These industry veterans, who have created and managed both rapidly growing private and public companies, joined the company because of Active Endpoints’ unique vision to deliver affordable, service-oriented BPM in order to take advantage of strong demand in this segment of the large and growing BPM market.

The company continues to show significant traction, confirming customers want an alternative to traditional, complex and expensive BPMS’s. For example, revenues grew over 100% in the 1st half 2010 compared to the 1st half of 2009. In addition, the customer base continues to expand in all geographic regions and industries, including Telecommunications (Tele2), Media and Entertainment (itfc), Government (Naval Research Labs), and Financial Services/Insurance (Desjardins General Insurance Group).

Download the Active Endpoints press release below for more details.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Active Endpoints Significant Growth Attracts Industry Veterans to Executive Team and Board of Directors

The IT organization at WGU launched a search for a BPM system that was standards-based, supported a services-oriented architecture and easily deployed and maintained on their own. After considering several of the other solutions (including JBoss jBPM and coding a solution themselves), WGU selected the ActiveVOS business process management system (BPMS) from Active Endpoints.

This Upside Research Implementation Brief takes a closer look at the university, its challenges, and its decision to select a model-driven BPMS over a set of non-integrated propriety tools as the foundation for its SOA architecture. It also examines the business impact of its BPM deployment.

Download the Active Endpoints Press Release below for more details.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Western Governors University Realizes 80% Savings with Active Endpoints Business Process Management System

Contrary to many of the APIs that call themselves REST-based, REST means more than using HTTP GET to call the service and getting plain XML documents back as results. The talk describes the five key principals of REST, including the most important one, which is called HATEOAS. It is an interesting principal that works well for the Web, but it is antithetical to design-time type checking. In fact the REST style is, in general, in conflict with any kind of design-time typing (Roy Fielding refers to typing as “out-of-band” information that creates a tight coupling between client and server).

However, design-time typing is just part of a well-defined service contract and good service contracts are one of the most important characteristics of a service-oriented architecture. I describe this more fully in the talk and also describe the critical value of design-time typing for BPM. I also show how fragile business processes become when they have to depend on REST.

You can view the talk using one of the formats below or just look at the slides (the PDF at the bottom).

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #33: Is REST Right for BPM?

This summer, Active Endpoints CTO Michael Rowley and industry analyst, blogger and BPM expert Sandy Kemsley presented a series of webinars focusing on the “human aspects” of BPM.

On Thursday, July 22nd, in the final episode of the series, Sandy presented Five Things You Should Never Ever Try in Process Development. Rather than concentrating on best practices, which often devolve into motherhood-and-apple-pie statements, Sandy was able to compile a succinct list of process development practices that she has seen in real organizations, but which should never ever be done. Michael Rowley then demonstrated how those bad practices can be avoided and good ones followed in a live demonstration of the ActiveVOS BPMN process designer. The audience asked questions of both Sandy and Michael, which prompted some excellent discussions. A replay of the presentation is attached to this post below.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

BPM Summer Camp session 3 webinar replay

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #31: SOA — from concept to SOAP opera, part 2

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #30: SOA — from concept to SOAP opera, part 1

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Active Endpoints posts record sales in Q2 2010

OK, OK…I know. The pun on SOAP and soap opera is a little much. But doesn’t the SOA world feel like a never-ending, overwrought daytime TV drama?

I mean, c’mon. Nobody can decide if SOA is dead or alive…if it’s a product (or set of products) or if it’s JBOI (just a bunch of ideas, a pun on “JBOD.” I just can’t help myself.).

So, starting tomorrow on CTO Tuesdays, the BPM podcast, Michael Rowley will begin another “miniseries” within the larger podcast that begins with the very basics of SOA and builds over time to paint a complete picture of this much discussed and often misunderstood development approach. We intend this as a primer for both new and expert users and we are excited that the recurring SOA topics will expand CTO Tuesdays’ regular line-up of BPM technology talks.

Register for CTO Tuesdays at http://www.activevos.com/ctot and, as always, you can return to this blog for replays. But we hope you can join us live because we expect the discussion after Michael’s presentation on these topics to be very lively and we hope to have you join in the discussion.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Next on “CTO Tuesdays:” SOA – from concept to SOAP opera

Starting with last week’s CTO Tuesdays and continuing with the episode posted below, we have increased our range to crucial technical decisions for BPM users which may have very long-term effects.

We are, to put it bluntly, very concerned that the marketplace is receiving — and accepting — incorrect information about the real relationship between BPEL and BPMN 2.0. Last week, Michael Rowley dispelled this myth in the abstract. This week, Michael has gone further: he actually shows what a two-toolset, two-engine BPMS environment with only a fig-leaf of integration looks like, using Oracle’s BPM Suite 11g and SOA Suite 11g as the poster children.

Yes, Oracle is a competitor. And yes, we have a “dog in the hunt,” as they say. Therefore, for sure, we have an opinion.

