Abstract
Conventional workflow functionality like task sequencing, split parallelism, join synchronization and iteration have proven effective for business process automation and have widespread support in current workflow products. However, newer requirements for workflows are encountered in practice, opening grave uncertainties about the extensions for current languages. Different concepts, although outwardly appearing to be more or less the same, are based on different paradigms, have fundamentally different semantics and different levels of applicability – more specialized for modeling or more generalized for workflow engine posit. By way of developmental insight of new requirements, we define workflow patterns which are described imperatively but independently of current workflow languages. These patterns provide the basis for an in-depth comparison of 12 workflow management systems. As such, the work reported in this paper can be seen as the academic response to evaluations made by prestigious consulting companies. Typically, these evaluations hardly consider the workflow modeling language and routing capabilities and focus more on the purely technical and commercial aspects.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Chapter 10: Three Good reasons for Using a Petri-net-based Workflow Management System. In: Wakayama, T., et al. (eds.) Information and Process Integration in Enterprises: Rethinking documents. The Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, pp. 161–182. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell (1998)
van der Aalst, W.M.P.: The Application of Petri Nets to Workflow Management. The Journal of Circuits, Systems and Computers 8(l), 21–66 (1998)
van der Aalst, W.M.P., Barros, A.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Kiepuszewski, B.: Workflow Patterns. Unpublished (46 pages) (2000)
van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M.: Verification of Workflow Task Structures: A Petri-net-based Approach. Information Systems 25(l), 43–69 (2000)
Doğac̨, A., Kalinichenko, L., Tamer Özsu, M., Sheth, A. (eds.): Logic of Programs 1983. NATO ASI Series F: Computer and Systems Sciences, vol. 164. Springer, Berlin (1984)
Ellis, C.A., Nutt, G.J.: Modelling and Enactment of Workflow Systems. In: Ajmone Marsan, M. (ed.) ICATPN 1993. LNCS, vol. 691, pp. 1–16. Springer, Heidelberg (1993)
Fowler, M.: Analysis Patterns: Reusable Object Models. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1997)
Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., Vlissides, J.: Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1995)
Georgakopoulos, D., Hornick, M., Sheth, A.: An Overview of Workflow Management: From Process Modeling to Workflow Automation Infrastructure. Distributed and Parallel Databases 3, 119–153 (1995)
Jablonski, S., Bussler, C.: Workflow Management: Modeling Concepts, Architecture, and Implementation. International Thomson Computer Press, London (1996)
Kiepuszewski, B., ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Bussler, C.: On Structured Workflow Modelling. In: Wangler, B., Bergman, L. (eds.) CAiSE 2000. LNCS, vol. 1789, pp. 431–445. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)
Koulopoulos, T.M.: The Workflow Imperative. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York (1995)
Lawrence, P. (ed.): Workflow Handbook, Workflow Management Coalition. John Wiley and Sons, New York (1997)
Leymann, F., Roller, D.: Production Workflow: Concepts and Techniques. Prentice-Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River (1999)
Riehle, D., Züllighoven, H.: Understanding and Using Patterns in Software Development. Theory and Practice of Object Systems 2(1), 3–13 (1996)
Schäl, T.: Workflow Management Systems for Process Organisations. LNCS, vol. 1096. Springer, Heidelberg (1996)
WFMC. Workflow Management Coalition Terminology and Glossary (WFMC-TC-1011). Technical report, Workflow Management Coalition, Brussels (1996)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
van der Aalst, W.M.P., Barros, A.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Kiepuszewski, B. (2000). Advanced Workflow Patterns. In: Scheuermann, P., Etzion, O. (eds) Cooperative Information Systems. CoopIS 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1901. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/10722620_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/10722620_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-41021-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45266-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive