At present, businesses are on the lookout for ways to minimize manual activities in their business process. Process automation software is being widely used by businesses to minimize costs related to specific functions in their business process. A project starts with a task like a client asking a mobile operator for a trip card. It will start off some events which will end once the client confirms receipt of the card. Here, we will provide you with a complete overview of what a process automation software is:-

What is a process automation software?

Process Automation software is often used by companies to minimize costs, both in the form of time and money for handling usual business processes. The substitution of manual triggers with software that integrates disparate systems will enable end to end business process. Costs are saved due to the involvement of lesser number of people.

Enhancing operational efficiency, governance and high level of service reliability possible

Implementing process automation software will ensure the hassle free functioning of your systems. You will be able to systematize major IT processes. So, you will be able to maximize efficiency in operations, usage of resources and service quality. Quick problem solving and enhancement in service levels will automate major IT processes. It will also free your IT personnel for important projects by organizing complex operations. Regulatory compliance will also be enabled with the help of advanced tracking tools. Process standardization will boost visibility, control, and efficiency.

Business processes collect, allocate, analyze and integrate data within the strategic decision making processing of an organization. Process Automation software improves business process management, on the whole, ensuring quicker ROI from resource and cost savings. The result can be calculated.

Companies are greatly dependent on new technologies to smoothen their business process. But, this dependence on technology often makes the system more complex. As a result, a lot of issues crop up in the smooth functioning of a business. If you have been facing these issues as a business owner, then it’s time you consider using Business Process Automation(BPA) to fix these issues.

This software can make complex tasks more simplistic and organize them in proper order. It will in turn help you to save your time and money as all time consuming tasks will be fulfilled automatically. As a result, your productivity will improve. Your employees will also be able to handle all their major functions. Some of the strong points of BPA software are mentioned below:-

Efficient client management

Account management and client handling are often a major handicap of organizations with limited resources. BPA software will make it easier for your staff to handle clients with confidence. Once a new client signs in, the BPA will help you to make a project template containing details of all project related milestones. The details will comprise information right from scheduling of a kickoff call by the marketing manager to the first invoice drafted by the billing department. It will also include client intake documents that will be shared with other marketing executives.

Marked improvement in project management

BPA will help you to maintain project records and tasks. It will also help you to stay updated with the latest information related to them. You will receive an email generated automatically to send a mail once one of your staff either receives or completes a new task.It will maintain the past records of all projects and work related to them so that you return to any point for reference.

Some versions of the BPA software come with an option for questioning, which enhances communication. So, you will not lose records of any task. As a result, your staff will become more accountable. Time management will also improve as a result.

Minimal tasks for administration

With the use of BPA software, you can handle all areas of business ranging from auto emails, payment related reminders to pre-planned questionnaires and CRM. As a result, you will be able to save a substantial amount of time which the HR team would otherwise spend in these areas.

Business process owners always look for ways to improve and smoothen the flow of their business. In order to boost the quality standards and increase the accountability of your staff, you can consider using Business Process Automation (BPA) software. Some of its features are mentioned below for your reference:-

Organize flow of communication in business process

You receive numerous mails on a daily basis and it isn’t possible to remember all things. You can depend on notes in a to do list or Google tasks. But you will need to make sure that you note them down. Automation of your workflow will ensure that you have a single mode of communication, and a single dashboard where all requests are placed. You can also use it for details about the stage of business process they are in.

Increased accountability

Automation of workflow and organizing business communication will give you access to all details as to to who is handling what process. All follow ups, approvals, rejections and client inputs will mention the person who has performed the action. By improving the level of information transparency in your business process, you can raise the accountability of your staff.

Reduce costs related to man-made mistakes and inefficiency

People make mistakes. We may fail to remember approval deadlines or payment due dates. There may be cases when this may lead to financial loss in numerous cases. An automated workflow will enable you reduce these errors. There may be a situation in which you come across a specific transaction in its present state. So if there is a pending order which you haven’t received, the payment will never be made unless it is updated as ‘Received.’ So, you will never have to face an embarrassing situation due to the ‘system’.

