Gathering Information for Planning a Workflow Process

This task is a step in Process of Analyzing Business Requirements.

Gathering information for planning a Workflow Process involves the following:

• Determining how your organization currently handles business processes. For more information, see Analyzing Existing Performance of a Business Process.

• Determining how the business process must perform in the future. For more information, see Identifying Areas for Improvement.

Analyzing Existing Performance of a Business Process

Current business processes provide the basis of what you define when you use Siebel Workflow. If you currently use an automated system, then you must gather information about the business processes that this system handles. It is also important to understand the limitations or problems of the current system that the Workflow Process must solve.

When analyzing the existing performance of a business process, research the following areas of the current business process:

• Existing process information. The following sources might include existing process information:

  • Current business processes that are automated

  • Management guidelines

  • Written guidelines for business process rules or approval paths

  • Written or unwritten internal procedures

• Measures for improvement or new process requirements

For example, assume you must document a new work item, such as a service request, from the moment that someone opens the service request to the moment someone closes it. You can include information about the decision steps in the business process, such as, if someone must escalate the service request and describe the approval path that Siebel CRM must run if the service request is high priority compared to low priority.

Identifying Areas for Improvement

After you gather the required information about existing business processes, review it to determine if improvement opportunities exist or if a new business process is required. When identifying areas of improvement, consider each of the following areas for improvement:

• New management guidelines or business requirements that must be considered

• Current problems that must be solved

• Areas you must make more visible

• Customer satisfaction issues

• Workflow Processes you must automate