The client is a national business advocacy organization representing over 3 million businesses. i3solutions modernized the organization’s legacy Business Process Management (BPM) environment in a seven-stage program of workflow automation: a system architecture refresh on fault-tolerant SQL clusters, load-balanced Nintex K2 farms, and SharePoint/web servers; a dashboard migration off SharePoint-based components onto an ASP.NET web application built through custom application development; and the rebuild of contracts review, green forms, new staffing requests, new employee requests, and separation requests as automated K2 processes. Each of those processes previously ran on manual, error-prone forms and spreadsheets; business users now create and modify workflows themselves through K2 Smart Forms rather than filing an IT change request for each one, and the ASP.NET dashboards give stakeholders real-time visibility into every active, completed, and pending task.
Streamlining Operations with Business Process Automation
Case Study
Streamlining Operations with Business
Process Automation
The Customer
And Their Challenge
The client is a national business advocacy organization representing over 3 million businesses across various sectors and regions. While striving to advance business interests and policy at all government levels, the organization encountered significant hurdles with its legacy Business Process Management (BPM) systems. These outdated systems struggled with integration into modern enterprise applications, lacked scalability to support increasing demands, and relied heavily on manual, time-consuming processes. As a result, the organization faced siloed data, inefficient workflows, inconsistent user experiences, and high maintenance burdens, all of which hampered productivity and innovation.
To overcome these challenges and meet the needs of a rapidly growing, technology-driven environment, the organization turned to i3solutions for help in modernizing their BPM infrastructure. The goal was to implement a scalable, integrated, and efficient BPM environment that could automate business processes, streamline workflows, and enhance system interoperability. They needed a robust, flexible architecture that not only reduced the dependency on manual intervention and minimized technical debt but also standardized processes and improved overall user satisfaction, to ensure the organization could better serve its expanding membership base and diverse service offerings.
The Solution
Transforming Operations with Workflow Automation
i3solutions tackled the organization’s multifaceted business challenges by deploying a comprehensive, seven-stage strategy aimed at modernizing and streamlining their Business Process Management (BPM) environment. Each stage was carefully planned to address specific areas such as infrastructure upgrades, process automation, and improved user interface design. This structured approach leveraged modern technologies to create a robust, scalable, and efficient system, laying a strong foundation for future growth and enhanced integration with newer technologies.
The initiative began with a BPM System Architecture Refresh, where i3solutions upgraded the organization’s existing BPM infrastructure by implementing fault-tolerant SQL clusters, load-balanced K2 farms, and SharePoint/web servers. This ensured high availability, scalability, and seamless interoperability. Following this, the Dashboard Migration stage transitioned the organization’s dashboards from SharePoint-based components to an ASP.net web application, significantly improving user accessibility, transparency, and efficiency by providing a customizable interface for monitoring task details.
Subsequent stages focused on migrating and enhancing key business processes using the Nintex K2 platform. This included overhauling the contracts review, green forms, new staffing requests, new employee requests, and separation request processes. Each migration replaced manual, error-prone forms, spreadsheets and workflows with automated, integrated solutions. The contracts review and green forms migrations streamlined contract management and data handling, while the talent solutions migrations optimized workflows for staffing, onboarding, and offboarding. These targeted improvements reduced manual interventions, increased transparency, and facilitated smoother, faster processing of various business functions.
Overall, the staged approach not only addressed the organization’s immediate process inefficiencies but also set the stage for scalable and sustainable growth. By automating key workflows and modernizing legacy systems, the upgraded BPM environment empowers the organization to manage its diverse and expanding business operations with greater ease, agility, and accuracy, ensuring they can better serve their wide-ranging membership now and into the future.
Technologies
Used in the Solution
In the development of the Business Process Management (BPM) system technology refresh for the client, i3solutions leveraged several key technologies to ensure the system is modern, scalable, and aligned with the organization’s business objectives.
Windows Server was deployed to provide a robust and secure environment for the entire BPM system. The use of Windows Cluster Manager facilitated the creation of a fault-tolerant architecture, ensuring high availability and reliable performance for the new BPM system.
SQL Server is used to manage the data for the entire BPM environment. A fault-tolerant SQL server cluster was implemented to ensure the database’s availability and scalability and provides the backend storage and querying capabilities necessary for the BPM processes to function efficiently. This setup ensures the system remains operational even in the case of database server failures, thereby minimizing downtime and ensuring consistent access to critical data.
SharePoint Server was integrated into the environment to manage document workflows and collaboration. It serves as the collaboration hub for users to interact with BPM-related data and forms.
Nintex K2 is at the core of the entire BPM system refresh. It is used for business process workflows, integrating data objects, and designing forms. K2 allows for the creation of Smart Objects and Smart Forms, enabling a no-code process design approach that empowers business users to create and manage workflows.
Microsoft Office was integrated into the SharePoint environment with Office Online to enable users to view, edit, and collaborate on documents directly within the BPM system. This seamless integration streamlines workflow execution and document approvals, enhancing productivity by allowing direct interaction with documents without leaving the BPM environment.
IIS 10.0 (Internet Information Services) is used as the web server to host the new BPM system and its components. IIS serves as the platform for managing and serving web-based applications, including the K2 workflows and dashboards.
New DNS realms were established for the staging/QA and production environments. This setup includes hardware load balancers for distributing traffic across the servers. The introduction of load balancing and DNS configuration ensures that traffic is distributed efficiently, improving system performance and providing better fault tolerance. This setup is crucial for handling large volumes of traffic in a high-availability environment, ensuring smooth operations for the organization.
