Author Archives: Jonathan Franze

About Jonathan Franze

Process Coach, Barium, Sweden

Barium Live! updated to 2011.1.13

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We have updated Barium Live! with a small patch to fix some minor issues, add some additional stability and speed and add a few improvements.

The details of the update can be read in the Barium Live! Wiki but the highlights are:

  • Fixed issues when viewing embedded sub processes via External Web Links.
  • Improved the speed when loading lists for those with many lists and many list items.
  • Improved the External Web Link and External Start layout design.

Read all about it in our release notes.

Merry Christmas!
Jonathan Franze

Automating your process decisions

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One of the key features in using Barium Live! and the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is the ability to automate steps in your process that used to be manual.

Gateways is one of the activities that can be automated so that:

  • Decisions are made automatically.
  • The best path is chosen based on information in the process forms.
  • The path continues on a path based on a sub process end state.

This allows you to create a process application that is faster and more precise compared to a process that requires a lot of manual tasks being performed by the people in the task and a faster and better experience for your clients.

This is done using Expressions where you can create simple scripts, much like the type of scripts used in Excel to validate information in your process to automatically choose one or more paths to continue.

Automate a gateway to choose a path based on form data:

Automate a gateay to choose a path based on the end state of an embeded sub process or an independent sub process:

You can create advanced decisions based on mathematical calculations, combinations of expressions, choosing one or more paths and more…

To learn all about how to do automate gateways, visit our wiki: http://wiki.bariumlive.com.

Direct link here.

This is available for all Premium Trial and Premium Subscription accounts.

Regards,
Jonathan Franze

Introducing the Barium SharePoint Client BETA

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Now you can present the processes from Barium Live! in a SharePoint portal. Starting this afternoon, invites to try our beta version of the Barium SharePoint Client are available.

Barium SharePoint Client: Barium Process Viewer for SharePoint
Build your own process based management system in Microsoft SharePoint.

Extend your process models on Barium Live! to SharePoint and let your users see all processes in their intranet, extranet or portal based on SharePoint 2010 while you continue to model and create new process models on Barium Live!

The Barium SharePoint Client is an add-on for SharePoint 2010 that allows you to add Barium Live! processes to your SharePoint portal. The formal release is planned for first quarter 2012, but for those who cannot wait there is a private BETA version available.

The Barium SharePoint Client BETA includes:

  • Web Part for viewing process models
  • Clickable process models
  • Clickable sub processes
  • Ability to open attached process documentation

Find out more in the Barium Live! Wiki, or request an invite to try Barium SharePoint Client BETA right away.

Enjoy!
Jonathan Franze

Introducing the Barium Process Performance Dashboard

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We are proud to present the Barium Process Performance Dashboard on Barium Live!

The Process Performance Dashboard gives you instant and live statistics on the performance of your process applications.

With visual and clear Key Performance Indexes you get information such as:

  • Average throughput time
  • Number of ongoing, completed and created instances
  • How much time is spent in each task
  • And more … 

No more need for tedious data mining to get the numbers you need,
your most important KPIs available immediately and
live statistics showing your process performance in real time.

What do you need to do?
You don’t have to do anything – we have already set this up for you. All the process applications that you have created so far automatically have the Process Performance Dashboard available for them.

In the same way the Process Performance Dashboard will be available to all the process applications that you create from now on.

Where can you see the dashboard?
Log on to www.bariumlive.com and follow these instructions:

  1. Click on the tab “Applications” on the top right of the screen.
  2. Double click on one of your applications to open the application overview.
  3. On the top right of your application overview you’ll find the tab called “Process Performance Dashboard”.

Don’t have an application yet?
Visit our Wiki to learn how to create your first process application to see the dashboard come to life.

Regards,
Jonathan Franze
Process Coach

Barium Business Navigator updated to 1.10

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The Barium Live! iPhone app Barium Business Navigator has been updated with new features!

iPhone app Barium Business Navigator: Start, take/pick photo & view process

The new version 1.10 has a whole bunch of new and improved features such as:

  1. Start a process from your iPhone
  2. Add a photo from your camera
  3. Assign who should perform tasks

Download it for free from the Apple App Store today!

Download it from the Apple app store

What is the Barium Business Navigator?
This iPhone app is Barium Live! in your pocket. By logging on with the same account you use on www.bariumlive.com you can:

  • See all process models
  • See your inbox with tasks to perform
  • Start new processes
  • Follow the status of all tasks your colleagues are performing

The Barium Business Navigator is created as a client to Barium Live! giving you the option of performing work on the go.

Would you like to know more?
Our wiki contains detailed descriptions of how the app works and how you can create process applications that look great for your app users.

Happy apping!
Jonathan Franze

Barium Live! updated to 2011.1

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Today the Barium Team has updated Barium Live! to version 2011.1 and this time it’s packed with new functions and features.

Release of Barium Live! 2011.1

Here are some of the key features in this release:
  • Lists – a brand new feature to let you access tasks more easily
  • Perform similar tasks directly from your inbox
  • Our free RESTful API
Lists allows you to decide which information in which process applications that is important to you. Create your own lists to show you information from form fields, filtered on dates, applications, sub processes and more. Save your lists and share them with others in your organisation for better control of what needs to be done.

