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Writing a business process in Bitrix24 with a deposit for the future

At work, I am engaged in user support and maintenance of the boxed version of Bitrix24 CRM, including writing business processes. It should be noted that in fact I am not a “purely” Bitrix specialist, but this is one of my responsibilities. In fact, I have a lot of responsibilities, so I almost always have to do it not as I would like, but quickly and to work, because there is sorely lacking time (I'm sure that I am not the only one working in such conditions). Currently, I have two years of experience working with this CRM (I have known Bitrix for more than 10 years) and I would like to tell you about some of the mistakes that I made while writing, testing and servicing business processes, which made me you have to constantly help users, make changes, and even completely rewrite business processes from scratch.

To begin with, we need to believe that any stability is relative, and being in a comfort zone is temporary. Employees will come and go (even those who sit in a very good place), departments will be reorganized, staff will increase and decrease, departments will open and close, etc. When I was studying at the institute, the teacher of compromising information told us that when studying copromat in Russia, the static state is taken as the base, and then we learn the dynamics, but in some other countries the dynamic is taken as the base, and the static is considered as a special case speakers. Personally, I like this approach more, it does not give the opportunity to amuse myself with the fact that "now everything has settled down and nothing will change." Just believe it, it will be easier for you later.

Lyrical digression: before you talk about how to write business processes “with the makings of the future”, you should estimate the hierarchy of your company for yourself to understand who can ask or demand from you to write or change a business process. Once the head of one unit came up to me and said: we need a business process for interacting with other units, otherwise everything is bad with us. And they really had everything bad then, even rather awful. I wrote this BP for three or four business days, I did it almost perfectly, and other units took it and said that the business process is nonsense, it’s not convenient and they won’t work with it at all. I’m sitting, not worried (this is not my problem, they should have settled it at the level of the general director), and then that leader comes to me and says: thank you for the work,You can delete the process, the general position of those units has been accepted. And so it was many times on a variety of issues and changes. Since then, I write business processes only when the director agrees with this.

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Now back to our business processes. Sometimes they are very small, just 1-2 clicks, just to fix the fact that someone asked permission to do something, and someone allowed not to run around with papers (and not to lose them). It seems to be obvious: the subordinate asks the leader whether it is possible or not, and the leader presses the appropriate buttons. Simply? Nothing like that! And if there is no leader? And if now you had to choose another? And if he was and left without confirming? And if you filled it wrong? And if something else? And if ... And these are all the issues that we constantly struggle with and make the process better, but only until a new employee arrives. As it comes, then everything starts anew: the same questions, the same mistakes, etc. My boss constantly scolds me for not making enough comments and instructions,but I really like to step on the rake, and sometimes you can jump on them. Just kidding :-) Now I will act differently: first, not a block diagram (as suggested by the user manual), but the usual instructions. If everyone understood her and everyone agrees with her, then we draw a flow chart and if we agree with her, then we write a business process. It can be small now, and over time it can grow to such an extent that you will really discuss buying a 4K TV with a “bigger” diagonal to just see the whole process and see if there are any errors, even in logic. By the way, before starting writing, it would be nice to secure the signatures of all the managers whose departments will use this process so that later there will be no complaints about inconvenient work, incorrect logic, etc.and sometimes you can jump on them. Just kidding :-) Now I will act differently: first, not a block diagram (as suggested by the user manual), but the usual instructions. If everyone understood her and everyone agrees with her, then we draw a flow chart and if we agree with her, then we write a business process. It can be small now, and over time it can grow to such an extent that you will really discuss buying a 4K TV with a “bigger” diagonal to just see the whole process and see if there are any errors, even in logic. By the way, before starting writing, it would be nice to secure the signatures of all the managers whose units will use this process, so that later there will be no complaints about inconvenient work, incorrect logic, etc.and sometimes you can jump on them. Just kidding :-) Now I will act differently: first, not a block diagram (as suggested by the user manual), but the usual instructions. If everyone understood her and everyone agrees with her, then we draw a flow chart and if we agree with her, then we write a business process. It can be small now, and over time it can grow to such an extent that you will really discuss buying a 4K TV with a “bigger” diagonal to just see the whole process and see if there are any errors, even in logic. By the way, before starting writing, it would be nice to secure the signatures of all the managers whose units will use this process, so that later there will be no complaints about inconvenient work, incorrect logic, etc.first, not a block diagram (as suggested by the user manual), but the usual instructions. If everyone understood her and everyone agrees with her, then we draw a flow chart and if we agree with her, then we write a business process. It can be small now, and over time it can grow to such an extent that you will really discuss buying a 4K TV with a “bigger” diagonal to just see the whole process and see if there are any errors, even in logic. By the way, before starting writing, it would be nice to secure the signatures of all the managers whose units will use this process, so that later there will be no complaints about inconvenient work, incorrect logic, etc.first, not a block diagram (as suggested by the user manual), but the usual instructions. If everyone understood her and everyone agrees with her, then we draw a flow chart and if we agree with her, then we write a business process. It can be small now, and over time it can grow to such an extent that you will really discuss buying a 4K TV with a “bigger” diagonal to just see the whole process and see if there are any errors, even in logic. By the way, before starting writing, it would be nice to secure the signatures of all the managers whose units will use this process, so that later there will be no complaints about inconvenient work, incorrect logic, etc.It can be small now, and over time it can grow to such an extent that you will really discuss buying a 4K TV with a “bigger” diagonal to just see the whole process and see if there are any errors, even in logic. By the way, before starting writing, it would be nice to secure the signatures of all the managers whose departments will use this process so that later there will be no complaints about inconvenient work, incorrect logic, etc.It can be small now, and over time it can grow to such an extent that you will really discuss buying a 4K TV with a “bigger” diagonal to just see the whole process and see if there are any errors, even in logic. By the way, before starting writing, it would be nice to secure the signatures of all the managers whose units will use this process, so that later there will be no complaints about inconvenient work, incorrect logic, etc.so that later there would be no complaints about inconvenient work, wrong logic, etc.so that later there would be no complaints about inconvenient work, wrong logic, etc.

