BPM & Workflow

WorkFlow solutions define the flow of human activities or documents, monitoring their progress in several phases.  In this type of solution we can find many examples centered on document scenarios such as:  Collaborative document approval used within websites publication, using many levels of approval, basic monitoring, document attachment and so on.  

BPM (Business Process Management) besides the previous topics , it contemplates support for human interaction and integration of applications, this is the fundamental difference with the existing Workflow technology, because BPM integrates these human and document flows to the existent or new systems.  

In workflow environments if a participant of the process required ,as part of their activities, to enter data in an application, then it had to leave the environment of the WorkFlow, start the application, and after finishing its operation return to the WorkFlow and record the change of state , or term of the activity.

In BPM, everything is integrated in the same flow, which is most natural for a participant, it completes its activity within the BPM flow, and behind the scenes the systems that have to be updated are updated.

In practice, a BPM flow (or BPM process model) visually is very similar to a WorkFlow, the difference is that one can notice that certain activities are carried out by people, others are systematized activities (carried out by systems), and both appear in the flow.

The other "added value" of BPM is that it offers a complete solution, covering the entire life cycle of a business process: analysis, modeling, execution and monitoring of processes.

In BPM, the process model becomes the core of the implementation as a technological solution. The model of the business process (its design), carried out by the business area of ​​a company, is "in itself" what is executed on the "process server" (the BPM engine). Said in other words: the main "business logic" that before under traditional technology had to be programmed, and placed on an "application server" (traditional), is now replaced by a model that is uploaded to the "process server" with much less intervention from the IT area (less programming).

In practice, a good BPM solution should be able to execute a process modeled by the business area, without the need for IT to program a single line of code, and obtain as a solution something equivalent to a Traditional WorkFlow (without system integration). . Then the IT area should take this "workflow", and implement the input forms (of interaction with users), and the "services" (the automated activities) to complete it in a BPM flow.

Making a model become an executable process requires several enabling technologies, when these technologies are provided together it is called BPMS, the main ones are:

• Orchestration engines: they allow to coordination of the sequence of activities according to the flows and rules of the process model.
• Analysis and Business Intelligence tools: they allow to user to analyze the information product of the execution of the process in real time.
• Rule Engines: (Rule Engines) executes rules that allow to abstract the policies and business decisions of the underlying applications.
• Repositories: maintains the components and resources of the processes (definitions, models, rules, etc.) available for reuse in multiple processes
• Simulation and Optimization Tools: allows business managers to compare new process design with current operational performance.
• Integration tools: they allow to integrate the model with other systems, with the legacy systems of the company.

BPM implementations make extensive use of interfaces / integration with existing systems so they go hand in hand with SOA disciplines, for interoperability issues, open standards and best practices.

SmartJSP provides technological implementation services for Workflow of documentary type and for technological implementation of BPM Solutions, or its connectivity with infrastructure / applications and / or SOA services. Our nature as integrators allows us to offer the ideal balance of productivity, creativity and agility for your project.