Need technical advice / suggestion

Question

My company needs a task management system to handle scripts as easy as Buy a Computer for X to Move a Person to Another Country. Simple scenarios are separate tasks that are managed by one person, while larger tasks can be divided into several sub-tasks delegated to several people during the workflow. In addition, customers and suppliers need their own views on this process.

We evaluate various solutions from a custom application based on the Workflow Foundation for SharePoint for BPM products such as Metastorm and BPM.Net.

Here is my current understanding of these solutions:

• Workflow Foundation is a low-level workflow designer and / or library without a host environment. It seems that we would have to invent several wheels if we went along this route, for example, fault tolerance and document management. Some stack responses also cause issues such as a lack of version and a complete revision for VS10 / .NET 4.0.
• SharePoint Built for document management and collaboration, but when you try to create advanced workflows and tasks on top of this, it seems like a hack. In addition, all workflows must be linked to documents or lists. I cannot imagine how a list (or list of lists) can solve this problem.
• BPM Products . Mature workflow mechanism at a very high price. BPM.Net is the only solution for which I could find some level of technical details, but I'm still not sure how different developments against this product will develop against the Workflow Foundation.

Are there any document management mechanisms designed to solve all the tasks of the workflow that can be easily deployed using your own hosting environment and initiated through a web service?

Are there any other options that I am missing?

Thanks in advance.

**** ** Edit

To answer the questions below, the workflow needs are pretty easy. Basic task routing for approvers and subcontractors. What makes us look deeper than PM software is the nature of the business, not the need for an extended workflow. We are mainly engaged in the procurement of goods and services through subcontractors for our customers, which may also include the complete relocation of employees. The package interface should reflect this, being a client’s brand, as well as intuitive for the industry.

Basically, if I move my family to the other side of the world, I'm not sure that I will need to interact with Jira or Sharepoint or any other PM software to facilitate this.

Answer 1

If you are on the Microsoft stack, I would definitely recommend SharePoint for this scenario. Since this seems very simple, you can go with the release of Windows SharePoint Services because it is free and it has everything you need.

You are right when you say that the ShartePoint workflow is a bit limited. IMHO the best way to overcome this limitation is to buy a Nintex workflow to create workflows. This is a cost-effective solution that can help you design the workflows you need. You can find sample workflows within the product (in the form of workflow templates) and on the website.

Answer 2

Nothing you talked about has much to do with the workflow. You just manage projects. If so, a simple error tracker will work (for example, FogBugz !;), but if you are going to display it from the outside, this may not be the most professional presentation.

The closest shelf solution I can think of would be Project Server - although, depending on the number of projects and project managers, a working Project project with synchronization with a web server might be enough for client views.

If this is redundant - because your projects do not require a lot of resource planning, Gantt charts or other PM artifacts - you can take something like Trac and replace the “bug” with “task” .;) (Seriously, although you probably get 90% of the way .....)

Answer 3

Have you watched RT ? I believe that he can cope with all your requirements, including so that he allows customers to interact with the system by e-mail, instead of accessing the site. If you emailed IT support desks, you probably talked to him without knowing ... You can also fully customize the web interface and allow clients access.

Answer 4

I can not vouch for the quality, because I did not use it, but I watched the online demo video Intalio , which has the capabilities of BPM and workflow.

Answer 5

We use Basecamp to manage this kind of "task management". I’m not sure that it fully meets your needs, as it covers the aspects of document management a bit, but it has a web service API (REST), components related to the client / supplier, and basic interaction / chat capabilities.

The best part of this is that the API is simple enough where you can offload most of the “management” for it to an administrator supporting staff, such as assistants and trainees, by providing custom scripts. If you have people who are not programmers using it, you are probably more lucky than even something like Trac or FogBugz.

Answer 6

The next version of the Windows workflow will have its own runtime, codename dublin, with a WCF interface in the workflows.

If your timeframe allows you to use this.

Information about Dublin and the next version of WF:

http://www.microsoft.com/net/dublin.aspx

Answer 7

I / have a similar process. We wanted our working group to facilitate the workflow for internal use. Most of the third-party applications that we looked at, K2 and Skelta BPM.Net, in particular, looked down on what we needed. I have been working with Windows Workflow Foundation 3.0 for 2 months now, and I must say that this is not the most pleasant coding experience that I have had.

If your workflows are simple, then it's pretty easy to create a workflow and connect it to some web pages for the user interface. But if you need to change it on the fly or do version control (that is, the user says that we want to add one more step, then there is a lot of hacking to make it work - and it only works if you limit your workflow to to be really simple), then you are in search of a good job. And forget about it if you are using an Oracle database.

Answer 8

My vote for FogBugz. If I am missing something in your requirements, why do you want to invent a wheel using a code-based workflow solution, where you need to compose threads yourself, when you can use a perfect project solution, such as FB or even MS Project Server - which allows you to create good dependencies for resources and people.

Answer 9

Check FileNet

FileNet is expensive, but works pretty well with content and process control, but I think this is not what you are looking for.

Answer 10

We use Captaris Workflow , which is pretty good, but can be expensive for your needs.