Identifying Different Tasks
Financial processes are composed of multiple types of tasks. Some tasks require manual intervention, for example, approval of reports. Before you can implement FPA, you need to identify the different tasks that compose your financial process, for each task that has to be completed manually, you have to identify the responsibilities.
Manual Tasks
You should at the least have one user who is to perform the task as well as a backup, an employee who will be in charge in case the usual user is not available. You can use notifications to remind users of their tasks, if the tasks are not completed in a reasonable time-frame, you escalate to the backup and then to management.
Manual tasks include:
- Report preparation
- Report review
- Report approval
Manual tasks can be scheduled as User Messages. User Messages are special processes that require human intervention to reach a final state. You may specify a message for the person responsible.
You can use the values of parameters in your user messages, you can use REL expressions such as parameters.<name>.
Computational Tasks
Computational tasks should be automated to the maximum extent possible, through the use of chains, for example. This allows you to streamline processing of computational tasks across systems and platforms. No longer will you need to wait for a task to complete on a remote system before you can manually trigger another on another system. Chain processes allow you to run a process literally seconds after another completed. If you want to separate several processes, you can use separate chains linked with events. Events also allow you stream-line processes across platforms that do not have platform-agent support; if there is a Java runtime environment on the platform, you should be able trigger an event from it using the api-tool.jar available in "Configuration > Software"!