Processes

Process

A process is usually defined as a group of documents that belong together based on their content, such as the document chain of a standard sales transaction in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. This begins with preparing a quote, which results in a sales contract. Once an order is placed, a delivery note is created for shipping, along with the associated sales invoice. In the event of a return order, the sales credit note is also bound together with this process.

Process-related assignment

Basically, each document to be archived should be assigned to a process, because only then will it be transparent to which business transaction it belongs. An isolated document without a process reference is usually worthless. However, there are exceptions where a process reference is unnecessary, e.g. when archiving correspondence with an attorney regarding a legal dispute, or storing additional data files regarding a vendor. If this data does not directly refer to a business transaction, it does not require a process number either.

Exceptions: Assignments of levels 2 to 5 are document-related assignments

Not every assignment and archiving operation is a business process. For instance, assignment to journals and material items is not a process-related assignment but simply a document-related one. (Document number, posting date).

Tools of process-related assignment

Process number

In order to enable assigning Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central documents to processes, all relevant tables in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central are expanded by the Process number field. Additionally, a function has been implemented that automatically generates a process number at the start of a document chain (the number series must be specified in ECM Setup) which forwards it when creating another associated document. When unique number series have been created for the document numbers in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, the document number can be used as a process number. In this case, the document number will be copied to the Process Number field.

Object Reference Matrix

The ECM Object Reference Matrix is used to define which field in a table corresponds to the process number. If the Process no. field of a table is stored here, the process number comes from the number series stored in ECM Setup. If a different field is stored, e.g. Document no.., , this field stands for the process number.