|
|
|
WORKFLOW COMPARATIVE STUDY
New Edition This edition introduces three new products: InTempo, the success winner from JetForm, WFX the innovative work management by Eastman Software, and CSE Workflow the successful European product recently introduced to the US market. The new Study also incorporates a major review of offerings from other vendors: Staffware 2000's new features, a strengthened version of Visual Workflo with top level performances, the Dolphin entry-product from Fujitsu, consolidation of FlowMark under the new name of MQSeries Workflow, a new orientation towards production workflow from InConcert, and the consolidation of the quickly ramping up W4 native Internet product. "Our research indicates a strong reinforcement of the Workflow industry with products showing an ever-increasing level of features, making it even more challenging for new-comers to the market," says Martin Ader. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
For IT Directors, and Architects, Consultants and Analysts as well as Workflow vendors and VAR Product Marketing and Sales Directors, this report provides a comprehensive framework for comparing workflow engines and products. It includes a competitive analysis of 12 workflow products developed by CSE Systems, Eastman Software, FileNet, IBM, JetForm, InConcert, COSA Solutions, Staffware, Fujitsu, and W4. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A Unique report Save days to months Who Needs this Report? What's in this Report? Volume I, Management Summary Volume II, Definition of Workflow Comparison Criteria Volume III, Workflow Comparative Analysis Packaging, Prices and Order Form About The Author
|
This study's characteristics make it a must for anyone involved in developing a workflow strategy or with a role in the product selection and purchase decision.
For the price of a day of consulting you will save:
- IT Directors and IT Architects who have to select workflow products to support today's demanding business needs of their organizations.
- Workflow Consultants who need to have the best possible information to assist their customers in taking strategic decisions.
- Workflow Market Analysts who always need a fresh perspective on workflow to enrich their market and product knowledge.
- Product Marketing Directors of Workflow Vendors who have a need for comprehensive competitive analysis. This report does just that, giving them more time to concentrate on their key business, sales and marketing.
- Sales Directors of Workflow Distributors and Value Added Resellers (VARs) who need to position their products against other offerings when bidding for projects. This report will give them a tool for quantitative and qualitative analysis.
Over 380 pages of detailed information, illustrated by some 100 charts, covering:
Volume I, Management Summary, 81 pages, 59 charts), Four color printing
Volume
II, Definition of Workflow Comparison Criteria (80 pages),
Four color printing
Our analysis focuses on 12 criteria measuring cost of ownership, for development, deployment and maintenance of workflow applications.
Throughput Rates | depends
on the efficiency of the engine, and its capacity to run on top of a
distributed cluster of servers.
|
Procedure Power | the
capacity of the procedure development environment to express the real
complexity of procedures in all their smallest details.
|
Activity Programming | the
API is the cornerstone of activity programming, with additionally
support for deadlines management, pre and post conditions, document
and folder support, and events mechanisms.
|
Dispatching and Organization Representation: | the
capability to dispatch each individual activity to the participant
with the correct level of access rights and appropriate role.
|
Operation and Statistics | features
that facilitate operation of the server, and collection and
interpretation of statistics.
|
Telecommuting | evaluates
the tools provided to minimize cost of communications and workstation
administration.
|
Distribution | supports
co-operation of several independent workflow engines operated by
different departments.
|
Internet Support | the
user interface can be operated from a simple Web browser. This covers
the following functions: worklist handler, activity execution,
graphical procedure status, and starting a procedure instance.
|
Dynamic Changes | collaborative
and ad-hoc procedures, even if not known in advance, must be
defined on the spot. It is important to be able to change them
dynamically to factor in unforeseen situations.
|
Procedure Definition | the
best offer is a graphical procedure definition tool. In addition
features like skip, undo, offered/accepted states, suspend, delegate
and reroute can ease the definition process.
|
Activity Definition | activity
implementation (no programming) can be achieved by providing embedded
support, libraries of activities, and integrated forms generation
tools.
|
Ready-to-use agents | when
the engine is provided together with ready-to-use agents defined
procedures can run without programming. This includes: a worklist
handler, and a standard activity agent for managing the dialogue with
the user.
|
|
This bar chart lists product features related to the Procedure Power criterion with weights expressed in percentages. Each product feature is further broken down into characteristics, each being given an individual score. |
Volume
III, Workflow Comparative Analysis (164 pages, 58 bar charts),
Four color printing
This volume covers the results of analyzing 12 workflow products from both established players and newcomers, ranging from intensive production applications to ad-hoc applications.
