Process-driven Architecture for Workflow Automation in a GIS context A Tensing USA, LLC White Paper Authored By: Jeff Puuri, Senior GIS Consultant November, 2016
Abstract Business Process Modeling & Notation (BPMN), developed and maintained by the Object Modeling Group (OMG), provides an open standards approach for defining and portraying organizational workflows as graphic process models. These models are created using commercial offthe-shelf software tools that support the BPMN standard. The BPMN software also provides tools for configuring properties associated with the model to create an executable web-based application available across the enterprise, thus automating business process execution. Among the configuration capabilities are seamless integration to existing computing environments, such as ERP and GIS, using web services. This tooling provides the means for developing rapidly deployed enterprise-level solutions while remaining compliant with corporate IT standards and policies. This paper presents an example approach to using this architecture for integrating geospatial process data, collected during BPMN model execution, with GIS and other enterprise systems. The results are information products that can be used for better informed decision making to improve the efficiency of Operations, ensure policy Compliance, and improve quality of Customer Service. Workflows and Business Processes Esri, the market leader of GIS software, defines a GIS as an integrated system of data, software, hardware, people and workflows used to answer questions, make decisions, and provide tools to create, share, and use geographic information [1]. Without the word geographic, doesn t that describe the overarching purpose for an IT system in general? By answering Yes, we therefore imply that geographic data has special properties above and beyond other, nongeographic data. Indeed, due to distinguishing, spatial, properties inherent in geographic data, such as defining attributes across time for discrete locations, measuring continuous phenomena with respect to a curved earth s surface, and defining data with spatial dependency, we can answer questions of a geographic nature that are not possible otherwise[2]. Therefore augmenting our IT infrastructure by incorporating a GIS benefits the organization as a whole by increasing the breadth of information that can be produced. From Esri s definition of a GIS in the previous paragraph, we see that one of the five components comprising the integrated GIS system is workflows. Further research will reveal that the term workflow is defined as the automation, in whole or part, of a business process [3]. The BPMNbased approach that follows will demonstrate how business processes can be automated and integrated with GIS and other IT systems to create, use, and share geographic information leading to better decision making from better and more informative answers to business questions. But first, what is a Business Process? One common definition for a business process is a chain of activities that - when executed - together provide value for the customer [4]. The customer is the ultimate consumer of the business process outcome. In this sense of the word, a customer can be a person, but could also be a computer system, and in either case can exist internal or external to the organization. If the business steps are defined correctly, you will see that at the end of each step there is a kind of validation in data or time to act as a gatekeeper for starting the following step. The Business Process Management Lifecycle Business processes are found in each organization, big and small, and most of these are supported by computers. You can say that business processes drive the organization. With that in mind, it makes sense that companies are seeking techniques to make their business processes operate with maximum efficiency, while simultaneously resulting in maximum value to their customers. In doing so, many factors will continue to drive changes into the business process. Companies are turning to BPM, Business Process Management, which is a set of principles, methods and tools to manage business processes with the ultimate goal of improving them. Using BPM also allows organizations to achieve transparency, striving to achieve a good understanding of how the organization works. BPM is carried out through a process lifecycle of documenting, Figure 1- The BPM Lifecycle [4] 1
analyzing, improving, automating, and monitoring individual business processes. That s why it is an excellent technique that allows for continuous improvement of the business processes. What can typically happen to processes that have been fully or partially automated, is that due to many factors relating to hardware, software, data, and people, processes can grow and evolve over time such that they include unnecessary steps and other inefficiencies. Therefore, the first step in the Business Process Management cycle is to document the As Is business processes. Documenting business processes is performed using Business Process Modeling & Notation (BPMN). BPMN is an open standard from the Object Modeling Group (OMG) which is well known throughout the business world. It is a modeling language that uses a standardized set of graphic elements to document business processes. These models are created using an emerging class of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software tools called Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) that are offered by a number of vendors which support the BPMN standard. The resulting models generated by the software are portrayed in an easy to understand format that support communication of the documented process to personnel at all levels in the organization from technical to management to executive. BPMN Models are comprised of three main types of elements to graphically portray the workings of a business process: Control