Business Convergence Suite

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M1 Global Solutions, Inc. Business Convergence Suite, Version 2.0

Business Convergence Suite

Version: 2.0

M1 Global Solutions, Inc.

3348 Peachtree Road, NE, Suite 200, Atlanta, GA 30326 Tel: 404-419-7000

Web: www.m1global.com Email: [email protected]

1 Product

Overview

M1 Global’s Business Convergence Suite uses the power of the process model and execution engine to orchestrate the firm’s communication channels (e.g., voice, web, email, etc.), as well as its people and systems. Through the associated multi-channel interfaces, the firm can extend the power of model-driven processing into channels of interaction with customers and partners.

M1 Global points to the need to link customer channels with business processes. In many traditional development environments, the interface is independent of the module in which one describes the business process. Yet, when it comes to the work that humans do , the interface mechanisms are usually as important as the business process itself. One cannot always assume that the customer is going to take part in the process only via the web. He or she may walk into a bricks and mortar shop, send a fax or an email, call, or even IM. The only viable way to circumscribe a comprehensive customer experience is to integrate all of these disparate channels into the parent process.

Utilizing a BPMN compliant process-modeling environment (M1 Convergence Studio), business users build high-level process models for the core process. IT personnel are then able to build the various interface flows and complete process models with technical details, such as web services configuration and data mapping. M1 Convergence Studio is available for download under a free license.

As business process models are completed, they are deployed as byte code optimized for the M1 Convergence Engine (the Engine). The core Engine is a highly scaleable process and interface execution server that coordinates and manages the process flow, along with all integration needs (via Web Services) with the various channels of interaction (including integration to the PBX, IVR, web servers, email servers, IM, etc.). Rather than handling each channel as an external application that must be integrated via data, Interaction Managers enable the firm to use the Engine to directly execute subflows that are specific to each channel.

While other BPM Suites often provide support for the web-based screens, the M1 Convergence Suite directly supports all potential interaction channels involved. For instance, the Engine can be used to execute self-service voice applications or transfer phone calls and data to the correct user. Moreover, the environment incorporates an enterprise-class, skills-based routing component that can make sub-second routing determinations that use complex skills matching algorithms typically found in large call center applications.

In addition to offering its software under a traditional subscription contract, M1 Global provides an On

Demand option, enabling customers to purchase business process and interaction management capability,

as needed. This infrastructure can help support business process outsourcing and distribution of work to remote locations. It includes the hardware and software infrastructure components such as PBX, VoIP equipment, IVR, web servers, email servers, and chat/collaboration servers. The infrastructure is deployed in a state-of-the-art hosting facility with carrier-grade bandwidth for data and voice traffic (both VoIP and traditional circuit-switched TDM).

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2 BPM

Engine

The M1 Convergence Engine is the runtime component of the M1 Convergence Suite. The Engine manages the state of all process instances and participants, handling the process flow and integrating external systems with channel-specific communications hardware/software. Its underlying architecture is designed to ensure that both human and system based resources are prioritized appropriately; to support both synchronous and asynchronous communications routing; and to deliver work within both long- and short-running business processes.

The Engine has plug-in modules called Interaction Managers that are responsible for managing different interaction channels when engaging participants outside of the main employee-focused Work Portal. These components execute the channel-specific integration logic to talk to enterprise communications hardware/software (PBX, IVR, web server, email server, Web Services, etc.). Interaction Managers direct the interaction channel according to the business process and underlying channel-specific interface flows modeled in M1 Convergence Studio. Where possible, these Interaction Managers leverage related standards, allowing the product to talk to the widest range of systems. For instance, the Interaction Manager for voice uses VoiceXML to drive a natural language speech application and standards such as CCXML and CSTA to control phone calls on a PBX.

Deployment Mgmt Skills-Based Routing Business Process Engine Scheduler Queuing Audit Logging

Data Access Services

Roles/Security BP Mgmt Interaction Mgmt Enterprise Portal State Management WebSvcs Business Rules Engine Database Managers Web Voice Email Web Services Chat/Collab Deployment Mgmt Skills-Based Routing Business Process Engine Scheduler Queuing Audit Logging

Work Portal Roles/Security BP Mgmt Interaction Mgmt Enterprise Portal State Management WebSvcs Business Rules Engine Database Interaction Managers Web Voice Email Web Services Chat/Collab Convergence Engine Deployment Mgmt Skills-Based Routing Business Process Engine Scheduler Queuing Audit Logging

Work Portal Roles/Security BP Mgmt Interaction Mgmt Enterprise Portal State Management WebSvcs Business Rules Engine Database Interaction Managers Web Voice Email Web Services Chat/Collab Deployment Mgmt Skills-Based Routing Business Process Engine Scheduler Queuing Audit Logging

Work Portal Roles/Security BP Mgmt Interaction Mgmt Enterprise Portal State Management WebSvcs Business Rules Engine Database Interaction Managers Web Voice Email Web Services Chat/Collab Convergence Engine

Figure 1. Logical view of the M1 Convergence Engine

The product incorporates a sophisticated Skills-Based Routing component. Instead of limiting work distribution to role-based routing, this component applies the sophisticated algorithms used in massive contact centers to make sub-second routing determinations for all types of work. To do this, the Routing engine matches work items (including synchronous and asynchronous media types) to users, based on a number of factors such as skills, availability, utilization, proficiency, desire to use, desired work item cost, etc.

