Legito for Sourcing and Procurement

Charles Drayson

Jan 24 · 3 min read

Today, we’ll look at the application of the Legito platform for folks working in sourcing and procurement. The challenge they face, among many, is buying-in goods and services from suppliers who will have their own procedures, policies, pricing and requirements, and checking that they will fit the needs of the customer. The scene is set for a potential clash when a buyer’s procurement team meets the supplier’s sales team. Meanwhile, their colleagues in both organisations want to get things moving.

If you think it will work in practice, you could build a Legito solution that effectively forces all buying processes through a strict regime, audit trail, and get signatures on all the paperwork you see fit to require. However, if life were that simple, you wouldn’t need sourcing professionals. We think it’s better to create a facility that leaves space for the sourcing professionals to use their expertise and support them with the more tedious tasks, and help them keep visibility of the big picture.

Using Legito to implement and manage a high-level workflow is one way to create the space for human intervention. You don’t need to automate everything – you add optimum value by focussing only on the bits that are tedious and repetitive. If you take this approach, you build a working application more quickly, and add extra layers later as the need arises.

Expertise of your Sourcing Team

For sourcing teams that manage higher volumes of lower complexity purchases, consider using Legito to enable some self-service options for business colleagues – this can work particularly well when a procurement process starts with information-gathering. You could use Legito to prompt colleagues through the first few steps, so the sourcing team has what they need when it’s time for them to start work. This will reduce wait times and alleviate frustrations associated with stop-start patterns because it has to pause for things that are missing.

For sourcing teams faced with a wide variety of purchases, where it can be hard to keep track of the different requirements associated with different categories of purchasing, Legito can work well as a reference source, helping you retrieve the correct documents and requirements.

If you start by modelling only high-level procedures, it takes less time to build. Because Legito is a no-code platform for citizen developers, you can use the expertise of your sourcing team to build what you need without having to remove them totally from their duties.

Legito Deployment

If you deploy Legito to augment the purchase process, it’s a small step to retain the associated data to help you manage suppliers’ fulfilment of contracts. Use the automatic extraction of diary dates, so you don’t overlook renewal dates, SLA checks, routine inspection of insurance policies, and other supplier assurance requirements.

Today, we’ll look at the application of the Legito platform for folks working in sourcing and procurement. The challenge they face, among many, is buying-in goods and services from suppliers who will have their own procedures, policies, pricing and requirements, and checking that they will fit the needs of the customer. The scene is set for a potential clash when a buyer’s procurement team meets the supplier’s sales team. Meanwhile, their colleagues in both organisations want to get things moving.

If you think it will work in practice, you could build a Legito solution that effectively forces all buying processes through a strict regime, audit trail, and get signatures on all the paperwork you see fit to require. However, if life were that simple, you wouldn’t need sourcing professionals. We think it’s better to create a facility that leaves space for the sourcing professionals to use their expertise and support them with the more tedious tasks, and help them keep visibility of the big picture.

First Things First

Let’s suppose you have started a Legito trial. Where would you begin? You could start by defining your documents and processes at a granular level and then replicate them in Legito. If that looks manageable without too much difficulty, do that. However, if you struggle to extract all those low-level details, it might be because you don’t have many things that are fixed and defined at low-level (perhaps because it doesn’t serve the real-world needs of the business). In those cases, we suggest you start by mapping some high-level procedures and thinking about the subsidiary documents and tasks that serve each step of the end-to-end process.

 Using Legito to implement and manage a high-level workflow is one way to create the space for human intervention. You don’t need to automate everything – you add optimum value by focussing only on the bits that are tedious and repetitive. If you take this approach, you build a working application more quickly, and add extra layers later as the need arises.

Expertise of your Sourcing Team

For sourcing teams that manage higher volumes of lower complexity purchases, consider using Legito to enable some self-service options for business colleagues – this can work particularly well when a procurement process starts with information-gathering. You could use Legito to prompt colleagues through the first few steps, so the sourcing team has what they need when it’s time for them to start work. This will reduce wait times and alleviate frustrations associated with stop-start patterns because it has to pause for things that are missing.

For sourcing teams faced with a wide variety of purchases, where it can be hard to keep track of the different requirements associated with different categories of purchasing, Legito can work well as a reference source, helping you retrieve the correct documents and requirements.

