News
Professional Advantage UK Ltd announces partnership with ThinkTree to enable organisations to achieve control and compliance of their business processes.
February 2010
A new business relationship has been formed to launch a Workflow solution for CODA users, bringing together two leading solutions, CODA Financial Management Software and FlowCentric Business Processes Management Software (BPM).
Professional Advantage (PA), an IT solution provider and expert in the implementation of Business Process Management (BPM), announces a new partnership with ThinkTree, an independent consulting firm specialising in Finance and Business Intelligence solutions.
Joe Taylor, Founder of ThinkTree comments, “A comprehensive workflow solution for CODA users is something we at ThinkTree have really wanted to pursue for some time. Working with PA has been really exciting, as together we’ve been able to bring that solution to the table very quickly. Together, we can not only tackle a range of common financial process issues out of the box, but we also have a deeper capability for broader process automation involving any system.”
Andrew Parsons, Country Manager of Professional Advantage said "I am very enthused about the opportunity that our new partnership with ThinkTree brings to Professional Advantage. I firmly believe that combining our extensive experience of process oriented software and FMS deployment, will allow us to present a powerful BPM oriented solution to the Coda user base across the UK."
Parsons continues to say "I was impressed with ThinkTree's agile approach to business as well as their vision of a world class workflow ability closely integrated to Coda, making them the ideal partner. The FlowCentric BPM solution offers a simple out of the box resolution to some of the most common problems in reference data management, whilst having the scalability to address automated process management across the broader organisation. I look forward to a very exciting year with ThinkTree."
The FlowCentric Workflow solution for CODA users provides organisations with a strategic platform for systematically addressing business process pains, improving service delivery and providing a scalable adaptive platform for growth.
FlowCentric also includes a portfolio of pre built template processes that can be implemented "as is". Each template adds business control and certainty to key processes that manage the vital data in CODA FMS, such as request and approval of new Supplier and Customer details, updating Bank details and maintaining analysis data.
It enables orgainsations to apply business rules that define how things “should be done”. FlowCentric provides consistency and certainty by implementing approved process rules across the workforce in a user friendly way. It provides business processes with structure, compliance and auditability providing organisations with information to make timely informative decisions whilst saving on administrative cost and time. It provides one path of certainty on repeatable basis.
FlowCentric contains a bundle of web enabled self administration processes that handle activities such as reassigning tasks and maintain process roles. These extend participation to non finance staff and those without CODA FMS access.
The solution is also extensible. Not only can you modify existing templates but you can add completely new processes within its framework to address other management and operational challenges throughout the organisation. FlowCentric has all the flexibility and control necessary to rapidly extend or plug gaps between any of your existing systems.
To learn more about the FlowCentric Workflow solution click here
About Professional Advantage
Professional Advantage (PA), founded in 1989, is built on years of experience and extensive knowledge in business technology as both a software author and implementation provider. This has allowed Professional Advantage to deliver specialist solutions that help companies achieve quantifiable benefits. PA’s states, “We apply smart people, rigorous thinking and quality systems to business challenges”. Their large customer base and numerous awards indicate their ability to deliver solutions on time and on budget with the ultimate focus on the value of their projects to the customers. To learn more visit www.professionaladvantage.co.uk
About ThinkTree
ThinkTree is an independent consulting firm specialising in Finance and Business Intelligence solutions. The ThinkTree team has skills in the mechanics of operating businesses and the IT that supports and informs them. They have particular expertise in CODA Financials, COGNOS & Microsoft SQL Server. To learn more visit www.thinktree.co.uk
Recreation Turf Services select FlowCentric
December 2009
Recreational Turf Services provide specialist management and maintenance of parks, turf and facilities across New Zealand. They have identified effective process management as a necessary tool to help gain a competitive edge in their industry, and so have chosen the FlowCentric solution from Professional Advantage to help deliver this.
"Enterprises can experience as much as a 20% cost saving within first year of using BPM to improve business processes." (Gartner)
October 2009
“Enterprises can experience as much as a 20% cost savings within first year of using BPM to improve business processes.” (Gartner)
FlowCentric, a Business Process Management (BPM) suite, has helped many organisations achieve cost savings in areas such as compliance, consistency, increased productivity and transparency through the orchestration and automation of their business processes.
In recent months some of our BPM clients have:
- Better managed their assets to avoid additional capital investment.
- Improved their employee on-boarding to achieve a quicker time to revenue.
- Addressed their systems’ master data management for audit and control purposes.
- Extended their Microsoft SharePoint footprint across complex business processes.
Click here to read more on the Gartner report.
Professional Advantage has been helping organisations improve how they manage their business since 1987. We apply rigorous thinking and quality systems to business challenges. For more information on FlowCentric and Professional Advantage please visit www.pa.com.au/flowcentric or contact us right now at bpm_sales@pa.com.au
FlowCentric turns SharePoint from Good to Great
September 2009
Many organisations are reviewing how Microsoft SharePoint can be used in their business and are identifying some challenges to maximising the benefits. FlowCentric, the Business Process Management Suite (BPMS) for mid-sized Australian companies, has recently announced its web-part connector for Microsoft SharePoint. The combination of FlowCentric and SharePoint ensures workflow integrity, security, maintainability and scalability all from a single, integrated location.
