Quality Documents SharePoint

The solution focuses on the creation and regular revision of controlled documents according to ISO 9001 or any other standard. Documents are guided through the entire life-cycle.  Other important features are the configurable workflow management as well as the simple administration of role-based user permissions, the personal task management or the electronic notification confirmation.

In the next sections we will provide you some features of Shareflex Quality Documents with sample screenshots so you get a better feel of the solution.

The home page displays 5 links to frequently used functions of the Shareflex Quality Document Management system.

We explain each link / function below.

Valid documents

When a user clicks the valid documents box he/she will get access to all approved, valid and active documents that the user is allowed to see (based on set permissions).

Checked out documents

This function grants access to all documents that are checked out (this means people are working on them).

New documents

Use this function to create new documents (we explain more details below).

Records

When a user clicks the Records button he/she will get a display of all valid and checked out records.

Process Landscape

This function provides the user with a representation of the Quality Management Processes. It allows dynamic navigation in processes and documents through a graphical process map. You can check and release these processes by means of a release workflow.

 

Creating new Quality Documents SharePoint

Now we zoom more into the process of document creation. First go to New Documents. This opens up a document menu.  You need to use one of the below 2 options to add new content to the QMS system. It is not possible to drag and drop files in the list.

We first explain how to create new documents with the first option “Upload a new document”.

Upload a new document

The upload new document function guides the user in adding a file from his/her computer to Shareflex Quality Documents.
Create a new document will open a new Word or Excel (for example) in the browser.

Once the file is created, the user needs to enter more settings before the workflow approval process can start. Click the pen link to edit the document properties.

The user needs to set the green marked fields accordingly. The system displays the document file content in the right pane.

After saving the new document the user has to reopen it in read mode to see the workflow menu.

Use the request document workflow operation to make the system assign a document number.

The workflow task has been automatically assigned to the person with the preconfigured role ‘reviewer’. The user can view the workflow progress on the bottom pane.

The reviewer receives an email and gets a request to generate a document number.

The screenshot below displays the workflow. The user chooses workflow step 900 to assign a document number. The approver is able to view the whole record on the screen.

When the user saves the new document, the workflow notices that the new item has been removed from the New Documents view and the solution calculates the document number.

The item is now visible in the Checked Out Documents view for final approval.

The requester has to first fill out the required persons to approve and confirm before the final publishing approval workflow starts.

After saving the item, the publishing workflow option will appear in the menu.

 

Below screenshot displays the workflow start screen in which the requester may add additional comments and revision changes.

Once the user clicks ‘Start Workflow’ the review workflow starts. Subsequently, the chosen approver will get a mail notification.

You can see the Workflow screen below. The person that gets the request to review may forward to the approver (400), reject (990) or return the item back to the requester (200) with relevant comments.

 

When the user clicks ‘Forward to approver’ the Final approval workflow will start and the approver will get a notification.

The approver may forward the request to the confirmer (500) or send it back to the Editor (200).

The final step in the workflow process is to publish the document. When the user checks the box ‘Forward to Confirmer’, the workflow process continues.

The user will now have the ability to publish the document.

As a result the new document (in this example a procedure) will be visible in the Valid documents view.

 

Create a new document in Quality Documents SharePoint

The second way to create a new document is to base it on a template stored in Shareflex Quality Documents.

Under administration there is an option to manage the templates as you can see in the image below.

Now you understand how to configure the templates, let’s make a new record based upon a certain template.

Go to ‘New Documents’ and choose ‘Create a new document’.

In the right pane you find the new document fields for the user to choose from.

Based on the Document type choice the user selects he/she can choose the associated template. These templates are word / excel files that are configured in Shareflex Quality Documents (as we explain earlier on in this section).

The new document is visible in the new documents section.

From here onwards the editing and approval work is similar to the previous method ‘Upload a New Document’.

 

Administration of Quality Documents SharePoint

Before a user can create new records he/she needs to enter certain settings.

We will explain each of these settings below.

Templates

Templates, for example Word and Excel, are maintained in the Templates section under Administration.

The ‘Add’ button allows users to add new templates.

In below example a new Excel template has been uploaded. To complete the template creation process the user needs to edit the properties.

As you can see below we now have 2 templates.

The user can view and download the templates. When the template needs to be updated simply repeat the add procedure to add a new file to the templates list.

 

Document Types

This section lists the types of documents the user can create as well as the persons that can review and approve. Document types are required when editing templates and display automatically when creating a document.

Clients

This list is used to maintain the clients and authorizations. Individuals, SharePoint groups or AD groups can be used.

Departments

The departments setting arranges a document within its organizational structure. The structure is mapped with the help of the hierarchy. The user selects the document property Department from this list.

Processes

Processes arrange a document into the organizational structure. The structure is mapped with the help of the hierarchy. The user selects document properties Process group, Process and Subprocess from this list depending on the hierarchy level.

Standards

The system maintains Standards in a simple list. From this list the user can select them in the document property Standards.

Workflows

Workflows are an important part of Shareflex Quality Documents. Under the workflow administration function it is possible to change the workflows.

For example, let’s review the publishing workflow. The following screen displays all workflow steps on the particular item.

Here you can also adjust, remove or add workflow steps and or options.

As you notice we only provide a very high level introduction to the workflow configuration. This is because the configuration of the workflow happens through documents in Shareflex Quality Documents. Hence, no difficult coding is needed to make changes to workflows.

 

Permissions

Under the permissions administration section the administrator may maintain the users who have access to the system and the roles each user may perform.

 

Notifications

Under the Notifications section the administrator can fine-tune the content of the emails sent by the workflows.

 

Contact us for a demo Quality Documents SharePoint

On this page we only provided a brief overview of the vast capabilities of Shareflex Quality Documents for SharePoint. The solution is highly configurable so we can easily adjust it to your specific needs. Feel free to contact us for a demo of the solution and to discuss how it can cater your needs.