Based on. NET development of workflow software

Microsoft is the mainstream of modern enterprise information management systems, and the combination of. NET-based workflows and Microsoft's product architecture can maximize the value of IT investments. Workflow concept originates from the field of production organization and office automation, is a concept that has fixed program activities in daily work, and there are a variety of workflow systems at home and abroad, the industry standard is various, although the main function of workflow is more well-known domestic workflow software basically have, but the focus of the function is different , adding enterprise to the workflow or BPM selection difficulty, I choose the current domestic market mainstream professional workflow software, from the concept, workflow engine, workflow process modeling tools, process operations, workflow client architecture, process monitoring, form designer and integration with the application and other aspects of analysis and comparison, Help Enterprises to choose the workflow or BPM products.

First, overview:

The idea of workflow first originated in Western countries, the first goal is to simplify the work flow, to provide the basis for tedious work. With the continuous extension of the demand and the continuous popularization of the enterprise Informationization, the work flow is popularized by the enterprise's internal use, of course, the demand that the workflow can satisfy is also continuously optimized.

The concept of workflow originates from the field of production organization and office automation, and it is a concept that has fixed program activity in daily work, which aims to carry out these tasks and monitor them according to certain rules and processes to improve work efficiency, better control process and Enhance the customer service, effective management of business processes and other purposes. Although the workflow has achieved considerable success, the definition of workflow has not yet been unified and clear, and different scholars have made different definitions of workflow from different angles.
The workflow definition given by Georgakopoulos is that a workflow organizes a set of tasks to complete a business process: Defines the trigger order and trigger conditions for a task, each of which can be done by one or more software systems, or by one or a group of people. It can also be done by one or more individuals in collaboration with the software system.
IBM Almaden Center defines a workflow as a computerized representation of the business process, defining all the parameters needed to complete the process, including the definition of each step in the process, the order and condition of the steps executed, Who is responsible for the steps and the applications needed for each activity.
The 1993 Workflow Management Alliance (Workflow Management COALITION,WFMC) was established as a standardization organization for workflow management, marking the gradual maturation of workflow technology. WFMC defines a workflow as a workflow that is a class of business processes that can be fully automated, delivering and executing documents, information, or tasks between different performers according to a set of process rules.
Workflow from the English word workflow, is a combination of work and flow flows, is a computer can be interpreted and implemented to reflect the business process flow of the computerized model.

Ii. the difference between BPM and workflow

To put it simply, BPM focuses on the business flow, and the workflow focuses on the approval flow, which differs from the following:

1, business flows tend to span multiple business systems, and approval flows often involve primarily a system.

2, business flows tend to involve multiple business functions, multiple business objects, and approval flow often involves only one key business object.

3, business flow involves the flow of different business documents, and approval flow is often the same business document status changes.

4. Activities in the business flow include both human activities and automated business activities, and approval flows are generally manual approval activities.

For process modeling, BPM focuses on business process modeling, while workflow is concerned with approval flow modeling. BPM modeling requires consideration of business people's modeling needs and usability, but inevitably leads to the failure of the modeled content to fall into the ground. Workflow modeling itself has been refined into a functional module of the approval flow, relatively simple and easy to implement implementation.

BPM business processes often span business systems, span multiple business documents, and need to deal with different business rules and logic. Workflow activity nodes tend to handle only approval and signing tasks, and have relatively little interaction with the outside world.

Business rules appear in BPM business process modeling, and general workflow processing generally supports script code for simple business rules, BPM to ensure the reusability and independence of the rules themselves, the rules engine is introduced, the rule engine forms a uniform rule creation and maintenance library, BPM itself is no longer responsible for the creation and maintenance of rules, but simply on-demand consumption.

BPM is focused on process integration, and process integration is a collaboration between multiple business function modules in multiple business systems, and if you start with BPM to implement these business functions, it is often counterproductive, and the first step in BPM is still the process integration across business systems. The focus of process integration lies in the data transfer between processes. Knowing that the focus of BPM should be placed on process collaboration and monitoring, while sub-processes or an independent business module implementation is still in the original business system, through the end-to-end process integration to achieve the system between the business modules, this on the one hand to maximize the use of existing IT assets, and realize the needs of process integration.

Third, workflow platform and the level of vendor classification

There are two types of workflow platforms: one is the rapid development platform, the other is the business platform (or the provision of related business suites).

The rapid development platform consists mainly of electronic forms, a set of development frameworks and the ESB and SOA facilities needed for advocacy.

The business platform includes packages/modules for file management, online editing, instant messaging, electronic stamps, portals, content management, human resources, customer service, administration, and more. Compared with the simple rapid development platform, the business platform obviously stands at a higher level. In software development, the biggest waste often lies not in the technology itself, but in the unfamiliar business, in the core domain model of the frequent changes. For users, choosing the right business platform and related services as needed will undoubtedly produce the greatest value.

