Case management systems help organizations maintain contextual interactions with clients, enabling them to maximize the value of each interaction, minimize rework, and more rapidly obtain the correct outcome. Business units can also prioritize and resolve more business-critical cases swiftly while managing staffing and improving customer and employee experiences. By optimizing case handling, companies can reduce workload strain, maintain accuracy, and enhance service quality, ultimately empowering their teams to deliver optimal business performance in their high-stakes, fast-paced competitive environment.
Customer and employee engagements are critical business functions that require long-term precision and efficiency through the treating interactions within context. This is case management, and is key to operational efficiency and long-term success. Companies handle hundreds to thousands of high value, and high cost, customer and employee interactions which require directing to the appropriate processes and decisions.
What is case management? Dynamic case management vs. traditional process management
Case management is a modern, strategic approach to managing and coordinating complex processes in ever-changing business environments. As many organizations face semi-structured or unstructured, complex workflows, involving humans and automated tasks, case management provide the framework for end-to-end automation while still putting humans in the loop.
By combining automation, orchestration, and human decision-making, case management provides the flexibility to adapt to unpredictable tasks and decisions. It helps businesses manage diverse workflows efficiently, especially when processes are not linear or fully defined.
According to Gartner, case management solutions are "applications designed to support complex processes that require a mix of human tasks and electronic workflows, such as loan applications, claims, or complaints. These solutions facilitate collaboration, workflow management, document storage, and decision-making, often with industry-specific templates to streamline implementation."
The benefits of case management
Manage complex workflows
Dynamic case management simplifies unstructured and complex processes that overwhelm traditional tools. It offers a flexible control of intricate workflows, providing easier implementation and delivery.
People-centric approach
Case management focuses on people and their data and documents, not just processes. It empowers knowledge workers to intervene and redirect workflows, encouraging creativity, adaptability, and smarter decision-making.
Stay agile in a fast-paced world
Case management allows businesses to quickly adapt and evolve to challenges while maintaining existing operations. Whether adjusting to market shifts, customer events, or internal updates, case management helps businesses operations be agile yet resilient.
Real-time adaptation
With case management, businesses can instantly respond to new data, customer requests, or changing conditions. This real-time adaptability leads to smoother, more efficient operations.
Contextual awareness
Case management centralizes context, giving workers the insights to make informed decisions throughout the case lifecycle from all corporate information sources including document-derived data. This improves both employee and automated decisions and leads to better outcomes plus stronger business performance.
Achieve holistic integration
Case management connects various systems, services, and vendors, enabling smooth collaboration between people, processes, and technology. This reduces bottlenecks and improves overall efficiency.
Case management with Flowable
Flowable can provide end-to-end automation, using Case Management to handle complex scenarios and leveraging BPM for repetitive parts of the overall solution. By offering all the open standards – BPMN, CMMN, and DMN – within a single flexible application, Flowable helps businesses create solutions that deliver operational excellence and outstanding customer experiences, no matter the automation needs.
Robust case management frameworks
Flowable supports both CMMN (Case Management Model and Notation) and BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation), providing powerful tools for creating and managing complex case processes that adapt to real-world business needs.
High-performance solution for complex processes
Designed for more than simple service orchestration, Flowable’s engine is proven to handle complex case management and critical business processes effectively, supporting companies with high demands for reliability and performance.
Human-centric case management
Flowable’s case management solution is designed to keep humans in the loop, integrating seamlessly with workflows that require human judgment and decision-making. This approach ensures that complex cases involving multiple human touchpoints are managed efficiently, combining automation with critical human oversight for optimal outcomes.
End-to-end visibility and control
Flowable’s case management capabilities offer a flexible and comprehensive approach for businesses that need end-to-end visibility and control over complex processes. CMMN combined with BPMN translates into an organized, auditable process that can adapt to unexpected changes, making Flowable an ideal solution for managing intricate, multi-stage business scenarios with confidence.
Open source flexibility and scalable pricing
As an open-source solution, Flowable offers the flexibility of community-driven enhancements, with scalable and adaptable pricing options to suit various business needs and growth.
Commitment to open standards
Flowable adheres to open standards, ensuring compatibility and integration with other systems, enhancing interoperability and long-term viability for enterprise use.
Case management vs. CMMN: Similar but not the same
While both case management and CMMN (Case Management Model and Notation) address the management of complex, dynamic workflows, they serve different purposes:
Case management is a broad term for managing complex tasks across various industries like healthcare, legal, and business. It tracks, assesses, and manages cases over time, whether it's patient care, legal disputes, or customer support.
CMMN, on the other hand, is a standardized modeling language designed by the Object Management Group (OMG) to describe case management processes. It's particularly useful for scenarios where tasks are unpredictable and cannot be pre-defined, although its application extends beyond just case management.
Aspect
Case Management
CMMN
Scope
Broad concept applied across many fields.
Specific notation for modeling case management.
Standardization
No formal standard, flexible in approach.
Formal standard (OMG), provides a structured model.
Usage
Applied in healthcare, law, customer success, etc.
Primarily used in business process and IT management.
Flexibility
Highly flexible, based on human decisions.
Allows flexibility, but provides a framework to model it.
Tools
May or may not use structured tools.
Requires tools that support CMMN notation.
Decision Making
Human-driven, often ad-hoc.
Modeled, with discretionary tasks to support decisions.
Graphical Notation
No specific visual standard.
Provides graphical elements to model cases.
Case management model and notation (CMMN)
Adoption of CMMN provides organizations with a robust framework for managing complex cases, enhancing their ability to adapt and respond effectively to dynamic conditions.
The importance of open standards
Standardized frameworks like BPMN, CMMN, and DMN provide consistent, tool-independent understanding of processes, cases, and decision logic.
Using CMMN to go beyond case management
Even if you do not do case management, CMMN can be a great ally in real-world, human-centric workflows. Here's why CMMN is a great addition to BPMN.
Do you need case management?
Answer Yes or No to the questions in the carousel to determine whether case management is an appropriate solution to enhance your business processes.
Mainly NO responses: If most responses are negative, your current process management tools may be sufficient. However, keep monitoring for any changes in process complexity or as your business scales.
Mainly YES responses: If most responses are positive, this indicates a strong case for implementing case management. Your processes likely involve significant complexity, require adaptability, and benefit from enhanced coordination and human judgment.
Further case management reads
Release 3.16: Improving user experience and collaboration for streamlined automation
This release brings a combination of enhancements and new features, focusing on providing an outstanding user experience for even better automation.
Case Management with Flowable
In this eBook, you will learn about the capabilities and advantages of Case Management.
Flowable’s CMMN in action, part one – managing an insurance claim case
Managing an insurance claim requires both human intervention and system processing.