Systems and methods for message-based control and monitoring of a business process

Abstract

A system for monitoring and controlling a business process involving a plurality of workstations or/and computerized services, the system comprising apparatus for receiving messages exchanged between the plurality of workstations or computerized services and having content, and for deriving from the content of the messages, monitoring information regarding the single business process.

1 . A system for monitoring a business process involving a plurality of workstations or/and computerized services, the system comprising:
 apparatus for receiving messages exchanged between the plurality of workstations or computerized services and having content, and for deriving from said content of said messages, monitoring information regarding the business process.   
     
     
         2 . A system according to  claim 1  wherein said apparatus for receiving and deriving comprises apparatus for recognizing at least one of the following types of messages:
 a purchase order;   an invoice;   a shipping receipt.   
     
     
         3 . A system according to  claim 1  wherein at least one of said messages comprises a message having an EMC format. 
     
     
         4 . A system according to  claim 1  wherein said monitoring information comprises fraud control information. 
     
     
         5 . A system according to  claim 1  wherein said apparatus for receiving and deriving comprises a queue of messages. 
     
     
         6 . A system according to  claim 1  wherein said apparatus for receiving and deriving operates without resort to a definition of the workflow of the business process. 
     
     
         7 . A system according to  claim 1  wherein said apparatus for receiving and deriving comprises an apparatus for differentiating between organization-customer portions of the business process which generate income for the organization and supplier-organization portions of the business process which require expenditure from the organization. 
     
     
         8 . A business process monitoring system for monitoring a business process being carried out by an organization including at least one organization entities each of which receive incoming messages and generate outgoing messages, the system comprising:
 apparatus for storing information characterizing the business process, the information including a plurality of triads, each triad comprising at least one characteristic of an incoming message, at least one characteristic of an outgoing message and at least an indication of an entity which receives the incoming message and generates, responsively, the outgoing message; and   apparatus for monitoring the business processing by processing said plurality of triads.   
     
     
         9 . A system according to  claim 8  wherein said incoming message includes at least one of the following: a document in a predefined state, a scanned document, a middleware message, an SMS message, DB record, textual file, e-mail, fax, HTTP page. 
     
     
         10 . A system according to  claim 8  wherein at least one entity comprises at least one of the following: a computerized business application, an IT (Information Technology) service, a department, an employee. 
     
     
         11 . A system according to  claim 8  wherein said apparatus for monitoring is operative to detect suspected occurrences of at least one of the following events: errors in keying in data, double payment, bypassing at least one process defined as mandatory by an organization; alteration of payee; purchasing for personal gain; return of purchased item while retaining the purchase price thereof. 
     
     
         12 . A system according to  claim 11  wherein said data comprises at least one of a check, a payment voucher, a purchase order, an invoice, and a depreciation. 
     
     
         13 . A method for monitoring a business process involving a plurality of workstations or/and computerized services, the method comprising:
 receiving messages exchanged between the plurality of workstations or computerized services and having content, and for deriving from said content of said messages, monitoring information regarding the business process.   
     
     
         14 . A method according to  claim 13  wherein receiving and deriving comprises recognizing at least one of the following types of messages:
 a purchase order;   an invoice;   a shipping receipt.   
     
     
         15 . A method according to  claim 13  wherein at least one of said messages comprises a message having an EMC format. 
     
     
         16 . A method according to  claim 13  wherein said monitoring information comprises fraud control information. 
     
     
         17 . A method according to  claim 13  wherein said receiving and deriving comprises a queue of messages. 
     
     
         18 . A method according to  claim 13  wherein said receiving and deriving operates without resort to a definition of the workflow of the business process. 
     
     
         19 . A method according to  claim 13  wherein said receiving and deriving comprises differentiating between organization-customer portions of the business process which generate income for the organization and supplier-organization portions of the business process which require expenditure from the organization. 
     
     
         20 . A business process monitoring method for monitoring a business process being carried out by an organization including at least one organization entities each of which receive incoming messages and generate outgoing messages, the method comprising:
 storing information characterizing the business process, the information including a plurality of triads, each triad comprising at least one characteristic of an incoming message, at least one characteristic of an outgoing message and at least an indication of an entity which receives the incoming message and generates, responsively, the outgoing message; and   monitoring the business processing by processing said plurality of triads.   
     
     
         21 . A method according to  claim 20  wherein said incoming message includes at least one of the following: a document in a predefined state, a scanned document, a middleware message, an SMS message, DB record, textual file, e-mail, fax, HTTP page. 
     
     
         22 . A method according to  claim 20  wherein at least one entity comprises at least one of the following: a computerized business application, an IT (Information Technology) service, a department, an employee. 
     
     
         23 . A method according to  claim 20  wherein said monitoring comprises process correctness validation for detecting suspected occurrences of at least one of the following events: errors in keying in data, double payment, bypassing at least one process defined as mandatory by an organization; alteration of payee; purchasing for personal gain; return of purchased item while retaining the purchase price thereof. 
     
     
         24 . A method according to  claim 23  wherein said data comprises at least one of a check, payment voucher, a purchase order, an invoice, and a depreciation. 
     
