SAP Signavio Solutions | PUBLIC

Workflow Management for Beginners

Using SAP® Signavio® Process Governance
© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

1 / 22
Table of Contents

3 Introduction

4 What Workflow Management Is

6 Why You Should Consider Workflow

Management in Your Organization

10 Business Process Software

12 Workflow Examples

18 Getting Process Models Up and Running

22 Next Steps

2 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

Introduction

This paper is an introduction to the “what,” “why,” and “how” of workflow manage-
ment. Getting started with workflow management doesn’t have to be a massive
undertaking, or even an IT project. Instead, we want to tell a simple story about
simple workflow management.

This paper is for managers and employees of all The five sections in this paper cover what you
kinds who are interested in ways to help their need to know to get workflow management
teams work together effectively. You don’t need up and running. More details about each of
a technical background to understand workflow the following topics can be found by clicking
management, because the concepts and prac- the following links:
tices are first about how people work and only • What workflow management is
then about possible IT support. • Why you should consider workflow
management in your organization
• Business process software
• How to choose which process to
automate first
• Getting process models up and running

3 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

What Workflow Management Is

We’ll start with an explanation of what workflow Hiring a job candidate requires a number of
management is, because reading academic or pieces of information, such as the candidate’s
technical explanations or looking for some kind name and CV and details of the job vacancy.
of official definition isn’t going to help you under- Some tasks will generate (involve gathering)
stand how to get started in practice. Once you additional information during the hiring process:
have a practical idea of what workflow manage- who performed interviews and when, their
ment is, you’ll be ready to understand how you individual evaluations, practicalities such as
can realize its benefits. the candidate’s availability date, and the final
decision to hire the candidate or not. This
WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT BY EXAMPLE information must be captured, made available
Before getting too abstract, let’s start with an to the right people in time, and archived.
example. Consider what’s involved in hiring new
employees to join a company. When an HR team or recruitment department is
hiring a number of new employees, management
Hiring a new employee is an example of work will coordinate this work to achieve a number of
done in an organization that has a clear business goals. Managers want to select high-quality
goal: a new employee who has passed the appro- employees at reasonable cost without avoidable
priate selection process becomes a member delays, presenting a professional company image
of staff. To achieve this goal, hiring managers, to all candidates.
recruiters, and HR staff work together on a
number of tasks.

4 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

At the end of the process, when a candidate is Workflow management is principally a manage-
eventually hired, IT systems may need to be ment discipline, focused on the structure of work
updated. The vacancy on the company Web site within an organization and how teams collabo-
can be removed, and the new employee must rate to complete this work. In principle, workflow
be added to the staff database, possibly with management doesn’t require software, but in
records of the hiring process added to their practice, software tools are used to keep track of
personnel file. the work and to automate parts of it.

This hiring process example includes most of Workflow management is concerned with the
the elements we need to explain what workflow work people do, but tasks may also be auto-
management is in general. mated and performed by IT systems – computer
software. Workflow management can therefore
WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT IN A NUTSHELL include IT systems integration to share data
Workflow management is the coordination of between workflows and other IT systems within
tasks that make up the work an organization an organization.
does. By “workflow” we mean a sequence of
tasks that are part of some larger task; it is The visibility of the work that comes with work-
sometimes synonymous with “business process.” flow management tends to lead to awareness of
The purpose of a workflow is to achieve certain how to improve these workflows. Business pro-
results, and the purpose of workflow manage- cess improvement is a natural part of workflow
ment is to achieve better results according to a management. This is also one reason why work-
certain set of goals. flow management is a management discipline
and not just software. Process improvement is
about changing how people do their jobs, which
is more difficult than reconfiguring software.