The State Management component handles a number of different things. In common with all other BPM Suites, the engine maintains the state of all process instances (cases). But it also tracks the live status of individual users and other components in the system, allowing the system to differentiate between employees when trying to support hot synchronous interactions (Chat/IM and other synchronous collaboration environments). Cold work includes email or approval tasks whereas phone calls and chat sessions need people that are there (not in the bathroom or out to lunch). This status information is also linked into the workload distribution algorithms and skills-based routing components.

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At deployment time, individual process models are converted to byte code. While an interpreted model has certain advantages, it cannot handle the sub-second response times required by a telephony network (typically less than 200 milliseconds).

The entire suite makes extensive use of Web Services. They are used for all external LOB application integration, and they can be used to facilitate the reuse of processes as objects, and/or to fast track the development of a Shared Data Space. The Web Service Interaction Manager enables third party applications to invoke processes within the suite and, unusually, query and report on the status of process instances. We understand that the next version will provide full Web Services access to all administration functions, such as the retrieval of all work items assigned to a user/team, or the listing of all instances of a given process (e.g., all open loan applications), and other system administrative functions.

2.1 Platforms

M1 Convergence Engine requires a J2EE application server running on either Linux or Windows. It is currently certified to run on IBM WebSphere and JBoss. The database must be either Oracle or DB2. M1 Convergence Studio is a plug-in to the Eclipse IDE framework.

2.2 User Interface

The Work Portal leverages a portal framework to allow an organization to easily bring together all the components users need to perform their tasks. M1 Global delivers two components out-of-the box – a Queue portlet and a Business Process portlet. Together, they allow a user to manage and work on Tasks that have been assigned to them. When a user opens a particular work item, the Work Portal may also pop additional portlets to support that task according to how the task has been modeled in M1 Convergence Studio.

2.3 Scalability

The M1 Convergence Engine is a J2EE-based platform that takes advantage of the inherent scalability and fail-over capabilities provided by leading J2EE application servers. The work distribution algorithms support load balancing of resources, ensuring that particular users or work queues are not overloaded.

3 Processing Modeling

M1 Convergence Studio is an Eclipse plug-in and uses the BPMN notation standard as a foundation for process modeling. Models are stored in UML (not XML). All process logic – including Web Services configuration, data mapping, and skills-based routing properties – are configured in the process model. Additional interface specific palettes are provided for modeling the more complex interface flows needed to implement a given user task in a process model.

From a notation perspective, M1 Global has extended BPMN around routing and interface subprocesses as well as coloring the icons. Where different channel interfaces are needed for a Task, the Engine is effectively calling an embedded subprocess that executes the channel-specific interface. Each Task shape carries a small icon depicting the specific channel. From a Routing perspective, the environment provides for Direct Assignment and Route attributes on Tasks. The Direct Assignment feature allows the modeler to specify a specific user, role, or team (bypassing the skills-based routing associated with Queues). Support for Compensating Events will be included in the next release (2.0). Although it is usually desirable to separate the channel specific logic into subprocesses, it is not always appropriate given the scenario. For instance, the Authenticate Customer task in the mortgage process shown in Error! Reference source not found. checks to see whether the customer interaction is coming in over a voice channel, in which case it routes the authentication activity to a Contact Center Queue where it is handled by a human operative.

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3.1 Subprocesses

The M1 Convergence Suite supports both embedded and independent subprocesses:

• Embedded subprocesses are contained within the parent process. They share the same Business Data Document (BDDs) as the parent process. Consequently, there is no need to map data in/out. (For more on the BDD, see Shared Data Space below.)

• Independent subprocesses are stand-alone business processes that run as children of the parent process. Independent subprocesses may contain their own BDDs and therefore may have data mapped in and out.

Further, the semantics of the product include a Launch Task that spawns a new process fragment linked to the case. The parent does not wait for the newly-launched process to complete; instead, it carries on without waiting. There is also a Terminate event which ends all threads of the process. If the Terminate event is part of a subprocess, the parent process is terminated if the subprocess is embedded. If the subprocess is Independent, then the parent process is not terminated.

