Couple of days ago, writing an ASP page enabling users to download attachment generated on the fly, I struggled a bit on a nice "Internet Explorer was not able to open this Internet site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found" error. As I know that GIYVBF (for those of you who are wondering what it is stands for, try this)

First, I checked several times that I used the correct caching expiration and attachment settings without any success. Finally, the only thing I did not find was this :

If, during the generation of your attachment, there is an non-handled error or exception, the attachment genaration will abort and you will get this famous error message. Thus, this is another way of getting the nice error box....In my case, there was some code accessing a database and when it failed it displayed this message.

I remember a discussion I had with a colleague about workflow engine developments and moreover, about the real needs of starting such developments. But, the topic was not only and not really about the development itself, but more about the existence of such engines.

Last June, Gartner published a document presenting the major actors of BPM solutions. Among them, we can find K2 with a coming product called K2.NET, based on the new Windows Workflow Foundation from Microsoft. We can also find FileNet which has been bought by the giant IBM in the meanwhile, but also Fuego and last but not least, Microsoft with BizTalk Server 2006.

Then, on one side we have ready-to-use products, proprietary and requesting customization, and on the other side, Microsoft with the WF. Thus, the question that has come on the table was : When to use the WF and when to use BTS ?
Since this time, I tried to figure out the different criteria needed to help to decide. But the list is absolutely not finished and I am sure that a lot of points could be added.
In fact, what needs to be understood is that the WF has never been designed to replace BTS, not at all. In one case, we have a framework on top of which our application has to be developed and which will be part of the developed application. In the second case, it is a licensed product which needs a bit of understanding (I would say that the learning curve is quite big...) to implement orchestrations between existing applications, building the final solution. Nevertheless, these technologies are complementary.

First, BTS comes with a lot of features and functionalities that are not necessary needed for the majority of the applications.
But, if your application needs to interact with one or more other applications, hosted on different servers or using different technologies (such as Java, for example), BTS is certainly an advantage. With this, BTS allows document transformations quite easily, some of them or some of the file formats are already implemented or just need the installation of an add-in (HL7, SWIFT for example).
With BTS, it is also easy to know what is happening in the system using the BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) and when you need to share credentials or authentication informations between systems whether they are Windows or not, the use of SSO (Single Sign-On) is a big plus over the WF.
At the opposite, if the application has to contain the workflow, the use the WF. And finally, if none of the BTS features is required, of course, then use of the WF is quite obvious.

Again, this list is not exhaustive and would need more points to add, but, in my opinion, it is an interesting start when we think about using a workflow engine.

Comments are welcome...

The countdown has been started !

In the near future, a little revolution is going to happen.

Stay tuned on this web site......

Last week, I attended a 3-days training at ESI International in London named "Project Leadership, Management and Communications".

This course was amazingly great. Very interesting either by its format or by its teacher. 3 days, it is long enough to present the material and the different topics of the course, mainly focuses on how to communicate with people, colleagues and the clients. A large part of the training is about the relationships between people and how to influence it in order to improve the quality of the exchange inside a team or even outside.

This course uses a lot the team working and the environment makes it more easier by putting all the attendees around round-tables, making group of about 6 people. A bit of role-playing games is also used during this training.

Finally, the teacher (name will follow...) was a great one.

On the other hand, it was 4 years since my last visit in London and I did not remember it was sooooo expensive. But I really like this city.....