5 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

Why You Should Consider Workflow Management
in Your Organization

You should consider introducing workflow man- Visibility adds value because it provides the infor-
agement into your organization because of the mation you need to identify and solve problems,
value it can add to the way people in your organi- continuously improve, and provide transparency
zation work. This value translates to concrete to build trust within a team. Workflow manage-
benefits in the short and long term. ment creates visibility of the type, volume,
assignment, and rhythm of the work being
HOW WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT ADDS VALUE carried out in your organization:
Workflow management adds value by introducing • Type – what tasks exist
two things: better communication among people • Volume – how much there is to do
working together on shared tasks and better visi- • Assignment – who is doing what
bility of how tasks in your organization get done. • Rhythm – how long things take and where
waiting happens
Better Communication
When a group of people are working together, a What these four kinds of visibility have in
large part of that work is in the communication common is that they are visibility into how work
between group members. They need to commu- flows between tasks and people. This is literally
nicate to agree on overall goals, agree on who what we mean by “workflow.” Crucially, workflow
works on what and in what order, keep each other visibility adds value when it is a natural by-
up to date on progress, and share new informa- product of doing the work. Other management
tion about the work as needed. approaches could generate the same visibility,
but only at great cost and inconvenience.
Communication isn’t a problem if you work only
with the person sitting next to you, but many Focus on the Really Important Topics
kinds of office work rely on e-mail or direct Workflow can help you spend your time on the
messaging platforms. It could be worse (paper most important topics by automating repetitive
memos, telephone, or fax), but these methods tasks and providing tools for management by
of communication are a mixed blessing – too exception. Defining standard processes allows
many distracting notifications or an in-box full of you to perform recurring work more quickly, and
unread messages are common problems. These workflow management automates much of the
challenges are exacerbated by the increased coordination and handovers between people
prevalence of remote work, where direct, face- working on shared tasks. At the same time,
to-face communication is not an option. task reminders, due dates, and escalations help
identify exception cases.
Workflow Visibility
Talking to each other isn’t all that is needed for
people to work well together. They also need to
be able to see what is going on, so they can know
what to do without always having to interrupt
each other. In other words, being able to see
what’s actually happening requires visibility.

6 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

KEY BENEFITS OF WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT • Causing fewer delays from abandoned or
As a management approach, workflow manage- forgotten tasks
ment offers a number of benefits. In practice, • Reducing variation in how work is done,
many of the benefits come from the combination producing higher-quality results
with workflow software that can automate most • Being able to hand unfinished work over to
of the team communication and workflow a colleague
visibility. • Having an affordable audit trail of activities

Workflow management enables teams to reduce Additional benefits include:

costs by spending less time on: • Faster handovers between colleagues
• Performing duplicate tasks • Opportunity to identify imbalances in team
• Reading and writing e-mails composition
• Getting new employees up to speed on • Ability to collect data about workflow
common tasks performance, enabling process improvement
• Fixing errors and “failure demand” • More flexibility to roll out process improve-
• Coordinating internally ments consistently
• Identifying and avoiding unnecessary work • Less paper used

Teams can offer better service to their internal Together, these benefits reduce costs, increase
and external customers by completing work team productivity, and delight customers. These
more quickly as a result of: benefits are highly likely to help you achieve your
• Finding and removing bottlenecks business goals. That’s why you should consider
• Performing certain tasks in parallel workflow management in your organization.

7 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

SOFTWARE SUPPORT FOR REPETITIVE WORK MANAGEMENT BY EXCEPTION
Workflow tools are ideal for repetitive and recur- Management by exception is about focusing
ring work: they can automate key tasks in the on abnormal situations – cases in a business
right order, to the right people, at the right time. process that are not completed as usual. These
This includes presenting the right tasks in a cases are important because their outcomes
workflow. determine the limits of things such as customer
service, for instance, an online retailer that is only
When you don’t have to spend time keeping track as good as the longest delivery time.
of what’s in progress, and you don’t have to man-
ually inform your colleagues, you have more time Unusual cases are also the most interesting,
to spend on something else. When you don’t have because unique problems require more creativity
to worry about the small stuff, you can use your and intelligence to find a solution than standard
time for more important topics. problems do. This matters because having
opportunities to use creativity and mastery to
Automating repetitive work also means employ- do their work is part of what motivates people
ees are free to focus their attention and efforts to enjoy what they do.
on things such as creative thinking, strategic
planning, long-term projects, product develop-
ment, customer research and satisfaction, col-
laboration with colleagues, and idea generation.
In other words, they can focus on all the creative
and unstructured work humans do best.

