A Business Process Management (BPM) platform allows businessmen to create flow charts of their business processes and translates them automatically into a running program. They come with visual designers that allows them to specify users of a process, design forms to be filled, choose the database and tables where the data should be saved, design reports etc. I have looked at a couple of BPM solutions like the uEngine, ProcessMaker and jBPM from jBoss.
I found their process designers to be wonderful. But the one thing I feel they have it wrong is the deployment aspect of their software. Each one them first gives an option to its user to initiate a "process" from a long list of available processes, displaying the path of the process to every user who has to do their part in it.
In the world of software development we know that majority of the users get confused by terms and options that they are not used to or do not understand. So we try to hide the things that might confuse them so that they may concentrate on what they are needed to do. Take the above screenshot for example which covers Order and Shipping of a product. Its currently waiting for a user to review the order. What do you think will go through the user's mind when he/she sees the above user interface (especially the options for Suspend this process instance).
I think he/she will be confused out of his/her mind. All the user wants to do is review the order. I think BPM solutions should give developers more control over the screens displayed to the end users or at least have some defaults which will not confuse the end users.
I found their process designers to be wonderful. But the one thing I feel they have it wrong is the deployment aspect of their software. Each one them first gives an option to its user to initiate a "process" from a long list of available processes, displaying the path of the process to every user who has to do their part in it.
In the world of software development we know that majority of the users get confused by terms and options that they are not used to or do not understand. So we try to hide the things that might confuse them so that they may concentrate on what they are needed to do. Take the above screenshot for example which covers Order and Shipping of a product. Its currently waiting for a user to review the order. What do you think will go through the user's mind when he/she sees the above user interface (especially the options for Suspend this process instance).
I think he/she will be confused out of his/her mind. All the user wants to do is review the order. I think BPM solutions should give developers more control over the screens displayed to the end users or at least have some defaults which will not confuse the end users.
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