Each business is unique and requires custom management policies. Defining business goals and how to execute them is critical. Another important aspect of business management is managing changes because the enterprise's policies change over time. Effective Business Process Management requires specialized training practices, including:
Ideally, you want to automate the management process as much as possible. It is also highly desirable to make the general language so that the process can be modified without affecting the basic IT implementation. Business Process Management is a logical combination between workflows and application integration. It transfers the process flow from the IT level to a more abstract business level.
What is Business Process Management?
Business process re-engineering focuses on simplifying and automating processes to achieve business goals more efficiently. The steps used for process redefinition are:
To make improvements, you must be familiar with the existing or current process steps. First, the analysts capture the current process in the model and related support data to simulate the process and compare it with the process after the re-engineering. Current process modeling allows business analysts to determine and quantify existing process difficulties.
After the current process is analyzed and documented, business analysts can redefine subprocesses by automating user-centric tasks (such as replacing written work with business applications and integrating applications to prevent redundant data entries.
Define business processes
There is a difference between simply modeling a flow and capturing a business flow. Analysts must also understand all associated business models to truly monitor and manage the entire business process. This includes adding resource values, which can be calculated and measured based on the business goals that ensure that the business meets the defined goals.
Analysts must record all important aspects of the process:
When analysts study the process and collect data, they will record the following:
Websphere Business Modeler allows modeling of each element related to the business. This includes business items (such as documents, work products or products), notifications (such as alerts), and resources (such as personnel, equipment, and materials ). In addition, you can model every item (such as person, device, or material) in the business that is used to execute a process or task for use in flowcharts. You can also model roles (add more features to resources) and timelines (Model resources or role availability ).
In addition, you can create a model for each organization entity and position in the business. Examples of organizational entities include enterprises, companies, departments, and teams. Location examples include geographic areas, offices, factories, and sales areas. Then they can be associated with the elements in the business flow chart, or they can be used to create a structure chart to model the organizational relationship between the model elements.
All in all, the multidimensional business models involved in reliable process definitions include:
IBM Global Services provides a full set of courses for the business integration product suite. For more information, see the IMG training website.
Modeling Organization and related attributes
In addition to capturing what needs to be done, who is doing the job, and the target of the job, you must also understand who is responsible for each task from the perspective of organization and geography. This can be achieved through modeling the associations between tasks, resources, roles, organizational units, and involved locations.
There are four types of organizational elements:
The folder function of the organization Directory allows you to group related organizations, locations, and structure sets. Each time you create a project, two organization directories are automatically created for you. The first directory is named organizations, which can be used to store your own elements. The second directory is predefined organizations, which contains the default organization definitions. You can use these definitions to create organization units without having to create them first.
Structure allows you to create reusable templates and define a set of attributes that can be used across multiple organization definitions. Each organizational definition created using a template inherits the attributes of the template. In addition, any changes made to the template will be inherited by all other Organization definition templates, organization definitions, and organization units that directly or indirectly reference the modified template.
Organization definition is used to define a specific organization unit. Each organization unit must reference an Organization definition. After creating organization definitions, you can use them to create organization units and structure definitions.
An organizational unit represents a specific organizational unit within an organizational unit. Each organizational unit must be defined based on an organizational unit that defines its attributes.
In addition to Organization elements, the modeler tool also supports location elements. The location model is used to model specific locations of interest to the Organization. Like an organization, each location is defined based on a specific location, which specifies the attribute used to define the location. You can create a unique location instance by providing a value for the attribute defined in the location definition.
Model Business items and related attributes
Business items represent objects used by business operations, such as business documents, work products, or products. They go through changes and pass from a process step to the next process step, and form the basis of the basic process data or information model.
Like an organization, a data directory can be used to template, define, and group business items. Similarly, a business item template provides a method to capture a set of attributes in a reusable structure, which can then be used by the item definition. Then, by providing specific values for relevant properties, You Can instantiate a business item definition as a business item.
