How Companies use The Blue Form
The Blue Form can be used to automate almost any paper based process.
Below are just a few examples of how customers are currently using The Blue Form to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Many consulting companies have staff working onsite for a variety of clients. These staff often need
to fill in a weekly timesheet which needs to be first approved by an on-site manager working for the client company, then
by a manager on the consulting company's side then then sent to accounts for processing. This has traditionally been a challenging
task as it requires approval from a manager working for the client company as well as staff from the consutling company.
This can be easily achieved with The Blue Form. The consultant, client manager, consulting company manager and consulting company accounts staff
can all be users in The Blue Form and participate in the same online workflow process.
When the onsite consultant fills-in their weekly timesheet, an automatic email is sent to his Manager on the client site.
The Manager has the option to approve or reject the timesheet. When he approves, an email is sent to the consulting company's Account Manager
who also has the option to approve or reject. Upon approval, the timesheet is sent to the Accounts Department who process the
data. A common problem made simple by The Blue Form.
Large HR departments often have a combination of different computer systems, combined
with some paper-based forms for communication with employees. This is particularly
cumbersome where employees are on multiple sites or working remotely. The dispersion
of systems also makes reporting difficult to manage. Using The Blue Form, a HR department
can manage expense forms, timesheets, annual leave forms or any other forms from
one central location. The fact that The Blue Form is online, means it is accessible
anywhere. An employee that wants to take annual leave can fill-in a form which is
automatically sent to his or her own line manager for approval. The line manager
then may approve this leave request and it is automatically forwarded onto the HR
department for action. Once it is approved and actioned, the employee is automatically
notified.
Communication between school administrators, teachers and students/parents is so
often segregated; a combination of handwritten notes and diary entries that are
often not received by the party intended. This offers no accountability, and lacks
the ability to trace back lines of communication when issues arise. Using The Blue
Form, parents, teachers and administrators may correspond with each other, with
each party receiving confirmation when the other party has received their message
or form correspondence. This could be a ‘sick note’, ‘field-trip permission note’
or just general correspondence on a student’s behaviour. These forms or messages
can be between parent and teacher, and may be automatically sent to and administrator
or co-ordinator if required. This allows complete accountability, as the entire
history of communication between parents, teachers and administrators is recorded
and available for reporting or trace-back at any time.
Many sales reps spend a lot of time on the road, often unable to access the company intranet
for extended periods of time. They often end up emailing forms such as Sales Reports, Expense Claims,
Timesheets etc to people in the office so that these can be entered into the HR or Accounting systems.
Because The Blue Form is a hosted solution, it is accesible online anytime, anywhere.
As soon as a sales person makes a sale, they can fill in an online Sales Report hosted on The Blue Form and a notification
is automatically sent to the sales manager back home. The process is streamlined and trackable. Other common tasks which occur
on the road such as Expenses and Timesheets can also be completed remotely via The Blue Form.
Often ordering new raw materials inside a factory is a combination of a verbal request,
followed up by some paper-based forms that eventually find their way to billing.
Most of the time, this is okay, but we all know that occasionally something goes
wrong in this process. And when the factory floor finds itself short of raw materials,
it is an expensive problem. Using The Blue Form, a factory manager enters in a purchasing
order online. This is automatically sent to the purchasing manager for actioning.
The purchasing manager orders the material and the form is automatically forwarded
on to the billing department for payment. At any time, management have access to
any of this data for reporting.