Critical Capabilities for BPM-Platform-Based Case Management Frameworks

24/08/2015 Critical Capabilities for BPMPlatformBased Case Management Frameworks

http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=12L52PPM&ct=150813&st=sb 1/34

Critical Capabilities for BPMPlatformBasedCase Management Frameworks12 August 2015 ID:G00258617

Analyst(s): Janelle B. Hill, Rob Dunie, Kenneth Chin

VIEW SUMMARY

Case management frameworks built on business process management platforms help solution architectsdeploy casehandling applications and offer an alternative to specialized case management applicationsand custom coding. We evaluate 12 vendors against nine critical capabilities in four use cases.

OverviewKey Findings

For years, the complex architecture required to support case management has relegated it to thestatus of a niche application, typically addressed by specialist, commercial offtheshelf applicationproviders and system integrators. Case management frameworks based on business processplatforms provide an alternative approach.

Compared with COTS applications, BPMplatformbased CMFs are easier to change and extend byaltering visual metadata via models.

Case management as a process style is being applied in many sectors beyond government, legal andinsurance, including healthcare, banking, higher education and retail. Industry and crossindustrycase management frameworks are now available.

"Adaptive case management" hype exceeds the reality of what buyers need. Many solutions enablecase workers to dynamically initiate ad hoc actions on a case directly in the production environment.

EVIDENCE

1 In our view, the market for BPMplatformbasedCMFs is an emerging opportunity under the broad,umbrella "BPM" market, and we have chosen torepresent this segment.

2 From our "Hype Cycle for Business ProcessManagement, 2015": "BPMplatformbased casemanagement frameworks are commercial (ideallylicensed) software that leverage a BPM platform toprovide outofthebox architectural guidance andexecutable components (such as case folders, contentindexing, rolebased UIs, business rules andmilestones) to be configured, integrated, interoperableand extended by buyers. They reduce the complexityof creating a unique solution by providing enoughfunctionality to accelerate development, yet not tryingto be a complete packaged application."

3 On 21 May 2015, Kofax was acquired by PerceptiveSoftware, the software division of Lexmark.

4 In the social and health program domain, cases areoften guided by evidencebased practice models.

5 Providers use many of the same terms — such as"ad hoc" — to mean very different things. Ourresearch finds that there are no universally adopted

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However, determining exactly who can do what and when demands that the details be closelystudied.

RecommendationsSolution architects:

Consider potential requirements for "adaptive" behavior in case work. Identify appropriate guardrailsto contain chaos while also empowering case workers to exploit their judgment and expertise.

Consider BPMplatformbased CMFs, such as those reviewed in this report, when COTS solutions arenot suitable (due to lack of fitness to requirements, cost, inappropriate platforms or inflexibility). Usethis report to establish your own weighted criteria to shortlist providers for consideration.

What You Need to KnowToday, many technology buyers are thinking about their work as caseoriented, rather than simplytransactional, even in industries outside of those in which work traditionally has been handled as a case(such as government, legal and insurance). As business becomes more complex, with greater demandsfor operational oversight, Gartner has seen growing interest in case management as a process style toaddress complex solution requirements.

Case work is highly variable. Typically, each work item — aka "case" — is a unique situation involvingcomplex (and often difficulttoplan) interactions between content, people, business, evidence andregulatory policies with the aim of achieving an optimal outcome. It is an unstructured process. Often,the workflow cannot be prescribed, and the business logic behind potential actions is determined bycomplex interrelationships among the case, its content, related roles and individual responsibilities withinroles. Thus, designing a software application to address this unstructured process style — casemanagement — is challenging. This complexity has relegated it to a specialized software application areafor years.

Case management frameworks represent a new approach to addressing these requirements. They areconfigurable "apps" meant to help solution architects accelerate the delivery of unique and flexible casemanagement solutions. In this report, we evaluate case management frameworks (CMFs) that executeon a business process management (BPM) platform of some type (see "Select the Right Type of BPMPlatform to Achieve Your Application Development, Business Transformation or Digital Business Goals").We chose this subset of CMFs because these modeldriven platforms hold the greatest potential for easierdevelopment and moreflexible solutions.

Furthermore, this report evaluates CMF solutions from BPMplatformbased CMF providers, based on ninecritical capabilities that any casehandling solution should reflect. We evaluate the products for fourcommon use cases that we have observed across multiple industries:

definitions yet specific to the concept of "adaptivecase management." We find terms such as "ad hoc,""discretionary," "dynamic," "improvisational" and"emergent." The Case Management Model andNotation 1.0 specification describes "discretionary"behavior as follows:

"A case has two distinct phases, the designtimephase and the runtime phase. During the designtime phase, business analysts engage in modeling,which includes defining Tasks that are always partof predefined segments in the Case model, and"discretionary" Tasks that are available to theCase worker, to be applied in addition, to his/herdiscretion. In the runtime phase, Case workersexecute the plan, particularly by performing Tasksas planned, while the plan may continuouslyevolve, due to the same or other Case workersbeing engaged in planning, i.e., addingdiscretionary Tasks to the plan of the Caseinstance in runtime."

In essence, discretionary tasks are planned options,dynamically invoked on a casebycase basis.

6 See "Systems of Differentiation and InnovationRequire Different Types of ModelDriven ApplicationPlatforms" and "Three Types of ModelDrivenComposition: What's Lost in Translation?"

7 "Coinnovation" means that both the buyers(consumers) of the BPMplatformbased CMF and theprovider can innovate the framework simultaneouslyand independently in such a way that neither steps onthe other's changes in upgrades. The upgradeprocedures respect the separate innovations andprotect buyer customizations in such a way as tominimize manual reconciliation of the changes.

8 An unstructured process is one in which theactivities, resource interactions (man, machine andinformation) and decisions are not easily prescribed asa repeatable workflow. Rather, they are tailored to theindividual unit of work. Successful work handlingrequires interpretation, collaboration, judgment andexpertise.

9 In Gartner's view, adaptive case management is asubset of case management as a process style, inwhich case handling needs to be extremely flexible.Instead of modeling the case flow, many adaptive

http://www.omg.org/spec/CMMN/1.0/PDF



Investigative cases

Incident management cases

Service request cases

Process to decision cases

In this analysis, we specifically evaluated the architectural elements of the CMF, the breadth and depth ofbusiness domain functionality included, and the interrelationship between the framework and itsdependent execution environment. BPMplatformbased CMFs are delivered by using layered conceptualmodels, with the following required and optional layers for providers reflected in this report. Layers startat the bottom at the platform (Layer A) and extend up to the highest value of business functionalityprovided (Layer E):

Layer A (BPM platform layer) — A basic BPM platform, business process management suite (BPMS)or intelligent BPMS (iBPMS)

Layer B (a basic CMF) — A generalpurpose, architectural pattern for case work handling

Layer C (business domain logic) — Horizontal, crossindustry, business domain logic

Layer D (business domain logic) — Verticalindustry business domain logic

Layer E (implementationspecific logic) — Complete, executing solution

This report should be read as a companion piece to "Magic Quadrant for BPMPlatformBased CaseManagement Frameworks," which analyzes the overall market. Here, we provide deeper evaluations ofthe CMF solutions offered by vendors participating in that market. The vendors included within the tworeports overlap (see the Vendors Added or Dropped section in this report).

Many BPM vendors have recently expanded their focus to add casecentric features into their platformand case solutions to capitalize on this market opportunity, in competition with industryspecific casemanagement application specialists, enterprise content management (ECM) suite vendors, CRMapplication vendors and consulting and system integrations (C&SIs), which offer prebuilt or customdeveloped solutions. Some providers market "adaptive case management" as a concept that requires aunique product, to distance themselves from traditional BPMS providers, and to emphasize theimportance of the case as the primary object to be managed to a positive outcome, rather than theworkflow (the sequencing of prescribed activities). BPMplatformbased vendors offering CMFs differ fromtraditional COTS specialty applications in that they are easier to extend via visual models (such as flowmodels, integration models, rule models and data models) — not just at design time, but also potentially

at execution time (in production).1

BPMplatformbased CMFs provide a hybrid, alternative approach to COTS applications and homegrown,custombuilt development to meet case management solution needs (see "Hype Cycle for BusinessProcess Management, 2015"). These frameworks are partial solutions, meant to accelerate the time to

case management solutions focus on modeling interimgoals or milestones as critical determinants of caseprogression toward the desired outcome. Providersemphasize modeling the data and relationships acrossthe resources participating in the case rather thanmodeling the workflow.

10 An example of persontomachine collaboration isincorporating a virtual personal assistant into a processor a smart machine that assists the person in drivingor parking a car. Robotic vacuums and manufacturingrobots can collaborate with humans to get a job done.

