The alternative to signavio.

The landscape of available tools for process management (BPM or GPM tools) varies from manageable to very confusing, depending on the application purpose and focus.

Signavio is one of the younger tools on the market and relies entirely on the cloud. With Quam we offer an alternative based on SharePoint, which can be "consumed" from the cloud but also supports the traditional operating form in your own data center.

Functional scope of classic BPM tools

Process modelling and the mapping of process maps form the basis of every process portal.

In addition, simulation, process execution, workflow implementation and monitoring are combined in various tools.

However, the complexity of the latter tool for the end user increases to such an extent that the affected products overtax most traditional users whose focus is on modeling, analyzing and publishing process models.

The classic functions are supplemented by additional new developments in business process management, which further develop the functional scope of the process portals, such as

Social BPM (integration of collaboration functions derived from Web 2.0, such as "commenting" and "sharing").
Risk & Compliance (compliance with rules and regulations in the company through processes and the linking of processes with risk analyses)
Governance (the alignment of processes with corporate strategy)
ICS: Internal control systems (integration of functions for checking and confirming process steps)
Usage-based models known from the cloud as an alternative to the classic purchase license (SaaS, subscription, application service providing)

The Signavio Process Manager

The cloud-based software is suitable for process mapping. The user interface is often praised. The ability to add endless attributes to shapes means you can capture any level of process information. Collaboration tools are useful because they allow users to share process images and receive comments from colleagues. The Viewer Tool is easy to use. Different mapping styles are available.

Signavio also provides reporting based on PDF. However, the user interface for report processing is often criticized as bad. Dictionary entries / tables can be imported from Excel or created in the tool. Risk & Control Management is a selling point of Signavio, but in a Gartner review it was described as "too easy to be really useful". In the same Gartner review, the Excel reports from the tool were criticized. The report format is not editable and most reports require extensive cleanup before they can be used. The Adobe PDF Reporting Editor is also difficult to use. Importing Visio drawings is also described as a "random risk". So if user organizations need to migrate many of them, they should consider this before investing. The reports built into the tool to determine how much the tool is used, who accesses the tool, i.e. trying to find out how much value is drawn from it and how committed the users are, are also rated badly in the Gartner rating.

Quam - The alternative to Signavio

The Quam of Lintra is based on a simple orientation for the end user when modelling and maintaining even complex models. The process knowledge of the company stored in the models should also be easily accessible for the "occasional user".

With Visio as the modeling front end, modelers do not have to leave their familiar Office world to graphically edit processes (and also organizational charts, building plans, resource diagrams and other diagram types that go far beyond pure process modeling) and instead use a tool that is often part of their usual software equipment anyway. With Microsoft SharePoint as the repository for the modeled content, the pure readers of the information also move within their familiar intranet.

Social BPM in Process Modeling and Collaboration

Quam particularly supports the aspect of easy dissemination of organisational knowledge through easy access for all users in the company.
Editors and readers use the same web interface without having to separate the modeling tool from the publication server. The standard functionality that SharePoint brings with it as the technological basis of Quam means that Quam is often also used directly for access to the intranet.

Surfing through the company, like surfing the Internet. Quam uses Web 2.0-style tools from social networks, such as comment and rating functions, as well as wikis and blogs, to store knowledge within the organization.

Quam as the "Collaborative BPM" attaches importance to the involvement of all employees in the design of the content. This makes "Collaborative BPM" an important part of "Social BPM".

Quam is intended to support all employees in answering the question:

Who does what, when, with what resources and to what goal?

Evaluations and reports

Quam also provides the most important reports without the need to create your own reports:

Which organizational unit is responsible for which processes or which tasks, incl. responsibility matrix
Which guidelines, standards or legal requirements must be observed in which processes
Which IT systems are used by which processes and who is responsible for the respective IT system
MySite - the employee-centered site that provides information on the organizational units and roles in which employees perform their tasks.

SharePoint as the basis - lower costs for the company

IT administration typically doesn't need to build a new infrastructure for Quam - SharePoint is firmly anchored in 80% of larger organizations and Quam is just one more application on the same platform. Since SharePoint can also be purchased as a SaaS service - e.g. in Microsoft's Azure Cloud - customers are flexible in which form of operation (their own data center or cloud) they want to run Quam.

With its many possibilities and also the utilization of concepts from the social web and collaboration, Quam has become a frequently chosen alternative to many top dogs of BPM tools over the last few years. Quam doesn't try to be able to do everything, but wants to concentrate on a wide range of organizational information.

[1] Z.B. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT TOOLS 2014 Marktüberblick, Fraunhofer-Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation IAO, ISBN: 978-3-8396-0776-3

[2] Gartner, Inc., Enterprise Business Process Analysis, Signavio Peer Review

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