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Home ยป System Integration ยป Data and Process Integration ยป Data Workflows You Should Automate Now

Data Workflows You Should Automate Now

By LANSA Editors
Published On January 30, 2024

Automate Business Data Exchange

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Did you know that many business owners spend almost 20% of their time on work that could be automated? From dispatching invoices to the sales team to updating inventory levels and initiating restocking orders, a significant amount of time is consumed on these repetitive and time-consuming manual tasks. Such processes can be tedious and resource-intensive, significantly reducing productivity. Here, LANSA Composer emerges as a transformative tool that improves accuracy, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness by eliminating human error in these repetitive operations.

As businesses with the complexities of diverse operations, the role of data workflow automation steps in as a cornerstone. LANSA Composerโ€™s approach to data workflow automation is transformative, significantly reducing manual intervention. It streamlines the movement of tasks and documents enhancing overall data management. By replacing manual tasks with automated workflows, LANSA Composer minimizes inconsistencies and the potential for errors that may arise from human input.

Types of data workflows you can automate with LANSA Composer

LANSA Composer is a design and execution platform for integrating different business activities, including the transport and transformation of data, along with custom business processing. It provides ready-to-use activities supporting widely-used transport protocols such as FTP, HTTP, POP3, and SMTP for both inbound and outbound communications. Configuring these transport activities involves specifying the necessary variables for connecting and communicating with external systems. This enables seamless exchange of business information, like orders and invoices, with other parties. LANSA Composer features advanced visual data mapping for efficiently mapping data across different formats, including XML and EDI documents.

Furthermore, it uses directory list activities to collate into a single Zip file, accommodating scenarios where multiple documents are involved. After that, it encodes the file for secure transmission to other systems.

Data worflow automation with LANSA Composer

LANSA Composerโ€™s data automation capabilities span a variety of workflow automation solutions, each tailored to specific facets of data management and processing. The following are key types of data workflow automation supported by LANSA Composer:

1. Data integration automation

Data integration is a vital component of automation provided by LANSA Composer. This cutting-edge tool facilitates the identification and integration of various data sources into a centralized database or data warehouse. This process includes data validation, cleaning, and ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) mapping, enabling users to transform and load integrated data sources into target repositories. While there is no one-size-fits-all process for data integration, certain elements are consistently utilized, including diverse data sources, master nodes, and user access to data from master nodes. Ideally, users request data from a master node, which then processes this request by integrating required data from available sources and delivering it as a unified dataset for further analysis.

Data integration process

For example, in a retail company, data integration automation helps aggregate custom information from online sales platforms, custom feedback forms, and in-store transactions into a centralized database. This ensures that customer data remains current and readily accessible across the organization.

2. Data transformation automation

Data frequently requires transformation into various formats and structures for effective use. LANSA Composerโ€™s data transformation automation helps in converting datasets into standardized formats for integration with other systems. Particularly with large datasets or big data, transforming them into a consolidated form, like a single table, not only saves time but also simplifies the analysis phase.

Data Transformation Mapping

For instance, in a financial institution, LANSA Composer can aid in converting raw financial data into standardized reports for regulatory compliance. This data transformation ensures that data adheres to required standards, mitigating the risk of non-compliance and streamlining the reporting process.

3. Data cleaning automation

Data cleaning is the most crucial step in maintaining data accuracy and consistency. LANSA Composer addresses this by ensuring data consistency and accuracy. Utilizing sophisticated algorithms and rules, the tool identifies and corrects errors, removes duplicates, and standardizes data formats.

Data cleaning and transformation process

In a healthcare institution managing patient records, LANSA Composerโ€™s data cleaning automation can automatically pinpoint and resolve discrepancies, such as misspelled names or outdated addresses and contact details. This not only guarantees data consistency, accuracy, and standardization but also saves time and resources that would otherwise be spent on manual review and correction.

4. Report/Document distribution automation

LANSA Composer streamlines the generation of customized reports from processed data. This advanced tool can automate the distribution of these reports to stakeholders via email on a scheduled basis. For example, in project management, LANSA Composer can automatically generate regular project status reports, summarizing key metrics and milestones achieved. This not only saves time but also ensures stakeholders have timely access to critical information, aiding in informed decision-making.

Automatic Report Distribution

Benefits of automating data workflows with LANSA Composer

LANSA Composer simplifies a series of tasks by defining and automating efficient task workflows. Automating these workflows ensures smooth task and document flow across work-related activities, enabling teams and individuals to operate under set business rules and conditions. These business conditions, often structured as if-else statements, guide the program on subsequent actions. Transitioning from manual, repetitive tasks to an automated workflow significantly reduces the risks associated with manual data entry and streamlines overall business processes. Letโ€™s take a look at the most impactful benefits of automating data workflows with LANSA Composer.

