The migration of Stateframe to the .Net platform has led to a series of significant enhancements to the 'out of the box' product.

Case Centric Management information

Stateframe now has fully integrated graphical Management Information, providing users and managers with real-time information about the progress of their cases. The focus is on handling exceptions. Cases which are approaching or have passed key milestones are flagged up using a simple to understand 'Traffic Light' system. An intuitive interface provides the ability to drill down from an overall summary to team, user and case level, with a few mouse clicks.

The Team Intray, already a popular feature of the COM version of Stateframe, has been significantly enhanced to provide a team focused dashboard. This not only gives access to personal and team intrays, but a 'Thermometer' provides a constant visual reminder of how many cases the user has, and which ones are approaching or have passed a key milestone.

The team dashboard also provides a summary of cases for the other members of the team.

Ad-hoc Task Management

Stateframe's powerful State Model has always provided an unparalleled ability to control case based processes at any level of detail. However, apart from very simple 'conveyor belt' processes, there is usually the requirement to handle ad-hoc tasks which do not form part of the main process flow, but which still need to be managed within the context of the overall process. The Task Management component is used to add an ad-hoc task to a case and assign it to an individual. If required, the recipient can be notified of the task by email, which contains a hyperlink giving direct access to the associated task on Stateframe.

Task progress can be tracked using audited notes, providing information on who added the note and when. A comprehensive set of filters can be used to show only outstanding tasks, tasks of a particular type, tasks owned by a particular individual, etc.

Although these tasks are ad-hoc in nature, they can still be tied into a particular stage in the process. Users with outstanding tasks in a particular stage can be notified as the deadline for the stage approaches. Depending on the specific business requirements, Stateframe can prevent a stage from completing if there are outstanding tasks, or it can request authorisation to proceed from a user with the appropriate level of authority.

As well as ad-hoc tasks, this facility can also be used for case notes and reminders, for example, 'Call the client at 3:15pm next Thursday'.

Email Integration

The previous section talked about delivering ad-hoc tasks via email. This facility is now available for any on-line Stateframe task. If users are required to fill in an on-line form, they can be sent an email containing a hyperlink. Clicking on the link will take them directly to the form. Depending on requirements, the form can be displayed within the context of the full Stateframe client, or it can be displayed 'stand alone'. In the later case, users are not aware that they are using Stateframe. To them it looks like a simple web form. This is a powerful way of including occasional users, both internal and external, in a Stateframe process.

If you would like a demonstration of Stateframe, including these new facilities, please give us a call on +44 1793 484248 or email sales@stateframe.com.

Alia Systems have teamed up with soVision Ltd to provide a training and knowledge support system.

soLearn is an easy to use automated process for knowledge retention and compliance management whilst providing an auditable record for verifying your resources knowledge of operational issues and processes.

It can be applied to any business processes, training or compliance campaign where there is a requirement to test or verify retained knowledge or governance related to corporate or organisational requirements associated with legal, financial, employment, safety, quality or reputational issues related to an organisations operations.

soLearn is designed for ease of use and low maintenance and is customisable for use in any industry, market sector, profession, organisation, government or public sector application anywhere in the world.

soLearn can be hosted as a local installation or remotely as a fully hosted service.

soLearn will help you to:

• Enhance workforce knowledge retention of organisational issues, processes and values
• Test employee knowledge retention for training they have received
• Evaluate the quality of training and benefit from your training investments
• Reduce workforce and organisational risk exposure
• Gain instant access to management data for improved efficiency
• Provide an auditable record for training, process and compliance management

soLearn utilises the Stateframe BPM Engine to:

• Deliver electronic tests via email and mark the answers
• Suggest reading material for people who fail a test, followed up with a new test
• Chase late tests and escalate to management if necessary

For more information, please contact soVision directly:

• Email: info@solearn.com
• Tel: +44 (0)845 450 3669
• Fax: +44 (0)117 986 2204

This major release marks the migration of Stateframe to the .net environment, resulting in a significantly enhanced Process Management Engine, brand new asp.net client and a set of sophisticated development tools integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

For those of you already familiar with the Stateframe environment, there follows a list of the headline changes. For those of you new to Stateframe, we invite you to spend a day with us to see how good Stateframe is for yourself. Give us a call on +44 1793 484248 or email sales@stateframe.com.

