Hitching its wagon to the current craze for “digital transformation,” Alfresco Software Inc. is combining its open-source enterprise content management and business process management services into an integrated package topped by an application development platform.

The Alfresco Digital Business Platform is used to create automated workflows involving multiple documents and users in areas such as document and case management, project collaboration, web content publishing, and compliance records management. The new Alfresco Application Development Framework is said to provide a fast way for developers to specify processes and create responsive user interfaces that work across all devices.

Alfresco works with a wide variety of third-party application programming interfaces and also publishes its own APIs for connecting popular applications like Salesforce.com Inc. CRM, SAP, Microsoft Outlook and Google documents. Users can manage content– including versioning, permissions, security and records management – within a single, integrated workflow.

The announcement is basically a repackaging of the ECM and BPM services the company previously sold, although Alfresco said both have been enhanced for this release. The Application Development Framework is new, combining reusable Angular JavaScript components with Google Material design to enable rapid development of responsive pages. Content and governance services are exposed via open RESTful APIs to enable organizations to build collaboration, case management and compliance workflows.

Alfresco offers both open-source and enterprise versions of its products and charges for support. Founded in 2005, the company has raised $68.5 million in financing, according to Crunchbase, and has 1,300 mostly medium- and large-sized customers, with a concentration in health care, financial services, manufacturing and government.

Digital transformation is being driven both by the need for companies to get closer to their customers and fear of disruption by upstart competitors, said Paul Hampton, senior director of product marketing. “More importantly, they need to address change quickly,” he said. “Their existing platforms may not have the flexibility or agility to move fast.”

As examples, he cited the often laborious process of opening a new bank account or manage an insurance claim. Startups are competing on convenience and speed, and entrenched players that have to wrestle with data silos can’t keep up, he said.

A key feature of Alfresco’s approach is its open-source roots and API integrations. It plugs into published APIs from many of the top software-as-a-service and office productivity vendors, enabling workflows to be adapted to the environments users prefer. For example, a new contract can be routed to the legal team using Microsoft Outlook and to the sales representatives via Salesforce.com. “I don’t have to learn another app. The information and workflows are embedded in what I already use,” Hampton said.

Alfresco claims that workflow applications that might take weeks to build with conventional programming tools can be constructed in a few minutes. “We use scripting to automate the way a base application is put together,” Hampton said. “In some cases, you can build and deploy in less than four minutes.” The company offers a “Quick Start” version that automatically deploys an Alfresco One cluster on the Amazon Web Services cloud.

Alfresco prices in three tiers: up to 100 users, up to 300 users and up to 1,000 users. All pricing is custom-quoted.

Image: Alfresco