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Revolutionizing Business Process Management with AI

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, the integration of advanced technologies is not just a luxury but a necessity. One such powerful combination is Business Process Management (BPM) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). At Imixs Workflow, we are excited to introduce a groundbreaking feature that leverages these technologies: Imixs Business AI. This new feature combines BPMN with AI and promises to revolutionize how businesses manage and optimize their workflows.

Understanding BPMN and AI

BPMN is a graphical representation for specifying business processes in a workflow. It provides businesses with a standardized method to visualize, document, and analyze their processes, making it easier to identify inefficiencies and areas for improvement.

AI, on the other hand, brings the power of machine learning and data analytics to the table. AI can learn from data, recognize patterns, and make intelligent decisions, thereby automating complex tasks that would otherwise require human intervention.

With Imixs Business AI these two technologies are now combined and you can integrate artificial intelligence into your BPMN model. This gives you new opportunities to make your company’s business processes smarter.

The Synergy of BPMN and AI

Combining BPMN and AI offers several distinct advantages:

  1. Enhanced Process Efficiency: AI can analyze vast amounts of data to identify bottlenecks in business processes designed with BPMN. By doing so, it suggests optimizations and automations, significantly speeding up operations.
  2. Intelligent Decision Making: AI-powered systems can make real-time decisions based on historical data and predictive analytics. This capability ensures that the workflow adapts dynamically to changing circumstances, enhancing agility and responsiveness.
  3. Predictive Maintenance: In scenarios where processes involve machinery or IT infrastructure, AI can predict potential failures and suggest maintenance schedules. This proactive approach reduces downtime and improves overall efficiency.
  4. Personalized Customer Experience: By integrating AI with BPMN, businesses can tailor their processes to individual customer needs and preferences, providing a more personalized and satisfactory customer experience.
  5. Cost Reduction: Automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks reduces the need for manual intervention, leading to significant cost savings.
BPMN and AI

The Open Source Advantage with Imixs-Workflow

Imixs-Workflow, at its core, is an open-source BPMN-based workflow engine. Embracing open source offers multiple benefits:

  1. Transparency and Security: With open-source software, the code is publicly available. This transparency allows for continuous scrutiny and improvement by the community, enhancing security and reliability.
  2. Flexibility and Customization: Businesses can modify the workflow engine to meet their specific needs without being locked into proprietary solutions. This flexibility is crucial for adapting to unique business requirements and evolving market conditions.
  3. Community Support: Open-source projects benefit from a global community of developers and users. This community-driven approach fosters innovation, rapid issue resolution, and the sharing of best practices.
  4. Cost-Effectiveness: Utilizing open-source software eliminates licensing fees, making it a cost-effective solution for businesses of all sizes.

Introducing Imixs Business AI

Our latest feature, Imixs Business AI, integrates the power of AI into the robust Imixs-Workflow engine. This integration allows businesses to:

  • Automate Decision-Making: AI algorithms analyze process data to make informed decisions, reducing the need for manual oversight.
  • Optimize Workflows: Continuous learning and data analysis help in identifying areas for process improvement, ensuring workflows are always running at peak efficiency.
  • Enhance Data Utilization: AI leverages data more effectively, providing insights that drive strategic business decisions.

By leveraging the synergy between BPMN and AI within the open-source framework of Imixs-Workflow, businesses can achieve unparalleled efficiency, agility, and innovation.

With our business process management suite Imixs-Office Workflow, we are committed to helping businesses harness these cutting-edge technologies to stay ahead in the competitive market. Explore our Imixs Business AI feature today and take the first step towards a smarter, more efficient future.

For more information and to see how Imixs Business AI can transform your business processes, contact us for a personalized consultation. Together, let’s revolutionize your workflows and drive your business forward.

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Imixs-Cloud – Next Release!

We just released the next version of the Imixs-Cloud project! The new release 0.2.0 is marking a significant milestone in the evolution of this open-source platform project. Imixs-Cloud now supports Debian 12 and the latest Kubernetes Release 1.29.5.

About Imixs-Cloud Project

The Imixs-Cloud Project offers an easy way to build and manage a robust platform for running enterprise applications in a cloud-native environment. Leveraging the power of Kubernetes, Imixs-Cloud ensures that applications are not only scalable and resilient but also secure and easy to manage. The project is designed to simplify the management and deployment of container based business applications running on Kubernetes.

