IBM Rational® System Architect is a one of the leading EA and BPA modeling and analysis tools. It has great functionality; it supporting many standards such as BPMN 2.0 diagram types and famous frameworks like TOGAF 9, ArchiMate v2.0, DoDAF 2.0, MODAF 1.2, NATO Architecture Framework (NAF) 3.0, IAF v4 Integrated Architecture Framework, Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework 2.0 (FEAF 2.0) and last but not least the Zachman Framework. This rich functionality unfortunately, also builds complexity that is obstructive to efficient use by business analysts or project team initiatives like BPR (business process re-engineering) or blueprinting  of ERP solutions. These later teams and much prefer the easy use of Microsoft Visio® to map business processes or to scope existing best practice content for customer requirements.

Over the years the concepts of enterprise architecture and business process management have evolved, the number and complexity of frameworks are growing, new hypes and acronyms are popping up like crocuses in spring. All approaches are aiming to deliver better support for business, more agile IT and closing the much-cited gap between business and IT (just to mention some of the chief targets). But taking a real world view at enterprises, the majority of organizations are still far away from architecture’s wonderland.

Why are Dell and HP struggling in the PC market? Smart phones and tablets are the latest trend! And quickly accessing BPM information on mobile devices is the next logical step. A while ago our product management team had to think about this market evolution.

Reporting with modeling tools can be quite painful: Basic scripting, more than enough SQL commands and other technical handicaps inhibit users from producing nice looking and cogent reports. Using business intelligence (BI) concepts, development and deployment costs are efficiently reduced.  The same holds true for the considerable efforts associated with Enterprise Architecture (EA) or Business Architecture (BA) reports.Reporting with modeling tools can be quite painful: Basic scripting, more than enough SQL commands and other technical handicaps inhibit users from producing nice looking and cogent reports.

Using business intelligence (BI) concepts, development and deployment costs are efficiently reduced.  The same holds true for the considerable efforts associated with Enterprise Architecture (EA) or Business Architecture (BA) reports.BPM-X Reporting Services tool is a web-based reporting technology which employs templates with predefined data queries and sophisticated export layouts to supply high usability for business users.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7gmIW7jxYc

Conveniently, business users can directly access the reports online using Internet Explorer without any required workstation deployment. Organizations can distribute analytic reports to business users eliminating  extra costs for end user licenses.With the help of the BPM-X universal model translator, all leading EA, BPA, GRC and BPM(S) applications, repositories or databases are connected to the Reporting Services.

Reporting and analysis of enterprise architecture and business process models are now able to present a comprehensive picture quickly. Sophisticated report templates with predefined data queries and great report layouts supply business users with information they can consume. The unique concept of the domain data layer very much simplifies the underlying repository data model. Read more about this technique in the blog post Domain specific reporting on Enterprise Architecture model data to simplify the architects daily work.

The use of BI-technologies in this web-based solution simplifies reporting and lowers the costs for data analytics on the enterprise level. Report deliverables are generated on the server side using HTML, PDF, XML or Office output formats to be used further in Microsoft Excel® or Word®.

Being BI-based, this solution facilitates the inclusion of model and diagram data from a large variety of enterprise applications and business domains via Reporting Services. In this manner, reports on business process models are flexible and can be enhanced e.g. with process performance data.

At this point, the slogan “BI meets BPM” comes to real life.