For the past couple years I have been working with the BizFlow Plus BPM Suite. The BPMS includes many integrated modules that together allow me to create core applications with really nice user experiences. Major BizFlow components cover process modelling and publication, web-based forms design and development, and wizard-driven user interfaces (aka BizCoves). Let me elaborate on each: 1. Process Modeling and Publication – BizFlow’s Business Process Studio is quite simple and intuitive to understand. It uses icons representing BPMN conventions that are dragged and dropped into a canvas. When clicking on the icon you access the business rules menu where you describe activities and add rules governing KPIs, routing, scheduling, escalations, deadlines, and SLAs. Other helpful functionality allows you to check your work to ensure everything runs correctly as well as manage version control. The latter comes in handy as I have found organizations often require updates resulting from internal changes to policies or external market fluctuations. The web application integration to the business process is quite seamless. Simply assign the form or forms to the given activity and publish. I have also found BizFlow good for Business Analysts. They can do most of the work modelling processes. Developers get involved when moving into actual application development and deployment. 2. Forms Design and Development – In BizFlow Plus there is a module called BizFlow WebMaker. It has lots of out-of-the-box functionality for designing web applications without any manual coding. For example, you have controls to quickly create form layouts, fields, and rules such as look-ups and validations. Once you understand XLM bindings, it is quite easy to map important process data to WebMaker forms. I have been able to create forms that consume Web Services in less than 5 minutes. Forms combine with process logic to support dynamic tasking and correspondence management. I have also found the tool consistently stable. To date I have been involved on core business applications supporting intake, adjudication, claims, task management, referrals, and settlement processes. From a developer’s perspective, there are various other subtle and important functionalities like event listeners, user role wizards, pre-defined email notifications, etc. which make the SDLC easier. Add to that, the BPMS comes with both simple to read and expansive documentation to help you with development. You also get access to the BizFlow User Community to find additional materials and collaborate with other BizFlow developers.
