BUILD THE APPLICATIONS

YOU NEED AT THE SPEED

OF BUSINESS
HOW BPM ADDS VALUE TO THE APPLICATION LIFE CYCLE
Table of Contents
page 3 BPM Defined
page 4 The Application Life Cycle
page 6 Requirements Specification/Design
page 7 Development
page 8 BPM Tools
page 9 Going Mobile
page 10 Testing
page 11 Deployment
page 12 Support, Maintenance,
and Change Management
page 14 Making Your Applications Work
Better for Your Business
page 15 Contact

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What is BPM–and how can it help Though in this paper we talk about BPM
technology, BPM is also a methodology:
my business? a systematic, iterative approach to
application development that replaces
more traditional “waterfall” methods.
BPM technology helps business and IT work together to build
applications that accurately reflect business processes and tasks. Implementing BPM requires
You begin by working with the BPM tools to structure workflows
and systems to support efficient completion of those tasks. This
BPMN, a graphical representation
creates a model for process management that you then layer for specifying business processes
over the platform-based applications you already use, including in a business process model.
CRMs, ERPs, and custom developments in Java, .NET, or legacy
infrastructure. With BPM, you can transform your business
processes—but still continue to leverage your existing IT assets.

Developing applications with a BPM-based platform offers cost-

effective application development with some customization.
BUSINESS NOTATION
It delivers out-of-the-box features to help you get started PROCESS
quickly, and also provides extension points and a UI designer MANAGEMENT
so you can tailor certain processes to your requirements.
Unlike lengthy and expensive custom developments, and
unlike out-of-the-box solutions that are too restrictive, BPM
platform technology is just right for an organization that wants
to optimize its processes—and stay within its budget.

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BPM technology helps organizations
enhance effectiveness at every stage
of the application life cycle
BPM adds value to each stage of the application Enhances agility. BPM enables teams to build
life cycle, from requirements specification/ applications based on workflows and business
design, development, testing, deployment, and processes, so when processes change, teams
ongoing support, maintenance, and change can adapt applications—sometimes even
management when business needs evolve. deployed, running applications—to mirror
changes in the business environment
Increases understanding between business
and IT. BPM helps business people—analysts, Complements existing systems and
managers, and end users—work together with IT to applications. BPM adds an accessible layer
create more effective process-based applications. of process workflow and business rules to
integrate with and enhance the functionality
Speeds development of applications. By of your existing systems, applications, and
the end of the BPM design stage everyone has development and testing tools. At the same
aligned on the purpose and many of the details time, it shields users from complexity and
of the new application or service. This harmony ensures consistent and complete workflows.
and transparency means IT doesn’t waste time
building something that the business rejects
or reworking something that isn’t right.

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 build a visual tools automatically
generate code from the
representation of visual representation of
what the new app the app process flow
will do so everyone
can understand and
Got an unmet agree on it DEVELOPMENT
business need?
Start the
BPM life
cycle here
REQUIREMENTS
SPECIFICATION/ TESTING
DESIGN APPLICATION
LIFE CYCLE test fast and test
often for best
results

SUPPORT/
MAINTENANCE/ DEPLOYMENT
with the right
CHANGE with the right
tools, deployment MANAGEMENT tools, deployment
into your into your
environment can be environment can
fast and easy be fast and easy

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RE Q U I R E M E N T S SP ECIFICATIO N / D ES I GN

“The beauty of [BPMN] is, when

Build what you need: BPM helps the drawing is done, I can
IT and business get on the push a button and it generates
code that actually runs.”
same page about application —Per Gyllstrom, Chief Architect at EnerNoc
requirements
BPM delivers exceptional value right from the start of the
design stage, with graphical modeling tools that provide
a visual depiction of the proposed workflow. By putting
everyone “on the same page” from the outset, BPM allows
business and IT experts to collaborate and communicate
more clearly—as they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words.

