Using Jomo247’s New QMS Software: Applied Cytometry’s Easy Experience

My name is Karen Harrison, and I am the Project Manager for Applied Cytometry. Today, I want to talk about how we migrated over to Jomo247’s new QMS Software.

Applied Cytometry provides software solutions for leading suppliers of cytometers and healthcare companies, as well as designing and developing our own innovative software.

Our customers work with confidential patient data and need to adhere to strict regulations and varied procedures, so our software needs to be secure, flexible, and easy to work with to ensure that we meet their requirements and comply with various ISO standards.

We found the QMS software on the market to be both a considerable investment and quite restrictive, often based on set modules which did not really meet our needs.

How Jomo247’s QMS Software Works for Us

I really like Jomo247 because it has provided the flexibility I wanted. It has enabled us to design and customise our own unique and adaptable QMS.

Using the QMS software is super easy; you only need be able to create process flow diagrams to operate it!

My favourite feature of the software by far though, is the tagging feature. As I am sure is often the case, many of our processes and procedures have been developed by staff who have changed positions since.

Thus, keeping organised whilst updating these processes and procedures before we had Jomo247 proved to be a challenge.

For example, our audit reports used to be difficult to locate. However, now I can tag them with a variety of terms such as, “audit report”, the year, any related procedures, and which sections of any ISO standards they provide evidence for.

This makes it easy for all employees to locate the correct documentation. They can even add their own tags to any documents they would refer to differently, so it is very useful for collaboration.

The first job when we started using Jomo247 was to migrate our QMS over from our existing folders. It was such a simple process getting our documentation uploaded and organised.

We worked closely with the Jomo247 team who supported us through the onboarding procedure and ensured the whole process ran as smoothly as possible.

QMS Software Feature: Process Flow Templates

To begin, we designed process flow templates that related to the documentation we were uploading. We made templates for processes such as: document approval, our issues logs, and our action logs to name a few.

Although different organisations and departments may share the same processes, they do not always run them identically, so it is beneficial that with Jomo247 we are able to create templates that are fully tailored to the specific needs of our company.

I also like that the templates we create are then used to run live processes and are not just static diagrams showing what we should be doing.

QMS Software Feature: Document Management

Once the templates following our existing processes were created, we could then start to design our custom QMS by setting up our folder hierarchy.

We began by creating our root and sub-folders. This step was simple, and I found it quite intuitive as it was almost identical to creating folders on my own PC.

Once this was all set up, we asked the Jomo247 team if they could walk us through creating some Activities.

As we generated instances of the process flow templates we had created, it was interesting to see how it all came to life. It is also really useful and time efficient, that you can give employees the permission to generate their own instances of your processes, without them needing to design any templates themselves.

To make migrating our documentation easier we created a spreadsheet to keep track of everything.

We had columns for the name of the document, the folder or sub-folder it would be under, the activity it would go in and the variety of tags it would be given.

With this spreadsheet in place, it was a quick process to move all the documentation on and get it all organised quickly.

QMS Software Feature: Groups

Finally, we created groups for different departments within our company. We then invited those groups to the activities that were specific to their role.

It is very useful having the ability to control what activities these groups can access, as it means employees no longer must worry about sifting through irrelevant information to find the documentation that is specific to them.

Once these groups were created it was then simple to add our employees to the software via their email addresses. We were then able to easily choose which permissions each employee had, which was really helpful for security purposes.

What Next?

The next stage in the project is get all our processes moved onto Jomo247, so that we can begin to solely run our operations through this QMS software.

It will be much more efficient for our organisation setting tasks for employees via the software, for example, as it means we can move away from confusing email chains and chat threads.

It will also be great to have a continuous log of real time evidence being created on Jomo247 that we can monitor. This will enable us to see how our organisation is running and improving and give us evidence that we can present to auditors.