8 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

OPTIMIZING PROCESSES WITH BUSINESS use of automated process discovery tools, which
PROCESS MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE help reveal underlying system processes and
Of course, all the benefits and ideas for workflow provide insight into variations and compliance
automation can quickly become irrelevant if the issues. The trick here is to avoid simply doing the
processes you are attempting to automate are wrong thing faster. You need to gain a clear
not functioning as they should. Unfortunately, understanding of your process landscape before
there is often a temptation for organizations to moving on to choose the kind of business pro-
treat automation as an immediate solution that cess software that will work best for your
will double their profits and halve their costs business.
without any effort. While it may be possible to
reach this outcome in time, an automation proj- Choosing the Right Kind of Business Process
ect is destined for failure if there is no baseline Management Software
from which it can work. As with most (or perhaps all) kinds of software,
there’s more than one way to do it. A one-size-
You will need a clear understanding of how your fits-all solution would be nice, but costs vary too
business processes actually operate – not just much for that to be realistic. In practice, you will
how they are supposed to operate – to decide if either adopt one of the more cost-effective
and how an automated solution can be approaches or adopt an expensive business
implemented. process management (BPM) solution and end
up using a simpler solution most of the time
This requires your organization to capture and anyway. The next section expands on how best
document its current processes and assess any to make this important decision.
variances. The best way to achieve this is to make

9 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

Business Process Software

There are many ways to apply a process model. However, ad hoc solutions using spreadsheets
Implementing a process in computer software is or sticky notes on whiteboards quickly become
just one possible application. After all, a lot of unwieldy, error prone, and expensive when more
work gets done without using computers to tell people handle a larger number of cases. Also,
people what they need to work on. since there is no explicit workflow, quality suffers
when people forget to do things. Spreadsheets
If you do implement a process model in a soft- aren’t a great tool for shared use by multiple
ware system, there is more than one kind of end people, whiteboards only work when everyone is
result. You might end up with any one of the in the same room, and getting too many e-mails
following: can be just as time consuming as writing docu-
• An ad hoc solution using basic office software ments out by hand.
• A simplified workflow using a dedicated work-
flow management tool When you want better access to shared informa-
• Full BPM using a heavy-duty BPM system tion and automated notifications, it’s time to
(BPMS) consider a workflow tool.
• Some form of custom application software
SIMPLIFIED WORKFLOW
These approaches have different benefits and The next kind of process software is a lightweight
costs. It is not the case that one size fits all, so workflow solution that executes a simple process
each one deserves a closer look. But regardless model with a standard user interface and basic
of the automation efforts you choose, keep integration capabilities. In the case of the
your ultimate aim in mind: end-to-end process SAP® Signavio® Process Governance solution,
management is the goal. the software runs in the cloud and provides a
Web interface.
AD HOC SOLUTIONS
The most basic kind of process software is an A workflow tool gives you a user interface for
ad hoc solution using office tools, principally specifying a repeatable process, such as an order
spreadsheets and e-mail. This is by far the most fulfillment process, and executing cases, such as
common approach, and it lets you get started handling customer orders. Instead of using a
with tools you already have. spreadsheet to enter information, you define
forms for entering order details in the Web inter-
face. Instead of entering status information man-
ually, completing tasks automatically updates the
workflow status and records dates in a timeline.