If you start by modelling only high-level procedures, it takes less time to build. Because Legito is a no-code platform for citizen developers, you can use the expertise of your sourcing team to build what you need without having to remove them totally from their duties.

Legito Deployment

If you deploy Legito to augment the purchase process, it’s a small step to retain the associated data to help you manage suppliers’ fulfilment of contracts. Use the automatic extraction of diary dates, so you don’t overlook renewal dates, SLA checks, routine inspection of insurance policies, and other supplier assurance requirements.

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Are you solving a problem or a situation?

Charles Drayson

Seth Godin, in one of his many insightful contributions, describes the difference between a problem and a situation. A problem has a solution, even if you don’t like what the solution entails or maybe you haven’t discovered the solution yet. A situation exists and has no solution, so you need to learn to live with it. Don’t expend energy on resolving situations pretending to be problems.

 New software might be a response to a problem or a situation. Seth’s analysis could help define the objectives and success criteria while managing the expectations of colleagues who might be hoping for a magic fix.

A new software – the key to all problems

Consider your interactions with customers in a B2B business. Unless you enjoy a monopoly or sell low-value commodity items, customers have choices, negotiating power, foibles, procurement teams, and a raft of requirements that make it hard to push them through your version of a standard sales process. That’s a situation, not a problem. As such, it is not apt to be solved by changing your processes or deploying new software. If you invest in new software on the premise that it will solve (overcome) those pesky problems customers throw at you, you are setting yourself up to fail.

Is this a software vendor saying a software solution is futile? Not at all – just don’t expect software to convert customers into compliant purchasers. The rocky road of sales is a situation you must learn to live with. It’s not tidy, reliable, or even convenient. A sales process is one example of a business process you need to manage rather than force. It involves human interaction. Where does software fit into that process?

If you can’t use a fully robotic process, software is only useful if it augments the work done by humans. Set your objectives and define your returns by that metric – don’t have objectives that assume the ‘situation’ will disappear.

How does a good software work?

There are tasks best done by humans and tasks better done by machines. Humans don’t like tedious, repetitive tasks requiring attention to detail. On the other hand, humans don’t like mechanical responses to interactions that need a human touch. Most back office processes (including those where the customer is a colleague in another part of the organisation) are like this, and each end-to-end process is a mixture of tasks.

Good software should therefore work in three contexts:

• Automate the steps manifestly suited to machines
• Bring the other tasks to humans in a way that is timely and pleasing for all involved
• Keep track of the volume and status of all the transactions so the humans are not overwhelmed by data

New software might be a response to a problem or a situation. Seth’s analysis could help define the objectives and success criteria while managing the expectations of colleagues who might be hoping for a magic fix.

A new software – the key to all problems

Is this a software vendor saying a software solution is futile? Not at all – just don’t expect software to convert customers into compliant purchasers. The rocky road of sales is a situation you must learn to live with. It’s not tidy, reliable, or even convenient. A sales process is one example of a business process you need to manage rather than force. It involves human interaction. Where does software fit into that process?

If you can’t use a fully robotic process, software is only useful if it augments the work done by humans. Set your objectives and define your returns by that metric – don’t have objectives that assume the ‘situation’ will disappear.

How does a good software work?

• Automate the steps manifestly suited to machines
• Bring the other tasks to humans in a way that is timely and pleasing for all involved
• Keep track of the volume and status of all the transactions so the humans are not overwhelmed by data

We are rapidly getting to the stage where software can also contribute in a fourth context: machines can extract insight from volumes of data to provide humans with feedback previously obscured by the noise of day-to-day transactions.

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Consultants – who needs them?

Charles Drayson

Some vendors, including Legito, deploy consultants during the pre-sales stage of a deal. That means you can ‘try before you buy’ – it’s a chance to see what they can do and maybe build rapport with someone you might engage. Pre-sales is a test of how well a vendor understands your needs. It’s also a chance to assess how well you have investigated the problems you want to solve. Ideally, come with a small specific MVP in mind (Google the Gartner definition).

