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Workflow Essentials
Workflow automation has become a popular buzzword. A number of products in the market today describe themselves as being workflow enabled. The true reality is that some vendors take the liberty of labelling their products workflow enabled if they simply support rudimentary email routing in their applications. The difference between such capabilities and workflow automation is analogous to the difference between text editors and word processors.
We believe that to be classified as a workflow automation solution, an application must have the following key attributes:
- A graphical means of designing workflow maps
- The ability to design the electronic forms for each step in the workflow map
- The ability to incorporate external applications as part of the workflow automation
- The ability to link electronic forms to enterprise databases
- The ability to design workflow maps with conditional routing and functions based on complex business rules, preferably without programming
- The ability to route the information gathered at each step to subsequent steps based upon job functions, user names, or reporting relationships
- The ability to monitor the status of workflows
- The ability to measure workflows
- The ability to simulate and test the behavior of workflows
- Multiple support for users and zero down-time
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