Workflow Applications

Information workers don't enter numbers or type words; they manipulate information, drawing conclusions and making projections. They forward that work or information to coworkers, who then make more projections and draw more conclusions. Workflow computing is designed to deal with the process of work, not just the end results.

Workflow computing is inherently a networked application. Although it could take place on a host-centric system, workflow applications take advantage of a network's distributed intelligence. Work can be distributed to the local sites, where workers can continue to use their familiar tools.

A workflow is a description of how work moves among workers and the operations required to process that information as it moves. The work process is decomposed into steps and dependencies. Workflows can be simple or complex. For example, on one end of the spectrum, an intelligent mail application can help prioritize and route a user 's mail; on the other end, a workflow application can move a purchase requisition through the approval process.

According to the Clarke-Burton Report (The Burton Group , formerly known as Clarke-Burton, Salt Lake City), "The concept behind workflow automation is to extend the reach of computing beyond office automation, [to] bring the process itself-not just the work created by the process-into the realm of the computing system." Market research firm Forrester Research, located in Cambridge, MA, defines workflow computing as "computers and networks adding and extracting value from information as it moves through the organization."

Imagine the work and the process through which a company accomplishes its business as a river . Employees alter, detract, or add to this flow as it begins at the initial customer contact and ends with the product shipment or dispensed service.

Instead of wasting corporate time and money, while paperwork eddies in employees' in-boxes, whirls in their out-boxes, and becomes waylaid in the rapids that fall in between, workflow software routes the work to the proper person. For example, a purchase order must be routed from the requester to one or more managers to the purchasing agent to the supplier and back to the requester. Different purchases require different levels of approval. Workflow software can automate these processes that are now decided manually.

Business cycles can also be shortened . Instead of managers tracking work through engineering, assembly, and marketing, for example, workflow software can monitor its progress, allowing people to concentrate on the specifics of their jobs. Managers and workers can know where a particular item resides in the process. Workflow software can help identify and eliminate bottlenecks.

Workflow software can reduce the difficulties of distance. Companies can more easily distribute their operations as their businesses dictate . Workers in far flung offices of the same corporation can communicate as easily as if they're local.

Workflow computing can also be externally focused. Companies' desire to communicate with its customers and suppliers will drive workflow computing. Companies will be able to establish tighter links to their suppliers. Customers can more easily communicate with their suppliers. Electronic Document Interchange (EDI) can become more than a primitive reality.

Four Types Of Workflow

Intelligent routing is perhaps the most important quality of workflow software. Intelligent routing determines who is the next person in the process that must receive the work. This forwarding process can be accomplished in any number of ways, from elaborate process models to complex scripts to ad hoc arrangements.

Workflow computing software must provide facilities to track the flow of work throughout the system and to accommodate existing applications. The flow of work must be tracked and reported , so audit trails can be produced and managers can follow a work's progress. Also, you need to know who is accessing what information. Host-based, client-server, and personal productivity applications must be connected to the workflow system.

Workflow automation comes in four breeds: document flow, process automation, task automation, and workgroup tools. Companies will implement the different types based on their corporate practices and philosophies. For example, a more structured company is more likely to implement a process automation system, while an entrepreneurial company is likely to implement a workgroup or task automation system.

The early workflow systems take a document flow approach. Developed primarily by image-processing companies, these systems automate a paper-based process, such as loan applications or credit card billing. Very often, these systems completely simulate the paper-based process, from file cabinets to paper clips. In automating a purely paper-based process, many of these systems forfeit the benefits of altering the business practice to take advantage of a new technology. Automate an inefficient, manual process, and you will have an inefficient, automated process. These systems are also inflexible in that they create bit-mapped images of documents, which cannot be edited. Few provide automatic routing.

Process automation workflow requires a top-down approach. System designers and business managers analyze the process of work, then build the system based on that model. Once defined, the system is inflexible; it cannot be changed on the fly, forcing workers to adapt to a computerized process. AT&T's Rhapsody and NCR's Cooperation both implement this model.

Rather than automating the entire process, task automation takes the opposite tack and automates the individual tasks that make up the process. This is more of a bottom-up approach. Hewlett-Packard's NewWave Office is one such application, since it enables users to build scripts to accommodate tasks .

However, both process and task automation assume that a process is in place. If the work is accomplished without a formal process in place, neither type is helpful. In this case, workgroup or ad hoc tools are better. Workgroup tools give the power to the user, rather than to the top-level manager. Beyond's BeyondMail, which allows users to build in rules for routing e-mail, is one example. With workgroup tools, workers can define their workflows to their liking. Although they can customize their systems, workflow automation places the burden of system design and administration on the user. This approach is fine for power users, but tentative computer users may balk.

Parts Or Whole?

No clear product strategy or vendor has emerged. Workflow products will come from the traditional office automation vendors , e-mail providers, vertical applications developers, and others.

Some vendors offer a complete system usually built around a shared database. Very often these workflow systems include bundled or encapsulated applications, such as e-mail, word processing, and print spooling. Essentially, these developers move the model of traditional office automation software into the world of distributed, networked intelligence. AT&T and NCR take this tack.

Other developers are moving toward a component approach. Instead of supplying the whole package from database to workflow, these vendors offer the individual pieces. They may offer one or more front-end pieces that work with other company's workflow database back ends. This pay-as-you-go approach enables corporations and network designers to pick and choose. While this approach is more flexible, it requires the user to act as an integrator, assembling the many pieces of the system.

Much of the current workflow fervor emanates from the electronic mail vendors. Mail-enabled applications are leading the way to workflow computing. The simplest of these provide intelligent mail routing that can be expanded to include routing documents and forms. These applications typically use an e-mail engine or back end of e-mail storage, routing, and directory services. Functionality is added to the e-mail front end until it becomes a full-featured workflow application.

Electronic mail vendors alone can't move the industry forward. Expect to see database vendors team up with e-mail vendors to provide expertise in delivering distributed databases. And to make intelligent routing truly useful, network operating system companies must improve their directory services so applications and users can locate and access networked resources.

Slowing The Flow?

Workflow software is in its earliest evolutionary stages. Office automation software for the mainframe and minicomputer have existed for quite some time; PC groupware products have emerged, but neither offers enough functionality and flexibility. The next generation, exemplified by products such as Reach Software's MailMan or Beyond's BeyondMail will provide the basis for true workflow.

The movement to workflow computing won't happen without pain. Before such systems can become a reality, networks must be built that can mask the differences of incompatible computing systems. Vendors must provide open systems solutions, not proprietary platforms. The kinks of client-server software have to be ironed out.

Many of the challenges are not technical, but rather political or cultural. The impetus for workflow computing must come from a company's uppermost management, since it automates the very heart of the business. Only top management can ensure the steady progress and development of such a system. Also, employees may balk at such systems, which in the wrong hands can be used as a Big Brother monitoring system.

Nevertheless, the benefits of workflow computing can be great. Companies can eliminate steps that were necessary in paper-based systems but that have become wasteful in a world that conducts business online, thereby reaping the profits of just-in-time business.

This tutorial, number 43, by Patricia Schnaidt, was originally published in the February 1992 issue of LAN Magazine/Network Magazine.