Legito is a no-code solution designed for organizations to build and maintain solutions using in-house subject matter experts (not developers). Nevertheless, there is still a period where you start with no knowledge before building competence and confidence. That’s a period when you are impatient to make progress. You will have questions that might be hard to resolve from the training resources. You might get stuck. Ask for help. Legito select consultants are for two qualities: they know the product, but crucially, they have experience of making it work for real projects. Quick-start projects are where they can add the most value. They will save you time and help you learn on the job.

I came to Legito after 15 years using a competing product as a customer. My first project started with an intensive period teaching myself from user guides (it was a code-based product), and then I spent a day with a consultant before returning to the project. I had spent enough time with the software to learn the basics, and enough time to expose the topics where I needed 1:1 support. I knew where I needed expert input, and the consultant added much value. A few months later, I had another day with a consultant. By that time, I was ready to grasp more advanced concepts that made the solution polished. I used the first approach. It reduced my budget, and I believe it’s the best way to develop your expertise. But, it takes longer, and you will make mistakes that require re-work. We learn from that.

The second approach is good for speed, predictable timescales, and the assurance of having a successful first project on which to build. However, I don’t think you learn as much from observing rather than doing. You might still need to resort to the first approach when you move to the next project. However, at least you will build on a firm success base. Expect to pay more if you outsource the first project. You can mitigate the extra cost if you give the consultants a tight brief and a clear picture of both the ‘as is’ business process and the ‘to be’ business process. If you don’t have clearly defined requirements, the consultants will need to spend time on a discovery process. That can be economical if your internal subject matter experts are scarce or valuable resources (e.g. fee earning staff in professional services organizations).

Legito is a no-code solution designed for organizations to build and maintain solutions using in-house subject matter experts (not developers). Nevertheless, there is still a period where you start with no knowledge before building competence and confidence. That’s a period when you are impatient to make progress. You will have questions that might be hard to resolve from the training resources. You might get stuck. Ask for help. Legito select consultants are for two qualities: they know the product, but crucially, they have experience of making it work for real projects. Quick-start projects are where they can add the most value. They will save you time and help you learn on the job.

Expect to pay more if you outsource the first project. You can mitigate the extra cost if you give the consultants a tight brief and a clear picture of both the ‘as is’ business process and the ‘to be’ business process. If you don’t have clearly defined requirements, the consultants will need to spend time on a discovery process. That can be economical if your internal subject matter experts are scarce or valuable resources (e.g. fee earning staff in professional services organizations).

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A Quick guide to Digital Signatures

Charles Drayson

Dec 7 · 5 min read

If you haven’t moved to a digital signature solution, this guide is for you. It’s about digital signatures in general, not just Legito digital signatures. However, we will finish with a look at the multiple options you can access directly from a Legito workspace. We have all the options covered.

Let’s start with a look at the downside of ‘wet ink’ signatures:

• All signatories need to be physically in one place unless you incur delay sending physical documents between multiple locations.
• You can only apply a wet ink signature to a paper-based document. If that means printing a digital file, you can garble or lose content when it’s printed (different paper sizes, embedded files that don’t print, margins too small for the printer).
• While you are waiting for someone to sign, you don’t know what’s causing the delay, and the process has no built-in reminders.
• You have to store original signed documents securely, and you need to scan documents if you want to access them electronically. Scanning large documents is a nuisance, especially if they are bound.
• Wet ink signatures are a nuisance for people who work remotely.
• Traditional signing methods look slow and dated – incompatible with the image of a modern agile organisation.

Digital signatures also offer advantages that are more than just a fix for the problems associated with traditional signatures:

• Digital signatures can be configured, managed and executed within a digital workflow. Signing can remain part of your end-to-end process. If you use Legito, the tools are immediately available where you do your work.
• If you need to change a document before it is signed (for example, during an internal review and approval process), there is no lag associated with having to re-print and circulate the revised document.
• Mistakes during the signature process are avoided because the solution shows how and where documents should be signed.

Legito allows you to use any combination of signature methods to meet the needs of your organisation and your customers and suppliers, including storing scanned signed documents within the Legito document management system if needed. Legito BioSign allows users to use a digital pen with tablet devices to apply a manuscript signature. You can use Legito’s integration with AdobeSign and DocuSign. Or, if you want to save the fees charged by those providers, you can use Legito’s native LegitoSign solution.

