Fundamentals of ECM System Architecture

1

• Fundamentals of ECM System Architecture
• Certificate Program
• Workflow and Business Process Management
• Charlie Plesums, Austin, Texas USA
• www.plesums.com charlie_at_plesums.com

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Course Instructions

• How will this course work?
• We recommend viewing the entire course in one
  sitting
• Use buttons on your viewer to Stop or Pause
• Use the slide index on the left to Jump or move
  Forward/Backward within the course to learn at
  your own pace
• You may Stop the course if you are interrupted
  and need to return later
• Before proceeding, you may want to print handouts
  to take notes (click on the attachments button)
• Please email questions about the course content
  to the instructor and general questions about the
  program to AIIM at education_at_aiim.org
• The course will conclude with an exam covering
  the course materials

3
Overview of the Workflow/BPM series

• Introduction to Workflow Management
• Workflow technology
• Business Process Management
• Convergence of BPM and Workflow Management
• Project implementation

4
Course 1 ObjectivesIntroduction to Workflow

• What is workflow
• Why bother
• Benefits

5
What is Workflow

• The automation of a business process, in whole or
  part, during which documents, information or
  tasks are passed from one participant to another
  for action (activities), according to a set of
  procedural rules.

A participant may be a person or an automated
process (computer system), and may be local or in
a separate or remote organization.
6
What is Workflow (traditional)
Business Process
Defined in
Managed by
Training
Army of Supervisors, Distribution Clerks
Procedure Manuals
Assigned as a
Composed of
Case (Process Instance)
Passed Along by
Automated Activities
Manual Activities
Consisting of
Invoked Application
Work Item(Activity Instance)
7
What is Workflow (automated)
Business Process
Defined in
Managed by
Sub-Process
Workflow Management System
Process Definition
Assigned as a
Composed of
Case (Process Instance)
Passed Along by
Automated Activities
Manual Activities
Consisting of
Invoked Application
Work Item(Activity Instance)
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Workflow management systems

• Historical
• Medieval monks copying scriptures
• Elder with unsteady hands does proofreading
• Monk with artistic talent does illumination
• Others do transcription
• Manufacturing
• Shop work-order systems
• Manual business process (100 years of
  experience)
• Army of managers and clerks
• Informal procedure documentation
• Expediters to recover from errors

more
9
Workflow management systems

• Automated (20 years of experience)
• Control of procedures
• Formal definition/documentation/enforcement
• Note value for Sarbanes Oxley, etc.
• Automatic distribution and tracking
• Best person or machine does the work
• Most important work done first
• Parallel (concurrent) processes
• Management focus on staff and business issues
• Improved process
• Better service
• Lower operating costs

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Why bother?
11
Workflow management systems Why bother

• Done by the best participant
• Performing all necessary tasks
• Information easily accessible
• Interface to data systems
• Logging and tracking
• Monitoring and Control

12
Done by the best participant
Work Management

• Case automatically assigned
• Profile of each user (qualifications)
• Prioritization by age, type of work
• Multi-step routing, including parallel paths
• Work suspended for arrival of information
• Automatic matching and restart
• Follow-up if information not received timely
• Participant can be a person or robot
• Robot sometimes called Straight Through Process

more
13
Done by the best participant
Work Management

• Distribution of work
• Pre-assigned like paper, everything in an inbox
• Not recommended reassignment complex
• Push (send work system selects)
• Work held in common queue until someone can
  process
• Pull (user selects)
• Not efficient, but necessary if someone on the
  phone
• Process other tasks related to the work assigned
• Time-based
• Call me back at 3 pm

14
Performing all necessary tasks
Work Management

• Case consists of multiple activities
• Invokes programs or program pieces
• Manual processing steps
• Completion
• Status change controls flow (approved, reject)
• Hold for later processing
• Change flow for
• Exceptions
• Questions

15
Information easily accessible
Work Management

• Invoke applications
• Terminal emulation (screen scraping)
• Direct interface
• Move data with workflow
• Images, documents (XML), or links to same
• Electronic data
• Subset of processing data, not replication

