Technical Case Study

Published: June 6, 2005

The Microsoft Services IT group leveraged Microsoft Office Visio 2003 and Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies to develop a new business process documentation solution, Microsoft Process Manager. Microsoft Process Manager is an integrated management and display solution that provides authorized users with an easy-to-use, Web-enabled interface to create, publish, and view business process content. It provides a central location from which to store and access business knowledge and enables a uniform approach to capture and define that business knowledge. The new solution has contributed to greater efficiency, increased usability of business process content, enhanced user experience, and cost savings.

The Microsoft Services organization and the Microsoft Sales and Marketing organization needed a business process documentation solution that presented the most current business process content in a standard format that is highly useful and valuable to its business. The solution that the Microsoft Services Information Technology (IT) group implemented may help other enterprise organizations to develop a business process documentation solution. This case study is intended for Chief Information Officers, technical decision makers, and enterprise IT professionals who are involved in business process documentation and management.

Situation

The Microsoft Services organization used the internally-developed Services Business Management Process (SBMP) system to document and publish business processes to an internal Microsoft Web site. The system was difficult to use and did not meet the growing business needs of process owners and process managers. The Web site consisted of static HTML pages and presented a limited, linear view of business processes. The system could not display parallel steps, decisions, or functional views of workflows.

The system also lacked process management capabilities. For example, adding or updating business processes on the Web site was cumbersome and labor-intensive. To update a published process, a process owner or process manager had to first contact product management to download a copy of their process. The process owner or process manager edited the process and then returned it to product management. After that, the process had to be run through three separate tools before the updated process was available to users on the Web site. Additional personnel had to be hired to maintain the content, which resulted in increasingly high administration costs.

The system was in place for approximately one year. However, user compliance was low. Process owners and process managers preferred to use the powerful diagramming features of Visio to design, document, and analyze their business processes. Because the existing system did not accommodate Visio diagrams, the method of capture for business processes was inconsistent and lacked uniformity across different regions and groups. Although the SBMP system was intended as a central repository for process information, processes were, in actuality, located in disparate shares across the network and existed in different formats. This situation made it difficult to distribute and share business knowledge across different regions and groups in the enterprise.

As part of an initiative to improve its operational processes and procedures and continually ensure high customer and partner satisfaction, the Microsoft Services IT group recognized that a common platform was needed to enable a consistent, process-focused view of business. The requirements for the new business process documentation solution included the following:

• Use Visio 2003 technology to enable a standard approach for capturing business processes and metadata.

• Increase the usability and effectiveness of business process content by enhancing its storage, display, editing, publishing, and distribution.

• Centralize business process storage and centralize business process management.

• Deliver a structure that allows for flexibility yet enforces a high level of consistency across the different regions and groups in the enterprise.

The focus for standardizing business processes is to reduce inconsistencies, increase efficiency, and maximize the time that resources in the Services organization and the Sales and Marketing organization spend on directly addressing the true-value issues of partners and customers. That is, streamlined business processes allow resources to focus on customer and partner issues instead of spending time working out the processes themselves.

Solution

The end-to-end Microsoft Process Manager solution integrates Visio 2003 and SharePoint Products and Technologies to provide a framework from which to create, publish, and view business processes and metadata. It also provides a central location from which to store processes for easy access by global process teams. Initially developed for the Services organization, the solution was extended to the Sales and Marketing organization shortly after its initial release in the summer of 2004.

The Microsoft Process Manager solution comprises two fundamental areas of functionality: process management and process display. Process management functionality is implemented through a smart-client application. The smart-client application is used to create business process diagrams in Visio format. The diagrams are stored in Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and are published to the Microsoft Process Manager Web site. Process display functionality is implemented through a Web-based application that displays the Visio diagrams in Web pages on the Microsoft Process Manager Web site.

