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Ultimus: Reports and Dashboards

Chris Adams is probably now thinking that I’m stalking him: not only do I attend his first two technical sessions, but when he switches to the business track for this presentation, I follow him. However, I wanted to hear about their reporting and analytics capabilities, and he covered off reporting, dashboards, BAM, alerts and using third-party analytics.

He started out with the underlying premise that you need to have governance over your business data, or your processes won’t be effective and efficient; in order to do that, you need to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will be used to measure the health of your processes. This means both real-time monitoring and historical analytics.

Ultimus iBAM provides a real-time dashboard that works with both V7 and V8. Only in V8, there’s also email alerts when specific KPI thresholds are reached.

For offline reporting, they have three types:

Process reports, automatically created for process instance analytics
User reports, also automatically created for workload and user productivity
Custom reports that allow for filtering of the historical data, filtered by other business data

Reports can be viewed as charts as well as tabular reports; there is a third-party report generation tool invisibly built in (Infologistics?); Chris noted that this is the only third-party OEM component in Ultimus.

If you’re using Crystal Reports or Cognos, Ultimus has now opened up and created connectors to allow for reporting on the Ultimus history data directly from those platforms; by the end of the year, they’ll add support for SQL Server Reporting Services as well.

There will be a more technical session on the reporting and analytics later today.

Ultimus: V8 Technical Deep Dive

Chris Adams is back for a somewhat longer session — I think that he zipped through the previous overview session in about 5 minutes to make up time on the schedule — to give us a lot more detail on the V8 product features. Some of this will only be of interest to Ultimus customers, but I find that it gives some good insight into how the product works and the directions that they’re taking.

First, he discussed what’s already in the released 8.x product:

Flobot connectors are now reusable. “Flobots” are the Ultimus connectors to other systems, with about 10 types available out of the box including web services calls (and I now have a very cool Flobot USB key); previously, you had to reconfigure each connector for every use. For example, for the email connector, you had to set up all parameters for the email connector (ports, authentication, etc.) each place it was used in the process, and change it whenever there was a change to, for example, the recipient. Now, they’ve allows for a reusable connector that has some or all of the parameters predefined to allow that to be more easily used in the process.
XML data storage replaces the V7 spreadsheet data structure that was previously used (which previously limited each data element to 255 characters, a limit that I sense from the audience was a sore point). My first reaction was “you used to keep your process instance data in a spreadsheet?”; sometimes you only find out about weirdnesses in a product when you hear about their upgrade out of that state.
A new Ultimus rules engine replaces event conditions, with a graphical representation of the rules. Rules actions can be related to steps in the process, or call .Net code or web services. Previously, the event conditions were kept in the spreadsheet data structure, and you had to reference the spreadsheet cell address rather than a schema variable name within rules. Now, you can add rules to processes directly in-line using the process parameters in the rule definitions.
Native ActiveDirectory support, so that you can (for example) assign a step to a group that exists in AD. You can still use their org chart functionality to create groups directly in Ultimus.
Attachments to process instances have been moved off the BPM server, and into SharePoint. You can use another content repository, but they do SharePoint out of the box and feel that it’s the best integrated solution.

Coming up in 8.2 in December:

BPMN support, although you can still convert back and forth to the Ultimus shapes if you’re more familiar with them. He showed a screenshot that looked pretty rudimentary, but it’s not released yet so I’ll reserve judgement until I see the final version.
Increased visibility into process incident history, to be able to step through exactly what happened in any particular process instance, including which rules that fired. You can actually playback
Enhanced development environment by adding Ultimus awareness to Microsoft Visual Studio for a single environment.
Fully exposed APIs, that is, access to the same APIs that the out of the box system is built on to allow you to build the same functionality into your own custom applications, with any function that you see in a pop-up menu also available through an API.

He showed us some architecture diagrams showing their new open architecture, including the client services for building custom client applications, BI services for custom reporting applications, and Flobots for external connectors.

Ultimus: V8 Introduction

Wow, I could have had a V8!

Okay, now that that’s out of my system, Chris Adams (VP Product Management) was up to give us an overview of the V8 release which will be an intro to the deep dive session that’s coming up next. V8 isn’t brand new — 8.0 was in October 2007, 8.1 in July 2008, 8.2 is coming in December — but most of their customers haven’t yet moved to it yet.

