Provider mixes collaboration with content management, process control to help companies automate more processes
Pleasanton, CA — June 1, 2004 — Content management specialist Documentum has released a new solution for business process management, adding several new products designed to integrate collaboration functionality with content management and process control capabilities to help the companies automate a wider range of processes in their enterprises.
The BPM solution, which already has been implemented in a number of Documentum customer sites, integrates the collaboration capabilities in the provider's eRoom solution with the content management and process control capabilities of the Documentum process engine. Documentum said that the convergence of these technologies will enable its customers to automate a wider range of processes than previously.
The Business Process Management (BPM) solution consists of several new products, including Business Process Manager, Business Process Services, Forms Builder and the latest version of eRoom, Documentum's enterprise collaboration solution.
The Business Process Manager application offers a visual, drag-and-drop environment for defining executable business processes within the Documentum environment and beyond. This can help both business and IT users design and model business processes without custom programming.
Business Process Services provides integration services for business processes to coordinate and collaborate with each other using message-based integration standards such as Java Messaging Services (JMS), Web Services, XML, Java and e-mail.
The Forms Builder solution provides a graphical tool for the creation of formlets, XML-based electronic forms that end-users can fill out when initiating or participating in a managed business process.
eRoom is Documentum's collaboration solution, which provides integration to Documentum content services and business processes. It can generate collaborative workspaces for unstructured, collaborative processes and for exception handling, escalations or decision-making events that require human interaction, the solution provider said.
"By integrating Documentum eRoom, we have differentiated our BPM solution by linking collaboration with structured business processes to address the broad spectrum of processes that our customers face," said Dave DeWalt, president of the Documentum software division of EMC Corp. "Organizations across all industries can rely on Documentum to automate both simple and complex business processes."
The BPM solution also leverages other content services of Documentum's Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform, including enterprise content integration and federated discovery, components of the provider's Virtual Repository solution. Using BPM with Virtual Repository, customers can discover and aggregate various content types from multiple data sources and integrate the content with existing business processes. In this way, says Documentum, business processes can integrate users, activities and content both inside and outside of the content repository.
ECM platform services provide the Documentum process engine with capabilities such as distributed workflow, XML processing for messages in XML format, auditing and electronic signatures for business processes, as well as the performance, scalability and business continuity required for enterprise business process management solutions, according to Documentum.
The solution also integrates with processes that span non-Documentum applications, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and product lifecycle management (PLM). This allows distributed people, applications and content to be included in the same business process, even when they reside in different locations and repositories, according to Documentum.
Timothy Fives, manager of global content solutions at manufacturer York International, said that the new BPM solution is in line with his company's current application strategy. "The ability to interrelate workflows from SAP applications or any applications to Documentum is especially attractive to us," Fives said.
