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What are the popular commercial and open source BPM and work flow products?

 
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In your experience, what commercial and open source BPM and work flow products have wider use?

Can you also list some of the key considerations for choosing a BPM or work flow product?
 
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Criteria for choosing a BPMN tool (in no particular order):

1) Ease of use. You have to try a few to get a feel for this. Some tools are easy and fluid to use, and some aren't.
2) Support for the BPMN 2 standard syntax and semantics. Quite a few of the so-called "BPMN modelling" tools allow you to create diagrams that are illegal according to the BPMN 2 specification. This is because they are essentially just drawing tools with a BPMN stencil. Ensure that whatever tool you use supports all of the BPMN 2 specification accurately. "introduction to BPMN 2" is good guide for this is you don't want to dive into the BPMN 2 specification:
http://www.slideshare.net/jimarlow/introductiontobpmn005
3) Speed - is it quick to produce a diagram, or is it slow and fiddly?
4) Looks - do the BPMN 2 diagrams you can create look good?
5) Do you need UML integration as part of a wider modelling strategy? So perhaps a plug-in for a UML tool rather than a stand-alone BPMN tool.
6) Price!
7) What are your modelling needs now and in the foreseeable future?
8) Is the tool choice strategic (i.e. for corporate roll-out, you will wish to use it for the foreseeable future), or tactical (one off use).
9) Do you need multi-user support so more than one person can work on a model.

I'm sure other forum members can add to this list.
 
Greenhorn
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What about tight integration with an execution function? I am sure that some would consider this vital to a complete, functional system.

Jim Arlow wrote:Criteria for choosing a BPMN tool (in no particular order):

1) Ease of use. You have to try a few to get a feel for this. Some tools are easy and fluid to use, and some aren't.
.
.
.
9) Do you need multi-user support so more than one person can work on a model.

I'm sure other forum members can add to this list.

 
Bull Winkel
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What about Bizagi BPM Suite


arulk pillai wrote:In your experience, what commercial and open source BPM and work flow products have wider use?

Can you also list some of the key considerations for choosing a BPM or work flow product?

 
Jim Arlow
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I've used BizAgi - it's a nice product. My only concern is that it lacks integration with UML (unless that's changed since I last used it), so you can't have a "one stop" tool for modelling. However, if all you want is BPMN it is OK.
 
Greenhorn
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I can suggest you Modelio. It is a handy tool supporting natively UML2 and BPMN2.
You can watch an video tutorial showing how to model business processes with BPMN so you can check yourself how diagrams are represented.

It is a FOSS tool.

I agree with Jim Arlow criterias to choose a BPMN tool.
 
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