Create a proper approval hierarchy

Let’s face it! A company’s hierarchy is always different from the approval hierarchy of a business process. If you don’t have an automated software, you will get mails from everywhere. Identifying the sender of the mail will become a big challenge. However, an Business Process Automation tool will ensure that the approval hierarchies codified within itself. This will also guarantee that all processes have their own particular hierarchy. So, you won’t have to waste your time looking for a person to have an approval done without making a call.

Business Process Automation is fast becoming an essential part of the business control process. A lot has changed in the world of IT over the last two decades. The use of cloud computing has brought about a sea change in the way business processes are handled. Some of them are mentioned below:-

Adequate amount of time is saved

Tasks performed manually take a lot of time to be done. Moreover, there are occasional errors that hamper quality. Automation minimizes the number of tasks that you and your employees would otherwise require to be performed manually. This will save a substantial amount of time that you can devote to functions that add real value to your business, and help you to raise your employee’s level of motivation. Productivity will also receive a big boost.

Quality and consistency

Use of business process automation will help you to offer a high quality of products in a consistent manner that will build long term relationships with clients. Automation helps in making sure that each action is performed in the same manner. This produces high quality results.

If you have automated the follow up process of your customer service follow up process, your clients will get the same quality of product or service from your organization consistently. So, you can start developing better quality, feature rich products with almost no increase in production time and costs.

Better operational efficiency

Efficiency in business terms refers to the extent to which time, money and efforts are invested in a specific task or purpose. Process automation minimizes the time it requires to achieve the task, the effort required to initiate it and the amount required to complete it successfully. Automation makes sure that systems run in a hassle free manner without any errors and the best practices of your business are maintained.

Reduction in turnaround times

Undue interventions during submission, checking and verification of back office jobs are pretty common. Job Scheduling Software is a software that has created to assist businesses in automating batch processing and doing away with the above mentioned discrepancies. As innovations in IT continue to influence the world, organizations are always on the lookout for applications which are needed during batch scheduling. There is no point in hiring operators to handle tasks that can be automated effortlessly. The Job Scheduling software will ensure that you get returns within a short span of time. It will also bring about a marked improvement in your system operations.

Versatility is the key USP of this tool. It not only lets you use clocks and calendars for batch scheduling jobs, you can also use external events and handle dependencies with the help of this software tool. It will also help in managing schedules of jobs for execution of many operating systems as well as custom apps. There will be a significant drop in the number of errors and manmade interventions with workload automation. The staff maintenance costs will go down, thereby helping your IT team to handle bigger projects with more proficiency.

You will be able to manage as well as keep a track of behind the scene tools and data that forms a vital part of the batch job process. It will help you to run not just the payroll of your organization, but also handle buying transactions of customers. A lot of functions that are in common will be organized as a result due to the fixing of numerous activities within a single application. The collaboration between your staff will also increase as compared to before.

Better systems and network performance will make sure that all service level goals of your business are achieved. So, you will be able to meet your client’s demands by integrating job executions with the external applications of your company. Updating jobs in a shorter time span will also be possible. As a result , making the spot changes will also be possible.

Data management and documentation forms a part and parcel of any business process. For users with limited technical know-how, it is often a challenge for arranging and finetune rules within an automatic graphical user interface. Workflow Management Software is a workflow related process management software that has been developed specifically for this purpose.

At present, quite a few companies provide businesses with configurable access rights to manage data as well as security & administration. Another interesting thing to note is the fact that entrepreneurs who require third party system integration are provided with ultramodern integration adapters like Outlook, Sharepoint, and Active Directory.

So what makes Workflow Management software unique? It offers a simple and quick setup by letting you use a drag & drop Workflow Editor and Excel Pattern rules and forms. Moreover, you can make a seamless adoption using the Microsoft Outlook type graphical interface. This tool is integrated with Document Management, Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Active Directory. Your HR team will thus be able to handle entire reporting and analytics for workflow management in a hassle free manner. The software is enabled with cloud deployment and on-promise options. Therefore, you can gain access from any mobile or browser.

You don’t need the help of technicians to install this solution in your office systems. You can do that on your own. There is no need to bring business operations to a hold. Making changes in job workflow is possible. Effective support of web forms and complicated workflow based data will be possible once you integrate it with your office’s computers. It will help you to define data flow between various products that you offer. Automation of data processing in a smooth, timely manner will also be possible.

