Microsoft Workflow Foundation, SharePoint Workflow Designer and HandySoft BizFlow BPM: Product Differences and Synergies

Transcription

1 White Paper Microsoft Workflow Foundation, SharePoint Workflow Designer and HandySoft BizFlow BPM: Product Differences and Synergies HandySoft 3141 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 850 Falls Church, VA T:

2 Table of Contents Introduction:... 3 Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF): A Brief Overview... 3 Comparison between Microsoft WWF and BizFlow BPM... 5 Commonly Asked Questions... 8 What are the differences in graphical workflow functionality?... 8 Is BizFlow BPM based on Microsoft WWF? Can BizFlow processes leverage WWF, and vice versa? Does BizFlow support.net framework 3.0? When should one use Microsoft WWF? Conclusion...13 References

3 Introduction: In late 2006 Microsoft released the following: Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) SharePoint Workflow Designer Microsoft Vista operating system Office 2007 WWF is a part of.net Framework 3.0 that is also available for Windows XP and Windows 2003 operating systems. Office 2007 and SharePoint 3.0 leverage WWF to provide basic built in workflow functionality. With the release of WWF, many organizations have asked about the difference between this new Microsoft product and a Business Process Management (BPM) product such as BizFlow from HandySoft. This whitepaper addresses product similarities and differences by: 1. Providing an overview of Microsoft WWF 2. Comparing and contrasting Microsoft WWF with BizFlow BPM Herein we shall illustrate that SharePoint Workflow Designer and BizFlow based BPM solutions are markedly different as well as complementary. Rather than comparing the two, organizations should consider how WWF in conjunction with BizFlow can be used to make more powerful workflow and process driven solutions. Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF): A Brief Overview The best way to understand WWF is to use the description provided by Microsoft. The following explanation of WWF is reproduced verbatim from an official MSDN blog written by the Microsoft Technical Product Manager for WWF: WWF is a software developer technology: Itʹs the programming model, engine and tools for building workflow enabled software on Windows It gives software developers a model driven tool which is higher level but still integrated with.net code Itʹs seriously extensible to enable a wide range of software development projects that require process execution or business logic execution 3

4 Itʹs targeted at Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) both Microsoft products and external product developers. We spend a lot of time planning the features for this audience Itʹs been successfully used by many MS products and customer projects despite only being released in Nov 2006 WWF is not a software product It doesnʹt have a server process that you can directly run in a data center, you have to build this or integrate with IIS It doesnʹt have administrative tools, reporting tools, management tools or monitoring tools. We have some samples for these that you can work into your software products. The workflow designer is best suited to developers, NOT business analysts. Though I have heard of some projects using our designer with a business analyst teaming up with a software developer and our designer is freely redistributable. It doesnʹt have tools that IT Pros need or end users need. Itʹs focused only on what software developers need To review, WWF is a great technology for building software that has process, workflow or business logic requirements. Software products can benefit from this by using a common lower level engine and focus on implementing business value for their users. But donʹt think WWF is a product you can directly deploy for an end customer. (Source: Microsoft Website, Paul Andrew, Windows Workflow Foundation Technical Product Manager at Microsoft, doeswindows workflow foundation WWF compare to product x.aspx Posted: Tuesday, January 16, :01 PM by pandrew) 4

5 Comparison between Microsoft WWF and HandySoft BizFlow In the description above, Paul Andrew, Microsoft Product Manager, clearly defines some of the differences between WWF and BizFlow. In addition there are several other important differences that need to be emphasized. They include: Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation Client side Design (process model and rules) Developer community Developer oriented BizFlow by HandySoft Client side and Server side process management o Portlets (BizCoves) o Work lists o Monitor work lists o Initiate work lists o Configuration (naming conventions) o Reporting o Search and sorting o Work Item Handling o Assignment o Completion o Comments o Forwarding o Reassignment o Exceptions Design (process model and rules) Forms Developer Simulation Configurable User Interfaces Monitoring Reporting Tasking (unstructured modeling and rules) Administration Integration Business Activity Monitoring Developer Community Business user, analysts, and process owner oriented WWF is a development technology that is developer oriented. BizFlow is a BPM software platform that both business analysts and developers can use to design, execute, and administrate process driven applications. WWF is a set of.net classes that developers can use to implement process and workflow functions in their programs. It is not suited for non developers such as business analysts who now commonly act as intermediaries between business users and developers. In contrast, BizFlow has been created predominantly for use/develop/configure/deploy by business analysts. 5

