Visualizing the status of each Step of the Order-delivery flow
Q. What kind of business are you using Questetra for?
CLARA ONLINE provides consulting services focused on the operation of cloud services. We support our customer’s business development in terms of both of business and infrastructure with our strengths particularly in cross-border initiatives from our bases in Tokyo, Nagoya, Beijing, Singapore, Taipei, Seoul and Hong Kong.
We are using Questetra in all business operations within the company. Among them, it has had a significant impact in the Order delivery Process.
Q. What kind of challenges did you have?
From the time we received an order for building a network infrastructure to finally delivering it, we used to manage the status of each process mainly by email.
Fortunately, as we started to receive more orders we had a lot of emails about each case and it became a great effort to keep track of them. Immediately before using Questetra about 500 emails were sent every month.
By visualizing the business process of order entry-delivery using Questetra, not only did it become possible to immediately grasp the processing situation of each Issue, but also omissions which could not be prevented in email management have been eliminated, and the lead time to delivery has been shortened by about 30%.
Actively utilizing smartphones to improve decision-making speed
Q. Is there anything you have devised?
We are linking the “Approval process”, which is for requesting approval on a project to be put into practice, and the “Settlement process” to settle expenses incurred at the time of execution.
Although for the “Settlement process” it is necessary to clarify which Issue has been approved, this is done automatically. Also, the “Settlement Process” is not activated unless the Issue has been approved in the “Approval process”, so payments will not happen until the process is approved.
In addition, we have linked the “Business trip request process” and the “Business trip expense settlement process” too. So I feel it is becoming common sense inside the company that all settlements concerning a business trip require approval in advance.
Expense Claim process
Q. Please tell me what you expect of Questetra in the future.
By making use of Questetra in approval / decision-making type workflows the speed of decision-making has significantly improved.
Many people are asking us to make it easier to use from their smartphones to speed the process up further.
For example, they would like to not have to log in every time they use the system, to be notified when a process is assigned (not by email), to be able to see the number of projects assigned to themselves, and to be able to use the system without paging.
I look forward to using Questetra for managing many operations in the future.
Adapting approval approval work used by all employees to internal control
Tricorn Corporation
Established
February 10, 1997
Number of Employees
Approximately 60 (as of May 2024)
Business
Development and sales of the CRM platform “KREISEL”, Creative production, operation support, and system development in the CRM field, DX support using data
We, Tricorn Corporation, provide enterprise oriented cloud based CRM services.
Services, including “KREISEL” (http://kreisel.biz/), and “LOOPASS”, (http://www.loopass.net/) an ASP tool dedicated to LINE Business Connect, and “Autobahn for Appexchange”, (http://apex.tricorn.net/) a Salesforce coordinated email delivery application, etc. are utilized by many government agencies, financial institutions and listed companies.
We introduced Questetra for implementation of internal control, and to improve operational efficiency.
Starting with various Request applications to be used by all employees, such as Leave request and Decision-making request, now, we are using it for User support work. Now, about three months after introduction, approximately 40 Business Processes are in operation.
Q. Is there anything you have devised?
We have devised automatic splitting and cooperating with other services such as Chatwork.
For example, there are various types of request for approval. We determine the approval route automatically using the “request type” and “amount of money” as split conditions to be input in the requesting Step so that it conforms with the internal regulations.
Also, after approval we share information by connecting Questetra with Chatwork, which is adopted as a standard communication tool inside the company.
For example, when procurement request were approved, that information was shared in Chatwork and effective use of the purchased items was promoted in the company.
In addition to Chatwork we we also use kintone to register and reuse data from the ledger, and use Twilio to provide simultaneous voice notifications to smartphones (which is lent to all employees). Regarding the [Throwing Messages Intermediate Event], etc. we often use them for linking with other services since they are easy to implement.
Released various Business Process a period of less than two months
Q. How did you develop the workflow at the time of introduction?
The current application rules have been quietly incorporated into Questetra..
We were able to design the business processes relatively easily because the internal rules and documents describe “who”, “what” and “in what order” the business should be carried out. The design of the business process was carried out by the members of a cross-departmental business improvement project.
Within the team, we reviewed the designed Business Processes from the viewpoint of consistency with internal regulations and information sharing with stakeholders in the company, and then released them.
