PAYDOX Collaboration Suite - Document and Business Process Management System
Collaboration Suite
PayDox
Enterprise Document Management & Business Process Management
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PayDox AJAX-BPM - Business Process Management

Easy & powerful Business Process Management is possible - try it now!

PayDox AJAX-BPM includes a number of features for easy business process management:

  • Projects, documents and activities can be combined as one business process. For example, long-term contracts, collaboration activities, documents and payments can be combined as one business process
  • Inactive business process steps are marked by grey color
  • Active business process steps are marked by yellow color
  • The system sends automatic e-mail notifications to all business process participants
  • Authorized users can describe the business process details: activity description, activity order, activity type, current activity status etc.


    • PayDox AJAX-BPM visual editor lets you describe all business process details. The AJAX technology is used to provide access to business process descriptions and business process instances via web-browser. No need to use any additional software for users!.

    Core functionality:

  • Performing hierarchical business processes, i.e. such business processes which include other business processes

  • Consecutive, parallel or combined order of business process activities

  • Business process branching

  • Business process termination management

  • Controlling the business process activity current status

  • Viewing & modifying the business process activity

  • Defining the business process activity order

  • Automatic or manual business process activity status management

  • Adding comments, links and files to the business process activity instance

  • Defining additional business process activity fields

  • Defining your own business process activities and performing algorithms

  • BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) view

  • Independent use of the business process functionality and the document management functionality

  • Full integration of the business process functionality and the document management functionality

  • The business process activity user access and owner access definition

  • Any user-defined business process activity performing algorithms

  • Business process description XML-exchange between different PayDox installations

  • Visual representation of the business process performing script (business process execution environment)

  • Fast representation and monitoring all active business process activities actual for the current user

  • Programmable rules & performing scripts

  • Automatically generated printed forms

  • VB Script performing code example


  • Performing hierarchical business processes, i.e. such business processes which include other business processes
    •

    Click the business process header to open all activities of business process which concern it, including activities which can be headers of other business processes



    Or just click the menu item «Actions» - «BPMN view» to see business processes in BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation).

  • Consecutive, parallel or combined order of business process activities

    • Business process activities can be performed in consecutive order, in parallel, or in combined (consecutive and parallel) order
    The system automatically generates e-mail notifications to those users who have to take part in the business process activity.

  • Business process branching
    •
    Business process activity can contain other business process headers, describing other activities, and can contain also choice header, which is intended for the making choice "Yes" / "Not", providing business process branchings.



    Click the business process choice header to open a branch of business process which will be executed for negative value of choice

    A positive value of choice header activates the branch of activities which are directly under choice header



  • Business process termination management

    • The business process description can contain activities of termination the business process «ENDOK» - «Completed» and «ENDCANCEL» - «Cancelled».
    Assignment the statuses «Completed» or «Cancelled» to these activities means assignment the appropriate statuses to header of whole business process and business process as a whole.



  • Controlling the business process activity current status
    You can see the business process activity current status control to the left side from the business process pictogram. Business process activity status may be one of the following: «Inactive», «Active», «Completed» or «Cancelled». Active business process activities marked by are the business process activities that have to be executed now.


  • Viewing & modifying the business process activity
    •
    Clicking the business process activity status pictogram you can enter the form to show and edit the business process activity information. You may see the system business process activity fields as well as any user defined business process activity fields. User defined business process activity fields can be formed by user defined VB Script code keeping inside the process activity description form. .

    For example, you may see on the screenshot below some system fields «Name», «Activity type», «Status» and user defined business process field «Business trip participants». User defined business process activity fields are kept in the PayDox database together with the business process instance as the fields having names Par...1, Par...2 ... of the BPInstances table, i.е. the built-in user defined business process fields are started with the prefix «Par». All the business process descriptions are stored in the table BPs of the PayDox database. You can add any number of your own user defined fields to the structure of BPInstances table in order to define your own business process rules, described in your VB Script code.

    You have to add your own user defined business process fields only after all the pre-installed fields in the BPInstances table of the PayDox database.

  • Defining the business process activity order
    The field «Seq.No.» lets you to define the business process activity order in the business process activity sequence under the business process activity header. This field value can contain letters as well as numbers, i.e. the order is defined lexicographically. Two or more business process activities under the business process activity header having same value of the field «Seq.No.», will be executed in parallel and independently.

  • Automatic or manual business process activity status management
    Business process activity status can be changed manually - in the business process activity information form.


    • Also, business process activity statuses can be changed programmatically - during the business process execution.

    Business process activity status changing rules

  • If some business process activity gets the status «Completed» or «Cancelled» then the following by order business process activity gets the status «Active»
  • If some business process activity gets the status «Active» then the corresponding header business process activity gets the status «Active» too
  • If some header business process activity having no dependent active business process activities gets the status «Active» then the first by order inactive business process activity gets the status «Active» too
  • If some business process termination activity gets the status «Completed» or «Cancelled» then the corresponding header business process activity gets the same status and the whole business process gets the same status «Completed» or «Cancelled» too
  • These business process activity status changing rules apply recursively, i.e. automatic status changing can involve further business process activity status changing
  • Business process activity status can be also changed programmatically


  • Adding comments, links and files to the business process activity instance

    • Push the button «Message» to call the message creation form. This message can contain comment, web-link or file.

    Comments, links and files attached to the business process activity will be listed under the business process activity information. This data can be searched by context including attached file content.

    To provide context in attached file content please provide the folder PayDox in the Windows Indexing Service and add the link to the folder PayDox\MessageFiles\ to this Windows Indexing Service folder.

  • Defining additional business process activity fields

    • You can provide your own additional business process activity editable fields in the business process activity description record. Just mark appropriate checkboxes and provide your own user-defined field names. You may add any additional user fields to the table BPInstances of the PayDox database to enhance the system functionality. These fields can be edited manually by users or automatically by scripts.


    Additional user fields will be shown on the business process activity description screen.



    Additional user fields have to be added to the structure of the table BPInstances only after standard field descriptions



  • Defining your own business process activities and performing algorithms

    • You can define programmatically the list of user accessible business process activity types and the rules to process them.
    The list of user accessible business process activity types is provided in the variable VAR_BPTypes of setup file PayDox\TEXTANSI.txt. Here you can change or prohibit to use the business process functionality for some (or for all) users, set the empty value "" to this variable. Each business process activity type has the appropriate image file to show this type of business process in the business process tree. This image file has to be upload to the folder PayDox\Images having name BP_.GIF. For example, if the variable VAR_BPTypes contains the type "HEADER" then the folder PayDox\Images has to contain the image file BP_HEADER.GIF. Use such simple method to add new business process activity types to the system.

  • BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) view
    •
    It is possible to see the exterior of business process activities in BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation). Just click the menu item «Actions» - «BPMN view» to see business processes in BPMN.



    All the processing algorithms for business process activities are written in VB Script algorithmic language and saved in business process activity information block together with the rest process activity descriptions.

  • Independent use of the business process functionality and the document management functionality

    • The business process functionality can be used independently from the document management functionality, i.e. the business processes can be connected or not connected to the documents.

  • Full integration of the business process functionality and the document management functionality

    • The business process functionality is fully integrated with the document management functionality. Business processes can create documents in the document management automatically, check their statuses, wait for document approval, send e-mail notifications to users and so on. If some document is connected to some business process (or processes) then you can go to these processes connected to this document by clicking the button on the right upper side the document record.

    You can create the business process instance for the document by clicking the button on the right side the document record. Click the pictogram near the business process header, which instance you want to create for this document, push the button in the open window, and push the button in the confirmation form. And the business process instance will be created for the document.

    The field «Parent BP activity GUID» in the business process description is intended for header BP activity GUID under which this BP activity will be created. This field is usually filled by the system automatically, because all the BP activities (except the BP root header activity) have to be created under some header BP activity.

    The field «Dependent BP header activity GUID» can contain the GUID of some existing header activity. In this case such existing header activity description will be substituted to the BP description. This provides the reuse of existing BP descriptions. Previously mark any existing BP header activity to automatically insert its GUID clicking the pictogram during the new BP activity creation process.

    The current BP activity status may be supported by comments placed in the yellow colored information block on the right side of the business process activity screen area. These comments are automatically generated by the business process activity behavior definition script saved inside the process activity description form.

  • The business process activity user access and owner access definition

    • A business process activity can be executed automatically or may require the user intervention, for example, to input some data (for example, business tripping people names and so on) or to mark the business process activity as completed or cancelled. A business process activity can be viewing-accessible for users or viewing-inaccessible.
    This accessibility is managed by 2 standard business process activity fields «Viewers» and «Owners/Participants».
    Users and/or departments provided in the field «Viewers» have viewing access to the business process activity.
    Users and/or departments provided in the field «Owners/Participants» are the executors (responsible persons) of the business process activity.

    Please use the Users / Departments directory to choose users / departments for fields «Viewers» and «Owners/Participants». Users can be provided directly or using roles or using departments - in this case all the users of appropriate departments get the access to this business process activity. Add the symbol «/» to the right of department name to give the access for the all departments included to this department.



    If the field «Viewers» blank then any users have viewing access to this business process activity.
    If the field «Owners/Participants» blank then the system administrator only has access to modify this business process activity.
    Fields «Viewers» and «Owners/Participants» can be filled manually during the business process description as well as automaticallu by the business process activity script during the execution process.
    If the current user has no the viewing access to some business process activity then such business process activity will be represented to him/her as


  • Any user-defined business process activity performing algorithms

    • You may describe any your own business process activity performing algorithms using simple VB Script algorithmic language. This possibility is very important - it lets you to define any business process activity behavior - to create documents in the electronic document system, to send e-mail notifications to users, to get the information from any third-party systems, for example, ERP and so on.

    As you can see on the provided screenshot that the «Creating business trip memo in the Document Management system» business process activity behavior is defined by the VB Script placed in the same business process activity description form. The business process activity status is already set to «Completed». The performing script checks the current status, and for «Completed» status it creates the message «Completed» and outputs it to the yellow information block in the business process tree screen. After that the script finished. The status «Completed» means in this case that the business trip memo is already created previously in the Document Management system by this business process activity and the business process is moved forward to the next activities. See below the full text of this performing script including comments.


    Adding your own business process activity types, images and appropriate scripts to the system you can create your own business process descriptions with any behaviors.

    User-defined business process behavior VB Script codes are placed in the business process activity description form. To create your own business process behavior script you can use standard VB Script business process functions placed in the module PayDox\BPCommon.asp. Also you can use your own VB Script functions placed in the module PayDox\UserASP\UserBusinessProcess.asp. All these functions/methods are placed in the BP class therefore so use the prefix "BP." to call these methods, for example, to call your user-defined function test() that placed in the module UserBusinessProcess.asp from th script placed in the business process activity description form use the construction BP.test(). Use the same method to call the standard functions placed in the module PayDox\BPCommon.asp.

  • Business process description XML-exchange between different PayDox installations

    • Business process XML-description can be downloaded from one PayDox installation and uploaded into other using buttons:
    in the header business process activity description and
    in the menu (item «Actions»).

  • Visual representation of the business process performing script (business process execution environment)

    • You can see the result of work of business process performing scripts for all the business process activities on the business process instances tree page. These performing scripts can output information messages for users during the execution in the real-time mode. These information messages are provided in the yellow information block under the business process activity header .

  • Fast representation and monitoring all active business process activities actual for the current user

    • Choose the menu item «For me» or «For my department» to see all the active business process activities that require your reaction or require your department users reaction at the moment.


    Click the pictogram to open the whole business process containing this activity. This current activity is marked Maroon color in the yellow block.


    Place the user instruction in the field «Information» of the business process activity description - for activities requiring user reaction. Place some verbal description in the field «Information» of the business process activity description - for activities automatically performed by the script. This information will be presented to users by the «Help» button.


    Place the performing script in the field «Executable script» of the business process activity description. This script has to be written on VB Script.

  • Programmable rules & performing scripts

    • Any number of programmable business process rules can be written on VB Script and added to the process rule directory. Each rule can be chosed and inserted into the process activity description without any programming.

    Also you can add any performing script written on VB Script to the business process activity description.

  • Automatically generated printed forms

    • Automatically generated printed forms let you to create any required ready-to-use output documents in any format to support business process execution.
    All required printed forms are created as business process activity type named "@FORM". You can upload a template file during the @FORM business process activity creation. It can be file in any format, for example, MS Word or MS Excel format.

    It is possible to perform output file by scripts in the process of output it to users. Use such method to insert any field values from business process to output form "on-the-fly" to automatically prepare finished documents.
    It is possible also to perform output file using programmable rules

    Click the form pictogram to get the output file

    Using these automatically generated printed forms you can create various reports controlling BP execution, for example, BPs compliance diagram showing all current active BPs separated by expired, near expiration and normally executing criterias


    You have to provide DCOM-interface to external components such as MS Word or MS Excel on the PayDox server to let your VB-script code access MS Word or MS Excel template documents. Therefore install MS Word or MS Excel (or other required components) on PayDox server in such cases and provide DCOM-interface to them using standard Windows component DCOMCNFG.EXE.

  • VB Script performing code example

    • See below the example of such VB Script code for     «Creating business trip memo in the Document Management system» business process activity




    Video
    PAYDOX AJAX-BPM - Business Process Management System
    Presentation
    PAYDOX AJAX-BPM - Business Process Management System
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