Microsoft Business Process Alliance Overview

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Microsoft Business Process Alliance Overview

The Microsoft® Business Process Alliance is comprised of a select, exclusive group of ISV partners who are focused on

creating solutions that further enhance Business Process Management (BPM) enablement on the Microsoft platform.

Representing the top BPM solutions in the market, Business Process Alliance members have demonstrated an ability to

simplify complex business processes into a manageable process life cycle and deliver outstanding value to customers.

By building functionality and extending the features of the Microsoft platform, these partner solutions benefit end users by leveraging a customer’s existing investments in Microsoft products to deliver BPM solutions that span functional areas such as workflow, business rules, document-centric processes, business activity monitoring, process modeling, and optimization.

Achieving People-Ready Processes

on the Microsoft Platform

Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2006, Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007,

and the 2007 Microsoft Office system empower organizations to rapidly

and efficiently build adaptive, mission-critical Business Process

Management solutions spanning people, systems, and organizations.

Used together, the platform provides end-to-end process enablement,

starting with human- and document-centric tasks in the familiar and easy-

to-use Microsoft Office environment, to complex, high-volume distributed

transactions through BizTalk Server.

People: Increase organizational agility by enabling end users and

business analysts to develop efficient processes that require high levels of

collaboration, information sharing, and decision making.

Process: Model adaptive business processes that span people, system,

and organizational boundaries. Reduce the cost and complexity of

managing and automating business processes with a unified solution for

Business Process Management built on service-oriented architectures.

Performance: Make faster, enhanced business decisions with process monitoring, business activity monitoring, business rules engine, and optimization capabilities for greater organizational performance. Differentiate your business through improved process visibility across employees, partners, and customers.

Ascentn Corporate Overview

Ascentn pioneered the first .NET based BPMS to empower both IT and

business with a SOA based process deployment platform to deliver rapid,

incremental business agility. Ascentn AgilePoint is a Business Process

Management Systems (BPMS) that is a People-Driven and IT enabled

method of creating process based, adaptable business applications by

rapidly assembling reusable SOA business process activities. Ascentn, a

privately held corporation with one-hundred percent Microsoft-compliant

focus, was founded in 2002 by individuals with 20+ years of strong domain

experience in enterprise class workflow management and BPM solutions

on both the .NET and J2EE platforms. Ascentn was named the 2007 Cool

Vendor in BPM by Gartner. Ascentn customers span from Global 2000

companies to SMEs such as Siemens, Pfizer, Schlumberger, ChinaTrust,

and Daisy Brand as well as a select group of innovative OEM customers.

Ascentn has a global presence with offices in North America, APAC, and

EMEA in addition to a Partner Network in 15 countries.

"…. Ascentn’s metadata-driven IT asset-abstraction framework is a key concept, found in leading-edge J2EE-based BPMSs (such as Lombardi, Pegasystems, Savvion and Appian). …. Its model driven development framework provides the necessary instrumentation to fully experience the value proposition of SOA.” - Gartner BPM Cool Vendor Report 2007


AgilePoint Overview:

Ascentn’s AgilePoint is a .NET based BPMS that connects business and IT

at an SOA process layer through familiar Microsoft tools, XML, and Web

services. AgilePoint’s model-driven process framework allows dynamic

change to the process in real-time with no compiled code (necessary). This

enables easy composition, adaptation, and control of process based

applications that utilize any IT asset. Business can own and adapt the

business process as required, and IT does not have to anticipate or be

involved in every business decision. In its 2007 BPM Cool Vendor Report,

Gartner has stated that Ascentn’s approach is needed “…to fully experience

the value proposition of service-oriented architecture”.

Eliminate Business – IT Divide

• IT abstracts and brings to the surface; assets, transactions, and

SOA as process components in Visual Studio.

• IT provisions process components, provides governance,

manages SLA for components and process model execution.

• Information Workers assemble process components in Microsoft

Visio to create composite Office Business Applications using

InfoPath, SharePoint, Word, and Excel.

• Consistent and visible model driven process eliminates code

generation and discrepancies during round trip development.

• Model Driven XML to XML - Not XML to Compiled Code!