Q. Please tell me if you have any expectations of Questetra
Immediately after the release, there was confusion within the company about how to operate this system, but the inquiries were resolved in about a month.
In the future, we plan to expand utilization of Questetra for user support and development department operations, and some people want to use it in their own departments.
To that end, I hope to improve the searchability of manuals and introduce ways to save labor in form input.
Kyoto, Japan – November 20th, 2017 – Questetra, Inc., the global SaaS provider of Business Process Management (BPM), today announced that they have published the new version 11.5 of the Cloud-based Workflow product “Questetra BPM Suite” on Nov. 20th, 2017. With this new version, it allows users to easily implement API collaborations and self-development, since the API documents and REST API testing environment have been organized to which conforms to OpenAPI specification (formerly Swagger).
In order to improve the productivity of day-to-day operations, automation of Business Processes is essential. Since numbers of cloud service company publishes APIs (Application Programming Interface) which are for accessing resource of their own services, cases of “self-development of app using API” or “API collaboration between multiple services” are increasing its number.
On and after the new version 11.5, you can promote not only automatizing request transmission to external systems (external APIs) using “Auto step”, but also automatizing requesting from external systems to the Workflow platform. For companies that utilizing multiple cloud services, Questetra can be the core cloud service.
Questetra BPM Suite
Cloud-based Workflow “Questetra BPM Suite” is a business platform for realizing environments of paper-less and remote-working.
Business issues are controlled according with Business Flow Diagram. When a process reaches human task, the user will be asked to input. Also, when an issue reaches to automated Step, the predetermined processing (server-side processing) such as “Generate PDF” and “Save to cloud storage” is performed automatically. (BPM: Business Process Management)
You can apply it to various business operations such as “Approval request flow”, “Document translation flow”, “Quality check process”, “Invoice issuance process”. Process owner of each Business Process can practice “improvement of Business Process” little by little in daily work. (Examples of Business Flow Diagram: http://en.workflow-sample.net/ )
OpenAPI specification
It is an online document generated dynamically according to Workflow platform. It allows developers to write program code that suites for their own Workflow platform efficiently. In addition, since communication test of request can be executed within online document, it is possible to create program code while simulating various data transmission.
System Settings API : APIs for performing changes in settings of the Workflow platform such as Users, Organizations, or System privileges
Workflow API : APIs for controlling or processing on Issues flowing on Workflow, searching for Issues, managing App privileges
OpenAPI Documentation
Other Improvements
All Operators complete option
In addition to the existing “Each task is finished when one of the allocated user has executed”, you can set an option of “Each task is finished when every allocated user has executed”. It is useful in a situation where all the operators must see.
Enhance Single Sign-on (SAML)
Enabled to set “Authentication lifetime” in ID Provider setting, so that you can use Google as the ID Provider. Also, adopting encryption that can be used as certificate, it supports more advanced algorithm.
STARTTLS
Email transmission from Questetra BPM Suite corresponds email encryption. It allows secure email transmission if the target email server supports STARTTLS.
SaaSベンダーの株式会社クエステトラ（京都市、代表執行役 CEO 今村元一）は11月20日、クラウド型ワークフロー製品である 『Questetra BPM Suite』 の新バージョン11.5を公開しました。新バージョン11.5では、OpenAPI 仕様（旧名 Swagger 仕様）に対応した REST API テスト環境およびドキュメントが整理され、利用者は外部システムからの API 連携プログラムを容易に開発できるようになります。
日常業務の生産性向上のためには業務プロセスの自動化や複数のサービス間の連携が欠かせません。今日では、多くのクラウドサービスにおいて自サービスのリソースにアクセスするための API (Application Programming Interface) が公開され、「API 利用アプリの開発」や「複数サービス間の API 連携」といった事例も珍しくなくなってきたと言えます。
業務案件は業務フロー図に従ってコントロールされ、案件が人間工程に到達すれば担当者はアウトプットを求められます。また、案件が自動工程に到達した際には、「PDFの生成」や「クラウドストレージへの保存」といった既定の処理（サーバサイド処理）が自動的に行われます。（BPM: Business Process Management）
JTB BUSINESS INNOVATORS Corp. is a company that provides finance and settlement services for travellers and travel agencies.
