Symantec has published a new white paper on Workflow 7.1 and best practices around architecture, design, and development. It's a good read with great information, not too long, and covers:
BPM, collaborative workflow, and the approach to the solution implementation
Process design and modeling considerations, along with a workflow implementation approach
Designing a solution around services, including an example for identifying business services and mapping them with IT services
A brief overview of system context and logical views to be created in the process
Symantec will be releasing Workflow 7.1 on December 6, 2010 as a stand alone product, separate from the rest of the Altiris IT Management Suite (ITMS) 7.1 which is due out in March 2011. The Symantec Management Platform (SMP) 7.1 will be released on December 6th as well for non ITMS implementations only.
This is very exciting news as there are some great new features in Workflow 7.1:
Add background processing servers for load balancing
Enterprise Management - allows for deployment and publishing through the SMP
A wizard interface to select project types and templates
The Workflow Repository manages versions of project through Workflow Manager. This allows you to store processes in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and share them with colleagues
One important thing to note is that if you decide to install the new SMP 7.1, so that you can take advantage of Workflow 7.1, and it detects an installation of any other ITMS products it won't work. Again, since the SMP 7.1 for ITMS products is not being released until the spring you'll need to make sure that it's installed in a totally separate environment from your other Altiris products.
Alphabet soup recap:
ITMS = Altiris IT Management Suite - for those of you familiar with Altiris this is the new branding for Total Management Suite (TMS)
SMP = Symantec Management Platform - for those of you familiar with Altiris this is the new branding for Notification Server (NS)
CMDB = Configuration Management Database
Thanks for reading and please contact WEVO Group if you have any questions!
Gartner, is a leading IT research company. You may have evaluated an IT product or vendor using the Gartner Magic Quadrant, which positions technology players in specific markets based into the following categories:
Challengers (top left quadrant)
Leaders (top right quadrant)
Niche Players (bottom left quadrant)
Visionaries (bottom right quadrant)
Where the Y axis is the "Ability to Execute" and the X axis is the "Completeness of Vision" .
The reason I mention Gartner today is because I received an email with a great article by Gartner that I'd like to share regarding calculating Return on Investment (ROI) for Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives. In these times, especially, ROI is large part of the decision making process for moving forward with a new business investment.
Click here to download a pdf of the article. Enjoy!
WEVO has used the Symantec Workflow tool to help a number of organizations automate and streamline business processes across various business units including; customer service, payroll, IT, operations, sales, and human resources. Some examples of processes are:
Guest Management System - automates and manages customer follow up and satisfaction for a casino and resort client.
Garnishment Process - automates and manages all the documents and tasks associated with processing garnishment cases.
Windows 7 Upgrade Process (we have also done this for other software upgrades i.e. Office 2007) - automates the request and roll out of major software upgrades.
Processes around meeting specific auditing requirements for SOX or other governing bodies.
Our clients typically will come to us with a particular process that is either very labor intensive, high volume, complex, or any combination of those three. The goal is always to improve efficiency, which saves our clients time and money. Putting together an accurate ROI analysis and diligent process mapping and discovery are both very important steps in accomplishing our goal. Now that the Symantec Workflow software is free* it lowers the "I" in ROI by about $50,000.
The only limit to Symantec Workflow is your mind. It's flexibility, rapid development capabilities, and ability to easily integrate to other systems allows you to be very creative and think outside of the box when it comes to business process management.
Please contact WEVO Group if you would like to discuss any process (s) that you feel could be more efficient.
*Symantecwill be including a full version of Workflow as part of the Symantec Management Platform (SMP) for all Symantec customers who are current on AUP.
Symantechas announced today that they will be including a full version of Workflow as part of the Symantec Management Platform (SMP) for all Symantec customers who are current on AUP. This is part of an initiative to provide process automation and integration across the Symantec product portfolio.
This is what we have learned:
• If you own another Enterprise Level Symantec Product you will be able to install and start using Workflow today for free.
• A full version of Symantec Workflow is now a part of the SMP (the full version includes all integration libraries and the process portal)
• There are no SKU’s for Workflow or Workflow Maintenance. You can get maintenance for Workflow if you have another SymantecEnterprise Level Product and are current on that product’s maintenance plan.
We at the WEVO Group applaud Symantec’s decision to make Workflow available to every Symantec Customer for free. Workflow is a truly amazing product and is by far one of the best rapid development platforms on the market today. It’s ability to interface with Symantec’s product line and industry standard programs such as: SharePoint, Active Directory, Exchange, SQL, Office, Oracle, etc. make it a must have program for every company.
The WEVO Group has used Symantec Workflow to automate high volume, complex, and labor-intensive processes for our clients. To learn more about how the WEVO Group can make your business more efficient, please visit our website http://WEVOGroup.com or contact Erik Tversland at 720-344-6547 (Colorado, USA).
The video below is a simple example of a self service portal for software deployment using Symantec Workflow and Altiris Deployment Solution. This video was put together by Shawn Turnbow at Symantec and can be accessed along with other video examples at workflowswat.com.