11 There are many types of fraud detection andprevention domains. For more on this topic, see otherGartner research specific to industries or domains bysearching on "fraud detection."

12 The National Incident Management System (NIMS)is a standardized approach to incident managementdeveloped by the U.S. Department of HomelandSecurity. These standards prescribe "best practices" fordealing with anticipated types of incidents.

13 Scoring for the critical capabilities was derivedfrom recent independent Gartner research on the BPMplatformbased CMF market. Each vendor responded indetail to an extensive primaryresearch questionnairecovering its business and the technical features of itsBPMplatformbased CMF offering. Gartner analystsreviewed and validated this information via requestedlive product demonstrations and discussion,corresponded with the vendors through the evaluationperiod, and conducted research checks with customersof these products. Gartner has also conducted morethan 550 client inquiries with prospective and currentenduser and consultant clients interested in casemanagement solutions during 2014 and 2015.

CRITICAL CAPABILITIES METHODOLOGY

This methodology requires analysts to identify thecritical capabilities for a class of products or services.Each capability is then weighted in terms of its relativeimportance for specific product or service use cases.Next, products/services are rated in terms of how wellthey achieve each of the critical capabilities. A scorethat summarizes how well they meet the critical



solution and also be extended and tailored for unique requirements by the buyer.2 When available COTSsolutions are not suitable (due to lack of fitness to requirements, cost, inappropriate platforms orinflexibility), consider BPMplatformbased CMFs, such as those reviewed in this report.

This analysis provides a detailed evaluation of case management solutions from 12 BPMplatformbasedCMF providers against nine critical capabilities, and across four common use cases. This analysis can helpsolution architects narrow their shortlists of providers for case management solutions. They can alsoleverage this research to create their own weighted criteria for evaluating BPMplatformbased CMFproviders.

AnalysisCritical Capabilities UseCase Graphics

Figure 1. Vendors' Product Scores for the Investigative Cases Use Case

capabilities for each use case is then calculated foreach product/service.

"Critical capabilities" are attributes that differentiateproducts/services in a class in terms of their qualityand performance. Gartner recommends that usersconsider the set of critical capabilities as some of themost important criteria for acquisition decisions.

In defining the product/service category for evaluation,the analyst first identifies the leading uses for theproducts/services in this market. What needs are endusers looking to fulfill, when consideringproducts/services in this market? Use cases shouldmatch common client deployment scenarios. Thesedistinct client scenarios define the Use Cases.

The analyst then identifies the critical capabilities.These capabilities are generalized groups of featurescommonly required by this class of products/services.Each capability is assigned a level of importance infulfilling that particular need; some sets of featuresare more important than others, depending on the usecase being evaluated.

Each vendor’s product or service is evaluated in termsof how well it delivers each capability, on a fivepointscale. These ratings are displayed sidebyside for allvendors, allowing easy comparisons between thedifferent sets of features.

Ratings and summary scores range from 1.0 to 5.0:

1 = Poor or Absent: most or all defined requirementsfor a capability are not achieved

2 = Fair: some requirements are not achieved

3 = Good: meets requirements

4 = Excellent: meets or exceeds some requirements

5 = Outstanding: significantly exceeds requirements

To determine an overall score for each product in theuse cases, the product ratings are multiplied by theweightings to come up with the product score in usecases.

The critical capabilities Gartner has selected do notrepresent all capabilities for any product; therefore,may not represent those most important for a specificuse situation or business objective. Clients should usea critical capabilities analysis as one of several sourcesof input about a product before making aproduct/service decision.



Source: Gartner (August 2015)

Figure 2. Vendors' Product Scores for the Incident Management Use Case




Figure 3. Vendors' Product Scores for the Service Request Use Case




Figure 4. Vendors' Product Scores for the ProcesstoDecision Use Case




VendorsAINSOffering Evaluated: AINS eCase platform, Version 9.0, 2014

The AINS eCase platform is a Microsoft .NET, Webbased workflowdriven case management system. Theplatform's core features — including forms, intelligent capture, content management, collaboration,reporting, workflow, integration and security — enable it to address all four case management patternswell. AINS also offers a number of solution frameworks built atop its BPM platform. Its solutions areprimarily at Layer D of our conceptual architecture. They include eCase Audit, eCase Investigations, eCase



Leads and Opportunities Management, eCase HR (onboarding, compensation, performance management,dispute resolution, employee relations, labor relations and learning management), FOIAXpress forFreedom of Information (FOI) Act and Privacy Act requests, and ATIPXpress (for FOI requests in Canada).eCase is primarily used within the U.S. and Canadian federal governments. It is available as a Federal Riskand Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)certified SaaS and platform as a service (PaaS)solution as well as onpremises implementations.

eCase can manage a wide variety of process styles using its proprietary eFlow notation. eFlow allows theprocess designer to model the more structured workflows seen in service requests while also enabling theflexible execution of ad hoc task assignments and process snippets in investigative cases. While the eFlowsyntax may be somewhat unfamiliar to those who have been exposed to standard notations like BusinessProcess Model and Notation (BPMN) or Case Management Model and Notation (CMMN), its relativelysimple syntax is easily understood by citizen developers. This simplicity can be enhanced by the eCaserule engine to automate highly data and ruledriven processes.

eCase enables content to be managed both natively and through external content management systems.It also provides the ability to interact with the content. The platform can intelligently captureunstructured data and index the text of images to make it searchable. Using the integrated redactioncapability, case workers can remove sensitive information from electronic documents. Its mobilecapabilities also allow the case worker to capture photos and videos directly from the device.

eCase allows case workers to collaborate around case working using socialmediastyle chatting as well asemail for notifications. All interactions related to the case are captured in the case folder. eCase also offersoutofthebox support for Yammer, which enables case workers to collaborate with partners and externalusers.

The platform has a number of connectors for widely used ERP and CRM applications (such as SalesforceCRM for contacts and PeopleSoft HRMS, a connector for the HR solution framework).

AINS' eCase is a very capable case management platform. While the current solution frameworks areprimarily focused on the U.S. and Canadian federal government, the platform can be used to address awide variety of case management needs.

AppianOffering Evaluated: Appian BPM Suite with Case Management Framework v.7.9

Appian BPM Suite's core strengths as an iBPMS allow it to address some more complex case managementscenarios, although it has only a limited amount of horizontal and vertical solution content of its own.Many of its case management capabilities are a fundamental part of the platform, and are exposed in itshorizontal (crossindustry) CMF to provide design guidance to implementers. The CMF is available as anAppian framework application as part of the iBPMS platform. Buyers of the iBPMS platform are givenaccess to the CMF (Layer B). Access to domainspecific CMFs (Layers C, D and E) is licensed separately.



We reviewed its Appian Case Management Framework and its three CMFs: Acquisition BusinessManagement, Onboarding and Security Processing, and Site and Facility Inspections.

Appian's CMF (Layer B) is an application package that contains design templates for casehandling rules,user interfaces, records and workflows, and also includes user stories and other documentation. Theseassets are samples, recommended to accelerate development through easy reuse. Although conceptuallysimilar to code libraries, these objects are explicit models — metadata — that can be easily adapted usingthe visual authoring tools and executed immediately.

One of Appian's best capabilities is its ability to support case orchestration that ranges from highlystructured to highly unstructured flows. Appian leverages the BPMN 2.0 specification for authoring.BPMN's ad hoc activity is used to enable dynamic and some nonprescribed behavior in the runtimeenvironment. Social tasks address ad hoc human actions. Appian's CMF also allows the process architectto configure a case's life cycle at both design and runtime — by defining milestones and tasks thatcontribute to the completion of those milestones. The knowledge worker is able to adjust the tasks asrequired by that unique case instance.

Appian Records allows a case worker to quickly obtain a complete view of all data related to a particularcase. Federated data is retrieved in real time from the appropriate system of record, allowing theknowledge worker to make better decisions regarding what action to perform next.

Another distinguishing area for Appian is its understanding of the user experience, not just the userinterface. Its Tempo layer provides a social experience that enables case workers to navigate across andmonitor a wide variety of data objects, including event streams. Mobility is seamlessly integrated,supporting outoftheoffice and field experiences. Case workers can tailor Tempo to their personalinterests and preferences as often as they want, through visual configuration, directly in the productionenvironment. This is particularly valuable for investigative cases in which key information is not yetknown and in which a highly adaptive experience is desirable. Appian's capabilities to support humancollaboration and datadriven actions contribute to its higher scores for investigative and incidentmanagement cases than others in this evaluation.