Key differences:

Moved from the Tidestone spreadsheet data model to XML
Providing reusable connectors in a repository for linking to other systems rather than having to retrain Flobots
ActiveX controls changed to .Net
Changed event conditions to their rules engine
Attachments do not need to be kept on the BPM server, but can be stored in SharePoint
Native use of ActiveDirectory rather than having to build an org chart first

As a Microsoft partner, they have a strong focus on MS-Office/MOSS 2007, including MS-Office Flobots included directly in the processes: that means that an Excel spreadsheet (for example) can be used as the UI at a step in the process instead of using a custom web form.

I’m going to stick around for the deep dive session next, so more detail to come.

Ultimus: Dave Ridley, Southwest Airlines on sustaining organizational excellence

I’ve been coached by Ultimus PR that I can’t mention all speakers by name since some of them are a bit skittish about seeing their names and case studies splashed across the internet, but Dave Ridley, SVP of marketing for Southwest Airlines, doesn’t have that problem. He was here today to discuss organizational excellence, and he started with a lot of jokes about how someone from an airline could even think about doing this, given the sad state of the industry over the past several years. However, Southwest has been a success story in the US domestic airline space since not only have they not gone bankrupt, they’ve actually been profitable and have never had a layoff. Furthermore, they have a reputation for great customer service, as well a providing a fun experience for their customers.

He started off talking about how you have to focus on process and metrics, what he calls “the smart stuff”, but that’s not enough to sustain organizational excellence; you also have to be “healthy”. He defines a healthy organization as one with minimal politics, a strong focus on the business that you’re in, low turnover and high morale. His mantra: relationships always precede sustained results. Not just external relationships with your customers, investors and partners, but internal relationships with your employees. I’m totally on board with this: when I ran a 40-person systems integration company in the late 90’s, my mantra was “the customer comes second”, and I always put my own team’s best interests ahead of everything else, which in turn motivated them to put the customers’ best interests first.

He told us some heart-warming stories of Southwest employees going above and beyond the call of duty, making the point that you can’t train people to provide this level of customer services: you have to hire them. Hire for attitude, train for aptitude. He points out that most of us spend much less time and effort hiring people than we do to spend the equivalent amount of money on software — what’s wrong with that? He challenged the audience to find the points of organization excellence that are deeply ingrained in their companies, and look for those when hiring people. Then, as he wrapped up the talk, he said it’s important to ignore the “customer comes first” mantra, and put your own people first. Weird to see the same words that I wrote 15 minutes ago (above) echoed, but it’s too true. He sees successful leadership, at least at Southwest, as being egoless: big titles don’t matter, prima donnas not permitted, everyone is equally important in contributing to organization excellence.

There’s so much that we do in BPM that works towards achieving organizational excellence, but sometimes we get caught down in the weeds and forget about the larger issues. Ridley’s talk was a good reminder of what’s really important in business.

Ultimus: Product Road Map

Chris Adams from Ultimus product marketing management gave us a brief view of the road map and product vision for Ultimus Adaptive BPM Suite. Not surprisingly, their product manages the entire process lifecycle, and is focused on continuous process optimization. They’re a strong Microsoft shop — you’ll find them near the top of the Microsoft version of the Forrester wave report for human-centric BPM — with SharePoint integration as well as the underlying Microsoft infrastructure support. They have a very Microsoft 2007 look and feel, e.g., the use of ribbon bars.

Their last major version was 8, in October 2007, but they’re still supporting V7 (90% of customers are still on that platform) and some V6. They have a migration strategy that allows you to run two servers simultaneously, gradually migrating process instances from one to another, even directly from V6 to V8.

The improvements in 8.1 were around collaboration and efficiency features; they need to spend a bit more time on some of the BPM standards, where they’re far behind, but they’re planning to implement BPMN in V8.2 in December, and BPEL and XPDL in V8.3 in spring 2009. Also coming in 8.2 is an interactive process history and auditing, plus a Visual Studio plug-in for better integration into the Microsoft development environment.

V8.3 will also see the entire suite (except server components) moved to zero footprint applications: no desktop applications, even for process modeling. They’ll be open sourcing some of their components, as well as including some social software concepts such as presence awareness, collaboration on tasks, sharing tasks, and collecting feedback during transactional processes.

A nice segue to my talk, where I talk about social computing as one of the key components of the future of BPM.

Over and above the enhancements to the core suite, they’re evolving from one product to multiple products. They see the need for a lighter suite (currently labeled as “Workflow Suite”, which likely won’t be the final name) for global markets: a low-cost (about 20% of the BPM Suite price) BPM solution with the same core engine, but some features turned off, and exposed APIs for regional partners to build applications. They’re also keeping an eye on SaaS directions, but have no announcements in that area; however, with the move to a zero-footprint suite, they’re positioning themselves well for that eventuality.

