New Delhi: Salesforce.com has announced the availability of Force.com Visual Process Manager, a new capability of the Force.com platform that will help companies rapidly automate any business process. With the Force.com Visual Process Manager, customers can visually design any complex business process with an intuitive, visual design tool, and instantly run it in the cloud.

Force.com Visual Process Manager, enables organizations to build business process applications with greater flexibility and automate processes across all departments. Including:

• Sales: Call scripting and sales methodology automation
• Service: Customer issue resolution and product returns
• Finance: Billing and collections
• HR: Employee onboarding and performance management
• Legal: Contract management and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance
• Operations: Surveys and supplier management

Prior to the Force.com Visual Process Manager, companies had to buy on-premise software, hardware and infrastructure to automate processes.

Being part of the Force.com platform, businesses can create dynamic and sophisticated business processes within their current Sales Cloud 2 and Service Cloud 2 deployments or custom Force.com applications.

Force.com Visual Process Manager helps companies automate specific business processes by guiding users through multiple steps and recommending the next course of action, all without any coding. Features of the Force.com Visual Process Manager include:

• Process Designer - The Process Designer enables companies to easily design business processes via an intuitive user interface. It includes a library of process components such as presentation components like forms, questions, and choices, and logic components, like task assignments, decision trees, and approval processes. These components can be added to a visual process design diagram through simple drag-and-drop actions.
• Process Wizard Builder - The Process Wizard Builder enables companies to easily design wizards that walk end-users,  step-by-step, through their business process.
• Process Simulator - With Process Simulator, helps optimize the process design by simulating complex processes before they are deployed. Companies can also test the process flow entirely in the cloud, identify bottlenecks and conflicts, and immediately revise by reviewing each phase of a process.
• Real-time Process Engine - The real-time process engine runs all of a company's sophisticated processes and automatically scales to meet the needs of any size business. Based on the engine, complex processes can be carried out while enforcing business rules and adhering to best practices.

The Force.com Visual Process Manager is based on technology acquired from Informavores. Salesforce.com acquired Informavores in 2009. Terms were not disclosed.

"The new Force.com Visual Process Manager is another example of why Force.com has become the cloud computing platform of choice in the enterprise," said George Hu, executive vice president, marketing and alliances, salesforce.com. "By eliminating the cost and complexity of legacy on-premise platforms like .NET, Websphere, and Lotus Notes, Force.com's multitenant approach helps enterprises build apps five times faster and at half the cost."

Force.com Visual Process Manager is available to existing Enterprise and Unlimited Edition subscribers for $50 per user per month.