You use outside contractors for many reasons – for their specific expertise and skill sets, as additional resources to meet a deadline, or as a solution for a geographical need. And while they get the job done, there are many things that slow things down and put more of a burden on you. These include:

1. Inefficient Communication: Many times this is a long email chain.
2. Lack of Visibility and Status: You have a deadline, but can’t tell if your contractor will get their part done in time – have they started yet?
3. Inconsistent Information: You get back a PDF of the work they performed and/or their invoice, so you end up with different data from each different contractor – even when they are performing the same work. .

Wouldn’t it be great if you could eliminate the emails and phone calls and have visibility into their progress?

And what if they used YOUR form that can then feed YOUR systems and provide consistency for analysis?

With Mirata, you can.

Here’s how it works:

Using Mirata’s zero-code form designer, you create a form that contains information about the type of service requested and the information that you would like to have the contractor collect. This could be to repair a piece of equipment such as a packaging machine, a boiler, a wind turbine blade, a road surface…anything.

This form can be created by the business unit themselves: one form built for all your contractor needs.

When the need for a 3rd party is identified (which can be configured to your specific business rules), the form will be created, automatically populated with relevant information, and appear in your Mirata inbox.

You will then decide which contractor you want to use for this service and assign the work to them.

When it’s time to get to work, they will be notified via email to click a link, will be taken to Mirata to see the requests that are assigned to them. They can push a button to confirm receipt and enter data that you need such as scheduled start/completion dates and who they internally assigned to do the work.

Their employees can then complete the form using either the browser on their phone or tablet, or if offline is needed, use the Mirata mobile app.

Once completed, the form will go back to you for review and upon approval, can automatically update SAP and your other systems, save a PDF of the completed form, and also trigger other work that can be started.

Visibility

Through this entire process you have a dashboard where you can see ALL of the forms you have sent to ALL of your 3rd party contractors, the status, scheduled dates, even the data that they are entering.

Safe and Secure

With Mirata, there are several ways to register and on-board your 3rd party contractors, 2-factor authentication each time they log in, and audit trails of who did what and when. You can be sure your data is safe and secure at all times.

Conclusion

Third party contractors should be a helpful aid to your company and shouldn’t slow down your business processes. With a streamlined form in place, contractors can easily ensure that they are doing the right work, while your business maintains the ability to monitor progress and maintain consistency. You should be in control over the way your data is collected, and with Mirata you can do just that, regardless of who is initially gathering the information.