Figure 2. M1 Convergence Studio utilizes a BPMN compliant modeling environment

3.2 Shared Data Space

An explicit SDS is provided in the form of a Business Data Document (BDD) that maintains all of the data pertaining to a business instance. The structure of the BDD itself is an XML Schema representation of the data referred to by the business process. At runtime, data that comes into the system, whether from a user task or a data access task (such as a Web Service), is stored in a BDD for the case.

BDD formats are imported using XML Schema (XSD), which facilitates the use of enterprise document standards (such as OAG, IFX, ACCORD, SWIFT, etc.). Alternatively, one could import the data structure associated with a Web Service via an introspection of its WSDL.

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A mapping mechanism is provided to support the construction of the BDD and the passing of contextual information to subprocesses or third party applications. Arrays are supported.

Figure 3. Mapping the data structure of a Web Service into the BDD

3.3 Forms

Using Studio, users can import a standard form (e.g., ACCORD) that describes the data elements and then models a web interface flow to create the screen(s) to gather that information. Web Interface Flows can be as simple as a single web screen, or may include multiple screens with gateways and data steps, if required for a complex form. The open source Jetspeed portal is used as a foundation that will soon include support for JSR-168 (part of the Jetspeed 2 project).

Additionally, forms can be created in a third-party tool (such as Microsoft InfoPath), which can then submit data to a process via the Web Services interface. JSF/JSP-based forms can also be used as needed. M1 intends to support the imminent Eclipse-based web screen-building environment, enabling coding-free forms development.

3.4 Time

Under the semantics of BPMN, the Timer Event allows the modeler to specify a wait period or time constraint on a business process. This is modeled as either an Intermediate Inline Timer event (between Tasks) or a Boundary Timer event (where a Task or Subprocess must be completed within a specified period of time).

3.5 Process Optimization and Simulation

No specific simulation tool is provided within the Suite. At design time and runtime, M1 Global captures task-level metrics, which can be exported for activity analysis and simulation. A basic simulation tool will be included in the 2.0 release.

4 Business

Rules

Business rules may be reflected directly in a process model – such as logic in a gateway – or externalized by using a variable in a process. The admin tool is then used to update the variable as business rules require.

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5 Integration and Integration Engines

The primary method for integrating third-party applications is through the use of Web Services. Web Services Tasks can send and receive data, or enable the orchestration of third-party component services. Further, the Interaction Manager for Web Services enables a third-party application to invoke a business process or gather information on one or multiple processes. An associated, lightweight Web Service modeling environment is also available, allowing developers to generate a Web Service wrapper for virtually any existing application.

Additionally, the environment supports desktop-level integration by allowing a process modeler to specify when the Work Portal should pop a screen or portlet from a third-party application to support a given process task.

6 Organizational Structure

The admin tool provides a role-based security framework for managing and configuring the system. User-related administrative tasks include the configuration of users, teams, queues, and portal definitions. In addition, the system can be configured to leverage user data stored in an external LDAP directory. Security is also enforced in the portal to prevent unauthorized access to process tasks. These permissions are configurable by role, team, and user.

As mentioned earlier, the Suite incorporates a sophisticated skills-based routing component, providing capabilities to distribute work beyond that which is typically used in a BPM engine. When routing work to queues, the Suite extends direct queue assignments by applying skills matching algorithms. This allows the product to locate the correct user, based on their skills, their availability, cost factors, desire to use, the work they already have lined up, the time required carry out the work, their experience level, etc. This facility is also used to load-balance the human resources in the business, ensuring that one worker is not overloaded. All of these factors can be configured in the process model.

Typically, this sort of functionality is found in a large contact center where work is distributed across the workers in real time. M1 provides the capability to apply that same level of sophistication to the way work is distributed to all employees in the business. To facilitate this, the product actively reuses the functionality of the Directory Server, extending it to provide the necessary skills-based information.

7 Process

Adaptability

Given the appropriate permissions, a user may adapt the process to better handle a task such as reassigning a work item to another user to complete. Secondly, subprocesses can be called dynamically, based on variables within the BDD. Effectively, this enables the process developer to design situations where either the user or a programmatic script could decide which subprocesses should be called, based on the circumstances of the case.

8 Process Lifecycle

The Suite includes a tool to deploy the process and interaction models to the Engine and the appropriate Interaction Managers. This supports the developer in modeling before deploying to a test environment prior to production deployment. The deployment tool also includes the ability to manage details such as specifying the process components that should be on external web servers (for customer interactions) versus internal web servers (for Work Portal users). Otherwise, it has no specific tools to manage and maintain the lifecycle of the process.

