ISIS Open House Vienna 2012: A Brief Review

The eve of the Open House was dedicated to the traditional gala show and the famed white stallions of the Spanish Riding School formed a fine contrast for the splendid display of innovative performance at equally high levels that was to follow during the next two days.

Among the cherished guests at the ISIS Headquarters was Toronto-based Sandy Kemsley, who tweeted live from the multitude of workshops, labs and real-world showcases that demonstrated the versatility and uniqueness of ISIS Papyrus solutions. Sandy is an independent analyst and systems architect, specializing in business process management, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise architecture and business intelligence. She is an internationally renowned speaker, trainer, and blogger on those topics. Here are some quotes from her coverage of #isisopenhouse:

“They’ve created the critical round trip between strategy and execution by connecting strategic objectives (in a strategy map) to business architecture (in a capability map) to process goals (balanced scorecard and other KPIs): not only is this top-down, where strategy defines capabilities, which in turn are used to define KPIs, but also feeding back so that the actual performance during execution is compared back to the architecture and strategy.”
(On ISIS Papyrus Adaptive Case Management)

“They provide a mobile app that acts as a portal to any application developed on their platform; … This provides access to the same application on iOS, Android, PC desktop and in the browser through their UI widgets. … We saw a demo of an iPad-based vehicle claim app built on this platform, and how the menus and features on the app are driven by the case definition in the desktop environment. Because it’s driven by the Papyrus platform, the app has access to the same data and documents as a desktop application, although rendered in a mobile form factor.”
(On Mobile Integration with the Papyrus Platform)

“Rather than having multiple systems that deal with content – ingestion, analysis, processing and generation, multiplied by the number of interaction channels – a single platform can reduce the internal efforts to develop content-centric processes, while presenting a more seamless customer experience across multiple channels. … it’s something that comes up in many of the BPM implementations that I’m involved in, and typically isn’t handled all that well (if at all) by those systems. In many cases, it’s a poorly implemented afterthought, performed in a non-integrated fashion in another system, or becomes one of those things that the users ask for but just never receive. “
(On the ISIS Papyrus Business Communication Platform and Correspondence Generation)

The complete posts can be found on Sandy’s blog called Column 2:

Keynote of ISIS CTO Max J. Pucher

ISIS Papyrus Business Communication Platform for Correspondence Generation

ISIS Papyrus Integrated Inbound and Outbound Correspondence

Personalized Electronic Statements at China Trust Commercial Bank

Mobile, Social And Integration With The Papyrus Platform

ISIS Papyrus Adaptive Case Management

Document Capture to Process

As a reminder for those who missed the opportunity to attend the event in Vienna: the US Open House and User Conference at Southlake, TX, takes place from May 20-22 and brings similar insights in the technological breakthroughs from ISIS Papyrus.

All the details of this event are again brought to your mobile device through the ISIS Papyrus Event Planning app that can be downloaded for free:

For iOS:

http://itunes.apple.com/at/app/isis-papyrus/id522141912?mt=8

For Android:

http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.isis_papyrus.eyegen

ISIS Papyrus Event Planning App for iOS and Android

By utilizing the Mobile features of the Papyrus Platform, ISIS Papyrus has released a mobile app created through an application definition stored in Papyrus WebRepository. The app connects users with corporate information and data through a Papyrus EYE server that uses the REST protocol. The app is intuitive and easy-to-use and allows to view event lists, schedules, and details stored in a database. It currently provides social and bookmarking enhancements, with voting (scores and comments) and more multimedia capabilities soon to come.

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While online, users get up-to-date information from the system and can bookmark and filter the available events they want to participate in. Social messaging is enabled through Twitter with the ability to optionally add photo snapshots. For offline mode the most recent data are kept locally on the device.

The app is a great way to engage internal and external users and to build and strengthen trust and relationships beyond the randomness of social media interaction. It could, for example, be used to provide a user interaction for trade shows or similar events or to help the prospect to configure a product or request service interactions. It can be linked with the Papyrus ACM Adaptive Case Management functions without additional programming and provide full access to corporate CRM data and information. All Papyrus ACM features can be made available and the functionality is specific to particular user roles if users are given the ability to register and login into the service.

The app serves therefore as sample application for a variety of corporate use cases and can easily be configured through WebRepository to an organization’s specific requirements. The event planner is available for both the iPhone and Android devices and can be downloaded here:

For iOS:

http://itunes.apple.com/at/app/isis-papyrus/id522141912?mt=8

For Android:

http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.isis_papyrus.eyegenda

Use the app with the ISIS Papyrus Open House hash tag #isisopenhouse.