16
Interface to data systems
Work Management

• No interface - used side by side
• Minimal interface
• Start key processing transactions
• Auto enter basic data (e.g. contract number)
• Popular with users, low cost
• Integration with process
• Slow to implement using older systems
• Expensive to maintain

more
17
Interface to data systems
Work Management

• Legacy systems invoke workflow
• Embedded workflow in the applications
• Workflow invokes legacy systems
• Autonomous workflow drives the application
• EAI technology - Enterprise application
  integration
• Custom integration to older systems
• Web based, 3 tier, other new technologies

18
Logging and tracking
Work Management

• Typical systems provide
• Automatic processing history
• Date, time, person, disposition for each step
• User comments
• Explanation of variance, special circumstances
• Search for work in process
• Response to outside query e.g. customer phone
  call
• Determine status of work
• If qualified, select and process work

19
Automated monitoring
Work Management

• Reporting and analysis (after the fact)
• Work accomplished
• Total volume
• Turn-around time
• Productivity of individuals, teams, groups
• Errors and error rates
• Monitoring (real time)
• Supervisor dashboard, control panel
• User controlled alarms

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Control
Work Management

• User controlled workflow
• Table driven
• Maintained/controlled by users (supervisors)
• System controlled workflow
• Custom program, tailored to requirements
• Maintained by information technology
• Administrative functions
• User profiles - qualifications
• Priority exceptions, manual assignments

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Benefits?
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Benefits - 3 categories
Why do it?

• Direct Cost Savings
• Readily measured
• Hidden Savings
• Hard to measure, but real
• Intangible Benefits
• Cash value cannot be identified
• Valuable to the business

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Benefits - 1. Direct Cost Savings

• Better use of staff (or reduction in staff)
• Sorting, delivery, assignment
• Logging and tracking
• Reporting
• Reduced training
• Expediters to recover from problems
• Typical savings often inadequate to justify
• Clerical productivity
• Office facilities

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Benefits - 2. Hidden SavingsCash value real but
hard to measure
Why do it?

• Better control of work
• Best person handles each item
• Urgent work first, hard cases cant get buried
• Management
• Assignment automated
• Status, analysis, quality

more
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Benefits - 2. Hidden SavingsCash value real but
hard to measure
Why do it?

• Professional productivity
• Often ignored doing the same job
• Over 20 common due to automation alone
• Often 50 or more with improved work flow
• Tool for process improvement

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Benefits - 3. Intangible Cash value not known

• Improved Service
• Employee satisfaction
• Better decisions - (how far do you check)
• Organizational options
• Decentralization
• Cross-dept. assistance
• Security
• No misplaced work priority enforced
• Audit trail
• Privacy - access control

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Course 2 ObjectivesWorkflow Technology

• Types of workflow
• Workflow standards
• Interfaces in workflow systems

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Types of Workflow
Workflow Technology

• Ad-hoc, collaborative
• Workflow defined for each use
• Negotiations (can you ... by Friday)
• Provides Convenience, Control
• Production
• Pre-defined, prioritized (supports high volumes)
• Revisions during the processing
• Special requirements, multiple requests
• Consultations
• Provides Control, Productivity (Saves costs)

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Horizontal vs. Vertical
Workflow Technology

• Horizontal workflow
• Most common type
• Moves work through the organization(s)
• Vertical workflow
• Directs processing at each step
• Guidance to beginners
• Automatically invokes programs
• Can be totally automated (no operator)

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Free-standing or within application
Workflow Technology

• Embedded
• Part of a business application
• Optimized for that application
• Normally cant choose different workflow
• Autonomous (stand-alone)
• Separate desktop system
• Optimize for total business requirements
• Supports many business applications

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Workflow Standards
Workflow Technology

• Reference Model
• The big picture - how the pieces fit
• Abstract specifications
• What functions and data are involved
• Bindings
• Specific implementations, formats, protocols
• WF/XML is an XML binding of the Interoperability
  specification that is Interface 4 of the WfMC
  Reference Model

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Workflow Reference ModelThe components of a
workflow system
Workflow Technology

• Generally a workflow engine interfaces to
• 1. Process definition
• a. Procedures
• b. Resources (person, system, or set of)
• 2. Client interfaces (applications invoke
  workflow)
• 3. Invoked applications (workflow invokes
  programs)
• 4. External workflow services (interoperability)
• 5. Administration and Monitoring