They’ll be releasing a number of templates as a starting point for new processes, including verticals such as finance and healthcare/pharmaceuticals, plus horizontal processes like human resources and IT.

They’re pushing a lot of online training for their product, which makes sense considering that they’re a relatively small company covering a large geography.

With most of the people in the room still on V7, this is a bit of a sales job to get them to move over to V8: more than 500 new features, more out of the box functionality, reusable features and functions, and connectors to web services and many other data sources.

Chris will be doing a more in-depth view of this tomorrow, but this gave us a quick overview.

Ultimus: Janelle Hill Keynote

I’m giving my keynote here at the Ultimus user conference in about an hour, but it’s always a pleasure to listen to Janelle Hill of Gartner so I’ve decided that I’ve reviewed my notes enough already. She’s discussing the need for business process competency centers, and how you end up with a series of BPM departmental silos if you don’t consider a competency center. This is a perfect launching point for my “Future of BPM” talk coming up, since one of the challenges that I list at the beginning is siloed departmental BPM systems that exist, in part, because of the lack of a competency center.

So what does a competency center provide? Think of it as a sort of internal consulting group or shared service, a one-stop shop for everything BPM: services, tools and standards. It’s there to support the activities that help to enable and scale BPM adoption. The main goal is to create a repeatable approach for rolling out successful BPM projects, which will may include methodologies (such as Lean), tools (such as modeling tools) and even a repository of shared implementation artifacts.

She walked through the pros and cons of different possible models for how to organize a BPCC: reporting to business, reporting to IT, or a blended model sitting between the two areas; like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the one in the middle is just right. There’s also an issue of whether to have a centralized BPCC or multiple decentralized centers, and how to evolve the BPCC over time as the BPM maturity within the organization increases. She had a few case studies — one of whom happened to be in the room — for BPCC implementations.

An interesting idea that she put forward is establishing a career path in business process competency, with three tiers of participant types ranging from business analysts up to a director/VP of BPCC. Having this structure makes it easier both for external recruiting as well as bringing people into the BPCC from other areas of the organization. She sees the competency center as a training group that people rotate through, not an exclusive club that you never leave once you’re in, which makes it more of an integral part of the organization.

Lessons that Gartner has learned from their customers about implementing a BPCC:

Too much bureaucracy in the BPCC hinders BPM adoption
Plan for the end state, but roll out as needed — don’t wait until the entire BPCC is done before starting on projects, and don’t built a competency center just for the sake of doing so
Sponsorship is critical, particularly for funding
Education and training take time and money

She finished up with a set of recommendations for implementing the BPCC, the services and engagement model, and how it fits into the organization now and going forward.

PegaWorld: Barney Frank Keynote

I think that I’m supposed to know who Congressman Barney Frank is, or what the chair of the House Financial Services Committee does, but I didn’t before reading the agenda: apparently, he oversees laws and regulations that apply to financial services and housing sectors in the US. I’m not sure if that means that we can blame him for both SOX and the sub-prime mortgage crisis. 🙂

He gave us the Idiot’s Guide to Sub-Prime Mortgages, a more elegant version of this, and discussed what’s likely to happen in financial markets in the short term (government continues bailing out the financial institutions). He was a pretty entertaining speaker: he joked that he would go to whoever managed to find the funds for the war in Iraq, and ask him to find funds to resolve some of the more pressing domestic issues. He also stated that he believes that the Homeland Security-driven initiatives to put security guards at all big office buildings in New York to check your ID does nothing to actually improve security, to some audience applause.

After seeing a pro-Democrat video at the start of the day that included Barack Obama riding a unicorn, this was a fitting end to the day. I think we know how Pega’s management leans, politically speaking.

Alan Trefler came up to close the conference, summing up the sessions that we’ve seen over the past two days, and showed a video montage of the past two days that (unfortunately) included the chicken dance episode on last night’s cruise.

That’s it for PegaWorld for me. Good content, lots of energy, and definitely worthwhile.

PegaWorld: Mashups with IAC

I thought that I should attend one technical/product breakout, since I’ve been covering customer case studies so far, and I wanted to get a closer look at Pega’s composite application development environment for internet applications, Internet Application Composer. I had a briefing on this a few months back, so have some notes and screenshots from that time that I’ll incorporate here as well.

