The assessment stage focuses on creating a design to accommodate the specific business process being automated. The key to success lies in gaining a good understanding of the business process, coupled with good knowledge of Maximo functionality and an expertise in Workflow design. As a process may encompass several Maximo applications, the designer needs to be fully conversant with all of these applications before he starts to design the Workflow.

For example, in modelling a Workflow around the purchase ordering activity in a business, the business rules regarding approval of purchase orders (POs) could be as follows:

• Externally generated POs need to have their GL (General Ledger) account checked.
• Stock replenishment POs that are automatically generated are approved by default.
• Manually raised POs for stock replenishment are approved by Mr Jones.
• Manually raised POs for direct issue items are approved by Mr Smith up to a certain level and Mr Peters beyond that level.

To accomplish this using Workflow, the modelled process would need to acquire information from several Maximo applications and then make decisions whether and how to route the PO:

• Check the Chart of Accounts application for the validity of the GLs.
• Check the Users application for purchasing limits of specific people.
• Check the origins of the PO (manual or automated).
• Check the type of the PO (stock replenishment or direct issue).
• In case of a negative outcome of these checks, to inform the responsible manager(s) of the nature of the failure using predefined communication templates.
• In case of a positive outcome, to route the PO to the chosen approver.

Even this relatively modest example will span several Maximo applications when implemented, so careful analysis must be undertaken to develop a Workflow which will perform all these functions satisfactorily and maintain the integrity of the data, while giving acceptable performance.