The whole Business Process Management (BPM) is a confusing space with many different packages performing many different aspects of a typical solutions requirements.
It is easy to split the BPM space into 2 distinct categories, each of which is converging:
Firstly we have Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) which takes an application centric (system-to-system) view of the world. Secondly there is Workflow Automation (WFA) which takes a people centric (people-to-people) view of the world. If we take any typical products in each of these spaces then there is a massive overlap between the two. And further, a typical BPM solution will encompass both EAI and WFA.
On the surface both a very similar, each providing the automation and management of business processes. Given that typically people will lump EAI and WFA products together into the single umbrella category of BPM. Taking this high-level view can cause a great deal of confusion and often lead to poor implementation choices.
As soon as we start to analyse things closer, we start to see significant differences between the requirements for EAI and WFA:
- Speed: An EAI system has to perform tasks at machine speed since it caters for system-to-system processes. When moving information between systems or applications, speed and high volume processing are often a key requirement. Once we start dealing with the people centric world of WFA, speed remains important but is no longer a key consideration. With a workflow environment, transfer of tasks from one person to another could take many minutes or hours so the fact the WFA environments does not perform it in a fraction of a second is not an issue.
- Number of Participants: There is always a limited number of enterprise applications that need to be involved in a process, this is typically around the half dozen make unless something is massively disfunctional within an organisation. An EAI solution only has to deal with this limited number of participants, each of which performs static operations - by this we mean that the roles these applications play are well defined and change infrequently. A WFA environment however may need to cater for a large number of participants both within and outside the organisation. A typical WFA solution can include anywhere between 100 and 2000 users. These users have different roles and responsibilities, all of which are in a constant state of change.
- Handling Exceptions: WFA solutions have to handle large numbers of exceptions - people take time off, get reassigned, want to discuss tasks with someone else before performing them, or may want to delegate a task to someone else. The WFA environment must be able to cope with all of these and any other exception conditions that may occur. An EAI environment though does not deal with many exceptions because the application centric environment does not pose the problems of a people centric world. In an EAI solution, exceptions are driven by system and data failures and are relatively easy to trap and handle.
- Business Rules: Within an EAI environment, business rules are data driven and can typically be handled programmatically. These data driven rules have the addtion of relationship based rules layered on top of them for a WFA solution. These are inherently more complex (especially as the size of the organisation and complexity of the relationships grows).
- User Interface: An EAI solution has no user interface requirement since it is responsible for the exchange of data between enterprise applications. In contrast, user interface is the most complex requirements of WFA - it must provide a flexible user interface with dynamic forms and document management.
- Data Transformation and Mapping: This is key to EAI solutions and the requirement for sophisticated data transformation and mapping capabilities is paramount. Each application within the enterprise typically saves data in its own format, thus the EAI environment must be capable of mapping information from one application to another. WFA has only limited data transformation and mapping requirements since it deals primarily with people centric situations.
Given all of this, it becomes clear why two distinct categories exist and typically products are optimised to perform one or the other.
BPM is converging though
While requirements for EAI and WFA are different, market requirements have produced an encompassing category - Business Process Management. So what is driving this convergence?
- Business Processes are heterogeneous
More and more EAI processes are involving humans - whether to handle exceptions or provide human knowledge / judgement, people are being used in a optimised way. Similarly, many people centric solutions are being extended to incorporate enterprise applications to allow processes to be streamlined.
- Web Services make integration simpler
Although there will always be a need for specialist, high-performance integration environments that EAI will cater for, the introduction of web services has lowered this barrier significantly. The use of a standard mechanism for performing typical integration tasks has dramatically reduced the cost of integration.
- BPM must span multiple Enterprise Applications
Many enterprise applications provide embedded workflow management within the ERP or CRM environment. However, this route was limited since typically there are multiple enterprise applications and business processes span across these. The requirement for an external BPM / workflow environment was necessary.
- Organisations are building BPM platforms
Becuase of the drivers for BPM to span the enterprise, many organisations are building a platform that includes EAI and WFA capabilities. This platform typically includes all the server components and design tools for building any BPM applications, and also the tools to operationally manage the lifecycle of business processes. These BPM platforms typically include the following:
- Business Process Tools
- Resource Management Tools
- IT Developer Tools
- Collaboration Tools
- Repository
- Administration Tools
- Business Activity Monitoring
- Workflow Engine
- EAI Engine
- Clients / User Interface / Forms
- Web Services