Introducing workflows to compliance automation

Every organization has its own system for managing sensitive data. This may include social security numbers, account numbers, payment information, etc.

Relying on human interaction to process sensitive data can lead to a range of errors, indulging vulnerabilities in security and privacy, from intentional to accidental data theft. So what’s the best way to build a solid business process and stay compliant in a world of GDPR and CCPA? Today, compliance automation is not just a matter of efficiency but a key to meeting strict privacy and security regulations.

So what is compliance automation?

This is a category of software applications that uses technology to simplify compliance procedures. These applications provide workflow capabilities including self-assessments, control analyses, corrective action planning and controls testing. Automation of these processes replaces any type of spot-checking.

The first step lies in receiving an organization’s security policies. Any regulations that involve a company’s industry, configurations, accounts, inventories, and security measures are copied into the compliance automation software to detect violations and security threats.

Compliance automation tools are critical for organizations that process sensitive information and that must correspond to a set of rules and standards when protecting customer data (hospitals, banks, government organizations etc).

Tangible benefits of compliance automation for your company

• Reduces the risk of facing compliance fines and ship legitations.
• Eliminates costs on security services and manual controls since all compliance information can be accessed and checked within a single dashboard.
• Increases customer trust in your business and your company’s profits.
• Risk management decisions can be made based on real-time data, i.e.you won’t miss the moment to solve a problem.
• Continuously verifying compliance requirements, managing third-party risks and catching potential weaknesses.
• Minimizing the number of inadequate or inaccurate reporting mistakes.

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Compliance problems that workflow automation solves

Most main parts of a business’s workflows include processing documents. This is the largest and most popular field for errors, data loss, and non-compliance. Compliance automation tools minimize human factor in processing documents and thus help lowering potential risks of data breaches. Let’s see how it works with the following breakpoints.

The insecurity of document distribution

There are lots of companies out there who experience the same problems as our clients from the recreational facility In at The Deep End were facing. Systematic issues with document versioning, different document formats that require proprietary software to be edited, and simple document loss.

Automation brings full control over the document distribution for an entire organization. You can configure workflows that include custom roles and automated document routing. Configure notifications to track every step of your workflow and every action that takes place.

And at last, you have access to a complete Audit Trail which you can customize to record any action you are interested in and retrieve information in a convenient format.

Tracking document routing and data transfers

Many businesses deal with large volumes of documents and data stored in multiple cloud services and databases. Traditionally, documents and data are transferred between the systems either by an employee or by third-party integration mediums such as Zapier or Microsoft Flow. There’s a huge compliance problem because both of these methods can’t record the route of documents and data transferred between the systems. And if your service has to comply with GDPR regulation and your client requests their data to be removed, locating this data among different platforms becomes a nightmare.

This is where workflow automation comes to the rescue. In addition to the Audit Trail option, you can check every action that occurred within your workflows with the help of the Bots Log.

Bots are software robots that perform certain actions based on pre-set conditions and act either when a document is opened or after it has been completed.

Bots Log refers to an informational page that provides a description of the way, time, and condition under which certain Bots were either executed or not. With the Audit Trail, you can access the history of actions that were made by certain recipients of your documents while the Bots Log helps you to control and check the automation process itself. You will be instantly notified if something goes wrong with your Bots.

Industry-specific compliance

Finance, healthcare, and legal industries have especially strict regulations to comply with. Ignoring these rules leads to fines. For example, in the healthcare industry incompatibility with HIPAA law may cost you from $100 to $50,000. Even a jail term for violating HIPAA is a possibility, with some violations carrying a penalty of up to 10 years in jail.

According to the last Verizon Data Breach Report, experts recommend avoiding human error where possible to increase the level of security and compliance. airSlate assists with following the importance of compliance automation with automated workflows that you can enjoy without risk of security threats.