What is Office Automation? Your Guide to Automated Workflows

By
Srushti Vachhrajani
September 12, 2022
min read
Updated
September 19, 2023
Photo credit
Answering your major automation questions: What is office automation, how can I get started and most importantly: how does office automation change my work for the better?
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Introduction

Around 86 percent of employees believe that office automation is critical in improving productivity, making day-to-day tasks more manageable and maintaining security. 

Office automation can help maximize your employees’ time and ensure optimal efficiency, reducing those time-consuming and unnecessary manual tasks.

That’s great, but knowing office automation is essential doesn’t tell us what it is or what tools to use.  

That’s what we’re here for! Keep reading as we answer the questions:

  • What is office automation?
  • How can I get started with office automation?
  • How can office automation change my work for the better?

Don’t miss out on this crucial information to maximize efficiency and productivity at the office. 

What is office automation?

Office automation is the implementation of tools and devices that reduce manual tasks for your team. In short, it’s when you use technology to do the more menial, manual tasks for you. 

With office automation, you can automate the following processes:

With office automation, you can handle your data more efficiently — eliminating the need for your staff to monitor, share and analyze it. 

Why is office automation critical? You won’t get optimal ROI if your team loses time to unnecessary manual tasks. 

And don’t worry, automation doesn’t replace employees; it allows you to ensure your employee's attention is always where it’s needed.

How to implement office automation

Now that you know what office automation is, let's explore the different ways you can implement it. 

Mobile-based security management

Mobile-based security management allows businesses to reduce the time security teams and system administrators must spend operating security tools and sharing and monitoring data.

It also provides security teams and system administrators to view security information from anywhere on a mobile application or using a cloud-based control center. Mobile security management can save significant time for your employees, allowing them to manage security without traveling to the location — which could help you to improve energy efficiency in your commercial building.

Cloud-based access control with mobile management allows system administrators to unlock and lock doors remotely, allowing staff to permit new hires, interviewees, visitors, and contractors to enter the building remotely. 

Mobile-first access control also increases the convenience of daily comings and goings for employees, eliminating the need for a keycard or fob. 

The access control reader can communicate using Bluetooth, WiFi, and cellular to detect an employee’s mobile credentials — all they need to do to trigger this unified communication is wave their hand over the reader. 

You can ensure traffic flows seamlessly into your building by automating device detection.

Integrating security technologies

You can integrate smart building technology to automate processes and maximize ROI on your security investments. 

Visitor management

Every business needs to keep accurate records of every visitor that has entered the premises. 

This is for two reasons. Firstly, it allows companies to identify the perpetrator of a crime on their property more efficiently. Secondly, it provides security staff with a list of visitors during an emergency evacuation to inform emergency responders if anyone is still in the building. 

Visitor management integrates with access control. When visitors need to sign in and enter the building, they do so using a digital form on their mobile devices. Filling out the form will grant them temporary access credentials to enter the building. 

And when they leave, they needn’t sign out — the system automatically signs them out and revokes their temporary credentials to prevent re-entry. 

Visitor management software ensures more accuracy in the visitor management process and eliminates the need for companies to hire receptionists to manage a sign-in sheet and confirm visitors. The software can also provide mobile alerts for staff when their visitor has signed in, allowing them to visit the building’s entrance and escort the visitor to their meeting.

Database management

You can automate security and database management processes by integrating the two tools. Integrating both technologies will allow you to automate that data update process for security and database management. 

For instance, if an employee resigns and the HR team removes them from the database, this will automatically remove them from the security database, ensuring that their access credentials are revoked. Automating this process eliminates the possibility of a security breach caused by an ex-employee with a quick response to database events. It also reduces the number of offboarding processes your staff must manually oversee.

Automating database management can provide more efficiency and decrease the manual effort required to onboard and offboard employees. Your HR team will be able to focus on more critical aspects of the onboarding and offboarding processes, like communication and training.

Establishing automated workflows

Applying AI to your security system can establish automated workflows and eliminate the manual effort required to create and assign workflows based on security events. 

You can also eliminate the need for your security staff and system admins to constantly monitor the security feed to spot potential security threats. Instead, AI analyzes security data for you and provides mobile alerts to your teams when a security threat is detected. 

To automate workflows responding to a security threat, you must provide the system with an outline of your incident response procedures and protocols. The system will automatically create a workflow based on your existing protocols when a security event occurs. Then, it will assign the workflow to an available team member. Not only does this save time for your security team and allow them to focus on more critical tasks, but it also ensures that your team responds instantly to potential security risks — increasing their chances of preventing an incident.

By establishing automated workflows in your business, you can ensure that your team is always up-to-date on their daily responsibilities without an increased team effort. Increasing efficiency in your workflow management makes daily operations smoother and easier for your employees, allowing for more productivity and employee satisfaction.

For example, tools like Scribe can save you hours on manual documentation and training. The SOP generator documents your processes for you, turning any workflow into a step-by-step guide in seconds. 

Scribe is easy to edit, share and embed in any knowledge base. Here’s one in action (that only took our teammate Leni 12 seconds to make).

Office automation in summary

Now that you know how to implement office automation and why it is so essential, you can begin to analyze where office automation is needed most in your business. Consider which automation would save the most time for your staff and increase convenience for daily operations.

Take advantage of tools like Scribe to make your processes easier than ever.

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Scribe automatically generates how-to guides and serves them to your team when they need them most. Save time, stay focused, help others.