Combining Human Workflow with B2B Integration

At Adeptia, we have seen numerous business scenarios where companies want to include human workflow steps in their B2B integration-centricdata flows. These scenarios range from time-sensitive processes that manage customer contracts to scenarios that involve automating new member enrollments into an insurance plan or onboarding of new purchase orders into a backend procurement system. In all of these scenarios, there is an element of human workflow that is needed in order to provide real-time visibility of the data to a business user.

Adeptia provides a comprehensive business application that combines both Workflows and a self-service B2B integration technology in a single platform. The advantage of a holistic platform with both workflow and integration features is that by using a single application, users have all the features available to build rich workflows, web forms and process flows without having to depend on any additional third-party utility or software. Moreover, a non-technical user can design and configure rich workflows without coding. It also provides full visibility of an end-to-end workflow along with the status of your integration touch-points through dashboards and reports.

For example an EDI 850 Purchase Order is received, if there are errors in a specific Order then those exceptions are routed to a correction workflow task and all the valid Orders are routed to the ERP system. Once the exceptions are corrected then those Orders are routed to the ERP system for processing. The status of the EDI 850 from the point of file pickup to the point of data correction and resubmission and to the step where the data is integrated with the ERP system can be tracked through a single dashboard. Providing this level of end-to-end visibility and collaboration of the entire transaction lifecycle is unique in the B2B integration and no other application provides this level of capability to customers.

Real-time data visibility is a key component in B2B integration so that process status, data errors, review and approvals can be routed as human workflow tasks to different users and these users can perform the tasks based on their role or business functions defined within an organization.

Some of the key elements that companies look for in workflow technology are:

• No-code based form designer – meant for non-technical users to design and deploy the forms.
• Dynamic rules – Ability to add sophisticated rules such as rule-based auto-fill of fields, automatic calculations, dynamic drop-downs, etc.
• Extensibility – a configurable interface that allows for easy upgrades without any customizations.
• Security – allowing data to be encrypted in transfer and in state. SSO authentication and LDAP compatible.
• Integration – built-in ability to integrate data with any external systems, databases, APIs and cloud applications.
• Form management – easy deployment and also easy for a developer to manage forms, ability to put the forms in a version control and have an easy access to analytical information.
• Runtime User Performance – Ability for Managers to track user performance on any workflow, identify bottlenecks and drill-down into a workflow to check current state.

Adeptia provides all these features along with a strong integration functionality that allows you to integrate your data with any application. So let’s take an example of new member enrollments into an insurance plan offered by an Insurance company. Partners send data files through Adeptia Connect Business Application Portal and these files are routed to workflows that manage the review and approval process of enrollments and onboard these new applications into specific insurance plans.

As documents are received by the insurance company from the insurance partners, these files are validated and routed to workflow tasks based on business rules. Adeptia provides a browser-based development interface for a non-technical user to design and configure workflows. Using a drag-and-drop interface, user can design web forms, define rules within the forms and tie these forms into workflows that can assign tasks to different users at run-time based on the business rules.

Data being routed to different workflow tasks also is integrated with backend systems, reports and dashboards. Adeptia B2B Dashboards provide visibility into each transaction along with status of the workflow and details related to key business terms in the customer enrollment data such as Member ID, Member Name, Coverage Codes, Effective Date, Dependent records and any other supplemental information such as PDF, Excel or Word files associated with the data. Adeptia in essence is the system-of-record for all your partner data exchange.

Key advantages of Adeptia’s B2B integration application are:

1. 1.Manage multiple B2B networks centrally from a single platform.
2. 2.Web-based business application for I.T., Operations people and External Partners.
3. 3.Make I.T. staff more productive by shifting the IT into a Governance role and Business users into an Operation role.
4. 4.Provide self-service ability to partners for configuring integrations and also simplify interactions for less technically savvy partners.
5. 5.End-to-end straight-thru integration directly from partner app to your internal app.
6. 6.Automate business processes with rules, web forms and human workflow.
7. 7.Provide flexibility to handle different formats, including mandated standards such as EDI, EDIFACT, HL7, HIPAA, ACORD, PIDX, MISMO, NACHA, OAGIS, Rosettanet etc.
8. 8.Real-time visibility and collaboration of B2B interactions.

Check out Adeptia B2B products for more information.