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9 Monitoring, Measurement, and Management Information

Along with the BDD (which holds variable information about the case), the Suite maintains a Business Process Document and an Interaction Document. The Business Process Document is a system-generated document that maintains all information about an instance, including things like status, current tasks, linked interactions, and a history log. The Interaction Document is a system generated document that maintains all information about an interaction – which is defined as a single interchange between the Engine and an external user (i.e., someone not using Work Portal), such as a phone call, a web session, or an email.

By maintaining separate Business Process Documents and Interaction Documents, the system allows for multiple interactions in a process instance, and for interactions that span multiple processes (many-to-many relationship between process and interaction). Both document types are standard XML and may be referenced in a process model if required.

Given the current maturity of the product, out-of-the-box functionality to leverage this information is relatively limited (the Crystal Reports suite is used to provide management reports). However, it should be noted that this approach provides a much richer set of audit information than is normally available in BPM products.

The set of Interaction Documents is, in effect, the contextual information related to the business case and could contain recordings of phone conversations, email interactions, or even Chat sessions. Moreover, it provides the supporting information for assessing SLAs at a team or individual level. Alternatively, one could use these data to support a comprehensive customer relationship management view, capturing the context of all processes and interactions that relate to a given customer.

In addition to logging robust data about both processes and the associated interactions, the admin tool includes a real-time view of all running processes.

10 Templates and Frameworks

M1 Global offers a range of process and interaction models for a multi-channel contact center. In addition, M1 Global, as a member of the OAG company, includes OAG standard supply-chain BDDs and the associated messages.

11 Vendor

M1 Global was founded in 2003 by Michael C. McChesney, who previously had founded, among other companies, S1 Corporation and Security First Network Bank (SFNB) – the first Internet bank. S1 Corporation is a leading provider of software for financial institutions providing banking on the Internet. It employs more than 1,600 people. Michael also founded WebTone Technologies, which specialized in multi-media interaction management, including voice, email, and web contacts. In total, M1 currently has over 50 employees across its two locations, the headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia and an offshore development center in St. Petersburg, Russia.

12 Cost

M1 Global provides itssoftware on both a software leasing model and an On Demand basis. The software leasing option is designed to allow customers to reduce the capital outlay required to allow a manageable monthly charge. The outlay for a 3-year lease is roughly equivalent to the cost of equivalent server software but has been rationalized into a monthly lease cost (typically, thousands per month). The modeling environment, M1 Convergence Studio, may be used for free and is available for download.

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The On Demand hosting service is transaction oriented, mixing both resource consumption and a shared value agreement. This allows customers to focus on what they do best, while M1 develops the software and processes for them, using both US based and offshore resources.

Non-Hosted Scenario: For a 100-user web-only system, the charge would be $3,750/month for a lease. Additional channels, such as voice, would add to this. For example, a 100-person multi-channel contact center would be $5,350/month.

Hosted Scenario: For a 100-user web-only system, the charge would be $8,500/month under a 3-year contract. Additional channels, such as voice, would add to this. For example, a 100-erson multi-channel contact center would be $36,600/month. Note that this includes the contact center infrastructure such as PBX, IVR, etc.

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M1 Global Solutions Inc. : Business Convergence Suite, Version 2.0

Overview Execution engine integrates firms various channels, orchestrating processes across

voice (call-center), web, email, chat, Web Services (in addition to people & systems); BPMN modeler; sophisticated skills-based routing components; Focused on managed services & outsource markets

BPM Engine J2EE Server with plug-in Interaction Managers that allow the engine to drive

customer interaction

Platforms Linux, Windows; WebSphere or JBoss; Oracle or DB2

User Interface Jetspeed-based Portal environment

Scalability J2EE based container; work distribution algorithms ensure resources not overloaded Processing Modeling BPMN modeling environment based on Eclipse IDE

Subprocesses Both Embedded and Independent; Spawned & Triggered, Process Chaining Shared Data Space XML based; arrays; graphical mapping tool

Forms Jetspeed-based forms for the portal

Time Timer Event type in BPMN – inline Intermediate event (between tasks) or Boundary

event (relating to processes or subprocesses) Optimization &

Simulation Simulation tool scheduled for inclusion in next major release

Business Rules Embedded within Gateway constructs of process models

Integration All supported through Web Services – both inwards and outwards; Includes Web

Service interface for process query

Organizational Structure Extensive use of LDAP, skills-based routing algorithms Process Adaptability Re-assign tasks, dynamic binding of subprocesses

Process Lifecycle Managed deployment through development, testing & production environments Monitoring &

Measurement Maintains records of all interactions & process steps; monitoring all current instances; potential support for sophisticated audit or CRM Templates &

Frameworks Multi-Channel Interaction Management

Vendor M1 Global; 404-419-7000; www.m1global.com

Cost On Demand model - $8,500 per month (hosted); Software Leasing options; 100 user

system - $3,750 per month; Both figures rise depending on options & numbers of users