New Paper Examines Excellence in Business Correspondence

ISIS Papyrus has released a new technical update on Business Correspondence. As reported earlier, independent studies, various analyst researches, and overwhelming user feedback demonstrate that ISIS Papyrus leads the innovative edge in an area which is critical for customer-oriented enterprises with highly interactive requirements.

Business Correspondence is an application framework defined for the Papyrus Platform and using its adaptive capabilities for business process management and enterprise communications. It can be used independently or as element of a consolidated communications and process infrastructure that is the target for the Papyrus Platform. Other than hard-coded component solutions Papyrus Frameworks are easy to maintain as they do not contain any custom code and they are easily adapted using the inbuilt functionality without the heavy cost of changing flow-charted processes and rigid workflows. Featuring Papyrus EYE Widgets and Correspondence Wizards business users and administrators have powerful tools for defining different workplaces and user interfaces as required, for recording, training and re-using processes and decision patterns as well as defining relevant business rules without the need of lengthy upfront analysis and modeling. Papyrus empowers the business user in a completely new and transparent way by providing both the means to reach specific goals and effective guidance.

Other aspects illustrate the practical implementation of ACM with the consolidated approach of the Papyrus Platform. It provides a comprehensive, flexible and scalable solution for the consolidated management of inbound and outbound communications and enables seamless functional cooperation of otherwise distinct products such as ECM, BPM or CRM. It allows organizations to define, measure and manage process, content and data in complex service environments with a single shared customer view for ultimate transparency.

ISIS Papyrus at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2011

ISIS Papyrus features prominently among the exhibitors of the 2011 Gartner Symposium/ITxpo which is held in Orlando, FL, from October 16-20. The event has a rich agenda which makes attendance worthwhile for CIOs and senior IT leaders.

There is a wide variety of topics covered with programs and tracks specifically designed to gain insights in industry -specific solutions as well as strategic approaches defined by IT role.

ISIS Papyrus will showcase its Papyrus Platform for Adaptive Case Management (ACM) which combines inbound and outbound content with analytics, event processing and the relevant contextual business processes in a shared case folder with different views based on case status and user. Event attendees will be able to learn how they can use the solutions from ISIS Papyrus to share some of the following benefits with over 2,000 major organizations worldwide:

• Holistic customer view for end-to-end case management
• Shorter development-cycles by out-of-box seamless integration, WYSIWYG and content management
• Reduced time-to-market by empowering business and marketing users to control their processes, content and templates
• Simplified compliance by process-embedded regulation and audit control
• Increased customer retention and loyalty through a unified customer view for inbound and outbound communications
• Empowerment and management of collaborative work and efficient workflows
• Enabling of flexible, accountable and holistic knowledge-based activity
• Process adaptation to make effective customer outcomes
• Expanded access to the knowledge worker’s expertise and experience.

See the following video for a presentation of the powerful capabilities and some notable customer installations by ISIS Papyrus CEO Annemarie Pucher:

Sequel to Groundbreaking ACM Book

When almost a year ago “Mastering the Unpredictable” came out it was the first comprehensive work dealing with the foundations of Adaptive Case Management. To this day it is unrivaled and still the most authoritative source on the topic.

Now there is a sequel to this book presenting real-world applications of adaptive approaches to business process management, called “Taming the Unpredictable”. ISIS Papyrus Founder and Chief Architect Max J. Pucher features again as co-author and has contributed his insightful “Considerations for Implementing Adaptive Case Management”. In this highly informative article Mr. Pucher discusses the scientific findings that show the obsolescence of flowcharted business process models. At the same time he reveals how businesses can use technology to drive innovation and create effective customer outcomes.

Mr. Pucher emphasizes again his firm commitment for placing human aspects over simplified cost optimization in process management and strongly advocates empowerment and intrinsic motivation for the improvement of cost/quality ratios. These principles are also reflected in his practical achievements as Chief Architect and mastermind behind the innovative Papyrus Platform.  He designed the core technology with a business architecture repository, distributed object-oriented transaction engine, and embedded object-relational database. He holds several software patents in the area of artificial intelligence for the so-called user-trained agent, a machine learning component for auto-discovery of process knowledge.

Adaptive Application Development with Papyrus

It is actually not recent news that business application development as it has been practiced over the last two decades or so is unsatisfactory for both business users and IT departments as well as for the businesses as a whole that are supposed to be supported. What is new is that this general discomfort is voiced increasingly more often and more notably.

Typically those business applications are built on static models with heavily customized code and just cannot cope with the flexibility and the dynamic changes required by most businesses today. Information and meaning is hidden in forms and other design artifacts and completely isolated from users’ tasks and activities. Though the design problems in this sort of application development and the subsequent costs of maintenance and upkeep with changing requirements are obvious and well-known it appears as if there is still too much reluctance to get rid of such not-even-near-good practices for the perceived sake of “maturity” and other pretexts.

