Configurable Task assignment policies

Next® Invoices - and other Next® products - that rely heavily on standardized and structured business processes are getting a major injection of flexibility with our new Task assignment policies.

Next® Invoices comes with a suite of standard processes that are developed based on best practice from decades of implementations in multiple industries and around the globe. 

Each of the these processes - for example the 4-eyes approval of a cost invoice, with individual approval limits - today come with their own logic for determining the actual approvers, and their potential escalation candidates, in case the approval limits are exceeded. Each of these processes and their logic are configurable in order to meet specific customer expectations. While somewhat constrained, the shear number of combinations have become quite overwhelming.

That is why we have taken the rather radical step, to introduce a whole new concept for assigning people to human tasks throughout the entire Next® portfolio - including Next® Invoices. 


A Task assignment policy, lets us - external to the actual process - define how the approvers for a specific task in the process should be found.



The business process defines what and how. The assignment policy defines who. 

 

A - relatively - simple setup of Assignment policies may look like this:

  • PO based invoices in all countries
    Process: Automatic PO match with exception handling and approval limits
    Exceptions handled by: The Purchase Order owner - if we can identify one. Otherwise it is the Procurement Team Lead. 
    Exceptions approved by: The Product Owner, if we can identify one. Otherwise it is the Head of Products. 
    Escalation to: If the approval limit is exceeded it goes to the COO
    Reassignment of tasks by: Anyone in Procurement

  • Cost invoices in Scandinavia
    Process: 4-eyes approval of a cost invoice, with individual approval limits
    First approval by: The Requester if we can identify one. Otherwise it is Anyone in Finance
    Second approval by: The Finance Team Lead 
    Escalation to: If the approval limit is exceeded it goes to the CFO
    Reassignment of tasks by: Anyone in Finance

  • Cost invoices in Germany
    Process: 4-eyes approval of a cost invoice, with individual approval limits
    First approval by: The Requester if we can identify one. Otherwise it is the CFO 
    Second approval by: The CFO for all staff purchases. And the Finance Team Lead for everything else
    Escalation to:  If approval limit is exceeded it goes to the CFO 
    Reassignment of tasks by : Finance Team Lead


So, while only 2 business processes are in use - one for purchase order invoices, and another for cost invoices - 3 different Task assignment policies are used, to cater for the special requirements in the German business. 


Standard assignment services

In each Task assignment policy, you define how to find the relevant approver, by selecting and ranking a number of Assignment services from a catalog of standard Assignment services.

The catalog of standard Assignment services will grow over time, and you can also add custom developed Assignment services to cater for customer specific needs.  


Select and prioritize the required assignment services.


In the above example the priority is:

  1. If Next® has learned something regarding a specific supplier's deliveries to the project
  2. If a buyer in named in the purchase order
  3. If non of the above - the invoice goes to the Admin & Finance team


In selected processes and tasks

When you setup a Task assignment policy, you also define to what processes and tasks this policy applies.

If more than one policy applies to a specific task in a process, the one with highest priority (lowest sequence number) wins.

This may sound abstract and complex, but the fact that we together with our products deliver standard configurations (Policies and Services), makes everything much easier and much more efficient. And now with an unprecedented flexibility. 


Future enhancements

In a soon to come release we add a new self-learning services to the catalog for you to use for Assignment. A self-learning assignment service, will pick up any manual delegations made in the process, and use this to automatically route later invoices with similar characteristics to the same persons.

For the techies

This is a dramatic enhancement to our use of BPMN. It is imperative that we don't push business process logic into our Assignment services. The actual business process as described in BPMN must still document the business process - just with more flexibility to the selection of assignees.  


Commercial terms and conditions

This new feature is available at no additional cost, to users with Next® Invoices and an active service plan. Many of the Assignment services comes free of charge, but others - such as the self-learning assignment services will come at cost.

Any consultancy assistance will be invoiced.

Disclaimer

Despite our best efforts, we may be forced to change both content and expected delivery of future product updates without notice.  


Details

Title:

Configurable Task assignment policies

Type:

New feature

Status:

In development

Release time:

December 2021

Affected products:

Next® Contracts
Next® Invoices
Next® Mailroom
Next® Processes

Audience:

Next® specialists
Next® users

Classification:

Public

Responsible product manager:

Kim Hellum

Updated:

25.11.2021

By:

Kim Hellum