The Stateframe Engine

The Stateframe Engine has been completely redeveloped in c#. Although based on the same powerful state model as the COM version, Alia have taken the opportunity to significantly enhance the API, making it even easier to build process centric business applications.

A large amount of processing which previously had to be included in application code has now been moved into the Stateframe Engine.  For example, core methods such as changing the state of a Process Object, adding a Case or adding a Process Object have been extended to run any consequential non-ui activities by default.

New Client

The new sample ASP.net client does not only benefit from the improved Stateframe API but also exploits the power of master pages. The master page contains the client toolbar and case hierarchy controls and also handles the interaction with the Stateframe Engine. Stateframe Activities implemented as aspx web forms inherit from the master page, so a developer only has to add the required user controls.

Object Based UDP

UDP (User Data Properties) are now implemented as a set of classes, the code of which is automatically generated from the UDP Custom Schema.  The UDP Custom Schema itself can be generated incrementally from aspx web forms.  There is also the facility to generate SQLServer tables from the UDP Custom Schema and vice versa.

Add to this the facility to generate the code which maps aspx form fields onto UDP fields, and you have a powerful platform for the rapid development and deployment of production strength web forms which are fully integrated with the Stateframe Engine.

Visual Studio 2005 Integration

A Project Template is provided to create the default asp.net Stateframe Client. Templates for Stateframe dll and asp.net activities are also provided.

Non-UI (Server Side) Activities

Non-UI activities are now implemented as classes within a .net dll.  These are based on a base class, which again contains all the interaction with the Stateframe Engine.  The developer only has to write the business logic.

Overdue Scan and Activity Agent

The overdue scan has now become more like a Stateframe Agent.  You can run multiple overdue scans against the same database.  You can also run an overdue scan against a particular Agent Inbox.  Instead of processing the oldest highest priority item first, it will process the ‘most overdue’ item first.

Custom Activity Agents are also much simpler to develop, as much of the code to handle Agent Intray processing has been moved into the Core Stateframe Service.

In 2003 OCR implemented a Stateframe solution to manage automated marking of new CLAIT (Computer Literacy) examinations. The new system delivered impressive performance with processing times 6-7 times faster than the previous system and an automatic response rate of 97% compared with a target of 90%. OCR had a business goal to invigorate CLAiT, and sought to remove the barriers to delivering this, Stateframe helped them to do so in this key area. For 2006 OCR has redesigned it’s portfolio of CLAiT offerings, the Stateframe solution has been extended and continues to provide full support for the marking of CLAiT papers.

Not surprisingly, when a requirement arose to provide more visible management of ‘Test’ Authoring in the Key and Basic skills areas, OCR turned to Stateframe and Alia Systems for a solution. Now in the final stages of testing, Users and Managers are seeing the benefits of improved control and accountability.

About OCR Examinations

OCR (Oxford Cambridge & RSA Examinations) provides general and vocational qualifications to schools, colleges, employers, and training providers in the UK. OCR is one of three business units which make up Cambridge Assessment, itself part of the University of Cambridge. As well as providing assessment services, Cambridge Assessment and OCR are committed to the use of new technology to drive forward innovation in assessment, assessment delivery and learning.

Following their success in the retail sector, Component Software are now delivering BPM solutions in the public sector. Phase 1 of the project, initially to support 250 users, started in August 2005, moved into System testing in November and implemented during March 2006. The initial phase has provided support for 2 key processes and will be followed by several further phases. As the tender for this national project was only published in April 2005, Users are seeing real benefits less than a year from initial tender.

Alia Systems is pleased to announce the release of Stateframe 3.1, the BPM Toolkit for the Microsoft environment.

New features that increase the power of Stateframe include:

• Standard Stateframe User Data Properties (UDP) enabled rapid development of application prototypes. Custom UDP provides a significantly enhanced set of facilities with the robustness and scalability required for large scale production applications. By conforming to a simple naming convention ASP pages generated by Stateframe can store and retrieve data from user defined tables, significantly reducing development timescales.
• State Arguments. These allow you to extend the properties of Process Object States, the fundamental building blocks of a Stateframe process. Thus developers have an even finer level of control over process flow, presentation and integration.
• New Case Management facilities in the Administration Tool allow you to repair 'stuck' cases by re-running a failed activity, or manually changing the State of a Process Object to any other valid State. A major productivity aid when testing, together with case copy these facilities also provide a powerful set of tools to help with the investigation and resolution of production problems.