1. Improve operational efficiency

Automating data workflows is a strategic lever to boost operational efficiency. LANSA Composerโ€™s data workflow automation automates routine and repetitive tasks easily, eliminating the need for manual handling. This reduction in labor costs and time frees employees to focus on more complex tasks. Additionally, it helps in prioritizing tasks based on predefined business rules so that the most important tasks are addressed first.

2. Improves scalability

LANSA Composerโ€™s data workflow automation allows businesses to scale their efficiency without a proportional increase in resources. As businesses expand, the need for more sophisticated customization and integration tools grows. LANSA Composerโ€™s workflow automation tool can be customized as per the unique needs of different businesses, meaning they can start with simple workflows and gradually incorporate more complex ones as they grow. In customer service, for instance, an automated ticketing system can handle a growing volume of customer inquiries, categorizing and routing them to the appropriate support teams, facilitating timely responses, and enabling the expansion of customer service operations without the need to increase support staff.

3. Ensures timely task completion with reduced human errors

Businesses risk losing numerous potential leads when manually recording data, such as in Excel sheets. A single error, like a mistyped email ID, can lead to long-term missed opportunities. Manual data entry significantly increases the likelihood of human errors. LANSA Composerโ€™s workflow automation feature streamlines processes, eliminating unnecessary steps and automatically detecting errors. This capability facilitates the smooth integration of legacy systems with newer automated solutions, enhancing overall efficiency and accuracy.

Use cases for data workflow automation

In todayโ€™s dynamic business environment, workflow automation emerges as a transformative force, fundamentally altering how organizations operate and innovate. LANSA Composerโ€™s workflow automation is versatile and applicable across sectors like manufacturing, finance, sales, and IT operations. Let’s explore how various industries leverage the power of workflow automation offered by LANSA Composer:

  • Manufacturing

Workflow automation has changed the manufacturing landscape. It can automate purchase requests, contract management, and product development, thereby reducing redundancy, cutting down on procurement time, minimizing quality-control problems, as well as facilitating quicker budget and supply chain approvals.

Greenโ€™s General Foods success story illustrates the impact of LANSA Composer on their business. In their case, they needed a business process management (BPM) solution that allowed a business analyst to configure their business rules and orchestrate their business process without writing a program for it. LANSA Composer helped them by automating the import and processing of transactions that originate from outside the system as well as automating the export of transactions to other systems. This cutting-edge tool helped them pick confirmations from the Warehouse Management System and extract the order number from the confirmation, calls aXes-Robot and instructs it to navigate to a particular BPCS screen, type the provided order number, and submit the screen to initiate the standard BPCS billing process.

  • Sales

Leveraging workflow automation in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software helps streamline customer service, form processing, and interdepartmental coordination. LANSA Composer automates the approval process and updates the internal dashboards in response to customer actions, like information submission or document signing. Instead of manually moving leads through the sales pipeline, LANSA Composerโ€™s automated sales workflows can seamlessly engage prospects in drip campaigns and update deal stages as they progress.

River Garden, American Health Care’s success story also shows the impact of LANSA Composer on their business activities. In their case, they needed a data integration automation system that could easily integrate with third parties such as pharmacies, laboratories, and specialist web services. LANSA Composer helped them with this. With this tool, they were able to transmit the physician’s medication orders instantly to the pharmacy, and the pharmacyโ€™s responses were automatically processed. Direct communication with the pharmacy gives them a much timelier turnaround for medication orders as compared to the manual system.

Streamline data workflow automation with LANSA Composer

Embracing automated data workflows is a strategic move for businesses seeking to streamline manual tasks and boost team productivity. Workflow automation benefits various departments, including human resources, finance, administration, marketing, IT, and customer support, by enhancing efficiency through smart automation. The advantages are multifaceted, encompassing improved operational efficiency, reduced errors, and lower operational costs. As organizations adopt the transformative potential of data automation, they not only improve data management capabilities but also set the stage for sustained growth. LANSA Composer stands out as a premier solution for simplifying data-process management, enabling businesses to orchestrate their data workflows precisely.

Get started with LANSA Composer

Ready to eliminate the tedious paperwork and manual data entry in your organization? LANSA Composer is poised to turn this vision into reality. Experience the seamless integration, enhanced collaboration, and streamlined workflows this advanced data automation tool offers. With its user-friendly approach to automation, LANSA Composer makes implementation straightforward, allowing you to simplify operational complexities from the get-go.

Whether you are navigating the intricacies of data integration, transformation, or reporting distribution, this solution is your trusted ally. Click here to start your automation excellence journey with LANSA Composer and learn more about everything our innovative automation technology has to offer!

Do it yourself from data integration to automation

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LANSA Editors

LANSA is a professional low-code development platform that helps businesses efficiently build and modernize software. In this blog, the team draws on decades of experience empowering enterprises to innovate on the IBM i and future-proof their mission-critical systems.

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