EMC introduces graphical workflow design in Captiva

Just in time for the holidays, EMC unveiled a shiny, new workflow design tool for its Captiva image capture product that enables developers to create a workflow in a graphical view without any coding. Keeping with the theme of lower effort and corresponding lower cost that we've been hearing about throughout this recession, the new tool, called InputAccel CaptureFlow Designer, is designed to set up workflow using drag and drop icons. In fact, EMC claims you can build a workflow in just a few hours.

The tool is actually geared toward systems integrators and resellers who can design custom workflows for clients on the fly with much less effort and cost than previous workflow design tools. By removing custom coding from the equation, it's possible you could lose some of the ability to highly customize the workflow, but you also lose the corresponding complexity that is inherent in the coding process. It may be a trade-off that customers are willing to make in tight economic times.

Users can drag and drop pre-coded icons from a task palette representing different parts of the image capture process such as scanning, validating, classification and delivery to a CMS (or another business application). EMC reports that more than 100 customers and partners have been testing the Beta version of the software and found it's working to speed up deployment time. In fact, William Collins, Captiva Technical Expert at the Windward Group says the tool is simple, but flexible enough to deal with outside the box needs. "The new graphical design application is very powerful and easy to use, while at the same time leverages the flexibility of InputAccel to meet the unique capture requirements some customers have."

EMC reports that there are several connectors to outside business applications such as one for Microsoft SharePoint, available out of the box, It certainly sounds like a simplified way to set up workflows, but what remains to be seen is how well it will deal with more complex workflows that link to other business systems found inside any large enterprise setting that might not be available in the standard offerings.

For more information:
- see the press release [1]

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