Employees can efficiently collaborate with team members and perform their tasks in an effective and timely manner. Management can leverage insights to make better-informed decisions with the confidence that the underlying activities are both fully compliant and auditable.
Professional Advantage and SunGard address the big issue of tax compliance
September 2009
Professional Advantage assisted SunGard USA in automating its sales tax computations for the thousands of sales invoices it raises each month.
SunGard implemented the Flowcentric to sit alongside its billing systems and, to seamlessly, externally validate addresses and return tax rates via ADP’s Taxware service.
SunGard is one of the world’s leading software and IT services companies. They serve more than 25,000 customers in over 70 countries, including the world’s 25 largest financial services companies. With annual revenue exceeding $5 billion, SunGard is ranked 435 on the Fortune 500 and is the largest privately held business software and services company on the Forbes list of private businesses.
www.sungard.com
The FlowCentric Business Process Management Suite has again been awarded one of the highest accolades from Microsoft
Sydney, Australia - 12th August 2009
FlowCentric Processware won the Microsoft ISV/Software Solutions Competency Award for 2009 at the Microsoft Partner Programme Awards event held in Durban on 7th August. Jacques Wessels (COO) accepted the award on behalf of the FlowCentric group.
"With FlowCentric Processware we truly believe that our customers get a best-of-breed solution." says Wessels "The product is developed on the latest Microsoft technologies thereby ensuring process efficiency and reduced process cost while leveraging off existing investments in Microsoft products such as SQL, Exchange and SharePoint."
The ISV/Software Solutions Competency Award recognises the partner that excels at developing and delivering People-Ready software solutions to customers. A qualified People-Ready software solution will help customers make informed business decisions through consolidation of software and facilitate effective collaboration with colleagues and customers. Winning this prestigious award in recognition of the fact that the products and solutions delivered by FlowCentric can solve business challenges and consistently add value to the businesses using their systems.
FlowCentric is a Gold Certified Microsoft Partner with competencies in ISV Software Solutions, Information Worker Solutions and Business Process Management and Integration. FlowCentric has been providing customers of all sizes, in many sectors, with effective business solutions for over 9 years. "We are focused on providing our clients with highly effective solutions; leveraging off of Microsoft technology provides our customers with even greater power and ease of use" says Jacques Wessels COO.
Mark Reynolds, head of the small business and partner division at Microsoft South Africa, said the high standards of entries received for the awards showed that Microsoft's partners were delivering "unmatched innovation and value" to customers.
Wessels believes that this is not only an award of some consequence; it is also another sign of the company's accelerating momentum. "We are very proud of our achievement and believe that FlowCentric not only has a winning product, but an amazing team of professionals who have the same goal in mind - to be the very best that they can be."
New Version of FlowCentric Released
Sydney, Australia - 6 July 2009
FlowCentric has made public what is possibly the most exciting release of its popular BPM software suite to date. Impressive enhancements on existing features, and the inclusion of several much-anticipated new features, definitely set V4R2 apart from other solutions in this industry.
This feature-rich software eliminates technical intricacies and allows business users and non-developers to quickly and efficiently configure workflow solutions and process-driven applications. It can rapidly deploy processes integrated to line of business applications or simply replace paper based systems.
"This release is a major milestone in the products life cycle. This version includes many enhancements requested from our customer base from around the world," says Pieter Van Schalkwyk, FlowCentric CEO in Sydney today. "Our objective is to deliver unbelievable value to our customers by ensuring our software is relevant for customers from a technology and functional viewpoint."
FlowCentric Processware offers drag-and-drop tools, a Microsoft Office-style designer (FlowCentric Process Suite), and a Web 2.0 style end-user interface (FlowCentric Navigator). The entire system is Internet-enabled, which means that users can connect to FlowCentric from any platform that supports a JavaScript-enabled Web browser. This enables FlowCentric clients to do business from virtually anywhere in the world at any time.
The built-in Multi Language capability of FlowCentric V4R2 enables organisations to deploy in environments where computers are shared by a variety of people who speak different languages; or to service customers in different countries.
"Our Multi Language feature improves the entire end-user experience and enables employees to perform their tasks more effectively when information is provided to them in the language of their choice," explains Gavin Green - FlowCentric Technologies GM. With over 35 language packs to choose from and a Language Editor, within the Process Suite with which you can configure a variety of different languages, FlowCentric's latest offering certainly does hold a universal appeal.
The new Configuration Manager (MMC) is a central console that provides system administrators and advanced users with a flexible interface through which they may configure and monitor FlowCentric services; including the Notification and Escalation Service, the Directory Watcher, and the FlowCentric Event Manager.
