Extending SharePoint

with Enterprise
Business Process Management

Enterprises of today
are faced with a key
question:
How do you justify the investment in
an enterprise BPM suite when an
investment in Microsoft SharePoint
has already been made.

This whitepaper examines how

SharePoint can be extended with an
enterprise BPM suite and
determines how both these
technologies can co-exist.
Introduction

With an adoption rate of 60-70% across including inadequate workflow processes,

organizations of all sizes and more than
three million users across the globe,
SharePoint is one of the most widely
used platforms for collaboration and
content management.
SharePoint is an enterprise-class
collaboration and content management
platform that can be extended to perform
different functions – it can be a portal, a
document repository, a search engine, an
enterprise content management (ECM)
platform, an intranet, a web content
management platform, a workflow tool, or
a development platform.
disorganized content, and lack of cohesive
site creation strategy. Improving process
management functionality is still one of the
most common uses of SharePoint. But,
since most of the companies are still new
to BPM and do not really know enough
about workflow in general, they cannot
easily and quickly differentiate between
what SharePoint offers and how more value
can be added using a robust BPM product.
SharePoint is an extremely successful
product, sometimes described as the
“Swiss Army knife” of software.
It offers some simple, out-of-the-box
workflows such as Disposition Approval,

S
harePoint’s widespread adoption in
most enterprise environments, small
learning curve, and flexibility in
organizing information has contributed to
the increased interest in its workflow
capabilities. Most organizations are
seriously considering the idea of
implementing SharePoint for their business
process management (BPM) requirements.
Collect Feedback, Collect Signatures and
Three-State Workflow. However, if a
company wants to design and deploy
more complex business processes, it would
require a combination of other Microsoft
tools like SharePoint Designer, InfoPath
and Visual Studio.

Today, enterprises are faced with two

key challenges:

?
How to get the most out of their
SharePoint investments?

?
How to justify investment in a standalone
BPM solution when SharePoint can be
used for the same purpose?

In many organizations, the unplanned

adoption of SharePoint, in the last few
years, has led to a number of problems
Leveraging SharePoint for Enterprise-level BPM
Today almost all the BPM Suites available in the market provide Microsoft SharePoint
integration capability. It is only a matter of time that enterprises will start contemplating about
the value of leveraging a standalone BPM solution for their mission critical business workflows
and integrating it with the existing Microsoft SharePoint platform.

Some of the key business benefits of extending SharePoint with an enterprise class BPM suite are as
follows:
A BPM solution can facilitate the development of enterprise-wide workflows for
various organizational processes, resulting in enhanced collaboration and improved
decision making.
Using a BPM solution along with SharePoint can enable centralized process
management and analysis. It can also make business processes highly flexible and
manageable.
Reduced costs and improved return on investment (ROI)
Extending SharePoint with a BPM solution can help improve the overall productivity
of an enterprise. Managing processes and content across the enterprise become
much easier with automation.business process improvement (BPI) life cycle.

A
lthough Microsoft markets SharePoint While SharePoint supports site collection, it
platform primarily as a collaboration becomes quite difficult to manage when a
and content management platform, workflow needs to span organizational
many organizations tend to extend boundaries. In scenarios where a user needs
SharePoint for enterprise-wide BPM support. to go one step back in the workflow, possibly
This is because the organizations that have due to oversight, a robust BPM solution can
already invested in SharePoint are keen on be a better option. Multi-level approvals are
getting the most out of their SharePoint also not supported in SharePoint.
investment, and they find it easy to create
basic office workflows using SharePoint. The enterprises that are attempting to
Fundamentally SharePoint is not a BPMS use SharePoint as a BPM solution will
(Business Process Management Suite) tool; it eventually realize the limitations as
is rather a content management tool that they mature to a full business process
provides features to support advanced improvement (BPI) life cycle.
business process management
applications—but only after integration with
other tools, such as Info Path, Visual Studio,
Workflow Foundation, BizTalk Server and
Outlook. Leveraging SharePoint as BPM
software or tool requires highly skilled
resources, time and focused development
efforts unlike a BPM Platform, which is user
friendly and is relatively much easier to
customize. And, this is the reason why many
organizations that are enthusiastic about
implementing business process management
in SharePoint ultimately end up spending a
lot of resources, time and money in the long
run.
Where SharePoint tapers off while BPM picks up
Following are the reasons why SharePoint, in isolation, poses challenges for design of complex
workflows and enterprise-level business process management:

Features for supporting a true BPM processes that cross organizational

Creating simple office workflows is quite easy
with SharePoint. However, when it comes to
complex workflows and enterprise-wide
implementation, SharePoint alone might not
be easy to use and manage. Although
Microsoft provides separate tools for creating
advanced workflows such as SharePoint
Designer and InfoPath, creating seamless
business processes without lots of custom
coding is a difficult, time consuming and risky
task.
boundaries or involve partners or customers.
Governance
Lack of governance tools is yet another issue
when implementing SharePoint across the
enterprise. Since creating individual sites is
quite easy with SharePoint, organizations
might see a rapid increase in the number of
individual sites and site collections – which
can result in serious governance-related
issues.

Long-term total cost of ownership (TCO) Custom Coding

Managing and monitoring SharePoint Building complex, real-world workflows with

customizations might prove to be a tedious
job and can exceed the cost of managing a
third-party BPM platform in the long run.
Site Collections
Although a SharePoint Site Collection is quite
good for organizing content, acting as a
container for metadata to which processes
relate, it might create constraints on business
SharePoint calls for a lot of custom coding
and customization, which can result in project
delays, increased operational expenditure,
and cause a number of application flexibility
related issues. Creating advanced workflows
and process customization requires highly
skilled SharePoint developers or extensive
training of in-house IT staff, which might
strain organization’s resources and affect
other business priorities.

E
nterprises interested in leveraging SharePoint for BPM must understand that
SharePoint is a platform, which needs further customization to extend its basic
workflow capabilities for specific organization processes.
Extending SharePoint with a BPM suite
SharePoint’s workflow functionalities are
somewhat limited for enterprise-level BPM.
Therefore, it makes sense for enterprises to
invest in a standalone BPM solution, which
can help optimize their existing SharePoint
investments and extend Advanced Workflow
features to the Microsoft SharePoint platform.
BPM suites are meant to provide enterprises
with a robust, collaborative platform to help
automate business processes and document-
centric activities that are required to achieve
organizational goals.
These suites can also offer advanced features
for developing complex workflows and
graphics, and improving business processes.
Stand-alone BPM software can also be used
as a business application platform to build
BPM enabled solutions, such as:
Document Management
Accounts Payable
Enterprise Risk Management
Leave Management Systems

Invensys Skelta and Microsoft SharePoint

S
kelta’s SharePoint Accelerator extends BPM and advanced workflow features to the
Microsoft SharePoint platform, enabling maximum utilization and broader adoption of
native SharePoint capabilities.

Skelta BPM can complement Microsoft’s SharePoint by:

Supporting the development of advanced workflows across the enterprise

Facilitating the creation of processes for multiple SharePoint sites
Built in SharePoint activities and wizards used within workflows
Supporting SharePoint Lists and providing advanced Forms Designer
Providing advanced BPM features like Dashboards, Reports, KPIs and Queues

Why Skelta BPM?

Invensys Skelta has extensive experience in
successfully deploying BPM solutions across
the globe and its BPM software is used
across industries. Skelta BPM offers a wide
range of functionality, ranging from multi
level approvals/escalations to Business
Activity Monitoring and covers the entire
spectrum of BPM requirements.

Skelta BPM is 100 percent embeddable

100% BPM Workflow framework built on the
Microsoft .NET platform.

By providing a flexible BPM platform, we

help our clients build what they need most
while enabling them tap the full advantages
of their existing Microsoft technologies.
Conclusion

Although SharePoint is the most widely used content management and collaboration platform,
the basic workflow capabilities and a developer centric platform pose as a glaring lacuna for
most end users in an enterprises. Creating simple workflows in SharePoint is very easy, but
designing complex workflows and enterprise-level business process management is quite a
challenging task.

A range of other Microsoft products as well as significant investments in people, methodology

and training is imperative in order to realize a rich BPM experience from SharePoint platform.
SharePoint can efficiently contribute to a company's overall BPM strategy only when integrated
with a more comprehensive and robust BPM product from a third-party vendor. A robust BPM
solution can efficiently complement and extend Microsoft SharePoint workflow functionality
without the need for custom coding. There is room for both SharePoint and BPM in an
enterprise environment, provided the companies know what they want to do with their existing
SharePoint environment and how they want to proceed on their BPM journey. They must find
BPM-oriented solutions that will be easier to customize, and more closely designed for their
business requirements.

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