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Workflow Reference Model
Workflow Technology
Process Definition Tool
1
Workflow EnactmentServices
Admini-stration Monitoring
A1
Other Workflow Enactment Service(s)
A2
4
5
Workflow Engine(s) Vendor A
2
3
Workflow Client Application
Invoked Applications
Courtesy of the Workflow Management Coalition, of
which AIIM is a member
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Process Definition
Workflow Technology

• Standard format for process definition
• Define the process with separate tool
• Modeling and Simulation products
• Load the defined process into workflow tool
• Exchange of process definitions
• WfMC interface 1
• Working Group 1 for process definition
• Working Group 9 for resources

35
Application InterfacesTie process management to
the process
Workflow Technology

• Applications invoke workflow
• Embedded workflow systems
• User interface to enterprise workflow
• WfMC Interface 2
• Workflow invokes applications
• Minimal invoke the initial program or
  transaction
• Extensive populate data on multiple screens
• WfMC Interface 3
• WAPI - combines both - Workflow Applications
  Programming Interface

more
36
Application InterfacesTypical uses
Workflow Technology

• Related documents
• Image system, fax, document management
• Electronic mail
• Data record (collection, renewal, follow up)
• Legacy data systems
• Workflow knows customer, type of work
• Users expect it to (at least) invoke initial
  application
• Vertical workflow detailed process management
• EAI - Enterprise Application Integration

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External Services
Workflow Technology

• Interfaces between workflow systems
• Dissimilar systems within an enterprise
• Between different enterprises
• WfMC Interface 4
• MIME binding - using e-mail technology
• Wf-XML - using XML technology
• Usage
• Macroscopic - e.g. order a product
• Microscopic - e.g. check individual items in an
  order

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Administration and Monitoring
Workflow Technology

• WfMC Interface 5
• History of each case
• Person/processor, date, time, action
• For reporting, auditing
• For process control (e.g. dual approvals)
• Monitoring of the total
• Snapshot Backlog, status
• History Productivity

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Course 3 ObjectivesIntroduction to BPM

• What is it
• Components of BPM
• Key Technologies for BPM
• This sounds like workflow!

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What is BPM

• Isolate the process management to a separate
  layer
• Rules based processes
• Invoke other participants to perform work
• Remove control from the processing applications
• Rigid custom stove-pipe solutions out
• Reduce need of each application to be in charge
• Management focus on the process
• Establish, document, refine the process
• Monitoring the performance of the process
• Monitoring the participants in the process

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Caveat

• New technology
• Many zealots my way is the only way
• Conflicting terminology
• This will try to use neutral terminology (but
  all the good words have been used)

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Components of BPMEmerging Business Process
Management

• Modeling define/document the process
• Management perform the process
• Machine processes system interfaces
• People processes workflow management
• Monitoring (real time)
• Measurement (reporting after the fact)
• Forecasting

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Modeling

• Define/document the process
• Often graphical
• May include simulation
• Legal operational value of process definition
• Sarbanes Oxley and others

more
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Modeling

• Modeling tools
• From specialized vendors
• May allow analysis to a more sophisticated level
• May be difficult to implement
• From Process Management vendors
• Focus on using the best of the process manager
  engine
• Easiest to implement
• May not be as analytical as specialized tools

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Management

• Perform (Invocation engine)
• Assign work to participants
• Manage concurrent processing when possible
• Prioritize work that cannot be processed at once
• Track work that has been suspended
• Assign for follow up if no activity
• Activate (assign) work when conditions are met
• Data received
• Related process completed

more
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Management

• Participants
• Systems
• Internal systems through
• EAI-like technologies
• Application servers
• External or internal systems through
• EDI or web based technologies
• Custom interfaces
• People
• Workflow
• People number, skills, performance
• Quality checking and management
• Service requirements

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Management

• What if the process cannot be extracted from the
  stovepipe legacy systems
• Invoke by BPM if possible
• Treat the process by the legacy system as a
  single process
• Report completion to BPM/Workflow
• Report exceptions to BPM/Workflow
• Look for opportunities to re-architect

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Monitoring (real time)

• Backlog of work
• Meet service requirements?
• Scheduling of people (individual roles, overtime)
• Personnel Management
• Productivity
• Quality, Training
• Systems
• Performance, capacity, reliability

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Measurement (reporting after the fact)

