STUDY ON DOCUMENT-DRIVEN WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT SYSTEM BASED ON SELF-DEFINITION FORMS TECHNOLOGY
1ST LIANG CHEN
College of computer science，Xi’
an Polytechnic University，Xi’an ShanXi, China
2ND TING XU
College of computer science，Xi’
an Polytechnic University，Xi’an ShanXi, China
ABSTRACT
As a core technology for office automation technology, the workflow plays a significant role in business process management and business process for the enterprise .A large number of forms must be processed among the many business process. However, the development attention of current workflow systems mostly in the design of the workflow engine and workflow process modeling, but not be the use of the user interface. a lot of clutter-free form would be cause, and effective management is lacked. In this paper, the activity model were refered between forms on process workflow model. Form
documents are divided into separate storage unit to make the process closely linked with the form in order to manage, access. So, it can save hours of work, but also improve efficiency for user form.
KEY WORDS
Office Automation, Workflow modeling, Form
1 INTRODUCTION
Workflow technology originated in office automation areas, which have natural advantage in the business management procedure and support business model reorganization. Taking workflow technology into the office automation system could solve problem well. The characteristics of workflow technology is to support the management which separate business logic with process logic, even if the enterprise's business demand change, we only need to modified process logic and don't have to modify business logic well-defined ,which largely improve the efficiency.
Based on analysis of daily offices' business process, this paper put forward the construction of office automation system based on workflow technology. It mainly focus on the problem that the past workflow management system often ignore the management of workflow form ,this paper put forward a custom form documentation - process related model, and implement office automation system based on workflow technology.
2. RELATED TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWS
2.1 Workflow Management System
In today's business environment, It is inevitable that an enterprise handle complex business process. Workflow management system can define, manufacture and manage automation business processes to help users to execute
related tasks according to several business logic. It should have a model process that represent business logic, and which contains a large number of activities and precedence relations between them. Once a process model established,it will assigned activities and related tasks to participants. When a user login the system, users can see their task they must perform in the task list. Workflow management system will push some describing information tasks related to users. Such as: the time limit, process name, task priority and state, input and output files, and so on [1]. These will be displayed in the user work interface by workflow system , it let users know more related informationhe about the task they should finish , so as to improve the work efficiency. Workflow management alliance (WFMC) has issued a series of relevant standards and specifications since it establishment, including the workflow model and interface specifications about collaboration among all of the parts. The workflow model bought by workflow management union includes five interface and one workflow engine.
Interface 1: workflow definition interface. Provide the user with the visual standard defining workflow. Through this interface users can undertake working process analysis, modeling, description and filing work, and will make completed business processes generate language workflow engine can recognize.
Interface 2: workflow customer interface. It provides a way to deal with the operation in need human during the workflow operation process.
Interface 3: workflow call application programming interface. A standard used for workflow engine call an external application. The interface's implement way of different companies' workflow production is not all same, which related the workflow products' development language and technical architecture.
Interface 4: workflow engine collaboration interface. Used for cooperative work between the different workflow engine.
Interface 5: workflow management monitoring interface. Used for monitoring and management for all states of instance workflow [2].
Workflow engine: it is the core part of workflow model, it used to create, manage, scheduling and monitoring workflow execution of various activities and implement human-computer interaction.
2.2 Workflow modeling technology
Workflow modeling is the first step of workflow applications, which is a process that analyze the workflow and express it with appropriate model . But the key is workflow model. Workflow model is abstract representations of the workflow or of the corresponding process. Workflow model should fully support the concept of workflow definition, provide users with necessary components or elements for workflow definition. The ideal workflow model should be able to clearly define the workflow in any circumstances, but so far, although there have been many workflow model, it have long way to implement this ideal situation judging from the model ability. However, completely ideal model is not realistic.
Because the workflow model is to describe how the process carries out. Therefore, many models apply flowcharts, state transition diagrams, activity network diagrams and so on. Because this type of model is based on directed graph, it is more intuitive, and easy to understand. But the drawback is that it can not express and process the larger, more complex process logic. This is because the model can not express clearly the problem when there is no enough
elements, But more model elements will make the figure too complicated. In addition, this type of graphic model is needed to transfer into the final executable model.
From the point of view of the process, as to the process modeling, there are two main methods: based on communication and based on activity [3]. Modeling method based on communication originates Winograd and Flores's "dialogue behavior model" theory. This method assumes that the goal of business process reengineering is to improve customer satisfaction. Based on the communication between "customers" and "enforcer", the behavior of workflow is condensed into four stages: preparatory stage, consultation stage, implementation stage and acceptance stage. Workflow model is composed by a series of closed workflow loop. Each workflow loop includes the four stages. Because the approach focuses on improving customer satisfaction, the model does not reflect which activity happens in parallel or where the condition branch is, etc. Also this method does not support the translation from the workflow need description to the workflow execution. The analysis tool from the Actio Technologies company is based on this approach.
The modeling method based on activity is modeled for process. what the most current workflow management system offers are based on the activities of the model, The modeling method based on activity for process is modeled. Most current workflow management system offers are based on the activities of the model, such as InConcert [4], workflow is composed of the task, and can have the component tasks, a dependent relationship between the same level tasks, each task assigned to the corresponding role. Because the workflow process required not only to articulate the activities and dependencies between activities, but also to define the information conveyed between activities, the activities of execution, the resources required for implementation of activities in area, therefore, some of the model have joined components such as the description of data, organization, resources. Workflow Management Coaliton made it clear that the workflow relevant data, workflow control data and workflow participants, the concepts of the role and so on. Led to the description of the contents of the model too large and complex, people gradually divided workflow model into a numbel of different models for different purpose according to the different descriptions of it. Such as WIDE project proposed the organization model, information model and process model ,all of which composed of workflow model; and Geppert, who proposed a modeling method that will be divided into organization model and execution model [5].
