Although Microsoft SharePoint is well known as a foundational tool for cloud-based collaboration as well as content management and presentation both internal and external, the core functionality of this monolithic product also lends itself to a wide variety of other uses in the modern business. Correctly configured and deployed, SharePoint is just about as versatile as the team implementing it are creative.
Workflows are better integrated than ever before into SharePoint 2013.
Business Processes Evolved
Business Process Management is another IT discipline which has traditionally been primarily deployed in large multinational organisations. That’s because analysing, modelling, and optimising each process of modern business is both time-consuming and generally expensive to implement. However, as with Business Intelligence solutions, BPM systems have evolved into less cumbersome ecosystems relying less on costly customisation to deliver value to the business.
Microsoft SharePoint is one of the unsung enablers of this evolution. Although not specifically a dedicated BPM environment, the actual Business Process Optimisation relies heavily on smart document management and the complex workflows that coordinate the multi-level dance of activity that each document must trigger as it moves along the process.
When adding a new workflow to your SharePoint site you’ll be given the option to specify your workflow platform.
What is BPM?
WikiPedia defines BPM as “BPM uses a systematic approach in an attempt to continuously improve business effectiveness and efficiency while striving for innovation, flexibility, and integration with technology. It can therefore be described as a process optimization process. It is argued that BPM enables organizations to be more efficient, more effective and more capable of change than a functionally focused, traditional hierarchical management approach.”
BPM is all about analysing and subsequently fine-tuning your daily business processes to take advantage of new technologies and capabilities with the objective of streamlining and optimising these processes to their most efficient state.
Our most powerful tool for realising these objectives is process automation. The entire contents of any modern workflow is based on documents stored on a central server in a digital format already, so automating the process itself to send the necessary follow-up forms to the required parties, await further processing and/or approval and then proceed with subsequent processes is the logical next step in capitalising on this all-digital environment.
Resource-intensive
After the process identification and analysis, building this workflow web was among the most complex and resource-intensive projects to undertake. This process locked-up valuable resources from various departments for extended periods of time. As is often the case, the significant payoffs of the entire BPM solution hinges on the successful design and implementation of this costly phase.
As one of the leading document management solutions in the business, Microsoft SharePoint was always going to become a key element of custom BPM solutions for the enterprise. But the good news is that SharePoint is affordable enough, and powerful enough in its own right, to actually be the first steps towards a full BPM implementation – complete with a set of tools which enables simple and incremental development of a BPM process as the SME matures / grows.
When I worked in the financial services sector, I supported a monolithic custom BPM environment built at the time on Exchange Public Folders which took huge time and resources to build and continued to drain investment just to maintain and keep up to date. Everything was custom-built and very costly. Today with SharePoint 2013, setting up the base for this type of complex solution would literally be a matter of a couple of hours, and then building the workflow itself, maybe a couple more days at most. Thus bringing the advantages of an enterprise type, optimised BPM to customers of all sizes and budgets.
Setting up an approval workflow in SharePoint is fast and straight forward.
With all your business documents already stored in the SharePoint repository, it’s a natural extension to then be able to control the distribution of this content throughout your enterprise based on triggered automation from within the same environment. Then use the ‘already available information’ in the system to draw business intelligence reports from the now automated process and workflow for a crystal-clear view of the current situation.
Designing a winning strategy
SharePoint Designer 2013 is the third package to bear the name having first been released in 2007. Although Designer might not be quite as intuitive to use as SharePoint 2013 itself, it’s nevertheless a powerful package for quickly building workflows without extensive IT resource support or retraining times. Administrators can either build their own workflows from a clean slate, or choose from a selection of four standardised workflow templates included with Designer 2013 for rapid, affordable deployment of BPO through automation.
Installing the Workflow Manager is required for workflows in SharePoint 2013, however the new Windows Workflow Foundation 4 is optional to ensure backwards-compatibility.
SharePoint 2013 ushers in a whole new Windows Workflow Foundation, but this fourth version of the environment needs to be installed separately. The older Windows Workflow Foundation 3 from SharePoint 2010 is enabled by default on 2013 installations, so you can get going straight out the box.
Since all your business documents are already managed through this Microsoft environment, workflows can include a comprehensive variety of delivery options and content sources. Necessary documentation to support the process can be pushed to relevant stakeholders through channels which enable mobile integration right out the box. Every process can be tracked and logged, with predetermined alert and halt conditions built-in for when you need to keep a strict pulse on sensitive information.
InfoPath form building with submit options on how to handle form data input.
Necessary forms can be quickly generated through InfoPath and incorporated into the process in a matter of moments. And for an SME the beauty of it is in the premade templates available, with enough variety to give your business its own clearly-defined communication style while ensuring that processes are guided as efficiently as possible using triggers to set off the next command in the automated system.
There’s still substantial scope for further customisation of course, and that’s precisely where specialist BPM organisations come in and are very effective. These organisations bring extensive experience to the project to assist companies with the best way of implementing the most effective BPM solution for their needs, as well as highly knowledgeable and niche skill sets to build and implement this turnkey solution. SharePoint 2013 does not do away with the need for these value-added businesses, but it does enable them to offer more competitively-priced systems while also allowing the SME with limited resources to build their own basic but functional workflow-based BPM environment.
With SharePoint 2013 customers are given even more options thanks to the choice of on-premises or cloud-based hosting. Cloud-based architectures, in addition to enabling complete freedom from geographical considerations also reduce the price of the solution as server build and maintenance costs are rendered redundant.
Summary
So if you’ve ever longed for an automated workflow mechanism tightly integrated with your document management and accessible from anywhere but haven’t quite had the budget to allocate to such a project, SharePoint 2013 could be your ideal starting point. It allows you to build the architecture and automation structures required and do basic process optimisation yourself. How much further you’d like to extend your BPM efforts is then entirely based on how much value you see such efforts delivering to your bottom line.
Cost vs. Value, Microsoft SharePoint 2013 is the most likely contender to translate automation into performance, performance into efficiency and efficiency into money.
