Mitrais has streamlined its internal project management and administrative processes following the recent commissioning of a Microsoft BizTalk server.
In a project called BizTalk for ADAM, Mitrais has automated its business processes to generate work orders and staff timesheets based on data collected from its Microsoft Office Project Server.
BizTalk is a business process management (BPM) server. It uses ‘adapters’ which are tailored to communicate with different software systems used in large enterprises to enable companies to automate and integrate business processes.
Ken McClellan, Mitrais CTO explains that the BizTalk service is used mainly by the company’s administrative scheduling and accounting department which manages project and employee information in two applications called ADAM and SONIC.
BizTalk first reads the reference to a project from the ADAM (Availability, Development Accounting and Matrix system). It then generates work orders and timesheets into SONIC (Scheduler On the Net and Invoicing Compass) for further administrative processing.
BizTalk will also notify project owners or managers by email when the projects they are responsible for, have been published in Microsoft Office Project Server. An additional workflow step has been added to the publishing process that initiates a Biztalk workflow that in turn updates the other administrative systems.
Typically BizTalk enables companies to integrate and manage business processes by exchanging business documents such as purchase orders and invoices between disparate applications, within or across organizational boundaries.
BizTalk Server helps organizations create automated business processes in three general areas:
Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) connects applications within a single organization.
This often includes service-oriented architecture (SOA).
Business-to-Business Integration (B2B) connects applications across different organizations.
Development for the BizTalk Server was undertaken by Mitrais staff using Visual Studio. NET.