Business

Process
Automation
Managing Cost in Your Enterprise
David Chernicoff
Susan Perschke

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Contents
Business Process Automation—Managing Cost in Your Enterprise
Chapter 4: BPA Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Executive Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Key Features of BPA Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Guidelines for Selecting a BPA Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Usage Scenario 1—Desktop BPA Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Usage Scenario 2—Designing Workflows with a BPA Server Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Power Company Uses BPA to Resolve Data Backup Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Medical Technology Manufacturer Speeds Financial Reporting with BPA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
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Chapter 4:

BPA Tools
Executive Overview
In chapter 4 we discuss the specific capabilities of business process automation (BPA) tools in
more detail and provide you with guidance for selecting the best BPA software. We provide some
usage scenarios; and finally, we review case studies that show how two companies have imple-
mented BPA to solve real-life business challenges.

Key Features of BPA Tools

In prior chapters we’ve discussed how BPA can benefit organizations by streamlining and
improving workflow processes. BPA as a concept has been around for some time, but most tra-
ditional methods for implementing BPA use disparate tools and require extensive knowledge of
programming. Newer-generation BPA software products now let you streamline, optimize, and
automate key processes within a unified development environment.
With today’s top-shelf BPA tools, your organization can create or improve workflow pro-
cesses at multiple levels, from high-level business workflows to simple infrastructure tasks,
without anyone having to learn new “automation” languages or spend valuable time writing
code. These processes can range from application integration, to data transformation, to work-
flows that span geographically dispersed networks.

Guidelines for Selecting a BPA Platform

BPA tools are available in desktop and server versions. The differences between the two vary
among vendors, but the best desktop tools offer a comprehensive list of built-in actions that
will let users quickly automate processes without having to write any code. Desktop BPA tools
should include the capability to interact with the Windows system, perform both simple and
complex file operations, and allow for conditional logic.
BPA server products typically offer additional features, such as client/server architecture,
workflows, multi-machine execution capabilities, and reporting. BPA server tools should allow
the development of orchestrated solutions that span across logical and physical lines of business
and IT architecture. Look for a BPA server tool with the following features:
• Cost justification—You don’t want to spend a fortune on an automation software package,
and you need it to pay for itself in weeks, not months or years.
• No code required—Your automation software should not require your staff to learn a new
programming language; instead, you should be able to realize the benefits of automation
immediately through easy-to-understand drag-and-drop tools.
• Visual interface—Leading software packages include a visual interface that lets you harmonize
work processes with IT infrastructure.
• Feature rich tools—Make sure the package you choose has a wide range of tools for auto-
mating common tasks.

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2    Business Process Automation

•S  upport for standards—Any automation platform you invest in needs to integrate with your
existing environment and offer support for common standards such as FTP, HTTP, XML POP3,
SMTP, and SNMP.
• Orchestration—Most organizations have multiple machines, and you need an automation tool
that can intelligently coordinate automated execution across these servers.
• Multiuser support—If you have a team responsible for designing, building, testing, and main-
taining automation in your organization, the tool you choose must let you delegate work and
keep track of each team member’s progress.
• Centralization—You need an automation package that lets you centralize automation and
simultaneously execute it in a decentralized way.
• Relevant reporting and information—A good automation suite should provide you with
meaningful and actionable information regarding important automation events.
• Installed base—You should evaluate tools that have a sizeable installed base in a variety of
environments.
• Third-party endorsements—You may want to look for endorsements and reviews by knowl-
edgeable, independent third parties, such as analysts and trade publications.

Both server and desktop BPA tools should be flexible enough that you can adapt them to
your business requirements and deploy robust automation applications without the need for a
large staff of developers. They should also include the capability to reuse objects such as tasks
and conditions, to support easy editing and incorporation of those objects into new workflows.
In the next section we look at a couple of usage scenarios that demonstrate some of the
capabilities of good BPA tools, both at the desktop and server levels.

Usage Scenario 1 – Desktop BPA Application

This example uses a BPA desktop application to automate a workflow process that combines
data from two spreadsheets, uploads the results to an FTP server, and sends a confirmation
e-mail. The exact sequence of steps used in the process follows:
1. Create a temporary folder on the local drive.
2. Locate two Microsoft Excel spreadsheets on separate network drives.
3. Copy these two files to the newly created folder.
4. Create a new blank spreadsheet.
5. Combine data from the two original spreadsheets into the new spreadsheet.
6. Upload the combined spreadsheet to an offsite FTP server.
7. Create and send an email message with the result to multiple recipients.

