Functional Changes
We have continued to enhance our Revenues Process Orchestration functionality and the following updates are available now.
Intelligent Actions for Failures
Sometimes when a process of automation is being worked through it fails on a step. This could be for a huge number of reasons e.g. person applying for a single person discount where they already have one. A discount has been requested earlier than the account start date.
Whilst, over time we are looking to work around these back office or user foibles, we cannot control all of them and so needed a way of handling failures. In a way that meant that if a failure happened you knew about it but importantly that you didn't need to look at the other 90%+ of things that were successfully end to end automated.
In this release we have created a powerful mechanism that means that it is possible to trigger different actions based upon whether a process failed or was successful.
What this means
The following are three examples of how this will benefit customers.
1. EDMS codes/file formats by failure/success
When a form is completed if the process automation fully completes all steps it can set a document code of X. If it fails it can set a document code of Y.
Therefore if you had 1000 forms completed and:
- 999 successful processes with a document code of X you could set these to automatically complete/be archived
- 1 failure with a code of Y you could set that to be incomplete and assigned to a user.
Also with some back office EDMS set ups the document code is the same but an additional variable of status is provided. E.g.
If you had 1000 forms completed and:
- 999 successful processes with a document code of X, with a status of 1, the 1 would be used to set that it is automatically completed/be archived
- 1 failure with a document code of X, but with a status code of 0, the 0 would be used to set that to be incomplete and assigned to a user.
This means that you a) have a simple to use way of managing exceptions inside the bounds of the system you already use for work management and b) never need to look at fully completed work.
2. Sending emails/Creating OpenProcess tasks by failure success
This is the same as option 1. but for customers that do not have a separate EDMS system. In this case it is now possible for IEG4 to configure an action so that IF a revenues process fails it can automatically email someone or create an OpenProcess task for someone to review/complete.
This means that you a) have a simple to use way of managing exceptions inside the bounds of the system you already use for work management and b) never need to look at fully completed work.
3. Generating the Direct Debit letter only if a RPO process is successful
As outlined in our last release notes, it is possible to:
a) generate a PDF containing the details of the Direct Debit set up during the form's automation process and
b) send this to the customer in an email
This is applicable to all integrated council tax forms which set up a Direct Debit.
A challenge, however, was that there are times where this letter should not be emailed. I.e. if the automation did not successfully automate the set up of the direct debit for whatever reason.
With this new capability it is possible to link the creation of the PDF/sending of the email actions to the success of the revenues process. That is to say the revenues process' success becomes a prerequisite for the creation / emailing of the letter.
Calculations upon process completion
Until the summer of 2020, IEG4 were not party to the information that Northgate had APIs that enabled the automatic calculation of accounts. As a result the calculation of accounts following the changes made was not something that was being done.
However, we have now built this in to the revenues processes and now following the activities carried out, we will now calculate the bill.
The benefit of this is most apparent to customers that also use a digital account to show data to customers about their account e.g. OneVu.
Because within seconds of the customer completing a Single Person Discount application the discount and reduction in charge will show on their account.
Open Account Checks
Prior to this release, upon submission of a form we would carry out a check to see if the account was open. This meant that someone could submit a direct debit form and it not be set up because the account was no longer active. Upon investigation, it was clear that this was the cause of nearly ALL failures for Direct Debits.
Therefore in this release, rather than carrying out the checks upon submission, the check will take place during the form's completion and the customer will be made aware that the account is closed and a Direct Debit cannot be set up.
The default text presented is:
"This account is no longer active"
But, as this is an editable resource this can be added to E.g.