Gartner, Inc., the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, has chosen Barium as a Cool Vendor within the category Business Process Management 2012. Barium and the four other companies in the report are chosen for our innovative and interesting approach, and the potential to revolutionize our industries. That is great news!

“Being chosen as a “Cool Vendor” for Gartner’s report is proof that we are successful in creating more efficient business processes for our clients,” says Barium’s CEO Michael Johansson.

”We are very happy about being awarded this title, especially since we are one of few Scandinavian companies that has ever been chosen as a “Cool Vendor”. With Barium Live! we truly do offer a revolutionizing product that helps companies change their businesses using innovative cloud solutions, which will change how Business Process Management is handled in the future.”

Gartner doesn’t give out their reports for free, but here they have gathered some information about the their Cool Vendor research. Make sure to watch the interview with Gartner VP Michele Cantara! It is also available on YouTube, so I include it here for you:

Josefine Aspenstrand
Marketing Manager
www.bariumlive.com

The following ads are in Swedish, but you can see the English translation below. And look out, the ads might show up in your country as well!

BUILD APPLICATIONS WITHOUT EXPENSIVE IT CONSULTANTS.
EVERYTHING ELSE IS HISTORY.
At Barium, we have a new way of working with Business Process Management. Instead of lengthy projects, involving hoards of software developers, you can create your own process maps and convert them into runnable applications with only a few clicks of a button. Interested? Find out more on www.bariumlive.com and contact us for a free demonstration.

 YOUR COMPANY’S PROCESSES AS A CLOUD SERVICE.
EVERYTHING ELSE IS HISTORY.
At Barium, we have a new way of working with Business Process Management. Instead of focusing on projects related to IT infrastructure, you can have your applications delivered as a cloud service. There’s always a high level of security and accessibility, as well as the latest software updates. In addition, you can create your own applications with only a few clicks of a button and you only pay per user per month. Interested? Find out more on www.bariumlive.com and contact us for a free demonstration.

PAY FROM €22.50 PER USER PER MONTH.
EVERYTHING ELSE IS HISTORY.
At Barium, we have a new way of working with Business Process Management. Instead of massive project invoices, you only pay from €22.50 per user per month. How is this possible? Thanks to our flexible work tool and practices, you can go from a process map to a runnable application, in a cloud service, with only a few clicks of a button. Without having to involve software developers. Interested? Find out more on www.bariumlive.com and contact us for a free demonstration.

What do you think of the message? I’m looking forward to reading your comments!

Business Process Management – the New Way!
Josefine Aspenstrand
Marketing Manager

Our Stockholm office will assist current and future customers with sales, education and consulting services. This will enhance our capabilities to deliver our state-of-the art Business Process Management System Barium Live!

We welcome you to come and visit us and see how our platform can automate and excel your business processes.

Contact us or visit our website in Swedish/English.

Kindest Regards,
Fredrik Selander
and the Stockholm Team

Version 1.11 includes:

• Optimized back-end for faster experience
• Clearer indicators when app is loading data
• Infinite scroll automatically loads more items when you scroll to the bottom
• Improved interface for form fields
• New icon

With the Barium Business Navigator you always have your processes in your pocket.

• View all process models in the palm of your hand
• Open all documentation attached to the processes for instructions
• Start a process from your phone
• See all tasks assigned to you or other process members
• Complete tasks directly from your phone
• Add a photo from your camera when starting a process

Download it for free from app store.

Learn more about how to create process apps on Barium Live! that are adapted for iPhone users in the Barium Live! Wiki.

Happy apping!
Jonathan Franze

New and improved design
The Barium Live! web site and web service have been redesigned to look better and to be easier to use. The interface has been lightened and has been coordinated to better fit our brand new web site design which is also where you log on: www.bariumlive.com

Spaces
A Space is where you model, build and run your processes. Spaces are isolated from each other and lets you work with different organizations, projects and clients without switching user.

Learn more about how to use Spaces in the Barium Live! Wiki.

Invite others to your Spaces
You can easily invite others to a space that you have created by filling out that persons e-mail address. Collaborate with your colleagues by creating process models, apps together or Invite those in your company that are to perform tasks and activities in your deployed process apps.

Improved self service
The self-service features on Barium Live! have been greatly improved allowing you to:

• Create your own groups
• Manage permissions to spaces
• Handle who you want to collaborate with

For a complete and detailed list of all the new features in this release, visit our wiki and read the Barium Live! Release notes – 2012.1.

Map to App
Make use of all your process maps and transform them into runnable process apps with our unique Map to App technology to Model, Build and Run your processes.

Or as we like to say: Model, Appify and Enjoy!

I think I ought to explain why this is and how the worlds of business process improvement and IT system professionals can be brought together by using Barium Live!.

“Getting by” using a different language
In many medium to large organisations it is the data management systems of a business that drive the behaviour of the employee on their PC or laptop, requiring them to input data and save. For example, the stationary order would not arrive unless the correct procurement form was completed. Sitting behind these systems is usually a fairly rigid work flow that can’t be changed without further time or money being expended with the system provider. Most businesses end up adapting their way of working to suit these work flows rather than spend time and money trying to change the system. This is the domain of the IT systems department.

