VisaFlow

VisaFlow is compliance software for immigration advisers, built by AUXA. This page describes the platform and its architecture. It reports no outcomes and names no clients.

The problem it addresses

An immigration adviser runs a caseload where each matter has its own documents, its own deadlines and its own record of what the client was told. The work is not complicated to describe and it is punishing to track, because the cost of missing a date or losing a version of a document is borne by the client rather than by the calendar.

Generic practice management software handles matters. It does not handle the shape of immigration work, where the document set is prescribed, the sequence matters and the record of advice is part of the deliverable.

What the platform does

Matter and document tracking. Each case holds its required documents, what has been received and what is outstanding.

Structured client communication record. Messages are stored against the matter rather than living in an adviser’s inbox.

Deadline visibility. Dates surfaced against the matter rather than kept in a separate calendar that drifts.

Document versioning. A replaced document does not overwrite its predecessor.

Architecture and the decisions behind it

Matter as the aggregate root. Documents, messages and deadlines belong to a matter rather than to a client. An adviser with two cases for one person needs those kept apart, and modelling the client as the root makes that awkward forever.

Immutable communication records. A sent message is never edited. The record of what a client was told is the artefact with the most value later, and an editable one is worth considerably less.

Document state as an explicit machine. Requested, received, superseded, rejected. Deriving state from file presence works until a file arrives that is wrong, at which point the system has no way to say so.

Separate storage from metadata. Documents live in object storage; the record describing them lives in the database. That keeps a large binary out of the transactional path and makes retention decisions separable from record-keeping ones.

What we would do differently

The document state machine was added after the first version rather than designed into it, and retrofitting states onto records that already existed cost more than defining them up front would have. Where a domain has an obvious lifecycle, modelling it explicitly at the start is almost always cheaper than inferring it later.

Related

AUXA also builds workflow automation for this sector, described on our automation for immigration advisers page. The other platforms are AskHR360 and ZenithMed AI, and the service line is on our software development page.

Frequently asked questions