10 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

Automatic notifications keep the right people FULL BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
informed about the progress of each customer A heavy-duty BPMS avoids the limitations of sim-
order. SAP Signavio Process Governance sends pler software. A BPMS may support all of BPMN
e-mail notifications to participants when one of and provide more options for customization and
them creates an order, completes a task, adds systems integration, and it usually has more
a comment, or interacts in some other way. management and reporting functionality to sup-
port the management part of BPM. Similarly, an
Workflows often require integration with other intelligent BPMS adds data analytics support.
systems, typically to fetch information, such as
a product catalog lookup, or to send notifications A big set of features gives you far more flexibility
to an external system, such as updating an in how you automate processes, but these addi-
inventory management system when a product tional capabilities introduce higher costs in sev-
is shipped. eral areas, including:
• Software licenses
A benefit of a simple workflow tool is increased • Extensive consulting for customization and
automation: specifying your processes means integration
that the software can do more work for you by • Software maintenance and support
structuring information, presenting it more • Infrastructure to run the software in-house
clearly in the context of a specific case – such • Training
as a customer order – and handling details
such as notifications, access permissions, and A BPMS isn’t the only approach for implementing
integration. BPM automation without any limitations. You can
also build your own software.
Simple workflow tools do have limitations
because they prioritize being easy to use. For fea- CUSTOM APPLICATION SOFTWARE
tures such as full support for Business Process Custom software development makes everything
Model and Notation (BPMN), you need some- possible, provided you have access to a good
thing else. software development team and a large budget.
A software team can either build BPM software
from scratch by hard-coding the process in its
application logic or use an embedded process
engine – part of a developer-centric BPM solution.

11 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

Workflow Examples

Once you have selected the approach that will • The trigger that starts the process
work most effectively for your business – bearing • Actions that correspond to the steps in the
in mind it may be some combination of the four process, with a process diagram
options listed in the previous section – it is time • Roles that people adopt to complete those
to model your business processes so you can steps
execute them using a workflow management • Fields that appear on forms to capture and
system. show information about each case

However, starting a process model with a blank APPROVE VACATION REQUEST

page can be a daunting prospect. The following Handling vacation requests is in many ways
examples offer a number of common processes the epitome of a good process model. Despite
you can use as a starting point for modeling your the model’s simplicity, SAP Signavio Process
own processes. Governance makes it easier to keep track than
when you use spreadsheets and e-mail.
Each of these workflow examples first describes
the process goal, which summarizes what the The process goal is to approve an employee’s
process should achieve, and the context in which planned vacation dates. Read more about this
you might automate this process. For each exam- workflow example: Approve Vacation Request.
ple, the actual process description shows:

Approve Approve
vacation
request
X Plan vacation X
Reject

Change
vacation plans

Figure 1: Workflow for Approving a Vacation Request

12 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

APPROVE DOCUMENT APPROVE EXPENSE CLAIM
Workflows often include approvals, so here’s an Form-based approvals aren’t just for HR pro-
example of a simple approval workflow. Unlike cesses. In general, management approvals for
the vacation request’s form-based approval, this budget authorization, where expense claims are
example is based on approving a document and the simplest example, also benefit from workflow
includes built-in integrations in SAP Signavio automation.
Process Governance for saving files to Google
Drive and sending custom notifications by e-mail. The process goal is to submit an expense claim
document for someone else to approve. Read
The process goal is to approve the submitted more about this workflow example: Approve
document after optional revision rounds. Expense Claim.
Read more about this workflow example:
Approve Document.

Approve Archive
X Review
document X approved
document
Notify author

Document approved
Reject

Update
document

Figure 2: Workflow for Approving a Document

List rejected
items
Reject terms

Approve claim
Approve claim X X Pay expenses
Expenses submitted Expenses paid
Reject claim

Claim rejected

Figure 3: Workflow for Approving an Expense Claim

13 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

FILL JOB VACANCY HIRE EMPLOYEE
HR processes often especially benefit from work- Not only do companies approach recruitment dif-
flow automation because the processes vary too ferently, but there’s more than one perspective.
much between companies to make standard This example changes focus from filling a
software solutions useful. Although HR employees vacancy to responding to a job application, which
will recognize elements of this process, it would makes more sense when there are few applicants
immediately be changed in practice. Fortunately, for positions that generally stay open.
SAP Signavio Process Governance embraces
change with built-in process versioning. The process goal is to send a job offer letter to a
successful job applicant. Read more about this
The process goal is to fill a vacant position within workflow example: Hire Employee.
the organization. Read more about this workflow
example: Fill Job Vacancy.

