Workflow-as-a-Service: The Opportunity to Empower End-Users While Partners Build IP

Microsoft's SharePoint Designer remains a standard for workflow development in thousands of organizations, and it is an achievement that Nintex VP of product Ryan Duguid acknowledges with some pride. That's because prior to joining Nintex four-and-a-half years ago, Duguid was with Microsoft for four years, where he was a senior product manager for enterprise content management related to SharePoint.

But, he says, the market demands something simpler for both customers and partners, and his firm's Nintex Workflow Platform for both SharePoint and Office 365 aims to be that workflow service that can be made accessible to more people and across more systems. The platform already offers a connector to Dynamics CRM and there are plans for connectors for Dynamics GP, NAV and AX.

Visual workflows ease complexity

SharePoint Designer has become a standard, but Duguid observes that "visually it's hard to manage, and it's kind of a tech-based metaphor, with if/then analysis statements that are declarative and descriptive with text on the screen."

Complexity - and cost - keep workflow automation down. While SharePoint was on its ascension in the content management/business process management space, publishers offered automation through programmer-level technology. "They were making it too expensive to consume, too expensive to deploy, too expensive to configure and achieve results," says Duguid. "So what you saw in most companies was, they would tackle two or three major projects, usually things on the CEO or CIO radar, then get frustrated and give up."

By contrast, Nintex's approach is centered on the idea of empowering ...