The concept of workflow originated in the field of production and office automation. It is a concept that is proposed for activities with fixed procedures in daily life. The proposed purpose is to perform these tasks by decompose work to define good tasks and roles, and monitor them in accordance with certain rules and processes, to achieve improvement efficiency, reduce production costs, and improve corporate management and corporate competition. The goal of force.
1. Basic concepts and definitions of workflow
Different researchers and product vendors give the definition of workflow from different perspectives, and the following given several representative definitions:
l The definition of the Workflow Management Alliance is that workflow is a business process that can be fully or partially automated, which makes documents, information, or tasks, depending on a series of process rules. carried out.
l Workflow is organized a set of tasks to complete a business process. Digading order and trigger conditions are defined in the workflow. Each task can be done by one or more software systems or by one or a group of people, or by people and system collaboration. Trigger the order and trigger conditions definition and implement the trigger of the task, the synchronization of the task, the delivery of the information flow.
l Workflow is a computerized performance model of business processes, defining various parameters required to complete the entire process. Including the definition of the steps, the order of execution of the steps, the establishment of the data stream, each step is responsible and the application required for each activity.
The above concepts have a slight representation, but all of the basic issues, that is, workflow is a computer implementation of business processes, and the workflow management system is the software environment of this implementation.
2. Workflow management system
The workflow management system is a software system that completes the definition and management of workflows, and advances the execution of workflow instances in advance in pre-defined workflow logic. It provides the following three features:
1. Establish a phase: complete process definitions and modeling functions for workgroup flows and other related activities.
2. Running phase: l Institutionalization and control function: In a certain operating environment, perform the workflow process and complete the sorting and scheduling of activities during each process.
L Hand Machine Interaction: Implementing the interaction between users and applications in process execution.
3. Process modeling tool
The process modeling tool is in the form of a computer to process the process definition. It should output a process definition that can be interpreted and executed by a workflow engine, and the nouns involved are:
l Workflow definition: such as a workflow model name, version number, startup, and termination conditions. It reflects the goal of the process.
l Activity: Activity Name, Activity Type (Subflow, etc.), the active front and rear conditions, scheduling parameters (longest waiting time), workflow engine location, etc. It reflects the task of the process and the operation that needs to be performed.
l Conversion conditions: Provide navigation for the advancement of the process. Including Flow Condition, Execution Condition and Notification Condition. It reflects the business rules and operation sequence of the process.
l Workflow related data: including data name, type, and data values. It is a basis for the promotion of workflows and conversion conditions.
l Role: Includes role names, organizational entities, etc. It reflects people and organizational units participating in the process.
l Applications that require activation: including the name, type, path, and running parameters of the application. It reflects the tools required to complete the process.
4. Workflow engine
The workflow engine is a software that provides a running environment for a workflow instance, which is the core of the workflow execution service. Mainly complete as follows:
l Explain the process definition
l Control process instance state transition
l Conversion between the various activities of the control process instance
l Maintain workflow control data and related data
l Provide interfaces that support user operation
l Provides an interface to activate external applications
l Provides monitoring and management of workflow execution
5. Client application
Workflow management system client features refer to the tasks and activities of the user operating the workflow management system. It is done by workflow task table manager and user operation. The workflow task table refers to a queue consisting of task items assigned to a particular user. The Workflow Task Table Manager manages the workflow task table and interact with the user action.
references
Fan Yushun "Workflow Management Technology Foundation" Tsinghua University Press, 2001