The smart-client application and the Web-based application use the Visio 2003 solution development platform to provide diagramming functionality. The smart-client application and the Web-based application also use Web services to communicate with and retrieve data from underlying data sources. The following section describes the features of the smart-client application and the Microsoft Process Manager Web site in greater detail.

MS Process Manager

MS Process Manager is the stand-alone smart-client application. It provides a feature-rich, intuitive user interface from which process owners and process managers can create, manage, and publish business processes, the process diagrams within these processes, and the metadata that is associated with each process.

MS Process Manager offers three functional views: Process Editor to create and edit processes; Process Explorer to copy, rename, delete, preview, send, or share processes; and Process Publisher to submit, approve, or reject processes for publishing. The basic workflow to create or update a process is as follows:

1. A process owner or process manager creates a new process or updates an existing process.

2. The process owner or process manager submits the process for publishing.

3. The process owner who owns that particular process area previews the process, and then either approves or rejects the request to publish.

After the process owner approves the process, the new or updated process is immediately available on the Microsoft Process Manager Web site.

The Process Editor view contains the Microsoft Office Visio Drawing Control 2003.The Visio Drawing Control seamlessly integrates the Visio 2003 drawing surface into the application, which makes it easy to create and edit process diagrams. The Microsoft Process Manager developers made several customizations to the Visio Drawing Control, including creating a custom stencil that contains shapes that are specific to business process management. Process owners and process managers drag the shapes that they need from the stencil, and then they drop the shapes onto the drawing surface to start building their process.

MS Process Manager recognizes each shape in a process diagram and prompts the user to define properties for the shapes that store metadata. Storing metadata provides intelligence in and around each process. This relational data provides a link to related processes and access to important properties such as measurements, inputs, outputs, roles, and tools. As processes change, the metadata information remains synchronized with the changes.

To achieve continuity and relational consistency, MS Process Manager validates processes according to configuration and business rules. In the process diagram, all shapes that store metadata must pass validation before the process can be published. For example, consider the following scenarios:

• A process owner in the Consulting Services group creates a process diagram to document the workflow for assigning resources to projects. The process owner adds a Terminator shape to indicate the beginning of the process, adds several Step, Decision, and Connector shapes, and then specifies input information for the shapes that store metadata. During validation, MS Process Manager verifies that a continual flow of metadata information exists from start to finish. MS Process Manager also verifies that shapes in a diagram meet certain hierarchical and placement criteria. In this scenario, the process diagram does not pass validation because it does not contain a Terminator shape to indicate the end of the process. Additionally, each shape that stores metadata must include both input and output information. MS Process Manager notifies the process owner about the elements in the process diagram that need to be corrected.

• A process owner in the Technical Support group creates a regional extension of a global process. The global process documents the workflow that support professionals follow to resolve customer issues. A local extension of the global process already exists. During validation, MS Process Manager detects whether conflicts occur between regional and local extensions of global processes according to the business rules. In this scenario, a conflict occurs because a local extension of a global process and a regional extension of a global process cannot coexist. MS Process Manager detects the conflict and notifies the process owner. To meet the jurisdiction requirements of the business rules, the process owner can create a regional extension of the global process, and then create a local extension of the regional process.

By providing a quality-control mechanism, the validation feature helps process owners and process managers gain a deeper understanding of the business process documentation workflow. The validation feature also facilitates a structure for creating better business processes.

Figure 1 shows the Process Editor view of MS Process Manager.

Figure 1. The Process Editor view of MS Process Manager

Other core features of MS Process Manager include the following:

• The ability to assign a jurisdiction to a process. By doing so, process owners and process managers can build effective processes at global, regional, and local levels. To create a regional or local extension of a global process, process owners can copy the existing global process, and then modify the copied process. In this way, process owners do not have to spend time duplicating existing global processes. This feature helps process owners and process managers to better understand regional and local content.

• The ability to copy and paste Visio diagrams that are external to Microsoft Process Manager directly to the Visio drawing surface in the Process Editor view. Process owners and process managers who were already using Visio to document their business processes can use this import feature to migrate their content to Microsoft Process Manager.