Imixs-Cloud is developed and maintained by the Imixs Software Solutions GmbH located in Munich. The open source project supports the dynamic and continuous development of a cloud infrastructure architecture for small and medium sized companies. With a focus on open-source development, the project fosters collaboration and innovation within the community, driving the creation of sustainable and adaptable business solutions.

For more information about the latest version of the Imixs-Cloud Project and to explore the new features, please visit https://imixs.github.io/imixs-cloud/.

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New Version of Open-BPMN Available!

Today we released the latest Version of Open-BPMN. The new version includes a lot of enhancements and new additional features. This makes it more easy to model BPMN Diagrams:

  • Improved Layout
  • Property Panel can be opened by double click
  • BPMN Pool and Lane Design improved
  • Fixed minor layout issues

Open BPMN can be run in a Browser or installed on Microsoft VS-Code. You can install Open-BPMN form the VS–Code Marketplace.

BPMN 2.0 Extensibility Mechanism

One of the core features is the extensibility of Open BPMN. Open-BPMN enables you to customize it’s behavior and appearance by adapting the BPMN 2.0 extension mechanism. This extension mechanism can be used to adapt BPMN elements to the unique requirements of a vertical domain, and still have a valid BPMN Core. Open Source Workflow Engines like Imixs-Workflow already integrate Open BPMN into there tooling platforms.

But more important, Open-BPMN is based on the Eclipse Graphical Language Server Platform (GLSP). This platform provides a huge set of features and an API to extend and adapt the Modeler in various ways.

Find out more…

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BPMN Modelling with Eclipse GLSP

Imixs-Workflow started a new modelling project called Open-BPMN. Open-BPMN is a free BPMN 2.0 modelling platform that can be extended and customized by any BPMN 2.0 compliant execution engine. The primary goal of this project is to provide a graphical BPMN editing framework that can be extended in various ways by different solutions to create an agile and innovative community around the BPMN standard.

For this reason we build Open BPMN based on the Eclipse Graphical Language Server Platform (GLSP). GLSP is an extensible open-source framework for building custom diagram editors based on web technologies. The platform provides a language server protocol (LSP) for diagrams that allows to adapt any kind of modelling language. GLSP splits into a server part and a client part. The server part is responsible to handle the underlying model stored in a filesystem, database or microservice and provides the graphical model meta data. The client part communicates with the server and provides the graphical representation and the modelling tools to create and modify a model.

The main advantage of GLSP is its openness and extensibility. In this way it allows us to not only provide a new flexible BPMN modelling tool but also adapt the BPMN Extensions of Imixs-Workflow within this solution. Adapting the Imixs-Workflow engine within the Open-BPMN Modeller is a first proof of concept showing the flexibility and power of this platform.

Multi IDE Support and Extensibility

GLSP can be integrated into different IDEs like Microsoft VS Code, the web based Theia IDE and of course the Eclipse Platform. This allows us to use Open-BPMN in much more different ways and projects and opens the modelling tool to a broader community.

With the extensibility of GLSP, Open-BPMN can not only be extended within the extension mechanism of BPMN 2.0, but also by additional views, editors and UI elements in various ways. For example custom Form editors, Analyse-Panels or Reporting Tools can be adapted by individual projects.

The Community

There is also a strong and agile community around this project that supports us in adapting the technology into the Imixs-Workflow project. Of course Open-BPMN is free software and we invite you to participate in it. There are different ways how you can do that. Join the Open-BPMN Project on GitHub or help us to improve the project by reporting bugs or start a new discussion.

So if you plan to customize BPMN for your own software project, then join Open-BPMN and get support from an agile community. Of course, we also offer professional support for your project.

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New AI for Automated Document Import

The latest version 4.5.3 of our Business Process Management suite Imixs-Office-Workflow now includes an improved AI module. The system can import documents and automatically recognize and assign their content. For example, incoming invoices and delivery notes can be processed automatically in background. This significantly shortens throughput times in document based business workflows.

