Why Portal Intranet Workflow Is Widely Used in Today's Business Systems

Web portals, both public and private, the latter often referred to as corporate or intranet portals, are now so sophisticated that workflow management is considered a must-have feature used to organize, manage, and track portal intranet workflow. In fact, public web portals also rely on intranet workflows for organizing the entire operation of a portal, with those actions not visible to website visitors.

In brief, portal intranet workflow should be organized and managed in a fashion allowing certain outcomes to be produced, depending on predefined tasks to be performed. Thus, portal intranet workflow is basically about managing different tasks and the underlying processes that take place within an organization. One should bear in mind that a software system is also a type of organization from software developer's point of view.

Thus, intranet workflow, namely those tasks and processes that are performed within an organization, and whose only visible to outsiders part is their respective outcome, deals with tasks and their statuses. Hence, when the status of a task or a process that comprises multiple tasks changes, the respective task or process is assigned to another individual or group of individuals whose responsibility is to process in further until a certain goal, or status, is achieved.

Web portals and websites rely on workflow management to automate various processes and tasks usually performed in relation to content management and other processes which require high-automation level. For example, a document that is in draft status would be automatically assigned to an editor for further polishing and then scheduled for publication, according to preset rules. On the other hand, all those procedures are inter-dependent, therefore a document would be checked for revision by an editor prior to publication i.e. a document that is not edited cannot be published. Such basic functionality of content management systems is widely used in today's online environment, where automation plays an important role in the overall optimization of processes and procedures used in day-to-day activities.

In addition, portal intranet workflow requires a certain level of interoperability between different software applications because modern-day business systems usually interact with external devices and third-party software, often in real-time. Therefore, reliable portal intranet workflow depends not only on software compatibility and interoperability but also on system's overall ability to communicate with different hardware platforms and devices of various types. For example, the workflow scheme of a web portal may require email messages to be sent to users, or other means of communication to be used, subsequently those messages should be readable by any hardware device that may be used to receive notifications.

In addition, workflow management process applied in public and intranet (corporate) portals should allow for creation of a set of rules, defining steps to be completed within all and every process before it produces the desired outcome. Thus, an administrator can also define user roles and user permissions that provide the framework for completing a task without omitting a step in the process.

In the context of a complex system, portal intranet workflow management is as important as the processes and tasks it is intended to manage. Software vendors, realizing the huge potential of workflow management and under constant pressure by demanding users, now incorporate software tools for workflow management even in free web content management systems. Evidently, licensed software applications feature more powerful tools for managing portal intranet workflow, while the number of affordable solutions in this field has been growing rapidly in the past few years. Thus, reliable and affordable tools for managing portal intranet workflow are now available to both individual and business customers all over the world.