- PlatformWEBCON BPS
Low-code Application Development Platform
WHEN TO USE IT
- SolutionsWEBCON BPS
Automate processes across the entire organization
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Looking for an alternative
to Power Apps?
| Power Platform | WEBCON BPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Modifying a live application | Cancel/restart your live workflows or let them finish the old way | InstantChange™ – your in-flight workflows adapt immediately |
| Integration | Making an application out of components is up to you; PowerApps are built separately from Flows which are separate from reports which are separate from Azure functions which are separate from data; links between them are fragile | The entire solution is built as a set of tightly-coupled components that work together automatically |
| Duration | Flows must complete within 30 days; running over that is considered an exception; workarounds exist, but they delay the inevitable, and they’re fragile | Processes can run for one second or one century, and any length of time in between; they’ll survive migration, upgrades, changes to the model, and not end prematurely |
| Application lifecycle management | Forms, workflows, and any dependent components must be manually packaged; non-destructive/non-disruptive updates is at best an art, not a science | The entire application – workflow, forms, reports, dashboards, data schema, connections to external data – can be packaged and deployed (and updated) from development to test to production |
| On-premises & Cloud | Online and multitenant only; a gateway must be used to breach firewalls to access on-premises data | One platform that runs on-premises, cloud IaaS, and SaaS offering |
| Migration and upgrades | Elements of projects can be exported as templates for building new projects somewhere else, which isn’t exactly migration | Everything migrates, in every direction, with current status and audit trail preserved and intact |
| Process mapping | Create an abstract high-level diagram in Visio, then separately build the application using different tools — doing the work twice | The process model is the workflow diagram, and (together with the data dictionary) drives the form and report models |
| Analytics and audit trails | Workflow designer must add extra measurement steps to a flow, and create a place to store those metrics and a way to view them | Built into each workflow step; reporting and analyzing is built into the platform |
| Records, auditing, case management | Documents can be treated as records, but the process used to review them will be lost when completed. Data is disconnected and connections are ad-hoc | Every workflow instance is a case with status, roles, documents, data, and an audit trail; the case can be treated like a record from cradle to grave |
| Application data | Must be modeled somewhere else (Lists, DataFlex, SQL) and managed independently of your application; data is not part of your application and changes to data will break it | Data is part of your application and is deployed/updated as your application evolves |
| Power user options | Power users must use the same tools as professionals; while technically not “code,” a spelling error or misplaced parenthesis will break an application | Designer Desk provides non-professionals with an easy way to create prototypes professionals can extend and deploy to professionals |
Power Platform vs. WEBCON BPS
| Modifying a live application |
| Power Platform: |
| WEBCON BPS: |
| Integration |
| Power Platform: |
| WEBCON BPS: |
| Duration |
| Power Platform: |
| WEBCON BPS: |
| Application lifecycle management |
| Power Platform: |
| WEBCON BPS: |
| On-premises & Cloud |
| Power Platform: |
| WEBCON BPS: |
| Migration and upgrades |
| Power Platform: |
| WEBCON BPS: |
| Process mapping |
| Powerr Platform: |
| WEBCON BPS: |
| Analytics and audit trails |
| Power Platform: |
| WEBCON BPS: |
| Records, auditing, case management |
| Power Platform: |
| WEBCON BPS: |
| Application data |
| Power Platform: |
| WEBCON BPS: |
| Power user options |
| Power Platform: |
| WEBCON BPS: |
Release. Review. Revise. Repeat. Evolve.
An application isn’t really a one-time deliverable – it’ll need to be regularly adapted and improved in collaboration with users and stakeholders. That can’t happen unless the cost of change is low, and that applies to both creating changes and gracefully deploying them.
Don’t glue together a bunch of components — write an application.
If what you create is a set of separate deliverables you orchestrate to work together, you — not the software — are the solution. You’ll need to carefully keep those components in sync as your application grows. And the Power Platform all but demands that your applications be made up of many discrete pieces in many places with loosely-couple connections between them; move one thing out of place and the whole effort is at risk. With WEBCON BPS, though, the workflows, the forms, the data schema, the business rules, the reports, and any mapped external data are already interconnected and aware of each other. Change one thing and everything else gracefully adapts. Design it as a set. Deploy it as a set. Update it as a set. Version it as a set.
“Citizen development” is a nice idea – but it’s citizen-assisted development that actually works.
Excel-like formulas fail from a misplaced parenthesis – they’re code. Needing to work with JSON and OData is just one step away from, well, code. The Power Platform is genuinely low-code, but literally so, in the sense of less coding like a developer – but one still has to think like a developer to be successful. The issue is that business users already have jobs. Asking them to be responsible for real applications is a lot to ask. Occasionally, some business users get good at building applications and become developers. More often than not, an early attempt doesn’t survive contact with its first user without bringing in professionals to help finish the job. And those pros often find it easier to just rebuild the whole thing. WEBCON Designer Desk makes it easy for a business user to create an annotated working prototype that’s meant to be a usable starting point that professionals can extend and evolve into production-ready solutions. All the while, those business users stay informed and can provide feedback that be acted on instantly. We call it Citizen-Assisted Development – and it really works.
