Using Flags + Workflows, Part 2
BY IT GLUE | October 15, 2018
Last week, we showcased how the new Flags feature in IT Glue, when combined with the Workflows feature, can streamline your critical business processes. We highlighted keeping your major incident process document up-to-date and how to manage changes to your login to DNS panel document as well, showcasing the document updating, approvals and change communication components of process documentation.
This week, we’ll take a closer look at using Flags and Workflows to help onboard new clients, and to manage changes in signing authority. The key principles here are using Flags to kickstart a set of routine processes, and to ensure compliance standards are maintained.
Scenario #3 – Onboarding New Clients
When you sign a client contract, you can input that contract into IT Glue as a document. Most common formats will be accepted for upload directly as a document in IT Glue in the coming weeks, but whether the document is created, you’ll be able to set a flag to identify that this contract has been finalized.
There’s a couple of different approaches you can take to designing the workflows that follow the creation of this document. One approach would be to create a single flag, such as “New Client Agreement Signed” that triggers an email to multiple different stakeholders. Each stakeholder would have a Checklist template that would guide the workflow from that point. For example, the email might go to the Finance Director, the Account Manager and whichever tech is responsible for the first stage of onboarding. Each would have tasks related to creating the organization in IT Glue and beginning to log basic account details. This business process can go a fair ways down the process of automated documentation (PSA, RMM, etc) until the initial stages on onboarding are complete, at which time the “NCA signed” flag can be removed.
The other approach is to create multiple flags for the document, each with its own workflow. One flag triggers an email for finance (say, “Finance Approval Required”), another flag triggers a message for the tech responsible for onboarding (say, “Onboarding Required”). Again, each individual who receives the triggered message would then have a Checklist from which they could then start ticking off tasks as they are completed.
From the managerial view on high, there would be transparency as to who received the workflow, and then the checklists provide accountability over each specific task associated with that workflow.
One of the biggest reasons why customers churn, especially early on in the relationship, is that something goes awry during the onboarding process. Either it takes too long, steps are missed, or there is insufficient engagement. This is why having well-designed business processes around onboarding is critical to reducing churn in the managed services environment. Thus, using flags and workflows to organize your business processes can play a key role in getting the onboarding process right the first time.
Scenario #4 – Change in Authorized Signatory
Compliance requires a lot of diligence and attention to detail. What trips a lot of people up is not so much the initial documentation but maintaining it when changes occur. From a compliance perspective, one of the most important changes is when your client has a change in authorization, especially at the highest level. In this scenario, you’re talking to the CEO of one of your biggest clients. Their CFO just resigned, and will be leaving in a couple of weeks. They have no idea when they’ll have a new CFO in place.
The first step would be to create a flag, something like “Signatory Changed”. It is recommended that you have a Document within IT Glue for that organization that outlines the different levels of signing authority. Have a flag for major changes, something like “Material Change”. Set up a workflow so that any time this flag is added to a Document, the key members of your team are alerted immediately. For compliance purposes, the CFO has been removed as a signatory effective immediately, so your team needs to know right away – have the workflow trigger an email and a Slack/MS Teams message.
Now your team knows, and you have a record of when they knew. In a perfect world, you’ve already used the Related Items feature to highlight any document that the CFO role touches, and that role can be disassociated from the person, who would be entered as a Contact. That will allow for the creation of a new contact when a new CFO is hired. The “Material Change” flag can be used to note the new hire as well.
During the interim period, your client will need to sort out who will have signing authority for those items that the CFO used to sign off on. Flags can keep your team alert to all of the changes that occur during the transition period, ensuring that you always have visibility, and that you maintain the highest standards of compliance by always documenting signing authorities even if they change frequently during the transition period.
The workflow in this case can be used strictly to convey information, alerting key members of your team to changes in real time. This is a situation where your team might not have any tasks associated with the change, but where communicating the change in real time is incredibly important.
To learn more about how IT Glue can help solve your documentation and business process challenges, sign up for a demo today.
IT Glue is an award-winning documentation platform that allows for efficient storage and retrieval of all the documentation you need to help your MSP run better. By integrating PSA and RMM data, we can help increase your efficiency, and reduce onboarding times by even more. By eliminating wasted time from your business, IT Glue gives you more time to focus on what matters – growing your business.
