Where is the document and why is it taking so long? How to gain an overview of document processes within the company.

“Has it been signed yet?”

“Who needs to approve it now?”

“Have we sent the document to the customer?”

“Why has this case already been in progress for five days?”

If similar questions regularly appear in emails, chats, and meetings, the problem may not be that people are slow. The company may simply lack sufficient visibility into

• what stage the document or process is at,
• who needs to take the next step,
• and how long the individual activities take.

With a small number of documents, the status can be tracked manually. However, as the volume of contracts, orders, requests, reports, or HR documents grows, so does the need for process transparency. Digitising the document is not enough. The company needs to know what is happening to it right now, who it is waiting for, and what should happen next.

Why companies lose visibility into document processes

A typical document passes through several people and systems during its life cycle: creation → review → approval → signature → customer signature → archiving → further processing

If the individual steps take place through email, shared folders, chats, and various applications, the overall status of the process often exists only in the minds of its participants. One employee knows that they sent the document to the manager. The manager knows that they forwarded it to the lawyer. The lawyer may have returned it for additional information. However, the salesperson is still waiting for the customer’s signature because they are unaware of the change.

The result is a process that works, but no one has a complete picture of it. A similar problem arises in the management of company documents itself. If they are scattered across different repositories and communication channels, the time needed to find them increases and confidence that the user is working with the correct version decreases. We discuss this topic in more detail in the article How to Tame the Chaos in Company Documents.

4 questions that reveal a lack of transparency in processes

1. “Has it been signed yet?”

This question often means that the signing status is not available directly within the process. The employee therefore:

• opens their email,
• checks sent messages,
• contacts a colleague,
• checks whether the customer received the document,
• or follows up with the customer manually.

With dozens of documents, this is a minor administrative task. With hundreds or thousands of processes, it becomes a significant time burden. The document status should therefore not be information that has to be investigated. It should be an attribute of the process itself.

Electronic signing is not merely a way to eliminate printing and the physical delivery of a document. If the signature is part of a managed workflow, the company can also track who the document was sent to, who has already signed it, and who is still outstanding. The possibilities of electronic signing are discussed separately in the article Electronic Signatures Accelerate Digitalisation.

1. “Where is the document?”

The document may be:

• with the author,
• with the manager,
• with the legal department,
• with an external partner,
• with the customer,
• in the signing process,
• in the archive.

If it moves between these locations by email, its current location may not be clear. An even greater problem arises when several versions exist. Then the question is not only: Where is the document?

but also: Which document is current?

A managed document process therefore tracks not only where the file is stored, but also its status, owner, version, and history of steps. This principle is also important in HR documentation, for example.

When an employee joins, a single employment contract may pass through a recruiter, manager, HR, and the employee themselves. How to reduce the amount of manual administration in such processes is examined in the article Paperless HR: Accelerate HR Processes.

1. “Why is it taking so long?”

Without process data, this question is difficult to answer. A company may know that it took seven days to conclude a contract. However, it may not know where those seven days were lost. The document may have:

• waited two hours for preparation,
• waited three days for managerial approval,
• spent ten minutes in legal review,
• waited another two days for the customer’s signature.

Without timing data for the individual steps, the entire process simply appears “slow”. With this data, a specific bottleneck can be identified. This is an important difference between a digitised document and a digitised process.

A PDF instead of paper does not in itself provide information about where delays arise. The entire document flow must be tracked from its creation through to its further processing.

1. “How many cases like this do we actually have?”

Manual process management often lacks a managerial view. Management may not be able to answer immediately:

• how many documents are awaiting signature,
• how many are overdue,
• which step takes the longest,
• which department has the most open tasks,
• how many cases were returned for correction,
• how long the entire process takes on average.

Without this information, the company is more likely to administer, rather than manage, the process.

What happens when process status is tracked manually

Area	Manual process	Process with central visibility
Current status	It has to be checked with colleagues	It is visible for the specific case
Responsible person	May not be clear	Each step is assigned to a role or person
Waiting for signature	Checked manually	The signing status is recorded
Deadlines	They are in emails or calendars	They are part of the workflow
Follow-ups	The employee sends them manually	Automatic notifications can be used
History	Communication has to be reconstructed	Individual events are recorded
Escalation	The problem is discovered only after a delay	Delayed cases can be identified continuously
Reporting	Manual spreadsheets	Data can be aggregated into reports and KPIs

The biggest difference, then, is not that a digital process merely “moves the document faster”. The difference is that the company can see its current status and history.

