How to optimize your document validation system?

Whether you want to have your latest article reviewed, present the design of a new product, or gather data for the next business report, you need someone to validate your work to take the next step.

Whatever the sector or the size of your organization, each task or document carried out on a daily basis must be validated. And all services are affected. You would then think that all businesses have implemented an efficient and fast document validation process. That is not the case. Even today, projects are falling behind schedule because a key element was not approved on time or received conflicting requests for changes, trapped in a slow and complex validation system.

This time lost waiting for validation is detrimental to the performance and productivity of your employees and your company in general. It is time to act!

Learn what a validation process is and follow these 4 tips to optimize your document validation system today.

What is a document validation process?

Each document, product or design produced by a service must imperatively respect the quality standards previously defined by the company. To ensure this, it must therefore be approved one or more times during its design, before being published, manufactured or transmitted to the customer.

To prevent the validation of a deliverable from taking too long, you need to set up a document validation process. It is a set of steps that must be taken to review and validate different types of documents and deliverables (that is, everything that is produced by the departments in your organization on a daily basis).

Those in charge of validation within the company must therefore rely on guidelines that must be respected. This prevents them from judging your work subjectively, by giving their personal (and not professional) opinion and by using their own quality standards.

Traditionally, a document validation process works as follows:

• a document is sent for approval.
• It can be approved, rejected, or a request for changes is made.
• If the document is not validated, it is sent back to the person/team in charge for review.
• Once the changes are integrated, it is submitted for validation again.

A document can go through several validation steps and multiple approvers.

Attention, here the term “document” does not necessarily mean a Word or PDF document. It is a general term to refer to the fruit of the work of a collaborator, a team or a department. It could be a blog post, a new feature for your application, or new packaging.

4 tips to optimize your document validation process

1. Equip yourself well

The ideal way to set up an effective document validation system is to equip yourself with electronic document management (EDM) software on which you can store, organize, prioritize and manage all of your company's files.

So, once all documents are centralized and easily accessible, it's easier to submit your work for validation. You can also assign a document to multiple approvers, set validation deadlines, and determine the different types of access for each file (read-only, editing, suggestion, validation, etc.).

Finally, using a tool adapted to your document validation process allows you to:

• set up alerts and notifications to inform the persons concerned to submit or validate the document in question;
• monitor the evolution of the file validation process;
• analyze the data and understand where the bottlenecks are located to improve the process and make it more efficient.

2. Separate your internal and external documents

In a company, there are generally two types of documents:

• internal documents : these are files used and distributed only within the organization and which relate in particular to its operation (customer data, processes, etc.);
• external documents : these are files for customers, suppliers and company partners (contracts, quotes, invoices, deliverables, etc.).

It is therefore necessary to define two separate validation systems: one internal and the other external.

Take care of your external validation process in order to offer your customers impeccable service, a simple and effective way to communicate on each revision and an automated follow-up system.

3. Precisely define the roles of each

Depending on the size of your business, a validation process generally includes more than two people. When multiple people and departments are involved, things can get seriously complicated.

For everyone to find their way around, it is best to define specific roles for each stage of the validation process, from document creation to final approval.

In general, there are four roles:

• The person submitting the document for it to be validated;
• The approver, that is, the person who validates or rejects the document;
• The intermediary who intervenes on the document to modify it (the editor);
• The manager who oversees the entire validation process.

You should explain each role in detail and indicate how long it takes to complete the task (s) corresponding to each role.

A tip: involve only the people concerned by the project in the validation process. This way only a limited number of people will be involved, which will greatly simplify the process and avoid any risk of confusion or frustration.

4. Take into account the needs of each role

To optimize your document validation system, you need to ask yourself the right questions.

For example:

• In what format should documents be submitted?
• Can an approver edit a document?
• How can the different roles communicate with each other?
• When should the person who submitted the document receive notifications?

Put yourself in the shoes of each user to know what they need to accomplish their mission.

For example, once the document is submitted for validation, the person who submitted it will appreciate receiving regular notifications about the status of the document. As for the approver, he will want to know how many documents he must validate and in what time frame in order to effectively manage his working time.

To conclude

The document validation process saves you time and money. And above all, you create a reliable and standard system that will be used for all employees in your company.

In order to ensure that your document validation process is effective and working properly, you need to test it. If you notice any malfunctions, do not hesitate to change it.