For buyers who do not have an ECM repository, Appian offers its own lightweight content repository.Appian largely uses partnerships and repackaged technology to provide interactions within lessstructuredcontent (such as "view," "redact," "comment" or "search"), as well as intelligent data capture and outputmanagement. These capabilities are weaker than those offered by other vendors included in this report.For example, AnyDoc from Hyland Software is integrated for scan and metadata capture. Opticalcharacter recognition (OCR) capability and automated correspondence are also not native to Appian.

Overall, Appian provides an easytolearn and easytouse environment for solution architects anddevelopers, as well as business analysts and business professionals collaborating throughout the entireprocess management life cycle.



AWPLOffering Evaluated: Dotsphere Case Manager Pro, v.7.4 and Pencil v.2.0 — multipleindustryframeworks

AWPL's approach to this market segment differs from the other products we evaluate in this research: Itoffers solution frameworks on top of a BPM platform that others provide. Dotsphere Case Manager has aunique multilayered server architecture that enables the federation of heterogeneous enterprise contentmanagement (ECM) suites and BPM suites. AWPL has worked with IBM's FileNet ECM and all of IBM's BPMproducts, and other BPMS products. Its default BPMS is now Red Hat's, including its Drools rule engine,which strengthened its ability to handle service requests and processtodecision use cases. Its defaultECM environment is its own product named Casepedia. Federation across heterogeneous BPM enginesextends down to the activity level, thus providing good interoperability. It also uses a Java/XML pluginarchitecture to extend its case tracker with domainspecific business logic. AWPL itself offers multipleCMFs, branded as Pencils, which plug into this backbone. We reviewed its Pencils for insurance andbanking (Layer D).

The federated approach means that Dotsphere Case Manager can talk to multiple engines and in a singleuser interface, present the case worker with the information available across different engines. This helpsorganizations to still maintain multiple ECM and BPM engines and need not spend additional dollars inmigration from one engine to another. Dotsphere Case Manager inherits much of the capabilities of theunderlying BPM and ECM engines. For example, reports from Dotsphere are simple and quick to extract,and reports in the underlying BPMS are also available. Case workflow design is primarily done in thedesigner associated with the underlying BPMS. At the initial setup, IT professionals determine whataspects of the solution will be configurable by business roles, including integrated systems and databases,dashboards and UIs, human tasks and access to associated content. Dotsphere's own designer is more ofa configuration layer, appropriate for business subject matter experts and case workers. Customers andpartners create their own solutions or their own extensions to Pencil by exploiting the pluginarchitecture. This layered architecture reflects a clean separation of concerns, enabling a good level offlexibility controlled by business roles. It also builds on the growing base of BPMN and Java/XML skillsavailable in the market. Widgets present different, contextualized views of cases. AWPL's interwidgetcommunication enables changes made in one widget to be immediately reflected in associated widgets.

One layer of the architecture provides an events framework that unifies the event streams coming fromthe underlying environments. Through a design user interface, customers define the events they want tocapture and what should be done with these events. A middle tier in the architecture — Dotsphere ServerExtensions at Layer C — enables customers to extend the functionality of the ECM or BPM environments.This unique architecture enables customers to define a case by its relationships. The business user layer— the topmost tier — is the case interface that unifies the underlying ECM and BPM engines, as well aslineofbusiness applications (such as core banking or insurance applications). All the unification done atthis level is contextual to the case. This capability of bringing in contextual data and screens is aninherent strength of Dotsphere Case Manager, enabling it to peacefully coexist with and caseenableexisting applications.



Historically, AWPL has sold products in the imaging and workflow technology markets. It has beenproviding Dotshpere Case Manager solutions since 2001 in the Asian markets. Consequently, it also offersadditional modules for case and document capture, tracking, monitoring and reporting. Today, it primarilygoes to market with casecentric industry solution accelerators named Pencil and is actively recruitingpartners to build additional solutions for Pencil. To date, it has just a few partners spread across Asia andAfrica.

AWPL is a company in India with offices in Asia and subSaharan Africa. Dotsphere's growing customerbase is primarily located in the Asia/Pacific region and is now expanding into the Africa region. AWPL isbuilding its ability to enable worker collaboration and to integrate content beyond legacy systems anddocuments. Support for mobility and integration is weaker than most vendors in this evaluation.Integration of both custom applications and COTS applications that are built on a traditional thick clientwill likely need significant programming effort, while integrating thinclient (browserbased) applications iseasier to configure.

Organizations that are looking for a quick timetovalue case management platform should considerDotsphere. It is relatively inexpensive compared to the other products in this evaluation, and thecompany is eager to expand into the U.S. and Canada as well as Europe.

EccentexOffering Evaluated: AppBase 5.2 With DCM Framework 3.0 and MyCaseRecords Framework

Eccentex combines a basic BPM platform and a basic CMF (Layer B) called Dynamic Case Management(DCM) Framework 3.0, which it offers as a hosted managed service. It also offers an AppLibrary of readytouse applications for specific verticals that it has developed on its own and with partners, addressingneeds at Layers C and D. Its customers are primarily midmarket organizations in the finance, utility,public sector and healthcare industries. Eccentex and its partners offer solutions based on the DCMframework (as well as additional solutions built on the platform).

As a platform, Eccentex is purposebuilt for case handling. It uses an eventdriven architecture and rulesto advance cases to completion. (It is not based on BPMN, although the latest version includes workflowvisualization in a BPMNlike notation.) The platform is largely a .NET 3.5 core with some Java and anOracle RDBMS and PL/SQL capabilities. DCM is a generalpurpose CMF that provides a hierarchy of caserelated objects, including cases, tasks, reports, people and dictionaries for developers to leverage.Eccentex itself leverages DCM to create application solutions, such as MyCaseRecords (Layer C). Thus, it ishighly extensible. DCM customization happens on three levels:

Developers can extend, integrate and configure the core case objects using the integrated designstudio.

Business analysts can further configure aspects that developers have set up.

Case workers can add ad hoc tasks, which are human tasks only.



This is the basis for change governance and likely meets most buyer requirements.

Its dictionary feature is unique and useful. Dictionaries are sources of information that, like a lawdictionary, support case workers by providing critical reference information. Gartner also likes theorganization chart, which can be synchronized with Active Directory and used for rules dependent on theorganizational structure, including escalation rules, decision rules and dynamic task assignments. Inaddition, since this environment is cloudbased and built for case handling, administrators can controlaccess to data and functionality at a very finegrained level, which improves security. Also, its architectureseparates content flow from task flow, enhancing performance for contentheavy case work (such as taxfraud cases or mortgage origination). Overall, it has good content interaction capabilities.

Despite the list of solutions available on AppLibrary, few are actually built by Eccentex. Solutions are frompartners who have not been certified in any way. The breadth and depth of business domain logic variesconsiderably across AppLibrary solutions. Nevertheless, AppLibrary offers many productized horizontal andvertical applications for specific markets, which have then been bundled into an integrated suite ofapplications that are integrated between each other, and have a unified inbox, calendar, master datamanagement and collaboration. In 2014, Eccentex shifted its business model away from targetingsolution partners and toward more direct sales and delivery to enduser organizations in order to becomean application solution provider. Thus, after initial deployment, buyers will most likely bear the burden ofreconciling their customizations with new capability (if any) from the provider. In addition, mostcustomers have not yet "pushed the envelope" in exploiting the capabilities of the platform.

The environment reflects a good governance model (with the three layers of extensibility and finegrainedcontrol over access to components) which should make it easier to reconcile vendorprovided changeswith subscriberowned changes. However, the upgrade process is not yet fully automated or intelligent.Still, because Eccentex is a cloud service provider, it should perform upgrades itself as a service. Buyerswho decide to deploy the solution onpremises or in a private cloud should expect to take a semimanualapproach to reconciling their own changes with those from the provider.

EMCOffering Evaluated: EMC Documentum xCelerated Composition Platform (xCP) 2.0

EMC Documentum's xCelerated Composition Platform is a BPMS that features a balance of content andprocess management functionality, and supports case management solutions and development.Documentum xCP is a fully integrated component of the Documentum Platform 7, which includes corecontent management with a repository and other components, such as intelligent capture (Captiva) andcustomer communications management (Document Sciences). Documentum xCP 2.0 is a specializedBPMS that uses a configuration approach to case management solutions, rather than coding, to providequicker delivery time. EMC has a number of industry case management solutions at Layer C, along withmore than 100 certified partnerdeveloped solutions at Layers C and D. Documentum xCP can also bedeployed as a managedservice, private cloud option using EMC OnDemand. For onpremises private cloud



deployments, an automated provisioning and policybased deployment option called xCeleratedManagement System (xMS) is available to deploy Documentum xCP software and applications into theVMware private cloud infrastructure.