Modeling resources and related attributes
Each time you create a project, two resource directories are automatically created for you. The first directory is named resources, which can be used to store your own elements. The second directory is predefined resources, which contains the default resource definitions. You can use these definitions to create resource instances without having to create definitions for them first.
Resources are different from services. As described in the previous section, business items are the entities for work. Resources indicate who is doing the job or the required prerequisites, and include personnel, equipment, or materials. There are two types of resources: independent and batch. A single resource is a resource that requires a specific instance, while a batch resource is a resource that can be used when a random instance in the pool is used. Examples of individual resources include personnel and computers, and examples of batch resources include power and water.
Batch resources can represent materials used to execute projects or tasks. They can be non-consumable (such as employees, vehicles or equipment) or consumable (such as fuel or printer paper ). Consumable resources are reduced or even used up during the process.
Batch resources can be defined as non-uniquely identified resources, but whether the resources can be determined may depend on how they are used. Therefore, Resource Modeling depends on the angle of the modeled process and the purpose of the process.
The available time period of the resource may have been specified. To specify availability, you can use an existing timetable or create a new one to specify the available time period. If a resource availability is not specified, it is assumed that the resource is always available. You can also add costs and qualifications for resources. Qualifications are the specific roles that the resource must meet.
Once defined, resources can be associated with tasks in the process flow. You can also use a resource definition template to allow one-time template creation and attribute definition. This is very useful for resources with common attributes, and such resources represent the value or instance defined by the resource. In addition, like an organization, a resource directory is a container that can contain resource definition templates, resource definitions, and resources.
Roles and timelines add additional features to resources. A role is a set of functions used to define a specific resource. A timeline is used to model the availability of resources or roles or the time at which specific costs are applied.
Process Flow Modeling
A process is a representation of a real-time business flow. A process consists of steps or activities, conditions that indicate the occurrence time of these steps and activities, and resources required for the performance or execution of the process.
Both processes and tasks represent activities executed in the business. However, a process is more complex than a task and can be expressed as an activity sequence linked by control and data flow. This sequence is called a flow as a whole. On the contrary, tasks are atomic activities and cannot be divided into smaller operations.
There are two types of processes: global and local. The global process is displayed in the project tree and can be used across multiple processes in the project. Partial flows (or subflows) are only displayed in the flowchart of their parent flows.
The process can contain the following local elements:
Using decisions in a process allows you to execute the process in many different ways, depending on the results of each decision. Each possible execution path is called a case.
The process definition includes the following parts:
The global flow must be opened from the project tree for editing. For example, you can drag a global flow to a graph and create a connection between it and other flows or tasks in the graph, provided that the global flow contains the appropriate input and output. Otherwise, you must enable the global process specifications and make changes.
The labels of all flows can be displayed in the graph to show some features at a glance. You can specify up to two tags, one on the top and the other on the bottom, and select from the following content:
Process connection
Connects the chronological order of activities in a specified process. Each task, subflow, decision, or other element passes control to the next task or element along a connection.
If the process you want to create starts from receiving input, you do not need to use the default Start node added when creating the graph. Instead, you need to directly connect to the border of the graph to specify the input to the process. Similarly, you connect to the border on the right hand side to indicate the expected process output to the process. You can use the stop node in the figure to indicate that the process has completed a specific decision flow.
Finally, you need to link a business item with each connection that needs to be passed between elements in the process flow.
Classifier
You can use a classifier to classify tasks and other process elements to optimize the process and easily identify elements with specific feature sets. There are several predefined classifiers. You can also define your own classifier and classifier value. In the flowchart, classifier allows you to quickly view elements with certain features. For example, you can view tasks in an existing process for quality control, or quickly identify all tasks that do not add actual business value to the process. Classifier allows you to classify elements with a common feature and then assign a certain color to the feature.
Each time you create a project, two classifier directories are automatically created for you. The first directory is named classifiers, which can be used to store your own elements. The second directory is named predefined classifiers, which contains the default classifiers definitions. You can use these definitions to create classifiers without having to create them first.
Layout
There are two available flow la s: A lane and a free format. The track layout allows you to display flow activities based on specific properties, helping you visually identify activities with certain characteristics. The free format allows you to place elements anywhere on the editor surface.