None of that undoes the fact that users should consider alternative points of view — views based, as we attempt to do, on the exact text and meaning of the BPMN 2.0 specification. And the fact that we have an opinion — and a product based on that belief — doesn’t undo the fact that much of the argument that BPMN should execute directly and that BPEL is passe is as self-serving as anything we may say.

So, I urge you to watch the replay of CTO Tuesdays attached to this post and to consider the alternative arguments we make. We’re not going to convince everybody, but we truly believe that the people who do consider their long-term BPMS strategy will find that BPMN as notation with BPEL execution is the better alternative.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #29: Oracle’s misguided approach to BPMN and BPEL

Among the many benefits of using a BPMS to manage collaboratively designed processes are that the BPMS has abundant knowledge about those processes.

Take that data…couple it with the end user’s awareness of the process (because he or she helped design the automated process) and you have possibly the richest source of information imaginable for reporting and visualization.

In this webinar replay, you can see how the ActiveVOS BPMS uses Actuate BIRT to deliver integrated reporting. And, you will learn how it is possible to put even greater control of reporting and analysis directly into the hands of the same users who designed an organization’s automated processes.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

BPM and BI: mix thoroughly for best results

You can see the very best of that loud-but-authentic aesthetic at work in episode 28 of CTO Tuesdays, the BPM podcast.

For too long — and, frankly, for reasons that mystify me — some voices have spoken of a “conflict” between BPMN and BPEL. It has always seemed to me that those points of view — that BPMN 2.0 is somehow a “successor” or “replacment” for BPEL –  have an agenda that’s more about their preferred results in the marketplace than about the “best” or the “right” thing for users. IOW, politicking is at play.

But, as we all know, in politics, negative campaigning works. “BPEL is dead;” “BPMN 2.0 execution obviates BPEL.” These misstatements have gained far more attention than they deserve. They have escalated to the level of myth — or worse, conventional wisdom — both of which can have lives very separate from reality.

Our response: BPMN 2.0 is better with BPEL execution for users for a plethora of reasons. Far from dead, BPEL’s fundamental mistake of not specifying a visual notation is cured by BPMN 2.0. And BPMN 2.0 achieves its highest likelihood of success when coupled with BPEL execution.

Still, the myth that these two crucial standards are in conflict persists. Watch this podcast replay to see and hear Michael Rowley debunk these myths — passionately and accurately.

And be sure to join us next week for episode 29, titled “Oracle’s misguided approach to BPMN and BPEL” for even more myth-busting. Register at http://www.activevos.com/ctot.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #28: Debunking the myth of conflict between BPMN and BPEL

In Aciviti’s lexicon, however, an “embedded” BPMS is the answer to a set of problems involving cost. But the real answers to the cost issues Activiti raises aren’t primarily technological…because those issues come from BPMS vendors’ business models and their product design (or, in the case of BPMSs cobbled together by acquisition, lack of product design). Naturally, we believe we have licked these problems in ActiveVOS.

OTOH, there are some serious, fundamental problems with the embedded BPM approach Activiti promotes. And the webinar replay attached to this post explores these issues. We hope you enjoy it.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Standalone BPM: alive and kickin’

In this talk, Michael Rowley, Active Endpoints’ CTO discusses how a business process management suite (BPMS) can provide the infrastructure necessary to survive serious disruptions.

There are several previous CTO Tuesdays episodes which are related to this topic and which you might also find interesting:

• CTO Tuesdays #16: The state of BPMS state: persistence for process
• CTO Tuesdays #17: How BPMSs support long-running business
• CTO Tuesdays #25: BPM 911 – how a BPMS calls for help

Together, these podcasts make a compelling case that BPM-style development has the features and capabilities necessary for enterprises to be comfortable placing their most crucial processes on BPM suites.

Please register for next week’s live recording of the podcast at http://www.activevos.com/ctot.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #27: BPMS and disaster recovery

Running a BPMS in a cluster of machines can help a system continue to operate even when a single machine goes down, but what can you do if an entire data center goes offline? In this talk, Michael Rowley, Active Endpoints’ CTO, will describe a deployment option that permits the BPMS runs in multiple geographically distributed clusters so that the loss of a data center does not prevent access to the BPMS. Michael will also describe how such a configuration can also be used to handle increased loads when all sites are online.

Register for CTO Tuesdays here: http://www.activevos.com/ctot. Please note our special time this week. Instead of noon EDT (9am PDT), we are holding the live recording of the podcast at 1pm EDT (10am PDT).

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Next week on “CTO Tuesdays:” BPMS and disaster recovery

Zero is probably the correct answer. It doesn’t matter whether or not you think mainframe technology is cool or not (I happen to admire it, but that’s another story). The chances are overwhelming that you will have to include mainframe systems in your deployed processes.