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It is this phrase that I will now put at the forefront when writing business processes. Indeed, practice shows that there is a position, people just change on it. As was the position of financial director, it is. As was the chief accountant, he stayed. And the head of management accounting has not gone anywhere. And I’m generally silent about the heads of sales departments. Another thing is that the posts have not gone anywhere. Usually it’s like: sitting, working, and then you get the news: “Masha is leaving, Tanya is coming”. It is necessary to immediately frantically recall in which business processes a person participates in, where one needs to be replaced by another, etc. Or they can say otherwise, just from the series "Masha leaves." You removed a person from everywhere, sitting at home on sick leave / on vacation or going somewhere, and then the call is "Tanya came out here, but for some reason there is no access anywhere."Well, right, they haven’t added it to Bitrix yet, not to mention the roles in business processes.

So it’s really easier if you think not about specific people, but about the posts that they currently occupy. Yes, in the business process there will be 1-2 extra blocks, but when a person changes, you don’t need to remember where and for what he was responsible, you just need to replace the variable value from one person to another and that's it.

The right permissions by department is very important


Hypothetically, the structure of the company is completely vertical: Owner - Director - Chief Accountant - Head of Department - Employee (or something like that). And it can be horizontal: Owner - Director - many departments. And maybe some more.

I used to set rights for each specific employee. For example: there is an accountant Lena, she should see all payments and shipments. We go into the relevant business processes and prescribe our Lena there. What if she’ll be transferred or will she quit? Then the easiest way is to give the necessary access to all those who are in the "Leaders" group, but this is wrong, because then the processes and files of employees will be available not only to their managers and accounting, but also to heads of other departments.

There are many options here, I personally recently stopped working with groups. We create a group, add employees (or one employee) to it and you're done. You no longer have to worry about the fact that the old employee sees a lot, and the new one does not: just add to the group or exclude it. Quick and easy.

Save all data, comments and notes


If you go to a person with a paper memo, then he cannot verbally approve it, he puts a signature. But it can verbally give a detailed commentary, including setting a condition like “I will sign, but if it turns out like this, then don’t do / don’t buy”. And if you need to sign with two, then, in principle, you can retell. That is why you need to save everything and, most importantly, never prescribe “hard” who put the comment, but always take it from a variable. At first, I really sinned this: where should the director confirm comments on his behalf, where the chief accountant is on his behalf. And then people are asked why they banned or are suitable for remaking, but they themselves do not know that they forbade someone to do something :-)

We record absolutely all files


Previously, we recorded only the “final” files, but then we didn’t often, but nevertheless, face the fact that people start to argue about “I didn’t download it”, “when I confirmed the file was different”, etc. Or, in general, they began to return to the business process 2-3 months after the closure.

Test passes - as voluminous as possible, but not for long


I’ll be honest and say that when you ask employees to test business processes, they don’t give a damn. Someone is lazy (although sitting does nothing), someone does not have time, and someone is frankly dumb and does not understand what needs to be done. I began to test one - inconveniently. I began to test with my supervisor - it’s easier and more convenient, but that he obviously doesn’t have others (as I wrote before, there are no instructions, although it seems obvious). As a result, they decided this: I go through each branch of the business process once, then I test with the managers whether everything is clear to them. If everything is clear and I explained so that they can retell it to their employees, then we take an employee from each department and start by force (although usually it is quite possible to find a volunteer from each department). If everything is fine here,then the business process goes to work and immediately announce it for all employees.

Copy and clone processes


Sometimes, to speed up work on a business process, I take the old template and edit it. So faster, but in the end I get:

  • Incorrect comments
  • extra variables;
  • Incorrect task descriptions
  • broken links;
  • uploading files to the wrong place;
  • wrong access rights;

and much more such things that I would not want to get in the end. I tried to write from scratch - long and uncomfortable. As the lesser of evils I chose to copy the process and smoothly walk around and read each block to see if I'm doing it right. Usually, all technical errors made at this stage are detected when I test the process alone. We find logical errors with the leaders.

Make significant changes


About the fact that before creating a new business process you need to obtain the consent of all participants, I wrote earlier. In principle, the same thing here, except that in the end it’s important before you launch a new version of the business process, to make a “press release” where it’s important not only to talk about the changes, but also to make a comparison on the “was” items and "became."

It’s possible that I just didn’t tell you anything new, you knew all this before, but I will be glad if it helps someone not to step on my rake. If you have questions then ask in the comments.

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