     
         25 . A method according to  claim 23  for detecting fraud comprising:
 building a data centric process flow network; and   monitoring at least one business process having an inception point marking its beginning and a closing point marking its end, from said inception point to said closing point, said business process including messages, said monitoring including analyzing at least one current message, belonging to the business process and having content including at least one data field, relative to at least one previous message belonging to the business process and having content including at least one data field common with the current message, including comparing values of said at least one common data field between said current and previous messages.   
     
     
         26 . A method according to  claim 25  and also comprising detecting human error in keying in data entries, based on said data centric process flow network and comparing step. 
     
     
         27 . A method according to  claim 25  and also comprising detecting two or more message instances of the same message class belonging to the same process instance, based on said data centric process flow network and comparing step at least for one message class. 
     
     
         28 . A method according to  claim 25  wherein said at least one business process includes a plurality of processes at least one of which is human driven rather than being structured. 
     
     
         29 . A method according to  claim 25  wherein said monitoring includes process-instance level control and process-instance level monitoring. 
     
     
         30 . A method according to  claim 25  wherein said monitoring comprises message-to-process correlation. 
     
     
         31 . A method according to  claim 25  and also comprising controlling said business process. 
     
     
         32 . A method according to  claim 26  wherein said human error detection includes analysis of a data-centric process flow network. 
     
     
         33 . A method according to  claim 27  and also comprising detecting instances of double payment. 
     
     
         34 . A method according to  claim 27  wherein said detecting is executed in real time. 
     
     
         35 . A method according to  claim 27  wherein said detecting is executed in near real time. 
     
     
         36 . A method according to  claim 31  wherein said controlling comprises process correctness validation during process monitoring based on said analyzing at least one current message. 
     
     
         37 . A system for monitoring a business process comprising a multiplicity of business processes, the system comprising:
 tracking and control apparatus operative to track and to control each transaction that impacts upon the multiplicity of business processes carried out by at least one computerized system operative to generate message instances which respectively belong to at least one of a first plurality of message classes, the system including at least one business application interacting with operations performed by humans, wherein said tracking and control apparatus receives a second plurality of message instances from said at least one computerized system, each of said message instances comprising message content,   said tracking and control apparatus being operative based solely on said message content,
 said tracking and control apparatus including a meta-tag generator operative to derive, from content of each individual message class from among said first plurality of message classes, a message meta-tag comprising at least one data field operative to identify a process instance, the process instance comprising a single transaction impacting upon the multiplicity of business processes. 
   
     
     
         38 . A system according to  claim 37  wherein each message instance belongs to a transaction of a business process. 
     
     
         39 . A system according to  claim 37  wherein said business process monitoring apparatus is operative without recourse to a workflow representation of said multiplicity of business processes. 
     
     
         40 . A system according to  claim 37  wherein said first plurality of message classes comprises a sequence of message classes ordered in accordance with a data-centric process flow network description. 
     
     
         41 . A business process monitoring method for monitoring a business process being carried out by an organization including at least one organization entities each of which receive incoming messages and generate outgoing messages, the method comprising:
 storing information characterizing the business process, the information including a plurality of triads, each triad comprising at least one characteristic of an incoming message, at least one characteristic of an outgoing message and at least an indication of an entity which receives the incoming message and generates, responsively, the outgoing message; and   monitoring the business process by processing said plurality of triads,   wherein said monitoring comprises process correctness validation for detecting suspected occurrences of at least one of the following events: errors in keying in data, double payment, bypassing at least one transaction of a process defined as mandatory by an organization; alteration of payee; purchasing for personal gain; return of purchased item while retaining the purchase price thereof,   the method also comprising:
 building a data centric process flow network; and 
 monitoring at least one business process having an inception point marking its beginning and a closing point marking its end, from said inception point to said closing point, said business process including messages, said monitoring including analyzing at least one current message, belonging to the business process and having content including at least one data field, relative to at least one previous message belonging to the business process and having content including at least one data field common with the current message, including comparing values of said at least one common data field between said current and previous messages, 
   wherein said at least one business process includes a plurality of processes at least one of which is human driven rather than being structured and wherein said monitoring includes process-instance level control and process-instance level monitoring.   
     
     
         42 . A business process monitoring method for monitoring a business process being carried out by an organization including at least one organization entities each of which receive incoming messages and generate outgoing messages, the method comprising:
 storing information characterizing the business process, the information including a plurality of triads, each triad comprising at least one characteristic of an incoming message, at least one characteristic of an outgoing message and at least an indication of an entity which receives the incoming message and generates, responsively, the outgoing message; and   monitoring the business process by processing said plurality of triads,   wherein said monitoring comprises process correctness validation for detecting suspected occurrences of at least one of the following events: errors in keying in data, double payment, bypassing at least one transaction of a process defined as mandatory by an organization; alteration of payee; purchasing for personal gain; return of purchased item while retaining the purchase price thereof,   the method also comprising:
 building a data centric process flow network; and 
 monitoring at least one business process having an inception point marking its beginning and a closing point marking its end, from said inception point to said closing point, said business process including messages, said monitoring including analyzing at least one current message, belonging to the business process and having content including at least one data field, relative to at least one previous message belonging to the business process and having content including at least one data field common with the current message, including comparing values of said at least one common data field between said current and previous messages, 
   wherein said monitoring comprises message-to-process correlation,   and wherein the method also comprises controlling said business process including process correctness validation during process monitoring based on said analyzing at least one current message.