So, watch the replay of a webinar we presented with Active Endpoints partner and mainframe technologists extraordinaire GT Software to see how easy and accessible including mainframe technology into your processes can be.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Leveraging mainframes for BPM success

This summer, Active Endpoints CTO Michael Rowley and industry analyst, blogger and BPM expert Sandy Kemsley are presenting a series of webinars focusing on the “human aspects” of BPM.

On Wednesday, June 9, we presented How to Explain BPMN to Business Users, which featured an overview of proposed subsets of BPMN 2.0 designed for specific roles, a demonstration of the ActiveVOS BPMN modeler and an interesting discussion of the future of BPMN. A replay of this fascinating presentation is attached to this post below.

Our third and final session of BPM Summer Camp is titled Five Things You Should Never, Ever Try in Process Development and will be presented on Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 12pm EDT / 9am PDT / 16:00 UTC. Please register for this free webinar here.

You can also watch a replay of the first session here.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

BPM Summer Camp session 2 webinar replay

Michael Rowley discusses how WS-HumanTask, coupled with capabilities provided by JSON and AJAX make it possible to eliminate presentation tier services on application servers for worklist management and process initiation in BPMSs.

It’s a look into how the browser, courtesy of AJAX techniques, has become so powerful for presentation logic that it has obviated the need for extra server-side work. While that may not be the latest news, what is fascinating is the application of these capabilities to BPM — and the inside look at the protocol enabled by the move of presentation logic to the client.

A note: I had a problem with the recoding of this podcast. The bad news is for the first couple of minutes, you’ll hear me give my welcome and introduction to the webinar, but you won’t see my PowerPoint slides. The good news is, once Michael begins his talk, you will see everything perfectly.

Update: During the Q&A in this episode, a user asks about parsing JSON on the server side. One of our engineers, PJ, heard that question and offers this answer:

Here’s a link to the JSON specs and libs and links to for parsing in Java, C, C++, ASP, PHP, etc.: http://json.org/

In ActiveVOS, you do not need to parse JSON because it is automatically converted to XML by the ActiveVOS engine and passed into the Receive (or onEvent) activity in your process. So, in ActiveVOS, one works with XML using XQuery & XPath.

For those using REST based services and want to parse JSON or respond with JSON, they can use the following extension functions:abx:jsonToXml(jsonStr) -> returns XML element
abx:xmlToJson(xmlElement) -> return JSON string

For more information, in ActiveVOS’s Expression dialog picklist, see Functions->BPEL->ActiveVOS->JSON

PJ also notes that we have documentation on using JSON in ActiveVOS at http://www.activevos.com/dev/sdks/XML-JSON-Binding/docs/Part1-ActiveVOS-XML-JSON-API.html and sample code in our SDKs at http://www.activevos.com/developers-sdks.php.

Thanks, PJ.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #26: Eliminating the presentation tier

We are pleased that our pals at Activiti BPM have responded to our comments (here and here) about their launch. We appreciate interesting and passionate discussion of the BPM world. And the ripostes between us and them are, we hope, enlightening for you no matter what your position is.

Michael Rowley will be responding shortly to Tom Baeyens’s technical comments about process virtual machines and their unfortunate similarity to the failed concept of microkernel operating systems.

So, it falls to me to respond to Baeyens’s comments that appear to argue that a) a large number of downloads equals “success” for a BPMS and b) Activiti will be successful on that basis alone.

Reading the statement that jBPM has “25,000 downloads per month,” I am reminded of some of the lyrics to the famous Talking Heads song Crosseyed and Painless:

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don’t do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them

Let’s start with one of the open source world’s favorite shibboleths: you are your number of downloads. Drinking this Kool-Aid has funded companies and made for a lot of great PowerPoint presentations about “traction” at trade shows. But it ignores a simple truth: BPM ain’t an FTP client…or a browser…a database…or even an OS. Unlike these technologies, BPM isn’t a commodity.

It’s something that requires a change in the way processes are developed and the engagement of an entire team. These challenges are less about BPM technology than they are about how the organization decides to respond to them. In the end, a download statistic doesn’t measure whether or not a team is developing a new process app or their willingness to change their whole approach to process applications. It measures…downloads.

And downloaders can be anyone: developers in cubes with absolutely no juice whatsoever preparing for their next job…someone with good intentions and no time at all to master a BPMS on their own…the person who downloads the BPMS to find fault with it in order to kill a nascent process application…or even the hairdresser from the Foxy Lady hair salon who is “interested in computers” and responded to a Google pay-per-click ad (true story).

Second, Baeyens has argued that a BPMS belongs embedded in other applications and that stand-alone BPMS is a dead end. We, of course, disagree, not least because what people really want is a business process that involves all of their systems. If it’s a document management system that’s “on top,” you will create processes that are centered around document management. If workflow is contained in your PLM system, every process app will have the flavor of a product development cycle. In exchange for one-time convenience, development teams have to commit to a fixed design metaphor. And they will work harder on the next app to get the containing platform out of the way in processes that don’t match that metaphor.

