The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the United Nations agency responsible for encouraging creative activity and promoting the protection of intellectual property throughout the world. WIPO employs 1,500 staff and aims to provide strong leadership in developing the intellectual property system with a view to underpinning the global conditions where creative potential can be released and channeled into tangible, sustainable development.

Each year, the Human Resources Department of WIPO processes an estimated 22,000 forms relating to staff absences, of which 5,000 relate to requests for annual, credit or compensatory leave. The HR and IT departments of WIPO found that the structured and routine nature of this task and the amount of time taken up by printing, preparing and approving leave applications suggested the need for a streamlined solution, something that could be realized by the implementation of an IT-based system.

In essence, WIPO required a solution that would decrease the time that the process takes from start to finish, from the first request, via the supervisors all the way to approval and input into the system. The objective was to create a paperless, automated process.

WIPO chose Metastorm BPM™, a Business Process Management solution to automate and manage this system. WIPO needed a service that could reduce staff time and effort for business processes, minimize the number of paper-based transactions, and provide real-time information to managers and staff alike. A new electronic form was created that automatically loads and displays the information of the logged-in user, displays supervisors names and is then able to determine the authorization path. The Metastorm BPM graphical process designer was used to define the dynamic roles-based process that each of the 5,000 leave requests has to go through. At the backend, the system interacts directly with the various HR databases that hold the relevant information relating to staffing levels and employee records.

The Metastorm solution integrated with the existing web browser at WIPO, resulting in a rapid implementation that was invisible to the existing users who could log in and out automatically while all details were uploaded. The ease of this integration meant that employees required only minimal training on the new system.

The new electronic leave request system allows WIPO to reduce the time spent by employees and managers in handling leave requests. Now a process that previously took three to four days can be completed in fifteen to thirty minutes. The biggest benefit was gained by the integration of the process with existing systems, such as the time management and the HR Access system. The manual work of transferring the data from the leave request sheets on paper into the time management system was replaced by an automatic system, freeing up time for employees to concentrate on their business critical tasks. The Metastorm solution matched the requirements of the HR Department, and its open architecture fit into WIPO's IT platform. The speed with which a solution could be realized with Metastorm BPM was also of great benefit. Moreover, the software directly integrated with their existing technical infrastructure and ensured that the solution connected to all the necessary data sources at WIPO. WIPO staff have also implemented medical appointment and IT request processes, and plan to automate further processes, such as requests for missions, official business trips, overtime or new employee provisioning over the coming year.