How an automated business process looks in KMD WorkZone

This article is the last in a series of six. The aim of the series has been to show a complete example of how to digitize and automate a business process in WorkZone. In the previous articles we have done all the hard work of setting everything up. Now we will sum it all up and inspect how it looks in KMD WorkZone. We will finish off by talking about further steps that can be taken to improve governance and transparency of the states of the running processes.

Check the earlier articles to see how the form is set up in Interact, how form submissions are pulled into WorkZone, how case activity lists can be automatically applied to new cases, how the first part of the graph is setup and how the DCR graph is imported into WorkZone.

So, what is it that we have been setting up through the last few articles?
We have a simple application process where citizens in Denmark can apply for a permit to raise the flag of another nation in Denmark. Without a permit it is not allowed to do so. Most of the time the applicant is granted the permission automatically straight away.

So, we have set up a simple application form using KMD Interact. This form has been connected to KMD WorkZone where a case is created as soon as the application is received. When this kind of case is created, we automatically apply our process (in the form of a case activity list) to the case. In most cases, all the steps of the process are automated, and the citizen is granted a permit automatically (and the case is updated accordingly by the system). However, we use case activities to search for applications containing some specific words that have been deemed potentially problematic. If such words are found, the application is taken out of automated flow and will have to be processed manually, to allow a caseworker to assess if a permission can be granted or if the application should be rejected. Once the caseworker has evaluated the application, case activities are again used to update fields on the case and inform the applicant of the result by automatically sending the response to via Smartpost. If no stop words are found, the permission is granted and the applicant informed via Smartpost without any manual intervention by a caseworker.

That is the summary of how we have been using Interact and some of the different components in WorkZone to automate a process. Now let us see how it looks in WorkZone.

If you look at the figure below, you can see a case that a was automatically created after a submission was received. On the case, the activities tab is open, and you can see that the activity list, Flag application, has been added to the case (1). The pane that shows the different activities is open with a filter that shows active and pending activities (2). In this case, that result in an empty pane because there are no activities to execute. For the most part, these applications should look like this because we expect the majority of the applications will not contain any of the stop words and will contain a contact phone number (refer back to the previous articles for information on what the case activity list will check).

Basically, there is nothing to be done on this case and as you can see, it has also been updated with the state, Fully processed (4).

Let us instead open the history of the activity list (3), so that we can see what has happened on the case automatically.

To get the proper overview, we need to first change the filter to “No filter”.

If you want a chronological overview of what has happened on the case in terms of executed case activities, you need to read the list from the bottom up.

We can see that the first activity was executed at 11:36:19. This was basically as soon as the list was added to the case (within a few minutes of the applicant pressing the submit button on the application). This activity just halts further processing for four minutes (see previous articles for details) to allow the contents of the application to be indexed properly.
Four minutes later the automatic processing kicks in again.

First, the state is set to “Being processed” (code UB). Thereby it is easy to see that work is happening on the case.

Then three different checks are run to check whether the application contains any of the stop words. In this case, nothing is found.

Next, a check is done to ensure that there is a contact phone number for the applicant. If this is required, normally you would most likely ensure that the application cannot be submitted without one, but here we have added this “backend” check just to show that it can also be done with case activities.

Once we have confirmed that there is a phone number, the next activity sets the Ruling (custom field) to Granted, the Ruling date to today’s date and State to Fully processed.

The last step in the case activity list is then to send the automatically generated permission letter to the applicant. As you can see above, this happens at 11:40:33. Just a few minutes after the application has been submitted.

In this fully automated path through the process, the applicant has a response five minutes after submitting the form. Pretty cool.

If we look at another example, where the applicant included the word “boots” in the description of the occasion, we can see that the application goes though the same steps initially but the automatic processing is then stopped and the case is given state Pending.

On the activity list there is just a single activity that can be executed and that one must be done manually: Determine outcome manually. A caseworker can then expand the activity to read the documentation about what should be done and continue with the manual processing.

Once the caseworker has considered the application and updated it accordingly, the automatic processing is started again and if all looks correct, the applicant is informed via a Smartpost letter and State is set to Fully processed.

That should give you a good idea about how the cases may look in WorkZone - both when they are fully automated and when there are manual steps involved.

To make it transparent to everyone how many applications we have in the different stages, it could be beneficial to setup some dashboard. These can be different counters to shown number of new cases (although they of course should not be new for very long as the processing will start automatically – but if could be beneficial as a monitoring tool: if there many new cases, it could mean that there is something hindering the automatic processing to start), how many are being processed and how many are fully processed.

In this article, we will not go into the details of setting up dashboards but have a look at the documentation (see the example on that page: How to add a saved search to the dashboard).

In terms of the process itself, there is one more step that would make a lot of sense to add. We chose to leave it out to keep the graph small for this example, but closing the case once the applicant has been informed of the outcome, would be a good idea.

To do this, you can add another activity that will update the Closed field on the case with today’s date. However, it is important to wait until the Smartpost process has finished before closing the case.(that is one way to check if the Smartpost process has completed):

• Entity is records
• Filter: You need to define a filter that will identify the document on the case – e.g.:
  FileKey_Value eq ‘{Case.ID}’ and startswith(Title, ‘Permission to raise foreign flag’)
• Properties – here you just need something that will always be true – you could use the type of the document.
• ValidationInterval - this you can set to 30. Basically, the activity will then check for the document on the case every 30 seconds.

Once the document is found on the case, the activity should include another activity that will set the Closed field on the case to today’s date (use an UpdateEntities to update the field closed on the current case – “Closed”:”+0d”(+0d is a shorthand code for today’s date)).

And that is it. I haven’t given you all the details for this last bit, but you should be able to work out the remaining details from what you have learned so far.
And that is also it for this little series of articles. You should now understand all the different tools needed to setup a fully or partially automated business process. Now, use your imaginations to see how you can apply these different tools to support your business best possible.

Thank you for following along!

I will leave you with a bunch of useful links to different relevant resources:

WorkZone documentation
Interact community (Norwegian)
WorkZone Interact connector documentation
Case monitor documentation
DCR designer
WorkZone documentation on case activities