Enterprise Systems

Week 6
Process Architecture
2.2.2 The Control-flow View
• An Activity element is the base class for other elements such as
Sequence, Flow, and Switch.
• Sequence: An activity is only enabled after the completion of another
activity in the same sequence structure.
• Flow: All activities of a flow structure are executed in parallel.
• Switch: Only one of many alternative paths of control inside a switch
structure is enabled according to a condition value.
• A SimpleActivity element represents a concrete action such as a
service invocation, a data processing task, and so on.
• The StructuredActivity element is an abstract representation of a
group of related activities.
2.2.3 The Collaboration View

• The collaboration view extends the relationship between Process and

Service elements in the core view.
• The Service element from the core view is extended by a specific Service
element that exposes a number of Interfaces.
• An Operation represents an action that might need some inputs and
produces some outputs via correspondent Channels.
• A Channel only holds a reference to a Message entity.
• The ability and the responsibility of an interaction partner are modeled by
the Role element.
• These concepts are captured by using the PartnerLink and the
PartnerLinkType elements, as are their relationships with the Role
element.
• An interaction between the process and one of its partners is represented
by the Interaction element that associates with a particular PartnerLink.
2.2 The Control-flow (a) vs. Collaboration View (b)
2.2.4 The Information View

• Involves the representation of data object flows inside the process

and message objects traveling back and forth between the process
and the external world.
• Consists of a number of BusinessObjects elements.
• Data flowing inside the process might go through some
transformations that convert existing data to form new pieces of data.
• The transformations are performed inside a DataHandling object.
• The source or the target of a certain transformation is an
ObjectReference entity that holds a reference to a particular
BusinessObject.
2.2.5 The Human View

• The Human view defines human roles and their relationships to the
respective process and tasks.
• It Process elements that require human interactions are called as
Tasks.
• It establishes a role-based abstraction.
• This role-based abstraction can be used for role-based access control.
• Role-based access control is administered through roles and role
hierarchies that mirror an enterprise’s job positions and
organizational structure.
• Users are assigned membership into roles consistent with their
duties, competency, and responsibility.
2.2 The Information (a) vs. Human (b) View

(a) (b)
3. Reference Process Architecture: Workflow Systems

• Workflows are useful for the coordination of interrelated activities carried

out by organization members in order to execute a business process.
• A WfMS defines, creates and manages the execution of workflows through
the use of software, running on one or more workflow engines.
• Workflow is defined, according to the WfMC, as the automation of a
business process, in which documents, information, or tasks move from
one participant to another in order to perform some actions in accordance
with a set of procedure rules.
• A distributed workflow is executed across an extended enterprise, in
which different individuals participate in order to reach global objectives.
• Collaborative process planning can be considered as a business process
that can be managed using distributed workflows.
3.1 Basic Workflow Components / Basic Components of Workflow
• Activity: A description of a piece of work that forms one logical step within a
process.
• Participant: A resource that performs the work represented by a workflow
activity instance.
• Role: A mechanism that associates participants to a collection of workflow
activities.
• Routing: A route defines the sequence of the steps that information must
follow within a workflow.
• Transition rule: A transition rule is a logic expression that determines what
actions need to be carried out, depending on the value of logic operators.
• Event: An occurrence of a particular condition that causes the workflow
management software to take one or more actions.
• Deadline: A time-based scheduling constraint, which requires that a certain
activity work be completed by a certain time.
3.2 Types of Workflow

1. Administrative workflow: used to perform workflow processes

with defined procedures, though not as structured as in the case of
Production workflow, as each instance of the workflow can have a
different amount of work associated with it.
2. Production workflow: consists of highly automated workflow
processes—the goal of a Production workflow is to automate the
process as much as possible.
3. Ad hoc workflow: implemented by a user to perform a string of
actions that arise for a business scenario.
4. Collaborative workflow: involves a team of people working
together.
3.4 Workflow Perspectives

1. Data or Informational Perspective:

• Consists of data flow between workflow activities.
• Each activity is assigned a set of input and a set of output parameters.
• The transfer of data between workflow activities is known as data
flow.
• The modeling of data is required to permit workflow management
systems to control the transfer of workflow relevant data as
generated by workflow activities during workflow executions.
• By providing graphic language constructs to represent data flow
between activities, the informational perspective can be visualized
and used to validate and optimize application processes.
3.4 Workflow Perspectives

