Process360 10.0’s BPM Suite Improves ROI of Process Management Initiatives
Persona-based approach delivers out-of-the-box applications that address the unique needs of all people in a process
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Global 360, a process and document management solutions provider, today released Process360 10.0, a major new release of its business process management (BPM) suite that helps organizations improve people- and paper-intensive business processes. Process360 10.0 is based on Global 360’s persona-based BPM approach and delivers out-of-the-box applications that address the unique needs of all people in a process. The applications speed the development, deployment, and adoption of process management systems, which leads to faster time to market and return on investment (ROI).
“Global 360’s persona-based BPM is a dramatic departure from the BPM industry’s typical approach to process improvement initiatives,” said David Mitchell, president and CEO of Global 360. “Most efforts focus primarily on the productivity of the system developer, delivering tools that optimize the design and execution of process models. However, our research shows that the majority of the ROI associated with a BPM system is tied to how productive it makes process participants -- the people who use the system to get work done. Persona-based BPM allows our customers to meet the specific needs of process participants and bring the entire productivity equation back into by balance.”
Global 360 delivers persona-based BPM through viewPoint applications, which were developed after two years of customer research conducted by user- and interaction-design experts. The research showed that BPM systems today fail to adequately address the needs all of the people involved in a business process, and especially neglect process participants. For example, applications for process participants typically are built only after process models are completed and often by enterprise developers unskilled in modern interaction design.
“Observing and interacting with our customers helped us pinpoint why so many BPM systems hit a wall in delivering on expectations for user productivity gains,” said Mitchell. “Our industry has myopically focused on process automation -- how work moves through an organization -- and not enough on improving people productivity, which is how the work gets done.”
The persona-based approach starts with detailed models of what each type of user in a process needs to accomplish. Each type of user is then provided with unique “views” that include just what they need to get their jobs done. The views include information, tasks, and tools delivered through engaging and intuitive consumer-style interfaces and support established patterns of behavior, goals and motives. Users are free to personalize their views based on their individual preferences. In this way, viewPoint applications boost the efficiency of existing behaviors and empower process participants to adopt new ones -- truly changing how works get done.
For all their flexibility, viewPoint applications are ready to deploy out of the box. This means that BPM systems designers can quickly and easily deliver them for new users or applications with minimal configuring and no custom coding, further speeding the development and deployment of new BPM projects. Process360 10.0 includes the following viewPoint applications:
- viewPoint applications for the three main types of process participants -- data entry, processor and supervisor. These applications enable participants to interact more easily with documents and collaborate with other users in a process. They also eliminate workarounds, reduce paperwork and backlogs, and provide the flexibility to respond to changing business conditions.
- viewPoint applications for builders deliver cutting-edge process design and development tools for quickly modeling the most complex processes and automatically configuring and customizing user applications. Eliminating custom coding speeds time to deployment for even the most complex processes.
- viewPoint applications for managers provide dashboard reporting, dynamic workload balancing and analytics for end-to-end visibility into processes. This improved visibility gives managers the ability to better manage team and business performance.
Global 360 also leverages viewPoint applications as part of its solutionViews, which are frameworks designed to speed time to value for specific industries. Examples of solutionViews available now include: retirement and savings portfolio management; employee lifecycle management; underwriting and claims processing; customer to case; order to case; accounts payable; and eJustice case management.
Said Mitchell, “viewPoint applications increase the productivity of people who design and use BPM systems by 40 percent while cutting BPM system deployment time by 50 percent. In large enterprises with complex business processes, that can add millions of dollars in ROI to BPM projects and shave years off the time it takes to achieve it.”
Building on Existing Strengths
In addition to viewPoint applications, Process360 10.0 builds on existing strengths. For example, Process360 10.0’s case management capabilities make it easier for users to collect all of the documents in an unstructured process into an eFolder yet still execute sub-processes for each one individually. Processing a complex enrollment application, such as life insurance for a married couple, is just one situation where this is required. While the husband and wife are considered a single application, each may require a unique review based on medical history. Process360 10.0 uniquely provides capabilities to process these documents individually while still treating them as a single application.
Process360 10.0 also builds on a rich heritage of process and document management capabilities. For example, Process360 10.0’s document viewer enables users to view documents as part of a process, rather than forcing them to leave the process to view paper originals or switch to another application to view them in electronic form. Participants may also annotate documents before sending them along to the next step. Security is applied to the documents and annotations to ensure that only those users who are allowed to see the information have access.
In addition, Process360 10.0 process modeler improvements dramatically improve the efficiency of the developer. These include: a rich palette of more than 80 process tasks; auto-alignment and auto-connection of tasks on a map; automatic creation of sub-maps for sub-processes; and map tear-offs that allow developers to leverage dual monitors while working on multiple maps.
Process360 10.strengthens integration and support for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office 2007, InfoPath, and Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009.
Process360 10.0 is available now. All viewPoint applications come bundled with Process360 10.0 at no additional cost. Existing customers can gain access to viewPoint applications as part of their standard agreements when they upgrade to Process360 10.0. More information is available at www.global360.com/