However, embedded BPM does lend itself to the hype of an open-source download model. Why? You can count every download of the containing technology as a BPMS download. You get the free ride of your container. And, if you embed in multiple containers…well, you get the picture.

By trotting out downloads as an important measure, you can already see how Activiti will measure its BPMS’s success. Unfortunately, to borrow a line from the song, “facts don’t do what [they] want them to.”

The fact is, downloads don’t matter.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Activiti BPM: will downloads be the measure of success?

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #25: BPM 911 – how a BPMS calls for help

This summer, Active Endpoints CTO Michael Rowley and industry analyst, blogger and BPM expert Sandy Kemsley are presenting a series of webinars focusing on the “human aspects” of BPM.

Sign up for Sessions 2 and 3 here. Watch the replay of Session 1, Team Dynamics in BPM Projects, below. You can watch the replay of Session 2, How to Explain BPMN to Business Users here.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

BPM Summer Camp session 1 webinar replay

But in this BPM podcast, you’ll see how well-thought-out BPMSs tackle this very fundamental problem — and how easy it can be to manage “problem” services. In fact, there’s so much choice in both design and deployment of BPM applications, next week’s CTO Tuesdays will expand on the ideas presented in this episode.

Be sure to watch this episode if you are working with a BPMS — and join us for part 2 next week. Register at http://www.activevos.com/ctot.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #24: How to be prepared for services that might go down

Today, Alfresco announced that it had digested the former developers of the jBPM project from JBoss. jBPM had never really made much of an impact as a BPMS because its real purpose in life was to cater to a core Java developer community. Much as hard-core coders might hate it, BPM is about collaboration among an extended development team that includes business users, analysts, developers and operations staff. jBPM was limited to developers and too proprietary to get much traction across the extended development team.

Let me be clear…we’ve got no issue with the jBPM team moving to greener pastures to try and rescue a moribund open source project. We do, however, have a very strong reaction to the transparently re-thought propaganda surrounding their new strategy. It feels like the jBPM architects have something to get off their chest about BPM in general… something they couldn’t get across inside JBoss and they’ve picked what is a rather run-of-the-mill addition of process capability to a document management system to proclaim a completely new metaphor for BPMSs.

It’s one thing for jilted developers to find a new home, even one of convenience. It’s another to declare a whole new BPM religion that claims that the only right way to achieve BPM is inside of some point product, down where developers (the real targeted users of jBPM) can get at it.

Above all, BPM is a management discipline. As our CTO Michael Rowley is fond of saying, BPM can be done with pens, whiteboards and Post-It notes. That means that not every process ends up being automated. Of those that do (and of course, we believe that many processes do end up being automated), it makes no sense — none whatsoever — for those to be automated inside another type of product.

Instead, the real opportunity for BPMSs is to allow the extended development team to break down the design barriers of ECM, CRM, ERP, PLM and other application types to focus on the core business process. The desired process model is, literally, “above” the constraints and assumptions of the containing systems.

This isn’t to say that document management doesn’t need a BPMS — in fact, we’ve been among the first to demonstrate integration with Alfresco via CMIS to make precisely this point (here and here). But I don’t think anyone would stipulate that an assembly-line quality control process, branch bank customer marketing process, production of feature films or managing agricultural improvement are all fundamentally, inherently and exclusively document management processes (these are all examples of real customer processes deployed in ActiveVOS). But that’s what jBPM architect Tom Baeyens asserts when he argues that “standalone BPM products that don’t offer BPM where it’s [sic] used are…a dead end…”

Of course, we argue the precise opposite: that the problem with embedded workflow is that it’s too limited by its container.

The other big issue we have with the new Activiti BPMS recasting of jBPM is its apparent confusion about who will use it. On the one hand, Activiti says, “It’s easy to understand that the future of BPM is BPMN 2.0.” (We agree.) On the other, just a few lines away in their FAQ, this plum: “Is BPMN 2.0 readable enough for developers?”

This is code (sorry) for the fact that while it’s not possible today to introduce a BPMS without genuflecting at the BPMN 2.0 altar, there are precious few who have stepped up to the challenge of making BPMN 2.0 work for both developers and end users. That is, BPMSs that offer no other visualization of the process model. That’s what we believe: that BPMN 2.0 is the notation of process (and BPEL is its execution engine). The goal is to make the BPMN 2.0 modeler so complete — yet so simple to use — that anyone on the extended team can instantly “get it.” You can already tell from Activiti BPM’s ambivalence about BPMN 2.0 that their BPMS will suffer from a common affliction: devolution into either an end-user “pretty picture” tool or (much more likely in this case) a tool for developers only.