One of Documentum xCP's strongest capabilities for case management is its ability to support a broadrange of content types and content interactions, ranging from unstructured content to structured data. Itprovides for management and storage of the content as part of the Documentum platform. In addition,Documentum xCP provides a serviceoriented architecture (SOA), handling inbound and outboundmessaging and events with standardsbased integration adapters and connectors. It also supports CaseManagement Interoperability Services (CMIS) for accessing other content repositories. Documentum xCPoffers only basic collaboration services to facilitate individual and group interactions among caseparticipants.

The Documentum platform with EMC Captiva and EMC Document Sciences provides good data captureand output management capabilities. EMC Captiva provides intelligent classification and data extractionfor highvolume capture and casebased capture applications for Documentum xCP processes. EMCDocument Sciences automates the creation of personalized customer communications andcorrespondence with multichannel delivery as part of the casebased workflow processes in DocumentumxCP.

The adaptability of Document xCP is on par with other case management products in this evaluation.Documentum xCP implements case management patterns to enable runtime configuration in flight byprocess workers based on their role, and users can override templated processes with parameters andinitiate ad hoc workflows. In addition, xCP includes a dynamic datamodeling mechanism — typefragments — that enables the case model to be enhanced after design time without having to redefine it.Type fragments include new information model and event behavior, and can be consumed at runtime.Business users have the opportunity to enrich the case by attaching different fragments, which couldinclude tasks and additional business changes, to the case. Solution designers have to incorporate typefragments into the initial design to be exposed through configuration at runtime in order for workers toleverage them and adapt to unanticipated case work changes.

Documentum xCP offers some businessrolefriendly dashboards, metrics and reporting functionality, butdoes not address ondemand analytics and would require a thirdparty product.

Overall, Documentum xCP provides a robust case management platform with a number of frameworksand developed solutions. With a strong partner ecosystem to develop certified case managementsolutions for various industries and business domains, and tight integration with Documentum forcontent management functionality, Documentum xCP can deliver outofthebox case management andROI.

HylandOffering Evaluated: Hyland OnBase v.14 and Dynamic Checklists for Process Control



Hyland offers a single, integrated content and process management platform (OnBase) that leveragesMicrosoft's .NET component model. Its product incorporates componentized capabilities that areinherently designed to work together and leverage a common code base and repository. Gartner considersOnBase a basic BPM platform for its visual designer and builtin rules. Hyland offers two other processframeworks that are not casecentric: Accelerated Financial Reporting Management (AFRM) and ElectronicPlan Review (EPR).

OnBase v.14 offers seamless integration with various Microsoft technologies — including the .NET Officesuite for editing content in Word and PDF from the Hyland client — using Web parts to expose specificOnBase functionality in a SharePoint portal user experience (UX), and exposing WorkViewbased casemanagement applications via a Microsoft Office Outlook client.

Dynamic Checklists for Process Control is a very simple framework at Layer B that is appropriate forcreating a human task queue where there is no prescribed sequence to the tasks. An order can besuggested, but the worker is not required to follow the suggested sequence. The checklist owner (akadesigner) defines the list of possible actions in the Dynamic Checklist template. The runtime engineassigns tasks as requested, based on events or to a shared queue. The simplicity of this framework makesit workable for a broad variety of data and contentdriven applications. This platform and templatecombination is very mature and is used extensively by many midsize customers and departments withinlarger enterprises.

Hyland has three "solutions" that are licensed CMFs. Many "solutions" listed on its website reflect realworld deployments based on sample code ("accelerators") and delivered with professional services.Customers who extend these solutions beyond OnBase will retain responsibility for maintaining their owncustomized application. Architecturally, this framework is really a codedriven solution, albeit using visualmodels to hide the programming details. Ad hoc behavior is limited to human actions.

Collaboration capabilities — both in design and runtime — and integration with assets beyond content areweak. Hyland resells BizTalk from Microsoft to strengthen its integration capabilities.

IBMOffering Evaluated: IBM Case Manager (ICM) v.5.2

ICM is a crossindustry CMF at Layer B. This framework runs on top of IBM Case Foundation (the originalFileNet BPM P8 BPM and ECM platform) and includes a FileNet Content Manager entitlement. IBM and itspartners offer many industryspecific and domainspecific solutions that leverage the ICM framework atLayer C and above. ICM is one of the stronger products in this evaluation, with betterthanaveragecapabilities in all critical areas. However, with that strength comes complexity.

The complexity of implementing solutions based on ICM derives from two issues:

The infrastructure under ICM includes multiple IBM technologies as well as many acquired



technologies — for example, Cognos (for analytics), Datacap (for content capture and integrationwith thirdparty repositories) and Content Navigator (although now included in version 5.2.1). Thismakes system administration and management of the environment complex.

The richness of capabilities offered in the ICM framework makes developing solutions for moresophisticated case handling quite challenging and requires advanced programming skills.

Consequently, nearly all customers with whom we have spoken have engaged IBM or partner professionalservices to lead the development of their solutions (contributing to a high initial investment required toget started). IBM has started to address this issue with a wizardlike front end meant to enable highleveldesigns for the simplest of cases to be done by less technically inclined individuals. In addition, to addressthe price and complexity issue, IBM has released a bundle called IBM Content Foundation that is asimpler, lowercost content management capability that competes with SharePoint. It has the same corecontent engine, plus the newer Content Navigator UI architecture.

The best capabilities of ICM are its strong content management and content interaction services. ICM notonly leverages the IBM ECM repository underneath, but can also easily work with many thirdpartyrepositories via the CMIS standard or by leveraging the capabilities of Datacap. The list of interactions withcontent — not only documents — is extensive (as would be expected of any provider from a strong ECMheritage). These interactions include search, collaborate, revise, tag, scan, view and more. ContentNavigator (available during our evaluation phase as version 5.2.02) also extends the interactions withother content and is a much better UI framework than the original Business Space and form UIs.(Migration from the older UIs to Content Navigator requires redoing widget wiring and custom widgets.)Mobility is enhanced also with Content Navigator.

The growing list of industryspecific solutions built using ICM also distinguishes IBM in this analysis. IBMoffers some of its own, including its Intelligent Investigation Manager, based on another acquisition. Thissolution, which includes i2 forensic analysis, strengthens ICM for investigative cases, an area where manyof the vendors in this analysis are somewhat weak.

Solutions built in ICM are adaptable to the extent that solution designers anticipate needs for adaptability.ICM's models are essentially configuration models — and there are many possibilities. For example, atruntime, workers can add ad hoc human tasks and take ad hoc actions at their discretion. However, thisis possible only if the solution designer grants them this privilege, and if this custom task capability wasincluded in the solution design. Thus, solution behavior is adaptable to the extent that designersanticipate needs for adaptability. Under the covers of ICM is the FileNet Business Process ExecutionLanguage (BPEL) workflow engine, which has been merged with the content engine. JavaScript is alsoused in places. Although the overall solution meets Gartner's definition of a direct, modeldrivenapplication framework, execution behavior is not quite as "adaptive" as a few other products are.

Lexmark (Kofax)Offering Evaluated: Kofax TotalAgility 7.1



Kofax3 TotalAgility is an iBPMS with strong support for contentcentric case management solutions.TotalAgility addresses a wide spectrum of processrelated needs, ranging from highly structured andpredictable sequences of activities to more dynamic, ad hoc and unpredictable use cases. Its iBPMSprovides a combination of predictable and unpredictable eventprocessing capability and supports a broadrange of applications and use cases. TotalAgility also provides visual models that enable both business andtechnical users to easily modify the case management solutions and make dynamic changes to work inflight in response to both predictable and unpredictable events. Kofax currently has eight solutions atLayer C built using TotalAgility for a variety of industries. It can be deployed as an onpremises or cloudBPM platform as a service (bpmPaaS) solution in dedicated or multitenant configurations.

TotalAgility includes data capture and output capabilities. It can ingest content in multiple formats andfrom multiple channels, making images and data available to the case management processes.TotalAgility integrates with Kofax's Communication Server and Customer Communication Managerproduct for output management. Its integration with SMTP servers provides for easy email integrationand use of Microsoft Office for latebinding document composition and distribution. TotalAgility alsointegrates to Kofax esignature products to support use cases where signature gathering and verificationis important. TotalAgility provides integration through several methods, including industry standards suchas CMIS, technology adapters such as Web services, and platformspecific adapters for products such asMicrosoft SharePoint.

TotalAgility leverages thirdparty collaboration tools with Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint for internaland external (businesstobusiness and businesstoconsumer) collaboration. Case managementapplications can route processes based on availability, security level and skill level, and can use SharePointfor wikis, shared calendar management and collaboration workspaces. This dependence requires releasecoordination on the part of system administrators across these platforms.