In addition we have included many smaller changes to extend functionality, improve runtime performance or increase developer productivity. Please download our full release notification

Following the use of Stateframe in an earlier engineering project Cardiff University approached us with a new and completely different subject matter. Looking for a product to support a research project into Patient Care for a local Oncology department, Stateframe was selected because of the fine level of control provided by it's State based model.

In addition to training governance our joint product TSN (Training Services Network) will:

• Enhance knowledge retention from training investments
• demonstrate organisational care for employee welfare
• Facilitate continuous improvement in training quality
• Reduce staff and organisational risk exposure

Alia Systems is pleased to announce Version 3 of Stateframe, the BPM Toolkit for the Microsoft environment.

Significant changes in version 3 include:

• Oracle can now be used in the run time environment.
• Processes can be developed to operate in the language of the user.
• User data can be defined such that it is accessible via the Stateframe API.

Alan Jones, Product Director, Alia Systems, outlines the effect of technology on the evolution of business processes.

See the Summer 2004 edition of the Public Service Review: Department of Trade and Industry for Alan's editorial copy.

To the uninitiated the Business Process Management arena can appear a daunting and misleading jumble of interchangeable acronyms and jargon. This webinar is designed to give you an overview of what Business Process Management really is, and what it isn’t; approaches to take; how to realise the benefits and avoid the pitfalls; and a look at how organisations who have adopted BPM are gaining.

To view the archived Webinar, click here

About AIIM

AIIM represents the Information Management community as the global association for both users and suppliers of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions – the strategies, services and technologies which enable organisations to capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver information to support business processes.

Within weeks of becoming a partner Component Software contract to deliver a warranty claims process managed by Stateframe. Initially purchasing 500 seats for Sweden, Elkjop plan a rapid rollout throughout Scandinavia and the Baltic region. Stateframe integrates software from Component Software, Elkjop and their insurers, in a subsequent release this integration will be extended to include their repair shops.

About Component Software

Component Software is the Nordic region's leading centre of expertise in innovative software solutions. They have a client list which includes more than 450 of the Nordic region's 1000 largest companies. Component Software has more than 12 years' experience in the development and implementation of electronic document management systems and the automation of work processes.

Alia Systems is pleased to announce the latest release of Stateframe, the Process Automation Toolkit for the Microsoft environment.

Stateframe has moved forward significantly since Release 2.2 in May 2003. As well as the changes introduced in 2.3 itself, there has also been 5 service packs, together these have focused on improving ease of use and scalability. The most notable changes have been made to the Process Mapping Tool and the ASP Generator.

Thomson has extended the capabilities and use of their intranet using Stateframe, to deliver process-enabled applications to internal staff. The first applications are for staff moves, new hires and leavers. The processes have been live in Europe for some months, and US staff are now being given full access resulting in effective maintenance of personnel information across the Company worldwide.

About Thomson Financial

Thomson Financial is an operating unit of The Thomson Corporation, a leading provider of integrated information solutions to business and professional markets worldwide. Thomson helps its customers make better decisions, faster, through coupling of high-value content with innovative, enabling technology. Based in 53 countries and employing 44,000 people, Thomson holds leading positions in the legal and regulatory, financial, learning, and scientific and healthcare information sectors.

Thomson Financial comprises five business units, serving target markets with industry-leading products and services: Investment Banking, Investment Management, Sales and Trading, Corporate and Wealth Management

Alia partner Digital Vision is pleased to announce that the powerful Stateframe Workflow engine has been integrated with Hummingbird Document Management. Initially available in DM5 Explorer interface and PowerDOCS, this engine will be available in all forms of the DM product.

About Digital Vision

Digital Vision is a dedicated Document Management systems integration company based in Northwich, Cheshire. Digital's main focus is on the application of Forms Processing in Financial Processes and the integration of Document Management Systems into businesses and organisations where quality, data integrity and customer service is crucial. Customers include Barclays Financial Services, Halifax plc, Cheshire County Council, NHS, and Zeneca. For more information please contact Digital Vision on 01606 331234 or email info@dvtl.co.uk