Approval Forms: Automate Your Forms With An Intranet

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APPROVAL FORMS
AUTOMATE YOUR FORMS WITH AN INTRANET
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Paper and email systems often mean that your
business is less responsive, slower to react and
takes longer to achieve the same task that a
competitor using automated processes can do in a
fraction of the time. Approval processes make up
a large chunk of operations in every business
from purchase orders through to vacation requests
or expenses claims. And so its a great place to
start when exploring the efficiencies and savings
to be gained in your company from automating
business processes. In these slides, we look in
detail at how automated approval forms processes
would work on an intranet before we then go on to
look specifically at the efficiencies to be
gained from doing so. You can also find out how
to create your own digital form and workflow the
quickest and easiest way here.
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HOW INTRANETS APPROVAL FORMS PROCESSES WORK
In simple terms, the intranet replaces the paper
form with an electronic version thats completed
online and is then forwarded automatically by the
intranet to the relevant staff member or manager
for action. Previously, companies trying to
automate approval processes that used traditional
approaches to software development found it
impossible to cope with the sheer number of
approval processes typically found in a business.
Even those companies with an internal IT resource
quickly became bogged down. The other option for
organizations was to go down the route of
purchasing some kind of business process
management solution. However, these are often
expensive and can be over-engineered, therefore,
making them difficult to use for the average
staff member. In addition, these systems dont
always integrate well with other office
systems. An intranet offers an entirely
different approach. You see, its an easy
process to automate your paper and email approval
processes using your intranetsfully
customizable approval forms if this functionality
is available.
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HOW INTRANETS APPROVAL FORMS PROCESSES WORK
An intuitive interface is beneficial here so you
wont need an internal IT resource. Drag and drop
fields, easily implemented rules and actions,
along with email notifications and submission
reports make it a comprehensive solution. And the
added bonus is that theres no need to print
anything! You should also be able to setup
status and rule-driven workflows to give managers
the necessary oversight and ability to manage the
end-to-end process. Whats more, it doesnt
matter what the size of your business is the
benefits apparent from an automated approval
forms process will be just as great in small to
medium-sized enterprises as they are in the large
corporates. And for those businesses that
already use G Suite or Office 365, then its
possible to embed the relevant form creation
apps directly in your intranet pages. In this
way, you can easily provide important contextual
information. Whats more, multiple users can be
working on the same form simultaneously with all
updates automatically saved in real-time.
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ORGANIZATIONAL BENEFITS
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SAVE TIME AND MONEY
The approval process in most businesses typically
involves three steps. The first step usually
involves the staff member completing a paper form
and either passing on the hard copy or scanning
it and emailing to the manager for approval. At
step two the manager checks the request and may
approve it or send it back for amendment. This is
done either with the hard copy or via email and
can involve the form going backwards and forwards
several times until all the details are correct.
The third and final step usually involves a
finance team member updating the internal system
and filing away the request either electronically
or in a paper filing cabinet. With an automated
process, the time savings for each staff member
involved may only be a few minutes per approval,
but when you consider it against the number of
approvals taking place it represents a
considerable saving. Whats more, we havent
factored in any staff time spent following up on
requests, dealing with and rectifying errors or
chasing missing information and documentation.
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IMPROVED OVERSIGHT
Automating your approvals process also gives you
better oversight. You can easily see where
things are at and can identify and deal with any
blockages. Ask any organization about their
approvals process and the number one complaint is
usually time wasted chasing down approvals and
sign-offs from management. Its a frustrating
experience for all those involved and also means
that your business is slow to react. For
example, how many times has the purchase of a
much-needed item been delayed in your business
because of glitches in the approvals process?
Automating your approval forms through the
intranet will do away with this problem as the
process becomes smoother and quicker and the
improved oversight means that roadblocks are
dealt with more easily.
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ELIMINATE THE POSSIBILITY OF ERRORS
Lets face it, with manual paper and email-based
systems the potential for human error is always
there lurking in the background. The routing
could go awry, important data may go missing,
approval forms could be misfiled or errors creep
into the calculations. And the consequences of
these mistakes direct as well as indirect costs
incurred while sorting them out can easily add
up to a significant amount. With an automated
approval process, however, these sorts of
problems are eliminated. The intranet will
automatically route the online form and will take
care of data validation. Whats more, theres
no chance of you losing that email or paper form.
All pending items yet to be actioned can be built
into your customized reports.
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COMPLETE APPROVALS ANYTIME AND ANYWHERE
