Background
Database and system application development has ducked and weaved throughout the last decades as concepts and technologies have attached themselves alternatively to process-centric or data-centric solutions. Databases themselves have transitioned from small applications on mainframes to large, enterprise-wide, server-based systems. At the same time, the user interface has passed from zero capability to rapid, remote, wide-area access.

Management’s need for reliable, accurate information -- information which, for many years, had to be extracted, reworked and consolidated from separate, autonomous systems --, prompted the search for methodologies which held data as separate entities with multi-purpose accessibility and a clear relationship to other unique data. Thus the fully integrated database was born. The transition from disparate legacy systems to centralized integrated databases has, however, pushed timescales and costs beyond the capacity of most organizations. Many more organizations have been forced by the economy and the marketplace to try to survive on inadequate information bases.

The mid 1990s saw the move to a process oriented methodology that leapfrogged the data-centric approach, allowing organizations to quickly automate their business processes. The emergence of office automation systems based on workflow concepts -- and supported by user interface technology that was fast outstripping the troublesome business of data processing and management -- meant that the business process itself had become the focal point for change.

Workflow Pros and Cons
A major benefit of the workflow approach was that it clearly separated the roles and responsibilities of players in a business process. It demanded a definition of tasks, responsibilities, timescales, and deliverables; and it ensured that work completed at one step was automatically communicated and picked up by the next responsible party. Standard workflow software gave management the ability to monitor processes, measure performance, and determine deadlines. The most sophisticated office automation packages gave process managers in-built parameters with which they could adjust processes to meet business reality.

From a development perspective, organizations now had ready-to-use software that enabled them to dramatically reduce development time. They could deliver a consistent user interface and have a built-in user access security system controlled by an administrator, and which (in the browser-based context) was secure against unauthorized wide-area access. This transition to browser-based technology also meant, for the developer, a transition to database access via web page methodologies.

What these products could not provide, however, was the accumulation and maintenance of data across processes, data upon which organizations quantify and qualify their production and costs. The interface capability to legacy systems was also weak or non-existent, which meant that historical data, production reporting, and financial analysis – the critical measurements of an organization’s well-being – still depended on the accuracy of data in an integrated database or, more likely, in various application databases.

The Power of BizFlow
HandySoft’s BizFlow technology has outpaced all its competitors by resolving these problems. BizFlow provides a clean, consistent interface that not only allows easy imports and exports to Excel, but more importantly (from a development perspective) enables exchange of data between legacy systems as well as new database development. This interchange is supported by BizFlow’s outstanding form processing capability which allows users to design and test online forms independently. Those same forms are the means by which process data is captured, validated, and added to background systems (which are invisible to the on-line user).

The Database Republic Solution
In addition to being the primary BizFlow consultant to the State of California, the Database Republic team has a strong track record of providing database development expertise to State government and private industry. In utilizing our own unique methodology, tuned to the BizFlow customization, we define business requirements, reengineer business processes, and develop applications – all facilitating the flow of information from automated BizFlow processes to existing systems. We develop also fully integrated databases, using Oracle design standards and methodology, which support an organization’s data requirements alongside automated business processes.