Why workflow/BPM is needed?

Question

I need to work on a customer on boarding application. The workflow between various users can be implemented using JSF framework itself, with the help of faces confiq.xml I can specify the flow between various users. But here BPM is used with the help of webmethods tool. Does BPM is required always for implementation of workflow? What is its importance over normal implementation using other technologies?

Answer 1

Sassi,

in JSF you control only the pageflow between different UIs which can be part of a single activity which is performed by one user or or part of many activities.

A business process typically involves multiple people (participants / roles) and systems. The WfMS / BPMS for instance:

• manages the task lists of the process participants
• orchestrates the control flow between the different manual and system tasks
• manages the process context information throughout the process (data. documents, persistence, versioning - ideally all ootb without coding)
• provides rollback, error compensation features
• creates an audit trail which is important for compliance / processes that need to be auditable (QA, regulators)
• provides dashboards for operational monitoring
• and reports for analysis and reporting of KPIs like averages process execution times or volumes grouped by different business data
• allows you to model your business process in a graphical way, preferably in a standard notation (BPMN), which is much more user-friendly and a good basis for the communication between business and IT. The business will find it much harder to read the faces-config.xml.
• supports the evaluation of simple or complex business rules to determine process flow and work assignment with user-friendly means allows the
• allows versioning of the process definitions (as if you had multiple faces-config versions in the classpath)
• ...

Find more BPMPS features and examples e.g. here http://www.eclipse.org/stardust/. Eclipse Stardust is a mature and comprehensive open source BPMS which covers the aspects listed above and more.

Answer 2

There are lots of workflow solutions that are not a BPM system. However, a BPM system should always include a workflow solution. Presumably implemented by using a BPM notation standard and including kpi monitoring, business rules, simulation, user management, organization modeling and reporting. Although you could implement all those parts yourself in Java EE (with JSF) it would presumably take much more time.