Hard-coded products providing basic routing capabilities characterized the first generation of Workflow in the 1980s. During the early 1990's the second generation of Workflow products utilized 3GL type scripting tools still involving coding, but with greatly improved development of base product suites.

During this period, many organizations began developing standards for the Workflow industry. The third generation involved the limited use of graphical based design tools leading into the currently available Intranet based technology. As the Workflow industry continues to mature it is becoming widely accepted along with the implementation of Intranet technology, centralized administration, and incorporation of non-traditional forms of information.

In the second generation of workflow, the user would make a request for more work or information, and the client application would perform the desired activity. When the client was done they would ask for more work or ask for the status of an item, and they would get it. This is "pull' technology; i.e., the client would ask for something and it would be delivered.

As corporations began looking at the Intranet, advances in technology have caused many to consider that the "thick client" is no longer applicable. Traditionally, the "client" application would be loaded onto the desktop. This traditional client-server architecture does not fit into today's environment, where one has a back-end server and a front-end user requesting information. This situation is referred to as a "thick Client" and uses pull technology. Currently, collaborative processing technology is based on a web using "thin" clients - push technology instead of pull.

Push technology draws on intelligent applications, thus the user does not have to go looking for more work or ask if there is any urgent work. With the "thin" client technology, the work is "pushed" down to the user. Therefore, the next item in the queue is delivered automatically to the client. This allows the move to collaborative processing where multiple people can work on different phases of the same work item, and if any one of those actions fail, they can send a message to anyone else automatically saying such things as "stop what you are doing, applicant failed credit check" or "applicant withdrew application", etc. These "thin clients" use "push" technology where work is automatically dispatched as necessary. Whereas the "Thick Client" requires some action to occur on the desktop before work is dispatched. This new approach to automating business processes enables users and organizations to develop a collaborative approach to work management.

Workflow products enable organizations to develop dynamic workflow processes, beginning the process of developing collaborative processing within specific departments or companies as a whole. Business process re-engineering has become an imperative in this world of increased global competitiveness. In order to stay viable, companies must examine all of their processes, and where appropriate, streamline and improve them to reflect the changing nature of doing business in the late 20th century and beyond.