Business Process Management: Business Process Management: Basics

Monica ScannapiecoMonica Scannapieco

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GeneralitiesGeneralities

• Business Process Management (BPM) Business Process Management (BPM) perceived internationally as top business priority priority

• BPM views processes as central in an organization organization

• Significant business benefits can be derived from its (correct) applicationderived from its (correct) application• Potential for substantial cost & time savings

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Process Automation: Benefits - 1Process Automation: Benefits - 1

• Process automation (a.k.a workflow Process automation (a.k.a workflow management)

• Process models should serve as the • Process models should serve as the blueprint for subsequent automated support support

• Explicit representation of control-flow • Process model changes do not require

low-level coding efforts

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Process Automation: Benefits - 2Process Automation: Benefits - 2

• Explicit representation of resource involvement • Work can directly be routed to the right resources• Aspects such as workload and work history can be taken

into account in work assignment

• Coupling of processes and data assists with data accuracy

• Monitoring support • Identification and resolution of bottlenecks• Post-execution analysis (Process Mining)

• Identification of opportunities for process

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improvement

Terminology - 1W kfl • Workflow • “The automation of a business process, in whole

or part, during which documents, information or or part, during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action according to a set of procedural rules.”

WfMC Terminology & Glossary WFMC TC 1011 3 0 WfMC, Terminology & Glossary, WFMC-TC-1011 3.0, February 1999

• Workflow Management System (WfMS) a.k.a. g y ( )Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) • “A system that completely defines, manages and

executes workflows through the execution of executes workflows through the execution of software whose order of execution is driven by a computer representation of the workflow logic.” WfMC T i l & Gl WFMC TC 1011 3 0

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WfMC, Terminology & Glossary, WFMC-TC-1011 3.0, February 1999

Terminology - 2Terminology - 2

• An alternative definition of WfMS: • “A software system that manages and executes

operational processes involving people, applications, and/or resources on the bases of pp , /process models.”

• M. Dumas, W. van der Aalst, A. ter Hofstede, Process-Aware Information Systems: Bridging Process-Aware Information Systems: Bridging People and Software through Process Technology, John Wiley & Sons, 2005

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Workflow Conceptsp

• A process specification is not directly executed not directly executed • It denotes a class of

possible workflow executionsexecutions

• Process specifications are concretely instantiated to

t ll d create so-called cases • A task is the elementary

piece of a process p pexecution• A work item is the

instance of a task inside

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instance of a task inside a case

Process Example - 1p

Receive Settle

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Receive Invoice

Receive

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Ship Products

Fig 1.3. Interacting business processes form process choreography

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Process Example - 2p

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Process Modelingg

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Run-time vs design-timeRun-time vs. design-time

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Need of different perspectives 1Need of different perspectives - 1• Control-Flow

Which tasks need to be e ec ted and in hat • Which tasks need to be executed and in what order

• Data Data • What data elements exist, to whom are they

visible, how are they passed on

• Resources • Who is authorised to execute certain tasks, are

tasked assigned by the system or can participants tasked assigned by the system or can participants volunteer for their execution, on what basis is work assigned

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Need of different perspectives 2Need of different perspectives - 2

• Sometimes these perspectives are explained in p p pterms of Who (Resource), What (Data) and When (Control-flow)

• S. Jablonski and C. Bussler’s classification• Workflow Management: Modeling Concepts,

Architecture and Implementation International Architecture, and Implementation. International Thomson Computer Press, 1996

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Process Modeling 1 Process Modeling - 1

• No consensus has been reached to describe executable processes

• Several alternatives have been proposed, but h b d d lnone has become a standard commonly

recognisedT pe 1 l ng ge Some p o e modelling• Type 1 languages: Some process modellinglanguages are based on a formal unambiguous semantics that can be input for BPMS semantics that can be input for BPMS • Explicit representation of control flow

dependencies and resourcing strategies

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• A formal background is required by process designers

Process Modeling 2 Process Modeling - 2

• Type 2 languages: Some languages are high level and intended for non-expert users • They came with nice graphical representations

that are vague but useful for an initial insight that are vague but useful for an initial insight

• Example type 1 Language: BPEL• Example type 2 language: BPMN• Example type 2 language: BPMN

