Comindware Tracker provides its users with completely secure collaborative workspace for automating, organizing and managing all kinds of projects, tasks and activities. Due to its incredible flexibility this solution enables you having complete control on every single aspect of your business. The system comes with pre-designed functional workspace solutions for such areas of your business as:

• Software Development;
• Human Resources;
• IT Help Desk;
• Office Management.

Each of those Workspaces provides an environment that already has workflow templates and other helpful features ready for you to use. For instance, Comindware hr solution offers automated workflow templates for such hr activities as: hiring and termination, vacation or leave of absence requests, retirement and firing and many more. And if you need project management solution for, let’s say, your marketing department then all you have to do is customize pre-existing workflow templates or build new ones, which is quite easy to do thanks to user-friendly visual interface and drag-and-drop icons that Comindware uses in its products.

Using Comindware Tracker multiple departments and teams can collaborate on the same project within one system, and here are some of the major features that make the Tracker such an efficient business tool:

• Task management

As it was mentioned,Comindware Tracker also offers free Comindware Task Management. Thanks to this feature and its unique ConnectStep technology tasks can be generated automatically and assigned as tracked items progress from one step to the next. So while Comindware is taking control over the process and moving things along, team members can concentrate on executing their tasks.

• Workflows

Workflows allow automatically generate next-step tasks, and Comindware Tracker makes it incredibly easy to build workflows for every single one of your projects. Thanks to graphical workflow builder that provides interactive drag-and-drop controls you will be able to create workflows from scratch and customize them without having to wait for an IT specialist to help you design and automate workflows so they would work the way you want them to.

One of the most notable features of Comindware workflow software is its breakthrough flexibility. Due to the ultra-flexible ElasticData technology you are enabled to adapt your workflow processes at any stage of the project. That feature allows starting projects with minimal formalization of workflows and it enables to easily make changes in them according to the needs of the project at the time being. With this workflow management software you don’t need to formalize everything beforehand or interrupt current activities in order to deploy new processes.

• Issue tracking

This feature will allow you to bring more visibility into the process, and since the system is web-based you will be able to check up on your team and track their progress from any place that has Internet connection.

• Collaboration

Collaboration within Comindware Tracker is carried out via centralized discussions, comments and file sharing. Workspaces provide users with a collaborative work environment where they can track issues and manage tasks, discus projects and tasks and have access to documents, templates and media files. The system allows attaching discussions and all sorts of media files right to assigned tasks, which makes it easier for managers to communicate with their employees, especially those who work from home.

• Notifications

With reporting and notification features that Comindware Tracker provides you will be able to keep all the tasks from missing the deadline. The system also allows setting notifications to follow not only tasks and issues, but also discussions and file changes.

• Outlook integration

One of the Comindware unique features is patent-pending integration with Microsoft Outlook that allows users to work and collaborate with tasks directly within Outlook.

Though Comindware Tracker is an epitome of user-friendly software, itsscalability and security are enterprise-grade.  You can set up different security rules for eachWorkspace, project or department.

Filtered list views offer real-time priority-, status- and deadline-based views of tracked items so you will always know what’s going on with every single one of your projects. Reporting and analysis in Comindware Tracker are easily managed thanks to graphical dashboards that provide convenient charts and lists and extensive sorting features.

With Comindware workflow process automation,collaboration between different departments and issue tracking can be handled within a single web-based system, which not only saves your time and company’s money, but also allows working more productively and efficiently.

A guest post by Olga.

The original post is published here: Comindware Tracker Review

If you feel that they are taking too much time to complete your required custom web application, then you might want to get the team to check out this rapid web application development tool for .NET and Java – The Agile Platform by Outsystems.

The agile platform allows custom enterprise web apps to be developed and delivered faster and better.

Rather than having to write thousands of lines of codes from scratch, web app developers just need to use the drag and drop GUI tool (AgilePlatform Service Studio 5.1) and once completed, codes will be automatically generated.

If your web developer can read and write codes, it won’t be long before he learns how to leverage on the agile platform for all his development needs.