Sixth generation scheduler and automation tool VisualCron has been released
VisualCron - advanced scheduler and automation tool for Windows is releasing a major update
Stockholm, Sweden

In VisualCron version 6 a lot of new functionality has been introduced:

• Cloud Tasks - able to upload/download/delete/list from major players like GDrive, Amazon S3, SkyDrive, Windows Azure
• WebDAV Tasks - upload/download/delete and list files using WebDAV protocol
• Remote file triggering - advanced remote monitoring through SFTP/FTP protocol
• .NET Execute Task - create any custom code in .NET for dynamic execution
• Support for dynamic execution of unmanaged dll files
• Real time logging - verbose real time logging
• Sharepoint Tasks - automation of common Sharepoint Tasks
• Loop support - be able to create loops around your Tasks
• new engine for PDF printing Task
• Trigger dependency support
• Windows 8 support

Next minor version

In the next version we will present:

• SQL Trigger - execution based on result from local or remote SQL server of any database type that supports ODBC or OLEDB.
• Popup Task

About VisualCron

VisualCron is an automation tool for Windows that is used by large companies all over the world.  It replaces the built in Task Scheduler in Windows and extends it with a lot more advanced functionality. The application can be evaluated for free for 45 days with full functionality.

VisualCron follows standards like OpenPGP, FTP, SFTP, SSH, SMTP, IMAP, POP3, HTTP for its Tasks. This allows integration with other operating systems and environments like Linux.

About 50% of customers are based in the US. The application has been available since 2004 and has since then gone through a large number of major enhancements. VisualCron is used by all business categories and thousands of customers have experienced the advantages of automating manual Tasks.

VisualCron strive to base enhancements on feature requests from users. During the development phase, the customer is highly involved and able to affect the outcome.

By automating manual tasks VisualCron can reduce errors and save time. With the Client interface of VisualCron you get a full overview of the current situation of Jobs and Tasks.

Partner with VisualCron

VisualCron is looking for different types of resellers and partners. Please contact sales@visualcron.com if you are interested.

Contact VisualCron

Website - http://www.visualcron.com
Sales - sales@visualcron.com

What is VisualCron?

VisualCron is a Task Scheduler and Automation Tool for Windows.

Job and Tasks

A Job is a placeholder for one or more Tasks. A Task could be the “Execute Task” which starts any script or application or the “SQL Task” which executes a query in a remote database.

You can schedule execution of Jobs based on time or event. For example, you can tell VisualCron to run something each Sunday at 3AM  or when a file has been created in a network share.

When a Job is being run, manually or by schedule, it will start one or more Tasks in that Job.
VisualCron has a Task for every situation. Currently, about 120 Tasks exist.

Why should I schedule and automate?

Time is a very valuable asset within a company. By automating something you can save time as you are converting a manual process to automatic. By doing this you let your employees focus on the result of the task rather than doing the task. Also, what is associated with manual work is that it is very error prone. Automation reduces the human factor to a high degree.

As data and load on internal servers constantly increases one of the advantages with scheduled automation is that you can schedule a Job to run at low peak times which will not, in the same way, affect production. If the low peak is at 4AM at night it would also be hard to have the employee run this Job manually at that time.

By automating you can focus on the result and what to do with it. For example, if a Job has ran at night maybe you want to know if everything went alright. This type of information can be sent further to any user, by email for example.

What should I schedule and automate?

Some believe that this tool is only for the IT-department. Yes, maybe the IT-department should administer this tool, but no, there is no reason for just automating tasks for the IT-department.

All departments within a company perform manual or half-manual tasks. By analyzing what takes time and what people do a lot of time can be saved.

These are the most popular things to automate;

• script and executable execution
• file handling (copy/backup/delete/read/write)
• archiving files with compression (zip/7zip etc.)
• SQL queries
• DTS/SSIS execution
• FTP/SFTP transfer
• HTTP download/upload
• PGP encryption/decryption
• Cloud file handling (Azure, Amazon, Google Drive, SkyDrive)
• XML - reading and extracting info from XML files
• sending email
• Sharepoint automation
• printing

Standards and integration

What also makes VisualCron an integration tool are two things;

1. Common protocols
2. Common formats

Independent of if you are using Linux or Windows there are a couple of standards for;

• transferring information and files
• encrypting files
• archiving files
• signing files

VisualCron follows these standards so you can easily integrate with other computers - which could be a Linux computer.