Focus on the executive mechanism of workflow activities, the more representative model is the one based on envet and the one based on permanet message queue. The university, Zurich in Switzerland, developed distributed workflow system based on event-driven [6], they put forward a Broker/Services model and EVE (Event Engine) workflow executing middleware platform. The Broker/Services model assign several events (in this case, for service request) in the process of a workflow implementation to specific Broker to be responsible for the implementation, which can accept events can make events, Brokers contact by events, thus completing a workflow.
In addition, Petri nets also is used to establish the workflow model. Ellis advances information control nets (ICN) model, it is actually the extended Petri nets, on this, the library represent activity, and the change denote transferation between activities. Some people as Papazoglou adopt coloured Petri
come-and-go to describe a workflow process [7]. Vander Aalst criterion defines workflow net-WF.net based on Petri network. Here, change is used to denote activities, and library denote enable conditions of activities, Vander Aalst also mapping several basic workflow original language which are proposed in specification by workflow alliance into a corresponding Petri net model, to creat the basic components of workflow net and triggering mechanism. The benefits of using Petri nets is it have better formal description, but it is not easily accepted and used by mass.
In order to facilitate interaction and implement transformation among different levels, different formats of model, some model put forward described language about workflow, this paper call that the workflow language. Look from the expression, the language can be divided into the one based on graph and the one based on net. The two languages are generally used together with corresponding model. If it is about the function and behavior, chart is used, but if it is about information and concrete operation details and so on, the text are used and complement one another. Another example such as WPDL(Workflow Process Definition Language) launched by Workflow alliance), FDL(FlowMark Definition Language) launched by IBM FlowMark is so based on combination of pictures and text, FUNSOFT and Flow nets are based on Petri nets. There is also a kind of Workflow Language that is called the Workflow Programming Language, also called a scripting language, which often closely linked with workflow management system, and can be directly used for represent model, and also can used for internal representation of Workflow management system's controling execution, such as in a workflow management system had adopted mobile scripting Language to describe the workflow model. The benefits of using language It can be carried out by compiling systems, which is the benefits of using language, and it facilitate machine understanding, but doesn't fit in application-layer.
The research on workflow modeling technology in this paper is established based on activity, but the modeling process activities and form is intimately. So the paper will process activities and form as a whole to studied and analyzed.
2.3 Form document - activity model
In traditional workflow process, each activity of the process only associates with a group of form elements, but there is less or no relevance among documents. This section will proposed a workflow modeling structure, which have the forms as the main body, not only link form with activity, but also the forms’ relevance.
Workflow is a kind of business process can wholly or partially automatically execute, it transfer and execute according to a series of process rules, documents, information or task between different executives [8].It is a set of activities are sequence, regular. It is necessary that task follows activities, and the object is operated by executives in the task(or task operated participants) is form document. So, it is possible to establish such a work unit, which is actually associates form document to the activities of the working process as a whole. Now trying to separate the whole unit, and combine the activities with corresponding form documents as a work module. Thus the work module called a work unit, which is shown in Fig.1.
In this figure, the left part is a documents structure, the top is the folders and the bottom are documents, forms and the control field of forms. The right part of
the figure descripts a workflow process definition, which consists of a series of activities. Folder 1 Folder 2 Document 2 Workunit 3 Field 3 Workunit 4 Workunit 1 Workunit 2 Field 2 Field 1 Field 1 Field 3 Field 2 Field 1 Field 2 Field 2 Feld 1 Document 3 Document 1 A1 A3 A10 A9 A8 A7 A6 A2 A4 A5 A12 A11
Fig.1 Forms - activities related model
3 THE MAIN FUNCTIONS' DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
Access control design. The system uses the combination of the static and dynamic authorized way, distribute user role and award certain privileges. The workflow process, according to the task information that events included, through the form's control field (such as confidential fields, edit field), have fine granular control of form process permissions.
Monitoring function query. First inquires to find out the flow examples, and go to the workflow instance to be inquired; you can see all activities of this process instance. Through the the activity's related information query page, and input certain inquires condition, the system can adjustable out all satisfy certain conditions linked to form and information.
Before the trip, the employees first to fill in the application form, enter new workflow module after loginning system, and start a workflow instance. As show in Fig.2.
Fig.2 Start-up business application workflow instance
Fill the form and submit it, at this time the form, which is in the state where it is waiting for approval circulation to the satrap of this departmen, the satrap can see the application in "my to-do matters" module. In the process of examination and approval, the applicant can inquire into the state of workflow instance. In another word, the applicant can view the workflow instance current operating to which steps. As shown in Fig.3.
Fig.3 Inquires the workflow instance state
4. SUMMARIES
This paper first introduces workflow management system and workflow modeling technology. Based on the background, in the modeling process of workflow, this paper handles each independent work unit which are seperated from tied form, and analys its properties. Use monitoring technology in the workflow system to monitor, instant control flow, information of the work unit, provides a convenient conditions in management and search for users.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work is supported by the ShaanXi National Science foundation (Grant NO. SJ08-ZT14), the special research programs of ShaanXi education office (Grant No. 11JK1070), and also partially by the PhD research foundation of Xi’an Polytechnic University (Grant NO. BS0718).
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