This entry is about a system that I pioneered and setup in my current work company. This is CuteFlow, which automates, and nearly makes brain dead the circulation of electronic documents from originator, through various departments, and various people back to you. First disclaimer ! This is written in PHP, and so it will work on any server system including Windows, but the software does use a MySQL database, and SMTP E-Mail Server. So you will need to install XAMPP on the Windows Server, which is dreamy simple.
Everything is handled through your web browser, and through e-mail notification. A quote from the main website.
“CuteFlow is a webbased open source document circulation and workflow system. Users are able to define “documents” which are send step by step to every station/user in a list.
It’s an electronic way for doing (i.e. internal) document circulations. A document can be assembled from input fields of different types. The fields can be filled with values by the receiver of the document directly in the users E-Mail-Client. After a completed circulation you will have a completely filled document. Also attachments to the document are possible (i.e. for illustration material).
All operations like starting a workflow, tracking, workflow-definition or status observation can be done within a comfortable and easy to use webinterface.”
I found this software a little twisty to setup, meaning that I was not able to think just like the developers, but i managed to get everything working with a little of effort, and consultation of the online documentation of how to start and respond to circulations. For my company that is ISO 9000, and has elected to keep everything on line, this software was essential since when working on a new device there can be revisions to a mechanical model, that need to be sent to multiple departments, like Manufacturing, purchasing, and in some cases testing/QA. Once all the kinks were worked out, this was all done automagically, with e-mail notifications, so no could complain about not being notified about changes in the devices that are being made.
Anyway after a month of set up, and setting up circulations everything is working just great, and all is well with the engineers, purchasing, and manufacturing. That was a great accomplishment!! But the meetings about this whole thing were killer !!! I am not a meeting person, i just want to get the job done, stuff all this talking, and feelings, about who owns what!!!