SharePoint Workflow or why BPMS is needed

Start. Simple process

Consider a simple document handling process. Let it be some internal application.
The task of the business set 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 receives an email notification.

Visually, this process can be represented as follows.

This is not BPMN, but business often “thinks” in such categories.

Effort to implement this process can be displayed using the following graph. Vertically - SharePoint capabilities, horizontally - the effort required for implementation.


Despite the convenience of working with documents and forms in SharePoint, even to implement such a simple script, we need to use .Net and Workflow Foundation (WF). Highlights for .Net / WF development will be related to posting 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”.

• Control of task execution time and task escalation with reference to the work schedule
• Send information to the accounting system
• Ability to delegate work
• Process Audit and Reporting

The link to the extended list of standard "helpers" is given at the bottom of the article.
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For the implementation we need new technologists. As in the case of the “simple process”, some of them are in SharePoint: reporting and BI, search, BCS, etc. Some 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 automating our process

• Task management (execution control, escalation, delegation, working calendar) - completely remove the development of this functionality
• Reporting and auditing processes - a significant reduction in labor costs using standard SharePoint features: reporting and BI
• Simplification of integration - a significant reduction in labor costs for development when integrating with external systems
• Improving the efficiency of using InfoPath

The labor costs for automating the described process will be as follows.

K2 Studio and K2 Designer for SharePoint (K2D4SP) tools for developing business processes in the K2 system (link to the screenshots below).

Total

• Is it possible to automate workflow only by SharePoint? Yes! But it will take a lot of “code” to keep up with the appetite of the business.
• Is BPMS a Silver Bullet? Not! But it will help to significantly reduce the cost of document automation on SharePoint and transfer the load from the developer to the business analyst.

Links

• The list of standard "helpers" in the automation of workflow and business processes.
• List of popular BPMS
• Screenshots of K2 Studio and K2D4SP.
• K2 system