Lombardi Upgrades SaaS-Based BPM Software 2

Lombardi has upgraded the software-as-a-service version of its business process management software, adding social-networking features.

In general, Lombardi Blueprint is a human-centric BPM product that takes aim at Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Visio, which are popular tools of process analysts. "Blueprint provides a process modeling and discovery platform that blends collaboration and documentation capabilities into an easy-to-use, low cost, software-as-a-service offering that can be used by beginner to expert process analysts," Forrester analyst Clay Richardson said in a recent report.

In the Spring '09 release of Blueprint announced this week, Lombardi borrows from the community-building features in online social networking sites, such asFacebook, Ning , Linked In and Twitter. The company has added read-only views of process maps and diagrams that allow line of business employees, partners and customers to comment directly in threaded conversations with process authors.

People who make comments are notified via Facebook-like feeds when their comments are replied to, when processes have changed and when co-workers join or leave process groups.

"People can think of Blueprint as disintermediating the typical employee suggestion box; it takes those suggestions, structures them automatically, and then allows the ‘process people’ to directly implement those suggestions into their process documentation and practices," Barton George, director of business development and marketing for Blueprint said in a statement.

Other new features include a taxonomy that supports creation, categorization and tagging of process metadata automatically, enabling easier browsing and navigation through lists of published items. In addition, the log-in page immediately tells users which processes have been published, which processes they're involved in have been edited and who has commented on processes.