Metastorm Upgrades Business Process Discovery Tool

Metastorm has upgraded its business process discovery tool, which provides faster and more accurate data collection and metrics used in the company's process modeling software.

Discovery Version 6.4 introduces wireless data collection, better reporting capabilities and tighter integration with Metastorm's modeling tool ProVision.

Discovery is used to capture data about a business process from workers' computers and is particularly useful for human-centric processes, according to Metastorm, which also sells a suite of business process management software. For example, an organization can use Discovery to engineer a process metric study by gathering data from people involved in the process, generating analysis reports and then using the data in ProVision for modeling and further statistical analysis.

"The product gives customers the framework needed to address the process discovery phase of the business process improvement lifecycle," Greg Carter, chief technology officer and executive VP of development for Metastorm, said in a statement.

A study of 20 participants can generate in excess of 8,000 data points in two weeks. Rather than hire consultants to make sense out of the data, Discovery can automate the process, according to Metastorm.

The latest version of Discovery enables organizations to gather data from process participants through a Bluetooth-equipped handheld computer that they can use to self-record activities and related events.

Other improvements include a better library of standard "one-click" reports and improved performance of data import and export for cleansing and for custom report development in Microsoft Excel, company officials said.

Discovery v6.4 was released last week. Pricing was not disclosed.

Metastorm last month released an upgrade of its BPM suite, which included extended support for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and added business activity monitoring on Windows Vista.

Metastorm has moved its BPM, business process analysis and enterprise architecture software to a common platform that the company calls Metastorm Enterprise. The platform includes shared services and a common meta-model for better visibility and understanding of the impact of decisions. The latest version of Metastorm BPM leverages the simulation engine of Metatstorm ProVision for evaluating new process models.