Review Topics
1. Basic understanding of a business process
2. The relationship of a business process with a work flow
3. The different types aspects and types of workflows
4. Characteristics of applications built on a workflow
5. Advanced applications of workflows
6. Requirements of a production work flow
7. Relationship between workflow and other information
processing technologies
8. Process engineering
9. Business logic models
1
What is a Business Process?
“ A set of one or more linked procedures or activities
which collectively realize a business objective or policy
goal, normally within the context of an organizational
structure defining function roles and relationships”
(WfMC, 2003).
WfMC is the Workflow Management Coalition
2
What is a Workflow?
“The automation of a business process, in whole or part, during
which documents, information, or tasks are passed from
one participant to another for action, according to a set of
procedural rules” (WfMC, 2003).
3
The Three Dimensions of Workflows
•
Business processes and workflows have 3 dimensions
1.
2.
3.
•
The three dimensions are also known as 3 Ws
1.
2.
3.
•
Process
Organization
Technology
What
Who
Technology
Some call it 3Rs
1.
2.
3.
Routes
Rules
Roles
4
Types of Users of Workflows
•
•
•
•
End user – performs the individual tasks
System administrator – has the overall responsibility for
the workflow system
Operation administrator – has the technical
responsibility of the workflow system
Process administrator – monitors the expected
processing of the individual business process
5
Categories of Workflows
high
Collaborative
Production
Business
Value
Ad Hoc
Administrative
low
Repetition
6
Application Structure of Workflows Systems
A3
A1
C1
A5
A2
A
4
C2
C3
7
Application Structure of Workflows Systems
A3
A1
A5
A2
C1
A
4
C2
C3
m1 m2
m3 m4
8
Operating Systems and Application OS
•
•
•
An operating system is a fundamental systems software
the enables application to run in their local environments
A WFMS serves as a virtually mutual operating system,
thus relieving applications from OS compatibility
problems across multiple platform.
It does that by invoking applications in their respective
OS platform using mechanisms, such as, message
queuing
9
Transactional Workflows
•
The ACID properties of a transaction are:
–
–
–
–
•
•
Atomicity- A transaction is executed as a whole or it is aborted
Consistency – A transaction lead to a valid state of the system
Isolation – Data is isolated from other transaction until the
transaction is completed
Durability – The changes are not lost under any circumstances
In highly automated workflows, activities are often
carried out as transactions. Such a transaction are called
Global Transaction in Workflows
The set of activates that are part of the global transaction
are called atomic sphere
10
Workflows and Groupware
•
Groupware is classified into:
–
–
–
•
Communication
Collaboration
Coordination
This classification suggests four groupings of
applications:
–
–
–
Communication systems
Shared data spaces
Workgroup computing
11
Business Engineering
•
Business engineering is the analysis, specification, and
modeling of business processes with their associated
resources
The key objective of business engineering are to:
•
–
–
–
•
Reduce time for the execution of the process
Eliminate unnecessary tasks
Perform parallel tasks
Business engineering is triggered by the changing
business environment The nature of processes have
changed enormously in the last decade.
12
Business Modeling
•
The objective is to show the current and intended
process model of a business.
The typical deliverables of business modeling are:
•
–
–
–
–
–
Process goals – customer sat., profitability, growth
Business processes – initially high level processes, roles, and
activities are modeled
Organizational structures – structure of an organization
Business objects – not necessarily technology objects
Critical success factors – set of criteria to be met to declare
success
13
Business Logic
Collect Credit
Information
Assess
Risk
Accept
Risk
Control Flow
Request
Approval
Reject
Risk
14
Business Modeling
•
•
•
•
•
•
Control Connector – the arrow that defines the flow of control from
one activity to another activity.
Fork – the activity that is the source of parallel work
Join – the activity that is the target of the parallel work
Join Condition – whether the activity can be performed
Activation condition – when the activity can be carried out
Exit condition – when the activity has successfully completed
15
Business Logic
Collect Credit
Information
Name
Address
Risk
Amount
Assess
Risk
Accept
Risk
Name
Address
Risk
Amount
Risk is low
Accept = Yes
Amount > 1000
Data Flow
Request
Approval
Reject
Risk
16