Business experts know requirements, and developers know

resources. By working together on a model they can engage
in dialogue about the need and how to meet it—rather than
just writing requirements and sending each other messages.
BPM tools enable them to collaborate on a complete graphical
representation of each process, mapping it out in a standardized
business process modelling notation called BPMN. This helps
teams produce requirements and user interface prototypes
that are detailed and stable enough to build—without the
confusion, rework, and multiple iterations that characterize
traditional development processes. BPM also generates complete Picture this: an industry-leading, state-of-the-art, drag-and-drop
process documentation in multiple formats and a shared user interface designer for BPMN 2.0 workflow modelling.
repository so bigger teams can collaborate efficiently, too.
See more: The Ultimate Guide to BPMN2

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D E V E L O PM E N T

Get from lines on a model to

lines of code faster: the BPM
development process
Once you’ve used BPMN to capture requirements With the process-oriented framework of BPM, you
and agree on the application design, you can start write less code—which reduces the chance of
development. In fact, development has already creating bugs.The framework also makes it easier
begun, because while BPMN doesn’t generate code, to find the functionality or code that you’re looking
the graphical process definition it creates will be for, to pinpoint an issue and isolate it for further
interpreted directly by the BPM Execution Engine. work. Developers can work in parallel to develop the
application’s front end and back end independently,
Technical experts can take the process design created separating user interface from back-end logic.
with BPMN and quickly create a proof of concept,
because beneath the easy-to-understand graphical model During the development phase, IT identifies existing
are layers of technical details. The graphic symbols of integrations with system resources or the need for
rectangles, diamonds, and arrows used in BPMN dictate new network or system capabilities. Integration
the behavior of the process flow, integrate sub-processes, across all elements involved in the workflow is
control automatic activities, involve participants, and key to ensuring that processes automatically sync
handle any exceptions that may occur in the process. across the organization for better management of
You can manage all these in the BPM process model users and processes and more consistency.
before turning the process into an executable application.

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D E V E L O PM E N T

Not all BPM tools are alike. “We needed to automate the
flow of electronic documents
Choose one that makes it easy for you to: among all actors involved
• Develop process and user interface separately • Connect straight out-of-the-box to nearly in the project to chart real-
and in parallel any enterprise system, including Salesforce, time changes. Our new BPM
SAP, Oracle DB, MS SQL, and other CRMs,
• Design the user interface and end-user forms ECMs, ERPs, and databases
suite, highly customizable
you want with a drag-and-drop design tool and secure, fits perfectly
• Create a library of re-usable UI fragments
• Create and test your own connectors with into the information systems
extensible framework and tooling
we already have, with no
• Speed up the design and development of user • Integrate easily with open and extensible problems.”
interfaces using out-of-the box widgets—and REST and Java APIs
build your own custom widgets with tools like
AngularJS —Roger-Pierre Gallard,
Engineering Unit Manager at AREVA ISD
• Take care of persisting and managing your
modeled data at a database level, so you don’t
need to deal with writing SQL and saving and
loading data

Y/N?
? action Y/N? execute
user

stop

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D E V E L O PM E N T

Going mobile?
Some BPM solutions make it easy to
develop apps for mobile devices too.
Look for ones that give you a wealth
of options, including the ability to:

• Customize the look and feel of

themes and layouts of the web portal
and personalized applications

• Design user interfaces that work on

any device

• Empower users to start new

processes and complete tasks
from any mobile device including
smartphones and tablets

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TESTING

Test fast and test often

for reliable deployment
BPM allows for rapid, iterative, and extensive user
testing during development. IT brings the pieces
together into a special BPM testing environment
to check for errors, bugs, interoperability, and user
acceptance. This way, BPM helps teams eliminate Enhancing testing with continuous
bugs before they can impact production systems—and integration helps teams work more
helps ensure that users are pleased with the deployed rapidly to develop and deploy new
application, for faster and more widespread adoption.
features into running applications.
Look for a solution that provides:
• A shared repository so developers can synchronize
their activities in a central place