I now rarely see documents signed by traditional methods, except for special situations like signing a will, buying a house, or executing a mortgage. Moreover, customers like convenience and speed – here’s a chance to make it easier to do business.

If you haven’t moved to a digital signature solution, this guide is for you. It’s about digital signatures in general, not just Legito digital signatures. However, we will finish with a look at the multiple options you can access directly from a Legito workspace. We have all the options covered.

Let’s start with a look at the downside of ‘wet ink’ signatures:

• All signatories need to be physically in one place unless you incur delay sending physical documents between multiple locations.
• You can only apply a wet ink signature to a paper-based document. If that means printing a digital file, you can garble or lose content when it’s printed (different paper sizes, embedded files that don’t print, margins too small for the printer).
• While you are waiting for someone to sign, you don’t know what’s causing the delay, and the process has no built-in reminders.
• You have to store original signed documents securely, and you need to scan documents if you want to access them electronically. Scanning large documents is a nuisance, especially if they are bound.
• Wet ink signatures are a nuisance for people who work remotely.
• Traditional signing methods look slow and dated – incompatible with the image of a modern agile organisation.

Some organisations try to mitigate the problems with a hybrid: signing and exchanging scanned signed documents, or inserting digital images of a traditional signature. It’s hard to prove the authenticity of a signature using such methods. How do you know the signature wasn’t applied by admin staff without proper authorization?

Digital signatures have the look and feel of a traditional process, but they use technology to impose a unique digital stamp to prove that a signature is original and authorised. The technology is interesting but beyond the scope of a short article. The technology is good enough to attract force of law in almost all situations.

The bottom line is that digital signatures overcome the disadvantages of wet ink signatures.

Digital signatures also offer advantages that are more than just a fix for the problems associated with traditional signatures:

• Digital signatures can be configured, managed and executed within a digital workflow. Signing can remain part of your end-to-end process. If you use Legito, the tools are immediately available where you do your work.
• If you need to change a document before it is signed (for example, during an internal review and approval process), there is no lag associated with having to re-print and circulate the revised document.
• Mistakes during the signature process are avoided because the solution shows how and where documents should be signed.

Legito allows you to use any combination of signature methods to meet the needs of your organisation and your customers and suppliers, including storing scanned signed documents within the Legito document management system if needed. Legito BioSign allows users to use a digital pen with tablet devices to apply a manuscript signature. You can use Legito’s integration with AdobeSign and DocuSign. Or, if you want to save the fees charged by those providers, you can use Legito’s native LegitoSign solution.

I now rarely see documents signed by traditional methods, except for special situations like signing a will, buying a house, or executing a mortgage. Moreover, customers like convenience and speed – here’s a chance to make it easier to do business.

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Thinking ahead to a Quiet January

Charles Drayson

January is an excellent time to get things done, especially if urgent tasks mean you never get enough clear time to work on your ‘someday / maybe’ list. The end of the calendar year coincides with the end of the business year for many organisations. Christmas holidays end and people go back to work in a period of relative calm in anticipation of the year ahead.

Trying new things

Another great feature of January: it’s a quiet time for you, but it’s also a quiet time for many of your colleagues. January is the ideal opportunity to run a small experiment or pilot project to try something new. The opportunity cost of a short January distraction is at its lowest, and you can harness the instinct to do something different in the coming year. If a January pilot project is successful, you could scale it in time for Spring.

If I can tempt you to do something different this January, there are one or two quick steps you might need to take in the next few weeks so you will be ready.

Think about signing up for a free trial to begin in January. Maybe get a couple of colleagues on board now – your subconscious minds can start processing ideas between now and January. If December looks like a crazy period, perhaps it’s an ideal time to observe the shortcomings in the current working patterns. Could you set aside a week in January where you avoid routine meetings or appointments that could wait, except for collaborating on your pilot project.

Trying new things

If you want to complete a pilot project in January, you will need to limit your focus to one deliverable, maybe two. Pick one thing that would prove the concept or sink it. The objective is to do just enough to give you the confidence to go ahead with some form of production rollout. The first production rollout doesn’t have to be big.

New year resolutions are easier if you team up with others. Moreover, you don’t have to give up alcohol or count calories to get an exciting new venture underway.