For example, we offer pre-paid cards that can be used overseas, foreign currency exchange services for foreign visitors to Japan, pre-settlement services for web accommodation reservations and so on.
We are using Questetra for contract conclusion work. We operate three Workflows, from drafting a request for approval to making a decision, applying for a seal, and registering contract information, and since we can check the contracts in digital files it helps us to prevent the loss of the originals.
Q. Please tell us why you chose Questetra.
By using Questetra we cannot create an official contract unless we go through the Approval process and the Signature process, so we are able to thoroughly enforce internal rules.
In addition, the approver is able to make decisions even while on business trips, and this has made it possible to shorten the time required for approval. It is stable as a system and we can use it with confidence considering the experience of JTB SYSTEM SOLUTION INC., a group company.
Workflow with strict authority management and control of approval routes
Q. What challenges did you have before introducing Questetra and how did you solve them?
Prior to using Questetra we were managing contract signing draft documents on paper.
From the drafting person’s viewpoint it was not clear how far the approval or signing work was to being finished, and they had to deal with unnecessary stress of having to contact the management department. By using Questetra’s data retrieval function the drafter became able to see the progress of the approval settlement and signing work, and this has helped us to understand when the official contract will be completed and to relieve the stress.
Q. Is there anything you have devised for its use?
Since we deal with important and confidential contract information as our business, we restrict viewing authority and control over process to the General affairs division and strictly manage authorization.
We have designed the Workflow so that the approval route that complies with internal rules is automatically determined depending on the type of contract. In addition, we have prepared a Step for the General affairs department to check midstream to make sure that the contract type is not wrong, so there is no chance that we take the wrong decision route.
From now on, I would like to promote automation like digitally storing the approval history information along with the approval document, so that we can utilize it for business expansion of the company.
Approximately 30 HR-related tasks were digitized from paper. Further labor savings achieved through the use of automatic processing functions and more.
Established
1983
No. of Employees
1,020 as of April 1, 2024
Main Business
Collaborative IT Full Outsourcing, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Services, Open System Services, Infrastructure Services, etc
ABeam Systems provides a business model called “Full-outsourcing” that goes beyond mere system development, entrusting our clients with the IT strategy to realize their management and business strategies. We support the improvement and promotion of our customer’s business processes in order to achieve their goals, including IT support centered on the development and introduction of ERP systems.
We are using Questetra to conduct approval requests, requests for internal system usage, and tasks in human resources such as providing training and new employee follow-up (approximately 30 types of business processes).
Transitioning from paper applications has improved the processing speed of applications
We used to submit and approve applications using paper forms.
The approver was often out of the office and the approval process was slow, the applicant and approver were sometimes located far from each other and it took a long time for the application to be mailed to the approver, and the applicant had to find out who was approving the application.
By using Questetra approving on the go becomes possible, and the processing speed from application to approval has been improved. In addition, since the approver is automatically determined based on the department the applicant belongs to we can now make requests without confusion.
Labor was saved by using automatic processing functions and optimizing form layouts. Operations can be conducted without the need for manuals
Approval routes are decided along the organization hierarchy in accordance with internal rules.
If an approver concurrently belongs to multiple organizations, approval Steps could be assigned consecutively even though the internal rule allows for a single approval. We use automatic processing functions (Error Boundary Event, etc.) to avoid consecutive approvals, so that the same approver is not required to repeatedly approve the same thing.
We are also working on reducing erroneous operations by applicants and labor saving for input operations. We provide information on the meaning of the input contents and entry examples for each input form, so that applicants can fill in the form without hesitation and without looking at the whole manual. In addition, when a specific option is chosen, the initial value on another input form is automatically set.
We appreciate the ability to create workflows without the need for system development knowledge
We appreciate the fact that even those without system development experience can design Workflow diagrams.
Since we can design Workflow diagrams that easily comply with business rules, basic design can be done in a short period of time and we were able to spend more time on the detailed settings (input labor saving, etc.).
Moreover, we appreciate the quality of Questetra’s support. If I have questions or ask for innovative tips in Workflow designing they return the answer within one day, which is very helpful. We also hear from staff within the company who want to put their department’s work onto the Workflow, so we hope that Questetra will continue to provide support and enhance the web manual.
