[નોંધ: This article cross-posted to અંતે વપરાશકર્તા શેરપોઈન્ટ અહીં: http://www.endusersharepoint.com/2009/09/09/sharepoint-a-case-study-in-ask-the-expert/]
ક્યારેક, તમે સલાહકાર તરીકે કામ કરી રહ્યા છીએ ત્યારે (એક વ્યવસાય તરીકે, અથવા તમારી કંપની અંદર એક કન્સલ્ટેટિવ ભૂમિકા), you find yourself living in an Onion story. The Onion has a series of articles called “Ask an [નિષ્ણાત] લગભગ [અમુક સમસ્યા]". This follows the famous “Dear Abby” format where a concerned person is asking for personal advice. The onion’s “expert”, તેમ છતાં, is so focused on his/her area of expertise and current problems that the expert ignores the question entirely and rambles on about his area of expertise. As consultants, we need to keep that in mind all the time and avoid falling into that trap. It’s classically described like this – “when you use a hammer all day long to solve your problems, everything starts to look like a nail.” We professional consultants are always on guard against that kind of thing, but we come into contact with people who are serious professionals in their own role, but are not consultants. They don’t have the same need or training to do otherwise.
છેલ્લા અઠવાડિયે, I wrote about one of my company’s clients and an on-going project we have to enable high quality collaboration between various eye doctors in the US and Canada performing clinical research on rare disease. In addition to leveraging core SharePoint features to enable that collaboration, we’re also working an expense submission and approval process. It’s complicated because we have so many actors:
- A handful of individuals at different doctors’ practices who can enter expenses on line.
- There are over 40 doctors’ practices.
- At some practices, the doctor uses the system directly.
- At many practices, the doctor’s staff uses the system directly.
- A financial administrator (who works for my direct client) who reviews the expenses for accuracy and relevancy, approving or denying them at the organizational level.
- A 3rd party accounts payable group. These people pay all of the bills for out client, not just bills coming out of the rare disease study.
The Accounts Payable group has been a challenge. Working with them yesterday reminded me of the Onion series. In my role as business consultant, I explained the need to the accounts payable company:
- Clinical studies sites (doctors’ practices) incur study-related expenses.
- They log onto the “web site” and enter their expenses using an online form. આ કિસ્સામાં, the “web site” is hosted with SharePoint and the expenses are entered into an InfoPath form. Expense receipts are scanned, uploaded and attached directly to the form.
- ઓટોમેટેડ વર્કફ્લો પ્રક્રિયા યોગ્ય નાણાકીય સંચાલક પાસેથી મંજૂરી માગે છે.
- તમે, dear 3rd party AP company – please review and approve or deny this expense. I’ll send it to you any way that you want (કારણ અંદર).ચર્ચા માં આ બિંદુએ, I don’t really care how it needs to be bundled. I want to work with the AP group to understand what they need and want.
હું જરૂર સમજાવી ત્યારે, 3 જી પક્ષ ખર્ચ મંજૂરી પ્રક્રિયાઓ વિશે તેમના આંતરિક mumbo જમ્બો વિદેશી ભાષા માં ઊંડા ડાઈવ લીધો, ઓરેકલ કોડ, ઉપ પ્રમુખપદની સહીઓ, 90 દિવસ ઊંધું અરાઉન્ડ, વગેરે. And panic. I shouldn’t forget about the panic. One of the bed rock requirements of the consulting profession is to learn how to communicate with people like that who are themselves not trained or necessarily feel a need to do the same. Among other things, it’s one of the best parts of being a consultant. You get to enter a world populated with business people with completely different perspectives. I imagine it’s a little bit like entering the mind of a serial killer, except that you aren’t ruined for life after the experience (though entering the mind of an AP manager isn’t a walk in the park 🙂 [see important note below***] ).
One of the great things about our technical world as SharePoint people is that we have ready-made answers to many of the very valid concerns that people such as my AP contact have. Is it secure? How do I know that the expense was properly vetted? Can I, as the final payer, see all the details of the expense? How do I do that? What if I look at those details and don’t approve of them? Can I reject them? What happens if the organization changes and the original approver is no longer around? Can we easily change the process to reflect changes in the system? Can I revisit this expense a year later if and when I get audited and need to defend the payment?
As SharePoint people, we can see how to answer those questions. In my client’s case, અમે વધુ કે ઓછું આ જેમ તેમને જવાબ:
- ઈન્ફોપાથ ફોર્મ સાઇટ્સ તેમના ખર્ચ રેકોર્ડ અને મંજૂરી માટે તેમને રજૂ કરવા માટે પરવાનગી આપવા માટે.
- સાઇટ્સ કોઈપણ સમયે તેમના ખર્ચ રિપોર્ટ પરિસ્થિતિ જોવા માટે સાઇટ પર પાછા આવી શકો છો.
- નોંધપાત્ર ઘટનાઓ થાય છે (e.g. ખર્ચ માન્ય અને ચુકવણી માટે રજૂ થયેલ છે), સિસ્ટમ સક્રિયપણ ઇમેઇલ દ્વારા તેમને સૂચિત.
- એક અહેવાલ મંજૂરી માટે રજૂ કરવામાં આવી છે એકવાર સિસ્ટમ નાણાકીય વ્યવસ્થાપક સૂચવે છે.
- નાણાકીય સંચાલક વિનંતી મંજૂર અથવા ઈન્કાર.
- મંજૂરી પર, ખર્ચ ઇમેઇલ માં બનીને અને 3 જી પક્ષ ચુકવણીકાર સંસ્થા માટે મોકલવામાં આવે છે.
- 3 જી પક્ષ ચુકવણીકાર ખર્ચ સમીક્ષા કરવા માટે તેઓ જરૂર બધી માહિતી હોય છે અને વિગતો માં ડિગ માટે શેરપોઈન્ટ પર્યાવરણ ઍક્સેસ કરી શકો છો (મુખ્યત્વે ખર્ચ "સત્ય" ચકાસવા માટે ઇતિહાસ ઓડિટ).
- 3rd party payer can approve or reject the payment using their own internal process. They record that outcome back in the SharePoint site (જે યોગ્ય લોકો માટે એક ઇમેઇલ સૂચના ચાલુ).
- ભવિષ્યમાં, તે આ stilly ઇમેઇલ પ્રક્રિયા બહાર કાપી સરસ હોઈ શકે છે અને તેના બદલે તેની સિસ્ટમ સીધી ખર્ચ માહિતી ફીડ કરશે.
અંતમા, જીવન શૈલી હું જોઈ વ્યાવસાયિક સલાહકાર માતાનો બિંદુ થી વર્ણવે છે કે અહીં છે, but which applies almost equally to full time employees in a BA and/or power user role. Work patiently with the experts in your company and extract the core business requirements as best you can. With a deep understanding of SharePoint features and functions to draw upon, more often than not, you’ll be able to answer concerns and offer ways to improve everyone’s work day leveraging core SharePoint features.
***મહત્વની નોંધ: I really don’t mean to compare AP people to serial killers. તેમ છતાં, I could probably name some AP pro’s who have probably wished they could get a restraining order against me stalking them and asking over and over again. “Where’s my check?” “Where’s my check?” “Where’s my check?"
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મારા બ્લોગ પર સબ્સ્ક્રાઇબ કરો.
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