Lotus Instant Messaging/ Web Conferencing ... - IBM Redbooks

6.1 Using Sametime within a workflowIn Chapter 3., “Sametime Bots” on page 49, we showed examples of how a usercan initiate a conversation with an application using Sametime as the interface.When you integrate Sametime into workflow applications, the reverse alsobecomes possible. Applications can become aware of users’ online availabilityand can initiate conversations with them.Being aware of a user’s Sametime state is a very powerful feature. It lets youknow whether or not that user is available and able to respond to a messagefrom you. With e-mail and other types of messaging, you often send informationwith no real idea of whether or not there is somebody currently at the other end toread it. You may get a quick response, but you also may not. This immediacy ofresponse may not be a big deal to you, but it may be critical. The ability to knowwhether or not a specific person is currently available can be an importantcomponent of a business-critical application.Applications that use Sametime awareness can make decisions on the bestmedium to use when contacting a user. For example, an application couldproactively send messages to online users, potentially speeding up the rate atwhich a particular business process moved. Alternatively, the application coulduse conventional e-mail to notify users not currently active in the Sametimecommunity.6.2 The scenarioWorkflow applications are prime candidates to take advantage of the awarenessand messaging capabilities of Sametime. They typically involve a businessprocess moving through some form of approval routing. Many workflow systemsuse e-mail to notify users at each point in the approval process. These e-mailsfrequently contain links back to the workflow application to allow users to performthe relevant action.In many cases, such a scenario is perfectly acceptable. But on occasion, theimmediacy and directness of instant messaging could make a critical difference.There are numerous applications that require a user to be notified of some event,for example, a change in state or an exception to an anticipated result.For example, consider an application that monitored the availability of amission-critical server. The application would alert administrators if the servercrashed or reached a certain performance threshold. This alert could beautomatically delivered to cell phones, pagers, or via e-mail. But if the applicationwas Sametime-enabled and the administrators were online and active, they couldbe notified instantly via instant message or announcement. The instant message140 Lotus Instant Messaging/Web Conferencing (Sametime): Building Sametime-Enabled Applications