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To help IT managers develop an RFP (request for proposal) for prospective BPM (business process management) vendors, eWEEK Labs has put together a series of questions that can be used as a starting point.
A single BPM suite likely wont address all of a companys process issues, so IT managers should look for complementary technologies, such as application connectors or complex rules engines, as part of the BPM solution.
1. Does the suite include a process design application, a process engine, administrative interface and reporting tools?
2. Does the process design application have the ability to import and export process definitions in standard formats, such as BPEL or XPDL?
3. Does the process design application integrate with LDAP, for the purpose of mapping processes to users and roles?
4. Does the suite include an integrated form-generation tool, and is a forms layout editable by a tool included in the suite?
5. Does the process design application support building sub-processes and sub-forms within a larger process?
6. Does the process design application support packaging of the process descriptions and related forms for a process or sub-process in a distributable format?
7. What types of external events does the process engine support as triggers?
8. What scheduling options does the engine support?
9. Which interfaces does the product support for managing end-user event notifications and tasks?
10. Which server-based applications are natively supported through application connectors?
11. Which client-based applications are natively supported through application connectors?
12. Does the product support graphical process monitoring and management?
13. Does the product support end-user configuration of key performance indicator monitoring and alerting?
14. Does the suite include custom report generation?