Increasingly customers, partners, suppliers and
even staff members expect to interact with your
business at a time thats convenient to them. It
may be that your customers and suppliers are
actually located in different states or even
countries. And with more and more workers working
from home, its quite possible that even your
workforce are no longer sitting next to you in
the office. The nature of a cloud intranet means
that your business will be able to process
approvals from any time zone or any location with
a smartphone or tablet. Theres no need to wait
until managers are back at their desk and there
wont be the inevitable backlog as the they catch
up on approvals in the system while theyve been
away. And if the manager is away on vacation,
then the intranet can delegate responsibility to
another staff member to cover their absence.
The boon to your business in terms of faster
workflow, greater continuity and increased
efficiency is obvious.
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AUTOMATIC ROUTING
Approval processes in a business can be
complicated, especially when the expenditure
exceeds mandated authority levels. There may
then be multiple levels of approval involved
based on spend and the type of activity. It can
quickly become a convoluted process involving
several personnel and many steps. The potential
for something to go wrong is huge a step could
be inadvertently missed off, or worse still
internal fraud or corruption can develop. And
its likely that the sums involved will be
significant. Let the intranet take care of this
particular organizational headache with its
automatic routing. Use the intranets rules and
actions function to ensure the correct layers of
approval are embedded in the online form. And
unlike paper and email systems youll only have
to do it once and thats it, the jobs done.
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AUTOMATIC UPDATES
The more manual steps you can remove the better.
Therefore automating steps such as
automatically updating the person who submitted
the original form can end up saving time and
money. In this busy world it is so easy to miss
an important step such as this so wouldnt it be
great just to add a rule to your online approval
form that says as soon as the form is updated by
you, then send an update to the person who
submitted the form. Make sure that your
intranet has this type of functionality.
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BE GREENER AND MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY
Email and paper systems typically involve
printing and scanning documents. Often an actual
signature is required which means that even when
the form is emailed it has to be printed off,
signed, scanned and returned. As well as being
a slow, antiquated process, all that paper and
printing is also doing nothing for your green
credentials. And the green credentials of
companies are becoming important to increasingly
discerning consumers who look for businesses that
are environmentally aware and operate greener
working practices. So why not do your business
and the environment a favor by cutting down on
paper with an intranet-based automated approvals
system. It may well have a very welcome knock-on
effect in terms of raising your ethical profile
too.
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INTRANET AUTOMATED APPROVAL FORMS PROCESS ITS
A NO-BRAINER!
With so many potential benefits on offer, an
automated approval forms processes delivered
through your intranet is really a
no-brainer! But the best part is that the forms
creation function is only one of the great tools
an intranet has to offer. And so as well as
enjoying the efficiencies and savings to be had
from automating your business processes, there
are also further great features on offer.
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• Company and team news pages and blog
•  
• Improve internal communications in your business
  with the intranets team and company news feeds.
  Keep all employees up to date with the latest
  internal and external news.
• Corporate calendar
• Keep all important company events and deadlines
  in one central location for staff to reference
  when they need to. Do away with the need for
  all-staff emails advising of a change of date for
  the staff conference. Simply update the corporate
  calendar instead.
• Quizzes and surveys
• Improve your levels of staff engagement with the
  intranets in-built quizzes and surveys function.
  You can gather employees views on a whole range
  of issues from a new staff handbook to a
  rebranding exercise or even the location of this
  years Christmas party.

• Staff directory
• Consign paper staff directories to the past with
  the intranets online version.
• Include photos and biographical details as well
  as information on current work projects and areas
  of expertise to bring the concept of a staff
  directory to life in a way that a paper version
  could never do. And if a staff member leaves,
  its easier to make changes to an online
  directory than it is to a paper one.
• File and document storage
• Make it easier to share information and data
  across your business with the intranets document
  management system. D
• o away with shared folders or external document
  sharing sites with an intranet solution.
  Utilizing a familiar file explorer interface,
  files can be shared both internally and
  externally. And the intranets advanced search
  capability makes it easy for employees to locate
  the information they need.

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Interested in finding out more? Then get in
touch with us here at MyHub. Our intranet
solution is super easy to set up using
pre-built, easily customizable templates. You
dont have to be a technical whizz, pretty much
anyone can have a professional-looking and fully
functioning intranet up and running in just a
matter of hours. And with unlimited data and
numbers of users on offer, the MyHub intranet is
available for a fixed monthly fee making it a
cost-effective solution as well. Take advantage
of our no obligation demo or free 14-day
trial and explore all the possibilities.