IAM embeds PRPC application gadgets — like a worklist — on existing web pages, allowing SmartBPM functionality to be added directly and securely. This is like having PRPC on the web: actually exposing Pega functionality as Javascript gadgets, rather than just a back-end system that supports a website. This is not a limited set of pre-made gadgets, but the ability to turn a UI created in PRPC into a gadget.

IAC has three main components:

Composite Gadget Manager, which is a Javascript file that you load on your web page that implements your Pega gadgets. It controls configuration settings, plus the attributes, actions and events for the gadgets.
An existing PRPC application, running on a web node (behind the firewall); a web node is a separate PRPC node designated specifically for handling IAC requests, where all functionality is disabled by default unless explicit enabled for the web applications. This makes it possible to globally restrict certain types of access and functions on that node, rather than having to build that into the user interface.
IAC Composite Gateway, which is a servlet (in the DMZ) that manages the HTTP traffic between the Pega gadgets and the SmartBPM application on the web node.

As with most web applications that interact with behind-the-firewall systems, it’s a best practice to have the web application authenticate the user, pass on the trusted session to the Composite Gateway, which in turn passes it to behind-the-firewall web node.

Not only can PRPC gadgets be created and exposed, but legacy applications can be wrapped in SmartBPM to expose them to the web more easily. Since the PRPC application controls the view through the gadget as well as the internal view, any changes to the PRPC UI will be reflected both internally and in the gadget, without changing the web page itself: build once, deploy everywhere.

There’s tighter security than in many consumer mashup architectures: parameters are encrypted and obfuscated within URLs, for example.

The interface within the gadgets is rich, e.g., if one parameter is changed, a related parameter may update without a screen refresh. Gadgets on a page can interoperate, so a change within one gadget may cause another gadget’s data to update, such as showing the details for a selected item: this is enabled with some advanced actions and events, and uses JSON.

We looked at the actual HTML required to add a gadget to a web page: there’s a pretty small block of Javascript up front to set the configuration, then a 10-line block in a <div> structure that actually embeds the gadget.

IAC was released earlier this year, but a 2.0 version is available as of the end of September that includes HTTPS support, support for load balanced web node and gateway, tracing tools for debugging, samples and more. If you’re a Pega customer, you can access a number of in-depth technical articles on the Pega Developer Network about IAC.

PegaWorld: Paul Kompare on JPMorgan Chase’s agile methodology

Paul Kompare, SVP of commercial banking technology at JPMorgan Chase discussed their Pega implementation of a straight-through processing infrastructure for commercial loans. He gave us a brief view of the current environment and the proposed solution, then moved on to discuss their agile implementation approach. Although they refer to this as Agile, it’s still a bit waterfall-like: the sprints don’t result in released code, but in checkpoint demos, and these are the points when the business representatives interact with the development team rather than being a co-located team (which likely would not have been possible since they rely heavily on offshore development resources). However, it’s a big improvement over their old waterfall methodology.

They delivered the project in two phases, each with three iterations:

Happy paths and primary flows
Exception paths and secondary flows
UI, integration and reports

In each iteration, they establish and sign off on the criteria, then use Pega to directly capture objectives and model the processes. With this relatively agile process, they improved project sponsorship as well as getting early buy-in from the business, since they were able to demonstrate something earlier and more frequently. Using PRPC also gives the business managers more visibility into the business processes and their underlying logic, rather than having those processes locked up inside opaque application code. They found that the tools gave them more agility and flexibility during implementation, greater reusability and faster time to market, as well as allowing potential changes to be identified earlier.

They did have some challenges with adapting to an agile approach: this type of approach assumes that changes to the design and functionality of the system will occur during development, and relies on rolling out a phased series of small, self-contained components. From a funding standpoint, it’s almost impossible to issue fixed-price contracts for agile development, since there is not a really fixed statement of work on which to base the proposed price. I’ve seen cases where a third-party services firm doesn’t really get agile methodology, and there is a huge amount of overhead as they attempt to shoehorn their waterfall deliverables into each iteration of the agile development, or they just abandon the agile approach and go back to waterfall.

There’s also major changes to roles and responsibilities: the business participants have much greater responsibility during design and as the system rolls out, and having them trained in the design tools is critical.

He concluded that adopting agile development methodologies has been a challenge for them, but that it’s definitely helping them to achieve shorter development cycles. There’s very little here that’s specific to commercial loans, Pega implementations, or even BPM; these same factors would be seen in any organization shifting to an agile approach. However, Kompare made the point that they were driven to consider an agile approach because the Pega tools tend to work better in that environment than with a traditional development methodology.