CSE/WorkFlow (CSE Systems) offers production workflow class features with a good organization model. It features an advanced development environment including Java and Corba compliant interfaces. | |
COSA Workflow (COSA Solutions) joins a powerful organization model to a Petri net formalism to describe the procedure. The organization model features multiple group hierarchies. A distributed engine handles case migration. COSA Intranet features an HTML worklist handler and Lotus Notes integration. | |
Ensemble (FileNet) is an ad-hoc workflow where a simple procedure can be defined in five to ten minutes and immediately started. It offers distribution and home work capabilities by using the built-in mail system as a server. It is astonishingly easy to use and features just enough functionality to deserve the title of true workflow. | |
MQ/Series Workflow (IBM) with a true object-oriented design, offers a high level of re-usability. Distribution is achieved through node assignment to sub-procedures. It concentrates on procedure management and powerful organization modeling while leaving activity implementation to the programmer. | |
InConcert (InConcert) integrates object oriented technology, document management, and a dynamic process model that enables users to quickly build and tailor workflows. The process model enables users to dynamically modify process instances on-the-fly as exceptions and changes to the process might require. Add-on products are offered for Administration and Telecommunication industries. | |
InTempo (JetForm) offers easy definition of form-based procedures that can be economically deployed enterprise wide through client/server, Java and HTML-based browser clients. A product of choice for enterprise deployment of administrative procedures. | |
|
DOLPHIN (TeamWARE) the ad-hoc workflow offering for Windows environments from TeamWARE. Upward compatible with TeamWARE Flow, it offers unprecedented ease of use with the power of a true collaborative workflow, including dynamic changes capabilities. Office users can define a procedure in the time needed to elaborate an action plan, lauch it immediately form their desktop, and change it as frequently as required. |
Staffware 2000 (Staffware Corp.) offers a good compromise between production and administrative workflow requirements while delivering production workflow throughput. Activity implementation uses form definition and a scripting language that can be deployed on terminals, Windows and Java clients. It supports distributed configurations and handles activities delivery in Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange environments. | |
TeamWARE Flow (Fujitsu) offers outstanding dynamic capabilities with procedures implemented on the spot that can start running while still incomplete. The procedure definition can be completed and modified while the process is in progress. It uses facilities of the TeamWARE groupware environment as well as Lotus Notes and Exchange for electronic mail, document management, user identification and form management. | |
Visual Workflo (FileNet) is an object-oriented evolution of the first workflow with an API to build tailored worklist handlers and activities. It provides classes hierarchies with inheritance, facilitating the definition of procedures variations with simpler diagrams. Visual Workflo is the benchmarking point for single CPU throughput and offers scalability through distribution mechanisms. | |
W4 (W4) designed for use on the Internet from the beginning, W4 provides an excellent level of functionalities with production workflow throughput. HTML forms are automatically generated and can be redrawn graphically using any HTML editor. W4 offers simple mechanisms enabling flexible procedures with easy handling of unforeseen situations. | |
WFX (Eastman Software) relies completely upon Microsoft Exchange messaging infrastructure and forms and foldering tools. It is a work management solution with extensive programmability features and full document management integration. |
The analysis evaluates how well each product performed for each of the 12 criteria . Results are presented in the form of radar charts where each axis presents the product score on a 100 points scale. This diagram presents the author's estimates of what scores a product should meet for each of the four application classes: production, administrative, collaborative, and ad-hoc. It shows the different requirements, and highlights the value of analyzing your organization needs before selecting a workflow engine.
Packaging, Price and Order Form
Criteria Definition (Volume
II) alone
Should you want just to
compare other products, Volume II alone will provide you, at a reasonable cost,
the whole 247 product checklist from which you can instantly build your own
shopping list.
Paper copy
Three volumes of quality
four color printing, a total of 380 pages, printed in full color .
Single user electronic and
paper copy
Acrobat formatted color
documents with some 100 inter-documents hyper-links, and hyper-links to vendor's
webs. Password protected for single user and delivered with a paper copy.
Company license and paper copy
includes the electronic
copy, the paper copy, and a license to distribute them to full time employees ot
the contracting company.
Each electronic copy includes
your personal decision support system tool
Multiple spreadsheets
allow you to: score other products, tune weights to your own needs, instantly
update 12 radar charts and 24 bar charts.
Price List and Order Form click here
1998 edition upgrades order your upgrade here
1998 version | 1999 list price US$ | Rebate US$ | 1999 net price US$ |
Paper | 1,280 | 500 | 780 |
Single user electronic | 1,950 | 750 | 1,200 |
Company license | 3,750 | 1,250 | 2,500 |
8% discount for
WARIA and WfMC membership applicable on net prices, Florida resident
sales tax and shipping charges are additional. Rebate is applicable to
upgrade to higher option (i.e.; 1998 paper copy has US$ 500 rebate on
1999 single user electronic license yielding a net price of US$ 1,200)
Special conditions - like upgrading to electronic from paper, please email waria@waria.com |
Competitive upgrades
We offer competitive upgrade rebates for any recent (1997 or 1998) purchaser of the following studies. A proof of purchase must be provided (a copy of the invoice where price information is suppressed or made unreadable). The rebate is exclusive of any other discount. Rebates are not cumulative. They do not apply to Volume II alone. We accept only pre-paid orders with competitive rebate.
Product identification | Rebate In FF | Rebate in US$ |
Process Product Watch One year subscription, or at least Two volumes, or 8 products reviews. | 2,000.00 | 350.00 |
CXP étude comparative des produits de workflow. | 2,000.00 | N. A. |
Sodan Workflow Management Products. | 1,200.00 | 200.00 |
Others upon request at info@wngs.com, or waria@waria.com |
Library discounts upon request at waria@waria.com.
Martin Ader has 12 years of in-depth experience in workflow research and development, competitive analysis, and consulting. He is author of the highly acclaimed Workflow Comparative Study. Mr. Ader set up and managed the Bull Workflow research team. In ten years his team built two successive prototypes of workflow distributed engines and produced the well-received FlowPATH Bull workflow product. The team was later transferred to Eastman Software (formerly Wang), where Ader became responsible for European Workflow Marketing. In 1996, he created his own consultancy firm, Workflow & Groupware Stratégies (W&GS). Ader was Wang Software representative at the WfMC technical committee. W&GS is a funding member of the WfMC. Ader also participates in the Workflow And Reengineering International Association (WARIA). |
BOOKSTORE |
ORDER HERE |
New Book
BPMN Modeling and Reference Guide
Two Best Sellers - One Special Price!
Retail $114.95 Huge 39% Discount.
Pay only $69.95 for both BPMN
books in one bundle.
You
Save $45.00.
BPMN Edición digital en español
Precio: $49.95
Comprar
A Member of:
|