So often we get the question, “What does SharePoint do?” SharePoint can provide many benefits. Some of the biggest uses are document management, collaboration, enterprise search and portals. However, another excellent use of SharePoint is process automation. If you are looking for ways to improve your current use of SharePoint or trying to understand how your organization could benefit from SharePoint, process automation could be an area of interest.
Process Automation really means reviewing your current processes and determining how they can be improved. Often times using the workflow capability of SharePoint is a great way to improve processes. For example, maybe a process requires steps to be taken by outside third parties or maybe you need to wait for forms or documents to be returned from a customer or prospect. By using the workflow functionality of SharePoint you can send reminders to internal staff and/or outside vendors and customers. You could also take the documents they return to you and store them in a SharePoint document library or create a portal using SharePoint where they can complete the forms online. Once the forms were submitted a notification could be sent so the next step in the process is not delayed.
SharePoint can be used in a lot of different ways, but process automation is certainly an area where many companies have found opportunities for improvement.