Workflow automation is a technology that automates tasks, resources, and operations involved in business processes or workflows. It links together elements like events, tasks, and resources to increase speed, visibility, and coordination of work. Advantages include linking priorities and timelines across an organization, making tasks and calendars visible to all users to efficiently share workloads, and providing managers visibility into process status and opportunities for improvement. Workflow automation software provides a graphical interface to define, control, track, and audit approvals, routing, assignments, and notifications to ensure the right people get the right information at the right time.

1. WORK FLOW AUTOMATION

2. Workflow Automation
 Workflow Automation is a technology solution,
which automates the tasks, resources and internal
operations that form the process known as
“workflow.”
 Workflow is the process, which encompasses
many small, definable tasks that link together to
achieve the desired result.

3.  Workflow automation utilizes software to link
together the elements of workflow (events, tasks,
resources) in an attempt to increase the speed,
visibility and coordination by which the work gets
done.

4. ADVANTAGES
 Priorities and timelines are linked across the
organization
 Tasks and calendars are visible to all users
enabling workloads to be shared and efficiently
managed
 visibility- Managers can quickly see the status of a
process but beyond that they can also identify
roadblocks, resources constraints and opportunity
for process improvement

5.  Workflow Automation software provides a graphical
representation of people, projects and financial
processes for workflow design, configuration and
self-service. The graphical workflow interface
enables you to visually define, control, track and
audit approvals, routing, role-based assignments
and notifications.
 Workflow automation helps to ensure that at
the right time the right person gets the
right information about what needs to be done and
in what order

7.  A salesman incurs an expense and fills out an electronic form
directly within the system.
 He takes a photo of his receipt with his iPhone camera and
attaches it to the expense form he just completed.
 When he presses the submit button, it is uploaded and deposited
into the ECM repository.
The system recognizes the total amount on the expense form and
automatically sends it to the appropriate person for approval prior to
accounting receiving it.
 The manager receives a notification on his tablet that an approval
must be completed. He opens the form, reviews the receipt, and
approves the expense.
 It then gets automatically routed to accounting to kick off the
reimbursement workflow and get posted to the appropriate
accounts.
Example :

8. WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS CAN BE
CATEGORISED INTO THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES:
 Routing System- Process of selecting the best
method of doing a process
 Distribution System- Best way to distribute and
allocate the resources
 Coordination System- Coordinates the activities of
different departments

9. WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT SOFTWARES
 Activity
 Apache ODE
 Bonita BPM
 CEITON Workflow System
 jBPM
 Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation
 Hyland Software
 Perceptive Software
 SAP Business Workflow
 Workgroups DaVinci
 FreeFlow Core (Xerox)