• The ability to share processes to other users and send copies of processes to other users. Microsoft Process Manager provides a virtual workspace from which process owners and process managers can share ideas and leverage knowledge in a controlled environment. For example, process owners and process managers can work with other process owners and process managers on the same process.

• Administrative functionalities that allow administrators to manage user permissions, glossary submissions, and taxonomy changes.

The Microsoft Process Manager Web Site

The Microsoft Process Manager Web site offers a simple and robust environment from which users view the published processes. The Web pages that display the process diagrams are driven by SharePoint Products and Technologies.

Users only have to install the Microsoft Office Visio 2003 Viewer, which is available as a free download from the Microsoft Download Center, to view the published process diagrams in a Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later Web browser.

Figure 2 shows a published process on the Microsoft Process Manager Web site.

Figure 2. A published process on the Microsoft Process Manager Web site

The Microsoft Process Manager Web site draws on the search functionality that is built into SharePoint Portal Server 2003. It provides users with a user-friendly search interface and flexible filtering capabilities to quickly find the business processes that they need.

Architecture

Microsoft collaborated with a global IT consulting partner, Infosys Technologies Ltd., for the development and deployment of Microsoft Process Manager. The entire project, from gathering requirements to deployment, was completed in six months.

The Microsoft Process Manager development team turned to the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET development environment to build the Microsoft Process Manager solution. The MS Process Manager smart-client application was built by using Microsoft Windows Forms in the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1. The Visio 2003 drawing surface was made available by embedding the Visio Drawing Control in a Windows form.

A key component of the Microsoft Process Manager solution is a central repository to store the business process diagrams for easy access and simplified maintenance. To accomplish this, the business process diagrams in Visio 2003 format are stored in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 document libraries. The Microsoft Process Manager team set up two document libraries. One document library stores the process diagrams that are in progress or that are pending approval. The other document library stores the process diagrams that are published and the Extensible Markup Language (XML) data that is associated with the published process diagrams. When a process is published, an XML file is generated to store information about the published process diagram. The data that is stored in the XML file is used by the search functionality in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and allows users to search and retrieve process diagrams on the Microsoft Process Manager Web site. Process metadata is stored in Microsoft SQL Server 2000 databases.

The Web-based application was built by using Microsoft ASP.NET technology and JavaScript. The Web-based application uses the Visio 2003 Viewer Control. The Visio 2003 Viewer Control is rendered in ASP.NET pages for a dynamic display of the published process diagrams.

The Microsoft Process Manager solution consists of a multi-layered distributed architecture that implements Web services to expose processes and data together as business services. Because Web services are based on open industry standards and protocols such as XML and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), interoperability is easily managed.

MS Process Manager and the Web-based application consume the Web services that are published as business services in the business layer. The business layer, in turn, communicates with the data access layer for connectivity to the data sources. The data access layer uses stored procedures and Microsoft ADO.NET to send data to and receive data from the SQL Server 2000 databases. Access to the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 document libraries is achieved through communication with the SharePoint Service Agent.

Figure 3 shows the basic architecture of Microsoft Process Manager.

Figure 3. Basic architecture of Microsoft Process Manager

The infrastructure that the Microsoft Process Manager team put in place uses a medium server farm deployment of SharePoint Portal Server 2003. The front-end servers that host the presentation layer, the business layer, and the data access layer run Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0, .NET Framework 1.1, and SharePoint Portal Server 2003. The back-end database servers that run SQL Server 2000 use a storage area network (SAN) implementation. The Microsoft Process Manager team thoroughly investigated security-related aspects of the design and implemented a security model that includes using integrated Windows authentication and SQL Server roles for intranet users and Digest authentication with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for extranet users.