TotalAgility provides extensive process auditing, analytics and dashboards. Process map analytics enableusers to rapidly identify hot spots and to understand how to effectively optimize cost or time with aprocess or activity. Inflight changes to the process can then be made by the user or automaticallyinvoked based on specific conditions. SLA indicators can be specified for any activity, allowing for quickvisualization of process issues. Predefined dashboards and mobile dashboards provide realtime businessintelligence. TotalAgility also integrates with Kofax Insight, an analytics software product acquired byKofax, for cases when broaderbased business activity monitoring and analytics capabilities are required.

Although it is built for cooperation in heterogeneous technical environments, TotalAgility is bestsuited forMicrosoft shops, which can leverage its native integration to many of the Microsoft infrastructureplatforms. Service requests and process to decision represent strong use cases for TotalAgility.

MicroPactOffering Evaluated: entellitrak Case Management Framework v.2



MicroPact is one of the smaller and more specialized providers in this analysis. Originally, a contractor tothe U.S. federal government, MicroPact shifted its business model in 2002 to become a software productprovider and launched entellitrak in 2006. This product is purposebuilt to address the complexity of casehandling. Although the core platform meets Gartner's definition of a BPMS, it is a specialized platformmeant for casemanagementstyle processes. Data (rather than workflow) is treated as the primary, firstclass object. Thus, modeling begins with the data model. Data (both structured and unstructured) andpolicies (rules) are elevated over procedures (structured and unstructured flows), all driven by contentand event states.

The CMF is bundled with the entellitrak platform but is not part of the platform. It is a crossindustrypreconfiguration at Layer B that adds common case management functionality over and above thefeatures of the platform. The framework provides basic outofthebox design patterns and executablesoftware components, such as case detail folders, workflow elements, document repositories, contacts(listings of individuals related to a case) and form letters. The platform itself includes rolebased securitymodels, user management, searching, reporting, interfaces and interoperability that are common to mostcase management scenarios. On top of the core framework, MicroPact offers 22 preconfigurations (suchas Alternative Dispute Resolution, Equal Employment Opportunity Management, Press and MediaRelations Management, Background Investigations, and Workers Compensation Case Processing) at LayerC.

With a strong focus on case data, entellitrak's best capabilities are its support for structured andunstructured data. This strengthens its rating in the investigative use case. Beyond documents,unstructured content support includes video, audio, email, scanned documents and reports. Case workerscan collaborate and comment on all types of data that exist in the system pursuant to their roles andpermissions. In addition, via the optional document management module, participants can interactfurther with the content, performing actions such as annotating, commenting, redacting andcollaborating on textbased document data. As a Java platform, entellitrak also can interoperate well withexternal assets via open Web services standards and APIs.

Entellitrak's other strength is its proven usage in largescale deployments. MicroPact has largedeployments in U.S. federal government agencies and has expanded its sales focus into the privatesector, initially targeting primarily healthcare enterprises.

Although MicroPact has good capabilities in other critical areas, many of these capabilities are not part ofthe CMF. For example, domainspecific adapters that are not part of the CMF are supplied upon request atno additional cost. In addition, mobile, direct scanning, fax and OCR (escan), and portals for constituentsexternal to the organization (efile) are provided in addon modules that aren't included in the base CMF.Parts of the business intelligence (BI) or analytics capabilities are also an optional module.

The execution behavior of solutions can be as adaptable as designers deem appropriate for the workforce.Entellitrak uses a combination of parametric, configuration and explicit models. Control over solutionbehavior is based on design approach and permissions. With permission, workers can alter models, which



are highly configurable and easy to use. However, they are not very visual. They are data and textoriented. As a platform purposebuilt for case handling, entellitrak is better at unstructured flows thantraditional structured workflows.

A weakness for entellitrak is its UI capabilities and user experience. The UIs are mostly forms. There arefew other choices of UI styles. The user experience is very dependent on role. Individual users may haveto have multiple roles within a system — each role giving that user a different view, data presentation,functionality and workflow. Additionally, users can make their own realtime dashboard reports andmetrics (and choose to share those reports), and they can choose what to expose and to hide on theirdashboards.

Newgen SoftwareOffering Evaluated: Newgen OmniFlow for Case Management 10.0 SP5

Newgen OmniFlow for Case Management is a CMF at Layer B built on the OmniFlow suite, an iBPMSproduct. The CMF includes both core BPM capabilities and "solution accelerators." Newgen's outofthebox solution frameworks at Layer C — including accelerators for service request management,correspondence management, legal case management, customer onboarding and loan origination — havebeen developed for OmniFlow for Case Management to support rapid deployments. However, the maturityof the solution accelerators is inconsistent. As such, customers' experiences will vary according to whichaccelerator is used. Through Newgen's partners, several industry and crossindustry case managementsolutions are available to help customers accelerate their time to solution (although not all are licensedsoftware). Collectively, these address some needs at Layers C and D.

OmniFlow for Case Management has strong BPM and ECM capabilities, including support for managing abroad range of data types, with an underlying repository that is platformneutral with regard to theformat of documents. It provides the ability to associate different types of objects with a case. Theseobjects include processes, documents and structured data attributes, with capabilities such as view orread, comment or redline, highlight, update or change, and append. The product has good data captureand output management capabilities with strong content capture functionality from multiple sources,including mobile capture, and integrated output management for outbound content such ascorrespondence and reports.

OmniFlow for Case Management provides a broad range of case orchestration for structured andunstructured flows. It supports case work that is eventdriven, using Esper for complexevent processing(CEP), or that requires support for ad hoc responsiveness within specific contexts. Using its processengine, the product can leverage business rules as it accesses structured data, unstructured content andrepositories of process models. It can then use analytics to provide reporting and case status, andmaintain context throughout a case cycle.

One of the strengths of OmniFlow for Case Management is its user personalization and graphical UI (GUI)support. The GUI architecture is based on a component model where a container called OmniApp is



provided. Administrators can configure different desktops and dashboards for different sets of users andapplications. The product provides default processing desktops for all standard use cases, which can befurther configured. An HTML5based mobile app for content and workflow management is also availablefor users with features such as viewing, searching, imaging, downloading and emailing of case documentson their mobile devices.

Overall, OmniFlow for Case Management provides a strong flexible and configurable platform for casemanagement, with industry solution accelerators for quick deployments. Newgen's multiproduct approachis architecturally designed on the same core software platform, which will lower the integrationcomplexities, risks and costs.

OpenTextOffering Evaluated: OpenText Process Suite v.10.6

OpenText Process Suite includes casehandling capabilities and packages Process Suite platform v.10.6(the OpenText Cordys BPM engine), Process Component Library v.10.6, Process Experience v.10.6,Process Intelligence v.10.6 and BPM Everywhere v.10.6 into one bundle. OpenText's basic CMF is anassembly of crossindustry componentlevel assets in its Process Component Library. Process supportuses CMMN and BPMN standards. Checklists, services and templates allow for structured componentizedprocesses, executed as defined or as options for knowledge specialistsroles based.

OpenText Process Suite is a BPMS that provides strong content services as well as integration to a broadrange of content management systems and cloudbased filesharing solutions. The platform includesadditional crossindustry capabilities (such as project management, SLAs, checklists and a shopping cart).OpenText's content management products also complement the Process Suite.

Another part of the Process Suite is BPM Everywhere, a cloudbased social collaboration service thatfacilitates user collaboration on topics, cases and processes. The open interface also allows integrationwith clientspecific platforms. The Process Suite is a multitenant solution that is offered in multipleconfigurations, including public cloud, private cloud and managed services, at an attractive price point.The OpenText Process Suite platform includes Jackrabbit, an embedded open source content repository forbasic content management. It also includes a standard JSR170compliant interface to external ECM andDCM solutions, along with integration for OpenText Content Server. SOA services and enterprise servicebus (ESB) functionality are provided for service development and more complex integrations.

OpenText is neither industry nor horizontalbusinesssolutionfocused. It is more of a platform providerwith some solutions offered partly as a result of its acquisitions. It has recently released a Digital MediaSupply Chain app and a Contracts Management app. Like many other cloud platform providers, OpenTextis trying to attract solution providers to its Enterprise App Store. Its Process Component Library containssoftware components organized by business logic, technical functionality and UI components, forexample. Some are configurable, and some are not. These assets provide architectural guidance at acomponent level, but not at a solution level. OpenText has leveraged some of these components to create



its own basic CMF (Layer B). Process Component Library assets are licensed as part of the BPMS platform.The Process Suite has limited capabilities for handling structured content for case management domains.

OpenText typically promotes its Process Suite as a platform particularly wellsuited for contentheavyprocess domains (such as incidents and investigations). It also adheres to the industry standard definitionof Service Request and Request Fulfillment: Service Request (ITIL V3). Many customers have leveragedthis standard to create their own service request casehandling solutions.