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BPEL

• Merger of IBM’s WSFL and Microsoft’s XLANG • Largely though not fully block structured • Largely, though not fully, block-structured • More powerful than predecessors • No support for involvement of human resources• No support for involvement of human resources• No graphical representation (rather XML is used)

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BPMN

• Graphical front-end • Not executable directly transformation required • Not executable directly, transformation required • Graph-structured rather than block-structured • Mapping to BPEL not straightforward • Mapping to BPEL not straightforward • Fairly strong support for specification of control-

flow dependencies flow dependencies • Lacking sufficient support for involvement of

human resources human resources • Not formally defined

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Business Process Management Systems

Process Designer Process Participant

Graphical User InterfaceWorkflow Modeling

Workflow EngineWorkflow ModelRepository

Invoked Applications

Fig 7 2 Workflow management systems architecture oces

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Fig 7.2. Workflow management systems architecture

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The WfMC (Workflow Management The WfMC (Workflow Management Coalition) reference architecture

Process Definition Tools

Workflow API and Interchange Formats

Interface 1: XPDL

Interface 5 Interface 4

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Workflow Enactment Service

Other Workflow Enactment Services

Administration & Monitoring Tools

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Interface 2 Interface 3

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Workflow Client Applications Invoked Applications

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Components of a BPMS - 1p• A modelling tool

• It provides a Graphic User Interface to design t p o des a G ap c Use te ace to des gprocess specifications to be given as input to a BPMS Engine

A B i P M t S t E i• A Business Process Management System Engine• It stores and interprets process specifications,

creates and manages cases as they are creates and manages cases as they are instantiated, and controls their interaction with workflow participants and applications

• Typically BPMS offers work items to all resources • Typically, BPMS offers work items to all resources that qualify

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Components of a BPMS - 2p• A work-list handler

• It allows administrators to create, manage and t a o s ad st ato s to c eate, a age a dmonitor cases

• Process participants may access to the queues of work items assigned running etc letting them work items assigned, running, etc. letting them continuing with their execution

• Analysis tools y• They are intended to mine the log of past

executions to find recurrent patterns, deviations from the expected behaviour etc from the expected behaviour, etc.

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Evolution of architectures and technologies Evolution of architectures and technologies supporting enterprises / businesses

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The emergence of ERP (Enterprise The emergence of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems

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Th d f i t ti The need of integration …

Purchase Order Management

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Human Resources Application

HR DB Warehouse

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Warehouse Management

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Warehouse file system data store

Fig 2.2. Enterprise applications with redundant data and data dependencies

in a siloed multi-system scenario … in a siloed multi-system scenario

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Why not using a BPMS as integration y g glayer ?

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Web services Web services ...

Service Requestor Service Provider4: bind / invokeSOAP

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Service Registry

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WSDLService

Description

Logical Contract

InterfacesMethodsData Structures

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Message EncodingTransport ProtocolPhysical Service Endpoint M

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Fig 7.9. Main World Wide Web Consortium Web services recommendationsM

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SOAP Request

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Fig 7.10. Role of WSDL in Web service invocation

... and WS-BPEL S1

Registry w/ WSDL

Specifications

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BPEL Editor BPEL Engine

BPEL Process

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<sequence>invoke S1i k S2Specification invoke S2invoke S3

<sequence/>

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Fig 7.15. Composed service design and enactment using Business Process Execution Language

Silos expose services and processes coordinates them

ERP Enterprise Services

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AnalyzeOrderComposed service(specified in BPEL, published in WSDL)

ERP System

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Fig 2.22. Service-enabled application system EAI Middleware

Ord23x24 Adapter

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Ord23x24 _ERP0092

Fig 7.14. Web services standards in service-enabling

BPMS todayBPMS today

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W fl E i S l ti P i Worflow Engine Selection Process in CORE

• Need to understand the requirements for a National Statistical Institute

• CORE workpackage (WP4) led by INSEE

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Evaluation grid - 1g

• Criterion : General criterion used to evaluate a tooltool• Each criterion can be divided into sub-criteria

• Description : A short description of each sub-Description : A short description of each subcriterion

• Score : For each sub-criterion, a score is given to , gthe tool• Varies between 0 and 2, 2 being the best score.

Th fi l f l it i i th The final score of a general criterion is the weighted mean of its sub-criteria

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Evaluation grid 2Evaluation grid - 2

• Weight : Weight of a criterion (resp. a sub-criterion) used for the final score (resp. the general criterion score).