The application we’re using to automate the process has a number of built-in actions, and we
start by selecting Create a Folder from the File menu on the left, as you see in Figure 1:

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 Chapter 4 BPA Tools  3

Figure 1:
Create Temporary Folder on the Local Drive

This action opens a wizard that will guide us through the next several steps to build our
first automated process. First, we type in the folder name and specify any error handling we
would like for this step. We can select from a number of error messages; for this example, we
will have the various tasks notify us of any problem that may occur. We then specify what to do
when an error does occur; in this case, we are going to generate an email notification to the IT
administrator.
Next, we select the file to look for and what action to take if it doesn’t exist (in this case, we
ask that an email be sent to us).
Then, we select Copy File form the File menu, and we specify to copy the file only if the
source file is newer than the destination file. To complete the copy operation, we repeat the steps
above to locate our second spreadsheet file and then copy this file to the same directory where
we copied the first spreadsheet.
The next order of business is to create a new blank spreadsheet in the temporary directory
using a template from the BPA software, as Figure 2 shows:

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4    Business Process Automation

Figure 2:
Create Spreadsheet
from Template

Now that the new spreadsheet has been created, we add a couple of easy steps to input the
data from the existing two spreadsheets into the new spreadsheet. We now have a new spread-
sheet with merged information, ready to be uploaded via FTP to the remote server.
We use the wizard to create the FTP action, which adds line items for logging on to the
server, uploading the file, and logging off. Once the FTP transfer is completed, we send an email
to ourselves and to the recipients who need to access the spreadsheet on the remote server.
This series of steps completes the wizard portion of the BPA process. The next step is to
choose a trigger that will automatically run the new process. As you can see from the screen in
Figure 3, we have a number of options, and two in particular might be useful for our example.
The first one (Schedule watcher) is simply to create a schedule that copies the file on a set
schedule, such as every hour, week, or day. The other option (File watcher) is to wait for the files
to appear and let this action trigger the new process.

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 Chapter 4 BPA Tools  5

Figure 3: Choose a Trigger

Creating this BPA process took less than 30 minutes and replaces a daily process that takes
at least 30 minutes to do manually. The entire process now runs in about 30 seconds and can be
scheduled at a convenient specified time or when the files are available.

Usage Scenario 2 – Designing Workflows with a BPA Server Application

As we discussed in the introduction to this chapter, when you select BPA software, it is important
to find a tool that allows for a high-level representation of your IT or business processes. One
of the higher-level processes involves designing workflows. The best way to do this is through a
user-friendly GUI interface that encourages collaboration between business units and IT
managers.
By creating a visual representation through graphical workflows, your organization can gain
better insight into these processes. Workflows should be more than graphical diagrams; they also
should contain the actual information, such as logic, error handling, and notification that you
need to automate complex IT and business processes.
As we discussed earlier, a good BPA tool should include a large number of prebuilt actions
that will allow for the construction of tasks without anyone having to write code. The flow-con-
trol objects should allow for the inclusion of complex logic within the workflow, and for condi-
tional branching. It should also have the inherent capability to span multiple machines within the
organization.

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6    Business Process Automation

The screenshot in Figure 4 shows a workflow designed to run a variety of tasks across mul-
tiple machines, represented through a graphical workflow design surface.

Figure 4: Workflow Design Process

The main components of workflow are conditions, tasks, and flow-control objects. Conditions
are network or system events that can initiate workflow execution, or provide the basis for con-
ditional, event-based decision making. Tasks are instructions for executing a series of processing
steps.
The workflow represented in Figure 4 uses a scheduler to launch a series of tasks. The work-
flow process begins by initializing a database, fetching job instructions, and proceeding to exe-
cute a number of tasks at different locations. Conditions specify actions to be taken upon success
or failure of each step. Your BPA tool should let you drill down into each element of the work-
flow to examine the process behind it. For example, by double-clicking the Initialize database
task (Figure 4), you should be able to open a task builder that represents this individual task, as
you see in Figure 5.

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 Chapter 4 BPA Tools  7

Figure 5: Task Detail

This level of
detail shows the
task as a System-
level task under
Available Actions.
You can view addi-
tional details about
the task by drilling
down to the next
level—the actual
process behind the
task -- as Figure 6
shows.
Through this
dialog box, you can
view and configure
the task at the detail
level. Note that
none of the levels

Figure 6: Task Configuration Dialog

associated with the task, from

design to configuration, requires
programming knowledge on the
part of the workflow designer. This
simplicity facilitates workflow col-
laboration without anyone having
to get sidetracked on tedious pro-
gramming tasks.
Now let’s take a look at two
case studies that show how BPA
solutions have streamlined and
automated workflow processes in
real-life business environments.

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8    Business Process Automation

