Professional services

Learn more about our BPM implementation services.

Requirements gathering

Initially, we will attend one or more meetings with you to understand the problems you are trying to solve and how you operate. During this stage, we will discuss many areas including the:

• Current “As Is” process and what your “To Be” or “Future” desired state looks like
• Roles of different users or user groups
• User hierarchy and their relationships to your business units
• Data flow within the organisation and the actions required
• User interface designs
• Form designs including field names and types
• Workflow approval steps
• Data validation rules required
• Integration with existing applications/databases
• Export integration for storing the data
• Reporting requirements for active processes

Statement of work

The output from the requirements gathering stage is a fixed-price quotation. The fixed price quotation allows you to budget for the entire project before commencement and includes:

• Written specification of your requirements
• Details of the implementation plan
• Transparent pricing itemising consultancy, training, licensing, and support requirements

Development

If the project goes ahead, our team will use the findings from the requirements gathering phase to build a bespoke system tailored to your exact requirements. This means you get a solution that does exactly what you need and is not bloated with extra or confusing functionality you do not need.

Initially, we will start by building your forms, workspaces and workflows. This will include:

• Form design
• eForm & workflow business rules
• Workflow and process design and setup
• Tailored dashboards
• Pre-configured reporting templates
• Integration(s) set-up

At an early stage, we will provide you with a hosted test environment. This will allow us to get your early feedback on the look, feel and functionality of the system. We recommend recruiting departmental and approval users to use the system, as it is important to capture as much feedback as possible at this stage.

Testing & handover

We will conduct QA testing, including unit testing, as part of our development processes. We make sure we cover the many possible variations of how the system could be used, and how these variations impact other variations.

After first round fixes, the next stage involves a handover session to your key users and system owners where we will communicate the required information to stakeholders, including:

• How to use the system
• The rules for completing a form
• How the workflows will behave
• How to manage the day-to-day administration of settings and user accounts.

This will be followed by user acceptance testing (UAT) and 2nd round fixes in preparation for the live launch.

Go-live

Once the testing / UAT phase ends, we will deploy the end solution and provide help with documentation, annual support (hypercare in the first few weeks), and end-user training.

System hosting

We offer cloud-based, on-premises, or hybrid deployment to fit your technology infrastructure.

We also have private cloud options, where we host a dedicated system for your use only.

For regulated or sensitive workloads, the system runs on our Dell rack-mount servers in a UK-based, ISO 27001-certified data centre. If you prefer, we can host the system in the Microsoft Azure global infrastructure, allowing you to keep your data in any region and comply with relevant legislation.

All cloud-hosted options include 99.95% uptime and ongoing technical support and maintenance, with system updates automatically rolled out to users.

Although there may be some minor costs for re-deployment and cloud hosting cancellation policies must be respected, it is possible to migrate from any platform type to another if required.

Cloud hosting is billed annually in advance with any adjustments for over/under usage made at the end of the year. Volume discounts are available for enterprise clients.

Training

We have a variety of off-the-shelf training courses ranging from end-user training to system administration. These courses are tailored to your requirements and delivered ‘workshop style’ at your premises (or online if you prefer).

However, in our experience, a train-the-trainer approach is best suited to disseminating the required knowledge to users. We can provide access to a test system and work with your team to help create course materials (e.g., screenshots, user guides). Training can then be delivered, with our assistance if required, by your own process experts.

Technical support

At ePC, we pride ourselves on the level of skilled support and service we can provide to our clients. We adopt the philosophy of being a real partner to your team and do not hide behind impersonal support forms or procedures.

Our technical support includes:

• Unlimited telephone/eMail support
• Remote fault diagnosis and resolution
• Proactive remote system maintenance

Our standard support times are 09:00-17:30 GMT/BST during normal working days in England.

Once delivered, ePC will be your first and only point of contact should you have any problems with the system.

If you require technical support, you can telephone our helpdesk on + 44 (0)3300 100 000 (Mon – Fri between 09.00 – 17.30 GMT/BST) or eMail us.

Project management

We can manage every aspect of the build phase, working with your project management team or entirely without impact on your internal resources. Although there are many aspects of the project that may require input from you, we will make sure you are prompted for information or actions to ensure any pre-defined timescales are met.

We will assign a Project Manager who will head a multi-disciplinary team and who will be responsible for the overall delivery of the project from delivery and implementation to training and ongoing support.

Learn more about our data capture implementation below.

Requirements gathering

If you need to capture, index and extract data from paper forms and export it out to a database, we recommend automated data capture solutions such as TeleForm. We are happy to bring a laptop and scanner to your offices to discuss your needs and demonstrate the software.

Before the meeting, it is useful to see an example of your paper form and the data you wish to capture. During the demo, we will complete your example form, load it onto a high-speed scanner, and scan it directly into TeleForm. This approach gives you a real insight into how automated data capture software could work in your organisation. Typically, you will see how:

• Form templates are created in TeleForm Designer
• Returned forms are scanned and converted to a digital image with the Scan Station module
• Data is extracted using handprint (ICR), machine print (OCR), checkbox (OMR), and barcode recognition technology
• Misread fields are flagged for manual intervention in the Verifier module
• Verified data is exported to Excel, SQL, CSV, XML or third-party databases

A Q&A session at the end of the demonstration helps to clarify any queries you have.

Statement of Work (SoW)

The output from the requirements-gathering stage is a SOW that is understood by all parties and forms part of the fixed price quotation. A fixed price quotation allows you to budget for the entire project before commencement. It will include:

• Written specification of your requirements
• Details of the implementation plan
• Transparent pricing itemising consultancy, training, licensing, and support requirements

Build phase

The requirements-gathering phase will have seen us gain a good understanding of your needs.

If you choose to proceed, the next step is to translate that understanding into a TeleForm-based solution where we will create your form templates, bespoke rules and integrations.

Testing phase

We will conduct internal development and QA testing, including end-to-end testing, as part of our development processes.

The next stage involves handing over the solution to your system champion. This is followed by user acceptance testing (UAT) and TeleForm training with the intended audience in preparation for the live launch.

Once users have familiarised themselves with TeleForm, we find further changes and enhancements are suggested to optimise the system further.

Any fixes or minor tweaks (e.g. aesthetic form changes or amendments to rule ranges) will be implemented during this time until you are happy with the solution and are ready to go live.

However, if significant changes are required, we can quote for additional time to complete them.

Live phase

Once the testing / UAT phase ends, we will deploy the system for production use and provide help with documentation, training, and technical support as required.

If you purchase TeleForm Workgroup or TeleForm Enterprise, your installation will take place on-site. We will spend a day on-site to complete the installation, technical documentation and conduct end-to-end testing of the new environment.

We will liaise with your IT team before the installation to confirm the new servers, environment, workstations, and user credentials are set up and available to support the system.

If you are purchasing TeleForm Desktop for a single PC, your IT department can install the software. We will provide remote desktop assistance and telephone support throughout the installation.

Alternatively, we can attend your premises to install TeleForm Desktop. We will spend the morning installing the system with the afternoon focusing on the day-to-day operation of the system. We will spend time with system users to show them how to scan and verify forms and manage exceptions.