Abstract
Business processes heavily rely on data. Data is used as input for activities; it is manipulated during process execution and it serves for decisions made during the process. Thus, changes (in values or structure) of data may influence large portions of the business process. We introduce in this paper the concept of ‘data impact analysis’ which analyzes the effects of data elements on other business process elements, including activities, routing constraints, and other data elements. This type of analysis is important in scenarios such as process or database redesign and unexpected changes in data values. The paper further proposes a set of primitives depicting impacts of data within business processes, and demonstrates the use of these primitives to query the overall impact of a data element within a business process.
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
Notes
- 1.
Due to length limitations, the process model does not specify the data elements that participate in the process. A full model of the process along with its data flow can be found at http://hevra.haifa.ac.il/is-web/staff/data_impact_analysis/ordering_process_example.pdf.
- 2.
The database structure diagram is available online at http://hevra.haifa.ac.il/is-web/staff/data_impact_analysis/ordering_process_data_structure.pdf.
- 3.
For simplicity, we assume that the data item name is unique within the process.
- 4.
A data item type denotes the possible range of values the data item can assume. It can be considered as a (finite or infinite) set of values. During process execution, a data item has a specific value from this range at a certain time.
- 5.
Ternary relations and relations of higher degrees are relaxed to binary relations.
- 6.
Note that the impact of a data item on a gateway is indirect, through a routing constraint.
References
Bhattacharya, K., Hull, R., Su, J.: A data-centric design methodology for business processes. Handbook of Research on Business Process Modeling, pp. 503–531 (2009)
Casati, F., Ceri, S., Pernici, B., Pozzi, G.: Workflow evolution. Data Knowl. Eng. 24(3), 211–238 (1998)
Cohn, D., Hull, R.: Business artifacts: a data-centric approach to modeling business operations and processes. Bull. IEEE Comput. Soc. Tech. Comm. Data Eng. 32(3), 3–9 (2009)
Dai, W., Covvey, D., Alencar, P., Cowan, D.: Lightweight query-based analysis of workflow process dependencies. J. Syst. Softw. 82(6), 915–931 (2009)
Künzle, V., Reichert, M.: PHILharmonicFlows: towards a framework for object-aware process management. J. Softw. Maint. Evol. Res. Pract. 23(4), 205–244 (2011)
Meyer, A., Weske, M.: Extracting data objects and their states from process models. In: 17th IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (EDOC), pp. 27–36 (2013)
Meyer, A., Pufahl, L., Fahland, D., Weske, M.: Modeling and enacting complex data dependencies in business processes. In: Daniel, F., Wang, J., Weber, B. (eds.) BPM 2013. LNCS, vol. 8094, pp. 171–186. Springer, Heidelberg (2013)
Reichert, M.: Process and data: two sides of the same coin? In: Meersman, R., et al. (eds.) OTM 2012, Part I. LNCS, vol. 7565, pp. 2–19. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)
Reichert, M., Dadam, P.: ADEPTflex—supporting dynamic changes of workflows without losing control. J. Intell. Inform. Syst. 10(2), 93–129 (1998)
Reichert, M., Weber, B.: Enabling Flexibility in Process-Aware Information Systems: Challenges, Methods, Technologies. Springer Science & Business Media, Heidelberg (2012)
Reijers, H.A., Mansar, S.L.: Best practices in business process redesign: an overview and qualitative evaluation of successful redesign heuristics. Omega 33(4), 283–306 (2005)
Ryndina, K., Küster, J.M., Gall, H.C.: Consistency of business process models and object life cycles. In: Kühne, T. (ed.) MoDELS 2006. LNCS, vol. 4364, pp. 80–90. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Sadiq, S.W., Orlowska, M.E., Sadiq, W.: Specification and validation of process constraints for flexible workflows. Inf. Syst. 30(5), 349–378 (2005)
Sadiq, S., Orlowska, M., Sadiq, W., Foulger, C.: Data flow and validation in workflow modelling. In: Proceedings of the 15th Australasian Database Conference, vol. 27, pp. 207–214. Australian Computer Society, Inc. (2004)
Soffer, P.: Mirror, mirror on the wall, can I count on You at all? Exploring data inaccuracy in business processes. In: Bider, I., Halpin, T., Krogstie, J., Nurcan, S., Proper, E., Schmidt, R., Ukor, R. (eds.) BPMDS 2010 and EMMSAD 2010. LNBIP, vol. 50, pp. 14–25. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Sun, S.X., Zhao, J.L., Nunamaker, J.F., Sheng, O.R.L.: Formulating the data-flow perspective for business process management. Inf. Syst. Res. 17(4), 374–391 (2006)
Sun, S.X., Zhao, J.L.: Formal workflow design analytics using data flow modeling. Decis. Support Syst. 55(1), 270–283 (2013)
Tjoa, S., Jakoubi, S., Quirchmayr, G.: Enhancing business impact analysis and risk assessment applying a risk-aware business process modeling and simulation methodology. In: Third IEEE International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES), pp. 179–186 (2008)
Trčka, N., van der Aalst, W.M., Sidorova, N.: Data-flow anti-patterns: discovering data-flow errors in workflows. In: van Eck, P., Gordijn, J., Wieringa, R. (eds.) CAiSE 2009. LNCS, vol. 5565, pp. 425–439. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
von Stackelberg, S., Putze, S., Mülle, J., Böhm, K.: Detecting data-flow errors in BPMN 2.0. Open J. Inf. Syst. (OJIS) 1(2), 1–19 (2014)
Weber, B., Reichert, M., Rinderle-Ma, S.: Change patterns and change support features–enhancing flexibility in process-aware information systems. Data Knowl. Eng. 66(3), 438–466 (2008)
Acknowledgment
This research is supported by the Israel Science Foundation under grant 856/13.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Tsoury, A., Soffer, P., Reinhartz-Berger, I. (2016). Towards Impact Analysis of Data in Business Processes. In: Schmidt, R., Guédria, W., Bider, I., Guerreiro, S. (eds) Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling. BPMDS EMMSAD 2016 2016. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 248. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39429-9_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39429-9_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-39428-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-39429-9
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)