SharePoint Business Process Management

Business Process Management is the life line of any organization; BPM specifies the process and sequence of steps to be followed in executing each request which is handled by the organization. 

A basic flow looks as follows.

Start – Process – Review – Approval - Signoff

Every organization will have its own BPM flow for each activity it does, SharePoint helps in automating this process flow, limits manual paper based activities, reduces delay/wait time and improves process efficiency.

The following features enable SharePoint’s Business Process Management.

Feature	Description
InfoPath Forms	XML Based forms to capture details from End Users
Browser Compatible Forms	InfoPath forms can be designed in such a way that they can be opened in a Web Browser; this makes it easy for the end users to instantly open and update data in the forms.
Forms Services	Ability to Publish InfoPath forms in SharePoint Lists
SharePoint Designer Workflows	Easily configurable workflows with basic features
Visual Studio Workflows	Advanced workflows which require manual coding
Business Data Catalog	Integrate Data from Legacy applications like SAP, Siebel, databases etc. Allows direct display of data from other sources using Web Services.
Workflow Alerts	Workflows can be integrated with e-Mails, can be configured to trigger an e-mail to users when a workflow task is assigned to them for approval.
Role Based Security	Defining roles at every stage of the Workflow, determines who can approve which record/document etc.

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