What is Office Applications Automaton?
Office Applications Automation can be defined as:
The process of combining of the capabilities of existing software applications such as MS Word, Excel, MS Outlook, PowerPoint, and MS Access, through the use of VBA programming, to reduce the effort required to complete activities in the office that require repetitive actions by human resources.
Because every client's need is different, the development of Office Process Solutions requires a four step process:
1.
Identification of the area were an Office Process Solution is needed. 2.
Evaluation of the requirements of the Office Process Solution 3.
Agreement on the design of the Office Process Solution 4.
Actual building (programming) of the Office Process Solution Although this may sound like a long, complicated process, I have the experience and expertise to turn these steps into a manageable process which can normally be completed in a relatively short time.
The actual effort required to complete an Office Applications Automation project is dependant on the requirements of the process.
When the Office Applications Automation project is complete, it should drastically reduced the amount of time required to complete the process and improve the end result of the entire process. In one case one employee was having to use between 45 minutes and one hour of her time every morning to collect the data to create a daily report in Excel. Through the use of an Office Applications Automation, utilizing the power of Excel, Word and Outlook, the entire process now takes about 5 minutes.
With time savings like this, the investment in the development of the Office Applications Automation tool was repaid in a very short time.
Key Benefits
- Increased speed in providing necessary business processes
- Accuracy in completing the process is improved through programming and controlled data entry
- Realize a greater benefit from the investment in expensive computer hardware and software to accomplish office processes
- Utilization of Human Resources is much more effective
Some Specific Examples of Office Process Automation
- Example #1
The issue:
- A client was using an Access database and periodically sending various types of letters to the customer currently selected in that database. Secretaries were locating the desired customer in the database and then simply copying and pasting the information from the database to the Word document to create the letter.
The solution:
- VBA programming was used to combine the power of MS Access and MS Word to allow the user to be presented with a screen from where the selection of the type of letter could be made from a list of the types of letters that they might send. After selecting the type of letter, the data from customer record in Access was immediately merged into the selected letter.
- During the development of this process, it was also discovered that the same users were also needing to prepare an envelop for mailing these same letters. An option for the creation of the envelope as part of the process was also added.
- As it turned out, they had several occasions where they only needed a shipping label to ship a product to the selected customer. They were already using a couple of sizes of Avery labels. An option for printing to one of the sizes of the labels was included in the same process. To make this process easier and simpler, graphical representation of the selected sheet of labels was presented to the user so the desired label could simply be selected with just the click of the mouse. After the selection of the desired label on the sheet, the address data from the customers record in Access, including a postal barcode, was printed on the selected label.
- Example #2
The issue:
- In another instance, the users had almost the exact same need, but their data was not in an Access database. They used Outlook to keep their contact records.
The solution:
- Again as in Example #1, VBA programming was used to implemented the options for letters, envelopes and labels, but in this case, the selected contact from Outlook was used for the address data.
- Example #3
The issue:
- In this case the client had the need for an Access database to manage their incoming products. They also needed to communicate with others in their organization concerning the arrival of incoming shipment of the product and the amount of product contained in each shipment. They received their order confirmations via e-mail. Each email would have one or more attachments containing the specific information about the order. They were manually receiving the e-mails, reading them and entering the data into an Excel spreadsheet. Then typing an e-mail to send to the appropriate company representative to inform them about the arrival of the shipment of product.
The solution:
- An Access database was built which automated the entire process. The database monitored the incoming e-mail box for the arrival of new e-mails. It then checked to see it there were attachments to the e-mail. It determined if there were multiple attachments and, if so, it processed each attachment, adding the data from each order confirmation to the Access database. After completing the process for reading the order information from the attachment to the e-mail, it then evaluated the data from the new incoming orders and sent an e-mail notification to the appropriate company representative based on the type of incoming order, listing the products and their quantities. The entire process took place with out human intervention. The database also proved to be a valuable tool for upper management as well.
Contact me today and let me give you more information about how a custom database application is not only affordable, but can also help you in your business management.
E-mail me now: mrbpolk@cox.net