The track layout allows you to adjust attributes by moving activities to different lane rows. It also displays the elements in the graph according to the specified category. After creating many elements in the graph, it is very difficult to cancel the specific attributes of those elements without selecting each element and checking its attributes. By switching to the track layout, you can quickly display activities based on certain features (such as resource definition, role, or location.
Tips and techniques for Process Modeling
Modeler helps the system provide links to the following topics, including ideas and shortcuts that can make Websphere Business Modeler faster and easier to use.
Defining a set of standards to maintain a consistent process model is a good practice. The process modeling standards provide the team with public languages. Public languages can improve project efficiency and reduce misunderstandings.
We recommend that you standardize the names and levels of elements to be included. The most important thing is to keep the model related to the business context. Select the name and model relationship in the business operation as much as possible. Remember that the model represents the view of business analysts so that they can be measured based on business goals. The model should be independent of IT implementation.
The process and task should follow the naming conventions of "dynamic objects", as shown in figureCreate a sales order. The task name should be concise. Decision-making and selection can simplify the flowchart and should be presentedHas the loan been approved?And so on.
Finally, defining the scope is critical to the success of the business process model. Document the project goals and objectives, identify stakeholders and ensure their participation, and clearly define the project schedules and plans to monitor and track normal progress.
Import and Export
Import model component
Websphere Business Modeler allows you to import information from various sources to quickly build business process models.
The information used by Websphere Business Modeler may already exist in another application, tool, or another copy of Websphere Business Modeler, or in another file format. Websphere Business Modeler provides a wizard to help you import this information to a new project or an existing project. The wizard supports the following types of import:
Once the import wizard is complete, it starts the import process. During the import process, check whether the imported element has the same name as the existing element. If a duplicate name exists, the imported element will be renamed during the import process. However, when importing a Websphere Business Modeler project, you can rewrite the existing elements. If you choose not to rewrite, elements with duplicate names will not be imported during the import process.
The import process also verifies the content. If a problem such as invalid characters is found, the process will fix the problem so that the import can continue. When the import process is completed, you can view the problems it encountered and fixed. After the import is complete, Websphere Business modeler verifies the new content.
Export model component
After modeling a business flow, Websphere Business Modeler allows you to export information to another application, for example, to implement this business flow. You can also export a project so that others can import it for viewing and processing.
Websphere Business Modeler provides a wizard to help you import this information into a format that can be read by another application. The wizard supports the following types of export:
Important: models created in Websphere Business Modeler cannot work properly in other tools. When converting files, you should know the following:
Use modeler products in a collaborative environment
Websphere Business Modeler Publishing Server supports model checking and commenting in the Web-based collaboration team environment. Model publishing involves sending consistent models to the Publishing Server. To achieve consistency, model elements from different Websphere Business Modeler instances must be integrated.
The Publishing Server provides a way for people who do not have Websphere Business Modeler to view and comment business process models. It uses a set of Portlet to display models in a web browser. The Portlet generally corresponds to the four panes used by Websphere Business Modeler.
The recommended method for publishing a project is to separate publishing from modeling. Therefore, publishing a project involves the following steps:
To support collaborative business modeling, project version control allows team members to work from a public source and track model changes as models evolve. The repository view supports the Concurrent Version System (Concurrent Versions System, CVS) or rational clearcase.
Understand the limits and constraints of change management
Any changes may conflict, especially when team members make changes to the same version of the project at the same time. Any element with incoming and outgoing changes may cause a conflict. In the event of a conflict, You can explicitly modify the change. They must carefully check changes to ensure model consistency. You must balance the need for a public repository (to share model projects among team members) with the costs for managing and controlling changes.
Please note that using a shared repository does not guarantee consistent integration models. The repository contains model elements of different versions that may be mutually dependent. Different Versions make it very difficult to build a consistent model.
Use import and export to share projects
You can use import and export to share projects among team members. This sharing allows multiple people to contribute to model development. We recommend that you use the following process when importing and exporting shared projects:
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