In the same organisations are the business improvement professionals who are promoting the use of documented and visible processes to design and continually improve work flow to add value to their customers and stakeholders. Up until now the visual process maps of an organisation usually exist a few clicks away on an employee’s PC or laptop. However, the employee does not follow a visual process map to get their stationary delivered, they follow the business rules built in to the hard wired data management system. The visual process maps designed by the business therefore tend to become second class citizens behind the work flow in data management systems. However this is written in a language that business process owners and business improvement professionals don’t understand.

Both the IT systems department and the business improvement professionals are trying their best to run and improve the business but the trouble is that neither are speaking the same language. Although not ideal, this is all very well where internal, standard, non-customer facing processes are concerned. We see organisations select a data management system to drive their internal financial processes and generally the business will have to conform to that way of working regardless of what they might like to do differently and what they would or have mapped out. They get by.

What customers want
However if they took the same approach to the processes that they use to deliver services and products to their customers then organisations would soon start to struggle. Their increasingly sophisticated customers want their processes to be designed to deliver their requirements and they want to see that if those requirements change, then organisations are flexible and agile enough to change whilst maintaining the provision of the high quality product or service that their customers procured in the first place.

However, the continually improving processes designed by the process owners are not the same as the rigid work flow that the system that runs the business supports. If they want to continue to be competitive, organisations can no longer afford to take the same approach as they do with their internal processes. They must find a common language which defines how their business is run and the worlds of business improvement and the IT systems department must come together to deliver the requirements of the customer.

The common language – BPMN on Barium Live!
The common language they should start using is Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) and then the two worlds can be brought together in a unique way using Barium Live!. The Barium Live! Map to App functionality provides the process owners the tools to map out the processes that are needed to deliver the requirements of the customer using BPMN and then, without the use of any code, turn them into applications which can be run on the employee’s PC or laptop or mobile device.

If we now have a way of bringing these visible and documented processes to the forefront at the heart of a system of management and putting the mechanism for continual improvement of such systems in the hands of the process owners and business improvement professionals then they are very much treading in the domain of the IT systems department.

However what we have produced is a process model that both process owners and the IT systems department can understand. The role of the process owner now becomes the maintenance and improvement of these processes to meet customer and stakeholder requirements, and the role of the IT systems department becomes the integration of these process models with the data management systems and the automation of the process model using business components as required by the business.

Application Programming Interface
Barium Live! allows custom integration with existing data management systems via an Application Programming Interface. Developers can access the API to get information from and set information to activities in process models and applications that process owners create.

Instead of the process owners developing their processes separately and then trying to negotiate with the system designers to develop or change the work flow in their data management systems to suit using only the language that they know, the processes mapped in BPMN in Barium Live! are the starting point from which integration takes place.

Business and IT working together
Theprocess model using BPMN in Barium Live! and the code free functionality therefore eliminates the divide between the world of the process owner and user and the IT department. Discussions on how to improve the business are focussed around the visible process model using a language that both the business and the IT professionals can understand. The process owners change the work flow of the model and the IT systems department integrates and automates.

Andy Salmon
Technical Director, WSP UK

Happened at Barium during 2011

• The Map to App concept is gaining ground, and the number of users on Barium Live! is steadily growing – and Barium as a company has grown by 50 percent for the second year in a row.
• The app Barium Business Navigator makes processes and applications available in every iPhone.
• Barium SharePoint Client adds processes to the widely used portal Microsoft SharePoint.
• The welcome of 23 new process-oriented employees.
• The move to a larger office, better equipped for inspirational meetings.

Now we are looking forward to another exciting year together!

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

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

Some people quote “time is money”. Therefore I am surprised organisations still bother to reinvent the wheel all the time when they work with processes.

I recently represented Barium during an IT exhibition conducted by two Swedish organisations called KommITS and Sambruk. One of their great ideas is to share competence, know-how and at the same time increase the value of invested time and money.

I have seen several projects in the public sector, which all have potential to add great value to the networks involved. But many of these projects are still very much focused on managing the hygienic factors of IT, which could be legislation, communication standards, archiving and more.

What I do miss is the shared knowledge around processes. I dare to actually question the awareness of the standard process notation BPMN. The whole idea behind processes is to standardise. Is it not wise then to actually follow a standard notation?

If you do so, you can actually benefit from collaborative invention! If Stockholm City creates ten HR processes, Gothenburg can exchange them for a couple of city building processes. And Svedala can exchange a non-conformance process in exchange for a service request process from Kiruna etc. The processes of course need to be redefined to the actual council, but this can be done relatively easy. So don’t start from scratch! And if you do follow a standard, you will also be able to exchange process diagrams between tools. No more vendor lock-in. Instead you can focus on business improvements, and continuous development of the processes!

Keep up the process revolution!

Fredrik Selander
Barium AB