Monitor and overview

With VisualCron you get a quick overview of current situation. It can quickly answer you this for example;

• When will Job A run next time?
• What was the result of Job B?
• How long time did Job C take to execute?
• What output did Task A in Job B have?
• Who created Job A? How modified Job B?
• Which date and time did Job A run the last 30 days?

All this information is updated in real time within VisualCron. There is no refresh button - you get to know exactly when it happens.

Remote control

The VisualCron Client is used for monitoring and configuring. The Client can connect remotely to the VisualCron service. That means that you can establish a secure connection over Internet or in your local network between Client and Server - all with real time updates.

Custom integration with your tools and applications

VisualCron can easily be integrated with your system - if you request a deeper and closer integration. We have provided a programming interface so you can tell VisualCron what to do at any time and also extract any information from VisualCron.

What is special about VisualCron?

• Easy of use - VisualCron is easy to configure and maintain.
• Real time - every information you see in the Client is delivered in real time.
• Advanced features - if you need specific control, VisualCron gives you that with settings on a very low level for each Task.
• Community driven development - at VisualCron we base future versions on feature requests from our customers.
• Fast support - we will be able to help you quickly through email, Skype, screen sharing and phone.
• Updates - we release a new version about once a month. If we, for any reason find a problem with an existing version we release a fix within days.
• Custom development - if you have very special requests about features in VisualCron we can develop for you. We also offer development outside of VisualCron.
• Pricing - affordable one time and optionally yearly maintenance cost

Pricing and and support

Latest pricing can be obtained at http://www.visualcron.com/Order.aspx

VisualCron offer an affordable per server license model. The cost is a one time cost per server. Optionally we offer a yearly maintenance fee. The yearly fee gives you the right to upgrade to any major or minor version that is released within a year - also it gives you priority support (normal support is limited to our forum). Licenses are sold including or excluding the first year of maintenance.

VisualCron offer multiple licenses at a discount. Currently, we offer 5 server licenses at cheaper per server price.

VisualCron also offers an unlimited license package. The unlimited license package gives you unlimited number of installations within a physical location (server hall).

Contact

Please contact VisualCron through email: sales@visualcron.com for any further questions.

VisualCron 6.1.3 was released today. It contains the following changes:

[FEATURE] Client/Server: Added Remote File Trigger for FTP/SFTP
[FEATURE] Server: Optionally added way to not override HTTP maximum connections
[FEATURE] Client/Server: Added NTLM authentication for WebDAV
[BUGFIX] Server: Fixed some error handling in Remote Execute Task
[BUGFIX] API: Fixed a reference problem with Settings object. Affected Server->folder settings
[BUGFIX] Server: Fixed an issue in Trigger where they were not removed correctly after RunOnce option on Job
[BUGFIX] API: Fixed issue with displaying name in Modified/Created when AD user had no firstname/lastname specified from the beginning. If so, we show username instead.
[BUGFIX] API: Fixed a permission issue when activating many Tasks
[BUGFIX] Client: Fixed issue when trying to open output from Job log->Task
[BUGFIX] Client: Fixed issue 'disappearing namespace issue' in XML Read Node Task
[BUGFIX] Server: Fixed an issue when Jobs listing in VisualCron Trigger could not be refreshed
[BUGFIX] Server: Fixed various issues with SSIS Task including support for Trusted connections
[BUGFIX] Client: Fixes issues with performance and sorting when changing sort in Jobs->Tasks
[BUGFIX] Client: Fixes issue with parameters types in SSIS Task
[BUGFIX] Client: Fixed issue with switched DB logging parameters
[BUGFIX] Server: Add error handling for unhandled exceptions in SQL Task
[BUGFIX] Server: Handled an error when no Task was selected in Job/Task control Task
[BUGFIX] Client: Fixed Job Test button issue that could cause reference problems in Client (foreign key errors)

What is interesting in this release is the Remote file trigger. This Trigger allows you to monitor a remote FTP or SFTP folder for new, changed and deleted files. With the help of Variables you can, after the Trigger has fired, use the full path to the file or the name in order to process the files with your Tasks.

We continue our development and we are now working on Sharepoint Tasks along with the Popup Task.