In case you’re wondering what type of apps can be developed via this rapid web application development tool, here’s are some successful case studies:

• Custom CRM (Home Energy Case Study)
• Enterprise BPM / Workflows (Van Ameyde Case Study)
• Business Websites (Fly.com powered by Outsystems)
• Employee Portals (ERSAR Case Study)
• Requests Management Systems
• Product Catalogue

About a few months ago I did download the Agile Platform and installed it on my virtual machine. However, I did not complete the evaluation process simply because it took to much time to setup and install all the required components.

Some time last month Outsystems improved the evaluation process a lot. Now you only have to download a small program and a cloud server will be installed and provided. You no longer need to test the Agile Platform on a virtual machine as I did before.

I downloaded the Agile Platform IDE for Windows (19MB) and installed it directly on my Windows Vista.

Once installed within 5 minutes, I get to start the platform server for a 3-day free trial in the cloud. Note that you’ll need to have an internet connection for the cloud server to work seamlessly.

All these while I’ve heard of cloud servers but haven’t actually seen it in action. With this platform server, I now see how convenient and reliable cloud servers can be.

The next few evaluation steps includes going through tutorials with walkthrough steps.

Overall I found the tutorials informative and useful as I learned more on how the Agile Platform works.

Besides helping application developers develop apps faster, what I also like about the Agile Platform has to be its embedded process automation technology which is capable of guiding users through predetermined business processes.

With the Outsystems business process technology, you can build and maintain the application and process together all within the single platform.

Just think of it as a built in BPM tool within your application development platform.

There are many other features released in Outsystems Agile Platform version 5.1:

• Embedded Tutorials to bring new Agile Platform users up to speed quickly
• IntelliWarpTM Technology that lets you quickly create a full web application
• Server Side Caching for your integrations, database access and business logic
• Automated Documentation to ease knowledge transfer about your application
• Multiple Database Catalogs and Schemas for data security and storage optimization
• SEO Friendly URLs that enables you to change and optimize URLs that appear to your end users

For more details and information on how your IT development team can benefit from the rapid web application development tool for .NET and Java, do check out Outsystems and give the IDE with cloud server capability a try today!

The original post is published here: Rapid web application development tool for .NET and Java

The head of human resource department is complaining to the IT project manager that the recent claims management system that they developed have incorrect business rules defined in it.

The HR head said that all claims exceeding $10k should be approved by the requester’s department manager before it is routed to the CFO for approval.

Instead, the developers coded it in such a way that once the department head approves the claim, the claim is immediately routed to the accounting department for reimbursement processing.

Looks like there is a confusion in the expected business process and now codes need to be rewritten to address the required business rule.

Most times, functional specification documents would be documented, agreed upon and signed before work begins.

But sometimes it can be difficult and troublesome to reedit word based documents especially when there is a major change in business processes. As we reword a specific business process, people may not see how a rule change may impact the entire processes from an end to end perspective.

Because of this, all business processes should leverage on the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) for a clear and standardized way to represent all processes in a graphical manner.

From a BPMN, stakeholders can now share a common understanding toward processes, creating a bridge for any gaps between process designers and process implementors.

Whether you’re an IT analyst or an end user who’s been assigned the responsibility to describe existing processes, you can benefit from some extra BPMN knowledge.

Today I would like to take the opportunity to highlight this Free BPMN online training by Bizagi.

Bizagi has a BPM suite which allows you to easily turn your process diagrams into running applications.

Besides offering a free BPMN process modeler, Bizagi is also providing free BPMN online training for you to become a BPM expert.

All you need to do is to sign up and register for a Bizagi account. Once you login, you will be able to access screencast materials for the following topics:

• Introduction to BPMN and the online course
• Basic elements of a business process diagram (BPD)
• BPMN complete notation
• Loop activites
• Gateways
• Events

Each of these topics come with:

• Presentation
• Exercise and its solution
• Quizzes

Some sample screenshots:

BPMN Presentation (Screencast)

BPMN Exercise (Scenario based)

BPMN Quiz

Once you manage to go through all the topics from this free BPMN online training, the next thing to do would be to put what you have learned into practice by downloading the free Bizagi BPMN modeler.

This is where the real challenge begins. Try modeling a process that’s currently being implemented in within your organization. From what I read, we can convert the model as designed in the BPMN modeler into a running application.