Document status versus process status

These two things are not the same. A document may have the status: signed. However, the process may still not be complete. After signing, it may be necessary to:

• save the document,
• transfer data to another system,
• activate a service,
• create an order,
• set up the customer,
• inform another department,
• start invoicing.

It therefore makes sense to track not only the document signature, but the end-to-end status of the entire process. For example: Contract prepared → awaiting internal approval → approved → sent to customer → signed → archived → processed

At any given moment, it is clear:

• what has already happened,
• what is happening now,
• who needs to take the next step,
• whether the process has exceeded the expected time.

This can be seen clearly in customer onboarding, for example. Signing the contract is only one stage; it may be followed by service activation, data processing, or other internal tasks. How onboarding can be viewed as a continuous digital process rather than a series of isolated actions is explained in the article Customer Onboarding in the Digital Age.

Why email is not a process dashboard

Email is an excellent communication tool. However, as a system for tracking processes, it has a fundamental limitation. Each user sees only the part of the communication that relates to their mailbox. If, for example:

1. a salesperson sends a document to a manager,
2. the manager forwards it to a lawyer,
3. the lawyer returns it for revision,
4. the manager sends a new version to the customer,

the salesperson may not be aware of steps 2 to 4. They therefore start checking the status manually. At higher document volumes, the same problem appears in Excel. A spreadsheet can record the status, but only if someone updates it continuously. This creates an administrative paradox: the employee must manually update information about the process so that the company knows what is happening in the process.

In addition, parallel sources of information emerge: the document is in an email, the status is in Excel, and related data is in another system. The more such locations there are, the harder it is to keep information consistent and up to date.

What a company should know about every process in progress

Information	Question it answers	Why it is important
Current status	What stage is the process at?	Makes it possible to determine the situation immediately
Current task owner	Who needs to act now?	Eliminates unclear responsibility
Time of entry into the step	How long has the document been waiting?	Helps identify delays
Deadline	Is the process still within the limit?	Makes it possible to manage SLAs and priorities
History of steps	What has already happened to the document?	Improves traceability
Signature status	Who has already signed and who has not?	Reduces manual checks
Reason for return	Why was the document returned?	Helps identify recurring errors
Process outcome	Was the case completed successfully?	Makes it possible to measure process success

This kind of transparency is important for both ordinary users and managers. The user needs to know what they need to do now. The manager needs to know how the process works as a whole.

Notifications should flag exceptions, not replace visibility

A common solution to an unclear process is to add more email alerts:

“You have a new document.”

“The document is awaiting signature.”

“The document is still awaiting signature.”

Notifications are useful, but on their own they do not create process visibility. A good workflow combines two things: a status view or dashboard – the user sees all relevant processes, notifications – the system flags a situation that requires action.

The user does not have to check every case manually and, at the same time, is not dependent on noticing a specific email. This also applies to processes outside the office. If a document is created or signed in the field, the back office needs information about its status without waiting for the employee to return physically. This is precisely why it makes sense to connect data capture, the document, the signature, and the subsequent workflow into a single flow when digitising.

From the question “what happened?” to the question “why is it happening?”

When a company begins recording the status and duration of individual steps, it generates data that can be used for optimisation. Without data, it can say: “Approval takes a long time.” With data, it can say: “Most delayed cases spend the longest time waiting at the second level of approval.”

This is a completely different level of management. The company is no longer looking for a problem based on an impression. It can identify a specific step and decide whether it needs to adjust:

• the number of approvers,
• responsibility,
• the time limit,
• the escalation rule,
• the automatic notification,
• or the entire workflow.

Which KPIs make sense for document processes?

There is no need to create a dashboard with dozens of indicators. It is better to start with a few KPIs that are directly related to process performance.