Change management revolution with InstantChange™
One consistent platform that works everywhere
It’s in your data center. It’s a hosted solution. It’s a part of your cloud infrastructure. It’s everywhere.
And everywhere WEBCON BPS is, it’s the same technology. The same feature set. Not just the same look and feel. The same everything.
You can even migrate from one location to another and keep working – without missing a beat in a running instance, and without losing any history or current running status.
The end of fragile applications
Applications wind up involving forms, workflows, reports, connections to data, and perhaps a unified web application that brings them all together. With most platforms, those different elements are build separately, integrated manually, and deployed carefully.
Here’s the fun part: in WEBCON BPS, they’re all different faces of a single thing. The forms are a window into the current state of the workflow. The data schema tells the forms what they need to do. Lookup fields can reference a catalog of already-configured data sources. There are business rules governing, well, everything. Reports know about current status and form content. Change audit trails keep track of everything, not just documents.
No process left behind when you need to make a change
Virtually every process management and workflow automation platform treats a single running instance as a set of queued instructions. Once it starts, it can’t change, and you have to accept it. Maybe you can cancel and restart it, but that’s it.
WEBCON BPS is better than that. At every step in a process, a running instance checks the model to see what should happen next. Change the model, the running instances change their path. The forms change their behavior. The data changes its schema. The reports change their appearance.
The model implemented by WEBCON’s InstantChange™ technology is rare – and incredibly useful when you have processes that won’t stand still.
Processes that run as long as you need
WEBCON BPS apps can happily run for months, if not years, without consuming resources or slowing anything down. You can migrate them, and even modify them, and they’ll continue to run.
Professionals and stakeholders working together
In a world of citizen-assisted development, professionals stay in regular contact with stakeholders. That means stakeholders/users need to be able to understand what’s going on and be able to give feedback that’ll be acted on.
With WEBCON’s Designer Desk, stakeholders create the initial specifications in the form of a functioning prototype. When professionals pick that up and carry it forward, the ongoing work is familiar. With InstantChange™, the effort and time needed to react to feedback is microscopic.
Deployment lifecycle support
Deployment isn’t an afterthought. It’s wired into WEBCON BPS’ DNA. Every application element is aware that it can be moved from place to place, and fundamental design decisions were made to ensure that things keep working when they do.
You can even define dependencies into your applications when you want them to behave differently between development, testing, and production, too.
The end of analysis paralysis
The reason why so many projects never get started is because stakeholders aren’t quite sure what they want. Not in detail, at least. Designers conduct a seemingly endless series of requirements-gathering meetings, specification reviews, and so on. They do this because they can’t afford not to get it right the first time.
WEBCON BPS changes that. By making the cost of change low and effort to evolve easy, you can start with an imperfect first try and immediately follow it up with a series of improvements based on feedback. Improvement cycles can be measured in hours, sometimes even minutes.
And since most people have an easier time critiquing than imagining, you not only get faster results – you get better results, too.
Auditing and analytics without extra effort
A lot of platforms log bottlenecks and help with debugging. Collecting business metrics and producing audit-quality histories of workflow instance, by contrast, are things the application builder must create manually – if there’s time and if clients are willing to fund that time.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the workflow model assumed it would be reported on? That it provided metrics automatically? And that it had room for you to easily add extra metrics to measure without making the project more complicated? We thought so – and we made it so.
Sometimes the case, not just the document, is king
Sometimes a document is all you care about. Sometimes a document is just an attachment to something bigger.
At times like this, you need to version, secure, and monitor – as a set — the path everything follows, the participants involved, the permissions they have, the forms they’re presented with, the data that’s fetched, and indeed and data/documents that were used.
One unified set of permissions. One audit history. WEBCON BPS works this way without lifting a finger.
Subscribe or buy — it’s your choice
You can subscribe to it. You can buy it. It’s your choice.
See WEBCON BPS in action:
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Schedule your free online platform demo or tell us about your business needs and let’s discuss how we can address them with intelligent workflow automation.
At WEBCON, digital transformation isn’t a buzzword – it’s a way of life; it’s about reducing steps, eliminating mistakes, ensuring compliance, connecting assets, and encouraging continuous improvement – all that thanks to the modern Low-code Application Platform. Applications made with our Low Code Application Platform, WEBCON BPS, are scalable, process-centric, low-to-no-code, equally at home online or on-premises, and happily used on both desktops and mobile devices. WEBCON’s unique InstantChange™ technology lets customers adapt/evolve processes to address changing needs immediately and painlessly. WEBCON processes are clearly understood and easily governed, and they can be connected to lines of business systems, documents, forms, messages, and collaboration workspaces. Low Code Automation has never been easier.
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