PegasystemsOffering Evaluated: Pega 7

As an iBPMS market leader with a platform that supports many process styles very well, Pegasystems isthe highestrated provider in this evaluation.

Pega 7 is an application infrastructure platform that uses an eventstatebased architecture. It combinesprocess flow definitions, rule processing, data handling, crossplatform UIs (mobile and other), predictiveanalytics, business activity monitoring (BAM), content management, application integration and otherfunctions in one direct, modeldriven development and runtime architecture. It is a functionally rich andsophisticated Java platform. Pegasystems does not offer a separate generalpurpose CMF (at Layer B).Rather, it offers more than 20 crossindustry and verticalindustryspecific solution frameworks for manysolution domains, some of which are caseoriented. These solutions are additional, licensed, feebasedsolutions on top of the platform at Layers C and D.

Pega 7 scored well in many areas. This is a mature product, with strong balanced functionality across allof our nine defined capabilities. Much of this strength derives from its unified architecture and integratedtechnologies. There is no repackaged technology here; Pegasystems owns it all. When Pegasystemsacquires technologies (for example, its recent acquisition of Antenna Software to enhance its mobilecapabilities), it reimplements the capabilities to tightly integrate them into the platform. Internally, Pega7 is a multilayered set of models and modules, with many APIs, Web services and other interfaces (suchas RESTful ones) that can be used to integrate external business applications into the solution.

Another major strength of Pega 7 is its declarative rules language. Rules are the primary mechanism bywhich solution behavior is controlled, at very finegrained levels of restriction or freedom. For example,the user experience and UIs are controlled through rules. Rules are also used to control and automateupgrades. Rules are used to intelligently capture content from various data captures, as well as tocustomize correspondence for output managements. Rules also enable Pega 7 to handle complex, nestedcase hierarchies very well. Rules enable Pega 7 to support a very wide range of solution behavior, fromvery prescriptive and controlled to very dynamic and ad hoc, should the designers wish to grant thatdegree of freedom to individuals or groups of workers. In this way, solutions built in Pega 7 have thepotential to be more adaptive than those offered by most other providers in this evaluation (although feworganizations fully exploit its power).



Although most of the critical capabilities we define in this report have been in the platform for years, theywere not readily obvious to solution architects. In Pega 7, Pegasystems introduced a new visual designer,referred to as its "stagebased" case designer, meant to simplify the visualization and management of thecase life cycle and introduce case types and stages. Stages in the new designer reflect the major actionsfor case handling and represent milestones. Conceptually, milestones are relevant to many types ofcases. Similar to project work, many types of cases have dependent tasks or workflows that have to syncup at certain points — milestones. Cases are often reassessed at these points to determine the next mostappropriate actions. (Healthcare claims offer an example of case handling that often utilizes this concept.)Furthermore, changes in one case can have a ripple effect on other cases. The new designer is meant tohelp move customers from linear workflow thinking to context and outcome thinking.

Nevertheless, we did not find this new designer that helpful for achieving these goals. Althoughsomewhat intuitive for business roles, its chevron shapes aggregate actions into "stages" — milestones —in a list view, visually conveying linear, predictable flow rather than multiple, dependent and potentiallyparallel flows. Designing dependent, parallel flows is a critical architectural requirement for casemanagement. Thus, we do not find this new designer that helpful for solution architects. Specifically,there is no guidance in the product that helps an architect decide:

Is my problem caselike?

If it is caselike, should I use the stagebased designer or the traditional designer? Are thereconsequences to my choice?

Similar to IBM and EMC, Pega 7's sophistication comes at a high price in licensing costs and desirableprofessional services. Pegasystems' solution content is strong and often competes effectively with fullCOTS applications. Unlike traditional COTS applications, Pegasystems' "build for change" solutionframeworks are more easily extended, integrated and configured to meet specific buyer needs. However,most buyers desire professional services assistance to do this work, at least initially, because thedevelopment paradigm of Pega 7 is so different from other environments they've used previously. Thus,there is a learning curve. In addition, customization of the solution frameworks requires a solidunderstanding of the outofthebox functionality. Pegasystems has many trained and certified partnersto deliver these services, as well as a smaller professional services group of its own.

Context

Our analysis of these offerings suggests that BPMplatformbased providers represent a market segment4

with considerable promise, but one that also has several areas of immaturity and room for improvement.Based on the capabilities of these offerings, "adaptive case management" is still more hype than reality.The "adaptive" behavior enabled in these frameworks is typically limited by predetermined options,human tasks only and rolebased privileges. Many use configuration and parametric models that exposepredetermined options rather than incorporating techniques and technologies that enable unplannedsolution behavior at execution time (aka in production mode). Vendors that scored higher in our adaptive



casehandling capability enable more behavioral changes than others.

In some of these solutions, case workers can initiate an ad hoc (discretionary) human action on a case,altering the execution behavior directly. This is particularly useful to empower case workers to create anaction specific to an individual case such as request additional data, route the case to be reviewed withsomeone outside of the defined participants, repeat a prior action and delay until some time frame orevent. Vendors incorporate various techniques to do this, and the implementation details are revealing.Some use techniques that establish constraints — guardrails — around the types of actions that arepossible, but without prescribing every possible action. In others, the action is openended, with metadatacaptured in the execution history that describes its context, giving the case worker more freedom to takemore dynamic action.

"Ad hoc action" is a crucial concept to adaptive case management, yet there is no universal definition of

what exactly this means.5 The idea is to essentially empower the worker to alter the flow and theactivity, based on context, judgment, data and policies, rather than following a prescribed set of actionsand flow. The CMMN 1.0 specification gets closer than BPMN 2.0 to describing such behavior. Enablingunplanned actions and unplanned sequences in this way requires enterprises to maintain a fine linebetween chaos and control. Enterprises interested in this capability should examine tools closely,leveraging our scores in the adaptive casehandling capability, to see how well the product enables themto establish that fine line.

Currently, buyer demand for truly dynamic and ad hoc adaptation at the individual case level remainsrelatively rare. For most users, predefined and userselected options for case handling are sufficient.(Buyers who do not want solutions that offer adaptive behavior should consider a more traditional casemanagement specialized COTS application, rather than a CMF.) We recommend that clients consider theirpotential requirements for "adaptive" behavior in casestyle work and identify appropriate guardrails tocontain chaos while also empowering case workers to exploit their judgment and expertise. Accordingly,they should evaluate COTS compared with CMFs based on the degree of adaptability of the solution andhow that adaptability is achieved.

In general, the client reference examples we reviewed demonstrated adaptability in conjunction with dataand process integrity. These modeldriven CMFs offer greater short and longterm flexibility for casemanagement use cases compared with traditional coded COTS specialty applications for casemanagement domains. The use of visual models (including configuration, parametric and explicit models),declarative languages, heuristics (based on rules), as well as XML event and statedriven runtimeengines are the main contributors to this greater level of adaptability. Many of the solutions reviewed

here provide outofthebox configuration and parametric models,6 which are valuable for acceleratingimplementation time, given how difficult it can be to design and architect case management solutionsfrom scratch. However, configuration and parametric models are not as easily extended and modified asexplicit metadata models.



In addition, the coinnovation7 capabilities offered by these frameworks tend to be better than those ofCOTS applications, although there is still much room for improvement in this area. True coinnovationmeans that the provider's upgrade procedure is intelligent and automated. It protects buyercustomizations by eliminating manual reconciliation of changes made by both parties. An intelligentupgrade procedure lowers the risks and costs of maintaining an adaptable solution.

Product/Service Class Definition

Case handling is a complex and unstructured process style8 where:

The flow of work (the individual case) is nonlinear, often recursive and not easily predetermined atdesign time.

Multiple, dependent workflows often run in parallel for different objects in the case.

Although case management applications have existed for years, as a process style, case management isnow being adopted more broadly in industries beyond the government, legal and insurance sectors. Newareas being considered for case management software designs include mortgage origination, investmentportfolio management, various fraud detection domains, HR grievances, background checks, universityadmissions, grants management and customer complaints. The degree of flexibility needed forprogressing cases in each of these domains to a successful outcome varies considerably. Casemanagementstyle processes range from areas where the workflow and data interactions are fairly wellunderstood and somewhat structured (such as insurance claims), to highly diagnostic and investigativecase domains, which are far less structured and more challenging. The latter case management domains

are increasingly described as "adaptive"9 or "dynamic" case management by providers.

