For those who may have been confused or concerned about the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) – you’re about to get by with a little help from some Harvard researcher friends who applied a machine learning algorithm to identify the “musical fingerprint” of eight classic Beatles hits as being authored by either John Lennon or Paul McCartney.
Everyone will have their own opinions on the accuracy of the findings, but one thing we can all “come together” on is the opportunities presented when welcoming digitally transformed business processes into our lives.
Hey Jude – Have You Heard about Automation?
Even if your name isn’t Jude, you’ll want to hear this.
Much different than algorithm-based AI, rules-based automation continues to champion the workflows and overall business processes that human resources, finance departments and back office operations are continuously adopting. Leveraging OnBase, or any content management system, users simply identify digital workflow rules for how a process will continue and then let the content management system enforce only those rules. Whether sending an application to a recruiter, flagging an activity as needing one final review, or managing a case’s security attributes, rules-based automation will do as it’s told. By automating these traditionally manual and tedious tasks, or installing checkpoints throughout the lifecycle of a case or document, processes are elevated to a new standard of efficiency that lends itself to freeing up staff time for tasks needing a real human’s touch.
When They Just Couldn’t “Let It Be”
When our own HR and Finance departments realized they could also leverage the same solutions we support for many customers, the light-bulb moment was probably very similar to the Harvard Researchers who had been dying to know which songs were Lennon or McCartney – we’ve got to do it!
Our two-person human resources department (yes, only two people!) was the first to be digitally transformed by the collaboration of our OnBase Administrator Nathan and Human Resources Manager Leanne. When taking our chicken-scratched checklist to an electronic workflow, every process, document and compliance challenge needed to be considered. As Leanne explained in our ‘OnBase for HR’ podcast, “nothing was really off the table.” With the help of the same solution, the human resources department for National Heritage Academies reduced their audit time by 54 percent.
Most recent to jump on the workflow bandwagon was our finance department, whose digital transformation was spearheaded by one of our business analysts who previously served as an accountant. With first-hand experience of the real pain points suffered by finance departments and unresolved by many existing solutions, she used rules-based processing to automate what we now call our Financial Close solution. Here comes the sun of our efforts: “our monthly close has been reduced by several days,” said Mary Beth, ImageSoft’s Director of Finance and HR.
“A Day in the Life” Automated v. Manual
Have you digitally transformed any of your office operations? If so, what differences have you noticed and/or measured? If not, which one of your operations would benefit the most from automation?
Tell us in the “comments” section below or on our LinkedIn page. We read and respond – promise!