Overview¶
Emakin BPMS is designed to provide a single comprehensive web interface that encompasses all facets of a process lifecycle – analysis, modelling, simulation and continuous enhancement – and to eliminate the need for people to learn and use multiple different systems and applications. With a flexible architecture, it allows for rapid and frequent modifications to active processes and makes it easy to migrate older applications into service-oriented structures.
Key Concepts¶
This page introduces some of key concepts related to designing a business process with Emakin and terminology used.
Process¶
Put simply, a process is a way of doing your work. It's a structured way of organizing activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product.
For example: When your computer is malfunctioning you may call a technical guy on the phone and wait for him to come over, or you may start Incident Request process that is automatically assigned to the relevant technical person and instantly trace the current status of your request.
Using a clearly-defined process flow saves you from chaos while doing your work. All of your daily business activities can ultimately be defined as a process.
In emakin everything you do is about starting a new process or completing an assigned task from your inbox. Even defining a new user or terminating a workflow instance is controlled by a process.
Folder¶
Processes are categorized in a security controlled folders. Folders are generally used to access start points of process or reporting business data. Folders can be contain other folders to build a hierarchical organization. You can create new folders any time or automatically created when you install a process from app store.
Channel¶
Channels are used for team work related communication and collaboration. Channel consist of activities in stream and list of cases. Every user or robot operation are logged as activity in channel including standard chat messages.
Case¶
"Case" is a issue of need to handled by channel members. Once is open you can assign to a channel member to handle required actions. After all operations are completed you can close the case if no further action is required.
Case action can be a simple profile update, manual operated action or a initiated processes instance.
Process Definition¶
In emakin everything you define, stored in a process definition in a XML format. Process definition contains the all of required information (diagram, databases, reports, web service connections) to run. Process definitions are also versioned under processes for switch to different versions of process any time.
Business Data¶
Every process exists to produce a result. In emakin from beginning to end result of process transported in XML format called as data model. Data model may contain unlimited fields and lists. You can also store more complex data structures like hierarchies.
Generally business data is empty when workflow is started but while workflow advances data is filled by people or integrated systems.
Work List¶
Work List is a list of work items that assigned to people. Work items are filtered by tags to distinguish for easy access. All of new assigned work items are tagged with "Inbox" but you can remove it to review later. Until work item is complete by you or another user all of waiting work items are tagged with "All Waiting" and you cant remove this tag. When you complete a work item its tagged with "Sent" tag. If you need to list of all work items without any state filter you can use the "All" tag.
Some of work items are automatically tagged with "Watched" by process design and you can remove if no longer needed.
Additionally you can use your custom defined tags to filter work items.
Work Item¶
Work Item is a step in workflow, while workflow advances in process every step creates a new work item that assigned to people or system. Work item may be assigned to one or more user. Until it's complete by a user stays in user's work list. Some of work items are assigned to system to execute automated tasks and does not have interactive action with any user.
Document Archive¶
Document archive stores the all document based data. Documents may be generated by processes or manually imported by people. All of documents may contain one or more attached file and search profile. You can search documents by full text index or specific search fields.
Life Cycle¶
This page explains the life cycle of creating an application in the Emakin BPMS. Applications are created and run with agile methodology steps in the Emakin BPMS.
Agile methodology in the Emakin BPMS uses an adaptive approach where there is no detailed planning and there is clarity on future tasks only in respect of what features need to be developed. There is feature-driven development and the Emakin BPMS adapts to the changing product requirements dynamically. The product is tested very frequently, through the release iterations, minimizing the risk of any major failures in the future.
The following steps describe how to work the agile methodology life cycle in the Emakin BPMS.
Requirements Analysis¶
The requirements analysis step starts with to design process diagram in the Emakin BPMS. A task is created for each process step in the diagram and task links are created. The process diagram shows an application working digit.
The second step is data model design. Also, data models define how data is connected to each other. The process is divided into sections, sub section, and elements to define features for each element in the data model.
Design¶
The design step corresponds to form design in the Emakin BPMS. The form design section is a connected data model of elements and utilizes elements to create form content.
Implementation and Testing¶
Implementation and testing steps are actualized at the same time in the Emakin BPMS. The following steps explain how to test and implement process.
- Send the form to the user.
- If the process runs, you will see the task in your inbox. When you open the task, you will see the designed form.
- Enter information into to form, and click the action button to move to the next step in workflow.
Evolution¶
Evolution step is last loop structure in the Emakin BPMS. When faced any process problem, it is solved by using life cycle steps without stopping the process.