Flow Capture What Business process activities must execute and When Artefacts What types of data and objects the process must work on Resources Who is going to work on the process at its various steps By capturing the As Is business process in a model, a first catch is that organizations can now have a tangible talking point for analyzing, discussing, and deciding upon possible process improvements that can be implemented. These proposed improvements are documented directly in the model itself, resulting in the optimized To Be model of the BPM lifecycle, depicting the improved process flow. It is this optimized process model that will be used in the next step of the BPM lifecycle: automation. Configuring for Automated Execution and Integration In addition to providing a graphic process model documentation standard, BPMN was also developed to provide an execution standard such that a graphic business process model can be turned into an executable application. Each graphic shape type comprising the notation is defined by a set of behavioral properties that it will exhibit during execution. Many of the BPMS software products that support the documentation standard also support the execution standard. There are many BPMN-specific BPMSs on the market, but also big ERP vendors like Oracle and SAP have incorporated BPMN execution modules as a capability of their suite. And then there are numerous Open Source BPMS execution systems for organizations who use that approach. Once the graphic model has been created and validated using the BPMS, behavioral execution for each step in the process flow is established in terms of user interface, system security, and the underlying data model by using configuration settings through point-and-click or drag-anddrop type of operations. Another key configurable property for all these types of BPMS platforms is their ability to integrate business process execution with back office support systems such as CRM, ERP, and GIS to both supply, and acquire data, in support 2
of process execution activities. Straightforward integration is achieved using open interface standards through web services, especially REST, SOAP, and CMIS. This ability to configure execution settings by someone like an IT Systems Administrator instead of through custom code requiring a programmer is termed as a Low-code Application Platform. This is a preferred method of solution implementation at the present time in terms of not only rapid deployment, but future maintainability because software support is provided by a vendor with dedicated help facilities instead of a developer that may or may not be available in the future. BPMN for GIS The Perfect Marriage Using BPMN for GIS integration in your deployment architecture is a perfect marriage between IT systems. Business processes generate their data in systems that are often disparate from one another, and from the GIS. By using configuration through the BPMS, these data sources can be integrated and merged into the GIS without programming. An example of this integration will be demonstrated in the case study section to follow. A further advantage to a COTS-based BPMS is the platform flexibility of the deployment architecture. These systems can be deployed on cloud servers, in-house servers behind a firewall, or a hybrid combination of both, thus adapting to most any IT system configuration. In addition to deployment flexibility, BPMSs are designed to provide security stability and integration inherent to off-the-shelf software. So the BPMS is a kind of glue to securely and flexibly bind disparate systems in a manner that will provide compliance with corporate IT standards and policies. Case Study Example Execution of a business process in a BPMS is performed using the concept of a Case. The BPMN defines, and BPMS manages, all the interactions by users and external systems during each activity comprising a Case, from the beginning of the process execution to its completion. Users direct case activities by completing intuitive data forms in a browserbased interface, or a mobile device app, while integration occurs using web service tasks that execute automatically to retrieve from, and submit data to, back end systems such as ERP, CRM, and GIS. One of the fascinating aspects of case records is there is usually some, and frequently a lot, of location-based data that is collected whether its value is realized or not. However, it is being increasingly realized by organizations that location-based, geospatial data is key to visualization and analytics tasks leading to information products that are used to answer questions and make decisions in ways that non-spatial data cannot. Of course GIS is a perfect place in which to perform all of those types of tasks, but it is not always desirable, or even practical to have every user at every step in the execution of business process interacting with GIS for data processing. Most every GIS provides some level of web service API that can provide an integration point with the BPMS. Therefore by using the BPMS browserbased interface and supplying data to the GIS for back end processing, system utilization is optimized for tasks at hand. In addition, by using this same approach for data integration with other corporate systems, data authority is maintained throughout all the corporate systems which tends to alleviate concerns amongst system administrators worried about data corruption by having the same data in multiple locations. Figure 2- Inherent location data during process execution This screen sample shows a simplified data entry form that a BPMS user might encounter during process execution. The user completes the entry fields for the task, date, and address. Because it is a browser-based application, the BPMS is able to implement the HTML5 geolocation standard to determine the latitude and longitude of the user completing the form, all automatically. This is especially useful when the form is being completed by a field user, but it is also useful for desktop applications as well. The street address contained on the purchase order itself can t be mapped in the GIS directly, but the integration capabilities of the BPMS allow it to call an external geocoding web service with the provided address. The web service returns the latitude, longitude coordinate back to the BPMS. Now the BPMS has two pieces of valuable location data that can be directly mapped in a GIS. The following diagram shows how the BPMS can integrate with different external web services to provide location data to the GIS. As described in the previous paragraph, the BPMS user 3