The Papyrus Platform from ISIS Papyrus by contrast is purely standard software that is not being customized for individual customers. It uses a model-preserving application technology to avoid programming projects. It is easily integrated into legacy systems by loosely coupled messaging interfaces to remain flexible, platform independent and upward compatible. Applications are defined and loaded into the platform as so called Framework Apps. Because the application is defined through object models and rules that are also fully documented in the central repository  it can be maintained by non-programmers and to some extent even by business users, thus providing substantial savings on cost and resources. The ease of maintenance is referred to as adaptive and means that business users can make a permanent changes (if authorized) to the process template during the execution of a process instance and thus create a new process variant. This again offsets IT and shifts collaboration between users and IT to a more strategic level in the business’ best overall interest.

Effectively Managing Knowledge-Intensive Processes

When analysts come to the conclusion that end-user organizations want to be able to change their processes considerably faster than they actually can and add “They want to move to environments in which there’s a lot more self sufficiency on the part of the end user to configure the process,” this clearly reflects the constraints of currently used rigid process models.

To avoid such limitations ISIS Papyrus focuses on the business needs to respond quickly to dynamically changing business and customer requirements. The built-in process engine of the Papyrus Adaptive Case Management Platform does not use simplistic procedural flowchart graphs like in conventional BPM to define the process but instead the Papyrus ACM is state/event driven to avoid problems associated with parallel activities, human interaction management, ad-hoc processes and the rigid sequence of a procedure. This state/event driven process does not require complex decision blocks or listen-for-event-loops. All changes of the process are defined in the Desktop and stored in the central WebRepository.

Goal-oriented ACM for a Purchase to Pay application

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The flexibility of Papyrus ACM allows to take into account user needs and supports knowledge-intensive business processes in combination with business communication and content. Users define the user interaction with the Activity Recorder and Natural Language Rule Editor and train the process sequence with the User-trained Agent. Collaboration, check-in/check-out, versioning, and project management are generic platform functions. Other major benefits include:

• Less process tuning and correction because an unforeseeable event sequence does not invalidate the process
• Changing the state engine and event definition of one item updates automatically all processes using this item
• Changes of the process do not require Java coding
• No programming of dialogs required
• Empowers non-technical business users
• Builds virtual process organizations
• Users create dynamic knowledge processes
• No flowcharting
• Assembles optimized process templates
• Delivers real-time customer views
• Gathers actionable process knowledge
• Links business and process goals
• Provides operational transparency

Tech Update and New Blog for ACM

As Adaptive Case Management has only fairly recently been discussed by a wider public there are still many questions, uncertainties, controversies and doubts about its meaning and its purpose. Yet ACM shows its importance as ACM is claimed by many while there is actually no basis for it. This makes the discussion even more confusing.

A recently released tech update by ISIS Papyrus and a new blog now shed light on the various aspects of ACM and provide insightful and authoritative information about the topic, explaining how it serves to empower knowledge workers in order to fulfill strategic business goals.

Other aspects illustrate the practical implementation of ACM with the consolidated approach of the Papyrus Adaptive Process Platform. It provides a comprehensive, flexible and scalable solution for the consolidated management of inbound and outbound communications and enables seamless functional cooperation of otherwise distinct products such as ECM, BPM or CRM. It allows organizations to define, measure and manage process, content and data in complex service environments with a single shared customer view and customized GUIs for ultimate transparency.

ISIS Chief Architect Speaks at Forrester’s

ISIS Papyrus Founder and Chief Architect Max J. Pucher will hold one of his famed addresses at this year’s Business Process & Application Delivery Forum hosted by Forrester Research. Mr. Pucher is one of the pioneers of a new paradigm on how to approach knowledge work in modern collaborative enterprise settings and how to view relations between business users and IT.

Besides having written a number of literary works, Max J. Pucher has also co-authored an influentual book on Adaptive Case Management (ACM) called “Mastering the Unpredictable”. The principles laid out in this volume are reflected in his practical achievements as Chief Architect and mastermind behind the innovative Papyrus Platform.  He designed the core technology with a business architecture repository, distributed object-oriented transaction engine, and embedded object-relational database. He holds several software patents in the area of artificial intelligence for the so-called user-trained agent, a machine learning component for auto-discovery of process knowledge.

Mr. Pucher also runs a popular blog where he airs his views about current trends in IT with a mixture of  in-depth analysis, well-rounded arguments and subtle humor. The blog also provides more detailed information about the concept of ACM, which makes orthodox business process management (BPM) as much obsolete as standalone ECM and CRM. Moreover, it shows Mr. Pucher’s firm commitment for placing human aspects before cost optimization aspects in process management and strongly advocates empowerment and intrinsic motivation for the improvement of cost/quality ratios.