Finance planning

[hudbrog]

Hello everybody, I'm absolutely new to alfresco, actively reading all info I can find.
Currently, I'm trying to figure out how can I use smthing like alfresco+liferay to get rid of our corporate sharepoint. One of the most important things I can't figure out how to do yet is financial planning.
Basically, what we have now is:
1) user can create an entity "payment request", which includes info like sum, due date, partner, currency, and has a scan of invoice attached to it
2) user can create an entity "budget request", which is a payment request without scan of invoice attached
3) budget request can be converted to payment request by attaching an invoice
4) user can check a list of his requested payments and status of each (i.e. paid, approved, cancelled)
5) each request has a simple workflow of approvement
6) after request is approved, it's put into a table we call "payments plan", which contains all requests which are due to be paid on planned period
7) backoffice specialist changes status of requests manually

I want to do something like that using alfresco.
I'm thinking that payment request can be just an invoice with additional metadata and a workflow. But how should I handle "budget requests"? And how to create a simple "table" form of requests for backoffice managers, how to create "payments plan" automatically?
I would appreciate any suggestions on what to read 😃

[jh7rnn]

Hi,

One of the possible solutions can be using Intalio business process management system for user input (it uses Tibco GI for user interface) and for business process management, storing scan of invoices in Alfresco.

Thanks,
Anton.

[david_labbe]

Hi there,

I am also very interested in this topic but for a purchase request process (similar idea though). Is there any chance the process and associated data can be solely handled by Alfresco?

The way I was thinking about it was as follows:

1 - Create a space where the users can create the purchase request by filling in a form
    => Problem:  I don't know how to create forms in a space
2 - Assuming we have the data logged in, a rule applied to the space can be triggered to alert whoever is going to approve the request
    => Problem:  I have seen in a number of posts / wiki / helps / books how to create rules on a space but what I haven't worked out yet is how to implement a workflow where the person who will approve the request is someone with a role rather than an actual named user. I guess one way to look at it would be to send the workflow to a group of users (say GROUP_Role_Approve_Purchase_Requests ), but the approval process in our case is a little more complex than that:
Let's assume the case where an engineer requires to purchase a piece of equipment for a project:
- if the equipment is below a certain value (say a bolt and a nut) , the purchase request goes to the project manager for approval, then to the purchase & logistic department
- if the equipment is between the nut & bolt and say a small car, the purchase request goes to the project manager for approval, then to the project director and then to purchase & logistic department
- if the equipment is more than a small car, the purchase request goes to the project manager, then to the project director who takes it to the board of directors, have a coffe, discuss the matter for a while, check all sort of things and when they are happy it then goes to purchase & logistic department.
This is obviously a simplistic scenario but I think it highlights a little bit the complexity it can take.

The question is thus, how do you implement such a workflow on a set of data that is not a document (it might have a document associated to support the request but not necessarily)?

And then, how do you create the necessary interface in the Explorer and in share for the users to use seamlessly?

It would truly be great to have a simple example (I know, it can't be that simple!) such as an absence request system:

1- Form for user to submit the request accessible from Explorer or Share
2- Workflow to submit the request to their direct line manager first and then to HR
3- Possibility to monitor the request by the original user to see where it is at

Is this achievable and does anybody have an implementation like that they would be willing to share with us? That would truly be great.

Thank you very much in advance

Kind regards

David

[david_labbe]

Anybody??

[zaizi]

Take a look at the lists feature in 3.3. I'm sure you can modify that to meet your specific requirements.

Ainga

[david_labbe]

I am already working with community edition 3.3. What I am after is how to implement such functionalities,

Regards

David