Bowstreet Inc. this week launched its Enterprise Portal Solutions, a set of portal-based composite applications designed to bolster employee, partner, and customer productivity.

The Enterprise Portal Solutions deliver pre-packaged portlets, browser-based configuration tools, and Bowstreet Factory tools for extensibility, development, and customization.

The first suite of portals, due for release next month, is the Workforce Management Suite, which includes employee and manager self-service applications for IBM Corp."s WebSphere Portal, and access to SAP AG HR data. The Workforce Management Suite aims to automate HR functions such as updating personnel records, processing vacation requests, and reviewing job applicant status, according to Bowstreet officials. Automating these people- and paper-intensive processes can reduce overhead costs and ramp up productivity, Bowstreet said.

In addition, the Enterprise Portal Solutions can simplify connecting to multiple back-end data sources with wizard-based connectors that automate the process of pointing portlets at different data sources, officials said.