Ensuring every employee has access to the right equipment at the right time is a fundamental part of running a successful business. Provisioning is an important part of maintaining worker productivity. It follows, then, that automated provisioning workflows are increasingly becoming an essential way for organizations to make the process of requesting and providing essential work equipment as quick and efficient as possible.
For most large organizations, provisioning new equipment involves many stages of requests and approvals. It’s important, therefore, for them to accelerate the process so employees have access to the right equipment at the right time.
Here’s how automated provisioning workflows with Nintex can help.
Why are provisioning workflows so important?
It’s important to ensure that the gaps between stages in the provisioning process are as seamless as possible. If you’re used to paper-based methods of requesting and approving new equipment in your organization, you might well be familiar with this example:
Caroline works as a graphic designer in a large agency. They’ve just won a new client with some very specific requirements and she is in charge of fulfilling them. Unfortunately, the design software she currently uses lacks the specific features and capabilities that the new project requires. She now needs to request a license for an alternative.
In her company, provision requests must be approved by her line manager and the IT manager. But they use a paper-based approval processing system, meaning Caroline’s request can’t be processed until both managers are in the office to review, confirm, and sign-off on the physical form. The longer this takes, the longer the new client is waiting for the work to begin.
This is a classic example of a bottleneck in the provisioning process. Fortunately, with process automation, Caroline and her company can easily resolve the situation.
How to implement automated provisioning
Nintex allows users to customize their own provisioning workflows, meaning the process can be automatically deployed and move seamlessly from one stage to the next.
If Caroline’s agency employed provisioning workflows, the likelihoood of delays in getting her new software would be greatly reduced, as the bottlenecks and delays of paper-based processing have been eliminated. Once the provisioning form template has been filled out, it is automatically sent to the relevant managers for approval, which can be processed with a single click on any device.
Caroline can get her new software up and running quicker, as the process requires much less manual work for each person along the approvals chain. Here’s a look at how the provisioning workflow could be automated in practice:
Getting started
Previously, Caroline would have to print off the request form, manually fill out information and file it before the provisioning process could begin. With Nintex, she can fill out a digital form, which was created from a pre-approved, customized template. With conditional formatting enabled, she’ll only see the fields that are relevant to her request, making it even quicker to fill out the form.
Once the form is filled out, the workflow will automatically initiate and instantly progress to the next stage for reviewing and approval.
Signing the form
Most companies want to ensure that there’s a tangible ‘paper trail’ for important decisions – which requires ensuring all provisions are documented and audited for future reference. With Nintex Sign®, electronic signatures can be added to a workflow to ensure that the whole process remains fast and digital. This digital trail is fully auditable, compliant, and reliable.
With lazy approvals, the process can be automated to such an extent that the manager need only click ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to ensure the appropriate signatures are added to the request document, the document is filed away safely, and the workflow progresses seamlessly to the next stage. Once the notification of Caroline’s original request form has been received, the whole confirmation process can occur in a matter of seconds.
Automatic notifications
When it has been either approved or rejected, Caroline will need to know the status of her request. Luckily, a simple email template can be created and automatically deployed to let Caroline know whether her request was successful.
This eliminates the need for IT managers to directly get in touch with Caroline, even via email. Once the notification templates are created, it will automatically apply to all provisioning processes, saving time and creating efficiencies right across the organization.
Automate your provisioning process with Nintex
Automating provisioning workflows is an example of just one of the many processes that Nintex allows companies to automate and accelerate. Whether it’s provisioning, onboarding or HR processes, automation makes processes faster, more efficient, and more secure. It also means the people usually responsible for managing these tasks can divert their attention to more value-adding work elsewhere.
If you want to find out more about how we can help revolutionize the internal processes of your organization, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Nintex.
