A simple design to implement a dynamic workflow management system

The concept behind workflow technology is simple. It is an effort to leverage automation to improve the way an organization works by eliminating the time tasks spend in the mail. The presence of workflow managment software tools, by themselves, however, are not sufficient to improve workforce productivity. Over the last few years employees have reported decreased productivity when transitioned to workflow business models. The difficulties appear to be related to the underlying usage of workflow by management. The method seems adequate, but the design of the flow itself sometimes introduces long delays in the process. What is needed is a more dynamic structure that allows for re-directing critical work, switching responsibilities, and accounts for vacation and sick leave. In this paper, we describe a simple web-based workflow software tool, built on top of a Data Base description of the companies management structure. Further, we added prioritized delivery of the information to the recepient, where priority was also determined from information stored in a Data Base. The advantage of these two changes is that the system can easily be improved as corporation finds better ways to process their business flow without software changes, or even make short-term changes. Also, the employees do not have to wade through significant numbers of e-mail before a high priority item is located.