So, we welcome the debate about the future of BPM. But we think the real debate is about a single, external BPM system that everyone can use…not some “off” combination buried inside another product which is neither fish nor fowl.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Activiti BPMS: neither fish nor fowl

As always, you can join us live for CTO Tuesdays by signing up at http://www.activevos.com/ctot.

We hope you will join us.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #23: Escalation – what to do when something doesn’t happen

Tomorrow on CTO Tuesdays #23, we will explore how a business process management system (BPMS) handles escalation. Register for this episode at http://www.activevos.com/ctot.

We hope you can join us at noon EDT, 9am PDT, 16:00 GMT for our discussion of this important topic. When you consider the kinds of core processes that BPM systems are used for — processes which almost always include human tasks — being able to escalate work when something doesn’t happen is an important capability.

As always, Michael Rowley, Active Endpoints’ CTO, will present an educational overview of escalation followed by a panel discussion to answer your questions.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Tomorrrow on “CTO Tuesdays:” Escalation: what to do when something doesn’t happen

In February, we demonstrated how CMIS can be used to integrate ActiveVOS BPMS with Alfresco ECM to create processes that combine content, people and systems in an open, standards-compliant way. It’s a very compelling demonstration of the value of CMIS. We are pleased that CMIS has been approved and look forward to a world in which business processes can simply and compatibly integrate sophisticated content management capabilities.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Active Endpoints welcomes the new CMIS standard

Our guests tomorrow are Rob Morris and Dusty Rivers of GT Software who will show how web services can quickly and easily integrate these two worlds.

Register for the live webinar here.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Tomorrrow on “CTO Tuesdays” #21: Building business processes with mainframe inclusion

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

AAPT streamlines business product creation with ActiveVOS

Neil mentions ActiveVOS as the BPMS that is making it possible for development teams to take advantage of new-style BPM. We appreciate the mention and, no surprise, believe Neil is on to a big idea.

What is that idea? Simply that for BPM to become mainstream, it needs to be the mainstream development style. Thus, the market requires a BPMS like ActiveVOS, which is  designed specifically to be architecturally “correct” and to allow IT to change its development style by welcoming business analysts and developers into the “bazaar.”

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

cio.co.uk: “Active Endpoints…provide[s]…key capabilities…”

Completing a “trilogy” of sorts that started with CTOT #18 and continued in CTOT #19, Michael Rowley covers the concepts — and politics — behind REST, the representational state transfer protocol.

This episode is a must-see for anyone interested in protocols and comparing and contrasting REST with SOAP.

We promised to include this link to the WS-* standards that was shown in the discussion: http://www.innoq.com/soa/ws-standards/poster/innoQ%20WS-Standards%20Poster%202007-02.pdf

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #20 : Using REST for business processes

Details of how AAPT has used BPM to change the way it develops applications are in the press release attached to this post.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Australian Telecom AAPT goes live with ActiveVOS applications

In this very interesting episode, Michael Rowley covers the (somewhat sad) history of URNs (complete with a screen shot of the entire web, circa 1991). Rowley then details how and why URNs are useful in process applications. A panel discussion follows the formal presentation.

Next week on CTOT: Rowley completes the story arc he started on CTOT #18 (using email-based approvals for processes) and which continued in CTOT #19 with a discussion of REST — the representational state transfer protocol. Don’t miss it: register at http://www.activevos.com/ctot.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #19: Using URNs to avoid hard-coding service locations

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Active Endpoints Triples New Customer Revenue in Q1 2010

Tomorrow, 6 April 2010, CTO Tuesdays will cover the use of uniform resource names (URNs) in deployed processes.

Forgive the unfortunate pun, but your urn will runneth over with excitement as you learn how URNs make it easy to model and deploy processes that do not have hard-coded physical service locations embedded in them.

We hope you can join us.

Register to join us live for the recording of the podcast at http://www.activevos.com/ctot.

What is CTO Tuesdays?

CTO Tuesdays is about the technology of BPM. Because Active Endpoints believes that people need to change the way they do things, it’s up to us to help them understand what they need to in order to have them welcome that change. BPM technology is a new thing for many people…and we have an obligation to educate users about this new way of thinking and doing. So, each week we tackle a single topic in some depth – but limit the technical discussion to 30 minutes or so. The idea is to give people enough to tickle their curiosity and allow them to explore more on their own. 30 minutes is about right because, once you strip away the novelty, BPM concepts are just not that hard. The BPM technical talk is followed by a lively panel Q&A. CTO Tuesdays is not an ActiveVOS commercial – though when we illustrate a concept in the podcast, we obviously use ActiveVOS.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Tomorrrow on “CTO Tuesdays” #19: Using URNs for service locations

We are very gratified to have attracted Theo’s attention and for his perceptive analysis of what makes ActiveVOS unique.

Theo’s overview of ActiveVOS is different from many others because he took note of our enthusiasm for BPM in general and ActiveVOS in particular. He talks about our (somewhat lame) attempts at humor and I thought readers of this blog might be interested in the full story.

