The Missing MOSS 2007 Workflow

Hat tip to the SharePoint Solutions Blog for writing about another SharePoint hosted workflow that is included with MOSS.

The workflow is not activated by default and to be honest, I never knew it existed until reading their post the other day.

Anyway it is called the Three-State workflow and the description of how it works is located here.

This workflow can be a powerful tool for automating the tracking of the changing state of a SharePoint list item or document. Try it out.

Technorati tags: MOSS2007, Microsoft, Workflow, SharePoint

BetterECM Upcoming Events

The next couple of weeks are pretty busy. Tomorrow I am participating on a panel discussion called: “Point/Counterpoint: Microsoft vs. Open Source” at the Greater Baltimore Tech Council. The event will be held at the Holiday Inn Select, 2004 Greenspring Drive. Timonium, MD.

After that, I am co-presenting with Connie Moore, VP & Research Director at Forrester for an “invitation only” Executive Roundtable event at the Baltimore Ruth’s Chris Steak House. The event is entitled: “BPM: Realizing Your Microsoft Investments Through Process Automation”.

Finally, come join me for breakfast, next Thursday morning, May 10, 2007 for the National Capital Chapter – AIIM monthly event. My presentation, “What Does the Future Hold for ECM?” will look at the future of ECM by reviewing some of the clues I observed at the 2007 AIIMexpo in Boston last month. I hope to see a great turnout and look forward to a spirited discussion about the future of ECM. The event will be held at the Key Bridge Marriott, 1401 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA, Phone: (703) 524-6400.

Technorati tags: AIIM, Microsoft, MOSS2007, BPM, ECM, Open+Source, Forrester

Disillusioned With The Current Definition of ECM

I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately. For over two months now, to be exact!! So here it is, finally!

I think the traditional definitions of ECM swirling around are flawed. In this post I review some of the traditional definitions of ECM from AIIM, Gartner, and Forrester, and then propose a new “BetterECM Definition of ECM”. This new definition serves to answer the broader question of ”How do we effectively manage the content across the enterprise and create a culture of information sharing?” 

So let’s look at the current definitions:

From AIIM…

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization’s unstructured information, wherever that information exists.

From Gartner’s Client Issues for Enterprise Content Management, 2005

ECM has emerged after 10 years of market consolidation. Vendors from various areas have entered other markets by developing new functions, or by acquiring companies and technology from related markets. As a result, few stand-alone vendors remain in some of these markets (for example, Web content management and record management). Today, ECM encompasses the following core components:

• Document management for check-in/checkout, version control, security and library services for business documents
• Web content management for automating the webmaster bottleneck, and managing dynamic content and user interaction
• Record management for long-term archiving and the automation of retention and compliance policies, and to ensure legal or regulatory record compliance
• Document capture and document imaging for capturing and managing paper documents
• Document-centric collaboration for document sharing and supporting project teams
• Workflow for supporting business processes and routing content, assigning work tasks and states, and creating audit trails

From Forrester’s Topic Overview: Enterprise Content Management

ECM must be a strategy for: 1) how to manage all unstructured information — images, Web content, rich media assets, and corporate records; 2) how to integrate the many content repositories within an enterprise; and 3) how to put content to use — by making it contextual within business processes and user experiences.

What’s wrong with these definitions?

Well, all of the above definitions primarily focus on the technologies used to manage content across the enterprise. Forrester’s definition is getting closer to my idea of the ideal definition, but does not quite get there. It’s almost like the common definitions of ECM are based on the consolidation of the technology components that now make up the ECM suites. The do not address the necessary cultural aspects, processes, policies, and procedures which would support a culture and the practical application of effectively managing information throughout the enterprise.

I really like the Gartner definition of business process management (BPM): From the Gartner research report “Business Process Management: Preparing for the Process-Managed Organization”, they define BPM as:

BPM is a management practice that provides for governance of a process environment toward the goal of improving agility and operational performance. BPM is a structured approach employing methods, policies, metrics, management practices and software tools to manage and continuously optimize an organization’s activities and processes.

The BetterECM definition of ECM:

So, based on the less than ideal definitions of ECM so far I propose the following “BetterECM Definition of ECM”

“ECM is a management practice that provides for governance of an information management environment toward the goal of improving compliance, information reuse and sharing, and operational performance. ECM is a structured approach employing methods, policies, metrics, management practices and software tools to manage the lifecycle of information and to continuously optimize an organization’s collections of information and information management processes.”

Tell me what you think. Based on your feedback this definition may evolve.

Technorati tags: ECM, BPM, AIIM, Gartner, Forrester, compliance

BetterECM Goes To Gartner BPM Summit

Greetings from beautiful San Diego! I will be attending the Gartner BPM Summit this Sunday through Wednesday. I am really looking forward to being an attendee and not being one of the presenters for a change. Not that I don’t enjoy presenting at conferences, mind you. I really do enjoy getting live feedback and having the opportunity to meet new people who in many cases are as passionate about making ECM better as I am.

I plan on focusing my attendence to sessions that deal with the strategic alignment of BPM with the organization’s buisness, with the change management aspects, and with the intersection of BPM and ECM.

I also hope to meet several of my BetterECM readers in person while at the conference. Sandy Kemsley blogged about attending and I plan to meet up with her.

Once I get my agenda nailed down I will post that so you can see what I will be attending. I also will try and blog about some of the sessions and the confrence in general. 

Technorati tags: GartnerBPMSummit2007, ECM, BPM

Seven New SharePoint 2007 Document Management Features Series: Part 6

Here is Part 6 of my series “Seven New SharePoint 2007 Document Management Features”. The next new document management feature is:

Built-in document workflows: SharePoint now includes workflow capabilities built on Windows Workflow Foundation that are integrated with the document management repository and forms capabilities. The shipping workflow processes include:

• Collect signatures
• Collect feedback,
• Disposition approval
• Web content translation
• Issue tracking

Workflow tasks can be created and assigned to participants along with notifications to alert them about the task. SharePoint provides a status page associated with the workflow so participants can follow the progress of a workflow. The status page also includes workflow history information that is specifically designed by the workflow author. The standard SharePoint workflows can by modified using the Office SharePoint Designer 2007, which is the successor product to FrontPage®.

 After the workflow is deployed to a site collection, it appears in the list of available workflows that administrators can add to content types or libraries. Once the workflow is added to a document library end users can then start the workflow for any document in that DM Library.

Technorati tags: MOSS, Microsoft, MOSS+2007, document+management, workflow, ECM, SharePoint