Limiting M-Files Assignments

Question

Hi All,

I have a bit of an interesting challenge that I'd like to automate a solution for, but not sure if there's a great solution.

M-Files (unfortunately) has a very limited user base in my organization though I occasionally need to pass through M-Files assignments to non-frequent M-Files users. This means that these non-users do have M-Files user accounts.

One individual in particular (at the corporate level) has said that he will only use M-Files for a specific project for specific tasks (workflow tasks for for reviewing/approving Contract Documents), and that all other M-Files notifications, assignments, etc. will be ignored. Is there a way to only allow assignments to be generated for that individual for the Contract Documents workflow but not for other workflows (e.g., a meeting document approval workflow)?

One (inelegant) idea I have is to create a separate person object that is only visible to the person who initiates the Contract Document approval workflow (that Person object would be labeled such that it's obvious what it's for). The user account for that particular User would be tied to that person object. The person object that everyone else can see would not be tied to a user account (and thus wouldn't receive automatically-generated M-Files assignments.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance

Thoughts?

ssential · Accepted Answer

Sounds like you have a bad case of change management, among other things. 
 Been there. I feel you. 
 One of the most important aspects of user adoption, including your user that is approaching this with his/her conditions, is the change management. 
 But I will say that in the last two years my organization has had this lens of identifying more with the user, it has helped us tremendously and the reputation of the product has significantly been tipped towards more love it than hate/avoid it. 
 1) Manager/Leadership buy in. This can't be emphasized enough. Get some leaders on your side. Show them the benefits of Views. Administer smart common Views*, and then teach them how to pin. (*once Common Views are established, don't change them because the Pins will break and that results in users distrusting the product. 
 2) Regular training sessions. Everyone learned differently. At my organization, within the first week of a new employee starting, they receive their intro M-Files training. The training is very enthusiastic and takes 1:15. By the end they're convinced they don't need anything else, including their desktop. 
 This also means a variety of training resources. We have a common view for all training documents for the org, including a sub-view for M-Files. Here we have one-page tip sheets on different features. The most popular is a one page with quick links to the M-Files tutorial videos they've put on their YouTube channel. Finally, I also have an M-Files Zoom channel to provide tips and tricks - it's received a lot of praise from users working independently in our work-from-home environment. 
 3) Be open to feedback - Let users vent, they're frustrated with Change fatigue, M-Files is the What vs Where. After listening, show them one thing that might help them, and then be approachable for subsequent conversations. Some of my most resistant users were the ones that had great feedback that made our configuration better. If you can recruit them "to the M-Files side" they'll advocate for M-Files when you're not around. 
 We even formed a feedback task force and prioritized improvements based on the discussions. In a few weeks we're also surveying our organization to actually measure people's anonymous opinion of the product, as it will help us to know where to focus our efforts next. 
 ~~~~ 
 Good Luck, it's a great product and well worth the effort. The key is being aware of not just the technical product, but the users' impression of it. 
 ~~~~~~ 
 As for your scenario - my suggestion here, is use the "Assigned To" property - when that user is tagged, have a View for them to go to where the filter is documents assigned to them. This can be done using assignments or workflows. 
 You can even pin the View with them, so it's super straightforward what they need to do. If they have an assistant - recruit them for support so they see the benefits of this process, and perhaps they will have suggestions to expands its use to more processes. Heh heh heh.

Limiting M-Files Assignments

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