With the change in the US to daylight-saving time in mid March followed a week or so later by the change in Scotland to British Summer Time, our meeting time got confused. While we were waiting for Theo, we made up new titles for ourselves. It was the kind of the idle, gallows humor a group sometimes indulges in before a big meeting. The “tm” symbols are a bit of a take-off on business cards we’d recently been given by a marketing firm that was trade marking ordinary terms.

Unlike some BPMS vendors – who would have put on their overly-serious faces when the analyst showed up – we went with the silly titles because we thought they were hilarious – and because BPM should not be a humorless discussion of dry technology. BPM is an exciting, vibrant product space as capable of generating passionate discussion as the next gizmo from a consumer electronics company associated with fruit grown on trees.

Here’s an image from the slide deck showing the titles we used to introduce ourselves to Theo:

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

bpmredux.com on ActiveVOS: “..tremendous buzz…that shines through…”

OK, I admit it, I shop at warehouse clubs. And if you do, too, you might agree that the samples they offer can be irresistible. Though what this woman is offering looks like some kind of indeterminate meat I’d surely avoid.

Whatever…we all love samples. They give us a “taste” of what it’s like to use a product and they help us understand the product better.

All this is preface to announcing our newly updated and revised BPM samples page on activevos.com. We’ve collected four new or updated sample processes ranging from customer service to managing product releases and packaged them in what we hope is the most appealing manner possible. For all four demos, we have a short video overview of the way the process works. For each, there is a detailed “users’ guide” that describes the demo in detail. For some, we also have “design guides” which help you better understand the business process and the underlying BPMS features used. And, of course, you can download the project artifacts for each sample process. Just click on the thumbnail for what you want.

But, best of all, you can download a trial version of ActiveVOS that has all four processes already integrated into the BPMS.

We hope you enjoy these new samples — and unlike the mystery meat on the sample tray in the photo, we are going to keep the samples fresh and expand the selection over time.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Get yer sample BPM apps here

Be sure to join us live for CTO Tuesdays every Tuesday at noon ET, 9am PT, 16:00 GMT. Register here: http://www.activevos.com/ctot. Next week’s topic (CTO Tuesdays #19 for April 6, 2010) will be “Using URNs to avoid hard-coding service locations.”

If you watch the replay of #18, you’ll see that Michael is using URNs in the most classical way: to map logical names in the business process to physical URLs in the real world. Based on the feedback we got about this, Michael has decided to devote an entire episode to URNs in business processes.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #18: Handling approvals by email in business processes

The topic for CTO Tuesdays, the BPMS podcast, for Tuesday, March 30, 2010 is “Email-based approvals in a BPMS.”

One of the most common tasks in business processes is to request that something be approved or denied. In some cases, it is appropriate to request approvals by email rather than require that the approver log into a task management system. This talk will show how to include such approval tasks in business processes.

Register to join us live at http://www.activevos.com/ctot.

What is CTO Tuesdays?

CTO Tuesdays is about the technology of BPM. Because Active Endpoints believes that people need to change the way they do things, it’s up to us to help them understand what they need to in order to have them welcome that change. BPM technology is a new thing for many people…and we have an obligation to educate users about this new way of thinking and doing. So, each week we tackle a single topic in some depth – but limit the technical discussion to 30 minutes or so. The idea is to give people enough to tickle their curiosity and allow them to explore more on their own. 30 minutes is about right because, once you strip away the novelty, BPM concepts are just not that hard. The BPM technical talk is followed by a lively panel Q&A. CTO Tuesdays is not an ActiveVOS commercial – though when we illustrate a concept in the podcast, we obviously use ActiveVOS.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Tomorrrow on “CTO Tuesdays,” the BPMS podcast

This episode is the second of two on persistence and compensation. If you haven’t seen the previous episode, you might find it interesting to review before watching this one.

Four files are attached to this post. Three are video recordings of the podcast in different formats; the fourth is a PDF of the slides Rowley presented.

Please be sure to sign up for our next CTO Tuesdays, scheduled for March 30, 2010 at noon ET. The topic will be “Handling approvals by email in business processes.”

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #17: How BPMSs support long-running business transactions

You can see ActiveVOS in the BIRT marketplace here.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Perform Magazine: Using BIRT in ActiveVOS

Please believe me when I say, I am not trying to use $5.00 words just because I can.

But one I read recently in the paper that had me running for a dictionary– shibboleth — got me to thinking about one of the biggest, most often repeated fictions in BPM. What am I talking about? The idea that end users can, will and want to create their own executable process models.

Wiktionary defines shibboleth as “A common or longstanding belief, custom, or catchphrase associated with a particular group, especially one with little current meaning or truth.” WordNet at princeton.edu is even more blunt in defining shibboleth: “A favorite saying of a sect or political group.”