Perform similar tasks from your inbox allows for effective handling of tasks that you want to complete with a single click. Select the tasks from your list and click “Perform action”.

The Barium Live! RESTful API allows you to integrate to Barium Live! in a standardised way. You can create your own client application, start new processes from your internal systems or get information from processes by using our open and free API.

Other things that we have improved include:
  • Quicker loading of the BPMN modeler in your web browser
  • Improved collaborative features in tasks
  • Presentation mode for process models

For the entire list of new and improved features on Barium Live! please read our
Release notes in the Barium Live! Wiki.

Best Regards,
Jonathan Franze
www.bariumlive.com

Wiki now available for Barium Live!

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http://wiki.bariumlive.com

We are proud to present our latest addition to Barium Live! Our brand new Wiki found onhttp://wiki.bariumlive.com is your one stop information source for learning the basics as well as the details regarding what is possible on the Barium Live! service.

Currently the articles available are limited to getting started creating your first process applications, e-forms and so on.

There are many more things to write about and we will start publishing more articles continuously so keep visiting our Wiki to keep yourself updated.

Regards,
Jonathan Franze
Process Coach
www.bariumlive.com
wiki.bariumlive.com

Make your process models look great

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Some of our users on Barium Live have expressed their desire to be able to model “better-looking” process models. The experience is that the BPMN standard can be restrictive in creating process models that are appealing to the users who are supposed to use the processes in their daily work.

We have worked on allowing process modelers to be flexible without deviating from the BPMN standard which we believe is important. Conformity and standardization in modeled processes is one of the key functions when ensuring a common understanding within a business.

However, there are aspects of the BPMN standard that allow us to offer additional functionality.

  1. Add images to your process
  2. Change colors on all objects
  3. Change text fonts and sizes on BPMN objects

An example:

Creating a Top Level process using standard BPMN symbols with the standard graphic settings on Barium Live can look something like this:

Not that impressive or exciting but it is understandable.

With a couple of changes to color, font and size and the addition of an image can make your process model look something like this:

A background image and a logo along with some color can make all the difference

Click on this link to see it published:
https://live.barium.se/link/4037a301-2ae1-4f51-a6a6-61f87748f4c3

Don’t make boring process models, there are tools available for you to make them more appealing and as a result used more often (we believe).

How to do this?

Image Artifact let’s you add custom images to your process model.

Use the Image-Artifact to by dragging it from the palette bar and onto your process model. Choose an image from your computer to upload to your process model.

Properties on your tasks and other BPMN symbols lets you change attributes such as color.

Right-click on your process objects and click on Properties to set color on the object.

Properties on your BPMN symbols text label lets you set font settings and styles

Right-click on the text label, click on properties and the attribute TextFont.

Happy Modeling!

Regards,
Jonathan Franze
Process Coach
www.bariumlive.com

Barium Live! updated to 2010.1

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We have updated the Barium Live service today to version 2010.1. The update includes features and functions that we have been working on the latest months and bring you a number of improvements and several new functions and features. Below you can read about the general functions and in the following blog posts we will publish detailed examples of how you can use these functions in your daily process work.

Do you need to model 2 documents or more to a task and not want to clutter your process model with many document artifacts?

Use the “Container” artifact to add several documents and URL-links in one single document object.


Click on the container to see all of the documents and objects in the container. Click on a contained document to read it’s content.

Invite users to your task

Invite colleagues, experts and others to view, collaborate and work with a specific task in collaboration with you. Allow them to add input to the task, change information in the task or perform actions in your task.

Model a process and make it runable. In every task the person(s) responsible for the task can choose to invite other users. Process-driven collaboration.

Discuss and comment activities in tasks

Discuss and comment activities within tasks with other users who work on the same task.

Pin important comment threads to move them to the top of the discussion.

Ensure that discussions are saved in the same place as the task is being performed.

Track all changes in an activity

View all activities performed within process activities.

See if when a document has been updated, who updated it and when. See who added a comment.

Get a full traceability of a work being performed in a specific task and who did what.

All of these features are available to you right now. Log on to Barium Live and try them. Don’t have an account? Sign up for a free 30-day trial account and get started improving your business process and running your business.

In the coming weeks we will be publishing more detailed information on how these functions work and other minor changes that are available to you. Keep posted by subscribing to our blog och come back and visit soon.

Regards,
Jonathan Franze
Process Coach
www.bariumlive.com

New update coming today

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Barium Live will be updated today bringing you improved functionality and features. This means that there will be a short service window that will require that we stop our service.

During the upgrade you will not be able to log on to Barium Live to model, configure or run processes.

We will keep you updated on our web site and on twitter, make sure you follow us there.

What’s new?
How about features such as:

  • Container artifact (Add multiple documents in document artifact)
  • Invite other users to an activity (Involve experts and interested parties)
  • Discuss and comment activities in tasks (“Chat” and commenting in a task)

…much more.

Regards,
Jonathan Franze
Process Coach
www.bariumlive.com