Enterprise Guide: Business Process Management in SharePoint

Introduction

Business Process Management (BPM) is essential to maintaining and growing efficiency in today’s fast‑paced organizations. BPM involves defining, modeling, implementing, monitoring, and refining workflows to ensure processes are optimized, repeatable, and aligned with strategic goals. Implementing BPM successfully requires choosing the right tools and methods, and executing a phased plan that drives real value.

1. Assess Your Current State

Begin by mapping and documenting your existing processes. Discover who’s involved, systems used, data flows, handoffs, documents submitted, and decisions made. Whether simple or complex, gaining a clear understanding of bottlenecks and pain points is critical. We would suggest using a process‑mapping tools like Visio (or even a flowchart on paper). This way your stakeholders can visualize and validate your current operations.

This assessment sets the stage for identifying target processes for improvement.

2. Identify Target Scenarios

Effective BPM starts by focusing on critical processes that benefit most from speed, accuracy, and transparency. Common examples include:

• Expense report approvals

• Employee onboarding

• Leave requests or time-off management

• Purchase requests or procurement

• Customer service or case management

Seek areas with high variability, manual handoffs, or poor visibility. Also consider process owners and champions who will support this effort.

3. Choose the Right No‑Code Foundation

A key success factor is selecting tools that are powerful, scalable, and intuitive. In Microsoft ecosystems, common options include:

• Microsoft Forms + Power Automate – Great for surveys or basic data capture, but too simplistic for processes with multiple steps or approvals.

• SharePoint Lists + Power Automate – SharePoint adds richer data types but still requires building flows with Microsoft’s connector set.

• Power Apps + Power Platform + Power Automate – Enables sophisticated apps and logic but demands deeper investment in license and skillset.

All are valid - but Infowise Ultimate Forms offers a compelling alternative that combines the best of these approaches in a single no‑code SharePoint add‑on. It supports advanced forms, conditional styling, multiple approval states, alerts, dynamic permissions, templating, and more - without requiring flow logic, development, or separate licenses. It integrates smoothly into SharePoint lists and libraries and supports both online and on‑premise environments.

4. Map Process Flow and Milestones

Once your target process is chosen (e.g., an expense reporting approval loop), outline the exact states, forms, decisions, and participants. Typically you will end up mapping distinct stages such as:

• New / Submitted

• Manager approval

• Finance review

• Reimbursement issued

Define expected behaviors: who can view or edit at each phase, what notifications are sent, allowed value thresholds, and escalations. When using Infowise Ultimate Forms, much of this can be configured visually using Tabs, Containers, Rules, Permissions, Actions, and Alerts - no code or flow logic required.

5. Model, Design & Build

With a defined process blueprint, begin building it:

1. Create your SharePoint list or library, with columns matching key data points (amount, dates, requester, status, signature, etc.)

2. Open the Infowise Form Designer to:

   • Organize fields into logical sections using Containers or Tabs

   • Apply Dynamic Rules for default values and dynamic calculations

   • Lock or hide columns based on status using Column Permissions

3. Implement Actions and Alerts:

   • Use Alerts to notify managers when status = “Pending Approval”

   • Use Actions to auto‑update fields or move the item to next phase

   • Add email templates with dynamic columns

4. Use Signature columns to record approvals in a compliant, timestamped manner.

5. Add totals and validations via Dynamic Rules or calculation fields.

All done in a polished, no‑code environment that works directly within SharePoint.

6. Pilot and Iterate

Before a full rollout, launch a pilot group - perhaps one department managing expense reports. Measure:

• Approval time

• Form errors

• User adoption and feedback

Use this data to refine layouts, notifications, instructions, thresholds, or process stages.

7. Reporting & Dashboards

Data gathered during process execution becomes a rich source for monitoring performance:

• Build Power BI dashboards to show submission volume, approval times, outstanding tasks

• Use Infowise’s built‑in styled Views and Charts to create dashboards directly on SharePoint pages

• Implement BAM-style self-service displays, alerts for bottlenecks, or SLA breaches

8. Scale & Extend

Once your foundational process is solid, expand to other areas:

• Add documents or attachments

• Include Teams chat messages or Teams-integrated notifications

• Create reusable libraries of forms and BPM templates using Template Manager

• Copy and adapt the process across departments

Infowise Ultimate Forms supports templating - replicate your business process in minutes with little to no configuration.

9. Good Governance

Managing ongoing process health ensures long-term success:

• Keep documentation of process logic and steps

• Audit changes to forms, lists, and rules

• Maintain versioning and archive old data using SharePoint retention policies

• Incorporate user feedback and proactive improvement in quarterly or annual reviews

A no-code tool like Infowise enables agile adjustments without support tickets or code deployments.

10. Evidence Continuous Improvement

Measure KPI improvements, audit results, compliance, or cost savings after automation. BPM thrives when it delivers tangible results—like faster approvals, fewer errors, and visibility on bottlenecks.

Why Infowise Ultimate Forms?

While SharePoint and Microsoft Power Platform offer powerful possibilities, Infowise Ultimate Forms delivers a streamlined, unified approach:

• All-in-one BPM tool with forms, logic, workflow, notifications - built within SharePoint

• No developer required - business users build and maintain processes with visual tools

• Rich features like signatures, charts, dashboards, dynamic permissions, and import/export

• Cost- and time-effective alternative to Power Apps + premium Power Automate licensing

• Enterprise-capable - scales across cloud, hybrid, and on-premise deployments

Organizations across industries rely on Ultimate Forms to automate HR, finance, procurement, customer service, compliance, onboarding, and more. And they never need to write even a single line of code.

Get Started Today

If you’re looking to accelerate BPM in your organization, Infowise Ultimate Forms offers a proven pathway to implement powerful workflows quickly and affordably.

• Install Ultimate Forms using our online installation wizard or from Microsoft AppSource

• Watch our kick-start video tutorial to familiarize yourself with features and capabilities

• Explore our Library of prebuilt templates - expense reports, leave approvals, asset tracking

• Reach out to our Implementation Partners or request training assistance

Let your business users drive process innovation. Keep things secure, compliant, and agile with a visual, no-code BPM platform built for SharePoint.