Process management (BPMN)
Software-supported automation of your processes - target-oriented, transparent and flexible
With Projektron BCS, you can automate, control and optimize your project management processes and your internal organization with software support - using system-controlled workflows and BPMN processes. In order to automate and streamline your business processes and workflows and achieve better results at lower costs in the medium to long term, BCS offers you two central functionalities of process management software at the same time: system-controlled workflows and automated processes with the BPMN Designer.
Process management with workflows and BPMN 2.0 in Projektron BCS
➤ Are many departments and employees involved in your onboarding and familiarization processes?
➤ Leave requests should be immediately available to all responsible parties for approval, whether in the office or remotely?
➤ Business trips require approval from various stakeholders, depending on the costs incurred?
➤ Should contacts be generated in CRM from e-mail inquiries and forwarded to Sales?
➤ Do you want purchasing processes for inventory items to result in automatically created assets with associated contract documents?
With your individually designed process in BCS, all this is no problem!
Process modeling according to BPMN 2.0
The BCS module "Workflows / BPMN" offers you a holistic solution for mapping and implementing BPMN workflows. In the integrated and intuitive drag-and-drop BPMN Designer, you model the processes according to BPMN 2.0 - the internationally recognized specification language for business process models.
Define processes easily with the BPMN Designer in BCS.
Using the graphical user interface in the BPMN Designer, you can define all activities, process elements and roles in the process with just a few clicks, including the associated process forms and the assignment of the people and groups of people involved. Using the context palette, you can add more (swim) lanes to your process in no time.
Gateways allow you to model decisions that appear as branches in the process, where a branch is selected depending on the parameters you define. In this way, you can model not only binary decisions such as yes-no, but a variety of alternatives:
In your purchasing process, if the amount is less than 50 euros, no approval is required; if it is 50 to 200 euros, the approval of the head of department is required; and if it is more than 200 euros, the approval of the managing director is also required? No problem. Using the property editor in the designer, you can contextually edit all BPMN elements and forms in your process.
More efficient collaboration and task allocation with BPMN processes in BCS
BPMN processes enable you to assign tasks transparently and clearly in teamwork and in collaboration across departmental boundaries, hierarchical levels and locations. Even across language boundaries, you can collaborate with other locations in one and the same process, since the process and all its activities and elements can be represented in multiple languages.
If a User Task assigns an output to you, it will be displayed on your personal dashboard "My Area". Optionally, you can also have an email notification sent.
Every authorized user (process role) of a Swimlane can take over and execute the tasks and events in the lane. You define the corresponding authorizations via the rights assignment in BCS.
Persons with the "Process Manager" user license
- design new processes and create process definitions in the BPMN Designer,
- manage created processes,
- check which process instances are running and in which process step they are,
- control running processes,
- terminate running processes if necessary (for example, if a process was started twice by mistake),
- perform process evaluations and optimizations.
Once saved, the process models are immediately ready for use. Employees can start defined processes with just one click.
It is easy to create any BCS objects automatically from BPMN workflows via service tasks:
- Appointments
- Tickets
- Checklists
- Resubmissions
- Comments on tickets
- Emails
For service tasks such as automated e-mailing or ticket comments, you can store text templates in HTML format in advance.
BPMN process models: examples
Typical use cases for BPMN processes are
complex review processes of offers
Invoicing workflows
Pesrocurement processes
Approval processes with approval workflow (e.g. vacation request, request for business trip, home office, time off compensation, expense reimbursement)
On- and offboarding process
BPMN example 1: Purchasing process
The pool for the purchasing process includes three swimlanes, one each for the process roles involved: department manager, buyer, and general manager. Depending on the price, approvals are required by different instances. An Exclusive Gateway determines in which swimlane the process is continued, depending on the purchase price. The process can end in three different End Events. The User Tasks, which require the reaction of a user, are marked with the person icon. The Service Tasks, marked with the gear, take place automatically and can be grayed out for clarity. With annotations like "Release?" you have the possibility to insert explanations for the end users.
BPMN example 2: Request for further training
The following process roles are involved in the training request: requestor, team leader of the requestor, and personnel management. The team leader is responsible for evaluating the request. If the team leader rejects the request or does not approve it within a definable period (timer boundary event), an automated rejection is sent to the requester. If the team leader approves the request, an exclusive gateway ensures that the process is transferred to the swimlane of HR management, which must organize the training.
BPMN Example 3: Business Trip Request
Three process roles are involved in the business trip request process: Requestor, Department Manager, and General Manager. After the start event, which the requestor initiates with his request, it is initially the responsibility of the department manager to check the request. Depending on the cost of the business trip, further review by the Executive Director may be required. If the business trip request is approved first by the department head and then by the managing director, an automated e-mail notification is sent to the requestor. The applicant now receives the final user task of deciding whether to go on the business trip or to cancel it.