W i ht h b i iti li d di t NSI• Weights have been initialized according to NSIsrequirement analysis

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Criteria and Subcriteria - 1Criteria and Subcriteria 1• Modeling :

• Graphical user modeling interface : presence and • Graphical user modeling interface : presence and quality of the process modeling tool

• Model translation : ease of model translation intoblexecutable process

• Integration :Communication technology : support of multiple • Communication technology : support of multiple technologies for communication

• Use of standards : use of standard languages or g gimport/export standards capability

• User management : presence of an internalmechanism or integration capability to manage

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mechanism or integration capability to manage user roles and permissions

Criteria and Subcriteria - 2Criteria and Subcriteria 2

• Integration :• Versioning : process versioning capability• Process repository : presence of an internal

repository or integration capabilityrepository or integration capability• Event driven work-flow : possibility to integrate

events in processes• Rules engine : presence of an internal rules engine

or integration capability

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Criteria and Subcriteria - 3Criteria and Subcriteria 3

• Execution :Monito ing q alit of info mation a ailable to • Monitoring : quality of information available to monitor processes execution

• Traceability : capability of saving variables state y p y gduring a process execution

• General :• Usability : general ease of use of the tool,

maturity, community activity, etc.• Manual steps : manual steps integration, end-user Manual steps : manual steps integration, end user

interfaces customization capability, etc.

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Criteria and Subcriteria - 4Criteria and Subcriteria - 4

• General :General :• Automatic steps : automatic steps integration,

with different interaction types• Long running transaction : tool must support long

transaction since some process can last severalmonths

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Evaluation Method

• Not «cold» evaluation• Easy implementation scenario

human task to validate the sample created during the p gfirst task

web service call to get a sample from

a database

script servicethatcalculatesdummy statistics on the sample

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sample

BPMS - 1

• Business Process Management Systems:• Bonita (http://www.bonitasoft.com/) • Activiti (http://www.Activiti.org/) • ActiveVOS (http://www.activevos.com/)

• Tools have been selected according to:• their popularity• their popularity• their features• partners experience with BPM tools (limited time

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slot)

BPMS 2BPMS - 2

• Bonita:• Open-source BPM suite• Created in 2001 by the French company Bull. Since

2009 t d b B it S ft2009, supported by BonitaSoft• "Subscription pack", a more complete version wrt

open solutionp

• Activiti: • Open-source process engine sponsored by Alfresco• The project was born in 2010 after some

developers quit JBoss, disappointed by the abandonment of jBPM 4 and lack of support for

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abandonment of jBPM 4 and lack of support for BPMN 2.0 by jBPM

BPMS - 3

• ActiveVOS: • It is a proprietary solution developed by

A ti E d i t A i f d d i ActiveEndpoint, an American company founded in 2003

• Used by ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics )y ( )

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Worflow Engine Selection ProcessGood Java solution, supported by a very

active community. Not mature enough and the

t i i t

Excellent tool based on open standards. It requires someXML/WSDL skills but allo s to implement current version is not

usable for production yet

allows to implementprocesses quite easily. Its production featuresare the most advancedones among these threetools, but its price canpbe a barrier

Unlike the otherUnlike the othertwo solutions, itallows to start

creating processwithout

p(complex)

development.

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Process EngineProcess Engine

• CORE process engine envisions two layers …p g y

Complex control flowsS i i t t l

WF ENGINESyncronizing constructs, cycles, conditions, etc.E.g.: Interactive multi-userediting imputation

DATA FLOW

editing imputation

Simple control flowsSequence of tasks is composedby connecting the output of oneDATA FLOW

CONTROL SYSTEMby connecting the output of onetask to the input of anotherData intensive operations

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ReferencesReferences

• Mathias Weske: Business Process Management: Mathias Weske: Business Process Management: Concepts, Languages, Architecturewww.bpm-book.com/

• Wil van der Aalst and Kees van Hee: Workflow • Wil van der Aalst and Kees van Hee: Workflow Management. Models, Methods, and Systemswww.workflowcourse.com

M M ll C Di i i A M ll A R • M. Mecella, C. Di ciccio, A.Marrella, A. Russo: Business ProcessModeling and Management - Elective in Software and Services for the Information Society, SAPIENZA- Università di Roma

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