6 Furthermore, BizFlow is a more complete human centric solution framework. BizFlow is an integrated software package having: Process Modeling o Structured business processes o Ad hoc routing o Dynamic tasking Forms Modeling Workflow Creation Tying together the process model with the forms to ensure participants follow explicit rules, policies, procedures, roles and responsibilities) Simulation/analysis Configurable UI Work Area Page and several configurable BizCoves Configurable Reports Integration/SOA Integrating workflow to other applications for automating data entry, validation, and archival o Portals (e.g., Sharepoint, Aualogic) o Document Management Systems (e.g., Documentum, Sharepoint, LiveLink) o Microsoft Outlook o User Group Hierarchies, security, authority, and auditability o LDAP Business Activity Monitoring o Personalized Dashboards o Real Time Event Capture o Real Time Alerts o KPI Management o Action Management With WFF all of these capabilities have to be individually programmed and developed a mammoth build for any development team. For example, WWF does not have process modeling or any of its capabilities (modeling, optimizing, and documentation). In contrast, BizFlow provides the BizFlow Process Studio Client for these feature rich capabilities. Please find below further detail on individual BPM components. Process Modeling Expanding on the notion of process modeling, WWF does not have any collaborative design capabilities enabling teams of users to develop and modify processes without significant programming. BizFlow can be configured to allow Project Managers, Designers, Publishers and Guests to collaborate on process models and forms. WWF also does not have any process routing methods. In contrast, BizFlow comes with functionality to not only create structured models, but also support ad hoc routing as well as completely dynamic tasking. This offering is an industry first! In the 2007 Forrester Wave Vendor Summary, Colin Tuebner states, By giving end users the option of using org charts instead of process maps to track the status of work in process, the company [HandySoft] has implemented a ʹdesign for peopleʹ paradigm that positions 6

7 BizFlow well for correspondence tracking and other ad hoc processes for information workers. Forms Design WWF does not have any forms capabilities. Workflows built solely on Windows SharePoint Services can define their forms as ASPX pages, while those using Office SharePoint Server can also use forms created with InfoPath. With BizFlow, customers can use available BizFlow forms or JSP/ASP/.NET forms, Adobe Acrobat Forms, MS Office Forms (Word, Excel), or simply display a URL for user input. User Interface / Workflow Creation WWF does not have any client or inbox. This means that it cannot support user worklists, process monitoring, process initiation, assignment, collaboration, and reporting. As a result, WWF does not have any Organization Chart or any capabilities for role based routing, an especially challenging requirement in many matrix based organizations. In contract, BizFlow can create an Organization Chart based on User Group hierarchies or by importing via LDAP integration. Even though WWF Users can leverage SharePoint as a client, the integration requires significant development. In contrast, BizFlow clients can be configured to plug into SharePoint with complete BizFlow Work Area Page features and functionality. This functionality draws from BizFlow JSR 168 compliance. WWF does not have any exception handling capabilities. Nor does it have dynamic tasking and tracking capability from a structured process. BizFlow comes with both Reporting Because WWF does not have any reporting capabilities it does not provide any out of box reports. BizFlow provides Configurable Reporting BizCoves (aka portlets) to report against BizFlow and other data. SOA Integration WWF does not support both internal and external process execution. In contrast, BizFlow can publish processes as Services or consume external Services to execute processes in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This Web services could be both based on a JAVA or.net platform. WWF does not have any process administration capability. As the name Workflow Foundation makes clear, WWF is a foundation or a building block for workflow. These building blocks can be used by developers to build a BPM solution and all its many modules that are listed above. On the other hand, BizFlow is a complete BPM platform that can be used out of the box by both developers and business analysts to rapidly deploy and adapt BPM solutions without programming 7

8 Due to these fundamental differences it does not make sense to compare WWF with the BizFlow BPM Suite. Commonly Asked Questions In order to provide further detail regarding product differences and synergies, we will address commonly asked questions. What are the differences in graphical workflow functionality? Microsoft provides two different tools for defining workflows, each targeting a different audience. 1. Workflow Designer Workflow Designer is made for Software Developers. Software developers can use WWF Workflow Designer hosted in Visual Studio Microsoft s graphical workflow designer is a Visual Studio 2005 edition that allows a C# or VB.NET programmer to arrange activities (basic activities in the picture below on the left) to a workflow, and combine them into complex activities (in the middle). While creating the workflow, developers generate C# or VB.NET program code constructs, which have to be completed with his program code (right window). WWF Visual Studio 8

