Streamline your Workflow with a Resource Scheduling Software

Why do you think projects fail? Even after planning, at times, your projects are derailed because there is no structured process in place. Therefore, project managers may have to face many challenges during the project lifecycle. But how do you think are great organizations different? What do they do differently? They remain focused on their business goals and are able to manage their workflows efficiently. When an organization’s core operations have been clearly defined and are executed meticulously, then the business can run smoothly. But before discussing how you can achieve this, let us understand what workflow management is and how the right resource scheduling software can help.

Workflow refers to a sequence of tasks or activities that may be a part of a larger task and could be synonymous with a business process. Workflow management includes creating and optimizing the structures and processes to complete items in a specific process. As an initial step, you need to find all redundant and repetitive tasks, and design the workflow in an ideal state. This also automates the process, identifies the bottlenecks, and you can chalk out the areas for improvement. Workflow management also encompasses coordinating various tasks that add up to the work an organization or business does. The purpose of a specific workflow is to attain some tangible result, but workflow management aims to achieve improved results as per some set of goals.

As discussed, the process of automating some isolated processes while managing their results in a structured way is called workflow management. Now, let us look at what is a workflow management software and what are its benefits. A workflow scheduling and management software help in defining various tasks that are connected in the entire flow or all milestones along the project lifecycle. It also helps in simplifying the entire setup, implementation, and then monitoring of the organization’s workflows. This gives you a better understanding and grasp of your usual and specific workflow automation processes. The foremost objective here is to make sure that all the workflows in the business – be it manual or automated tasks – remain in sync.

There are many advantages of using workflow and resource scheduling software. But if you are specifically looking at streamlining workflows in your business, then this is how it helps.

1. Balanced workloads

A workflow management software provides better visibility into business-level resources, their plan or schedules, current project status, etc. This helps resource and project managers in assigning new projects or tasks to all the employees in a balanced manner so that over or under-allocation can be avoided.  

2. Automates repetitive tasks and designs simple workflows

Resource scheduling software allows project managers to identify and automate all the repetitive tasks in the workflow. This helps to allocate the top skilled resources to more productive and critical tasks. It also helps in designing easy-to-understand workflows for each process or project. The supervisors or project managers can just input the tasks that need to be completed and the software will design the best sequence or workflow to be followed. 

3. Ease of use

A workflow scheduling software is loaded with brilliant features that simply operational processes like project and resource management. Thus, it’s always advised to take a free trial of the leading workflow and resource scheduling software to check out the tool and its features before you buy it. You can try and see if you and your team will be able to use it easily if it’s responsive, simple to navigate, and has specific benefits for your business.

4. Role-based access control

Many workflows or tasks may contain sensitive information, which may not be necessary to share with everyone in the team. The right resource scheduling software would enable you to customize role-based access as per different users. Therefore, various users can access, view, and edit documents and data as per their roles only. 

5. Simpler allocation and scheduling process

Workflow scheduling software will surely ease your work to a great extent. When you need to plan, schedule, or allocate team members on some activities or projects, you can just log in to this tool, check their availability, and then assign them tasks accordingly. Enbraun’s eResource Scheduler is a leading workflow and resource scheduling software with an intuitive interface. It also offers high configurability, and features like drag and drop which help in planning and scheduling workflows and resources easily. Detailed availability and utilization reports give you insightful data which helps in making the right allocation and resourcing decisions.

6. Elimination of redundant and manual tasks 

At times, due to many redundant meetings and manual tasks, the team loses a lot of their productive time. Imagine if that time could be used for other critical tasks. A workflow management software offers predefined and structured guidelines for creating workflows and doing a specific task. You just need to configure the software as per the requirements and it will automatically delegate tasks to team members. It also helps in eliminating repetitive and manual tasks and automates the processes to save substantial time and effort.

7. Integration with other apps

Workflows cannot operate independently in relation to other processes. There are so many items you need altogether. For example, your data, documents, cash-flows, calendars, reports, and contact details should seamlessly flow from your workflow management tool to the CMS, email, calendar, financial software, etc. If your workflow management software is tough to set up or integrate with other cloud apps your organization may be using, then it’s outdated and of not much use. Hence, to streamline your workflows, you need a workflow or resource scheduling software that can be integrated with all other cloud apps that you may be already using.

8. Open communication

Most resource scheduling software offer features that help you share documents or data, edit or review files, leave comments in a file, and chat with other team members who may be at different locations. Such features help you and your team members to communicate better. This is even more beneficial when most organizations are working remotely or have distributed teams these days. A workflow management software enables collaborating with anyone easily who may be located in a different city or country. It also helps to remove the need to send unnecessary emails or schedule redundant meetings. What’s more? You can also save all important data, dashboards, reports, emails, etc. that you or your team members can refer to any time and from anywhere.  

9. Visibility of your team’s performance

A resource scheduling software also helps in keeping a tab on your team’s performance, the status of all projects, and the productivity of all employees in just a few clicks. You can monitor the status of tasks, see what all is completed or pending, or in case there are any likely roadblocks. This helps you to plan efficiently and find solutions for any challenges or loopholes in the workflow. 

10. Revenue and reporting

Another benefit of using workflow management software is that it helps in assessing the costs and various expenses of your projects. This tool also provides all updated data on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. This further helps to find resolutions to any concerns or issues at hand on time and improve the organization’s profit margins. The software’s insightful reports and visual dashboards help you evaluate the business progress and drill down to further details too.

11. Time tracking

Tracking how your employees are utilizing their time on tasks assigned to them and non-project-related activities help in being more productive. You can just log in to the tool and check each team member’s timesheets and productivity. This enables in creation of more robust plans and estimates which can make your employees more accountable for their work.

12. Process time reduced

Another big advantage of implementing a workflow scheduling software is that it speeds up your processes and tasks. For example, from kick-off, getting approvals, going through various milestones, final reviews, or delivering the final project. Such a tool notifies all relevant people regarding a timeline, or if some delivery has been missed. The managers or supervisors can use this feature to communicate critical messages to their teams like information on new projects, guidelines, and best practices, or schedule any changes.

13. Visualize your workflow

Detailed project plans have too many items, tasks, timelines, and stakeholders involved. Thus, it becomes tough to handle such plans. But a leading resource scheduling software offers Kanban boards, which help you to create a work breakdown structure (WBS) and visualize all the tasks through the milestones and workflow stages. For this, you just need to move that particular activity with the drag and drop functionality to the respective milestone and you are done.

Are you trying to find a way to take your workflow management to the next level? Consider implementing the top-rated workflow scheduling software, eResource Scheduler. This flagship tool from Enbraun is a leading resource scheduling software available. eResource Scheduler not only acts as a centralized repository for all your employee and project data, it also consolidates all important business-related information in one place. This makes it quite easy to access any time and from anywhere. The software provides you with visibility on all projects and resources at an organization level and also flags any likely challenges or conflicting priorities. You also gain insights on resource scheduling, workload management, capacity management, time-tracking, etc. enabling transforming resource management, operations, and workflows. So, sign up for a free trial of this multi-user tool soon.