2. Context of Organizational Perspective:

• WfMS requires information on the context that is organizational as well as
on the technical environment in which the workflows will be executed.
• Atomic workflows can be either automatic or manual.
• Manual atomic workflows are executed by persons who may use
application programs to do so.
• automatic atomic workflows are executed by software systems without
human involvement.
• The role concept is defined dependent on the structure of an organization
in which the workflow is executed.
• When an activity is about to start, the system uses predefined role
information to select people to perform the requested activity.
3.4 Workflow Perspectives

3. Interaction or Operational Perspective:

1. When persons are selected by role resolution to perform workflow
activities.
2. When a person chooses to perform an activity, then the defined
application program is started and the input data as specified in the
workflow model are transferred to that application program.
3. When the person completes that activity, the output data generated
by that activity are collected in the output parameters of the activity
to be transferred by the WfMS to the next workflow activity, as
specified in the respective workflow model.
3.4 Workflow Perspectives

4. Processing or Functional and Behavioral Perspective:

• The processing perspective covers the functional decomposition of
activities as present in application processes.
• It specifies which activities have to be executed within a workflow.
• Workflows have a tree structure, where root node represents the top-
level workflow, inner nodes represent other complex workflows, and
leaf nodes represent bottom-level atomic activities.
• The controlled execution of a complex workflow by a WfMS has to
take into account interrelationships of the subworkflows covered in
the subordinate behavioral perspective.
4. Workflow Reference Model

• The WRM divides the workflow system into five components:

1. Process definition tool
2. Workflow engine
3. Workflow client application
4. Invoked application
5. Administration and monitoring tool

• The WRM provides the following guidelines:

• Common terminology for the workflow product category
• WRM is the functional components necessary in a WfMS.
• Interfaces that connect the various functional components
4. WRM Components and Interfaces
 4.1 Workflow Process Definition Tool
• The process definition tool is a design tool that allows the workflow
designer to design and model the workflow process.
• It provides a graphical interface for the process designer to graphically
design the business process.
• The result of the design activity is a workflow process model.
• Once the workflow process model has been designed, the process
definition tool creates an output of the model using a process
definition language.
• The workflow process that is included in the calling workflow process
is called a subprocess and can be nested further.
 4.1 Workflow Process Definition Tool

• An activity is work performed by a specific resource.

• The participants in a workflow process could be an explicitly named
human user, a role defined in an organizational structure, a position
that is part of the organizational unit, or an information system.
• There are four generic flow control mechanisms: sequential, parallel,
iteration, and nesting.
• Transition defines the criteria for moving to the next activity and it is
usually represented as a line from one activity to the next in the
graphical workflow process model.
• Transition can be of two types: conditional and unconditional.
4.2 Workflow Client Application

• Workflow client application is an application that requests services

from the workflow engine including the retrieval of a worklist
generated by the workflow engine for participants to execute.
• The workflow engine generates the work items assigned to specific
users, which are retrieved by the workplace portal and then displayed
to each user for action.
• The workflow client application would need to instantiate a workflow
process instance, execute a work item, and update the worklist in the
workflow engine as to the status of a particular work item.
4.3 Workflow Engine

• The workflow engine is the runtime environment of the WfMS.

• It creates process instances of the workflow process based on a
trigger event for the creation of a workflow process instance.
• An event is a predefined circumstance the workflow engine is
listening for.
• The trigger could be some status change of an application
transaction.
• When a workflow process instance is created, the workflow engine
manages workflow relevant data throughout the life cycle of the
workflow process instance.
4.4 Invoked Application

• The workflow engine to perform work calls the invoked application.

• The invoked application is the backend application that creates
business transactions.
• It is a system participant that usually performs a transaction as a
result of the workflow process.
• An example is the purchasing requisition process; an online request
form completed by a human participant might trigger the process.
• Once the workflow engine has received the purchase request form,
the next activity in the workflow process is to create a purchase
requisition in the backend ERP system.
4.5 Administration and Monitoring Tool

• Allows system administrators to manage the WfMS users, roles, and

resources.
• Provides functions such as audit reporting, querying of process status,
and updating active process instances.
• Workflow engines store events and record updates to process
instances in workflow logs.
• The administration and monitoring tool retrieves workflow logs for
process instances that have completed and instances that are still in
progress.
• These statistics provide data for process analysis, which lead to
process improvements.
4.6 Workflow Reference Model Interfaces

1. Interface 1 links the workflow process definition tool to the

workflow engine.
2. Interface 2 links the workflow client application to the workflow
engine.
3. Interface 3 connects the workflow engine to the business
applications invoked during the processing of the workflow model.
4. Interface 4 enables integration between heterogeneous workflow
engines by providing a set of APIs that one WfMS can invoke on
another.
5. Interface 5 enables integration between workflow engines with the
administration and monitoring tool.