Both definitions capture the wishful thinking, IT-bashing and counter-organizational thinking inherent in the dogma that business process management suites (BPMS) will somehow “free” end users from the chains of IT and enable them to build enterprise-class, bet-your-entire-business processes by themselves. The WordNet definition, in particular, reminds me of the triumphalism one hears from some industry analysts who insist that this is really happening in the real world.

Uhhh, ’scuse us for interrupting the feedback loop, but we don’t think so.

We first debunked the BPMS-as-destroyer-of-IT-and-liberator-of-end-users idea with Sandy Kemsley in a webinar almost a year ago. Her “four myths,” stylized in the graphic in this post, remain the most perceptive distillation of what’s wrong with the idea. Her simple common sense (developing process applications is not in most end users’ skill sets) along with an understanding of what end users in business want to do (their jobs, not IT’s work) debunk the “world-as-we-want-it-to-be” thinkers who promote end user-driven BPM over collaboration with IT.

We think ActiveVOS BPMS has been growing rapidly because it strives to bring IT and the business together. We envision collaboration among an extended development team, using an architecturally-correct, standards-based BPM system. Yes, end users are involved. Yes, they “own” the process and the model. Yes, they use the BPMS. But, no, they don’t deploy, manage or operate the BPMS.

BPM has changed the way IT and business people work together. But it hasn’t — and won’t — replace IT.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

The BPMS shibboleth, or hope undisturbed by reality

We hope you enjoy this podcast. We’d love to hear your feedback on the series. Just email us or leave a comment here.

Remember: sign up for next week’s CTO Tuesdays here. We will be expanding on persistence to talk about BPMS support for long-running transactions.

Update 3/17: in case you missed the second part, you can watch the replay here.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #16: The state of BPMS state: persistence for process

If you haven’t been attending our CTO Tuesdays BPMS podcast, we’d like to invite you to become one of our “regulars” starting next week. We’re doing something a little different next week…more on that in a minute.

CTO Tuesdays is, we think, something unique for users of business process management technology. Every Tuesday at noon ET, 9am PT, 17:00 GMT, our CTO Michael Rowley, delivers a short talk on a broad range of topics spanning the BPMN diamond to complex event processing to an introduction to BPMN 2.0.

These talks are detailed and technical. (Come with the rubber band on your propeller-head hat wound up very tight.) These BPMS podcasts are not ActiveVOS commercials (though we do demonstrate the concepts Michael is discussing in ActiveVOS). Each week, we tackle a single topic and try to limit content to about 30 minutes. After, we have a panel Q&A with attendees to discuss the content Michael  — or our guest CTO — has presented. Personally, I can’t wait for the Q&A because I think it’s where I learn the most about BPM technology. The overall idea for the podcast is that in less than an hour, you can learn enough about some aspect of business process management and BPM technology to enable you to continue to explore BPM on your own.

So far, we’ve presented and recorded 15 episodes. And the response from the BPM community has been overwhelmingly positive. (Access replays at www.ctotuesdays.com and the feed at www.ctotuesdays.com/feed.)

Starting March 9 and continuing on March 16, we’re going to try something a little different. Michael will present, for the first time, two separate, but thematically related topics:

• On March 9: The state of BPMS state: persistence for process
• On March 16: How BPMSs support long-running transactions

The first topic is one I’ve nagged Michael to discuss: how does a BPMS persist long-running transaction state? The second takes this idea and builds on it by comparing a BPMS to a traditional transaction monitor (CICS, anyone?) and describing BPMS support for long-running business transactions.

No matter where you are in your thinking about BPM — a newbie, actively trying your first process project, a grizzled veteran — CTO Tuesdays is for you.

You can always register for the upcoming CTO Tuesdays at www.activevos.com/ctot. Registration is free.

Be sure to join us — and bring all your friends.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays two-part mini-series

There are three formats of the webinar attached to this post. For iTunes and iPod touch/iPhone users, an .m4v is available. A Flash file that can be streamed from the blog and/or downloaded is attached and a Windows Media 9 .wmv is also available.

Please remember to register for next week’s CTO Tuesdays at http://www.activevos.com/ctot

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #15: Using Java with business processes

Attached to this post are two PDFs. First, a press release announcing the results and, second, a copy of Ovum’s conclusions along with their “radar” (or detailed report) on ActiveVOS.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Ovum BPMS report adds ActiveVOS to “consider” list

I came across an interesting discussion on LinkedIn which lead me to this post by Mark McGregor who asks, “…is BPMS now just becoming the next incarnation of application development”?

Our short answer is, “Yes…and the best way to get there is to minimize the disruption to application development.” In other words, BPMSs need to look and feel like previous-generation tools, all the while doing the right thing architecturally and automatically.

In short, it shouldn’t be necessary to teach old dogs new tricks. You simply swap in a new, improved dog in that looks and barks like the old dog…and the new dog’s “firmware” already knows about the new, modern tricks of app dev. (And I apologize for the tortured metaphor and to anyone horrified at the idea of swapping out Fido 1.0 for Fido 2.0.)