In this time of tightening budgets and layoffs the decision to bring new solutions to the organization will be heavily scrutinized. A simple return on investment (ROI) analysis can tell you how long it’s going to take for the new solution you are considering to “payoff”.
You can Google ROI and find millions of white papers and information on how to calculate return on investment. In our world ROI, in its simplest form, is the payback period from investing in a new solution, implementing a new process, or retooling an existing process. In other words, if you invest $50,000 into a new solution, how long will it take to recoup the $50,000 through cost savings and/or increased profits? The shorter the payback period, the sooner you’ll start seeing a ROI.
The goal of changing a system or process is to make it more efficient which will in turn save money and/or increase profitability. Typically the biggest bang for your buck will come from automating a very manual process. Efficiencies are mostly gained by reducing labor costs, reducing errors, and forcing compliance to a process. A simple ROI calculation can be done as follows:
Both soft and hard costs should be considered when putting together an accurate ROI analysis. Your threshold for ROI will more than likely vary on each project depending on the investment and the pain caused by business as usual. Waiting a year to recoup $20,000 is probably not acceptable, whereas, $200,000 may be more palatable.
WEVO Group has successfully implemented Symantec Workflow processes at a number of organizations. For more information on the specific processes visit our website at http://wevogroup.com. If you have processes that you are looking to automate and need help putting together a simple ROI analysis, we would be happy to help. Email me at erik@wevogroup.com.
Now with Workflow 7's ticketing and reporting functionality you can add status and reporting to your processes quickly and easily.
I recently had to build a "Proof of Concept" (POC) for a client proposal that we are working on. The client wanted to generate reports using Workflow to track a process for auditing purposes.
Now as many of you know, in past versions of Workflow we would've had to create a report like this in a couple of different ways: we could have developed a Web Forms Reporting Dashboard or a SQL Reporting Services report. Both of these options would have required some significant development time and additional cost to the project. Ticketing Functionality
Some of the new ticketing functionality that was created for ServiceDesk 7 in Workflow allows us to develop these reports quickly and easily.
I think it is important to note the ticketing functionality wasn’t developed with this purpose in mind. It was developed to quickly show the status of an SD7 ticket and where the ticket was in the process.
Like most things that are useful in this world, who cares what it was originally intended for, it works.
Basically what you want to do is add the ticketing components to your process.
Check “Add Process Component” in the reporting tab, located in the project properties menus at the top of the project tree.
This will create and place the “Global Logging” component in your project and set-up your process to be tracked in the process Portal. Please note the "Global Logging" component doesn't have to be part of your data stream.
You will need to add the “Setup Process” component at or around the beginning of your process and configure.
Then you will want to add a “Set Process State/Status” component to the end of your process when it is completed successfully.
Once you have done that your process will be fully tracked and you can simply create a custom report under the reporting section in the Process Portal.
To do this quickly I copied an existing report that was already set-up and I modified for my process.
Now I have a report that tracks the process and I was able to develop the report in about 15 minutes.
I realize that I didn’t dive into a ton of detail in this blog on how the custom reporting components and reports work. That is because one of the Workflow SE’s, Jason Short, just created two videos on this subject. They are available at WorkflowSwat or you can link to them from the resources page of our website. Click here for Process Reporting Video Links.
In conclusion the built-in reporting functionality that was added to Workflow 7 is pretty powerful and you can use it however you want to add functionality to your processes. It add’s a ton of power to your task management processes as it was intended to do but you can also use it as a flag and take advantage of the built in reporting that is integrated to it.
Please let me know if this blog was helpful or if you have used the ticketing reporting functionality to do anything really cool.
We are looking to partner with an organization that is planning to do a Windows 7 upgrade in the next 30 to 45 days. We have been certified by Symantec to Beta Test an Automated Windows 7 Upgrade process. In order to participate in this Beta test for no cost the company would have to own: Symantec Workflow, Deployment Solution, Asset Management (optional). We are donating our time but not travel for this test.
If you don't own the aforementioned products we have conducted an ROI/Breakeven analysis at roughly 900 employees upgrading to Windows 7.
Synopsis of Process: One of Symantec's Workflow Specialists, Jason Short, has developed an automated Windows 7 upgrade and migration process utilizing Symantec Workflow, Deployment Solution, and Asset Management.
The process can be kicked off through the self service portal by an individual employee. Once the process has been initiated, the employee is asked if they would like to start immediately or schedule for a later time. After that the process is fully automated: it creates a back-up of the current system and personality, it installs Windows 7 with personality and restores all settings and previous software titles. If the process errors in any way, IT is notified and the back up is restored.
To learn more about this process please watch Jason's video posted on the http://wevogroup.com under news and the resources page.
If you are interested in learning more please respond to this blog or visit the "Contact Us" page at http://wevogroup.com
We are the WEVO Group, a Business Process Automation firm in Denver, Colorado. We are Symantec Workflow and ServiceDesk 7 consultants. This Blog is for all things Workflow and ServiceDesk 7. We're going to post questions, tips, technical findings, and projects on the blog and we invite you to do the same. Thanks!
