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Process Orchestration

Orchestration technology brings all your systems together for maximum efficiency.
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200+
Is the avg. size of an enterprise tech stack.
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Legacy systems are the main barrier to new tech adoption.
80%
Of enterprises will use orchestration technology by 2025.

Business processes are the engines of industry and public sector. They serve customers, collect revenue, and orchestrate products and services. In turn they are automated by a variety of technologies (software) and vertical solutions.

Many organizations implement various technologies (ERP, CRM, custom solutions) to support growth. One of the main challenges of such solutions are siloed systems. 81% percent of respondents in a 2024 report stated that data silos are hindering business transformation efforts. These closed tools that are meant to streamline operations then become obstacles to innovation and efficiency.

Business process orchestration technologies encode and enforce processes that allows businesses to evolve fast at minimal cost, enabling long-running automations that serve both simple and complex use cases. They synchronize disparate enterprise applications and technologies to provide a seamless process experience for customers and employees.

What is process orchestration?

Process orchestration is an approach that brings together disparate parts of your business - people, systems, devices, data, tasks - to automate the control and choreography of workflows and processes end-to-end.

Orchestration is the art of structuring a series of tasks, executed either by information systems or people, to automate the execution of a business process.

It is the arrangement if tasks in a logical sequence and the matching of their outcomes to guide subsequent tasks and actions. At its core, orchestration involves multiple pathways to deliver the correct process, which means every process involves choices driven be contextual decisions, where every task influences the flow of the process.

Practically, an orchestration typically comprises a minimum of two tasks, but its scalability knows no bounds.

Picture a complex business process involving multiple departments, including respective line of business department such as claims, finance, IT, and others. These departments contribute actions, tasks, and data between various systems and humans.

Process orchestration creates a centralized view, fostering collaboration, efficiency, and improved outcomes. It uses automation tools to manage and streamline end-to-end business processes (see Image 1).

Orchestration pillar page - platform infographic_transparent

Process orchestration platforms and tools allow enterprise organizations to design, execute, and manage complex workflows. These platforms offer functionalities like:

Process modeling

Visually map out your end-to-end processes, using standards like BPMN.

Automation building

Create automated tasks and decision points using standards like DMN and AI.

Integration capabilities

Connect disparate systems and applications via APIs or through RPA.

Performance monitoring

Track process execution and identify bottlenecks, staffing requirements, and potential optimizations.

When do you need process orchestration and what are its benefits?

The necessity for process orchestration technology hinges largely upon your process complexity, endpoint diversity, and transaction value and quality needs within an organization. As operations grow in intricacy and involve more endpoints such as devices, applications, and systems, the need for automated orchestration solutions becomes more pronounced.

In environments with manual tasks and numerous interconnected processes, manual management becomes unwieldy and prone to errors, leading to inefficiencies and bottlenecks.

Process orchestration technology streamlines your workflows by automating the coordination of tasks, implementing activities across diverse endpoints, and ensuring seamless integration between various systems. This has the effect of not only enhancing operational efficiency but also facilitates change through better operational monitoring of processes and tasks.

Therefore, any decision to implement process orchestration technology should be guided by recognition of the complexity and diversity inherent in an organization's processes and endpoints, and their value.

Let's illustrate the power of process orchestration by contrasting two scenarios: one with process orchestration and one without: 

Orchestration pillar page table

Process orchestration vs. process automation

Process orchestration and process automation are often used interchangeably, but they complement each other for successful end-to-end automation. Process automation is a broad concept which encompasses multiple technologies depending on the scope of the business process.

Business Process Automation (BPA) refers to the use of technology and software to automate and streamline tasks and activities within an organization's business processes.

Business process orchestration involves coordinating the many endpoints. Process orchestration software goes beyond automation by dynamically responding to events during execution.

When you are targeting the orchestration of a complex web of stakeholders including bots, humans, and systems, you need to consider a BPA platform.

Such platforms help you to manage interconnected processes where manual tasks and data coordination becomes inefficient and is prone to errors.

To achieve any business outcome, a business process might need to accomplish series of high-level tasks. In turn, these will represent a series of sub-processes with other tasks encapsulated within them.

