Tech4Him – Technology with Integrity

Spent a little more time today researching more workflow options. Since the last post on this subject, a new use case has come up with significantly lesser requirements but a more critical need.

As we continue to follow the needs of a non-profit that is rapidly growing, we continue to see opportunities for improved processes. A continuing struggle is to make sure that staff understands that technology may be a means to some improvements, it is not “THE” solution. As such, there are numerous conversations we must initiate to ensure that the needs and goals/outcomes are known before we start talking about technology solutions.

The new use case for workflow is for a simpler tracking need.

1. Ability to define a basic workflow with user assignments.
   1. Start and End tasks.
   2. Parallel/Sequential Tasks (synchronous/asynchronous)
   3. Multiple end points
2. Email notification of step assignments.
3. No need to store content or files as part of the process. Will be handled manually with existing file/folder structures.

So here are some additional workflow options we are looking into. Again, I’d love to here more about your suggestions, thoughts or ideas.

• Together Workflow Server – This is a commercially supported offshoot of the open source Enhydra Shark workflow server. Claims to be a WfMC XPDL and OMG Workflow Management Facility compliant embeddable and / or standalone Java Workflow Engine.
• Enhyrdra Shark Workflow Server – Open Source workflow engine based on WfMC specifications using XPDLwith no proprietary add-ons.
• Drupal Workflow – Workflow module for Drupal when combined with the Drupal 6 actions and triggers is a powerful solution. Downside for us is a less than desirable UI. But then again, I’m a little Drupal biased as it is an excellent general web platform.

Also, I’ve kept coming back to ProcessMaker. There are a few different things that I like about their approach thus far.

• Open Source – For the non-profit organization that this is for, we seem to get a lot of excellent return from the open source projects that have been implemented for other needs.
• Process Library – According to this blog post, the library is brand new and still beta but if they get some community traction, this could be a great resource.
• Commercial Support – This open source project, like many others, has commercial support offerings. Specifically through Colosa.com.
• Microsoft Windows Server support – While LAMP has its benefits, some organizations only have Windows Server skill sets. Process maker has a nice, easy to use WAMP installer executable for Windows. Our test installation ran flawlessly and we were working in the web application in less than 6 minutes.
• External Database Support – Support to connect processes to various external database platforms including MySql, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle

And the things I’m not liking about most standard workflow solutions

• Overkill/Complexity – For our implementation needs, these solutions are flexible enough but so complex that the learning curve is steep for non-technical staff.
• Confusing standards – For those of use not in the workflow space, I am finding a number of “standards” that seem to be competing. Were new to the workflow space and more time researching may reveal this to not be the case but I’d think we’d had hit upon standards right away.
• Friendly UI – Most of the screenshots we’ve seen for the end user interaction seem to be fairly sparse and not terribly “appealing”. I know aesthetics don’t make an application platform but first impressions are important for some user implementations.

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