What is a Document Workflow? Examples & Best Practices

Having efficient document workflows in place can help you manage your project successfully. With a clear process for who’s working on what when, you’ll have increased clarity on project requirements, scope, and task assignments, which in turn will help you deliver projects on time, on budget, and within scope. 

You’ll manage your document workflows with workflow management software.

What Is a Document Workflow?

A document workflow is a process that demonstrates how documents move throughout the organization. The steps might include creating the document, reviewing and revising the document, approving the final document, publishing, and archiving.

The workflow should also clarify roles and responsibilities as the document moves through the process.

Why Are Document Workflows Important?

Document workflows are important because they provide clarity. They define who does what and by when.

Without a document workflow, you may end up with contradictory feedback or need to rework a document, which can derail your timeline. This might happen because a key stakeholder wasn’t given the opportunity to review or approve the document, or there wasn’t a formal approval process.

Document workflows or document management processes are different from general workflows in that they are much more specific. While your workflows might outline a general process for performing work in your company or agency, a document workflow goes deeper and gets more granular.

This may sound like overkill, but it can help you streamline your decision-making and document routing, as well as avoid bottlenecks that may cause document-specific or project delays.

Document Workflow Examples

When you’re creating document management workflows for your organization, it might help to first look at some real-world workflow examples.

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Client or Team Member Onboarding Documents

When onboarding a new client or new team members, many people will contribute to the documents that guide the process, including HR, finance, operations, and the project team.

The team workflow might look like this:

• The recruiter, salesperson, or hiring manager drafts a welcome letter
• Other team members add documents that need to be read or completed, such as an employee handbook, discovery surveys, human resources paperwork, and contracts
• The project manager or team lead reviews the documents to make sure they are cohesive and that nothing is missed
• If something is missing, it is sent back for revisions
• After revisions are complete, the document is approved
• The client or team member’s point of contact sends out the documents
• The project manager creates a task in the project management tool, document management tool, or CRM to review the documents annually to see if they need to be updated

Press Releases

Press releases are a great example of documents that need a clear workflow and approval process. This is because they are usually extremely time sensitive—the window for press coverage on a newsworthy event is fairly short.

While the workflow is fairly simple, you and your team may want to add a step to alert reviewers or approvers that the document is coming and needs to be turned around quickly. 

So your workflow might look like this:

• The team decides they want to send a press release
• The team determines the angle for pitch
• The writer drafts the press release
• An executive reviews the press release (usually needed the same or the next day)
• The writer completes any press release revisions
• The executive completes a final review and approves the document
• The press release is sent to relevant reporters

Website Landing Pages

A website landing page is another good example of a document that could benefit from a formal workflow and clear approval process. Like a press release, a website landing page can also be time sensitive.

Depending on what the page is for, you might need to launch it at a specific time based on a campaign, special offer, or sale. So having a workflow and proactively letting those involved know can mean the difference between an effective launch and a flop. 

You might do something like this:

• Confirm product launch and timing
• Assign someone to design the page and draft copy
• Add copy to the designed page
• Conduct an internal review
• Review the page with the client or leadership team
• Make any revisions to the landing page
• Complete final quality assurance testing (QA) and/or user acceptance testing (UAT)
• Make any final revisions
• Make sure tracking and analytics are configured correctly
• Launch the landing page

Document Workflow Process

Here’s a step-by-step process to create a workflow for document creation or management within your organization.

1. Understand Goals & Requirements

Start by making a list of goals and requirements. These should be tied to making sure your business processes are followed and that all of the steps needed to get the document finalized are accounted for. For example, if a senior leader needs to sign off on a document before it is shared with key stakeholders, the broader company, or a client, make sure that is captured in the process.

2. Draft the Workflow From Start to Finish

Once you understand everything and everyone that is involved in creating the document, draft the workflow from start to finish. Think about it like telling a story—even better, make a flowchart to depict it visually.

List the steps in order, and determine who needs to be involved. What are they doing and when will they do it? How will they know it’s time for their part in the process?

Do your best to capture everything, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself to make it perfect. You can clean up any gaps or inefficiencies in the next step of the process.

3. Poke Holes in the Process and Iterate

Once you have your workflow drafted, run through the process to find any areas that are missing or need more attention. Look for:

• Missing notifications or even entire steps
• Bottlenecks
• Access control issues (e.g. a reviewer can’t see the document)
• Places where audit trails could be helpful

And finally, are there places where you might be able to optimize your workflow either with automation or even just with more practice collaborating together as a team?