I will be trying this out and posting the experience on a future post. Till then, hope you have a fun time learning BPMN.

Popular Searches:

• BPMN free trainings
• bpmn online
• online BPMN training free

The original post is published here: Free BPMN online training by Bizagi

My initial findings about Questetra is that its BPM Suite is available in both self hosted downloadable edition as well as web based SAAS edition.

Depending on your organization’s IT policy and direction, both editions allow you to define and model your very own business processes and actually implement or enforce your predefined processes without the need for any programming work effort at all.

Although the term “without the need for any programming work” entices many non technical business users, it is still important for the business process analyst to understand some of the following business process modelling key terms such as:

• Activity
• Tasks
• Allocation
• Workflow pattern
• Gateway
• etc

But in layman terms, the BPM Suite allows you to:

1. Design business process models

For example if your organization has frequent problems with stationary requests, you can design a process model which indicates how stationery requests can be made, who should be the approver, once approved who will do the purchasing, etc.

2. Activate the business process model

After a business process model has been defined via the BPM Suite Modeler, the process designer would activate the process to allow users to actually use the application based on the defined processes.

3. Users can begin using the application

Once activated, users can now submit a request for stationeries via the BPM Suite as the system automatically takes the appropriate actions such as notifying the approvers to take action on a particular request.

Besides using the BPM suite for a stationery request workflow, the following are some more free worfklow samples as provided by Questetra:

For Manufacturing Industry:

• Estimate Process
• Order to Production Process
• Invoice Issuing Process

For Contact Center Industry:

• Inquiry Response Process
• FAQ Addition Process
• Study Group process

Do note that the above samples aren’t just process diagrams but actual process models which can be downloaded and edited / improved upon via the BPM Suite Download – Free Edition.

If your organization is interested to implement a BPM solution to address all of your organization’s processes, feel free to also check out this list of top open source BPM / workflow solution.

Although Questetra BPM Suite is not open source, it allows your organization to test and try its capabilities before deciding to proceed with its paid version. The system is quite transparent in terms of it features, functionalities and user interface. Basically it’s not something that you’ll have to buy / invest first before you can see it’s capabilities.

If your organization is planning on automating a process within the organization, it’s recommended to give these BPM tools a try in order to find out which tool fits your requirements best.

Till then, happy process modelling!

The original post is published here: Web based BPM Suite with free sample workflows

The reason why he wanted to acquire the company is to complement his existing business as he feel’s that an IT arm within his group of companies would help automate some of his business processes as well as to assist the marketing team develop a new brand for their existing products and services.

So he asked me what are the various aspects in within an IT organization which he should assess prior to acquiring the IT company. He is particularly worried about acquiring an organization which has:

• Internal problems
• Many old and unusable IT equipments
• Not been renewing their maintenance contracts

I told him that he needs to conduct due diligence on the IT organization in order to further investigate the organization’s IT environment, processes and staffs.

He could either hire an external consultant to help with the IT due diligence process or conduct one himself, with the help of his internal IT team.

What are some key questions that he should try to find out in order to help him make a decision on whether to acquire the company?

Here are three key requests he should check and confirm with the IT company:

• Who are their existing clients
• How many projects are ongoing or completed and what are the statuses of each project
• An organization chart together with a list of all their IT staffs which include their title, salary, responsibilities, work duration

For a complete IT Due diligence Request List containing twenty (20) key questions to find out from the IT organization which he is about to acquire, the following are some steps I told him on how he can get one FOR FREE.

1. Head on over to MDE Enterprises website
2. On the right side of the page there is a FREE eBook & Tools, click on that
3. Simply sign up for the free newsletter and download the free tools which includes the IT Due Diligence Request List.

I’m not sure how long this IT Due Diligence Request List will be made available for free. Hopefully by the time you get there it’s still available. Hope it helps!

Also, you can also check out MDE’s Acquisition: IT Due Diligence eBook for more due diligence related details such as the objectives, process, key risks, assessments questionnaires, data collection templates, due diligence reports, etc.

Popular Searches:

• free it due diligence template
• information technology due diligence request list
• it due diligence data collection

The original post is published here: Free IT Due Diligence Template / Request List