Speeding up everyday tasks through automation.
A retail solutions company that represents some of the world’s most loved retail brands across five continents, introduced automation through actionable emails.
How was the purchase order approval process improved for this retail business?
Previously, their users needed to log into their Sage ERP system and find all the information related to a particular PO before they could approve or reject it — this was not only inconvenient but also time-consuming. Now that there’s an automation tool in place, however; things are quite different.
To speed up their process, SynergERP introduced actionable emails to bring the purchase order directly to the approver’s inbox. The new approval workflow makes it easy for users to approve or decline purchases by taking an action in an email.
All the information required to make a decision is added to the actionable email, so the user can make an informed decision without accessing other systems. This information could take the form of an attachment, for example, a purchase order. Plus, information can be added to the body of the email, for example, how much of the budget has already been spent for the month.
The user can determine the impact of their decision and take an action immediately. Once an action is taken in the email, the outcome is automatically captured in the ERP system. Follow-up notification emails can be built into the workflow if they are required.
Steps in the approval process
- Users create a purchase request in Sage X3 ERP
- The cloud server will authenticate the information and encryption ensures the data is secure
- The information is sent to Microsoft
- The email is generated and sent to the approver to accept or reject – see the email example below
- Approval or rejection details are then captured in the ERP software.
Outcomes
The retail organisation which adopted this automation enters 1000+ purchase orders a month. Their purchasing department has achieved considerable time-saving on their PO process. They no longer have to sort through purchase orders in the ERP system. They can simply approve or decline them with a few clicks in email!
When to use Actionable Emails?
By embedding actions in an email, this solution can be used whether you need a user to input data, fill out a request, complete a survey or update a transaction. You can pull through any fields that may be required for the decision-making process, for example, product, supplier and pricing information.
How do we cost this solution?
SynergAutomate has a monthly subscription costing model which means that a certain number of transactions will be processed as part of the subscription, extra transactions above the agreed-upon figure will incur an extra cost.
Overview Video
