SoftLanding Systems today announces the release of new workflow capabilities in TurnOver Change Management. The TurnOver enhancements enable IT managers to enforce specific workflow procedures and authorities for application development across all collaborating departments and development teams.
Without such software controls in place to support workflow policies, users can intentionally or unintentionally circumvent documented procedures, resulting in process inefficiencies, lower quality software, and/or auditing issues.
Federal regulations now require that most public companies prove their adherence to IT best practices, including separation of duties for certain key activities. Increasingly, IT departments want to implement proactive programs to ensure that non-authorized personnel cannot progress software changes through the workflow cycle, or that authorized personnel cannot skip critical steps in the process, such as approvals.
"The iSeries market urgently needs enforced workflow that bridges all groups participating in the development lifecycle, right down to the end users who report issues and perform user acceptance testing. It is one of the most difficult best practices to achieve, and one that delivers great value in terms of process efficiency," says Steve Gapp, president and CEO of SoftLanding Systems. "With this release, TurnOver accomplishes that. It enforces your established workflow from initial request through to deployment, and it embraces traditional 5250 developers as well as groups using browser and client-based interfaces."
Through TurnOver's graphical Workflow Designer, managers limit who can progress a task at each given status and define valid statuses to which they can transition the task. By setting up TurnOver to enforce workflow, managers control which steps need to be taken by specific resources to complete a task, thereby ensuring that team members honor the company's workflow policies and procedures.
The TurnOver solution revolves around the creation of reusable Workflow Definitions. Each definition contains a set of "status transition rules" that dictate requirements for making manual or event-based task status changes. For example, a manual transition rule might dictate that only a QA resource can change a task status from "In Test" to "Tested." An event-based transition rule may require that a task be in "Approved" status before an authorized person can deploy changes into production, which might automatically transition the task to a "Completed" status.
Once defined, Workflow Definitions can be applied to any number of application development projects. The rules are enforced for all resources working through TurnOver's Eclipse-based client, WebSphere plug-ins, browser or 5250 interfaces. This allows developers to participate in the workflow process from their native environment, whether green screen or graphical, with no additional client software. Automated messaging keeps the appropriate resources advised of assignments and the progress of each task. Escalation tables work in conjunction with messaging to ensure that no task falls between the cracks.
"Enforced workflow is as much about process efficiency as it is about application security and auditing," Gapp says. "It ensures that tasks follow a logical progression – that prerequisite steps are addressed before progressing the task. It minimizes the "thrashing" that can happen when people aren't clear what should happen next. It also decreases the need for rework because people can't skip important steps in the process."
Availability and More Information
TurnOver's new enforced workflow capabilities are currently available to all TurnOver customers by calling SoftLanding Systems Customer Service at 603-924-8818 x3 or visiting SoftLanding’s Customer Support Website: http://support.softlanding.com.
For more information about TurnOver Change Management, call SoftLanding Systems at 800-545-9485 or 603-924-8818, or email us at info@softlanding.com.
About SoftLanding Systems
SoftLanding Systems, a leading provider of software management solutions for iSeries and multi-platform development, specializes in solutions that streamline the entire software development and maintenance process, resulting in enhanced productivity, higher quality software, and improved auditability. SoftLanding's strength is in creating the ideal software management solution for any software environment, regardless of complexity, by drawing on expertise and tools in the following areas: software change management, database change management, issue tracking, application testing, and deployment.
TurnOver is a trademark of UNICOM Systems, Inc. All other product names are the property of their respective owners.