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Citizen developer explained

Charles Drayson

Nov 10 · 3 min read

Gartner says “A citizen developer is an employee who creates application capabilities for consumption by themselves or others, using tools that are not actively forbidden by IT or business units. A citizen developer is a persona, not a title or targeted role. They report to
a business unit or function other than IT”¹. More people can be citizen developers if they use no code platforms like Legito.

Citizen developers are also users

Using citizen developers, you can quickly identify and make improvements to a business solution. Citizen developers are also users. They will be among the first to see an opportunity to make useful changes or small tweaks to alleviate glitches. Citizen developers want the solution to be the best it can be. They know the changes that are needed to keep track of business developments. You don’t have to wait to requisition a developer from the IT team or an external supplier, and you don’t need to explain the required changes.

Citizen developers will be part of the business team they serve. Colleagues know who they are. If colleagues see something they would like to add or change, they don’t need to hunt around the organisation for someone to lobby, and they don’t need to explain the needs in emails. Colleagues can walk across the office or have a Teams call to talk to a citizen developer in terms they both understand. Water cooler meetings can become a trigger for improvements. Change happens quickly. Citizen developers don’t need lengthy solution specifications.

Gartner says “A citizen developer is an employee who creates application capabilities for consumption by themselves or others, using tools that are not actively forbidden by IT or business units. A citizen developer is a persona, not a title or targeted role. They report to a business unit or function other than IT”¹. More people can be citizen developers if they use no code platforms like Legito.

Citizen developers are also users

Using citizen developers, you can quickly identify and make improvements to a business solution. Citizen developers are also users. They will be among the first to see an opportunity to make useful changes or small tweaks to alleviate glitches. Citizen developers want the solution to be the best it can be. They know the changes that are needed to keep track of business developments. You don’t have to wait to requisition a developer from the IT team or an external supplier, and you don’t need to explain the required changes

Citizen developers will be part of the business team they serve. Colleagues know who they are. If colleagues see something they would like to add or change, they don’t need to hunt around the organisation for someone to lobby, and they don’t need to explain the needs in emails. Colleagues can walk across the office or have a Teams call to talk to a citizen developer in terms they both understand. Water cooler meetings can become a trigger for improvements. Change happens quickly. Citizen developers don’t need lengthy solution specifications..

Back office

Some back office work is routine and risks going unnoticed until it goes wrong. Back office professionals want and need their work to run like clockwork, and to serve the organisation in the most supportive way possible. There’s a big difference between ‘just good enough’ and ‘exactly what we need’. The latter requires the knowledge of an insider and an appreciation of the nuances and exceptions that accompany all back office work. You just don’t get that level of intuition if you rely on traditional developers.

Not everyone is suited to be a citizen developer. That’s OK – you need one or two people who have a creative spirit and a spark to make things better, and the confidence to dig a bit deeper within a software solution. Building solutions with Legito is a way to acquire a new skill that gets noticed by their colleagues and management. It’s an opportunity that is not confined to any management level.

¹See: https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/citizen-developer

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The next level beyond office applications

Charles Drayson

Oct 20 · 3 min read

It made perfect sense for Microsoft to adopt the ‘Office’ label when they started grouping their applications. Over time, we saw those applications having a similar look-and-feel and increasing connectivity. Office applications are used, err, right across the office. The Finance team uses the same solutions as the Marketing team, and the HR team, and every team. It would be annoying if they didn’t.

Each team might adopt its own templates, styles, macros and customisations to reflect the team’s needs and preferences. Still, they could share their work with other teams without hindrance. Most of the teams have a bias to some applications and probably don’t use the others. That’s fine – they all get value even if they don’t all use all of the solution all of the time. Some users get their work done with the basic features, and some users find value in complex, obscure features, and the real hero is one who builds clever stuff that colleagues can use.

We see Legito like that.

It’s fine if you just want to use it in one department, but our vision is about empowering the whole enterprise with features that work across team boundaries, with the same look-and-feel, integrated, and yet ready to be customised for the needs of each team. Most teams will only use some of the features, but the enterprise needs access to all of them. Legito gets work done within teams, but it exists because most work needs to flow between teams. It’s the next level beyond office applications. 

As organisations expand their use of Legito, we are seeing true enterprise-wide adoption. But, just like Microsoft Office, it’s equally useful for companies with few users. The numbers don’t matter – it’s the ability to span the whole organisation that makes it powerful.

