Black Rhino

Workflow Management System
Introduction

Black Rhino is a new software package developed by Software Studios for business owners who want to reduce their operating costs and improve customer service. Black Rhino can be tailored to automate the business process workflow without the overhead of a programming staff, and improve it by visually identifying critical steps. Unlike other workflow management systems, Black Rhino employs agent technology to address the needs of mobile users and to make intelligent workflow decisions.

This document is an introduction to the Black Rhino architecture. It discusses what workflow is and how Black Rhino outshines traditional systems.

This paper doesn't assume you are a management or computer expert. However, familiarity with basic workflow or project management concepts, and experience with using Macintosh or other desktop PC software packages, will be useful.

Reengineering today's business

Today's economic climate really requires business owners to innovate ways to be competitive. One of the biggest challenges facing them is how to cost effectively provide customers with service and product. One way to accomplish this goal is to analyze and reengineering the business process itself.

A business process can consist of a myriad of business or legal procedural steps and relationships between the individuals who are responsible for them. Even in a small organization it can a bewildering task to comprehend them. It is common that even the business owners themselves are unaware of what is going on. But understanding a business's process the key to improving them.

The application of information technology has done much to automate everyday office tasks, such as typing or filing. But can this technology address the business process itself? Fortunately, there is a new form of software that provides the connection between office automation and the business process. This software is called workflow management.

A workflow management system works with office automation to insure:

• The responsible person ,
• gets instructions on what job needs to be done
• the actual data
• and the tools to do the job
• at the right point of time.

As a secondary goal, workflow management software can track and compile process performance information. This gives us the means to analyze and hopefully reengineer the business process. Workflow software helps us to find out:

What are we doing?

By structuring the steps of a business process in some intuitive or graphic form. In effect mapping the business process to workflow steps that allow us to visualize the process as a whole.


What is going on?

By controlling and monitor execution the process. We can look into the status of specific tasks. This is a key to customer satisfaction.


How well are we doing it?

By collecting and analyzing historical information on process performance we can pinpoint the bottleneck and problem areas, allowing us to make intelligent decisions on what needs to improve.


Armed with information from a workflow management system, the business owner is better able to understand its business process. The workflow system can also empower the business owner to quickly:

Reengineer

Be able to modify the process structure with the ease and simplicity of a drawing tool.

Prototype

Rapidly test the usability of any reengineering effort.

Implement

Visual changes in a workflow chart should result in direct changes in it's process automation.

Reengineering a business process is an ongoing activity. It is a constant cycle of adapting to changes in market or customer needs.

Workflow management software can be a very useful tool to do the process reengineering that business desire today. It is a compass that business owners can employ to navigate toward the shores of lower operating costs, better customer service, or higher sales. If these tools are well designed and easy to use they will return good dividends.

Common workflow implementation strategies

There are many ways to design a workflow management system. Document processing systems, enhanced E-mail, groupware note boards, and specialized database applications are popular as workflow solutions. Let's analyze the workflow alternatives available today.

More than document routing

Workflow has its roots in document or forms processing technology. Many early forms of workflow systems are patterned after document or forms routing automation. At the time, this appeared to be very practical. However modern computer technology delivers us fast concurrent access to information, no matter the location or mobility. Therefore it is no longer productive to just push documents around a network, especially in an enterprise wide system where bandwidth utilization is an expense issue. What we really seek from a workflow system is coordination of group behavior.

"Don't just move the data, move responsibility ."

Groupware

Another approach to workflow is to capitalize on the collaboration provided by bulletin boards or shared personal information managers. Products like Lotus Notes or Novell Groupwise have become very popular in the workplace.

These products present a fine way to share calendars or discussion forums but they do not describe any process structure. The user must either manually move items between to-do lists or automate the process via scripts or macros. Since these noteboards provide no visual clue of the process's workflow there isn't any intuitive sense of task completion. This makes it very difficult to generate feedback on process efficiency.

Further, higher end systems like Notes even require a programming staff to maintain them.


Databases Applications

A popular workflow management solution is to develop a custom database application. The policies and control of workflow are centrally managed by the database. This method has been a profitable source of income for the VARs and contractors who tailor systems to a specific organization's requirements, but it offers limited benefits to the business owner.

Database applications are expensive and time consuming to develop or modify. Database schemas don't map into visual representation of workflow, further it requires the involvement of a programming staff to make any changes. This hinders us from quickly redefining and prototyping a new workflow ideas.

"It is essential that we can rapidly prototype radical changes in our process structure"

This technique also assumes a centralized understanding of the business process. Yet, experience shows that the actual process details of an organization, especially in larger corporations, are not known to any one person. But since these systems require specialized knowledge to make any changes to a workflow, there is little opportunity for a group or user to customize their own realm of the business process.


"A key prerequisite to success with any BPR effort is the participation of its members."

Enhanced E-Mail

On the other end of the spectrum, the workflow policies can be distributed, this is what scriptable E­mail system offer. But this is just another twist on the forms routing paradigm, you're still pushing data around the network, but without the advantage of visual tools.


