K2 mapped to roles across an IT Landscape
Recently I was party to a conversation where there was some confusion around how K2 applies to various IT roles, so I jotted down some thoughts below.
Some of these roles may well be combined in one person in an organisation.
Administrator
Sets permissions on workflows for security and data protection, changes group memberships, troubleshoots process issues (1st line support), often related to the developed K2 application and reports.
Infrastructure
Installs and configures K2 in simple single box scenarios to complex distributed environments. Infrastructure are also concerned with resilience, clustering and load balancing as well as physical and network security around the K2 product.
Operations
Manages and monitors K2, checks performance, capacity planning, critical indicators. Also manages logging, backups, auditing, archiving and security (STRIDE http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Threat_Risk_Modeling#STRIDE).
Solutions Architect
Designs solutions that incorporate K2. This includes mapping out applications, infrastructure, integration and strategies (e.g. SOA, Information, Security etc). They are also responsible for conceptual, logical and physical design of the overall picture and K2 is typically one moving component in this (alongside MOSS, SQL, InfoPath etc).
Business Analyst
Designs business processes, data storage and system integrations at a functional level. Acts as the primary conduit between the business and IT to take user requirements and map them to K2 processes and SmartObjects. The output of the business analyst could be Visio diagrams, outline processes (and SmartObjects) in K2 Studio or documentation in one of many functional modelling methods such as IDEF / UML etc.
Developer
Designs and develops workflows at a technical level, extends process designs produced by business analysts and translates integration and data requirements in to judicious use of SmartObjects. May be responsible for designing the application and its interaction with K2 within the greater Solutions Architecture.
End User
Uses the application developed with K2 and a fundamental understanding of the engine is useful (parallel activities, fork and join, escalations, notifications). Uses the workspace, standard reporting, creates custom reports and leverages the K2 web parts.
Any comments, questions, additions or corrections, please send them on!