Business Process Steps

A business process is an organized chain of actions or events in a business area. For example, in a car rental company, the various actions involved in renting a car to a customer constitute a business process.

A business process usually breaks down into a sequence of individual process steps. In the car rental example, the first step could be customer registration or (in the case of an existing customer) identification. Next steps could be down payment, reservation, final payment, contractual agreement, the physical delivery of the car, actual use of the car, and finalization of the transaction after use.

Many steps break down into further "sub steps". For example, customer registration could involve finding out if the customer is a new or existing customer, and then taking down personal details if needed.

Some process steps have a conditional structure: they are performed only in certain situations. For example, personal details are taken down only if the customer is a new customer. Others process steps are repeated until some result is achieved. For example, a number of attempts are made to find a car for a customer until a matching car is found.

A business process step is usually performed by a specific person or group of persons. These users need authorization to access and manipulate the data affected by the process step.

Using USoft TeamWork, you can capture, describe, and gradually refine all the business processes that are supported or indirectly affected by the target information system.