The Event Manager allows business processes to be initiated automatically at predefined times. The enhanced "action list" allows users to do advanced searching and filtering on outstanding tasks. Deployment of the FlowCentric Outlook Add-In (client) is now supported across Citrix and Terminal Services. The Web client boasts eight new interface styles, and the FlowCentric SharePoint Web Parts have been enhanced. The improved process-centric file handling capabilities go hand-in-hand with that, allowing files to be "attached to" a process; and uploaded to a file share and/or a SharePoint portal. The FlowCentric Vista Gadget docked on the sidebar provides access to the FlowCentric Navigator and the FlowCentric Web Client.
V4R2 also comes with refreshed analysis and reporting. It features question based logic, benchmarking, and extensive dash boarding to monitor process, activity, people and cost. Reports can be easily blended into process design and user interfaces and used to drive processes not just report over activity.
"The enhanced analysis is just one aspect we are all very excited about. V4R2 builds on our ability to deliver processes quickly in whatever form the business user needs to consume them, says Jonathan Marcer of Professional Advantage, one of the leading FlowCentric resellers. "FlowCentric is reaping big rewards for our clients".
"Its ability not just to deliver digitised processes but support sustainable continuous improvements within a business is a massive factor in its attractiveness within these economic times. FlowCentric leverages existing people and systems to raise service levels and support the organisation."
FlowCentric is certainly a leader in the BPM software field, and releases like V4R2 makes the future of BPM, and FlowCentric, exciting.
Plus Dane Group
London, UK - July 2009
As part of their good governance and process improvement initiatives, Plus Dane Group has selected FlowCentric from Professional Advantage to address their budgetary control, supplier invoice management and delegated authorisation processes. The FlowCentric business process management suite will be able to help the group automate a wide range of manual tasks and processes over time and provide extensive visibility and auditability to their day to day activities.
Plus Dane Group has over 15,000 homes in ownership and management across Merseyside and Cheshire and offers homes across a full range of tenures, provides bespoke neighbourhood services and trades commercially to generate income, create jobs and direct wealth into their neighbourhoods.
Queensland Racing
Brisbane, Australia - May 2009
Queensland Racing Limited, the peak control body for the thoroughbred racing industry in the State of Queensland, have recently implemented FlowCentric and now re continued with its commitment to continual improvement by expanding the reach of this solution FlowCentric to more users within the organisation.
Newlon Housing Trust
London, UK - May 2009
Newlon Housing Trust partner with Professional Advantage for the FlowCentric. Newlon Housing Trust is a charitable housing association founded in Hackney in 1968 to provide decent and affordable homes for local people.
Due to rapid growth, Newlon were struggling to maintain budgetary control. Key to this decision was Professional Advantage’s flexibility and ability to customise the FlowCentric solution to Newlon’s exact needs.
Adrian McKenna, Group Financial Controller, stated “The ability of FlowCentric, linked with iPOS, to be fully customised to our requirements really excited us. We now have a full approval process for invoices that not only enables invoice images to be scanned and stored but also allows us to reroute at a departmental level.”
WSN Environmental Solutions
Sydney, Australia - April 2009
WSN Environmental Solutions has completed an implementation of FlowCentric. FlowCentric will automatically call and update Customer and Supplier details in their Financial Management Systems, SunSystems, eliminating double handling of data, which greatly reduces the risks of error.
Diabetes UK
London, UK - April 2009
Working with eCocoon, the PA Partner of the Year for 2008, Diabetes UK has further extended the focus of their spend control and process compliance strategy by supplementing their existing iPOS eProcurement implementation with Professional Advantage's Workflow for Infor FMS SunSystems. This project, powered by FlowCentric, will convert a range of manual tasks into a coordinated process management framework with seamless integration into the underlying Infor FMS SunSystems accounting system. With this common foundation in place Diabetes UK will be able to extend their process automation initiatives throughout the business.
Diabetes UK is the largest organisation in the UK working for people with diabetes, funding research, campaigning and helping people live with the condition.
Universal Cranes
Sydney, Australia - March 2009
FlowCentric BPM solution has been implemented at Universal Cranes, one of Australia’s largest privately owned crane hire companies, to automate many processes, including employee start & exit, asset management and new plant and projects. The implementation included integration to other business systems, including Microsoft SharePoint. FlowCentric has the ability to integrate with Document Libraries within SharePoint. “FlowCentric has eliminated manual procedures. Our standards and outcomes are now guaranteed”, stated Phil Dunbar, Group Financial Controller at Universal Cranes.
NSW Food Authority
Sydney, Australia - February 2009
NSW Food Authority, established to provide the best food regulation system in Australia, have implemented FlowCentric Business Process Management solution. “The implementation of the Customer and Supplier Request processes will now ensure that records are created uniformly and in a timely manner,” said their Professional Advantage Account Manager, Diana Singer.
Department of the Arts, Sport & Recreation
Sydney, Australia - January 2009
Department of the Arts, Sport & Recreation (DASR), together with Professional Advantage, has implemented FlowCentric to automate the creation of suppliers and analysis codes within their financial management system, Infor FMS SunSystems. FlowCentric will ensure that DASR’s policy and procedures are constantly enforced.