• An automated environment that pulls your current

model from this shared repository

• A workspace API that can automate generation of

what you need to deploy from your model

• A connector development toolkit that enables

IT to both develop and test connectors before
integrating them in a continuous integration
environment

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D E PL OY M E N T

Deploy your applications easily

One of the great benefits of BPM application platforms
is that you can deploy the same artifacts for production
that you have used in development and testing. Some
platforms further support rapid deployment by offering:

• Multi-environment configuration, so when you need to redeploy

a new version of an application, you don’t have to change it for
each server—just specify the targeted execution environment.
This saves time, reduces the chance of error, and supports
automation

• Workspace API to support continuous integration (CI) by

automating the build of your processes

• LDAP synchronizer to automatically synchronize the BPM user

management system with your LDAP/AD user directory

• User authentication to configure user authentication against an

LDAP server such as Active Directory (AD), Apache Directory
Server, or OpenLDAP

• Ability to configure SSO authentication for unique and seamless

user authentication across applications

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SUPPO RT / MAIN TEN AN CE / CH ANG E M ANAGEM ENT

Keep improving to keep ahead

of the competition
Once applications are in production, visualization enables administrators to see
you’ll want to monitor performance, as key information about a particular case at a
well as support and enhance them. glance, helping them quickly identify issues,
fix problems, and replay or skip failed tasks.
To help you support your applications in
deployment, BPM tools provide ways to To maintain peak performance, you should
monitor application performance and KPIs use clustering to enable high availability (HA)
and fix reporting dashboards in production. of the BPM platform. This way, you can build
BPM can also help you create and install your infrastructure in multiple layers for
a set of ready-to-use customizable reports greater security and less downtime. With
to analyze process execution history and clustering, if one server goes down, the
monitor your specific business KPIs. other can still be taking requests. If
you’re a service provider, you should
A real-time process health monitoring also look for a BPM that supports
dashboard that offers a central view to multi-tenancy. This will make it easier
monitor all process applications can help you for you to serve multiple independent
ensure maximum uptime and minimal user companies from one platform.
disruption. The process manager may need
to fix errors that have hung up a process, and
relaunch the task to let it continue. Case status

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SUPPO RT / MAIN TEN AN CE / CH ANG E M ANAGEM ENT

“We got into production quickly, thanks to

BPM can also help with change management, so your organization our BPMS with familiar tools and a ready-
can adapt its processes to changes in your business environment.
to-go portal. We are now more efficient,
Otherwise, if the business process changes but the application less error-prone, and have the necessary
does not, users might not follow the workflows, which audit trail on each transaction to fulfill
can disrupt the business and create inconsistencies. both our accounting and regulatory
With some BPM solutions, end users can add ad- requirements.”
hoc tasks to address minor changes, splitting up a
process step into finer tasks, while avoiding the delay —Fred Blaise,
and complexity of the push-to-production process. Sr. Technology Officer, Gottex Brokers Alternative

Depending on the BPMS, you can support continuous

development and improvement in production systems
by making changes in runtime such as:

• Business rules and process parameters

• User interface elements (new forms, pages, themes)

• Who can perform a specific task (actors)

• User profiles and the pages they can access

• Technical processes: how things run (scripts, events, parameters)

• Elements of integrations with third-party systems (connectors)

Bonita BPM is unique among BPM solutions
Only when a change is wide and deep will you need because it enables you to make changes
to go back to the first few steps of the process, in runtime for continuous development and
beginning with redefining requirements. improvement in production systems.

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 Get started today by
Start making your building a business process
applications work better application with Bonita BPM
for your business!
BPM adds value to the business at each step in the
application development process, and as a result
delivers high-level business-wide benefits, including:

• Faster time to market

• Business and development team collaboration for

greater alignment with business’ needs

• Enhanced business agility

• Lower initial development, ongoing maintenance costs,

and need for IT resources
DOWNLOAD BONITA BPM
• Enhanced ability to support competitive advantage
with unique business processes and customized
applications.

See for yourself how BPM can add value

to your development process. Bonita BPM is available in free Community
or paid Subscription editions

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