SAPERION Blog

“I’ve already documented my processes graphically in my drawing tool, so how can I import and run it in your workflow system?” Manufacturers of workflow-management and business process management systems have been fielding this question and others like it since the early 1990s. Continuing with the theme of my initial article BPM Round-Trip Engineering – Vision and Reality, I would like to walk through a short but specific example to explain why turning a graphically documented process model into an executable process is not as easy as you might think. Exporting a process from a common drawing tool into a workflow engine shouldn’t be so hard, right? If we assume that we’re working according to an interoperability standard, then the devil – as they say – is in the details.

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Most of you will have heard something about Business Rule Engine by now, some more, some less. When I talk to people about it, they are usually quite interested, listen to me talking about the general idea, a little about the programming concepts involved and how we plan to make it a future feature of SAPERION. After I stop for a moment to catch my breath, I am usually told the following:”That is all very interesting, what a nice concept, we might see more of that in some future, BUT, why would “I” need a Rule Engine?” After working in this field for over a year now, I have seen a lot of examples (some closer to reality than others), exchanged ideas with other professionals and even had a few of my own.

In this post I would like to share a couple of them with you.

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Im November letzten Jahres hat unser Student Björn Meyer-Caspari, der vorgestern mit dem Schluss-Kolloqium sein Studium abgeschlossen hat, von unserem Vorhaben und seiner Masterarbeit berichtet:  SAPERION meets BPMN. In dem Post habe ich am Ende einen Bild eingestellt mit dem Ausblick, was in etwa an BPMN Elementen von SAPERION mit der Version 7 zur Verfügung stehen wird. Das Bild wurde noch mit dem Singavio Process Editor erstellt. Hier nun ein erster Preview des SAPERION ProcessDesigners, wie er mit der Version 7 kommen wird:

SAPERION ProcessDesigner mit BPMN 2.0 Elementen

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Letzte Woche hat Adam Deane auf seinem Blog den Beginn des Kriegs zwischen BPM und ECM “ausgerufen”. Ist das wirklich ein Krieg oder ist nur erkannt, dass die Funktionen beider Systeme mit ein bisschen Mehr zusammen gehören. Ich hatte ja schon vorgestern mit WfMC´s Vordenker proklamierten Ende 2009 in Maidenhead die nächste BPM-Revolution mit Adaptive Case Management gepostet, dass wir, genauer die BPM-Gemeinde, ein weiteres Akronym beginnen, als neue Sau durchs Dorf zu treiben: ACM = Adaptive Case Management.

Ich hatte schon dazu bemerkt, dass die ECM-Gemeinde sich hier freuen kann, denn sie steht plötzlich auf der Sonnenseite, ist das Case Management, sprich das Verwalten von Content zu einem Fall doch eine der Funktionen, die von Anbeginn zu beherrschen waren. (more…)

As mentioned in my yesterday post I began to work through the brand new book “Mastering the Unpredictable“. I got attraced my attention for this book during my research actvities about the new wordings which are around the BPM area since the beginning of 2009.

This book is published by Keith Swenson, WfMC Technical Committee Chairman, foreword by Connie More, BPM Eexpert of Forrester Research. The single chapters are written by different authors, all of them participants of the Thougth Leader’s Summit of the Workflow Management Coalition in Maidenhead England in November 2009. Each of them are pioniers in the field of matering the unpredictable, as Max J. Pucher mentioned in former posts.

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Does the Workflow puts into a Straitjacket?

Critics of workflow systems often cite a lack of flexibility within implemented paths. These concerns do not refer to an administrator’s ability to quickly adapt. Instead, they refer to a user’s inability to make changes after adapting to the current situation. Such changes may include the hiring of additional people, for example. According to this argument, creative people are placed into straitjackets that prevent them from fully realizing their potential.

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As posted sometimes more the BPM fanclub became more and more aware that the predominant part of the staff work has no predictable chains of tasks. At the end of a case, surely,  it looks like a process. But looking to the history fo all of the finished process instances you will get the image as the result of a processing mining of the pioneer Wil van der Aalst shown below.

Process Mining with Edge Filtering (Source: Van der Aalst)

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Signavio

This has given me much joy! Especially because the team was ready to the point, although with close resources, but highly motivated: to see was the professional modeling of business processes in the Process Editor of Signavio (test for 30 days free! is an absolute must), the delivery of the processes to SAPERION and subsequent execution through its Workflow Engine. This was made possible by the very early support of the not yet released version 2.0 of the standard BPMN – Business Process Modeling and Notation – by Signavio. This standard is now in addition to the graphical elements for the representation of task chains, a standardized storage via an XML file, making interoperability now possible with any other BPMN tools that support the standard.

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Einfachheit ist eine Kunst die Apple perfekt beherrscht.

Nachdem die letzten Mockups die Runde gemacht haben – wurde eins klar: Sie sind nicht hübsch. Daher mein Versprechen: Dies sind die letzten Mockups in der abstrakten Darstellungsweise, danach kommen ansehnlichere – versprochen! Aber das war natürlich nicht das einzige Ergebnis meiner Gespräche.

Ein inhaltliches Ergebnis war, dass vielen die breite Funktionalität gar nicht so wichtig ist. Auf dem iPhone ist das naheliegend. Auf dem kleinen Display kann man nur so eine Übersichtlichkeit und Einfachheit wahren.

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