Introduction

Oracle Process Accelerators are process solutions, developed by Oracle, which address common business processes or high-value industry processes. Oracle Process Accelerators have been developed to simplify and improve the management of these processes. Many low-priority business processes, such as managing travel approvals, are managed manually or through email and can negatively impact organizations by contributing to inefficiency and reduced productivity. In addition, there are complex business processes, some common to all organizations, and others specific to a particular industry, which benefit from the process management approach which Oracle Business Process Management (BPM) provides. Automated process management solutions enable organizations to become more efficient, to meet business challenges rapidly and flexibly, and ultimately to improve customer satisfaction by supporting employees in fulfilling requirements in a timely fashion.

Key Elements

Oracle Process Accelerators, developed with Oracle BPM Suite 11g, make the following capabilities available to organizations implementing automated solutions to improve process management:

- Role-Based Employee Access - Processes are performed by people in the organization who do the work. When the employees are assigned to roles in the Oracle Process Accelerator, they have access to only those tasks in a process for which they are responsible. Multiple employees can be assigned to a role. Any one of them can select a task to get the job done.
- Sequenced Tasks - The work to be done is defined as a sequence of tasks, each performed by a role. After a task is completed, the solution automatically moves on to the next task. This is referred to as workflow. The sequence of tasks can branch into two or more paths depending on the outcome of a previous task. Note that some tasks require employee or user interaction, while some are automated. User tasks can be as common as clicking a button to approve a request, or as specific as entering an order with multiple line items.
- Automated Task Lists - When an employee logs in to an Oracle Process Accelerator, he is presented with a task list containing the work assigned to all of the roles he is responsible for. By selecting a task, the employee is guided to the appropriate application form, which prompts for the correct actions to be performed. After the actions are complete, the task disappears from the task list, and a new task is created for the role responsible for the subsequent task.
- Business Rules - Oracle BPM provides flexible business rules which can be defined to meet organizational guidelines. These rules are defined to support a specific process, and govern the way the process is carried out. For example, in a specific process, a request for management approval might require two levels of approval if an employee is grade four or lower, but only one level if grade three or higher.
- Process Dashboards - A useful component of Oracle Process Accelerators is the process dashboard reporting developed with Oracle Business Activity Monitoring (BAM). These reports provide real time process analytics which can be used to observe key performance indicators, and to monitor the efficiency of the process itself.

The Business Process Diagram

In the introduction to each Oracle Process Accelerator, a business process diagram shows the process being automated using the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). For those unfamiliar with BPMN, the Sample Business Process Diagram provides an example.

The process diagram contains the following elements. If you are not familiar with this type of diagram, study the elements and then follow the diagram to understand the process.

- Swimlanes (Employee, Manager, AP Clerk) - contain roles that indicate who is responsible for the tasks in the lanes.
- Events (Start, End) - show where the process begins and ends.
- Tasks (Enter Expenses, Deny Payment) - identify the action being taken.
- Sequence flows or arrows - show the path to the next task.
- Gateways (Revision Required, In Order) - are diamond shapes indicating a branch in the path. In the sample diagram a parallel gateway (a + in the diamond), shows that both branches must be taken, and an exclusive gateway (an X in the diamond), indicates that only one path can be taken.
- Subprocesses (Make Payments) - indicate that another set of tasks has been collapsed for clarity.

For more information about BPMN, see "Overview of Business Process Design," in Oracle Fusion Middleware Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management.

Sample Business Process Diagram

Why Oracle Process Accelerators

An organization engaged in automating critical high-value processes with Oracle BPM Suite can benefit from the implementation of Oracle Process Accelerators. These pre-built solutions supplement the benefits of Oracle BPM Suite in these ways:

- Consensus Building - Using these pre-built processes, the IT organization can illustrate the advantages of process-driven applications, to show the value of process automation to the business community.
- Best Practice - A best practice guideline based on the accumulated experience and expertise of Oracle developers and implementers is provided with Oracle Process Accelerators. These best practices mitigate the risk associated with learning and deploying a new technology. The guide includes development methodologies, process modeling approaches, effective tool use techniques, and sample deployment plans. Oracle uses these best practices to build the Oracle Process Accelerators.
- Rapid Deployment - The Oracle Process Accelerators can be implemented as is or extended to meet specific requirements. In either scenario, there is a significant reduction of effort.
- Build a Process Centric Organization - Clearly, an organization will not be using Oracle BPM and Oracle Process Accelerators to computerize a small set of common business processes. It is highly likely that a critical value-add process that provides a market differentiation is being automated to improve customer satisfaction or reduce costs. While the more significant project is underway, the business community can start to learn how to use process driven applications to their benefit. By rolling out Oracle Process Accelerators, the organization gets a head start with the new paradigm. If multiple Oracle Process Accelerators are deployed, the management community begins to learn that process automation reduces the overhead associated with handling mundane tasks. The implementing organization has the opportunity to win a quick victory with the new technology, and the business users learn the value of managing tasks through accurately routed processes. The organization as a whole begins to appreciate the benefits of becoming process-centric. The Sample Functional Architecture for Oracle Process Accelerators diagram depicts how the Oracle Process Accelerators can be used in an organization.

Sample Functional Architecture for Oracle Process Accelerators