CMFs evaluated in this report are commercial software offerings designed to reduce the complexity ofcreating casestyle process solutions by embedding some best practices and architectural patterns intothe framework. They provide outofthebox design patterns and executable software components (suchas case folders, content indexing, rolebased workbenches, business rules, activities and milestones) to beconfigured and extended by buyers. BPMplatformbased CMFs can be crossindustry design patterns forcertain types of case work (such as investigative cases or service request cases), solutionspecific (such asoffers for university admission or tax filings), or industryspecific (such as U.S. healthcare medical claims).Even frameworks that are application or industryspecific are still frameworks — that is, partial solutions,not 100% application solutions. Unlike a traditional packaged application, a framework is not meant toprovide 100% of needed functionality. It is an outofthebox design pattern meant to jumpstartsolution creation and be finished by the end consumer.

BPMplatformbasedbased CMFs enable buyers to create a customized solution, using a "middle ground"option between the usual "buy" and "build" choices. Although case management is not a new processstyle, BPMplatformbased frameworks are a relatively new product offering. Because casestyle work isunstructured, any commercial solution — whether a traditional packaged application or a newer, BPM



platformbased framework — must provide buyers with an ability to easily adjust, extend the functionalityand customize functionality to their needs. The modeldriven approach of BPMplatformbased CMFsmakes them easier to modify and maintain than traditional coded and compiled application solutions. Thetechniques mentioned above to enable dynamic and ad hoc actions also add greater degrees of flexibilitythan traditional COTS applications.

Critical Capabilities DefinitionA differentiating aspect of case work is that the case flow can rarely be completely predetermined and,therefore, cannot completely be prescribed at design time. Most case work requires some degree ofadaptive behavior in the runtime experience, which enables the case worker to address the unique needsof his or her case. Buyers of BPMplatformbased CMFs must determine the right degree of adaptabilityneeded for their solution domain. Typically, the progression of a case is partially structured(predetermined) and partially unstructured.

There are two approaches for delimiting the range of adaptability:

At one end of the spectrum, case work can be performed according to a design (doingbydesign),where handling options are predefined as part of the design. Here, workers choose the mostappropriate option for their case.

At the other end of the spectrum, case handling can be performed completely at the discretion ofthe case worker (design by doing), where the case worker decides what should happen next, basedon context. Case handling is improvised based on the contextual situation.

Most buyer requirements exist somewhere between these two extremes. Thus, a key requirement is toconsider how adaptive case handling needs to be.

Ways of striking a balance between planned and unplanned actions include limiting privileges and accessrights based on role, named worker or some other criteria; limiting the type of ad hoc action (that is,humanperformed tasks only); or limiting the timing/context of when the actions can occur.

Gartner has defined the following nine critical capabilities that a BPMplatform based CMF should reflect.The capability may be located within the CMF itself or on the BPM platform on which the CMF is based. Weapply these critical capabilities to the CMFs included in this evaluation to help enterprises distinguish theright product based on their intended use for these solutions.

Adaptive Case HandlingCase workers often need the ability to decide on the best, next action to take on a case, based on thecontext. Adaptive behavior refers to the type of actions possible (planned and unplanned, human andsystem performed) and the timing of when such actions can occur (planned and unplanned).



Runtime adaptive behavior can be triggered in many ways, such as through heuristic rules, policies,human decisions, automated decisions, autonomous machines, pattern matching, context metadata,eventdriven architecture and more. Buyers should evaluate closely who can take what action and atwhat point in time. Such behavior is described using various, nonstandard terms, including dynamic, adhoc and improvisational behavior. The key is to look at how both human and system behavior isconstrained or not, and how well it matches to your needs.

Content InteractionThis critical capability supports a broad range of interactions with information content associated with thecase or cases.

Case workers must be able to interact with information or content associated with the case, withcapabilities such as view/read, comment/redline, highlight, update/change, append and search/filter.

Runtime CollaborationIndividuals and groups working on a case, including internal and external case participants, candynamically collaborate throughout the case life cycle.

The solution supports collaboration among people (and even potentially with machines)10 and records allinteractions as part of the audit trail of how a case is handled. Multiple technologies are typicallyintegrated to support collaborative interactions, including email, chat, IM, social media, erooms, threadedconversations, simultaneous editing and remote screen sharing.

Integration and InteroperabilityThe solution is easily integrated and interoperable with external assets, including vertical and horizontalspecific applications and databases.

Case management solutions often depend on external content and process services derived fromrepositories and applications that the BPMplatformbased CMF provider does not provide. The attractionof open, standard specifications (like CMIS, RESTful interfaces and Web services standards) is thatintegration with external software assets should minimize coding. Integration and interoperability shouldbe as easy as possible. BPMplatformbased CMFs must integrate with critical systems of record, includinglegacy, industry, Web and social data sources.

Case management applications often depend on industryspecific, esoteric commercial applications. BPMplatformbased CMF providers are wellacquainted with the specialized applications and data sources thatdominate the industries and domains in focus. Consequently, they offer outofthebox specializedintegration technology to accelerate integration with these core systems.

In addition, to avoid turning BPMplatformbased CMFs into yet another application silo, the best BPMplatformbased CMFs are designed to interoperate with thirdparty content and process services, perhaps



by leveraging an existing (dominant) client such as a Microsoft Office or SharePoint, a JSR 168 portlet tointeroperate with common portals, or a rich Internet client that works across multiple browsers or withmultiple application servers. Similarly, case handling is often constrained by rules that may be managedin an external rule engine and thus shared across the BPMplatformbased CMF and other applications.

Data Capture and Output ManagementThe solution incorporates intelligent and versatile data capture and output management.

Data capture and output should be able to use a broad range of data types, from highly structured data(such as an individual's name, address or ID) to highly unstructured data (such as scanned images,blueprints, faxes, email communications, and audio or video files). From data captures — such as OCRdevices, document scanners, mobile phone cameras, fax servers and eforms — data is captured,validated and moved directly into cases as appropriate.

Output management includes the ability to generate outbound content — like reports or precomposedletters, correspondence or statements. In addition, the ability to export case data to third parties througha variety of outbound file formats is also important.

OutoftheBox ComponentsThe solution provides outofthebox licensed solution components, such as domainspecific business logicand functions as configurable and extensible models to easily create a unique, scalable implementation.Solutions may be industry or crossindustryspecific.

Frameworks are distinguished from traditional commercial offtheshelf applications in that they are notintended to be a perfect, 100% fitforpurpose solution. They are intentionally designed for configuration,integration, interoperability and extension, and provide high value to buyers by accelerating the time to aunique implementation with little to no custom coding.

BPMplatformbased CMFs use visual models (which may use CMMN, BPMN or some other notations) thatare interpreted at runtime by an orchestration engine. Models are essentially metadata, not code.Solution behavior is changed by extending the models through configuration, integration and addedfunctionality, using the platform's tooling and interoperating with external software assets.

Ideally, the framework also provides architectural guidance appropriate to the solution domain byincluding workflow patterns, case data objects, metric and case hierarchy patterns, wizards, coaching/helptext, downloadable examples or even an implementation methodology. Architectural guidance should alsoaddress the consumer's scalability requirements.

Intelligent UpgradesThe solution supports coinnovation, enabling easy reconciliation of buyer and provider changes.



Ideally, configuration and extensibility are not just an initial, onetime design consideration. Rather,models enable consumers to make ongoing improvements, innovations and adaptations to the solutionwithout overly complicating their ability to adopt new versions — in whole or in part — from theproviders.

Traditionally, consumer "customization" of COTS applications dramatically inhibits the ability to upgradethe application. The more customization, the more difficult upgrades become. With BPMplatformbasedCMFs, the "model as metadata" approach facilitates the ease and visibility of changes. Additionalmechanisms are also needed to reconcile potentially duplicative, contradictory and overlappingfunctionality added to the solution by provider and consumer. Buyerspecific configurations, extensionsand integrations must be respected and reconciled appropriately with vendorprovided changes. Multipleversions can coexist. In other words, there is a builtin governance process to manage the versioning ofsolution components independently, as well as holistically, to enable continuous innovation.

RoleBased User ExperienceA solution provides comprehensive and highly configurable rolebased user experiences, including supportfor mobility.

Every manager wants to limit the amount of training, support and change management required forpeople to adopt a new case management application. Moreover, experience suggests that rolebased UIsand workbenches focus and simplify case handling and provide a critical step toward overall productivitygain. Beyond the UIs themselves, BPMplatformbased CMFs should provide case participants with roleappropriate usability features that ease the learning curve; drive adoption and offer selfhelp andcontextual guidance for best next actions; and enable ongoing configurability and personalization that isappropriate to the participant's level of experience and case focus. (Case participants include case workers,third parties with vested interests, managers, and customers or constituents.)