Why do some vendors provide a fast development platform, and some vendors provide a business platform? This depends on two aspects, one is the manufacturer cut into the workflow market years, the longer the years, the more accumulated a wealth of project experience, these experiences can easily be converted into business suite, the second is the manufacturer's customer positioning.

Based on the above discussion, it is not difficult to divide the workflow vendors into 3 categories:

1, only provide workflow products. This type of manufacturer product is single, although the product quality can be guaranteed, but the development is most difficult.

2, provide workflow products and rapid development platform. This type of vendor provides a development framework based on workflow to further simplify programming, which is more competitive than the first type of vendor, but its development is limited by system integrators. At the same time, it should be noted that some manufacturers focus on the development platform, workflow product level is very general or even primary.

3, provide workflow products and business Suite/platform, while receiving projects by themselves. This is the current survival of the relatively good manufacturers, many are established manufacturers or have sufficient funds. Business Suite/platform provides maximum value to the user. At any time, the direct face of the end user is kingly.

Vendors who choose to provide workflow-related business suites, such as providing portals and collaborative OA products, generally implement a relatively small risk!

Iv. analysis and comparison of mainstream workflow vendors

I chose the mainstream of domestic market workflow software manufacturers: Bo Hui Digital, Shanghai with the creation of software, Oriental Ewei, Xi ' an synergy, Yan Huang Power, Beijing Bo Hao Technology and other comparative analysis, from whether to meet workflow standards, rapid development capabilities, integration capabilities, automated testing capabilities, Openness, load balancing capability, support mobile approval seven dimensions for comparative analysis, help enterprises to provide reference for workflow or BPM product selection.

conforms to Workflow standard

TD data-mce-= "" >

manufacturer name	rapid development capabilities	integration Capabilities	Automation test	Open	load Balancing	support Mobile approval
Hakata digital	conforms to	good	weak	not supported	General
Shanghai Portable software	< P align= "Center" data-mce-= "" > conforms to	General	weak	not supported	General	support	not supported
Orient Easy dimension	conforms to	good	good	not supported	General		support
XI ' an synergy	conforms to	excellent	weak	not supported	General	support
Yan Huang Power	conforms to	good	good	not supported	good	not supported	support
Beijing Bo Hao Technology	Meet	Excellent	Excellent	Support	Liang	Support	Support

Summarize:

1, through the above analysis, domestic workflow products basically follow the WFMC standard or other workflow standards, but the functional focus of each vendor is different.

2, the rapid development ability mainly from the visual process model design, visual form design, form control richness, logic packaging capacity, user convenience and other aspects of comparative analysis, in this dimension, Xi ' an synergy and Beijing Bo Hao technology performance prominent, they on the process elements of a relatively deep encapsulation, Supports a variety of form designs, with a high degree of control richness.

3, the integration ability mainly from the OA system, SAP system, ERP system, CRM system and other business systems integration capabilities and integration architecture, business object combination, high availability and high reusability and other aspects of comparative analysis. Domestic manufacturers general integration capacity is weak, Beijing Bo Hao technology in the integration capability of outstanding performance, encapsulated in the SAP, SharePoint and other business integration, support business objects re-composition, high availability and high reusability performance, and other manufacturers mostly remain in the WebService call level.

4, automated testing, if the manual process of testing is very time-consuming and laborious, and once the process changes, and have to do it again, the workload is huge, whether there is a process simulation function is an important standard of workflow software selection, in this dimension, only Beijing Bo Hao technology in line with.

5, in terms of openness, whether to provide a rich and friendly two development interface, database and Web program openness will directly affect the future of the user's IT investment returns, or a change must rely heavily on vendors, is a workflow software selection of an important standard. In this regard, Yan Huang Power and Beijing Bo Hao technology performance better.

6, the performance of the system is undoubtedly an important factor affecting the success of the implementation of the system, I mainly from whether to support load balancing, can be archived, stripping longer business data, the clarity of the architecture and other aspects of the comparative analysis.

7, mobile Office is a trend in the future, whether to support mobile approval, not only shows the manufacturer's technology forward-looking, but also show the technical strength of the manufacturers, even if users temporarily do not use mobile approval, but also to consider the workflow vendor a hidden dimension.

V. Scope of workflow applications

The application of workflow management software to practical work is widely used, in particular:

• in personnel management, staff training arrangements, performance evaluation, job change processing, Employee file information and other effective processing;
• in terms of finance, it is able to process payment requests, receivables, daily reimbursement, travel reimbursement, budget and plan applications, etc.
• in special services, we can implement ISO series correspondence process, quality management correspondence process, product data information management, trading Company declaration processing, Logistics company cargo tracking processing and other through the form of gradual manual transfer of tasks completed.