search engines, knowledge
portals, online content management and online information
management.
I have been in this industry right from the days when working
on the Microsoft Windows platform was what we would have liked
to do, but had a hard time looking for one. Change—the
only constant thing in this world—has brought about a
great revolution not only in our day-to-day lives but also
in the way we think. Improvements on the Internet, extranet
and intranet have been a blessing to many who have desk jobs
and use their PCs extensively. It gives me an opportunity
to see some of the best practices adopted in this ongoing
change in many IT and non-IT sectors today. It also introduces
me to see some of the worst. One such practice is the proliferation
of paper forms for everything. I have even come across firms
that require to fill out a form in order to create a new form.
This is not only time consuming, but also costly. In today’s
climate, firms need to be moving from a paper-based forms
environment to an electronic-based setting.
One of the first problems we encounter as we move toward an
electronic-based form environment (also called e-forms) is
that there is no standard manner of designing the logic and
implementing them. E-form formats comprise everything from
word processing templates to custom-built Lotus Notes or other
database forms.
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| Prototype
of a Web Form |
Some
of the examples of e-forms are as follows:
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Web Forms comprise everything from simple HTML forms to
custom-built Java forms. HTML forms are available to the
largest number of clients since they can be run on almost
any browser, but they also have the least functionality.
Java forms are still limited in their features and functionality.
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Custom-built E-forms are proprietary custom-built solutions.
These can be expensive to develop and maintain if the firm
does not have the requisite skills in-house.
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Commercial Forms Packages are cheaper than custom-built
solutions, but they can lock a firm into one product or
vendor. Some of these packages will also require the installation
of special client-side software to use or view the forms.
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PDF Forms are based on the Adobe PDF file standard. The
ubiquity of this format has propelled it to a de facto standard
status. While this format does require a viewer, the viewer
is free for download and is widely distributed with other
software packages.
I recommend the use of Web Forms that can be integrated with
your internal e-mail system (eg Exchange Server). This allows
for greater flexibility and a strategic work flow system.
Web-based forms are accessible by a simple browser and easily
available 24/7 with printer friendly, user-friendly and routing-friendly
features.
Discussions and planning is necessary for any kind of implementation.
They are actually the cake, and the implementation—the
icing on the cake. It is important to ask questions like ‘what,’
‘why’ and ‘to whom.’
When it comes to e-forms the wish list could be endless. But
the list that matches your day-to-day activities is the one
you must work upon. Success will depend on providing a product
that is robust enough to handle sophisticated business rules,
on choosing the most appropriate forms to implement, and on
providing the specialised training needed for a variety of
users.
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Steps
for a successful implementation of e-forms
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The
series is based on Facilities Management Group that
would like to convert their paper forms to E-forms.
1. Take feedback from a helpdesk team handling day-to-day
calls. Currently, the request from end-users to helpdesk
could be in the form of e-mail, paper, phone or even
verbal. Request could be a user ID creation, media request
or even Internet access.
2. Once the discussions with your helpdesk teams are
completed, standardise the forms with respect to design,
flow and logic. Form a core developing team to put your
logic into a prototype application.
3. After you are satisfied with the prototype, discuss
the same with your helpdesk members.
4. If your helpdesk team is satisfied with the design,
create the code for the workflow application.
5. Completely test the application from end-to-end.
Most of the time we do write great codes, but often
miss on the flow. The flow is as important as the code.
At this point I would recommend the following workflow
structure:
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When a request is raised from the end-user on the
intranet workflow application, the approving authority
receives a mail
notification.
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The request is checked on the intranet and approved
or rejected.
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If the request is rejected, the requester receives
the mail notification and logs on to the intranet
to view the reason for rejection.
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If approved, mail notification is sent to the helpdesk
team.
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Helpdesk team then logs on to the intranet and sends
the request to the facilities team for execution.
Once again, a mail notification is received by the
facilities team.
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Facilities team then logs on to the intranet and either
rejects or completes the task. Mail notification is
sent to the requester.
The requester will also know the status of the request
online by logging on to the intranet. Status could be
in the form of the time when his/her request was approved,
the time helpdesk received the request and by whom and
when the task was competed.
Service Level Indicator (SLI) could also be implemented
with this logic. Features—like reminders—if
the task is not taken up in the flow, could also be
part of the logic.
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The
author is part of the Facilities Management division at i-flex
solutions. He can be contacted at nilesh.gupta@iflexsolutions.com
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