9 2. Office SharePoint Designer This tools is geared toward information workers. Information workers or Business Analysts, a less technical group, can use Office SharePoint Designer to create workflows without writing code. Office SharePoint Designer uses a rule based approach. It s somewhat similar to the Rules Wizard in Outlook. With these capabilities very basic and simple flows can be created with limited actions. Usually, this is started with a basic and non parallel flow and it is complemented with code WWF Designer Rule Approach These Microsoft tools are different from BPM platforms such as BizFlow. WWF is used to create simple, never changing wokflows. BizFlow is used to create simple to highly sophisticated processes involving many rules, forms, and persons to route, approve, monitor, and archive work. Creating graphical workflow maps is a very small part of BPM. The majority of the capabilities that BPM provides are for end users, analysts, IT and administrators to model, automate, execute, monitor, measure and optimize business processes. This 9

10 includes tasks such as form design, simulation, optimization, exception handling, status checking, creating task lists, generating alerts and reports, and many more. Simply the ability to create flow charts does not merit an application be classified as a BPM solution. Find below examples of BizFlow s extensive BPM capabilities: BizFlow Provides Sophisticated Modeling and Routing with Approval and Rejection. 10

11 BizFlow Provides Work Lists, Reports, and Real Time Monitoring BizFlow Provides Workflow Auditing & Tracking 11

12 BizFlow Provides Initiation and Tracking for Structured Workflows and Dynamic Tasks Is BizFlow BPM based on Microsoft WWF? No, HandySoft launched BizFlow BPM in WWF is a new technology that is a part of.net 3.0. As such, WWF is in its first generation. BizFlow has evolved over the last decade as a BPM platform with ready to use, tightly integrated modules for out of the box BPM capabilities. Business and IT users can use it to deploy robust solutions quickly and be able to change them quickly. BizFlow can work on core Microsoft technologies such as Windows Servers and clients, SQL Server, Internet Explorer, Visual Studio,.NET Framework and Active Directory. Can BizFlow processes leverage WWF, and vice versa? As pointed out above, WWF is a set of.net classes. BizFlow provides seamless and superior integration with.net and the native ability to call.net objects from numerous places from the BizFlow client as well as the server side. Therefore, if developers use the capabilities of WWF to implement some services, these can be easily invoked from BizFlow. Likewise, objects developed using WWF can easily interact with BizFlow processes using the Web Services/SOA capabilities of BizFlow to initiate processes or complete steps in a process. BizFlow is planning to release a standard integration kit for 12

13 WWF that will demonstrate the interoperability between the BizFlow BPM Suite and WWF. Does BizFlow support.net framework 3.0? BizFlow s Agent activity can be used to automatically run or call a.net, VBScript, or Java Class application. Parameters can be passed from the process to the application. One can specify whether the application runs in the background while the process continues or whether the process waits until the application finishes before continuing. For example, an Agent activity can run a Visual Basic application that automatically takes the information entered by a user in a BizFlow Form and inserts it into the BizFlow database. Or by design the process could pull information from a database to directly populate a BizFlow Form. In another example, an Agent activity could format the data retrieved from a queue for interpretation by a user or other systems. The Agent activity can be set so that while the application runs on the server side the process continues to the next activity. The application can be.net, VBScripting, a Java Class, or an executable written in.net, VBScript or Java. When should one use Microsoft WWF? Conclusion WWF is a set of.net classes for developers. As such, it should be used when a company has a software development project that requires some very simple workflow and a statetransition engine. WWF is best suited for workflow inside an application, not across applications. Furthermore, the workflow must be static and not subject to frequent change. It must be kept in mind that the use of WWF requires coding by a developer and in today s economy with its demand for agility, each line of code is a liability and not an asset. Think of WWF as bricks and mortar for builders. Now think of BizFlow as a building that needs to be furnished. They are different, yet potentially complimentary: Differences: WWF is a set of.net objects for enabling developers to build applications. It is a technology rather than a product. The capabilities provided in the SharePoint Workflow Designer are to be used for very simple, sequential, document routing workflows. BizFlow is a complete BPM product that is designed for business and IT users to model, automate, manage and optimize both simply and sophisticated business processes without programming. Compliments: 13

14 WWF can be used by BizFlow to extend process applications into performing specialized services. BizFlow can be invoked by WWF activities to perform workflows that require extensive and robust human centric capabilities. References Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation on MSDN us/netframework/aa aspx Understanding Workflow in Windows SharePoint Services and the 2007 Office System.doc 41a3 40ed ababa4f175f80cc0/understanding%20workflow%20in%20windows%20sharepoint%20services%20and%20 the%202007%20office%20system.doc 14