Pegasystems Improves User Interface OF BPM SuitePegasystems Improves User Interface OF BPM Suite

Pegasystems has improved the user interface of the SmartBPM Suite, adding richer graphics and other visual metrics to make the business process management system less daunting to non-developers and business analysts.

Version 5.2 contains more than 60 enhancements, and among the biggest is the ability to generate richer clients through the use of Adobe Flex, a group of technologies that leverages the popular Macromedia Flash platform. Adobe acquired Macromedia in December 2005.

The higher level of user interactivity is in the reporting function, which can deliver better charts and graphs for user-defined data sets, the ability to drilldown on specific information, and other "business visualization" features. By presenting information in a more understandable way, Pegasystems is looking to encourage more knowledge workers within an organization to use the product. "It's all about encouraging adoption," Russell Keziere, senior director of BPM marketing, said Thursday. "The visualizations are much better than static reports.

SmartBPM is based on a unified rules-and-process engine. The software effectively binds all the elements required to deliver an application at run time, including process fragments, business rules, presentation elements, integration calls and security controls. This approach is fundamentally different than any other BPM system (Click here to read a recent review.

Pricing for SmartBPM Suite v5.2 starts at about $100,000.