Many companies that could benefit from ConvergePoint’s SharePoint Policy Management Templates offer resistance because they believe it is tedious to move away from existing processes; especially if it is paper based, Excel based, and/or email based.
If your team is still operating on a workflow made up of emails, spreadsheets, or similar exhaustive processes, your company is left wide open to the risk from an audit. Communication gets lost in paper based transactions, that’s the single greatest value to electronic systems. But today, emails start flying internally and due to human error, people get left off the thread by accident; now conflicting versions require someone to sit down and consolidate changes. Working with ConvergePoint removes that risk and dramatically increases value by building a collaborative solution on top of an existing SharePoint environment.
“Change is nearly always resisted” (Jim Riley, 2012); and rightfully so. Some resistance is validated just because it takes time and resources. However the end results are well worth the effort because without change, there is no improvement. The organization benefits from a compliant, easy to use product saving time (and headaches) for everyone involved. Decrease errors from overlapping versions and remove the risk of stonewalled communication by using simple workflows to guide the policy lifecycle from beginning to end. Alleviate compliance management pangs with a smooth transition to a better platform. Plus, one of the greatest thing ConvergePoint’s Policy Management template offers is that it consistently changes to adapt to the industry as it evolves.
Isn’t it worth 15 minutes to see a demo of exactly how ConvergePoint manages the policy Creation, Distribution, or Certification? Schedule your free demo of ConvergePoint’s SharePoint templates to see first-hand how you can improve your processes overnight.
any companies still use paper-based work flows and manual processes to manage their purchase order systems. They may think switching to electronic processes will be too time-consuming or costly, but the reality is that automating your systems will likely save time and money.
Customized for your business lines and protocols
The ConvergePoint Purchase Order System, built on a Microsoft SharePoint platform, can be fully customized to suit your company’s needs. Our experienced staff will work with you to create, design and build a purchase order portal that allows you to streamline your approval workflows through the entire lifecycle of the purchase order.
We can design the portal to suit:
Our products are always scalable, so you can add or remove various business lines or procedures as needed.
We can help you create rules engines that designate approval authority for various purchase amounts and products. The system is flexible and allows you to add or remove reviewers or designated authority levels as needed.
Improves response time and service
The electronic purchase order and invoice approval process built on Microsoft’s SharePoint has been shown to achieve savings in cost and efficiency.
Before automation, customers
After adopting the ConvergePoint SharePoint Purchase Order system, customers
In recent years, the trend has moved solidly towards enterprise-wide management. The only problem has been that different divisions and departments use different software systems and reporting procedures so that attempts to roll up an enterprise-wide look leave managers comparing apples to oranges.
Real-time Dashboard and Reporting
In the world of contract management, it’s now possible to have an enterprise-wide view of all contract lifecycles – in one place. With ConvergePoint SharePoint Contract Management Software, a real-time dashboard allows you to see general status overviews, review expiration dates, determine cycle times, and even find specific contract details where needed.
The system is fully customizable, so you can group contracts by certain divisions or areas. You can then run ad-hoc reports as needed, for example on new activity or expiring contracts. You may want to update and change your views overtime, depending on which slice of the company or products you need to track at one time.
Tracking contracts through the lifecycle
The ConvergePoint Contract Management System essentially becomes a collaborative workroom. All contract documents are stored in one place throughout the authoring, review and approval process. So management can use the system not only to track activity on executed contracts, but also to track where contracts are throughout the approval process.
As with all ConvergePoint portals, the contract management system provides an easy to track audit trail. This ability to keep an eye at all points of the lifecycle, and knowing who touched which piece when, is a dream come true for risk management officers.
The ability to know key information for your vendors or customers is crucial, whether your company is B2B or B2C. The ConvergePoint Purchase Order System, built on the SharePoint platform, allows requestors to know at a glance where purchase orders are in the approval process.
At a time when cutbacks are making fewer live persons available to update staff on key pending orders, having access to a real-time purchase order status dashboard can make a big difference. This can be especially useful to industries with a large sales force out in the field or people who work remotely.
Our SharePoint Purchase Order Processing Portal Template can provide sales reps with an immediate view of their purchase orders, showing whether and when they were approved, and any other post-approval stages customized for your company.
One-stop place to create, manage and track purchase orders
The system is a one-stop place to create, manage and track purchase orders. In the past, staff may have tracked their own purchase orders with something like static Excel spreadsheets, and updated them with a combination of entering data on their own computers or hand scribbling in updates. When they create purchase orders with this Convergepoint processing portal, the POs are automatically part of the pro-active system that not only allows real-time monitoring, but also can send out email alerts.
