Process Management Tools - Tools

 

SUMMARY

A list of open and commercial process management tools from simple and open source to complex and commercial.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFO

Text is in English . See guides for translating content.

• Gernot Hausar
• October 2024
• See project licence.
• Internet Article
• DigiAppHum

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TAGS & CATEGORIES

Digital Office

Process Management

Task Lists

Project Management

BPM - Business Process Management

Tools

English

Process Management Tools - from simple to complex tools

Process Management Tools can make the tedious "process" of developing, negotiating, visualising and managing processes, documents and tasks so much easier. This list can help find the tools for your needs.

What do you want - and what do you need?

Different use-cases need different complexity - therefore we distinguish between 3 use-cases:

1. Simple local tools, best free or low-cost with few active admins (the rest just views the finished content)
2. Online tools, locally or externally hosted (best in EU for GDPR reasons), more centralisation more interaction (admins and users can participate in content editing) but more complexity and costs
3. Professional commercial tools, when money and resources are plentiful

Simple Process Management Tools

The most basic use-case: use what you got or can get

Simple Process Visualisation

With draw.io and bpmn.io you get free and open source local and web-based tooling for BPMN, DMN and Forms. If you don't have many processes to work on this might be all you need. You can try the tools online.

Draw.io

• draw.io (diagrams.net) is free online diagram software for making flowcharts, process diagrams, org charts, UML, ER and network diagrams.

BPMN.io (Camunda)

• bpmn-js - Create, embed and extend BPMN diagrams in your Browser. Use it standalone on your PC or integrate it into your application.
• dmn-js - View, create and edit DMN decision tables, literal expressions and decision requirement diagrams in your browser. Use dmn-js standalone on your PC or embed it into your application.
• form-js - Create forms visually.
• cmmn-js - cmmn-js simplifies creating, embedding and extending CMMN 1.1 diagrams. It runs in modern browsers. Use it standalone or integrate it into your applications.

Libre Office and Open Source Tools

If you do not have a budget or want to use open readily available and free tools, look no further:

• Charts and Diagrams in LibreOffice: Charts allow you to present data so that it is easy to visualize. You can create a chart from source data in a Calc spreadsheet or a Writer table. When the chart is embedded in the same document as the data, it stays linked to the data, so that the chart automatically updates when you change the source data.
• FreeMind: A Mindmapping Tool that one can use to visualise processes, too. It allows following of HTML links stored in the nodes, be it www links or links to local files - so you can export it and use it for a Process Map, too.
• ExcaliDraw - Online free drawing whiteboard helps you to get your idea out there, co-create solutions and show it to others.

Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365

Depending on your business you might have a ms office subscription. Included but not often well known are a few tools and templates that might fit your needs:

• Microsoft Planner: A Kanban board with tasks, lanes and tags might be enough to manage simple processes, documents and tasks. There are also a variety of templates for project management that can be adapted to your needs and integrated into teams and Outlook tasks.
• Excel with Visio Plugins: While Visio is generally not included and necessitated an extra subscription, the Excel Visio Plugin still allows to build a simple process list that gets visualised by the Visio Excel plugin. If you only need simple visuals and have a lot of people proficient in Excel, this might fit your needs. Note: See that you have the rights to use the Data Visualiser Plugin.
• Visio: Love it or hate it - Visio is Microsoft's approach to flowchart making and diagramming.
• MS Whiteboard - Helps you create, share and export a whiteboard online - useful for process discovery

Online tools, locally or externally hosted

Self-hosted General Purpose Tools

Free and Open Source

• BookStack - Bookstack is a simple, self-hosted, easy-to-use wiki- platform for organising and storing information. The page editor within BookStack has diagrams.net drawing capability built-in, allowing the quick and easy creation of diagrams and processes within your documentation.
• DokuWiki - Open-source wiki software that is easy to set up and use. No database is required but it still has the usual wiki functionality like version control, plugins and user management.
• MediaWiki - Wiki that powers Wikipedia, MediaWiki is highly customizable and can handle large amounts of content.It has version control, user management, and extensive documentation capabilities.

Freemium

• Notion - Tool for note-taking, task management, and wikis.

Commercial Process and Workflow management Tools

(...)

• Q-Wiki
• Adonis
• Signavio
• Camunda
• Enabler4Biz
• Confluence

(...)

Task, Notes and Project Management

Local

• Zettlr - Zettlr is an open-source note-taking program that allows you to connect the notes so you can describe complex topics and systems.
• Obsidian - Obsidian is a text-based private and flexible note‑taking app that adapts to the way you think. It offers plugins for task and project management.
• Zotero - Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research.
• Reor - Reor is an open source free private & local AI personal knowledge management app.
• MS Planner and other MS Tools like MS Project

Hosted

• Redmine - Redmine is a flexible open source project management web application.
• OpenProject - another open source web application for project management.
• WorkLentz - Simple task management and time tracking all-in-one open source solution.
• Taskwarrior - Free and Open Source Software that manages your TODO list from the command line.
• Planka - Elegant open source kanban project tracking.
• Vikunja - open-source, self-hostable to-do app.
• Focalboard - Kanban open source.

• Commercial Task Management, Note Taking: Miro and other tools - but careful with GDPR rules

Workflow and Document management

Free and open source document management

• Paperless-ngx is a community-supported open-source document management system that transforms your physical documents into a searchable online archive so you can keep, well, less paper.
• Mayan EDMS - Open Source Document management system.
• ...curated list of open source document management tools

Free and open source workflow management

• A curated list of open source workflow engines

Further Links and Endnotes

Free and Open Source Selfhosted Software

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