Office Processes Automation can be defined as the use of
capabilities of existing software applications such as MS Word, Excel, MS Outlook, PowerPoint, and
MS Access to reduce the effort required to complete those activities in the office
that require repetitive actions by human resources.
In most cases we have been able to drastically reduce the time required to
complete these activities. In one case one employee was having to use
between 45 minutes and one hour of
her time to create a daily report in Excel every morning. Through the use of office
process automation, we combined the power of Excel, Word and Outlook to reduce
the entire process to 5 minutes. With time savings like this the investment in the
development of the automation process tool is repaid in a very short time.
Key Benefits
Elimination of unnecessary time repeating the same
actions over and over
Speed in providing necessary business processes are
improved
Accuracy in completing the process is improved through
programming
Utilization of Human Resources is much more effective
Other Specific Examples of Office Process Automation
Example #1
Our client was using an Access database and needing to
send letters to selected customers from the database. We successfully combined
MS Access and MS Word to allow the user to select from multiple types of
letters and have the data from Access merged into the letters.We also discovered that the same users were needing to
prepare envelopes for mailing these letters. We included an option for the
creation of the envelope as part of the process. As it turned out, they
had several occasions where they only needed a shipping label. They were
already using a couple of sizes of Avery labels. We included in the same
process an option for printing to one of the sizes of the label. We also
provided the user with a graphical representation of the selected sheet of
labels so the desired label could be selected with just the click of the
mouse. After the selection, the address data from the Access record was
printed on the selected label, including a postal barcode.
Example #2
In another case, 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. We implemented the options for letters, envelopes and
labels, but used a selected contact from Outlook for the address data.
Example #3
In this case the client had the need for an Access
database to manage their incoming orders. They also needed to
communicate with others in their organization concerning the arrival of
incoming orders and their content. They received their order confirmation via
e-mail with an attachment of specific information about the order. We
built the Access database and automated the entire process. The database
monitored the incoming e-mail box for the arrival of new mail. 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, it then evaluated the new
incoming orders and sent an e-mail notification to the appropriate company
representative based on the type of incoming order. The entire process took
place with out human intervention.
These are only three of many such instances where we were
able to fully automate office processes.
Contact us today to discuss your needs for Office Process
Automation.
