Processes

The model way of implementing the WEBCON BPS system is to work on three types of environments. Processes are configured on the development environment, tests of the created solution are carried out on the test environment, and end-users of the system work on the production environment. Moving processes or changes in processes between environments is possible by using the built-in application import/export mechanism. Starting from version 2021.1.1, the mechanism was extended with transferring the contents of the dictionary processes and workflows for storing document templates. The addition of the ability to transfer data from dictionary processes allows for the improvement of the process of migrating applications between environments

Evaluation of employees is a process that is regularly carried out in each company. Automating such a process can save money by reducing the time required to assess employees and improve the workflow between superiors and employees. This article presents a scenario in which an employee and superior assess each other’s competencies, set goals for the next year, and analyze achievements and goals for the previous year. This article presents the process for assessing employee competencies. The process consists of two workflows – “List of behaviors” with a list of behaviors and “Employee assessment” that contains several steps.

This article presents an auxiliary process for creating tags that consists of only 3 steps - registration, modification, and final step.  The tags specified in it can be used in other processes, e.g., to tag individual promotions when planning a promotional campaign or to create a report where you group promotions by tags used in them. You can also search for workflow instances using tags and find them faster.

This article will show you: 1) how to configure the tagging process, 2) an example of its use to tag planned promotions, and 3) the opportunities related to it.

WEBCON BPS offers you the ability of importing data to the item list from an Excel file and exporting rows from the item list to an xlsx file. This article describes the configuration of importing/exporting data. Data import to the item list form field allows you to speed up the process of entering multiple data. The properly prepared data files from other systems allow you to store information in one application form. To enable import/export, go to the advanced configuration of the form field, and select the option in the “General” tab - Allow Excel export and Allow Excel import. When importing rows, not all imported fields need to be visible on the form. You can also import columns that are not visible at a given step.

Some processes in WEBCON BPS require data from some other source to operate correctly. This data can be provided from external data sources such as SQL databases or SharePoint lists. Internal sources can also be created in the system such as Fixed value lists or references to data contained in WEBCON BPS workflows. Any WEBCON BPS process can be used as a source of data for another process, however, one of the newer WEBCON BPS features is the ability to create a dictionary process – whose sole purpose is storing information.

When creating support for business processes in WEBCON BPS, it is important to remember that even the simplest workflow with a minimum number of steps and form fields will be reflected in the database – all of its instances and settings are represented in the content database – which is the main place of the system’s operation. There are also “virtual tables” automatically created by the system – called SQL views – that contain data from the linked tables.

The term “Related processes” refers to processes that interact with an application, but whose definition is originally in a different application. This feature can be useful in situations where you need to use the same process across multiple applications – once created in one application, it can be linked and used as a related process in others. Being in a different application does not exclude it from being used in presentation elements – related processes can be referenced in presentation configuration like any native process.

WEBCON BPS Standalone is what we call an installation of the system that operates without SharePoint. It was already possible to synchronize groups and individual users into the system by using the designated Portal interface. In version 2020.1.3., a new functionality for managing BPS groups and users has been added to supplement this process. The “Synchronization mode” parameter defines whether the action is to wait for the synchronization process to complete. Both synchronization modes are described in the context help in the system under the “F1” button.

Workflow class systems allow you to automation of many processes existing in the company. WEBCON BPS Portal gives us many tools that help to manage the processes. One of the examples is to generate the certificates for employees who successfully ended a given training. This article describes how to create and program such a process and hot to generate a certificate and send them by e-mail. Certificate generation process is a great example of how big variety of enterprise activities can be automated. While training for two participants seems like a piece of cake, lets think about manual sending certificates to hundreds of users or more.

In WEBCON BPS processes are divided into stages named as workflow steps. Each stage has tasks – collection of actions which need to be performed for the form to easily move to the next step. Assigning tasks makes sense if the user can fill the necessary data and send form to the next step in a short time. However there are situations where tasks are assigned and instead of improving the work, they unnecessarily complicate it. A good example are processes whose specification requires for a form field to remain in a single step for a long time. One of the most popular is a stocktaking process of the provided assets. Based on it, a difference between assigning task and providing privileges to modify will be explained.