Case Management |
|
Case management is a collaborative process using which you can define and assess cases, define actions, distribute and execute work, and monitor performance. A case is an artifact to define, organize, and manage information and actions related to an issue, need or service interaction. It is a situation requiring investigation or action.
The Case Management process enables you to gain control of case management by integrating legacy systems, disparate databases, and even paper documents into a case-centric virtual file. The virtual file then shadows the case throughout the most complex and dynamic processes allowing multiple people to collaborate effectively on the same file at the same time. Documents are usually stored in a content repository and Process Platform provides Document Store as the facility to work with any content repository. Any document irrespective of the content can be stored in these document stores. The Case Management process offers event-driven, non-sequential processing of customer cases with many related documents. It facilitates the knowledge worker to work flexibly, making decisions and exchanging information with colleagues. It offers a singular case-oriented view of integrated systems, people, tasks and documents, dynamic action-based tasks. A case handling model describes all the information that is required to be able to execute a case.
Although a case is an instance of work, it has a different magnitude when you compare it to projects. For example, a project might be used to organize the development of a new product or service. It's scoped and scheduled well ahead, and is unique in it's existence. Cases typically do happen after launching the product or service. They cover instances of the service, instances of complaints, issues with respect to the product, and so on. Unlike a business process, cases are not scheduled ahead, but do happen instantly, and are assessed, planned and executed, and possibly again assessed, and so on.
Examples of cases are:
- Claims in Insurance
- Incidents in Utility
- Disputes regarding customer invoices and payments in the Telecommunications
- Loan applications in Banking
- Mutations in Financials (policy changes, salary changes, address changes, and so on)
Often a customer is involved to whom the service is provided (which can also be just another business unit). In these examples, businesses organize the work to be done and the service interaction(s) involved, both organized into cases as a basic unit of running business. So, the business function here is Case Management. All kind of information is connected or attached with the case, and the case progress is tracked.
Case Management has a large overlap with BPM, and is strongly related to it. It extends business processes with the explicit notion of 'case'. Even the primacy is with the case. This means, the context of executing work is the whole case (and not just the 'input message' for an individual activity). The case is the primary business object driving the case process.
Case management processes are typically characterized by the following:
- The case and its data serves as the only shared context for any activity that executes on the case.
- Case-workers are professionals dealing with knowledge-intensive work. Such professionals cannot be limited by a-priori specified process models and they should always have access to all relevant case data
- Case management processes are state-based (event-driven) and/or rule-based (data-driven) probably more than flow-based (sequence-driven).
Features of Case Management
Prominently, Case Management in Process Platform facilitates the following:
- Forming multiple activities at the same time using the same case handler.
- Grouping multiple activities to form activity clusters.
- Enabling multiple knowledgeable case handlers (knowledge workers) to work on the same case.
- Planning of follow-up activities for execution after completion of an activity.
Case Management helps keep track of all events for auditing purposes, and provides real-time management information to the business manager. The manager works in a proactive way to handle all cases according to agreed service levels to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction.
Capabilities of Case Management
- Case Management: Provides a case-oriented view on all open cases, outstanding activities, case-related documents and other case data derived from back-end systems. You can use search criteria to search for cases and create activities upon the 'case creation' and 'case closure' events. It provides you access to cases based on team assignments to case types and their role.
- Activity Processing: All user activities are presented as tasks in the Case inbox. You can select and pick required activities (tasks) for execution. Based on authorization settings, you can also transfer activities to colleagues, skip activities, or schedule additional sub-activities to complete the main activity. At the completion of an activity, the next activities are scheduled.
- Management Reporting: Case Management dashboards provide an overview of all open cases to show the overall performance on handling cases, and the forthcoming workload.
Benefits of Using Case Management
- Increased productivity of knowledge workers: Real-time availability of case information reduces the idle time of knowledge workers. Also, multiple users can work concurrently on cases through shared work lists. Making all information available to the knowledge workers will result in less errors and iteration.
- Flexible and agile processing: As each case is unique, case data drives the process allowing the case management administrator to configure all potential actions.
- Increased process performance: Accurate, real-time management information helps in early detection and avoidance of bottlenecks, resulting in more efficient and effective processes.
- Easy integration with back-end systems: Process Platform SOA-grid enables an easy integration with Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and other business systems.