Releasing and Publishing Processes

Processes must be approved and published so that they can be communicated as valid processes.

Processes must be approved and published so that they can be communicated as valid processes. The approval is usually based on the rating from a Review.

The approval process itself basically determines how many reviews with different objectives have to be completed before the final rating and approval. The approval process that is to apply to the Process Space is set up in consultation with the BPM Manager.

Approval and publication of a process version by the Process Owner is the prerequisite for being able to communicate a process to all Bpanda users.

In Bpanda, a process occurs in various phases. They differ mainly in terms of the visibility and binding nature of a process version.

Draft

A draft is a process version that a Designer has created and not yet submitted.

A draft can be an outline (consisting of a name and description), a Happy Path or a process diagram created in the integrated Modeler. Drafts can be saved and, before they are submitted as a process revision, are visible only to their respective author.
Revision

Sooner or later, processes have to be updated. A process version that has been imported into the Process Space or submitted is referred to as a revision.

An approval process that has been defined uniformly for the Process Space usually follows. At the heart of the approval process is the review, which aims to rate the revision as the basis for a decision on approval by the Process Owner.
Approved and published version

The approval of a revision as a new process version usually takes place on the basis of the rating from a review. Approved revisions can be published by the Process Owner within a validity period that they define.

A valid process version is visible to all users of a Process Space. It describes a particular workflow in a binding manner.

To enable a process version to be approved and published, the approval process has to be started. It usually contains at least one review, which serves to rate a new process version (revision) in order to prepare the decision on approval.

The following tasks therefore basically have to be completed in order to carry out the approval process:

Define the approval process

Bpanda provides certain variants of approval processes that define the sequence and the statuses. One of the variants is to be imported as the basis for all reviews in the Process Space. At the heart of an approval process is the review, and possibly several reviews.
Start the approval process

Imported processes are initially visible only to certain user roles, e.g. to Process Owners and Process Contributors, because only valid processes are visible to all users. A valid process has to be approved and published in order to be visible to all users within its validity period.

Every process version (revision) usually undergoes an approval process. At the heart of this process is the Review.
Create a review

The Review is at the heart of an approval process. It aims to rate and approve a process version and is started by the Process Owner. In addition to the review’s metadata, they also initially define the roles in the review. The Review Owner organizes the review and ensures that the participants provide their ratings.
Rating a process version in the review

A Review aims to discuss and approve a process revision. As its result, the review provides a recommendation for approval.
End the review

The Review Owner finally ends the review and decides whether the process version has passed the review.

If there is another review, it can now be created.
Publish the process

Once the process version has been approved in all reviews of the approval process, the Process Owner makes the final decision on publishing the process version.

Publication takes place for the users of the Process Space within a validity period.

To simplify the approval process, BPM Managers and Process Owners can initiate the next workflow step for several revisions of the same workflow step or discard the revisions. A review can also be created for several published processes.