Comment Some related information about your goals (Score 1) 58
Goal 1 - To be able to understand the path of a process without perusing in and out of a lot of functions. - The BPM tool should contain a graphical drag and drop representation of your process. Additionally, if the tool can represent a complex yet constant business function as a high level action step that would hide the underlying details to.
Goal 2 - To be able to report on how long each step in each process takes. - The BPM product should have this report and other reports that help you engineer your processes further.
Goal 3 - To be able to see exactly where in the process software errors occur and be able to skip over failed steps so that we can come back and fix them later. - The BPM product should have a validation function before ever executing the workflow. The tool should also have some sort of error handling feature that either enforces business policies set at a higher level or allows you to configure the exception handling in the process design.
Goal 4 - To be able to integrate with our issue tracking system, billing system, and CRM software. We definitely will have to write some webservices here. - Maybe or maybe not, since Web Services and other integration techniques have evolved many products come with some sort of integration API. The BPM tool should have a way of integrating with external applications. That could be through Web Services, direct database calls, external processes, or direct code invokation.
Goal 5 - To be able to give process managers in different departments the ability to tweak certain processes without giving them full access to all processes. - To do this the BPM product not only needs to be able to enforce security at a workflow level, but your process designs need to be developed strategically into compartments so that a particular line of business manager can see his/her process without editing a piece that others maybe be using elsewhere.
I recommend the workflow tool LANDesk Process Manager by LANDesk Software.
Goal 2 - To be able to report on how long each step in each process takes. - The BPM product should have this report and other reports that help you engineer your processes further.
Goal 3 - To be able to see exactly where in the process software errors occur and be able to skip over failed steps so that we can come back and fix them later. - The BPM product should have a validation function before ever executing the workflow. The tool should also have some sort of error handling feature that either enforces business policies set at a higher level or allows you to configure the exception handling in the process design.
Goal 4 - To be able to integrate with our issue tracking system, billing system, and CRM software. We definitely will have to write some webservices here. - Maybe or maybe not, since Web Services and other integration techniques have evolved many products come with some sort of integration API. The BPM tool should have a way of integrating with external applications. That could be through Web Services, direct database calls, external processes, or direct code invokation.
Goal 5 - To be able to give process managers in different departments the ability to tweak certain processes without giving them full access to all processes. - To do this the BPM product not only needs to be able to enforce security at a workflow level, but your process designs need to be developed strategically into compartments so that a particular line of business manager can see his/her process without editing a piece that others maybe be using elsewhere.
I recommend the workflow tool LANDesk Process Manager by LANDesk Software.