KPI	What it measures	What it can reveal
Total processing time	Time from the start to the completion of the process	Overall process speed
Average step duration	How long a specific stage takes	Bottlenecks
Waiting time	How long the document remains idle	Inefficient approval
Number of open processes	Current workload	Overload or accumulated cases
Overdue processes	Compliance with time limits	Capacity or responsibility issues
Return rate	How many documents are returned for correction	Deficiencies in data or rules
Time to signature	How long it takes to obtain signatures	Problems in the signing process
Manual follow-ups	How many interventions the process requires	Insufficient automation
Completion rate	How many processes finish without an exception	Process stability

When introducing KPIs, it is important not to start with what the system can measure, but with what the company needs to know in order to make decisions.

A dashboard is not the goal. It should lead to a decision

A colourful dashboard with numerous charts does not automatically mean better management. Each indicator should lead to a question or decision. For example: 18 documents have been waiting for more than three days

→ Where are they waiting?

14 of them are at the same approval step

→ Is the approver overloaded?

Approval takes significantly longer for this category of documents than for the others

→ Is the process unnecessarily complicated?

A dashboard should therefore do more than display numbers. It should make it possible to quickly identify an exception and get to its cause.

And this is precisely where process transparency connects with automation: if we know which step regularly causes delays, we can assess whether it should be simplified, removed, or automated.

An audit trail also helps answer questions retrospectively

Process visibility is not important only while a document is being processed. Sometimes it is necessary to determine retrospectively:

• who created the document,
• who approved it,
• when it was sent,
• who performed a specific action,
• when it was signed,
• whether the process was returned,
• which version was used.

If this information is divided between email inboxes and local files, reconstructing the process can be time-consuming. An audit trail makes it possible to preserve the history of individual events associated with the document and the workflow.

This is important not only from a control perspective. Historical data can also be used to improve the process further. Without a history, the company knows where the document is today, but it does not know how it got there or where it spent the most time.

Process visibility starts with high-quality data

Even the best dashboard will not help if the data entering the process is incorrect. If employees re-enter the same information into multiple systems, documents contain missing fields, or different applications work with different data, process reports will reflect poor-quality inputs.

It therefore makes sense to combine process transparency with less manual re-entry, the use of digital forms, and system integration. This creates not only a better dashboard, but also a more reliable process.

Brief checklist: Does your company have sufficient visibility into its processes?

Question	YES / NO
Do employees regularly have to check whether a document has already been signed?	YES / NO
Is it sometimes unclear who should process the document at that moment?	YES / NO
Do you check the status of cases in progress by email, chat, or phone?	YES / NO
Are you unable to determine easily how long a document has been waiting at a specific step?	YES / NO
Does management lack a unified view of the number of open and delayed processes?	YES / NO
Are you unable to determine which process stage causes the most delays?	YES / NO
Are process status reports created manually in spreadsheets?	YES / NO
Do you lack KPIs for processing time, waiting, returned cases, or process completion?	YES / NO

 

Evaluation

Number of YES answers	What to consider
0–2	Processes are probably sufficiently transparent. It may be useful to refine several KPIs or escalation rules.
3–5	It makes sense to map the process status points and examine centralised tracking of tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities.
6 or more	The company probably manages a significant proportion of its processes reactively. It is advisable to examine a managed workflow with automatic recording of statuses, events, and process metrics.

The checklist is intended as a guide. The result alone does not determine whether the company needs a new system, an integration, or an adjustment to an existing process.

From a process that needs to be checked to a process that is controllable

The goal of digitisation is not for employees to have more screens and managers to have more reports. The goal is for basic questions not to require investigation.

Has the document been signed?
The status is visible.

Where is it?
The workflow shows the current step.

Who needs to act now?
The task has an owner.

Why has the process stalled?
The duration of the individual steps reveals the bottleneck.

How many cases are overdue?
Process data makes it possible to create KPIs and an overview.

In a well-designed digital process, this information is not created only when a report is being prepared. It is generated automatically as the document passes through the individual steps.

The company therefore does not have to create process visibility afterwards. Visibility emerges as a natural part of the process itself.

Keep document processes under control from the first step to the signature

If someone has to open an email, call a colleague, or update Excel to answer the question “Where is the document?”, the process lacks transparency. By connecting documents, approval, electronic signing, automatic notifications, and status information, it is possible to create a workflow in which it is clear what is complete, what is pending, and who needs to take the next step.