Reduce the Time, Cost and Risk of Mainstream BPM

• The integrated Microsoft stack and interoperability reduces

implementation effort, coding, maintenance, and training.

• Small, incremental solutions provide immediate return on

investment and migrate easily to larger BPM processes.

• The no-code, model driven approach allows business to handle

new scenarios and exceptions at runtime which are now tracked

for compliance and audit trails.

• Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast!

Enable People-Driven Innovation

• IT or business process designers compose and own the process

end to end inside Office using any IT assets on the SOA.

• The BPM framework provides glue and context for all steps in the

process including InfoPath forms, Office documents, SharePoint

portal usage, system activities, human tasks, approvals, business

and conditional rules, and transactions with line of business

systems.

• A complete, adaptable stack of integrated BPM technology

encourages streamlined process deployment. No need for

miscellaneous email, phone or paper.

• Model, Adapt, Innovate!

Industry Expertise

Much ground has been gained from the evolving efforts to improve

business process management (BPM) technology in the past few years.

But the approach has been limited to automating static processes such

as straight arrow transactions and fixed, easily definable core business

procedures. This approach neglected the real payoff in the 80% of a

firm’s process efforts that involve human intelligence and judgment that

are not so easily defined.

The need to collaborate and innovate for better customer service,

efficiency, and operational effectiveness is imperative for competitive

differentiation. The fundamental flaw is in the approach to BPM that

focuses mainly on the developer and the notion of automating code

generation. This forces the information worker to abdicate control of the

business process to IT which in turn provides a rigid, compiled code

executable, making process adaptability at runtime a major dilemma.

Ascentn AgilePoint provides a new approach to Business Process

Management that eliminates this IT-Business divide by addressing the

entire spectrum of business processes from efficient but static business

procedures to dynamic, high value added innovative practices.

AgilePoint was built completely upon the Microsoft .NET Framework by

individuals with 20+ years of strong domain experience in enterprise

class workflow management and BPM solutions on both the .NET and

J2EE platforms. As a result, AgilePoint employs many J2EE type

characteristics while leveraging the universal Microsoft productivity tool

sets to deliver a technologically balanced, modern BPMS solution.

AgilePoint accelerates organizations to the rich benefits of BPM, SOA

and composite applications because it satisfies the technology, cultural,

and people aspects of change. Business and IT have a common

business process services layer, with each having culturally appropriate

roles, tools, and control. Change can be fast, yet incremental as IT can

focus on core deliverables for rapid waves of smaller initiatives. Trust is

enhanced through the provisioning of a repository of targeted, well

tested process services with managed service level agreements and

governance for security, monitoring, and compliance. Meaningful

collaboration among business and IT increases as the business can

control and drive the business process as they see fit, while IT does not

have to be accountable or involved in every business decision.


Customer Case Studies/Clients Reference

AgilePoint’s unique adaptable architecture and deep integration with

Microsoft technologies has been leveraged by a wide range of customers

and partners. OEM’s and ISV’s have used AgilePoint as a core workflow

engine platform for diverse vertical solutions from petrochemicals, legal,

life sciences, and insurance, as well as horizontal solutions in digital asset

and document management, imaging, and capture. Customers have built

innovative business process solutions with AgilePoint that solve the

seemingly intractable problems of global scaling with hundreds of

departmental process variations by enabling IT to leverage with a

framework, eliminating application development black holes.

Financial Services - ChinaTrust

• Chinatrust (15,000+ employees, 58+ countries)

• J2EE centric Infrastructure: IBM, FileNET, Oracle, etc.

