Best Practices

Introduction Steve Mitas President of The Mitas Group, Inc 1575 Heritage Dr, Suite 300 McKinney, TX Tel: Fax:

Agenda I. Workflow tracking tools and their application II. Business continuity planning

I. Workflow Tracking Tools

Workflow Workflow is a term used to describe the tasks, procedural steps, organizations or people involved, required input and output information, and tools needed for each step in a business process.* *

Workflow Tracking Tools Workflow tracking tools – tools that help you define the workflow of your organization, make it more automated, transparent and better structured. These tools give you ability to create, manage and optimize your business.

Workflow in Your Agency Annual recertification – how to document the process: Task divided into many steps Completion of one task depends on completion of another task, i.e. there are many dependencies It has to be predetermined who is responsible for each task Time expectations/deadlines

Recertification Process Determine the list of tenants for recertification Send out notices Enter data Follow-up letter Ineligible Info sent to HUD Recalculate rent Tenant info received NoYes NoYes Tenant info received

Benefits of Workflow Tools Make the process more transparent and easy to follow from the management point of view as well as from the employees’ point of view Most employees perform better if they clearly understand what is expected up front Cross-training and training new hires will be simplified and more consistent

Benefits – continued It will allow management to check the process, identify bottlenecks and help eliminate them Possibility to integrate it into data processing systems

Software Available 3 rd party software available: –Microsoft, Savvion, –iMarkup, Cebos, –iGrafx, Quask etc. It can be included with your data processing solution Integrated solution – benefits are multiplied

II. Business Continuity Planning

Business Continuity Planning Business Continuity Planning is the process that defines the procedures employed to ensure timely and orderly resumption of an organization’s business cycle through its ability to execute plans with minimal or no interruption to time-sensitive business or service operations.* *

Are You Ready? What plan do you have in place to recover from a disaster? Even though all facets of your business must be considered, focus on information technology is essential

Considerations Space consideration, its security and possibility to extend it if necessary Extra hardware and software purchases Upgrades and patches to hardware and software – frequency and cost associated Latest data from live servers Cost for upkeep – trained employees Phones, internet connection, etc…

Hosted System as an Economic Alternative Outsource your servers –Sharing: hardware, software systems, internet infrastructure, IT labor costs –Gain important part of business continuity planning: less vulnerable, prepared for disaster

Questions What questions do you have?