AW: Groupware vs SAP Business Workflow

[Becker Stephan (extern)]

Hi Kim,
 
the main design difference between Workflow and groupware is that with
groupware, you foster collaboration between people and there is less
emphasis on process control than in workflow. So workflow will make it
easier to guide people through a fixed process (like an approval process),
and groupware will give people more flexibility to work together loosely,
like exchanging information during a design process.
 
So design-wise, workflow will make it easier to build approval workflows,
and also would normally give you more possibilities for auditing and
controlling the process.
 
You are saying you need to develop many approval workflows. Are you sure
this cannot be solved with a dynamic variation of one or a few general
workflows? Often, you can group many scenarios into one by allowing
variables to steer the workflow down different paths, depending on what
information you have in the specific case.
 
If you give us an idea about what you think makes this design so complex,
maybe the group can give you a few hints on how to solve the problem.
 
Greetings,
Stephan
 
-----Ursprungliche Nachricht-----
Von: Kim, Go Joong [mailto:go.joong.kim at sap.com]
Gesendet: Montag, 22. April 2002 10:03
An: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Betreff: Groupware vs SAP Business Workflow
 
 
Dear workflowers,
 
I'm now participating in the project at which too many approval workflow
scenarios are must be developed.
And I think it is impossible to develop all scenarios in SAP R/3 in time.
So our team is considering to use groupware.
For example, the approval process is executed in the groupware and the
result is sent to SAP R/3 if approved.
 
Pls let me know If someone knows pros and cons about using groupware.
And are there campanies using groupware in the above situation?
 
Regards,
 
GoJoong Kim
SAP Korea / Business Workflow, Data & Document Archiving
E-mail : go.joong.kim at sap.com
Tel : 82-2-2194-2775
PCS : 82-16-725-9424