Approve Publish Hire Remove

Review job
requisition X + vacancy on
Web site
+ X Interview next
applicant X + published
vacancy
+
Job vacancy identified Vacancy filled
Reject

Reject

Engage
Notify external
external recruiter
recruiter

Notify hiring
manager
Requisition rejected

Figure 4: Workflow for Filling a Job Vacancy

Interview Make job offer Accepted

Evaluate CV
X Plan interview Interview
candidate X Send job offer
X
Application received Offer accepted
Rejected
Reject

Reject

X Send rejection

Offer rejected

Figure 5: Workflow for Hiring an Employee

14 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

OPEN NEW CUSTOMER ACCOUNT PROCESS CLAIM
Workflow automation isn’t just for central Industry-specific workflows capture a subject-
functions; customer-facing departments also matter domain’s specific language. Even when
have company-specific business processes the actual process is similar to that of a standard
to manage. This example shows a customer software solution, using the correct terminology
onboarding process for a bank, which you could results in a better user experience. This insur-
adapt to customer onboarding for any kind of ance industry example shows a simplified high-
business. level process, with a technique for separating
complex work.
The process goal is to create a new customer
bank account for a retail bank. Read more about The process goal is to process an insurance claim
this workflow example: Open New Customer to make a payout to a customer. Read more
Account. about this workflow example: Process Claim.

Evaluate Accept Allocate

Evaluate
application X supporting
documents
X account
number
+ Send welcome
pack +
Check application
Reject

X Send rejection Send bank card

Send
confirmation

Figure 6: Workflow for Opening a New Customer Account

Sample Calculate
X X X
Calculate claim Classify claim Process simple payment
value completely claim amount
High value?
Claim received
Complex

Investigate
high-value claim X Process
complex claim Task

Figure 7: Workflow for Processing an Insurance Claim

15 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

FULFILL PURCHASE ORDER INVOICE CUSTOMER
This purchase order process differs from most of Critical processes, such as getting paid, are
the examples because it uses an e-mail trigger. perfect examples of where you can use workflow
The process starts when a purchase order form automation to avoid delays due to forgotten
is received by e-mail and sent to an address such tasks, slow handovers, and manual notifications.
as orders@[Link]. This example uses e-mail notifications and due
dates to keep things flowing.
The process goal is to fulfill a customer’s pur-
chase order, for example, by shipping a product The process goal is to get a customer invoice
and issuing an invoice. Read more about this paid and closed. Read more about this workflow
workflow example: Purchase Order Fulfillment. example: Invoice Customer.

Wait for
available stock
Hold

Accept
X Check
purchase order X Ship products Invoice
customer
Order received
+
Reject

Send rejection
notification
Order rejected

Figure 8: Workflow for Fulfilling a Purchase Order

Correct
X Check invoice X Send invoice
Check for
payment X
Invoice ready Payment terms Invoice closed
Errors

Update invoice Send reminder Chase late

payment

Figure 9: Workflow for Invoicing a Customer

16 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

FOLLOW-UP CONTACT shows how workflow automation can help your
While companies tend to focus on certain kinds sales team triage leads that result from meetings.
of business processes when using workflow auto-
mation, workflow management tools can also The process goal is to develop a business contact
be applied to any collection of tasks that has into a sales opportunity. Read more about this
outgrown a conventional to-do list. This example workflow example: Follow-Up Contact.