ASP.NET and C# were used to develop backend logic for dynamic, user-centric web applications integrated with K2 workflows, while HTML, JavaScript, and jQuery ensured responsive, interactive frontends for dashboards and business process forms. The migration from SharePoint-based dashboards to standalone ASP.NET dashboards gave the organization increased control and flexibility, improving transparency and overall user experience.
Measurable Benefits
and Business Impact
The BPM System Digital Transformation project by i3Solutions not only modernized the organization’s processes but also created measurable business value in terms of improved efficiency, cost savings, and long-term scalability, positioning the organization to better serve its members and drive future growth.
Enhanced Operational Efficiency
Upgrading the organization’s legacy BPM systems to K2 created a more modern, scalable architecture that automates complex processes such as contract reviews, staffing requests, and employee separations—eliminating manual tasks, reducing repetitive work, and providing clear visibility into each stage for faster, more reliable decision-making. The no-code capabilities of K2 also empowers users to create and modify workflows without heavy IT reliance, reducing costs and enabling rapid adaptation to changing business needs.
Reduced Operational Costs
The migration to K2 and the transition from custom forms to Smart Forms resulted in direct cost savings for the organization. The ability for business users to independently create and modify processes means that the organization no longer needs to rely on expensive IT resources for every change request. Furthermore, the automation of business processes eliminated the need for manual tracking and approval, reducing the time spent on administrative tasks. This, in turn, allows the organization to reallocate resources to more strategic initiatives, rather than spending time on mundane tasks that can now be handled by the BPM system.
Accelerated Workflow Deployment
With the automated workflows and the ability to rapidly modify and deploy new processes using the no-code capabilities of K2, the organization can significantly reduce the time required to develop and launch new workflows. The system enables quicker modifications and deployment, enhancing the organization’s ability to respond to changing needs and priorities.
Improved Scalability and Flexibility
The system’s new architecture offers the organization enhanced scalability and the ability to manage future growth. The system’s modularity allows it to evolve independently from other enterprise systems, ensuring that new functionalities can be added without disrupting existing processes. This flexibility ensures that the BPM system can grow with the organization as its needs evolve, providing a future-proof solution that can handle an increasing volume of data and business processes.
Advanced Collaboration and Communication
The new system advances collaboration among employees by providing a unified platform for sharing documents and data in real-time. Automated processes and more accessible date allow employees across different departments to collaborate and communicate more effectively.
Increased Transparency and Accountability
The new ASP.NET-based dashboards and process improvements provide stakeholders with real-time visibility into all active, completed, and pending tasks, significantly enhancing transparency in workflows such as contract reviews, green forms, and staffing requests. Improved reporting and monitoring capabilities empower managers to make data-driven decisions and foster greater accountability by clearly logging, tracking, and tracing tasks and actions.
Advanced Future-proofing
By investing in a scalable and integrated solution, the organization has laid the foundation for future growth. The K2 platform, with its ability to support complex, multi-step workflows, and its integration with newer technologies, ensures that the organization’s BPM environment is not only capable of meeting current needs but is also prepared to handle future advancements in business processes, technology, and user demands.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did i3solutions build for the organization?
A seven-stage modernization of the organization’s Business Process Management (BPM) environment: a BPM system architecture refresh on fault-tolerant SQL clusters, load-balanced K2 farms, and SharePoint/web servers; a dashboard migration from SharePoint-based components to an ASP.NET web application; and the migration of the organization’s contract, forms, and talent processes onto the Nintex K2 platform.
Which business processes moved onto Nintex K2?
Contracts review, green forms, new staffing requests, new employee requests, and separation requests. The contracts review and green forms migrations covered contract management and data handling, and the talent solutions migrations covered staffing, onboarding, and offboarding. Each migration replaced manual, error-prone forms, spreadsheets, and workflows with automated, integrated ones.
Can business users change a workflow without involving IT?
Yes. K2 supports Smart Objects and Smart Forms, a no-code process design approach, so business users create and manage workflows themselves. The organization no longer relies on IT resources for every change request, and new or modified processes can be deployed as priorities change.
What does the BPM environment run on, and how is it kept available?
Windows Server with Windows Cluster Manager provides the fault-tolerant foundation, a fault-tolerant SQL Server cluster holds the data so the system stays operational through a database server failure, SharePoint Server is the collaboration hub for BPM data and forms, Nintex K2 runs the workflows and forms, IIS 10.0 hosts the web components, and ASP.NET with C# plus HTML, JavaScript, and jQuery build the dashboards and process forms. Staging/QA and production sit in separate DNS realms behind hardware load balancers.
If your business processes still run on legacy BPM forms, spreadsheets, and manual handoffs, the symptoms are familiar: every change request waits on IT, and nobody can say where a given request currently sits. A first conversation goes through the processes you run today, the systems they touch, and which ones are worth automating first. It also covers sequencing, because order matters: at this organization the architecture refresh and the dashboard migration came before any business process moved onto K2. You leave with a staged sequence and the detail an internal committee asks for: what each stage delivers, what it depends on, and who has to be involved. Start the conversation
Business processes that only IT can change end up frozen, because every small adjustment has to queue behind a development cycle. A senior workflow architect will look at which of your processes belong on a platform your own business users can safely modify.
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