Overview of BPM Process Designer
Continuing our series on Digital Business Automation and how we can help make a business more efficient and effective, I’m going providing a few articles about a project our team recently put together. This was a proof of concept (POC) project in the loan industry. As we move through this series, I will highlight some finer details of features and design. This particular project was completed using IBM Business Process Management (BPM) and Operational Decision Manager (ODM), along with some external API integration. This video focuses on the mortgage industry; however, we’ve used the tools and methods described here to successfully implement solutions in the financial, manufacturing, retail, medical and many other varied business sectors.
In this video we take a quick look at the graphical drag-and-drop development environment we use to build IBM BPM applications. It is called Process Designer (PD). In version 8.6, BPM Process Designer is web based which has several advantages over the previous versions that relied on a separate Java-based design tool. With the web approach, updates to the underlying server no longer require downloading and configuring a new version. BPM web PD also requires far less physical resources on the developer’s own computer.
The BPM server software is quite powerful and can be used to develop a variety of applications. These might mesh together to form a complex umbrella application, or can address vertical needs within your business. Sizing your environment properly takes some careful planning, but it is easy to upsize server resources (disk, RAM, processors) to handle larger loads especially if you take advantage of hardware virtualization or cloud-hosted resources.
The PD organizes the various development components by their purpose. There are so many that breaking them into buckets is necessary to organize them. The development begins with getting your processes defined in Business Process Management Notation (BPMN). This is a graphical representation of your processes, which then become a fully functioning application as we attach business data objects, integrations, user interfaces and user management tools to the design. PD also lets you capture portions of the programming work into toolkits which can then be shared or re-used in other Process Applications.
When you create a project like this with Apex Process Consultants, we get started with a preliminary step called Envisioning where we help get a really good grasp on how your business is done. Envisioning helps us abstract your work processes into terms that make it easier to design as code. Envisioning also uncovers where processes can be improved. A successful Envisioning cycle is a powerful way to begin the Digital Business Automation transformation.
If want to learn how Apex can help your company experience a Digital Business Automation makeover, contact us at info@apexbpm.com or (947) 282–6026.