For the orchestration platform to achieve the business process outcomes, it will need to first execute the master task and then coordinate the waiting for any sub-processes to be completed, and then proceed ahead until the business outcome is achieved. Managing human and automated straight through processing to minimize process costs and time is a function of good process design aided by process modelling tools.

It goes to say that successful business process orchestration relies on good automation tooling.

Bringing orchestration and automation together: Real-world examples with Flowable

Orchestrating artificial intelligence

Cambridge Technology has successfully orchestrated AI with Flowable, speeding up the creation of reports for a leading US bank from 6 months to 2 days.

Orchestrating cancer surveillance

Digital Workforce has fully automated breast cancer surveillance for the entire five-year treatment period. With process orchestration, Digital Workforce enhanced data integration, communication, and monitoring, fostering increased patient safety and enabling personalized care through tailored clinical protocols.

Orchestrating banking operations

A global Tier-1 bank uses business process automation across multiple departments to execute a diverse range of use cases where data streams, complex service interactions, and human decision-makers are working together in large-scale orchestrations. This setup is crucial in navigating the fiercely competitive and tightly regulated landscape of the financial market, ensuring agility, compliance, and optimal performance. 

Business process orchestration with Flowable

Flowable offers a comprehensive and customizable platform to automate long-running processes and orchestrate multiple systems, humans, and other automation technologies. Flowable operates performant, consistent, and secure, ensuring seamless orchestration regardless of the triggering mechanism. 

Straight-through orchestration

A straight-through orchestration seamlessly progresses from start to finish, often triggered by an incoming event or as part of a broader orchestration. Flowable efficiently manages the processing and transfer of data between services, ensuring smooth interaction with internal or external systems at each step.  

These services may encompass various tasks, such as data transformation, retrieval from legacy systems, document enrichment through IDP processing, and invocation of AI services for text suggestions or predictions.  

Human in the loop

In practical business operations, human input or decision-making is often required within orchestrations, which involve the gathering of data and automated analyses. These processes can run for extended periods, sometimes spanning multiple years.  

Flowable securely stores orchestration state and associated data efficiently. This ensures readiness for continuation whenever triggered by human actors via channels such as forms, email, chat, and others. 

Flexibility and adaptability

Real business scenarios are dynamic. Steps often occur out of order, requiring actions and decisions even with incomplete data or due to unexpected events like customer emails.  

Orchestrations are intertwined with data, people, and resources across various business processes, generating value. It's crucial to link these elements seamlessly. 

Flowable excels in handling dynamic situations, offering flexibility without rigidity. Leveraging standard-based case management tooling, it continuously builds and enriches context for solving business use cases. Flowable simplifies managing out-of-order events, facilitating timely decisions.  

By orchestrating human actors, services, events, and other processes, it ensures smooth operations. Embracing this adaptability enables organizations to navigate complexities with agility, aligning orchestration efforts with overarching business objectives.  

Why orchestrate processes with Flowable?

Efficient orchestration

Integrate a variety of technologies, including RPA, AI, chat applications, and enterprise systems such as Salesforce, streamlining operations and enhancing productivity using standards like BPMN.

Orchestration at scale

Run millions of transactions effortlessly and without latency while avoiding complex technologies like Kubernetes.

Seamless integration

Integrate with various API-driven systems and data sources through Open API, OData, and a range of out-of-the-box connectors.

Decision-driven orchestration

Embed process and business decisions directly into workflows using decision tables and AI services, increasing automation and efficiency using standards like DMN.

Data-driven optimization

Enhance organizational processes through data-driven insights. Conduct thorough analytics to uncover valuable insights from your data, enabling continuous improvement of workflows within your organization.

Support and development options

Experiment with open source and extend to commercial supported versions when required.

Reliable service level assurance

Benefit from full SLA support within Flowable, ensuring that your Service Level Agreements are consistently met throughout your processes.

Further orchestration reads

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Elevating Business with Business Process Orchestration

Process orchestration enables strategic and seamless integration across various systems, improving decision-making and operational efficiency.

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Scaling RPA with process orchestration and business process automation

Leverage business process automation and orchestration platforms to scale up RPA initiatives in the enterprise.

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Orchestrating Cancer Surveillance

Orchestration is used to seamlessly integrate the various technologies needed in cancer surveillance, including robotic process automation (RPA) and EMR systems.