Case Studies

Power Company Uses BPA to Resolve Data Backup Challenge

A multinational power-generation and wholesale marketing company1 manages the production
and delivery of energy resources over a wide geographical area. One plant alone monitors more
than 1,500 measurements in real-time, 24/7. These measurements are recorded via TCP/IP on a
dozen computers, where the information is processed and logged. The IT staff’s real work begins
whenever a gauge malfunctions or a reading surges past the safety threshold. The goal of the
workflow process is to detect and resolve the problem before a small incident escalates into a
massive power outage.
When a problem occurs, the IT staff first looks at the server event logs in an attempt to pin-
point the source. In the past, doing this was easier said than done because all logs were written
to tape backups, and it could take hours to retrieve the data—a less-than-ideal setup during an
emergency. To address this problem, the company attempted to build a homegrown application
that would retrieve the data, but the application kept crashing because it could not handle the
sheer volume of data. When the application crashed, the data was frequently lost; even worse,
the IT staff often didn’t know the data had been lost until they needed it during an emergency.
The head engineer, who is not tech-savvy, was tasked with finding a solution. He decided
on a BPA solution that would give him a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface to automate rou-
tines. After just a few days, he had created an automated routine that sorts, compresses, archives,
and deletes large event log files daily. Now the data from each computer is readily available in
case of an emergency. In addition, he has been able to automate a backup task that previously
required an experienced operator to interact with the GUI, thus saving time and giving the com-
pany the peace of mind that the data is safe and secure.
The bottom line for this company is that it has reduced data loss by 100 percent: it has lost
no data since it implemented the BPA solution. The diagram in Figure 7 shows a simplified view
of a similar backup operation.

Figure 7: Simplified View of Backup Operation

1 TransAlta Corporation, Ontario, Canada

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 Chapter 4 BPA Tools  9

Medical Technology Manufacturer Speeds Financial Reporting with BPA

To collect, compile, and analyze daily financial data and produce its daily reports, a large medical
technology company2 needed 18 hours of manual effort every night. This process often required
both IT staff and a financial analyst to stay past 11 pm to collect and consolidate spreadsheet
data from five different offices in Latin America. Each office maintains its own ERP system, and
because of version incompatibilities, no direct link is possible. The company considered both a
new data-collection program and an in-house automation solution, but it found both options too
time-consuming and expensive.
The IT director decided it was time to find a different solution, and she had decided early on
that automation was the way to go. She initially considered assigning the task to in-house devel-
opers or outside contractors but had rejected this solution as also too time-consuming. And she
did not want her IT staff spending valuable time maintaining custom scripts. The team eventually
decided on a BPA tool they could use to automate the cumbersome data-collection and reporting
process.
With the best-of-breed BPA tool they implemented, IT rolled out the new automated process
in just two weeks. They created the automation sequences in just a few hours and spent the rest
of the time testing the solution. Now, at each country’s local time of 7 pm, a task is automati-
cally launched to collect the needed data from each division’s ERP system. When this task has
completed, a connection is opened to the FTP server, and all the data is transferred via FTP to
a server stateside, where the data is combined and posted to the proper directory locations on
the publishing server. Each division has the capability to monitor its individual processes; in the
event of a problem, alerts can be sent via SMS, email, and SNMP.
With this BPA solution, the company freed up the staff’s after-hours duties and in the pro-
cess achieved compliance with corporate reporting requirements. There was no custom code to
write because all tasks were preprogrammed and simply dragged and dropped into place, which
saved the company tens of thousands of dollars in custom development costs.

Summary
In this eBook we’ve shown how BPA solutions can leverage your existing IT assets and applica-
tions to accelerate the flow of information, reduce operational errors, and eliminate delays. In
chapter 1 we introduced the subject of business process automation (BPA) and explored the
differences between BPA and business process management (BPM). We discussed the three dif-
ferent activity classes that define a BPA solution: integration, orchestration and automation, and
BPA’s impact on business workflow.
In chapter 2 we talked about the benefits of BPA to IT and how BPA can reduce the impact
of human error. We showed how BPA assists organizations in improving collaboration and infor-
mation sharing while optimizing both IT and business-level workflow processes. By helping
improve IT response times and delivering on Service Level Agreements (SLAs), BPA can give IT
a competitive edge. Chapter 3 focused on how to set up and implement a BPA solution, and the
importance of planning, design, and deployment. Finally, in this chapter we have discussed what
BPA tools can do and have offered guidelines for selecting the best tool. In addition, we have
presented real-life case studies from organizations that have already successfully implemented
BPA.
2 Stryker Corporation, Michigan

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10    Business Process Automation

Throughout this eBook, our goal has been to demonstrate how, with good BPA tools, you
can streamline, optimize, and automate key processes that drive value for your organization and
your customers. BPA as a platform or engine can reduce costs and free up workers to focus
on higher-level tasks. With automated business and IT processes, you can more easily maintain
quality control and uptime—and make better use of FTEs. All this translates to better value for
the organization. In addition, any other application that becomes part of a BPA process also
becomes more efficient, proving even further ROI.
The right BPA tool can make a significant difference in the success of a BPA deployment.
BPA tools with inherent multi-machine capabilities support better cross-departmental collabora-
tion, making the entire organization more efficient. By selecting a BPA tool that lets you design
workflow processes in a logical, user-friendly graphical environment, IT can show instead of
just explain its value to business units and users. Small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) that use
state-of-the art tools to leverage the power of BPA also can compete more effectively with larger
enterprises.
In today’s environment of budget cuts and the need to do more with less, companies
increasingly are finding BPA an indispensable partner as they create more efficient organizations
that drive value for their business and customers alike. Planned and executed properly, BPA can
lead to significant costs savings, productivity gains, improved SLA performance, and better cus-
tomer service and satisfaction throughout your enterprise.

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