Perhaps the test of an office application is whether an organisation would miss it if it wasn’t there, and where the adoption is self-evident of value.

It made perfect sense for Microsoft to adopt the ‘Office’ label when they started grouping their applications. Over time, we saw those applications having a similar look-and-feel and increasing connectivity. Office applications are used, err, right across the office. The Finance team uses the same solutions as the Marketing team, and the HR team, and every team. It would be annoying if they didn’t.

Each team might adopt its own templates, styles, macros and customisations to reflect the team’s needs and preferences. Still, they could share their work with other teams without hindrance. Most of the teams have a bias to some applications and probably don’t use the others. That’s fine – they all get value even if they don’t all use all of the solution all of the time. Some users get their work done with the basic features, and some users find value in complex, obscure features, and the real hero is one who builds clever stuff that colleagues can use.

We see Legito like that.

It’s fine if you just want to use it in one department, but our vision is about empowering the whole enterprise with features that work across team boundaries, with the same look-and-feel, integrated, and yet ready to be customised for the needs of each team. Most teams will only use some of the features, but the enterprise needs access to all of them. Legito gets work done within teams, but it exists because most work needs to flow between teams. It’s the next level beyond office applications. 

As organisations expand their use of Legito, we are seeing true enterprise-wide adoption. But, just like Microsoft Office, it’s equally useful for companies with few users. The numbers don’t matter – it’s the ability to span the whole organisation that makes it powerful.

No code applications

Analysts and commentators are talking about no code applications and no code platforms. A few years ago, a phrase like ‘no code applications’ would seem ambiguous because it doesn’t describe anything specific. Today, it’s implicit that organisations increasingly want to build their own solutions using commercially available software. Moreover, they want to build those solutions without dependence on developers to create and maintain them. They want the building blocks to create, process, move, manage and share work – and they want them configured by colleagues with a native understanding of the business needs, and they want quick deployments – not IT projects. The users will be the same people who use office applications. Some of those will step up and create clever stuff for their colleagues.

Perhaps the test of an office application is whether an organisation would miss it if it wasn’t there, and where the adoption is self-evident of value.

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When Documents Meet Reality

Charles Drayson

I am surely not alone in experiencing a situation where an organisation says one thing and does another. Why does that happen?

I suspect process failures cause many mistakes. I further suspect that many process failures arise because there is no reliable connection between a promise in a document and organisational readiness to deliver on the promise. We are too accepting of that disconnect. It’s the same reason why business teams sometimes talk proudly about signing a contract and then putting it in a draw (never to be used). If we can make promises in documents without being accountable for performance, no wonder we end up with lengthy policy documents that are ignored and protocols that probably wouldn’t survive a first contact with reality.

Some documents should be part of a workflow

My past experience working as a lawyer for a large business process outsourcing company, revealed a consistent root cause when we retrospectively reviewed occasional service failures. In almost all cases, the root cause of failure could be traced back to a customer asking us to do something non-standard, often in a hurry as a favour, and our teams did what the customer wanted without the guard rails of a procedure that trapped errors.

Some documents, if they are intended to create action, should be part of a reliable workflow. The workflow doesn’t have to be automated, but automated workflow are dependable. Integrating documents within a workflow means documents should be created in a way that ensures they are tailored to finite, known boundaries – with options that match what you can deliver.

Unless you are documenting a service that can be truly bespoke, such operational documents should not be an opportunity for artistic flourish in the hands of your employees. If they find the ‘system’ doesn’t let them do what they want to do (“Computer says no”), provide an escalation route that ensures a human checks whether the non-standard items are sensible. A system that doesn’t cater to infinite options is your friend.

I am surely not alone in experiencing a situation where an organisation says one thing and does another. Why does that happen?

I suspect process failures cause many mistakes. I further suspect that many process failures arise because there is no reliable connection between a promise in a document and organisational readiness to deliver on the promise. We are too accepting of that disconnect. It’s the same reason why business teams sometimes talk proudly about signing a contract and then putting it in a draw (never to be used). If we can make promises in documents without being accountable for performance, no wonder we end up with lengthy policy documents that are ignored and protocols that probably wouldn’t survive a first contact with reality.