Send friendly
response

Attend meeting X Research lead Send detailed

follow-up
Schedule sales
meeting
Qualify lead
Sales lead received

Figure 10: Workflow for Following Up with a Contact

17 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

Getting Process Models Up and Running

After you’ve documented your processes in a An important point to remember is the necessity
process model, the next step is execution: run- of process optimization. Before a task can be
ning the process to try it out. Getting started automated, it needs to be optimized. After all,
quickly is important because it means you can if the quality of the underlying process being
experiment and get immediate results. automated is poor, you risk still doing the wrong
things – just more quickly and cheaply. In prac-
Instead of committing to one plan from the start tice, this means removing or reducing waste,
and being stuck with it, the following steps are an that is, tasks or activities that are redundant or
iterative approach to discovering how you can outdated.
best apply your processes by performing experi-
ments and learning what works: PICK A PROCESS TO APPLY FIRST
1. Pick a process to apply first – do one thing at Before you start, you need to choose what to
a time automate, as discussed earlier. It isn’t easy to
2. Start with SAP Signavio Process Governance – choose the first process to automate, and the
start simple choice will have a big impact on your first work-
3. Use the process builder in SAP Signavio flow management pilot project.
Process Governance – start small
4. Run the process in SAP Signavio Process Again, it is crucial to remember that the process
Governance – learn from experiments you select should be one that is fully optimized,
5. Iterate the process model – use what you that is, it has been refined into its most efficient
learn and build things up and effective form. Of course, using process
6. Evaluate the results – choose the best way to modeling software to create models of your pro-
automate the process cesses is an especially useful way of highlighting
waste that can be removed, as well as identifying
This is agile BPM, which has a lot in common with and removing bottlenecks or redundant steps.
agile software development. Once you have the
process running, you can refine the process to
incrementally improve your application. Discov-
ering a useful process is a good goal for your first
experiment, proof of concept, pilot project, or
whatever you want to call it.

Before a task can be automated,

it needs to be optimized.

18 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

Once you are confident that your processes are START WITH SAP SIGNAVIO PROCESS
optimized, choosing a good business process to GOVERNANCE
automate first still involves making trade-offs. The section “Business Process Software”
The ideal process is: describes four different business process soft-
• Simple enough to be modeled quickly by one ware categories, with varying cost and complex-
person, but complex enough to benefit from ity. Instead of spending a long time implement-
software support ing a complex process with complex software,
• Relevant enough to the organization that off- SAP Signavio Process Governance gives you
the-shelf software isn’t available, but generic a way to get up and running quickly with a
enough to be understood by all stakeholders simplified process.
• Important enough that improvements deliver
real benefits, but not so important that it would SAP Signavio Process Governance is a good
be too risky to use new techniques choice to start with, even if you plan to use some-
thing more complex later on, because simplified
There are other dimensions to consider, but cloud workflow makes it possible to get started
simplicity, relevance, and complexity are a good quickly while still providing the benefits of a
start. Good choices tend to be core business pro- sophisticated workflow solution. It would take
cesses for small organizations or core processes more imagination to successfully simulate BPM
for a single department in a large organization. using spreadsheets and e-mail.
These processes may include hiring employees,
onboarding new hires, invoicing customers, USE THE PROCESS BUILDER IN SAP SIGNAVIO
chasing late payments, or approving and signing PROCESS GOVERNANCE
off on documents. The sample processes Once you’ve chosen one of your process models
included in the “Workflow Examples” section and signed up for an account for SAP Signavio
are good examples of processes broadly suitable Process Governance, you’re ready to use the pro-
for automation. cess builder in SAP Signavio Process Governance
to automate the process. Building the process is
an opportunity to collaborate with colleagues:
shared access to the process model in a Web
browser simplifies getting input from other
people in your organization.

SAP Signavio Process Governance is a good

choice to start with, because simplified cloud
workflow makes it possible to get started
quickly while still providing the benefits of a
sophisticated workflow solution.

