AIBU to ask if someone can translate this word salad into English?

[whackamole666]

Oh and making the guy resign seems a bit overkill. What happened to the woman?

🤣

I'm a reasonably intelligent professional, but the vast majority of the explanations on this thread are more complex than the quote in the OP.

Well done and thank you to @EarthwormJem and @IWantAMassiveEasterEgg for explaining it without a whole load of other jargon!

A private company that creates software to help businesses manage workflows.

Lots of people use workflow management software to some extent, without staring at it all day. One of the main reasons the software exists is to automate tedious parts of a job that, once upon a time, would have involved manual paperwork.

I interact with workflow management software most days, but its not "my job", its a tool.

The post you're responding to was a bit bristly, but I think that was a response to the OP's "I don't understand these words so they must be nonsense".

How do your patients get booked in, or your invoices issued? Your supplies ordered? That’s all part of the practice workflow, even if a receptionist is inputting the information you are still using the workflow management software to do your job.

Businesses or services exist to meet the wants and needs of customers.

Workflow management systems can be software systems or not… in any case they are the systems that standardise all the steps between the inputs to, and outputs from, the organisation. So if you work in an organisation that orders stuff, spends money, deals with customers or patients, takes payments, creates records, uses market data… then you work in an organisation that manages workflow.

Workflow management software is just that… software that helps to standardise or streamline multiple business processes and how anything moves from one step to the next.

I THINK that this astronomer business has software that helps workflow management systems get off the ground… for example by transferring data and processes across from existing systems, and dealing with any gaps or overlaps.

Workflow management software is just that… software that helps to standardise or streamline multiple business processes and how anything moves from one step to the next.

And that, of course, is why the NHS, Post Office and myriad other important institutions work so well ^^

Do you have software for patient management to schedule appts, send emails with appointment reminders, keep records of treatments, create digital forms for patient registration etc in the dental clinic? That would be workflow management.

In my case, my boss sorts out the booking of people in using Numbers. I invoice her and make my invoices in Sheets. That’s it. No other screens required for my job. She uses Xero but I do not.

I read that as “what does salad mean in English” /“what’s salad in England” and thought it’d be usual MN nonsense of some kind “who’s buying all the lettuce” etc

I’m currently implementing a workflow to speed up invites for cancer screening.

It can be interesting and rewarding.

And that’s a workflow.

I’ve been office- based my entire career and have never used it.

Does nobody have to review the patient records before an appointment, or update them afterwards?

It does sound as though your practice has a workflow (I mean, it has to) but perhaps doesnt use workflow management software and instead everything is done manually in different software.

What patients? I never said I have patients 😵‍💫

Yes, no workflow management software necessary. Easier and far cheaper to just DIY it. Takes no time.

So who are the people who are being booked in? You charge a fee for doing something to them, it would appear?

workflow is just the order you work through your tasks in. So, when you make a to do list and tick things off as you finish them, you’re creating and using a workflow management system.

Obviously a huge organisation with lots of people doing lots of different tasks need a bit more structure, hence software, but the basic principle is the same.

Judith Butler, is that you? 😀

See, people keep giving explanations like this as if they've clarified things but they haven't, I can't make any sense of this response or others. I understand the individual words but not what they mean when you put them all together.

There are many people whose work involves limited contact with the sort of technologies being discussed here - I'm mostly outside doing things and speaking to people face the face, "workflow" is a new phrase (and completely alien concept) to me.

Workflow is just the order you do work. It’s not a techy term. A workflow could be a holiday booking system for example. You enter your dates - you manager sees and makes sure it doesn’t clash etc and then they approve and you get a message saying approved. That’s a simple workflow where most organisations will have automated it

the more complex the processes the more necessary automation is

It is jargon though. I've worked for 30 years in a few different industries/professions and have never heard of it before today.

It’s been around as a term for a long time but it’s only really relevant to those managing it.

i can’t think of another term that could be used to cover it

Yes fair enough, I realise it's a concept that can be applied to pretty much any job. I was just trying to point out that there are many of us who've never worked in a corporate/business environment or in management roles, so won't use specific workplace vocabulary (can't think of a better term) or be familiar with many of these concepts.

Agreed

i I think a lot of the reaction was how the OP was worded tbh

Yes, a fair bit of scorn on both sides!

this