## Business processes

In SSA ECM, a business processs is an object that accompanies a business or engineering procedure, such as purchase order approval or ECR, and is associated with a workflow. The workflow is a visual representation of the whole process, which defines its various stages. The workflow stages include tasks, which are assigned to users or user groups, and steps, which are performed by SSA ECM. SSA ECM supports all types of business processes.

A business process is launched when the required object is dispatched. The business process progresses along the route defined in the workflow. The steps are performed automatically for the attached objects. Each time a task is reached, it is added to the SSA ECM task list of the user or group assigned to the task. The tasks are viewed and handled in the SSA ECM task list. Tasks are handled by users with a user type of Observer and above. See Tasks.

The SSA ECM administrator defines workflow templates to allow specific types of business processes to reuse similar workflows. More than one workflow can be defined for the same business process type, for example, a business process for Purchase Order Approval may have several different workflows, each for a different order value range. Each workflow defines the route for the selected business process, and includes the specific tasks which must be performed along the way.

The Dispatch option enables you to launch a business process for a selected object, directly from the object page. See Launch a business process for a selected object.

SSA ECM 8.0 SP1 User's Guide © Copyright 2004 SSA Global Technologies (Israel), Ltd.