With trackable dashboard reports, staff can follow their PO through different stages of management approval. The system is easy to navigate and fully customizable.
Access to the system allows your staff to be equipped to answer all of their customer queries and provides sales reps with detailed order status and other critical information.
Is your intranet setup a big headache for end users? Would you wish the same experience on clients that employees are forced through? Part of the customer centric model that is sweeping modern businesses is that treating the people who for work you – making your company run – should be with the same intent and purpose as how you treat customers.
What is the value proposition for the customer? They almost always boil down to something of this effect, “We are the greatest at X because of Y!” But are you demonstrating that same value of being the greatest to your employees? Assuredly, the best way to encourage employees is to do just that. Corporate intranets are no new topic, but rarely seen is a company that invests any appropriate amount of time into creating a feasible user experience; of course, that problem is seen in many departments silo. If your company has tried to create a corporate intranet, then you probably already realize the immense power that Microsoft SharePoint has for team collaboration. Sadly, Microsoft doesn’t always have the best name in user friendliness. But ConvergePoint’s modules built on top of SharePoint will make the non-IT part of your team forget you’re even on SharePoint. Adoption is the key to success for both you and your end users. With ConvergePoint’s SharePoint intranet templates, you will see a marked increase in engagement and acceptance from your team because they feel connected to the company and not just a piece of software. Would you have customers experience the same quality of your internal procedures that your employees are put through? If not, then you aren’t engaging employees effectively.
Whether you plan to extend your platform out to document management, a robust LMS, or even applying widgets to the SharePoint intranet splash page, don’t invest time in researching what someone else has already defined and proven for your competitors. Use ConvergePoint’s SharePoint intranet templates to get your team collaborating efficiently and let them know you’re the best!
Schedule your free demo of ConvergePoint’s intranet templates and see first-hand how you can improve your processes overnight.
Are you looking for a solution that provides employees with a central information platform and a place for them to store that knowledge? A SharePoint Intranet allows users to easily share information within your organization. It provides a place where employees view corporate communications, gather knowledge, store documents and access relevant applications that fit with their role in the organization.
A SharePoint Intranet can play a major role in strengthening the involvement of your employees. Managers, departments, and employees can include news and announcements – both informing and becoming informed. This allows your employees to contribute to the organization. Because the SharePoint Intranet can be linked to Microsoft Outlook, meeting notes, tasks and calendars can be made accessible to others as well.
Business knowledge such as manuals, guidelines, policies and procedures are accessible to everyone. An employee can quickly find the latest information through an intuitive search function and then review and edit as needed.
We have helped a wide variety of companies, both small & large with their intranet efforts. The out of the box ConvergePoint Corporate SharePoint Intranet Template can help start the organizations SharePoint effort with a pre-built set of features that can be quickly installed, easily customized, and scales to meet specific business needs.
ConvergePoint is a leading SharePoint solutions and SharePoint Consulting company with a team of expert SharePoint Consultants that specializes in Microsoft SharePoint and InfoPath. Our SharePoint products include: Policies and Procedures Management, Contracts Management System, Purchase Order Tracking, SharePoint Intranet Template, Regulatory Compliance and Safety Compliance
Contract lifecycle management is often an aspiration rather than a reality. Once the details of a deal are hammered out and conditions agreed to, the completed contract tends to get put in a pile while you turn to the next set of contracts that need your immediate attention.
If that sounds familiar, then the ConvergePoint SharePoint Contract Management Software may be the method of automation you’ve been looking for. You may have struggled with trying to create and use tracking spreadsheets in the past, but they always seemed to create more work than they save.
Two of the main features of this system are:
(1) it’s easy to use, and
(2) it’s proactive.
Once you take a few moments to upload the contract and enter the vital details, the system starts working for you. If you’ve already established your rules engine, different categories of contracts will automatically be routed to appropriate personnel for monitoring. As with all of our products, notification emails will be sent out in advance of deadlines and expiration dates.
All you need to do after finalizing the contract is to upload it and enter the details such as parties and expiration dates. After that, the contract becomes fully trackable and searchable. If the review has been assigned outside of your office, you have a real-time dashboard that will alert you to impending deadlines, and inform you if tasks are past-due.
So the next time someone calls you in a panic wondering if a contract has expired, you will have been given email alerts in advance that allowed you plenty of time to decide whether the contract should expire or be renewed. In fact, with the Contract Management Software working for you, you may get fewer panicky phone calls – at least on this topic.