Decisions, decisions

Some documents should be part of a workflow

My past experience working as a lawyer for a large business process outsourcing company, revealed a consistent root cause when we retrospectively reviewed occasional service failures. In almost all cases, the root cause of failure could be traced back to a customer asking us to do something non-standard, often in a hurry as a favour, and our teams did what the customer wanted without the guard rails of a procedure that trapped errors.

Some documents, if they are intended to create action, should be part of a reliable workflow. The workflow doesn’t have to be automated, but automated workflow are dependable. Integrating documents within a workflow means documents should be created in a way that ensures they are tailored to finite, known boundaries – with options that match what you can deliver. Unless you are documenting a service that can be truly bespoke, such operational documents should not be an opportunity for artistic flourish in the hands of your employees. If they find the ‘system’ doesn’t let them do what they want to do (“Computer says no”), provide an escalation route that ensures a human checks whether the non-standard items are sensible. A system that doesn’t cater to infinite options is your friend.

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5 Reasons Why Home-Grown Solutions Don’t Last

Charles Drayson

Some organisations come to Legito from a competitor solution, and some have no existing solution, but today I’m talking about organisations who have built a home-grown solution that isn’t meeting their needs.

5 reasons why home-grown solutions don’t last

1. Document automation is harder than it looks

Building sophisticated solutions is technically demanding when you get beyond mail-merge, quick-parts, and other quasi-automation tools in Word. The first document automation solution to achieve commercial success had over one million lines of code – and it was years before vendors could offer the automation options you can get now.

2. Home-grown solutions get stranded when people leave or move to other projects

I worked with an organisation that used a clever spreadsheet to calculate pricing. It was issued to all the sales execs. No doubt, the guy who created the spreadsheet was an Excel wizard, and the tool was smart. And then he left. Not a single person could fathom how to update the spreadsheet.

3. Office applications evolve

I have a family member who worked for a large public organisation I dare not mention. That organisation generated some rather important documents. A keen individual wrote a script for Word. He shared it with colleagues. Soon, everybody used it. Microsoft brought out a new version of Word, with the .docx format – and the script was incompatible with the new version. The IT team had no awareness of the automation. As the new version of Word rolled out, it just stopped working. Sure, he could have updated the script – but he had authored many documents, and it would take time – which they didn’t have.

4. In-house solutions are not built to be resilient or secure

Automation does more than execute tedious work. Modern business needs for automation frequently include business controls and compliance. There’s a need to ensure tasks are done correctly by people with the designated authority and backed up with auditable records. Business processes invariably require processing of personal data or confidential information. Enterprise-grade security and resilience must be designed into a solution, and that requires skills which are scarce.

5. Off-the-shelf solutions have a lower cost of ownership

Volume fees from numerous users finances the build cost of commercial software. More commercial software is now supplied as a cloud-based solution which includes the cost of hosting the solution and providing support. The true cost of building and deploying an in-house solution is probably not measured – but it’s real and costly.

Some organisations come to Legito from a competitor solution, and some have no existing solution, but today I’m talking about organisations who have built a home-grown solution that isn’t meeting their needs.

5 reasons why home-grown solutions don’t last

1. Document automation is harder than it looks

Building sophisticated solutions is technically demanding when you get beyond mail-merge, quick-parts, and other quasi-automation tools in Word. The first document automation solution to achieve commercial success had over one million lines of code – and it was years before vendors could offer the automation options you can get now.

2. Home-grown solutions get stranded when people leave or move to other projects

I worked with an organisation that used a clever spreadsheet to calculate pricing. It was issued to all the sales execs. No doubt, the guy who created the spreadsheet was an Excel wizard, and the tool was smart. And then he left. Not a single person could fathom how to update the spreadsheet.

3. Office applications evolve

I have a family member who worked for a large public organisation I dare not mention. That organisation generated some rather important documents. A keen individual wrote a script for Word. He shared it with colleagues. Soon, everybody used it. Microsoft brought out a new version of Word, with the .docx format – and the script was incompatible with the new version. The IT team had no awareness of the automation. As the new version of Word rolled out, it just stopped working. Sure, he could have updated the script – but he had authored many documents, and it would take time – which they didn’t have.