In addition, BPMplatformbased CMFs must support a wide variety of mobile devices and actions ondevices appropriate for case participants. Essentially, the BPMplatformbased CMF delivers acontextualized experience, reflecting one's role, one's device and the context within the case progression.(These kinds of capabilities are often described as "responsive UIs.") Support for offline mobile work is stillemerging. Typically, the actions that can be performed in that mode are limited to tasks that wereassigned the last time the user was online. Complex validations and process orchestration are typicallydeferred until the case worker goes back online. Buyers should be cognizant of how such limitations mayimpact their case solution.

RoleAppropriate AnalyticsA solution provides roleappropriate analytics, including nearrealtime dashboards, metrics, decisionmanagement and reporting.

Buyers want a case management solution that enables subject matter experts to receive meaningfulinformation from the solution, both in real time and for historical reporting purposes. BPMplatformbased



CMFs should provide outofthebox, roleappropriate dashboards, with analytical models, easyvisualization of analysis and report creation, as well as open and easy access to the case execution'shistory database/logs. Prebuilt, prepopulated metrics reflecting solutionappropriate milestones and goalsand support for critical decision making (such as predictive analytics, recommendations, toleranceguardrails and others) are highly desirable.

Use CasesGartner has defined four primary use cases for which we evaluated the BPMplatformbased CMFsincluded in this report.

Investigative CasesInvestigative cases are perhaps the most complex in terms of process (workflow) and content (data).

These cases are dataheavy. Often, data is captured as part of the case, and relationships between dataelements emerge over time. Patterns in the data are discovered, evaluated and acted on. Sequencing ofactions on the case is very ad hoc, and event and milestonedriven. Examples include tax, credit and

insurance fraud, as well as legal investigations, background checks and IP protection.11

Incident ManagementIncident management (collaborationheavy) cases are highly complex, largely because they don't happenon a schedule.

They are anticipated, but the timing of their occurrence is highly unpredictable. Natural disasters, car orworkplace accidents, illnesses, HR grievances, and patient care are examples. These cases often exhibit agreater sense of urgency for resolution than other types of cases. Although these cases are dataintensive (similar to investigative cases), the process is adapted to the situation and often requires ad hocactions in addition to planned actions for anticipated scenarios. Thus, these cases are most distinguishedby the degree of collaboration activity required to resolve the case.

There are a wide range of "incidents" within industries and domains, some of which are subjected tonational standards, such as National Incident Management System (NIMS)/Incident Command System

(ICS).12

Service RequestService request (workflowheavy) cases involve the fulfillment of a request for servicing.

Fulfillment is often a contractual obligation that specifies the servicelevel expectation. These casesprogress in a fairly structured manner, where the appropriate actions and sequences are wellestablished.In casestyle work, a large number of actions and sequences are possible, and the case worker mustdecide which of the various options is appropriate to the circumstances. These cases are workflowheavy,



meaning that the workflow is complex and critical to how outcomes are achieved. Examples includeinsurance and healthcare claims, warranty fulfillment, and telecommunications service provisioning.

ProcesstoDecisionProcesstodecision (rule or policyheavy) cases are more structured than other types. The workflow ismore easily predicted and can be designed into a software solution.

The purpose of these cases is to make a decision, in cases where a wellestablished and often large set ofrules or policies must be followed to make that decision. The rules tend to change frequently, and may beregulated by an industry or a government agency. These cases are ruleheavy. Examples includemortgage origination, compliance audits and tax filings.

Vendors Added and DroppedAddedAINS, AWPL and Eccentex

DroppedBe Informed, BizFlow, Isis Papyrus and K2

Inclusion CriteriaWe applied the following criteria for a product to be included in this BPMplatformbased CMF evaluation:

The CMF and related solutions use a BPM platform of some type (BPM platform, BPMS, iBPMS) toexecute.

The provider offers case management solution frameworks in addition to its BPM platform. Theframework is easily distinguishable (separated) from the platform itself, although the vendor maybundle the frameworks with the platform from a packaging and/or a pricing perspective.

The framework provider has demonstrated a focus on CMFs, and its case management solutionshave been available and actively marketed to buyers for at least 12 months prior to the start of ourmarket evaluation (31 August 2014) represented in the companion Magic Quadrant. Ideally, theframeworks are licensed, productized offerings.

The provider markets its products across multiple industries, rather than focusing on being anindustry specialist, concentrating on one industry.

The provider's frameworks have been leveraged by customers to implement all four styles of casehandling: (1) investigative cases; (2) incident management cases; (3) service request cases; and(4) processtodecision cases (see "Critical Capabilities for Case Management Frameworks").

The vendor provided Gartner with five client references — representing a diversity of industries and



use cases — that have had the BPMplatformbased CMF in production for at least a year.

Vendors Considered but Not IncludedThe providers listed below were considered for this report but were not included because they did notmeet one or more of the inclusion criteria previously listed.

Adeptia

AgilePoint

Alfresco

Appway

BizAgi

Barium

BizFlow

BP Logix

Camunda

Canea

CoCENTRIX

Column Technologies

Computas

Consor

DST Systems

IActive

Intalio

Microsoft

Oracle

Salesforce

ServiceNow

Software AG

TIBCO Software

Whitestein

XMPro

Furthermore, we excluded system integration and professional service firms that offer verticalindustry



or crossindustryspecific solutions built on someone else's BPMplatformbased technology platform. Forexample, IBM has a number of partners that offer COTS solutions built on the IBM Case Manager. Wefocused on the providers of the frameworks, rather than solutions built using those frameworks.

Table 1. Weighting for Critical Capabilities in Use Cases

Critical Capabilities InvestigativeCases

IncidentManagement

ServiceRequest

ProcesstoDecision

Adaptive Case Handling 20% 15% 5% 2%

Content Interaction 25% 1% 1% 10%

Runtime Collaboration 20% 30% 25% 10%

Integration andInteroperability

1% 20% 5% 5%

Data Capture and OutputManagement

1% 5% 5% 35%

OutoftheBox Components 1% 2% 14% 5%

Intelligent Upgrades 2% 10% 25% 20%

RoleBased User Experience 20% 7% 5% 7%

RoleAppropriate Analytics 10% 10% 15% 6%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

As of August 2015


This methodology requires analysts to identify the critical capabilities for a class of products/services. Eachcapability is then weighed in terms of its relative importance for specific product/service use cases.

Critical Capabilities RatingBased on these criteria, we rated products from 12 vendors. Each of the product sets that meets ourinclusion criteria has been evaluated for its critical capabilities on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest

score and 5 the highest.13 Table 2 shows product ratings on the critical capabilities.



Table 2. Product/Service Rating on Critical Capabilities

CriticalCapabilities

AINS Appian AWPL Eccentex EMC Hyland IBM Lexmark(Kofax)

MicroPact NewgenSoftware

Adaptive CaseHandling

3.5 4.3 3.7 3.5 4.3 3.0 4.3 3.5 3.5 3.9

ContentInteraction

4.0 3.8 3.4 3.5 4.5 4.0 4.5 3.8 4.0 4.3

RuntimeCollaboration

4.0 4.5 2.5 3.5 3.2 3.0 3.5 3.6 3.0 3.5

IntegrationandInteroperability

3.5 4.7 3.8 3.0 4.0 3.7 3.8 3.7 3.0 3.9

Data Captureand OutputManagement

4.0 3.5 3.8 2.0 4.2 3.5 4.0 3.8 3.7 4.0

OutoftheBoxComponents

3.5 3.0 4.0 2.8 4.0 2.0 4.2 3.5 3.6 4.1

IntelligentUpgrades

2.5 2.5 3.8 2.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 2.5 2.5 3.0

RoleBasedUserExperience

4.0 4.6 4.2 2.7 3.8 2.5 4.0 3.5 3.5 3.5

RoleAppropriateAnalytics

3.0 3.5 2.8 2.6 4.0 2.5 4.0 3.8 3.8 3.8


Table 3 shows the product/service scores for each use case. The scores, which are generated bymultiplying the usecase weightings by the product/service ratings, summarize how well the criticalcapabilities are met for each use case.



Table 3. Product Score in Use Cases

Use Cases AINS Appian AWPL Eccentex EMC Hyland IBM Lexmark(Kofax)

MicroPact NewgenSoftware

InvestigativeCases

3.76 4.14 3.40 3.20 3.95 3.09 4.07 3.61 3.53 3.82

IncidentManagement

3.57 4.13 3.32 3.07 3.61 3.02 3.76 3.52 3.20 3.67

ServiceRequest

3.36 3.59 3.36 2.88 3.32 2.71 3.66 3.35 3.17 3.58

ProcesstoDecision

3.58 3.56 3.61 2.61 3.63 3.10 3.81 3.47 3.37 3.73


To determine an overall score for each product/service in the use cases, multiply the ratings in Table 2 bythe weightings shown in Table 1.

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Critical Capabilities for BPM-Platform-Based Case Management Frameworks

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