• Compliance
• Regulatory
• Service levels
• Projections
• Adjust to business changes
• Personnel, work unit
• Performance
• Career management, roles

50
Forecasting

• BPM does not do strategic planning
• Use reporting to discover opportunities, threats

51
Key technologies in BPM

• EAI Electronic Application Integration
• Web Services
• EDI Electronic Data Interchange
• BI Business Intelligence (reporting)
• Application Servers
• XML eXtensible Markup Language

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EAI Electronic Application Integration

• Predates BPM
• Established connectors for applications to work
  together
• Generally used internally trusted partners

53
Web Services

• Architecture
• Stateless everything needed is in the message,
  does not depend on what happened before
• Scalable next step can be on another machine
• Widely supported protocols
• Interfaces between systems getting easier
• Tradition of paranoia control and audits
  allowing interaction outside the firewall

54
EDI Electronic Data Interchange

• Standard for electronic transfer of hundreds of
  types of electronic documents quotes, orders,
  invoices, etc.
• Older technology widely used in some industries
• Slowly being replaced by newer, simpler protocols
• Batch oriented
• It may not be pretty, but it works!

55
BI Business Intelligence

• Reports off the running system
• Simple
• Load of analysis programs may impact operations
• Data extracted to separate system
• Denormalized data makes reporting easier
• Analysis doesnt impact operation
• Consolidate and summarize older data
• Some use data warehouse technology

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Application Servers

• Middle tier of three tier architecture
• Business functions
• Isolated from user interface and data
• Easily invoked by the process manager
• Readily fit into the BPM paradigm

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XML

• Data organized in electronic documents
• Definitions embedded with data
• Heirarchical structure
• Formal schema
• Provides definition
• Allows automatic translation between systems
• XML
• Often structures the data moved through process
• Can be used to define the process

58
Standards

• If you have hundreds of standards, do you have a
  standard?
• Convergence of standards
• As predicted by industry expert Jon Pyke
• BPEL Business Process Execution Language
• BPMN Business Process Modeling Notation
• WfXML Workflow interoperation between systems
  (Interface 4) using the XML Binding
• XPDL XML based Process Definition Language

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Course 4 Objectives Convergence

• Workflow Management
• Business Process Management
• Are they the same?

60
Workflow tools in History

• Modern tools emerged for document images
• Inventory of work to be processed
• Routing documents to users
• Handling long running tasks
• Hours and minutes, not seconds and milliseconds
• Subject to interruption, even reassignment
• Large numbers of processors with different
  capabilities
• Bottom up approach
• Often implemented to solve a local problem
• Departmental solutions

more
61
Workflow tools in History

• Pragmatic solutions to real problems
• Automatic matching of new data to waiting work
• Follow up for no response
• Supervisor override automatic assignment
• Change of flow for questions or authorization
• Application integration
• Custom interfaces often used to archaic systems

62
BPM tools in History

• New approach to address overall business process
• Isolate the process management from the processor
• Attached documents and data incidental
• Focus on short running tasks
• Optimized for machine processes
• Quick running rarely interrupted, minimal need
  to prioritize
• Small number of processors, but may be
• Elsewhere in the enterprise
• Outside the enterprise
• Top Down Approach
• Best used at enterprise level

more
63
BPM tools in History

• Analytical solutions to total problem
• Modeling and simulation favored
• Some claim mathematical rigorous, complete
• Pass data to workflow if needed was often said
• Application integration
• Newer technology utilizes newer interfaces
• Web base technology
• Three tier technology application servers
• EAI on steroids and other technologies

64
Is Workflow BPM?

• Workflow may be custom or embedded
• OK, but not what we are discussing
• Enterprise Workflow Management Systems
• Define/Document process externally
• Perform process using systems as well as people
• Automatically invoke business processes
• Handle work with or without attached documents
  and/or data (not just an image routing system)
• Support processes across organizations

65
Is BPM Workflow?

• Workflow was defined as
• The automation of a business process tasks are
  passed from one participant to another for action
  according to a set of procedural rules.

