Workflow

About: Workflow is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 31996 publications have been published within this topic receiving 498339 citations.

Beyond workflow management: product-driven case handling

Abstract: In the last decade, workflow technology has become one of the building blocks for realizing enterprise information systems. Unfortunately, the application of contemporary workflow management systems is limited to well-defined and well-controlled environments. In practice, workflow technology often fails because of limited flexibility. We advocate a paradigm shift to overcome this problem: Workflows should not be driven by pre-specified control-flows but by the products they generate. This paper presents the software package FLOWer which fully supports this paradigm shift.

Exception Handling in Workflow Systems

Abstract: In this paper, defeasible workflow is proposed as a framework to support exception handling for workflow management. By using the “justified” ECA rules to capture more contexts in workflow modeling, defeasible workflow uses context dependent reasoning to enhance the exception handling capability of workflow management systems. In particular, this limits possible alternative exception handler candidates in dealing with exceptional situations. Furthermore, a case-based reasoning (CBR) mechanism with integrated human involvement is used to improve the exception handling capabilities. This involves collecting cases to capture experiences in handling exceptions, retrieving similar prior exception handling cases, and reusing the exception handling experiences captured in those cases in new situations.

Dynamic workflow schema evolution based on workflow type versioning and workflow migration

Abstract: An important yet open problem in workflow management is the evolution of workflow schemas, i.e., the creation, deletion and modification of workflow types in such a way that the schema remains correct. This problem is aggravated when instances of modified workflow types are active at the time of modification because any workflow instance has to conform to the definition of its type. The paper presents a framework for dynamic workflow schema evolution that is based on workflow type versioning and workflow migration. Workflow types can be versioned, and a new version can be derived from an existing one by applying modification operations. Workflow type versions allow us to handle active instances in an elegant way whenever a schema is modified. If possible, an affected workflow instance is migrated to the new version of its type. Otherwise, it continues to execute under its old type. We introduce correctness criteria that must be met by workflow schemas and workflow schema modification operations. We also define under which conditions the migration of workflow instances to new workflow type versions is allowed.

System and method for developing and administering web applications and services from a workflow, enterprise, and mail-enabled web application server and platform

Abstract: A workflow, enterprise, and mail-enabled application server and platform supports distributed computing and remote execution of web applications. Lotus Domino online services (DOLS) is used by a web site administrator to configure Internet Notes (iNotes) clients to auto download from server, thus providing iNotes clients with web access using HTTP with various browsers, and with local processing and replication. A local run time model comprises a hierarchy of models including object data store model, security model, indexing model, replication model, agent workflow model and mail model. DOLS provides a layered security model that allows flexibility for controlling access to all or part of an application. The highest level of security is managed through a database access control list (ACL). Further refinements within the security model provide access to specific documents, and their views, forms or folders, and include read access lists, write access lists, form access lists and readers and authors fields.