An Integrated, Automated Framework for Review and Approval of Policies and Procedures
Presentations
PO-GePV-P-12 (Sunday, 7/25/2021) [Eastern Time (GMT-4)]
Purpose: Develop and implement a scalable framework for housing policy and procedure documents, with automated version control, approval workflows, and review cycle notifications.
Methods: After exploring several commercial options (all found to be lacking in one regard or another), we ventured to build our own solution which would allow full control and customization. Microsoft Sharepoint was utilized as the backend data storage for our document library and instantiated with several custom categories of metadata to classify each document and allow easy navigation and filtering. An automated approval workflow was developed in Microsoft Power Automate, which allowed programmatic customization and where the metadata was again utilized for logic-based decision-making. Both the document library and approval workflow were integrated with Microsoft Teams and Outlook for front-end user interactions and document browsing.
Results: Power automate provides programmatic logic to fully customize and automate a sequential approval chain workflow, sending notifications through email and Teams. The Sharepoint document library provides built-in version tracking and customizable permissions groups to restrict editing while also granting widespread availability through Teams integration.
Conclusion: Moving from a file-based-system stored on a network drive to a cloud-based, automated in-house solution for review cycles and approval workflows will simplify and streamline the management of departmental policy and procedure documents. Improving the contemporaneity and availability of policies and procedures should improve compliance with the information therein, and have a positive impact on overall quality program.
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