Metastorm’s BPM software helps companies to model, automate, integrate and optimize their human and system-based processes.

The latest Metastorm BPM 7 version drives further enhancements into the Integration Manager module to provide better integration and management of processes across newer SOA and legacy mainframe-based systems.

Integration Manager was added to Metastrom’s BPM suite following the acquisition of CommerceQuest Inc last October. The software is now fully integrated and shares the same interface and works with Metastorm’s reporting, analysis and simulation tools.

Its really the culmination of our acquisition of CommerceQuest that added system-based process integration to Metastorm’s traditional strengths in human-based integration, said Laura Mooney, senior director of corporate and product marketing at Baltimore, Maryland-based Metastorm. Both product sets have now been integrated into a single BPM suite.

Another key addition in version 7 is integration with Microsoft SharePoint portal to support process collaboration. Metastorm has developed a new Process Client for SharePoint as a packaged set of Web Parts (web form controls).

This allows users to collaborate on processes deployed and managed by the Metastorm BPM platform through a configurable Microsoft SharePoint portal interface.

We’re allowing end users to create individual dashboard view into processes that they’re involved in and need to monitor, providing alerts and watch lists, Mooney said. This also facilitates more collaboration between people impacted by the same processes.

Metastorm worked closely with Waltham, Massachusetts-based Lionbridge Technologies Inc to design the Process Client. Lionbridge, which specializes in providing software globalization and testing services and products, also uses Metastorm’s technology internally to support its service delivery platform.

The SharePoint Process Client joins a growing list of end-user interface options that also includes a zero-client, web-based dashboard, a Microsoft Outlook Process Client, and a Blackberry Process Client for mobile access.

Metastorm has also extended the event and activity monitoring capabilities already included in its BPM suite to push event-based alerts to other business activity monitoring systems like Celequest Inc and VineyardSoft Corp as well as consume events from other applications to trigger a process.

We’re helping to internalize these external events as processes in Metastorm BPM, Mooney explained.

The company has also enabled process data to be published and accessed via RSS lists. This allows.

Metastorm plans to roll out more enhancements around business activity and event monitoring in future releases, including a brand new graphical event manager later this year.

Finally Metastorm BPM has been given a facelift. Metastorm has also standardized on a common user interface across all components of its BPM suite to improve usability.

You now feel like you’re in an integrated suite rather than separate modules, Mooney said.

Following its merger with CommerceQuest last year, Metastorm claims to be the largest pure-play BPM software provider in the world, doubling its current revenues and now boasting over 1,200 customers in 41 countries.

Metastorm competes with vendors like FileNet, Pegasystems, IBM, Tibco, Savvion, Lombardi, Intalio, and Fuego (which was bought by BEA Systems earlier this year).

Metastorm differentiates itself by approaching BPM as a round-trip process cycle that consists of process design, execution, monitoring, analysis and simulation. The company claims it is the only vendor to offer all these capabilities in a single product set and common user interface.

Mooney hinted that the company would close another acquisition in the coming year to further round out its BPM suite.