The open source module Imixs-ML is based on a machine learning approach in combination with pattern recognition. Good results are achieved even with small amounts of data. In addition, Imixs-Office-Workflow includes a self-learning AI system. This means that the system permanently improves its ability to recognize content from new documents in the background without having to import big training data.

After an automated document import – e.g. from an e-mail mailbox or an Office scanner – the user can check the data and correct it where necessary.

Model Your Business Process Quick & Easily

With the Imixs Workflow Technology, all kinds of business processes can be easily modelled with BPMN 2.0. Even complex approval processes like the 4-eyes principle are supported by the Imixs Workflow engine.

Due to its openness Imixs-Office-Workflow supports many open interfaces to various IT solutions and server systems. Thus, integration into an existing enterprise IT can be done very easily.

Through our consulting concept, we help companies to digitize their business processes. Get in touch with us and find out more!

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Imixs-Admin Runs on Jakarta EE 10!

With our latest version 6.0.0 of the Imixs-Admin client we launched our first Jakarta EE10 project. Imixs-Admin is developed with Java 11, Jakarta EE 10 and Faces 4.0. It runs on Wildfly version 27.0.0.Alpha4.

This project is a first prove of concept to demonstrate the compatibility of Imixs Workflow with Jakarta EE 10. In the course of the implementation, we also migrated the Imixs Rest Client library Melman to Jakarta EE 10.

We will soon provide our next version of Imixs-Office-Workflow – a enterprise business process management suite – running on Jakarta EE 10 too.

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License Switch GPL-3.0 to EPL 2.0

We consider to switch the licence model for Imixs-Workflow from GPL-3.0 to EPL 2.0. The new license model will affect the Jakarta EE 9 development stream. Older versions of Imixs-Workflow will not be affected from this change.

The Eclipse Public License is a modern license which reflects the norms and expectations of an industry that has changed a lot in the last years. The EPL has been approved by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the Open Source Imitative (OSI).

As a weak copyleft license, the EPL is a middle ground of sorts between permissive options (like the MIT License or Apache License 2.0) and strong copyleft licenses (like GPL v2 and GPL v3.) A core requirement of the EPL – one that’s not part of permissive licenses – is that derivative works of EPL-licensed code must also be licensed under the EPL. As such, anyone who distributes a program that constitutes such a derivative work must also make their source code available. Find more details here.

In addition we plan that the new license will include also a secondary license for GPL-2.0+ compatibility. In this way you can still license your work under GPL if you like.

The notion of a “Secondary License” is intended to permit combining content licensed under the EPL-2.0 with an otherwise incompatible license, specifically the GNU General Public License, v2.0 or greater. This means that the content that includes a Secondary License clause may be combined with content distributed under the terms of that Secondary License, and the combined content can be then be collectively distributed under the terms of that Secondary License.

Does EPL-2.0 change the scope of the copyleft?

The EPL-2.0 is a weak copyleft license. In its simplest terms, that means that if you have modified EPL-2.0 licensed source code and you distribute that code or binaries built from that code outside your organization, you must make the source code available under the EPL-2.0.

Can I take a Program licensed under the EPL, compile it without modification, and commercially license the result?

Yes. You may compile a Program licensed under the EPL without modification and commercially license the result in accordance with the terms of the EPL.

Can I modify the EPL-2.0 License?

No. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute copies of the new Agreement; however, in order to avoid inconsistency, the agreement is copyrighted and may only be modified by the Agreement Steward who reserves the right to publish new versions (including revisions) of this Agreement from time to time. No one other than the Agreement Steward has the right to modify the Agreement.

Find also more details see the EPL FAQs. If you have any questions please add your comments here.

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Imixs Workflow & SpaCy 3.1

With its latest version, the Open Source Workflow Engine Imixs-Workflow fully integrates the AI Framework SpaCy v3.1. SpaCy has become an industry standard over the last two years with a huge ecosystem. SpaCy can be combined with a variety of plugins and so called pipelines, to process any kind of data within a machine learning environment.

The Imixs Workflow project Imixs-ML follows a generic approach to combine machine learning frameworks with BPMN. The project provides a core API and a Rest Service Interface. This makes it easy to combine the workflow management platform with the AI ecosystem from spaCy. The integration is based on the Imixs Micro Kernel architecture which allows a modern model based development.