66
Are they the same?

• Is Workflow BPM ? YES
• Is BPM Workflow? YES
• Are they the same? No
• Workflow vendors evolved to BPM capabilities
• But their strength is in local process issues
• BPM vendors see the need for workflow
• But their strength is in analyzing the big picture

67
What some vendors are doing

• BPM Vendors
• Customers want workflow
• Put workflow in the BPM product
• Buy a workflow package
• The purchased package may or may not be good
• Integration may or may not be good
• Build a workflow component
• Seems easy but good workflow is complex

more
68
What some vendors are doing

• Workflow vendors
• BPM is hot, declare us BPM
• But dont change the product
• Things will get better
• Buyer beware
• Examine specific product details

69
Battle Scars

• A company chose a respected BPM product
• First application to process documents from
  customer through regional office to home office
  specialists
• BPM product chosen did not
• Link the documents processed to the work
• Allow users to check status of their work queues
• Prioritize work (some work more urgent than
  others)
• Allow supervisors to override assignments
• Allow users to suspend work (for missing data,
  etc.)
• These workflow features were easily added
• The custom coding needed made a simple project
  complex

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Course 5 ObjectivesImplementation

• User interface channel
• Internal
• External (web) agents, dealers, customers
• Process definitions
• BPM or Workflow invocation engine
• Business applications (legacy systems)
• Project structure

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User Interface

• What business channel is being served?
• Internal users only
• Within the business unit
• Other business areas but still trusted, within
  firewall
• May build user interface customized to company
• External professionals (e.g. agents, dealers)
• Can use simple web-type interface
• Can specify system configuration, training,
  interface
• End users
• No control of facilities or training web
  interface

72
Process definitions

• Level of detail
• Once and done one user does entire process
• Minimizes overhead in overall process
• Requires excess training in most environments
• 2-3 step process is too coarse
• With exception processing and quality checking
  most processes require 5-10 steps or more to
  define
• Hundreds of steps are unmanageable over
  engineered

73
BPM vs Workflow engines

• Enterprise decision
• Made apart from those who implement it
• Live with the choice, good or bad
• Operational decision
• Implementation team makes product decision
• Examine the details of the product dont just
  Choose BPM or Choose Workflow

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Business applications

• Isolate process management
• Interface to business applications required
• Integrated applications
• Telecommunications provisioning example
• May need to work with exceptions and process done
• Legacy applications with minimal interfaces
• Custom interfaces may be required
• Newer applications with interfaces
• Three tier, web based, other

75
Project Structure

• Goals
• Ownership
• Implementation
• Measurement
• Justificaiton

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Establish goals
Getting Started

• Internal Processing
• Increase capacity, improve service
• Do more work with same staff increase capacity
• Reduce costs
• Do same work with fewer staff
• Inter-organization processes
• Improved performance, control
• E-commerce
• Establish new facilities, integration

77
Project ownership
Getting Started

• Technology driven project
• Update systems
• Improve efficiency
• User-driven project
• Improve service
• Reduce costs
• Often more successful than technology projects
• Executive sponsorship (in either case)
• Corporate commitment to change

78
Implementation
Getting Started

• Automate current process
• Often does not achieve benefits
• Reengineering
• Time consuming (expensive)
• May delay project
• Sometimes takes a year or more
• Results not always good
• Reengineering experts often distant from the
  problem
• Change often follows implementation

more
79
Implementation
Getting Started

• Process Improvement
• Eliminate tracking, logging, searching
• Track suspended work, follow-up
• Optimize, automate assignment
• Priority of the work
• Qualification of the employee
• Parallel processes, rendezvous
• Simplify access to data or images
• Good benefits sooner than with reengineering

80
Measurement

• High level measures
• Staff averaged 10 cases per day, now average 13
• Was 600 apps per employee per year, now 1600
• Readily confirmed
• Unsatisfying
• Low level measures
• Elimination or improvement of specific steps
• Arguable (my people are already efficient)

81
Justification
Getting Started

• Workflow Management
• Productivity increase
• 30 common
• 50 to 100 or more with process improvement
• Staff savings are primarily professional
• Need image processing if paper involved
• Image processing
• Saving often pay 80 of system cost (not 100)
• Staff savings are primarily clerical
• Needs at least a basic workflow system

82
Course Exam

• Please note, you must complete the exam in full
  once you begin taking the exam
• Be sure you feel comfortable with the course
  content before starting the exam to ensure a
  passing score
• After successfully passing the course exam, you
  may download your Certificate of Completion