In reply to: Adrian
Hi Pawel!
I am sure that most of your requested ideas you can implement by configure cyclical actions which have implemented in BPS many versions ago...
There is mass email notification configuration as well, but im my opinion configuration is pure. I used it only in "one-time wrkflows" - enabled it a few days before deadline for all task in this workflow to notify users evry day with summary list of taks in proccess that have to be closed.
But in my private opinion... you can enable 10000 email notification, reminders evry day, escalation to supervisor, to Branch president etc. but it wont do anything... email from angry accountant waiting for your task from BPS is 10000% more effective that any automatic reminder :). Organisational culture matters more. From my perspective I dont need any email notification, because you can check actual task list in BPS anytime you want.
Hi Pawel, hi Adrian,
i am more with what Pawel suggested in terms of notfications.
One of the main reasons we introduced webcon was saving the accountants time from having to write angry E-mails.
Of course users with a lot of tasks get used to the portal, and have a look in there every day. But we also have people who are approving 3 invoices a year, hence they wont look into the portal frequently. They will rather have 1 instant notification, and perhaps a weekly reminder with a list of tasks (if they have any). People with daily routines in the system rather would avoid getting an email for every task, because they look into the portal frequently anyways.
We started with the built in mass notification, but there are no parameters to keep it from useless and annoying spamming, e.g. on weekends, during vacation with substitution rule inserted and so on. Soon I got complaints about people having 30 messages after their vacation or getting woke up on sundays at 6 in the morning by their company cellphones next to the bed (to name just a few). If you want to burn the earth for a new system, this is how you do it best.
As i want our people to accept the system and love working with it, I invested a lot of time in a notification workflow that is triggered by cyclical actions for just our invoice approval process. It is nice and good as it is, but also works for only one process. Things get really, really messy when you have to deal with different languages, with the same people approving invoices for different companies, which also have different accountants which you need to impersonate to send out the notifications, to make sure questions will be directed to the right person. The good thing is that i have complete track of which user having being notified about what, so there is no escape from your tasks, and no one can say "i didn't know".
I agree that organizational culture has to follow the system to some extent, but not completely. And also i agree: if you spam someone 3 times and he ignores it, there is no need to spam him further - spamming supervisors usually is the way forward then. What we want to avoid is having to employ more angry accountants.
I really like the idea of having notification templates a lot, perhaps with one that the admins define as standard per process and workflow - but also with options in the users own profile, where he can switch notifications on or off, or choose a different medium for example. Maybe something like a notification-subscription-setup for every process the user has access to.
Just my 2 cents.
Take good care and stay healthy all!
Chris
23.10.2020
20:30