Since an E-mail in-box is usually private, it is also difficult to track the status of a task. Others in a collaborative process have no way of knowing whether a request has been handled, forwarded, or if it started a series of subtasks. Successful group coordination depends on this information.

In fact, once a message is placed in another user's private in-box it cant be removed by the sender. This make it difficult to ask a question to a group and retract it when it is answered, or even to place time limits on it's completion.


Workflow Enabled Applications

Apple and Microsoft having heard the piper, have decided to jump on the workflow bandwagon. Their latest marketing claim is integral operating system support for workflow enabled applications. They promise this with technologies like AOCE, MAPI or VIM.

This requires that the applications used in a workflow step must be modified to support the OS's E-mail hooks. This is something similar to conventional E-mail, but the messages travel between the applications. However, this E-mail technology is only part of a solution. You still have the same private in-box and lack of visual workflow issues to deal with.


Bona fide workflow systems

The really innovative vendors, recognized the above problems and developed software from scratch specifically to provide client-server workflow solutions. Most even provide visual flow development tools. These systems are viable alternatives to the E-mail or relation database model, and they model a process as a visual network of tasks or requests. But are they flexible enough to do the job?


For instance, one product ActionWorkflow, forces the business owner to buy into their model of task communication. ActionWorkflow represents a workstep as a relationship between a consumer and producer, with an integral request/response cycle. This is commendable, but they only allow for one result from a task, Done. What happens when a task cannot be satisfied? There is no clear way to describe the process exceptions that occur in the real world. Practical business process modeling demands that workflow software be flexible.

Workflow and mobil systems

Corporate acceptance of laptops and portable computers has been phenomenal. Mobil workers and telecommuters demand access to information while out of the office. The connection with their home office funnels through such transient media as dial in lines, cellular phones, and alphanumeric pagers. Some even use the Internet. But these media must be managed judiciously, considering that billing is based on connection time, bandwidth or packet count. Therefor the typical usage pattern requires that connections be established and terminated as needed. Further, these channels are rarely secure, in fact they are very vulnerable to unauthorized eavesdropping or access.

Yet the existing client-server based design of most workflow systems ignores these needs. Its model necessitates a full time network connection to do any useful work, and although dial-in network remote access products like ARA or PPP offers partial solutions, they burden the users with lower data rates of phone lines.

A viable alternative is to replace the outdated client server paradigm with the incorporation of store-and forward messaging agent technology combined with modern authentication and encryption. It is possible to design a workflow system around messaging systems that more intelligently and securely use the communication channels available.

A workflow system can employ a software agent which once injected into a workflow server can watch for events and collect desired information. This information can be transmitted to the remote user via a store-and forward messaging system, relieving the user from repetitively checking for changes in a task status.

Consider the following hypothetical workflow scenario;

Each day, problem reports are submitted by phone to MicroSlosh's corporation's customer service representatives, who in turn enter them into an automated workflow based problem report system. MicroSlosh's develops and supports software utilities.

MicroSlosh, the innovative organization that it is, has decided to control costs by encouraging their software developers to telecommute. A clever developer named Donna, working at home, suspects a problem with a component used in some of their utilities, but the problem is intermittent, and only manifests itself on certain configurations of hardware and software. Donna would like to be notified the next time a problem is reported with the suspect configuration.

In the traditional system, Donna would have to call in to manually scan the bug database several times a day, searching for the proper combination of keywords, but this week Donna has better things to do. Even automated as a macro, this search still wastes much time.

In an agent based system, Donna could configure a software agent to scan problem reports for key words and attach it to the appropriate steps of the bug report systems workflow. When the specific configuration is detected, a reference to that bug report is placed in the Donna's own workflow message in-box. Since this bug was important to Donna, she has programmed the agent to call her system at home when something is available. When she is satisfied that the source of the problem is located, Donna retires the agent.

Documents have a place in workflow

Modern software is redefining the meaning of "document." Formerly, a computer based document was considered to have a type or tag which associated it with the particular application needed to edit, view or print its contents. For example, one application might edit a spreadsheet and another to edit graphics. The result was that the user had to invest considerable money and training in different editors for each media, not to mention the time cutting, switching and pasting between applications.

Seeking to reduce the complexity of computing has prompted the introduction of the OpenDoc compound document architecture. An OpenDoc document's content is a collection of various media, such as text, graphics, tables, sound, video. The user can edit in place the various content parts of this document. But instead of a large monolithic application, the editing is done by a collection of plug-in components.

These components or part-editors are each independent programs that manipulate a particular kind of content. They however, have a uniform interface and user experience. This insures the user consistency of operation. When a user clicks on a piece of the document, OpenDoc automatically dispatches commands to the appropriate part-editor Gone are the days of learning the specifics of new software.