The goal of the Microsoft Process Manager team was to deliver a solution that provides an easy-to-use, intuitive interface from which to document and distribute business process information. Achieving this goal mapped directly to the ability of Visio 2003 to integrate with SharePoint Products and Technologies and the use of Web services for connectivity and interoperability. The Visio 2003 solution development platform gives developers the capability and flexibility to build applications that allow users to take advantage of Visio 2003 functionality, while remaining within their own application environment.

"Microsoft Process Manager is a one-stop shop for business process information. Leveraging Visio 2003 and SharePoint Products and Technologies enabled the Microsoft Services IT group to deliver a solution that documents business process content in a consistent format and store that content in a central location. "

Stephen Schwan

Benefits

The delivery of the Microsoft Process Manager solution has helped the Services organization and the Sales and Marketing organization realize multiple benefits. Key business benefits include the following:

• Greater efficiency. A standard format and a central location for business process content work to reduce inconsistencies and enhance effectiveness. By providing more convenient access to information, resources can streamline their own processes and focus on mission-critical business activities. For example, the time that it now takes to publish a process and have it available to users is significantly reduced. In the old business process documentation system, it took approximately two weeks to publish a process. In Microsoft Process Manager, it takes about 30 seconds.

• Organizational alignment and increased usability of content. Microsoft Process Manager enforces a single taxonomy for business processes among different regions and groups across the enterprise. Capturing content by using a standard format has helped process owners and process managers to create better business processes, thereby increasing the usability and the quality of business process content. The captured information can be used to help provide insight about how people and systems work together to achieve greater levels of responsiveness, to identify areas of business processes that need improvement, to provide more targeted service to customers, and to drive the development of tools and technologies that best support how business is done.

• Readily available information and enhanced user experience. Business process information is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with 99.99 percent reliability. Users have access to process content that is searchable and that is presented in a consistent, comprehensive format. Process owners and process managers from across the enterprise can create and publish business processes in real time on an as-needed basis.

• Reduction in the overall need for maintenance personnel. Maintaining content that was stored in the old business process documentation system was time consuming and awkward. Microsoft Process Manager streamlines the workflow so that process owners and process managers can drive the flow of the content. The need for additional maintenance personnel is reduced, lowering administration and support costs by $350,000 US.

• Easy to deploy, learn, and use. The architecture of Microsoft Process Manager enabled a simple deployment and a familiar interface for users. To view processes, users only require the Visio 2003 Viewer. If it is not already installed, it is automatically installed the first time that the user views a process on the Microsoft Process Manager Web site. MS Process Manager is deployed through an internal Web page that contains a link to the installation files. By integrating the Visio 2003 solution development platform to provide the familiar Visio drawing environment, the application user interface is easy to learn and use. Additionally, the validation feature in MS Process Manager helps to guide new process owners and new process managers through the creation of effective business processes. This minimizes training costs.

Future Plans

The Microsoft Services IT group is considering a future version of Microsoft Process Manager. Now that Microsoft Process Manager is currently in operation within the Services organization and the Sales and Marketing organization, developers can update and extend the use of the solution to other groups in the enterprise. For example, the Microsoft Services IT group is investigating the use of the Microsoft Process Manager solution for business process controls that are associated with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Future plans include establishing a platform and process warehouse that can be mined by using Web services to provide access to valuable information about business processes. By doing this, other internal Web sites and applications can access the business process information that is stored in Microsoft Process Manager.

Conclusion

With Microsoft Process Manager, process owners and process managers across the Services organization and across the Sales and Marketing organization can easily create and manage business process content and have the information readily available to users in a format that is useful and valuable. Web services provide the means to further integrate the solution with other systems across the enterprise. The business knowledge that is captured in Microsoft Process Manager can be used to drive the execution of repeated processes, which serves to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and improve customer service.

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products or services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada information Centre at (800) 563-9048. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information via the World Wide Web, go to:

http://www.microsoft.com

http://www.microsoft.com/itshowcase

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itshowcase

http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/FX010857981033.aspx

http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/officeupdate/CD010225371033.aspx

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