BPM approvals

[Karl Nietz]

Hi,

Further to Jocelyn's response below, is there any documentation or a blog 
that explains how BPM actually supplants workflow for simple processess 
such as PO approval, as indicated?  I've checked the ES simple sample 
applications and the purchase requisition approval example seems to gloss 
over the issue, or at least appears to be using an underlying workflow 
template for steps such as agent assignment.  Or is this the whole thrust 
of the BPM/workflow relationship?  A chap called Kenichi has a 1hour 
podcast on SDN but the screens are unreadable.  Anything to get me started 
would be helpful.

 Karl 

----- Forwarded by Karl Nietz/AUS/CSC on 06/05/2010 01:49 PM ----- 

From: 
"Dart, Jocelyn" <jocelyn.dart at sap.com> 
To: 
"SAP Workflow Users' Group" <sap-wug at mit.edu> 
Date: 
06/05/2010 01:18 PM 
Subject: 
RE: This Group
 




Hi Mike, 
Just adding the SAP employee perspective... and by the way I'm Product 
Lead for NW BPM in ANZ Field Services this year.

I agree currently NW BPM and Workflow should be considered as 
complementary.  Mainly due to existing business content and solution 
maturity issues.   Also yes Workflow will not be going away anytime soon. 
It is however possible to use NW BPM instead of Workflow for a new site 
that does not use workflow at all for scenarios that we would previously 
have done in workflow (e.g. purchase order approval) - provided current 
limitations/restrictions are understood and this is happening at some 
sites. 

A lot of the concepts and issues around process handling are the same.
We currently have a BPM forum in SDN, so the question for this forum is: 
as BPM usage grows do you want to start covering that area as well or just 
stick with traditional workflow?

I can't give any official details on future releases yet but I can confirm 
generally that we are expecting some better integration options between 
workflow and NW BPM when we get to 7.3 on both the backend and NW BPM 
platforms most likely around business event management and calling of 
ABAP-based applications.   We also expect some sort of import for 7.3 
although I don't expect we will be translating from workflow to BPM or 
vice versa - more likely import of a model from business process modelling 
applications.  I don't expect workflow to be further developed - although 
I agree BPMN is easier to work with and enables better cross communication 
between business and IT. 

If anyone has any specific questions I'm happy to provide what information 
I can.  There are trial versions available on SDN if you want to have a 
play with NW BPM, or try out the pre-built Simple Sample Applications on 
the ESWorkplace site. 

Regards,
Jocelyn 
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