One of the most important topics when it comes to automating your processes is Master Data. Master Data is an often-forgotten key element of process optimization. As your company grows, complexity increases and the need for automation becomes increasingly important. The degree to which data heavy processes can be automated is often dependent on the quality of the master data that feeds those processes.
Part 1 Data Validation & Control
The first step in any Master Data clean up project is to ensure that the new data coming in is clean. Now this can be accomplished in many different ways.
Method 1: Use Decisions to link forms to the Rules Engine.
Our integrated rules engine and form designer makes it possible to do real time validation and control when customers or employees are entering data. With Decisions, you can do things like build forms that have: dependent drop downs; limited data input options; or auto complete forms.
Method 2: Use Decisions to link forms to External Databases
Another popular way to control inbound master data is to validate it against one or many databases. The Decisions platform allows you to do real time service bus calls to external databases to validate your data as it’s being entered. For example, you could easily setup form validations that make real time service bus calls to external databases (such as the USPS) to validate an address.
Method 3: Use Decisions Workflow to automate Data Entry and to manage exceptions.
While the goal is to automate as much as possible, we all know that it’s rarely possible to automate 100% of the use cases in the real world. Our integrated workflow tools can be used to create a master data workflow in your organization to handle these exceptions. You can even setup custom dashboards with Decisions that tell you how long it takes certain departments to complete their work, that notifies you when people are behind on their tasks, and even automatically escalates issues based on your defined rules.
