Why BPMS?

BPMS is becoming very popular among business users because it empowers them to define, maintain, measure, analyze, and continuously improve their business processes. BPMS is capable of executing application-to-application and person-to-application processes. Implementation of BPMS technology reduces time-to-market for changes in business processes. With the help of BPMS implementation, changes in business process are addressed with minimal IT efforts, resulting in faster time-to-market and business process change.

Because the process definition is available in pictorial form, it is convenient to share across the organization and it is easy to understand. This visual rendering helps business users communicate process requirements to the IT staff, reducing the gap that typically exists between the business and IT teams.

BPMS also measures and stores the process execution data, which can be used later for creating business activity monitor (BAM) reports. BAM reports can be used to report process efficiency and bottlenecks, activity alerts, escalations, user productivity, and other measurements of process performance.

A BPMS typically offers the following tools:

• Business process modeler. Used by business users to define the business process. Process is defined as set of activities in sequence, parallel, or loop
• Executable process modeler. Imports a business model from another business process modeler. The system architect adds execution details for each activity in the modeler. These modelers generate a process definition and usually generate code.
• Process execution engine. Executes the process defined in the executable process modeler and captures the process execution data.
• Business activity monitoring component. Consists of a set of reporting tools for process owners, senior management, and other business users.
• User portal. Allows end-users to participate in the process execution.
• Admin portal. For the process owner to manage the process instances. The admin portal can be used for deploying and version management for process definition.