used for decision making tasks at all levels of the organization. Not only is the location of the geocoded address displayed, but a hyperlink is provided for access to the original document from the map display. Figure 3 - BPMS-GIS Data Integration enters an address, but the BPMS must turn that into a latitude, longitude coordinate pair in order for it to be mapped in the GIS. A REST API call is executed by the BPMS in a two way communication with a Geocoding API. Any geocoding API can be used, for example the one provided by Google Maps. The address is provided to the Google API using a REST protocol. The Google API replies with a latitude, longitude coordinate pair. Now the BPMS has 2 latitude, longitude pairs, one from the data entry form geolocation and the other from the geocoded purchase order address, both of which can now be mapped in the GIS along with any non-spatial attributes that were collected in the data entry form. That is shown by the other REST API call as a one way communication to the GIS through a generic GIS Features API. This example is shown as a one way communication to emphasize the notion of data authority. In this case the user is supplying data to the GIS for storage and then processing at some later stage, but the GIS is not supplying data back to the process for further editing because the GIS has authority over the data collected during this process. The immediate feedback perceived by the User interacting with the interface, has the big advantage of improving data quality, by immediate spotting and rectifying input errors (multiple occurrences of Aberdeen etc.). Upon successful invocation of the REST API call to GIS, the process data will be stored in the GIS and is available for visualization on map displays, as seen in following screen shot, but also for a myriad of analytical processes that incorporate the collected data into information products The final step in the BPM lifecycle is monitoring the implemented and automated processes. There are numerous techniques for monitoring processes, but the main goal is to measure how well the process performs with respect to predefined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The result of these measures can dictate that adjustments in the process are necessary, thus the lifecycle starts anew by making the current model the As Is state, and then applying improvements to create a new To Be model that is executed through automation with the improvements determined by monitoring, now in place. Figure 4- Resulting Map Display showing process data Business Benefits As shown above, integrating GIS with an executing process enables visualization of process data on a map. Map-based information products augment existing reports and charts to provide a context for improved decision making in support of key business operations centered around: Increased efficiency of operations Ensuring corporate and regulatory policy compliance Leading to higher quality of customer service 4
Automating execution of your BPMN-based process model using a low-code BPMS application platform to capture and provide the location-based data to the GIS provides additional benefits in support of these key operations. Among those are: Documenting the process using a BPMN graphic model provides the medium for communicating process improvements Configuring the model for execution leading to rapid deployment as the user interface, system security, and external system integration components are already in place; they just need to be configured for customerspecific requirements Using a commercial software BPMS provides help desk support Case-based model execution logs each operation providing traceability of who, what, when, and where answers at each step For more information about implementing a process-driven architecture for automating workflows and integrating GIS, please contact us at Tensing for a free demonstration of some complex BPMN models that Tensing has automated for other customers References 1. www.esri.com 2. DiBiase, D., et al (2014). The Nature of Geographic Information. The Pennsylvania State University. 3. blog.goodelearning.com/bpmn/business-process-vsworkflow/ 4. Dumas, Marlon, Marcello La Rosa, et al (2013). Fundamentals of Business Process Management. Springer Press. 5. www.tensing.com Conclusion This paper explained and clearly demonstrated the benefits for organizational adoption of BPM practices leading to business process automation and integration, especially as it pertains to GIS. For organizations interested in realizing the resultant values of this progression, it doesn t, and in fact shouldn t, be attempted on all business processes right away to be effective. You can start by picking one or two processes with low complexity, but high impact, as these are good candidates for process improvement coupled with automation and integration with the GIS. By following the steps outlined in this paper, and then monitoring the resultant improvements, customer value will be achieved and demonstrated throughout the organization which will, in turn, provide momentum for additional processes to be integrated using this approach. Tensing USA 9900 Belward Campus Drive, Suite 225 ROCKVILLE, MD 20850 T: +1 240 403 6001 I: www.tensing.com 5