Practical BPM: The Role of a Workflow Client

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By Rashid N. Khan

Business processes can involve a large number of end-users, both inside and outside the organization. The fundamental purpose of a workflow client is to enable all users to easily perform all their roles in an automated business process. Depending on the role played, a user will require different features and capabilities from a workflow client. These range from completing tasks and monitoring status, to advanced features such as managing subordinates and their tasks. The four major categories of end-users in business processes that might use a workflow client are:

1. Initiators are employees-at-large, customers and vendors who initiate business processes that require actions or decisions by workers. A workflow client must enable initiators to start new process incidents and check the status of these incidents. They generally do not participate in intermediate steps of the business process.
2. Workers are employees who participate in intermediate steps of the process to make decisions or take actions. Workers need to be notified of new tasks, warned if tasks are late, allowed to complete tasks and check the status of process incidents.
3. Supervisors need to manage the workload of workers and handle exceptions (such as the absence of a worker). They need the ability to check the status of incidents handled by their subordinates, as well as the ability perform, monitor and assign tasks to others.
4. Managers own the business processes and are interested in their performance metrics and optimization. They need the ability to capture metrics for optimizing processes and determining the resources needed to comply with demand.

This diversity of requirements results in the need to configure the workflow client user interface to the unique needs of different organizations, group, and workers.

The five major capabilities of the workflow client are the work inbox, management of subordinates, centralized client configuration, database connectivity and security.

Work Inbox

The primary role of the workflow client is to be the work inbox for the user. This is the application that users use to perform tasks related to business processes. While the email inbox is a place for the user to receive and send emails, the workflow client is the place to perform a variety of different tasks that may include purchase order approvals, document reviews, claims processing and submitting performance reviews. As the number of automated business processes installed by an organization increases, so will the variety of tasks that a user will have to perform in his workflow inbox. Users must have the ability to configure the workflow client to their specific work needs, which will differ for different processes and different roles.

There are two primary models for distributing tasks to users. The "push model" is like email. Tasks are pushed to the user’s inbox and appear in the task list. The user can select any task and perform it. This model is suitable if tasks are assigned to a specific user. The second model is the "pull model" that uses the concept of queues or shared inboxes. In this model tasks are placed in a queue and not sent to a specific individual. Any member of a group associated with a queue can "pull" a task from a queue and perform it. This model is suitable when tasks are assigned to a group and anyone in the group can perform it. Since each model is appropriate in different situations, a modern workflow client has to provide support for both.

Management of Subordinates

Email is personal. It is point-to-point communication between one user to another user, and nobody else needs to be involved in this communication. If other individuals do need to be involved, the sender makes a conscious decision to include them in the distribution list. Workflow, on the other hand, generally deals with the business of the organization. If an employee receives a task, it is important for management to know about the task and its status. If the task is not performed in the expected time frame, it is again important to have the ability to reassign the task to someone else in order to expedite it. This is where the management of subordinates and their work becomes important. It is possible to manage the workload of individual employees from a central application, such as the business process management (BPM) administrator. This is feasible, however, only in small organizations where the workflow manager may be aware of all users, their availability and work responsibilities. In medium and large organizations it is impractical to expect a workflow manager to be able to manage the workload of all employees and reassign tasks in case of absence or delays. The only practical way is to distribute the management of employees throughout the organization, and let every manager or supervisor manage the workload of their subordinates using the hierarchy dictated by the organization chart of the company. A supervisor is the best person to be aware of workload of team members, their availability and priorities.

The workflow client is the logical application for managing the workload of all participants. Modern workflow clients enable supervisors to not only work with their own tasks, but also with the tasks of their subordinates. This means the ability of viewing and performing these tasks, checking their status and assigning them to others. Every supervisor needs the flexibility to handle tasks of subordinates just as if they were his own tasks.

Centralized Client Configuration

An organization may have a large number of workflow participants, including partners and customers in addition to employees. The computer skills of these participants will vary. Moreover, the nature of the tasks they perform as a part of the workflow will also differ. Some may be involved in a variety of different general purpose processes, while others may be involved primarily in one or two high-volume processes that are very specific to the business of the company. A single user interface may not be sufficient to handle this diversity. A workflow client requires a centralized mechanism for tailoring the user interface for individuals (or groups of individuals) that makes the client more suitable for the type of work preformed or for the skill levels of the participants. With this capability the user interface can be controlled and modified from a central location, thereby making it easier to manage users and reduce the cost of ownership.

Database Connectivity

Another major difference between an email inbox and a workflow client is the need for database connectivity. Email messages do not need or provide any connections with databases. However, almost every business process deals with information that the process either collects or distributes in order to make effective decisions. A workflow client must provide a mechanism for connecting to corporate databases with speed and security. This sounds easy, but it is fairly complex because in most cases workflow clients are used remotely from the database and BPM servers, and the connections with these servers are infrequent but data intensive.

Security

Finally, providing security is one of the major roles of the workflow client. Business processes often deal with mission-critical information that is proprietary to the business. If an automated business process is deployed over the public Internet, the issue of security takes on even more importance. The workflow client must provide security in several different ways:

1. Authentication of users: The workflow client must ensure that users who log on are authenticated. If this is not the case, the information handled by the business processes will be compromised.
2. Authentication of signatures: The workflow client must ensure that users who sign documents or electronic forms are who they say they are. This is because a user may be away from her desktop after she has logged on successfully into the workflow client. During her absence someone else may be able to approve and sign items using her computer unless there is proper authentication of signatures the instant an electronic document or form is signed.
3. Data transmission security: The information that is transmitted from the BPM server to the workflow client must be secure and not vulnerable to interception.

Conclusion

A workflow client provides a rich inbox for human participants in an automated business process to perform their tasks.

Useful Links

This article is an excerpt from Rashid Khan's Business Process Management: A Practical Guide. Order your copy here:
http://www.bpmenterprise.com/yDQ

About the Author:

Rashid N. Khan is the founder and Chief Technical and Strategy Officer of Ultimus Inc., a pioneer in business process management and workflow automation. Prior to establishing Ultimus, founded Sintech Inc., a leader in advanced software for mechanical testing. Rashid sold Sintech to MTS Systems in 1989, where he worked for a five years as a vice president and general manager. During this period he took the company through ISO 9000 certification. This experience made him aware of the need for business process management and workflow automation. Rashid obtained two undergraduate degrees from MIT in computer science and political science. Khan is the author of Business Process Management: A Practical Guide, has published numerous articles and spoken at a number of events. Contact Rashid N. Khan at info (at) ultimus.com or visit http://www.ultimus.com.

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