An added bonus of this approach is that user can now tailor whatever document functionality is needed by plugging in off the self components. In addition to editing compound documents, OpenDoc also presents an object based framework for developing a new kind of integrated application. By placing the specific functionality of an application in a part-editor, custom solutions can easily be assembled. It would be a matter of dropping the right parts into a piece of OpenDoc stationary.

For example, consider a network trouble ticket form. Besides the usual text fields, it could also include a part editor capable of displaying real-time visual network information. The built in access to real time data empowers the technician to be more productive.

In another scenario, a medical workflow system's patient record forms could include a field that allows manipulation a patient's 3-D MRI image. This form can also employ a part editor that issues SQL commands to an external medical library database.

Combining OpenDoc is with workflow results is a very powerful business tool. This marriage of technologies allows us to build business systems that were never considered practical before. OpenDoc is a great way to get the proper tools and data in users hands.

Making intelligent workflow decisions in real time

So far, we have concentrated on how a business processes workflow can be automated, as if it were some static structure. However a business process can undergo real-time changes as it adapt to circumstances.

Examine the workflow scenario of a firm that manufactures semi-custom widgets. Let's assume that they can assemble some limited number of widgets a week with their in-house facilities. Any higher demand requires them to contract assembly to an outside vendor, but this option requires the addition of more quality control steps to their workflow. On the other hand, when business is slow, the owner would like to rent out unused capacity. Further, the assembly throughput depends on the complexity of widgets.

In this case the workflow will vary depending on amount and type of items queued. What we want is to make decisions that affect our workflow based on real time or historical process information.

This is where metrics based workflow comes in.


Write more here about MBW rules/agents attached to wf, requests, etc, parameters

A workflow system wish list

A successful workflow system must fulfill a demanding list of requirements that today's businesses present. These are the some of the factors that drive the design of the Black Rhino workflow management system:

Rapid Prototyping

We want to reduce the time involved to prototype a workflow for a number of reasons. One is that our process workflow structure must keep up with the ever evolving market or customer needs.

And of course reducing the project startup cycle will result in lower deployment costs.

No Programming Staff Needed

The maintenance requirements of a system directly affect a business's fixed costs. This also shortens the revision cycle, which encouraging us to try out new process tactics. Although there might be some programming effort to build custom parts for our system, the management of flow itself should be available to non programmers.

User Tailorable

Since workers have a better understanding of their own part of a process. It should be possible for the bussiness owner to only have to describe the business process backbone and mission critical parameters then have the workers to fill in their own area of expertise. This results in wider acceptance and support of the reengineering effort.

In fact this incremental design of our process schema, building on more detail as we better understand the process, is a useful way to shorten the startup cycle of implementing a workflow system.

Flexible

Real world workflow is not static, not every contingency can be planned for. Any successful system must be able to make intelligent workflow decisions based on current or historical processing and allow for exceptions and ad hoc changes.

Integration

Just like any software that collaborates over a network, a workflow system should fit into a corporate network infrastructure. It should be designed to efficiently utilize network bandwidth, yet employ industry standard protocols and APIs capitalizing on existing and future name, messaging, scheduling and database services.

Mobil users

The proliferation of laptop and handheld computers present an opportunity for developing innovative business process workflow strategies. Minimizing bandwidth requirements, security needs and intelligent processing agents are important factors to consider if workflow system is to be adaptable to the mobil user.


Extendable

As with any complex software, workflow vendors can't anticipate all of a user's needs, but they can provide a means for customizing workflow behavior and functions. A standard API for third party plug-ins modules and a scripting or extension language should be available.

Historical Analysis

If we want to get better at something then we need to know how well we are doing right now. A workflow system should maintain a process milestone historical database, in effect learning about a process's performance. This data can be used to forecast if mission critical parameters can be met.


Metrics based workflow

The business owner requires that the business process operate within specified parameters. Agent technology can be used to insure that a workflow meets required guidelines.

The Black Rhino Architecture

Overview workspace,plans,steps, roles, rules, mailbox, client, server..

Steps in detail

options
requests
actions: accept, decline, reassign


Special Steps

Start, End,subplans, scripted steps, extensions

How to use Black Rhino

example plan
Serial tasks
parallel tasks

Delegation

to role, why role is important
to anyone in a group
to everone in a group

Tailorable

Each user can create custom plans
Dynamicaly modifiable

Syncronization

wait for task to complete, or start
get results of step
translate

Making decisions

Conditions and branching
Exception handling & rules
workflow agents

Metrics based systems

real time availability of flow information
make decisions based on flow
learning from the past, history mech & backup

Forms and OpenDoc

Getting information and the tools needed to work on them

Mobil Access & Messaging

S & F messaging for mobil users
External name servers
Integrates with infrastructure

Secure and Reliable

Authentication of requests
Data is kept at server.
Transactional Sync & Recovery service

Extensions & Add ons

Extenedable archtecture, plug -ins for developers, scripting language, OpenDoc

Future Plans

Multiplatform
gateways to other WF systems
HSM and workflow records..