19 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

RUN THE PROCESS IN SAP SIGNAVIO PROCESS ITERATE THE PROCESS MODEL
GOVERNANCE At first, running the process is really testing the
The next step is to run your process in process model. The results of this testing are
SAP Signavio Process Governance to see if it the inspiration for incrementally improving the
works the way you expect it to. This gives you a model, both to fix problems and flesh out the
vital change of perspective, because at runtime details. This is why it is essential to use a tool that
the process doesn’t look the same as the model. supports process versions and the ability to roll
back to earlier versions when changes don’t work
When your two-dimensional process model out as planned.
becomes a one-dimensional sequence of tasks,
you can see problems that weren’t evident SAP Signavio Process Governance makes it
before. Running the process is a good thing, easier to edit a process model and develop a
because it helps you improve it more quickly process incrementally, so you need only start
than by staring at the model. with the essential features of the process, such
as tasks and decisions. You can add details such
as custom notifications, access control, and
automatic reminders later.

20 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

EVALUATE THE RESULTS • SAP Signavio Process Governance is the right
After you use SAP Signavio Process Governance approach but doesn’t work because features
to automate a workflow, based on your process are missing. If this is the case, implement your
model, you will be able to run the workflow, coor- process model using some other solution.
dinate tasks, keep track of workflows in one If you have the time and money, features
place, and get visibility of the work. may be more important than the simplicity
of SAP Signavio Process Governance.
Once you have run the workflow for the first time, • You need custom software rather than a
you can expect one of the following scenarios: workflow tool. A development team can
• The process model doesn’t make sense. build custom software that embeds your pro-
The next step is to return to the model, make cess model. They will find the prototype of
improvements, and try it again. It’s critical that SAP Signavio Process Governance very useful,
you can do this quickly and easily, so you can because it will already have captured the results
iterate your process design. of many decisions about how to implement
• Running the process isn’t complex enough the process.
to benefit from software support. This is a
surprisingly common scenario. People do most None of these is a bad outcome. The only bad
of their work just fine without any process result is when it takes significant resources to
support. discover what the situation really is. The impor-
• SAP Signavio Process Governance is just tant thing is that you can validate your assump-
right for running the process. When this tions and learn about your situation quickly. This
happens, you can avoid a wasted full BPM is how SAP Signavio Process Governance can
implementation that can be costly and that deliver real value, saving you time and money,
risks being ignored. improving your process landscape, and optimiz-
ing the way your organization does business.

SAP Signavio Process Governance can

save you time and money, improve your
process landscape, and optimize the
way your organization does business.

21 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

Next Steps

FIND OUT MORE Take SAP Signavio Process Governance for

To learn more about workflow management a test drive and register for your free trial at
with SAP Signavio Process Governance, visit [Link]/try.
us online at [Link]/contact.

22 / 22

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

Follow us

[Link]/contactsap

Studio SAP | 81854enUS (22/03)

© 2022 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or for any purpose without the express permission of SAP SE or an SAP
affiliate company.

The information contained herein may be changed without prior notice.

Some software products marketed by SAP SE and its distributors contain
proprietary software components of other software vendors. National
product specifications may vary.

These materials are provided by SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company for

informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any
kind, and SAP or its affiliated companies shall not be liable for errors or
omissions with respect to the materials. The only warranties for SAP or
SAP affiliate company products and services are those that are set forth
in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and
services, if any. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an
additional warranty.

In particular, SAP SE or its affiliated companies have no obligation to

pursue any course of business outlined in this document or any related
presentation, or to develop or release any functionality mentioned therein.
This document, or any related presentation, and SAP SE’s or its affiliated
companies’ strategy and possible future developments, products, and/or
platforms, directions, and functionality are all subject to change and
may be changed by SAP SE or its affiliated companies at any time for
any reason without notice. The information in this document is not a
commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or
functionality. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks
and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from
expectations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these
forward-looking statements, and they should not be relied upon in making
purchasing decisions.

SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well
as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of
SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries.
All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of
their respective companies.

See [Link]/trademark for additional trademark information

and notices.