Usability of some workflow products in an inter-organizational setting

Workflow techniques have gained plenty of attention lately as a means to support business process re-engineering. One has also argued that they are an important asset when integrating legacy systems within an organization. In the following, their applicability in an inter-organizational setting will be evaluated. This is done by grasping requirements of three different inter-organizational applications and relating them with the facilities offered by some existing workflow products, notably IBM FlowMark, Staffware, and TeamFlow. The reference architecture and terminology used in comparisons is that of the Workflow Management Coalition. The focus in this context is on specification needs deducible from the applications and the corresponding support by the products. Further point of interest is the applicability of the products as an integrating facility of legacy systems within and between organizations. A third point of interest is the support for advanced transactional properties which is of prime importance in the light of the application analysis in these environments. The overall conclusion is that the products analysed lack many of the advanced transactional features and specification facilities needed in inter-organizational environments, though some products will have more of them in their future versions.