Workflow Management - this encompasses the automatic routing of documents or tasks to the users responsible for working on them. Workflow is concerned with providing the information required to support each step of the business cycle. Forms or documents may be moved across systems or maintained in a single database with the appropriate users given access to the data at the required times. Triggers can be implemented in the system to alert managers when operations are overdue. Automating workflow sets timers that ensure that documents move along at a prescribed pace and that the appropriate person (or role) processes them in the correct order.
Business Process Management (BPM) - this is a structured approach that models an enterprise's human and machine tasks and the interactions between them as processes. Also known as 'no-code' or 'low-code', BPM software uses a dashboard interface that offers a high-level view of the operation that typically crosses departmental boundaries. The dashboard integrates with all the applications that perform processes as well as related databases and can be used to trigger the start of a unit of work. Evolving from document management, workflow and enterprise application integration (EAI), a BPM system can monitor and analyse tasks in realtime and set off alerts when specified limits are exceeded or a response is not received within a specified time.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has accelerated the building of end to-end workflows, often eliminating the need for the BPM workbench.
Operations requiring a mix of people and machine procedures employ BPM as a higher-level management system that keeps track of them both. Over time, a BPM system can provide historical data of human-machine interactions that can be difficult to obtain from information systems, especially disparate systems running across different platforms.
A BPM system may comprise a variety of independent code bases or a comprehensive business process management suite (BPMS). These include tools for modeling and analysis, application integration, business rules support, business intelligence (BI), activity monitoring and optimisation. Advanced BPMS provides a development tool for creating forms-based applications, which then trigger downstream business tasks and processes.
