What is an Inbox?

Question

I really don't know anything about BPM.

In the BPM context, what exactly is an Inbox?
Is it a common place for emails like everywhere or is it a list of tasks to do?

Answer 1

you should try: http://www.bpm.com/Docs/Q2%20Business%20Agility_BPM%20for%20Dummies.pdf

But yes, an inbox is usually a screen containing a list of the pending task for a particular user.

Cheers

Answer 2

In a BPM package you build business processes, for example a hire employee process. After the process has been designed you can instantiate it. In this example if you want to hire an employee you instantiate that process. An instantiation of this process is a case. And cases are what you see in your BPM Inbox. More specific, a case of which a task is assigned to you which is not completed yet. Look at it as your BPM work to do list.

Answer 3

BPM (business process management) is a standard way to design & excute "business processes" in an enterprise environment. Usually this involves 'human interaction' with the system(in plain terms some code that defines the flow of the business process), although thats not necessary always. This human interaction with the system processes is called 'workflow'.

So In case if there is any human activity in this automated process, this is communicated to the user typically in email -like interface called workflow user interface, which he can use to perform his action such as approve, reject, escalate to next level etc. So a BPM user's inbox usually contains the jobs that need his attention depending on his user profile as defined by the BPM system's user management component.