Aligning Business with IT

Altiris Workflow Solution allows non-technical business professionals to create, change, test, automate and manage the processes that drive your organisation

From service catalogues to hardware purchasing to tracking purchase orders, Altiris Workflow Solution allows you to manage the entire process - both the hardware and the human interaction.

Reduce Costs
Altiris Workflow Solution offers an improved method for users to define, build and manage workflows that co-ordinate human and automated activities among all of the Altiris technologies and beyond. The solution provides a series of wizard-like, visual, drag-and-drop tools to design and monitor workflow processes.

Ease-of-Use
Workflow Solution is Web-service-based and can easily be integrated with existing Altiris solution environments to provide a higher level of management and oversight of the entire environment.

Future software from Symantec is scheduled to provide out-of-the-box workflows designed to meet the needs of common environments. Users will be able to use Workflow Solution design tools to modify the workflows or integrate them with their third-party solutions.

Simplicity
The Workflow Solution management console is designed so that non-technical business professionals can create, change, test and deploy business processes.

By using a Web-based portal, users can take advantage of self-help capabilities for all IT and non-IT requests. The solution makes it easy to set up approval processes, check IT inventory or notify the Asset Manager when new computers arrive on the receiving dock. You can even co-ordinate the deactivation of all security clearances throughout your organisation when an employee leaves - in fact, with Workflow Solution you can fully automate virtually any business process.

Forms Tool Integrated with Altiris Platform
Included with Workflow Solution is a forms editor. So much more than a drag-and-drop approach to building forms, the forms editor is fully integrated with Altiris or other databases so that captured data can be displayed with minimal effort. The forms editor allows business analysts and IT staff quickly to build workflows that encompass or provide access to Altiris technologies.

The tool can also be used to create new applications and services for the user community in a short amount of time. Administrators can drag-and-drop form elements onto a design pallet so that what you see in the design phase is exactly like the form the user will see when they use it.

Enhances Symantec ITIL Offerings
Workflow Solution enhances Symantec's Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) offerings in several ways. For example, users can develop advanced change management and approval workflows graphically, complete with custom forms, without having to delve into .NET code or stringing together rules within the help desk rule set.

The solution has the ability to hand off processes to Altiris Task Server, which provides automated, synchronized configuration management - so once a change request is approved, the completion of the request can be handed off to the Task Server automatically for fulfilment.

Task Server is designed to handle tasks and jobs that will be carried out on the target computers, while Workflow Solution is designed to support human workflow, where people will be directly involved in the process.

Interoperability
Workflow Solution can be used to easily define the interfaces into third-party systems and even transfer the information from one system to the other.

There is a built-in wizard-driven interface that contains 18 different application-access capabilities, including Web services, SQL, Oracle and flat files, which can be used to integrate
into just about any commercial system that you already have on your network.

Deliver
You can deliver new processes as much as five times faster than traditional process automation without knowing code, and then quickly publish the process directly into your existing Intranet, Web portal or customised service catalogue.

Customer delivered results include improved employee productivity through self-service portals, eliminated wasted time through process standardisation and process enforcement, and implemented complex change management processes with simultaneous approvals.

Enterprise-Ready
Enterprise-ready features such as load balancing and cluster support help organisations achieve their availability and reliability requirements. This provides the highest level of service for your automated processes and workflows.

Task List
An end-user view of the Workflow portal allows workflow actors to process tasks as part of a workflow. For example, a manager who is approving time off or hardware requests or is submitting new hire requests would log in to this portal to view any tasks that need attention. S/he could then address those tasks accordingly.

Benefits include:

• Access to workflow status by end users
• Managers can batch requests and speed workflow processes they are involved in
• Document management and a repository for documents that are attached through automated processes

Mobile Forms
Mobile forms with a reduced set of UI components are included with the Workflow Advanced Forms designer.

These components have been tested and are optimised to present information on a mobile device. Workflow designers have the ability to design forms for workflow participants that can be used on a mobile device such as a Treo or BlackBerry.

Benefits include:

• The ability to design clearly formatted and useable mobile forms
• Managers can receive and act on information in a timely manner regardless of location

Server Clustering
Workflow Solution Advanced features allow multiple servers to load balance and process one workflow if it requires significant data input and processing.

It also includes a robust messaging bus that allows one workflow to be geographically distributed across many workflow servers in case a global organisation chooses to run a workflow across multiple servers and locations.

Benefits include:

• Improved service availability of workflows across a distributed environment
• No downtime risk associated with a single point of failure

FIND OUT MORE
For further information on how Altiris Workflow Solution could be of benefit to your organisation, contact your Phoenix Account Manager on 0845 265 1265 or email info@phoenixs.co.uk

Key Features & Benefits

• Automate processes quickly in a fully graphical environment that's built for non-programmers
  
  
• Eliminate productivity bottlenecks and errors with approvals, rules, timeout and policy enforcement
  
  
• Automate a full range of business decisions, including operational, productivity and event-based rules
  
  
• Create seamless processes across applications such as Microsoft Office tools and voice/Web applications
  
  
• Use wizards and drag-and-drop tools to leverage your technical and business tools