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GCN Home > 02/07/05 issue

Process makes perfect

By Joab Jackson, GCN Staff

When simple workflow software isn’t enough, business process management tools deliver

When Prince William County, Va., decided to automate the routing of internal forms, it found that standard workflow software wasn’t up to the job. The county’s business processes, which bridged different applications, were just too complex. Instead, the county tapped an emerging type of application—business process management software.

At first glance, BPM software looks similar to standard, electronic forms-based workflow software. But BPM software is “workflow on steroids,” said Jim Sinur, a vice president at IT research firm Gartner Inc. of Stamford, Conn. BPM may incorporate e-form workflow functionality, but it also allows easy integration with such other applications as customer relationship management software, allowing agencies to extend their workflow across the enterprise.

To serve its 4,000 employees, Prince William County had more than 30 different personnel forms either on paper or circulated in electronic form. Conducting personnel matters was slow and prone to error. Since the county had many offices, workers frequently drove from one location to another just to deliver a form. Up to 20 percent of the forms would be lost or inexplicably delayed en route.

While it might have seemed like what the county needed was a workflow system, a basic workflow application or add-on module would not do, according to Maneesh Gupta, information systems chief for the county.

“It is a lot more than a form that is automated,” Gupta said. The data crossed boundaries between human resource and payroll software from StarGarden Software Ltd. of Vancouver, B.C., and document management software from Documentum Inc. of Pleasanton, Calif. Also, to automate the flow of some forms, complex calculations had to be made to determine who should receive the form next.

The county purchased Business Process Management Suite from Ultimus Inc. of Cary, N.C., which provided the interfaces to the other applications. Purchasing the software and setting up the system ran about $200,000, but the investment paid off within 18 months, according to a study the county commissioned from Nucleus Research Inc. of Wellesley, Mass. Instead of filling out forms and sending them to the personnel office, employees could conduct business through the county’s wide area network.

More news on related topics: Business Process Management, Content / Record Management, State & Local



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