4. In-house solutions are not built to be resilient or secure

Automation does more than execute tedious work. Modern business needs for automation frequently include business controls and compliance. There’s a need to ensure tasks are done correctly by people with the designated authority and backed up with auditable records. Business processes invariably require processing of personal data or confidential information. Enterprise-grade security and resilience must be designed into a solution, and that requires skills which are scarce.

5. Off-the-shelf solutions have a lower cost of ownership

Volume fees from numerous users finances the build cost of commercial software. More commercial software is now supplied as a cloud-based solution which includes the cost of hosting the solution and providing support. The true cost of building and deploying an in-house solution is probably not measured – but it’s real and costly.

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Customer wish-lists

Charles Drayson

Aug 25 · 2 min read

Yesterday, I wrote a summary of the excellent customer present from Telia at the PowerUp 2022 conference. Over the years, I have heard many organisations discuss their wish-list for solutions. It’s remarkable how diverse organisations have similar requests. That’s a good thing. It makes it viable to build solutions that work across multiple sectors and teams. 

1. Automate the production of documents

Document automation (‘document assembly’, as it’s sometimes called) is the starting point for most projects. Some solutions do nothing other than document automation, and still deliver benefits. Building software to automate document generation is more difficult than it looks. It’s easy to do basic things, like replacing placeholders with names or similar data. You can do that with mail-merge in Word.

That’s OK for standard documents, but creating tailored documents is much better. Tailored documents have more customisation – the reader wouldn’t guess they come from an automated solution. The degree of customisation requires more advanced software, which is rarely available in enterprise software that doesn’t have Legito’s focus on document-orientated processes.

2. Save time spent on repetitive work

Saving time on repeat work used to mean using fewer people to get work done, to save costs. These days, during a significant labour shortage, it means getting work done despite a lack of people, especially people with skills in demand. It also means looking after your people – they don’t want to spend time on dreary tasks.

3. Reduce human error

Humans make mistakes. We all do. Risk management, compliance procedures, and brand reputation are enhanced if we give people tools that help them do the right thing. Humans are bad at reading long policy documents, checking for mistakes, and remembering process details. Just because you get by without automation, doesn’t mean you have a sustainable process. In some markets, regulators expect to see technology to mitigate risk.

5. Reduce cycle times for getting work done

The items listed above reduce the time to get work done (and done correctly first time). Self-service features make it easier for people to get what they need without waiting for help from specialist colleagues. Your subject matter experts should use their expertise to make self-service options that work for most people most of the time. Use Legito to lead users through the correct content and correct steps, so they aren’t tempted to use unauthorised short-cuts or skip important items.

Charles Drayson

Aug 25 · 2 min read

1. Automate the production of documents

Document automation (‘document assembly’, as it’s sometimes called) is the starting point for most projects. Some solutions do nothing other than document automation, and still deliver benefits. Building software to automate document generation is more difficult than it looks. It’s easy to do basic things, like replacing placeholders with names or similar data. You can do that with mail-merge in Word.

That’s OK for standard documents, but creating tailored documents is much better. Tailored documents have more customisation – the reader wouldn’t guess they come from an automated solution. The degree of customisation requires more advanced software, which is rarely available in enterprise software that doesn’t have Legito’s focus on document-orientated processes.

2. Save time spent on repetitive work

Saving time on repeat work used to mean using fewer people to get work done, to save costs. These days, during a significant labour shortage, it means getting work done despite a lack of people, especially people with skills in demand. It also means looking after your people – they don’t want to spend time on dreary tasks.

3. Reduce human error

Humans make mistakes. We all do. Risk management, compliance procedures, and brand reputation are enhanced if we give people tools that help them do the right thing. Humans are bad at reading long policy documents, checking for mistakes, and remembering process details. Just because you get by without automation, doesn’t mean you have a sustainable process. In some markets, regulators expect to see technology to mitigate risk.

5. Reduce cycle times for getting work done

The items listed above reduce the time to get work done (and done correctly first time). Self-service features make it easier for people to get what they need without waiting for help from specialist colleagues. Your subject matter experts should use their expertise to make self-service options that work for most people most of the time. Use Legito to lead users through the correct content and correct steps, so they aren’t tempted to use unauthorised short-cuts or skip important items.

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