Workflow on SharePoint or why BPMS is needed
Start. Simple process
Consider a simple document processing process. Let it be some internal application.
The task of the business is as follows
- An employee fills out a form on the site.
- The head of the employee must approve it or send it for revision.
- If the form is approved, the employee will receive an email notification.
Visually, such a process can be represented as follows.
This is not BPMN, but a business often thinks in these categories.
The labor involved in implementing this process can be displayed using the following graph. Vertical - SharePoint features, horizontal - the effort needed to implement.
Despite the convenience of working with documents and forms in SharePoint, even for the implementation of such a simple scenario, we need to use .Net and Workflow Foundation (WF). Highlights for .Net / WF development will be related to sending for revision and mail notifications.
Development. Appetite comes with eating
Almost immediately after the introduction of such a solution, the business will want to “expand” it a little
- Task execution time control and task escalation with reference to the work schedule
- Send information to the accounting system
- Ability to delegate work
- Process audit and reporting
For implementation, we will need new technologies. As in the case of the “simple process”, some of them are in SharePoint: reporting and BI, search, BCS, etc. Some of them will have to be manually implemented on .Net (ASP.Net, WF, WCF).
BPMS Partial headache relief
As an example, we will use K2 Blackpearl.
System capabilities and their impact in the automation of our process
- Task management (execution control, escalation, delegation, work calendar) - we completely remove the development of this functionality
- Process reporting and auditing - significantly reduced labor costs when using standard SharePoint features: reporting and BI
- Simplification of integration - a significant reduction in development labor costs when integrating with external systems
- Improving the efficiency of using InfoPath
The labor costs for automating the described process will look like
K2 Studio and K2 Designer for SharePoint (K2D4SP) tools for developing business processes in the K2 system (link to screenshots below).
Total
- Is workflow automation possible only with SharePoint? Yes! But you have to "code" a lot to keep up with the appetite of the business.
- BPMS - The Silver Bullet? Not! But it will help significantly reduce the cost of workflow automation on SharePoint and transfer the load from the developer to business intelligence.