BEA Systems has introduced an integrated solution designed to transcend the boundaries of traditional business process management (BPM) by supporting more contextual and collaborative process needs. The solution, AquaLogic BPM Collaboration Edition, combines three BEA products for portals, collaboration and BPM into a single, integrated offering. AquaLogic BPM Collaboration Edition is designed to provide business users with an interactive environment for collaborative and activity and knowledge-intensive processes.

"Traditional BPM often focuses on automating what can be automated, but struggles to address the more dynamic process challenges that require deeper context and collaborative work between process participants," said Mark Carges, executive vice president at BEA Systems. "This type of business process is difficult to address with a single system and is best supported by the combination of BPM, collaboration technology and a rich interactive portal framework."

• AquaLogic BPM Collaboration Edition unites three enterprise assets: people, process and knowledge. AquaLogic BPM Collaboration Edition combines the capabilities of three products: AquaLogic BPM Suite, AquaLogic Interaction and AquaLogic Interaction Collaboration to deliver the following:
• Powers the complete business process lifecycle. AquaLogic BPM Collaboration Edition includes the AquaLogic BPM Suite with integrated modeling, execution and measurement of business processes. 
• Process-enabled, enterprise knowledge. AquaLogic Interaction's Knowledge Directory is designed to provide  seamless, structured access to information across unstructured and structured enterprise source systems, including Documentum, Microsoft  SharePoint, FileNet, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, Windows and  Novell File Systems and more. Links to items from these systems can be attached to business processes in support of the individual activities within the process. 
• Collaboration at every level, for every step.  The new offering also includes the full capabilities of AquaLogic Interaction Collaboration directly integrated within business processes. This is designed to enable automatic system events or  people to set up collaborative spaces tied to business processes that  support and capture the ad-hoc, unstructured work associated with  process activities. 
• A uniform, personal user experience.  Business users can access all these features through AquaLogic Interaction's AJAX-based portal front-end with single sign-on and  integrated corporate identity management. The portal is designed to support easy, comprehensive personalization to deliver work  environments tailored to each role in the enterprise.

AquaLogic BPM Collaboration Edition is made possible by ALBPM WorkSpace Extensions, a new feature of the AquaLogic BPM Suite. AquaLogic BPM WorkSpace Extensions is designed to provide integration between the products in the AquaLogic BPM Collaboration Edition. They can also deliver the foundation for integrating BPM with additional portal products such as BEA WebLogic Portal or IBM WebSphere Portal.

Sarbanes-Oxley compliance is a useful example for understanding the more dynamic and collaborative requirements of the high-value business processes supported by AquaLogic BPM Collaboration Edition. Compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act involves automating some routine work, but also coordinating a number of important activities that cannot easily be automated, including collaborating on compliance documents, working with external auditors on ad hoc timelines, submitting documents for approval and review, accessing systems of record and archiving work history.

"By linking business process management with collaboration, we can enhance our business performance and agility. The new BEA AquaLogic BPM Collaboration Edition can help extend our company's sales application in the portal by mapping sales process activities with best-practice approaches," said Mishael Reese, E-Relationship manager at The Babcock & Wilcox Company. "By streamlining our sales process, it can help us ensure consistency among the sales organization, which can result in increased efficiencies, reduction of costs and decreased development time."