Sling

The solution

We started by developing a feature-rich administration interface to build flexible workflows without requiring technical expertise. Administrators can quickly build a series of forms and gateways to capture the information required at each stage of the workflow, and send notifications, run checks, and request approval before allowing the lead to continue to the next step. The workflow forms can include any number of fields of different types:

• Long and short text fields to capture qualitative information about the lead (e.g. title, description, etc.)
• Select from a list of classification terms (e.g. project sectors, services provided, goegraphical locations, etc.), with the lists of terms being fully editable and re-usable in different flows
• Add individual contacts, companies or staff members that have been imported from company CRM and staff databases. Assign them roles from lists of editable classification temrs
• Numeric fields to capture quantitative information, including auto-increment fields (good for assigning project numbers automatically) and spreadsheet-like equations for calculated values based on other fields
• Yes/no answers. Date fields. Web links, uploaded files and links to files stored on the company network

The forms are followed by editable gateways that run checks of the data supplied, send notifications and approval requests to the relevant parties, and branch to subsequent steps:

• Administrators can set up groups of staff to receive notifications or approval requests. Groups can be re-used for multiple gateways or workflows
• Individual staff can also be notified or asked for approval
• Notifications/approval requests can be targeted based on the data provided in the form - e.g. "if Market sector is Energy, request signoff from Ethics team" and "if Region is Americas, send notification to New York office"
• Gateways can be directly passed or failed based on the form data - e.g. "The value for Project must be more than £50,000"
• The workflows can branch to or skip subsequent steps based on the data - e.g. "If Bid budget is less than £5,000, jump to Fee proposal form (skipping Full bid budget breakdown)"
• Integration with the Creditsafe API means potential client organisation can be credit checked and enquiries approved, rejected or passed on for human evaluation based on the results

Contact and staff data is imported from existing company databases via an administration interface to specify datasources and import queries. A system of administrator-defined triggers sends data back to the company databases to keep them up to date.

The outcome

Sling is available to all staff involved in business development. The new workflow is now much more flexible and responsive than before, and having personalised, relevant information available directly in Outlook has made collaboratiing on new business much easier.

The direct link with other company systems reduced the administrative burden and made the tool immediately useful from launch.

Integrating the workflow gateways directly with the Creditsafe API gives finance staff an immediate idea of a client's creditworthiness, allowing them to approve or reject leads before too many resources have been committed to the work.

Simon Jardine, Technology Director at Scott Brownrigg thinks the integration with other company databases is a key feature: “From a technical standpoint the ease of setting up processes and intergrating to our back end systems has meant we can use the solution in a multitude of ways. Giving us the flexibility and agility to capture and use data to drive business processes in efficient ways.”