ConvergePoint is a leading SharePoint solutions and SharePoint Consulting company with a team of expert SharePoint Consultants that specializes in Microsoft SharePoint and InfoPath. Our SharePoint products include: Policies and Procedures Management, Contracts Management System, Purchase Order Tracking, SharePoint Intranet Template, Regulatory Compliance and Safety Compliance
Imagine you get an email from your boss – she’s on her way to an upper management meeting and wants to how many employees have been certified on the new regulatory policy.
Panic sets in. As the chief compliance officer, it’s not like you’ve been sitting around with nothing to do. You’ve been inundated with new policies to review and implement. You’d sent the new regulations to all of the area managers a few weeks ago – where were they on getting back to you?
Searching frantically through your emails, you scratch out a hand tally so you can get her at least a guess at a percentage towards completion while you’re calling the managers who hadn’t responded.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Imagine, instead, that with one click on your computer you could call up a live dashboard. With one glance, you can report to your boss that X % of employees have completed the certification. You can also assure her that all of those who had not yet completed the certification had been sent reminders, and their managers were on alert to follow-up. You can even send her a link to the report that she can display at the meeting.
Our customized SharePoint workflow template for policies and procedures certification can be adapted to any industry, including health care, banking, or any company where you need to track employee review or acknowledgement of a new policy or procedure.
The system is proactive for you. The idea is to let you concentrate on your work and let the system help you manage the process. The system will
The design of the system allows you to monitor and track the policies and procedures certification process, without eating up all of your time with little back and forths and checking and re-checking and remembering to send notices.
Learn more about our policy management software template and policy certification on SharePoint
ConvergePoint is a leading software solutions and IT services company founded in 2002 that specializes in Microsoft SharePoint and InfoPath. Our products include: Policies and Procedures Management, Contracts Management System, Purchase Order Tracking, SharePoint Intranet Template, Regulatory Compliance, Safety Compliance
Sending paper documentation from one person’s desk to another used to work. A decade ago, when Susie finished her part of the process, she simply walked down the hall, told Bill that she was finished, handed him her signed approval, or got his. Bill would finish his part and make the handoff to the next person in the relay.
It isn’t long before organizations outgrow this sort of “down the hall” workflow management plan. The company grows, and approval can’t wait until Susie and Bill see each other again. The next person Bill needs to hand off to may live an ocean away, and in many cases, a process might have become so complex that no one knows who’s next in the workflow. If only growing organizations realized that the solution to their mounting inefficiencies was right under their noses, in SharePoint.
With only a little bit of expansion and customization, organizations can streamline their workflows so that process owners can see the approvals that have or have not been received as well as the process steps that have been completed. SharePoint can be developed to send email reminders for approval sign-offs and trigger successive process steps once approvals are received, all according to your organization’s unique processes, organizational structure, and compliance requirements. For example, ConvergePoint offers add-ons that take care of:
Some organizations think they need to invest in expensive process management packages when, in reality, they can leverage SharePoint to do all of the heavy lifting for far less money. Forget the environmentally hazardous paper trails, the time spent reminding busy people that you need their approval, and the hours of delay between one step ending and another one starting.
Admit that you’ve outgrown the “down the hall” workflow management system. Make your SharePoint system what it needs to be, and keep your processes flowing or check out some of our ready to use SharePoint workflow solutions today.
Far too often, managers and executives base their decisions on feelings or perceptions instead of hard data. Organizations need reliable information to make choices that truly benefit the business. A decision may seem best, but without an accurate picture of how the organization is performing, where its money is going, who is involved in which activities, and where potential issues lie, well-meaning people can make poor choices.
We can usually see these mistakes in retrospect: “We wouldn’t have reduced the budget for X activity if we had known that for every dollar invested in X, we save two dollars at Y.” “We wouldn’t have brought consultants in to re-engineer Z process if we had known that many employees had never completed the new process Z training module.” “We wouldn’t have spent time applying for certification A if we’d known the finance department was already in the midst of renewing certification B.” Wouldn’t it be better to have these insights beforehand?
The only way to achieve this is through regular data reporting. All of ConvergePoint’s SharePoint templates provide sharepoint reports and business intelligence tools that you can customize. We work with you to design dashboards that deliver targeted information to the right people at the right time.
At their customized dashboard, procurement managers can easily view purchase order submission rates. Human resources can see who in the company has received and signed policy documents. Compliance personnel can keep track of certifications coming up for renewal and which parts of particular compliance processes have been completed. Finance can monitor travel and expense submissions and payouts, to better understand where company cash is going.
Keep an eye on every aspect of your business with our SharePoint reporting options. Contact us to start designing an interface that your managers can understand and use to make better decisions.