That’s what we are doing in ActiveVOS. Like your integrated development toolset for monolithic programs? We’ve got one that goes from modeling to deployment in a single tool. Holding on to that Turbo Pascal-like step/start/stop debugger? Ours works with services. Want to integrate with Java? REST calls? SOAP? Check, check and check.

Beyond just being familiar, for BPMS to become the next incarnation of application development, we believe there has to be a payoff for making the changes that using a BPMS requires. IOW, there are things that cannot be mapped to the previous experience — and which shouldn’t be. But a good BPMS still has to give application developers a reason to step up to the bar and change their habits.

For example, instead of coding, you model in a BPMS. Payoff? Learning BPMN 2.0. What else does an application developer get in return for allowing op codes to be pried from their cold, dead hands? How about automatic documentation plus resource simulation. The things that are new are really, really new and exciting…and worth the price of admission. That combo of familiar and enticingly new capabilities is what will attract developers and, ultimately, change the way apps are developed.

So, Mark has a really excellent point when he says that key BPMS players today include traditional app dev companies like IBM and Oracle. What Mark is hinting at is something we violently agree with: for BPM as a discipline to become the dominant way of creating apps, developers have to conclude that BPMSs are their primary development environments. Tools focused on end users won’t cut it for these developers. That’s why vendors like us have put so much effort and attention on app devs (how about we call them process developers?).

We (and they) know that until BPMS becomes the standard way in which new processes are created — companies that want the advantages of process thinking won’t get it.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

Teaching application developers new tricks…maybe

There are three formats attached to this post. First, an iPod touch/iPhone-formatted .m4v. We also have a Flash file that can be streamed from the blog and a Windows Media 9-encoded .wmv.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

VOSibilities podcast #45: An introduction to T-Impact

But you’d be missing a really interesting and, dare I say it, fun topic. Trust me.

This week Michael Rowley tackles bugs in BPMSs. Bugs are just a part of life when creating business applications. But what about when you are creating process applications using a model-based BPMS? What happens then? How does the BPMS help you identify — even prevent and eliminate — bugs? Watch this episode to find out how standards like BPMN 2.0 and BPEL work together to help make designing and executing process applications more error-free.

As always, we have three formats of the podcast posted. There’s an iPod touch/iPhone .m4v; a Flash file that can be streamed from the blog and a Windows Media 9 .wmv.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #14: Preventing problems through static analysis of business processes

But what is the state of BPMN 2.0 usage in the real world? This webinar, originally broadcast on February 18, 2010, offers some answers.

The bottom line? BPMN 2.0 usage is gaining traction — it’s becoming the modeling notation of choice for everything from documentation to creating executable process applications. If you are interested in what BPMN can do for you, you will want to watch this webinar replay to learn more about BPMN and how people are using it today. Watch Sandy Kemsley show you how not to create BPMN models as she parades models from the “BPMN modeling hall of shame.” And you can also watch as Michael Rowley shows you how to make BPMN executable with BPEL. At the end of the webinar is a very stimulating Q&A in which Kemsley and Rowley discuss the future of the BPMN specification and answer attendees’ questions.

A variety of formats are attached to this post, including a Flash format that can be streamed from the blog. Also, the slides Sandy and Michael presented are available in PDF form.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

VOSibilities podcast #44: The state of BPMN: an update from the real world

That’s how we feel about business process management systems (BPMS) and enterprise content management systems (ECM). These two important technologies are made for each other.

If you have an important business process you want to automate, it’s likely to have people, processes and documents that all need to work together. And, you are likely to want everything to work together based on open, industry-wide standards. We’d go so far as to say, it’s an absolute requirement that the BPMS and ECM be totally based on standards.

That’s what Alfresco and ActiveVOS offer together. The best capabilities; the most openness.

Watch the replay of this webinar — and the absolutely brilliant demo of ActiveVOS BPMS and Alfresco ECM working together — to see how you can quickly, easily and compatibly produce better process applications for your organization.

There are three formats attached to this post, along with a PDF of the slides presented in the webinar. First is an iPod touch/iPhone-formatted .m4v. Second, a Flash .flv file that can be downloaded or played from the blog. Third, a Windows Media 9-encoded .wmv is available.

We hope you enjoy this introduction to combining BPM and ECM technologies.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

VOSibilities podcast #43: Combining BPMS and ECM for better process applications

There are three versions of the podcast attached to this post. First, an iPod touch/iPhone-formatted .m4v file (also available in the iTunes Store; seach for “vosibilities”). Second, a Flash .flv file which can be viewed here on the blog and/or downloaded. Third, a Windows Media 9-encoded .wmv file.

Post from: VOSibilities, the Active Endpoints BPMS blog

Learn more about ActiveVOS

CTO Tuesdays #13: Viewing and fixing running processes