Ejemplo BPMN 4: Solicitud de trabajo móvil
En el proceso de solicitud de un nombramiento en el domicilio intervienen dos roles: el solicitante (empleado) y el jefe de departamento. El proceso comienza en cuanto el empleado presenta la solicitud iniciando el proceso. Si el presupuesto previamente determinado es suficiente, la solicitud se aprueba automáticamente sin necesidad de comprobación por parte del jefe de departamento. Sin embargo, si el presupuesto no es suficiente, primero debe determinarse automáticamente el jefe de departamento responsable. A continuación, se les muestra el proceso de solicitud en sus tareas de proceso y pueden comprobar la solicitud y decidir sobre ella con un solo clic.
Improvement is a process: Evaluate and optimize BPMN processes
Once the process is complete, the process manager can evaluate the process to identify optimization needs. For example, he can analyze how quickly vacation requests are approved.
You can view the process history at the process instance. It shows the processing history of a process instance in chronological order, including the time of processing and the last person responsible. E-mails sent within the process are also logged. This allows you to track which user has made which entries to a process task.
If you have defined the process variables as Projektron BCS attributes, you can evaluate this data later via Projektron BCS in the same way as conventional project controlling. For example, you can view all tickets created as part of a process and analyze processing time or costs.
Ralf Alker
Senior Consultant, infinit.cx Group
"I am excited about the BPMN module in BCS because it allows me to implement my own queries and processes completely freely using User Task, Scripts and Gateways. In the BPMN process, I can create new objects or create additional referenced data objects on existing objects. I also really appreciate loaders in BPMN, because with them it is possible to read more complex data from the database. For example, we used the BPMN designer in BCS to model and implement a complex purchase order approval process that determines the cost center manager for a project task. After the purchase order request is entered, it is submitted to a group of reviewers for subsequent approval, possibly in two stages, depending on the amount. Finally, a purchase order is generated via email for the supplier and a timer is started that keeps the process open for a while for any adjustments."
David Rosenau
Head of Solution Consulting/SAP Senior Consultant, Mercoline GmbH
"As soon as the graphical interface was available in BCS, we started to actively use the BPMN functionalities. With the onset of the Corona pandemic, when mobile working became a necessity for our team, these functionalities helped us a lot to digitize our workflows and processes. Very quickly, we were able to digitally map our invoice workflow and approval processes in BCS. Paper invoices that arrived in the office could thus be digitized and submitted to various cost center managers for review and approval without them having to be on site."
Ralf Junge
Head of PMO, Sandstein Neue Medien
"For some time now we have been familiarizing ourselves with the possibilities of the BPMN-Process Designer in BCS. We want to automate our internal management and support processes as much as possible. In the first step we dared to to our process "View Inquiry and Request for Proposal": If an inquiry from a prospect is received by one of our employees - be it in sales, team assistance, management, support or a project manager - or if someone discovers a promising lead, BCS automatically generates a new prospect in the "External" area with all previously available information and, if applicable, existing documents, creates a ticket and assigns it to a suitable agent in sales. This person can then decide whether it is worth pursuing the inquiry or the lead further."
Raphael Becker
Team Leader Order Management & Billing, AM GmbH
"The onboarding of new employees takes place at our company as a BPMN-driven process in which all relevant departments and positions are involved. In the course of the process, all relevant information is automatically stored directly in the software at the various objects. We can rely on the fact that everything is thought of. New faces are well looked after from their first day at work in our company and find everything they need to arrive."
System-controlled workflows and checklists
With the help of system-controlled workflows, you define individual workflow steps directly in Projektron BCS - including processing sequence, response and target times - and assign your employees. When it is your turn as the processor in the workflow, Projektron BCS automatically informs you what needs to be done and how long you have to do it. You can see immediately whether time is pressing by using the traffic light function.
Das Team im Flow dank Workflows und Checklisten
Each employee can display his workflows and his open checklist entries on his personal dashboard "My area". Once the work is done, the next employee is informed accordingly in his or her personal dashboard in BCS - gladly also by e-mail.
- Do you work in teams? Assign workflows to groups of people instead of individual agents!
- There is something more to do? Attach as many checklist items as you like to a workflow step to split it up further and to specify tasks and agents!
- The workflow stalled at one point or another? Optimize your workflow for recurring processes and save the process as a template.
Process control simple and flexible
Workflows in BCS offer you a simple and flexible tool to control your processes around the project business with software support. At Projektron GmbH, we also map numerous internal business processes with system-controlled workflows and checklists in BCS:
- Recruitment and exhibition processes (onboarding and offboarding) in personnel management
- Trade fair organization, event organization and event marketing
- Product management, product marketing, documentation and sales material updates in the release cycle
- Order processing
- Purchasing processes
- Invoice verification
- ... and many more!
Every employee knows immediately when and by when he has to do exactly what and to which goal he contributes with it. In this way, you effectively and efficiently coordinate your teamwork, ensure transparent processes and decisions, and create the basis for being able to continuously analyze and optimize your processes.
Christian Otto Grötsch
Managing Director, dotSource GmbH
"As a new functionality, the company uses workflows in conjunction with checklists for activity billing. To do this, project managers load a standard template for an invoicing workflow with checklists into their project or subproject to be invoiced and then fill it with all relevant data for invoicing (...). Once the invoicing has been released by the responsible project manager, the workflow is assigned via a status change to the finance department, which stores the invoice in the system. Finally, the invoice is created in BCS and sent to the customer."