4. Consider Where and How To Store Documents

If there are a lot of people involved, you’ll need to consider how you store documents for the lifecycle of the document (i.e. archiving). If you have a document or document type you need to produce often, the ability to start from an older version can save a ton of time, so make sure it’s easy to find the latest version!

Consider a tool that allows you to add metadata so you can make sure people are using the right document at the right time. This is especially important in healthcare or other industries with regulatory requirements, as the wrong information in the wrong place can have big consequences.

Also, make sure people aren’t using documents with old, or frankly, wrong information. You might consider adding permissions or putting some language on the out-of-date versions. A good old-fashioned: FOR REFERENCE ONLY DO NOT USE can work wonders (and yes, you do need the shouty caps).

5. Use The Right Tools and Automations

Consider where you might be able to automate your document workflows or overall document management processes.

Templates, preset headings, or automation rules in your workflow or project management software can streamline repetitive tasks. Even simple features like dependency-based alerts that notify a team member when it’s their turn can save time and reduce follow-ups.

As you develop internal workflows, embed document management best practices—like using consistent templates, applying clear naming conventions, and tagging metadata—to reduce rework and keep your documentation aligned across teams.

Think about how often you chase down updates or check the status of a task. With the right tools, that work happens automatically, so you can focus on what matters most: creating quality documents.

By implementing a document management system with built-in automation, you can go a step further, eliminating manual status checks and ensuring that every stage of your workflow progresses smoothly and efficiently.

Tools For Document Workflows

Having the right tools and templates at your disposal can make creating, managing, and updating document workflows so much easier. You have so many choices when it comes to creating digital documents, document processing, and automating workflows. 

Here are the best workflow management software tools that make document workflows a breeze to set up and execute:

1. 1. monday.com — Best for automating manual processes
2. 2. Jira — Best for agile project tracking
3. 3. Pneumatic Workflow — Best for process automation
4. 4. Nanonets — Best for AI-driven workflow automation
5. 5. Celoxis — Best enterprise-grade workflow system
6. 6. Qntrl — Best for workflow orchestration
7. 7. Miro — Best for flowcharts and mind maps
8. 8. Quickbase — Best for dynamic work management
9. 9. Jotform Workflows — Best for no-code workflow creation
10. 10. Wrike — Best for reconnecting siloed teams

Best Practices for Document Workflow

When it comes to creating and managing document workflows, here are a few best practices to keep in mind:

1. Keep your workflow simple: The goal should be to streamline your workflow with as few steps as possible to ensure efficient and effective document management practices.
2. Automate repetitive tasks where you can: Advances in workflow automation (including AI) can help take the burden off of you when it comes to repetitive tasks. Even a basic template in your project management tool or document management system can save you hours per week.
3. Create a new document before sharing with a client or stakeholder: They most likely don’t need to see your comments with your colleagues in the final version.
4. Use permissions and version control as needed: Outside of your document approval workflow, make sure you also have workflows for managing permissions. This is especially true for documents that contain sensitive information. You don’t want to risk additional opportunities for human error (e.g. having the wrong people publish the wrong document). A document with outdated information being used publicly can cause many issues, including potential legal challenges.
5. Review your workflows regularly to make sure they stay up to date: Once you’ve set up automated workflows or built a seamless workflow system, document workflows are not set-and-forget-it. Review your workflows often to make sure they are running as smoothly as they can. You may want to add in some metrics around how often the team should be reviewing workflows around document management. This is especially true for your organization’s most important documents.

How to Automate Document Workflows

I’ve already talked about ways to integrate automation into your workflows, but here are some easy steps you can take if you’re still hesitating to get started.

• Start with existing automation capability in your document management software: Most document workflow software has automation capabilities built in. Look for the easiest parts of your workflow to automate using the software capabilities that you already have (consider this low-hanging fruit).
• Use electronic documents where possible: Managing physical paper documents can make automation more challenging, so use electronic documents as much as you can. There may still be some times when paper reigns supreme, so having a manual document management process might be necessary.
• Use Zapier or integrations to manage documents across software: It may feel impossible to have cohesive document workflow automation when your work is happening in different pieces of software. But, most cloud based SaaS products can be linked together using either native integrations or Zapier. A few Zaps might be the difference between having to work in three tools versus just one.

What's Next?

Whether your organization is undergoing a digital transformation or you’re looking to up your game when it comes to optimizing your document management workflows, The Digital Project Manager has everything you need. Join your peers in our active and welcoming community to learn more about the latest trends in workflow management.