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Business Process Analysis with SOA: A Case Study

Submitted by Masoud Kalali on Mon, 2009/02/02 - 1:53pm
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Goal Service Analysis

The aim of Goal Service Analysis is to create a matrix (Table 1) which maps business goals to the required high level services that are identified from the processing steps involved during the execution of each business. This technique is based on work done by Pulier and Taylor [REF-1] and Arsanjani [REF-2] in the area of business process modeling. By listing the intended users of these services, security requirements and processing needs of these services could also be derived. A service only to be used in-house would usually require less stringent security requirements as compared to the one accessed from outside. This can also help in determining the communication format of the service e.g. in case of using .NET, the in-house services could be built using the binary protocol (net.tcp) instead of using the ws-http protocol in a bid to make service communication more efficient.

Similarly, in terms of processing load, the in-house services could be hosted on a shared server as compared to inter-company services that could be hosted on dedicated servers. It is important to keep into perspective that the processing steps stated against each business goal do not necessarily constitute a complete business process i.e. each business goal might require processing steps borrowed from more than one business process. This implicitly backs up the modular nature of SOA where by the intent is not to build a full fledge system rather the actual building blocks that are reusable among more than one business process.

Table 1:

Business Goals
 Processing Steps  High Level Services Users
 1.Achieve compliance with network provider’s new regulations.
  • System checks customer history.
  • System submits customer application data electronically to NP.
  • Receive and interpret application decision.
  • Submit electronic Invoice to NP.
  • Record Invoice-Received Acknowledgement.
  • Convert customer application to XML.
  • Interpret NP’s decision from XML into system specific format.
  • Convert Invoice to XML.
  • Convert Invoice-Received Acknowledgment from XML.
  • Check if customer has a contract.
  • Check if customer was declined within past 3 months.
  • Customer.
  • Network Provider.
 2.Automate contract acquisition process.
  • Customer views current deals.
  • Customer fills details.
  • Validate customer details.
  • Check customer history.
  • Submit customer application data electronically to NP.
  • Receive and interpret application decision.
  • Inform customer.
  • Open customer account.
  • Check stock levels.
  • Allocate handset.
  • Place request for stock.
  • Save new contract.
  • Get deals.
  • Validate customer details.
  • Check if customer has a contract.
  • Check if customer was declined within past 3 months.
  • Convert customer application to XML.
  • Interpret NP’s decision from XML into system specific format.
  • Send Notification.
  • Open account.
  • Get stock levels.
  • Update stock.
  • Generate stock replenishment request.
  • Update account.
  • Save contract.
  • Network Provider.
  • Customer.
 3.Online application processing for contract acquisition.
  • Customer views current deals.
  • Customer fills details.
  • Validate customer details.
  • Check customer history.
  • Submit customer application data electronically to NP.
  • Receive and interpret application decision.
  • Inform customer.
  • Open customer account.
  • Check stock levels.
  • Allocate handset.
  • Place request for stock.
  • Save new contract.
  • Get deals.
  • Validate customer details.
  • Check if customer has a contract.
  • Check if customer was declined within past 3 months.
  • Convert customer application to XML.
  • Interpret NP’s decision from XML into system specific format.
  • Send Notification.
  • Open account.
  • Get stock levels.
  • Update stock.
  • Generate stock replenishment request.
  • Update account.
  • Save contract.
 Network Provider.
Customer.
4.Real time information about stock levels.
  •  Manager retrieves stock data during deals management.
  • System checks stock while allocating handset to customer.
  
Get stock levels.

  Manager.
 5.Automate stock ordering process.
  • System raises stock replenishment request.
  • Manager retrieves information about current Price Lists, current stock levels and NP’s packages.
  • Manager analyses stock levels, commission offered and cost price.
  • Manager creates PO.
  • Send PO to supplier.
  • Receive ASN.
  • Update quantity ordered.
  • Update stock quantity once stock is actually received.
  • Receive Invoice.
  • Manager approves and sends payment to supplier.
  • Update supplier account in ERP system.
  • Payment-Sent Notification is sent to the supplier.
  • Generate stock replenishment request.
  • Get stock levels.
  • Get Price Lists
  • Get NP’s packages
  • Convert PO to XML.
  • Convert ASN from XML into system specific format.
  • Update stock.
  • Convert Invoice from XML into system specific format.
  • Send payment.
  • Update account.
  • Send Payment-Sent Notification.
 Manager.
Supplier.
 6.Automate price list import process.
  •  Electronically import Price List data into the ERP system.
  • Convert Price List from XML to ERP format.
 
 7.Eliminate paper based cash-back process.
  • Get Payment-Received Notification from NP.
  • Accountant approves and sends cash-back to customer.
  • Update customer account.
  • Inform customer
  • Convert Payment-Received Notification from XML into system specific format.
  • Send payment.
  • Update account.
  • Send Notification.
  Accountant.
 8.Increase customer base.
  •  Sales Agent retrieves list of customers whose contracts are going to expire next month.
  • Sales Agent retrieves list of customers who were declined in the past 3 months.
  • Sales agent contacts these prospective customers.
 Get customer by specific criteria.
 Sales Agent.
 9.Consolidated view of business data.
  •  Manager retrieves information about current price lists, current stock levels, NP’s packages and deals.
  • Get stock levels.
  • Get Price Lists.
  • Get NP’s packages
  • Get deals.
 Manager.
 10.Automate commission claim process.
  •  System retrieves successful contracts for the past 14 days.
  • System retrieves commission information from NP’s packages.
  • System prepares Invoice.
  • Send Invoice to NP.
  • System records Invoice-Received Acknowledgement.
  • NP’s account is updated in ERP system when Payment-Sent Notification is received
  •  Get contracts.
  • Get NP’s packages.
  • Convert Invoice to XML.
  • Create Invoice.
  • Convert Invoice-Received Acknowledgement from XML.
  • Convert Payment-Sent Notification from XML into system specific format.
  • Update account.
  Network Provider.
 11.Make deals management efficient.
  •  Manager gets current price lists, deals and NP’s packages.
  • Manager performs profit analysis.
  • Either new deals are created or current deals are updated by the manager.
  • Manager sends emails to Sales Agents.
  • Get Price Lists.
  • Get deals.
  • Get NP’s packages.
  • Update Deals.
  • Send Notification.
 Manager.

Once preliminary services are identified, the very first step towards developing reusable services is to analyze which business goals could be addressed by these services. Such an analysis indicates possible service reuse across multiple business processes. Table 2 shows the resulting matrix. This matrix provides the business analysts and the architects a chance to preview the resulting SOA and the tangible benefits of SOA development with respect to the business requirements.

This article was originally published in The SOA Magazine (www.soamag.com), a publication officially associated with "The Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl" (www.soabooks.com). Copyright ©SOA Systems Inc. (www.soasystems.com)
Article Type: 
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Comments

bet replied on Tue, 2009/06/09 - 1:34pm

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jameshopes1 replied on Wed, 2009/07/22 - 5:39am

Business Process Analysis (BPA) offers matrices that help in drawing a correspondence between business

its importance and more importantly describes the actual steps involved within BPA with the help of a case study. 

 http://ezinearticles.com/?Does-Dazzle-White-Pro-Work?-Review-on-Dazzle-Teeth-Whitening-Gel&id=2539008

 

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