The Imixs-ML project is hosted on Gibhub.

Processing Business Documents with AI

An example of how AI can be combined with BPM, is the processing of business documents. The concepts of natural language processing (NLP) with its sub domains of entity recognition and classification allows the analysis of business documents in various ways. For example, payment information like IBAN/BIC and an payment date can be extracted from an invoice document to be processed by the Imixs Workflow engine. With the classification of documents, for example, customer orders can be automatically routed to the responsible sales department. This all is embedded into a continuous learning technology where the Imixs Workflow engine automatically refines the ML models based on the decisions made by humans actors in a specific business process. Starting from scratch is possible even if only a small training database exists.

Dynamic Classification

One new feature of SpaCy 3.1 is the new multi-label classifier. This new pipeline allows the learning of new categories within an existing ML model. For a continuous learning system like Imixs-ML this is a great feature to extract more data from a business task with the help of AI.

If you like to learn more about the BPMN and AI start a dicsussion on Github or ask our experts.

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Imixs Workflow on Jakarta EE 9

Imixs-Workflow is the first open source workflow engine running on Jakarta EE 9. The latest version 6.0 can be run on every modern application server supporting the new cloud native industry standard. This allows you to digitize your business processes in a modern, portable and open IT environment.

Jakarta EE is a set of specifications that enables the world wide community of java developers to work on cloud native Java enterprise applications. Imixs-Workflow integrates into this technology and provides you a powerfull, stable and sustainable way to map your business processes according to the BPMN 2.0 standard.

For many years, Java EE has been a major platform for mission-critical enterprise applications. Imixs Workflow was founded on this technology from the first beginning. In order to accelerate business application development for a cloud-native world, the Java EE specification moved to the Eclipse Foundation enabling a community-driven collaboration and a more open innovation.

Version 6.0.0 and Java 11

With version 6.0.0, Imixs Workflow adapted the existing technology to the new Jakarta EE 9 specification and modernized various areas of the open source workflow engine. At the same time, with this release, the switch to Java 11 is now completed.

Rule Engine based on GraalVM

The integrated business rule engine of Imixs Workflow is now based on the GraalVM technology. With the new rule engine, business rules can now be written in different popular languages and can be combined with additional features and libraries. This allows the design and the execution of more complex business processes based on the BPMN 2.0 standard.

With the Jakarta EE 9 application ‘Imixs-Process-Manager‘, the Imixs Workflow project provides a reference application for a quick start. The project is hosted on Github.

Imixs Workflow is 100% open source and we invite you to participate in it. There are different ways how you can do that. Join the Imixs Workflow Project now on GitHub. You can help to improve the project by reporting bugs or start a new discussion.

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Imixs-Cloud – Running SQL in Kubernetes

For most self managed Kubernetes environments the SQL database is one of the most important infrastructure parts. Typically SQL database servers are not designed to run on distributed nodes in an environment like Kubernetes. One solution is to run a single SQL database in a Kubernetes POD with a distributed filesystem like Longhorn or Ceph. This works well for example with PostgreSQL in most situations. Of course this can have some performance impacts and requires fast SSDs. Another solution is to run a distributed SQL Database like Cockroach. With the latest version of the Imixs-Cloud project we now offer a smart solution to run a SQL Database cluster within a self managed Kubernetes cluster.

Note: CockroachDB does not support the isolation level of transactions required for complex business logic. For that reason the Imixs-Workflow project does NOT recommend the usage of CockroachDB. See also the discussion here.

CockroachDB

CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database with a build in replication mechanism. This means that the data is replicated over several nodes in a database cluster. This increases the scalability and resilience in the case that a single node fails. With its Automated-Repair feature the database also detects data inconsistency and automatically fixes faulty data on disks. The project is Open Source and hosted on Github.

CockroachDB supports a lower level of ACID transactions. This means guaranteed atomicity, isolation, consistency, and durability of data is not the same quality as in a PostgreSQL database . However CockroachDB can be used in combination with Jakarta EE and JPA. Supporting the PostgreSQL wire protocol, CockroachDB can be used with the standard PostgresSQL JDBC driver.

See how CockroachDB can be used within the Imixs-Cloud project .

You can find a install guide here.

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