Understanding Business Process Modeling in USoft TeamWork

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USoft TeamWork features excellent integration between business process definitions and Business Rule definitions. In fact, a business process is viewed as nothing else than a special type of Business Rule. This has many advantages:

Each time you query a result or produce a report in USoft TeamWork, you can choose to view Business Rules and Business Processes separately or as a combined list of specifications.

You can view, group, split, trace, classify, implement, document and test Business Processes in exactly the same way as other Business Rules.

During a session, you can capture and classify all requirements simply as Business Rules, and decide later which of these rules you want to view as (or convert to) Process Steps or process-related information.

You have a single-point-of-definition rule base for process-oriented and data-oriented specifications, as well as for all other types of specification (interface-oriented, service-oriented, instruction-oriented...).

On the other hand, USoft TeamWork is not a Business Process Modeling (BPM) tool. It does not offer:

The ability to describe or represent a process step once and then re-use it in multiple higher-level processes. In this sense, USoft favors single-point-of-definition over re-use.

Graphical representation of process flow, including conditional branching, loops, functional and temporal dependencies between processes (as depicted in "swimming lanes" diagrams).

Default-generated interdependencies between process actors, user groups, authorization and menu access.

At the start of each USoft project, try to think what could be the best approach to business process modeling in that project.