• AgilePoint was selected to align with SOA initiatives

• A host of Microsoft products and technologies were introduced

to deliver combined solutions with AgilePoint

Energy – Velco ( Vermont Electric Power Company)

• AgilePoint selected over J2EE-competitons

• AgilePoint enabled business process management with a small

IT staff and a fraction of cost and time compared to J2EE

Manufacturing – Daisy Brand

• Daisy Brand (75 year, 4th Generation family business)

• Needed to Process Enable existing Microsoft based applications

• Successful project to reduce delayed revenue recognition due to

inconsistent follow-up on invoice deductions

• Process application integrated existing ERP system with

employees in Exchange for 30-60-90-120 day follow-up

• 1st project provided positive ROI on the AgilePoint purchase

Hi-Tech – Elbit

• Business units in different countries needed faster turn-around

• Looked to enabling more effective connections to the underlying

systems to allow the leverage of these systems in new process

enabled composite applications that align with SOA

• AgilePoint enabled Elbit to break the reliance on software

developers in delivering functionality to their users

• Developers now encapsulate the required functionality, the

deployment and delivery is under the control of managers and

analysts who are more closely aligned with the needs of the

business, and as an end result—a lower cost of ownership

"What I really liked was the way Ascentn had leveraged

the openness of the .NET architecture. We are really

pleased with the result. The Accounts Receivable

project has provided a return on investment for the

Ascentn purchase. Everything moving forward is

additional savings for the company."

- Kevin Brown, CIO, Daisy Brand

Better Together: AgilePoint and Microsoft Integration

The combination of AgilePoint and Microsoft technologies provides a

collaborative BPM .NET solution specialized for each community of

involvement. Process Designers and analysts drive development using

familiar Microsoft tools: Visio, SharePoint, and Office, while IT provisions

services and provides governance with their entire array of developer-

oriented tools: Visual Studio, BizTalk Server, and SOA Web services. This

unified business process platform provides the architecture for building

process based Office Business Application solutions that can be

incorporated into end-to-end AgilePoint BPM workflows. As the diagram

below depicts, any IT asset can be process enabled and placed in a SOA

repository within Visio for creating an executable XML process model. This

mode is directly executed from an event in SharePoint resulting in an

InfoPath, Office, or ASP.NET composite business user application.

AgilePoint extends Microsoft Visio into a powerful, full lifecycle BPM tool

that enables business analysts to design, improve, and directly deploy

business processes for enterprise-class BPM applications with no coding

or IT involvement. Process models created by business analysts in

AgilePoint are directly deployed for execution in XML (rather than

compiled code). When business requirements change, the XML-based

AgilePoint process can be easily modified and deployed by business

analysts without having to go back to IT for application changes.

AgilePoint provides the process designer drag-and-drop integration with

SharePoint and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server within Visio-based

process model applications. Processes provide automation capabilities to

create, read, and manage sites, libraries, documents, lists, and provide

human interaction using InfoPath Forms Server or ASP.NET forms.

SharePoint becomes a process portal station with process initiation, task

management, and real-time process monitoring.

AgilePoint complements Visual Studio, SOA, BizTalk Server, BizTalk

Rules Engine, and Windows Workflow Foundation by taking these

technologies to a new level. Abstracting these developer oriented tools to

deliver business agility that can be fully mastered by business analysts

using a code-free, model-driven interface powered by Microsoft Visio.


Additional Microsoft Information and Resources:

Additional resources on enabling business process solutions on the Microsoft platform are available in the resources section below. Through use of

Microsoft BizTalk Server, Office System, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and .NET, Microsoft offers the premier platform for process enablement,

tying together people, process, and performance.

Microsoft Business Process Management: www.microsoft.com/bpm

Microsoft BizTalk Server: www.microsoft.com/biztalk

Office System: www.microsoft.com/office

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server: www.microsoft.com/sharepoint

Additional Ascentn Information and Resources:

For More Information

Website: www.ascentn.com

Phone: 650-968-6789

Address: [email protected]

Product Brochure

http://www.ascentn.com/PDF/ascentn_agilepoint_brochure.pdf

Publications

Gartner

“Cool Vendors in Business Process Management, 2007” by Janelle B. Hill and Marc Kerremans

Publication Date: 8 March 2007

Gartner ID Number: G00146378

BP Trends

“The 2006 BPM Suites Report - AgilePoint BPMS” by Derek Miers, Paul Harmon and Curt Hall

Publication Date: March, 2007

http://www.bptrends.com/members/deliver.cfm?report_id=107&target=09-2006 BPMS Ascentn.pdf&return=reports_toc_01.cfm

Documents

Microsoft Business Process Alliance Overview