建立工作流数据仓库

工作流管理系统(WfMS)是允许定义、执行、监视和管理商业过程的软件平台。一个WfMS记录了在过程执行中发生的每一个事件,因此,工作流的日志包含了相当多的重要信息。通过分析这些信息,可以评估工作流的性能,了解影响工作流性能高低的原因,从而对工作流进行调整。本文提出一种方案对工作流的日志信息进行加工、综合,建立工作流数据仓库(WDW),然后根据在WDW中进行OLAP的结果,调整WfMS的运行。     

基于数据仓库的工作流日志智能管理

工作流管理系统是一种软件平台，它定义、执行、监控和管理企业中各种业务流程，其中流程日志是非常重要的信息资源，它跟踪记录业务流程执行的真实情况。这些信息可用来分析流程的执行情况，帮助理解性能“好”和“坏”的原因。本文将根据工作流日志的特性结合数据仓库技术，构建一个流程日志数据仓库，为进一步分析挖掘“隐藏”在流程日志中的“知识”打下良好的基础。     

企业动态联盟中柔性工作流的研究与实现

柔性问题是工作流管理系统在应用中面临的一个重要问题，目前已成为工作流技术领域的研究热点之一，在本文中，我们在对工作流的基本概念进行介绍之后从几个方面讨论柔性在工作流管理中的必要性，随后对柔性作出大体的分类与讨论，DyFxWF是一个基于面向对象技术开发的工作流管理系统的原型系统，客户可以在工作流的执行过程中根据具体情况修改执行路径，调整任务及其它参数，实现了动态的柔性。     

基于数据仓库的工作流日志更新*

为了对日志统一管理, 引入了数据仓库技术,聚合了来自不同数据源的日志数据, 并对工作流日志进行一系列更新处理后使之变成有规律的信息,工作流挖掘便利用更新后的日志信息进行分析建模,极大地提高了工作效率.     

基于分布式工作流日志挖掘的流程识别算法

为了识别出分布式环境下工作流的执行流程,对分布式工作流管理系统进行了研究,通过对分布式工作流执行站点中XML格式的系统运行日志进行分析,提出了一种增量式工作流挖掘算法。该算法通过对大量工作流执行站点中的活动执行时间序列进行分析与合并,从而重构出分布式环境下的工作流模型。该算法主要由两个重要部分组成:一个是时间序列挖掘算法,用于从工作流执行日志中挖掘出活动间的执行时间序列;另一个是工作流程识别算法,在时间序列挖掘算法得出的活动执行时间序列基础上,识别出结构化的工作流模型。通过实例结果表明了该算法的有效性。     

一种面向可信的工作流系统监控方法

摘要：提出了一种面向可信的工作流系统监控方法,该方法可对工作流引擎执行性能、工作流实例状态、以及负载情况等系统信息进行实时监测,并能对运行的工作流实例进行动态调整,有效的保证了工作流系统的可靠性、安全性和鲁棒性。该方法应用到了面向可信的动态工作流管理系统中,验证了该方法的有效性。     

浅谈工作流在业务过程中的应用

工作流是一个业务过程的全部或部分自动执行,现在的企业基本上都有自己的工作流管理系统。通过对工作流的探讨分析以及一个简单的费用报销过程实例,体现工作流管理系统在业务过程应用的重要性。     

基于XML的工作流引擎的设计与实现

工作流是一系列自动执行的业务过程,而工作流引擎在整个工作流管理系统中处于核心地位,为工作流管理提供执行环境。该文设计了工作流描述语言——X-WPDL,实现了一个以节点为核心的工作流引擎,将X-WPDL描述的工作流过程转化为一系列与处理操作有关的“有序执行”,并提供了管理者、参与者与引擎交互的接口,讨论了X-WPDL的设计和引擎的结构、运转,验证了该引擎的应用效果。     

关于工作流例外处理方法的讨论

现在大多数工作流管理系统可以很好地运行完全可预见的、重复的业务流程。但是，在很多情况下一个业务流程在执行过程中会面临需要处理可能发生的例外情况。因此，在一个WFMS(工作流管理系统)中必须考虑如何处理各种各样的例外的方法。章主要分析了可能影响一个工作流执行的各种例外的特点，并且提出了相应的解决方法。     

基于Saga的事务模型在工作流系统中的设计与实现

对工作流管理系统中的事务和事务处理进行研究,明确工作流管理系统中事务处理需要解决的问题的重点与难点。在此基础之上,对工作流管理系统中的长事务进行拆分,提出一个具有事务支持的工作流模型和一组事务恢复执行模式。     

一个基于Web的工作流管理系统

Internet/Intranet/WWW技术的日渐成熟以及资源、应用的日益丰富,为工作流管理系统的构造提供了一个理想的计算环境.在这种易于访问、无处不在的计算环境中,人们可以通过工作流管理系统将各种分布式的信息资源有效地集成、协调起来,以促使企业业务目标的高效实现.文章描述了一个基于Web而构造的通用工作流管理系统Wowww!(workflow on the world wide web),详细讨论了其体系结构的设计、工作流模型及过程实例的执行算法,并讨论了Wowww!为提高其可用性和灵活性而实现的工作     

A Comprehensive and Automated Approach to Intelligent Business Processes Execution Analysis

Business process management tools have traditionally focused on supporting the modeling and automation of business processes, with the aim of enabling faster and more cost-effective process executions. As more and more processes become automated, customers become increasingly interested in managing process executions. Specifically, there is a desire for getting more visibility into process executions, to be able to quickly spot problems and areas for improvements. The idea is that, by being able to assess the process execution quality, it is possible to take actions to improve and optimize process execution, thereby leading to processes that have higher quality and lower costs. All this is possible today, but involves the execution of specialized data mining projects that typically last months, costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and only provide a specialized, narrow solution whose applicability is often relatively short in time, due to the ever changing business and IT environments. Still, the need is such that companies undertake these efforts.To address these needs, this paper presents a set of concepts and architectures that lay the foundation for providing users with intelligent analysis and predictions about business process executions. For example, the tools are able to provide users with information about why the quality of a process execution is low, what will be the outcome of a certain process, or how many processes will be started next week. This information is crucial to gain visibility into the processes, understand or foresee problems and areas of optimization, and quickly identify solutions. Intelligent analysis and predictions are achieved by applying data mining techniques to process execution data. In contrast to traditional approaches, where lengthy projects, considerable efforts, and specialized skills in both business processes and data mining are needed to achieve these objectives, we aim at automating the entire data mining process lifecycle, so that intelligent functionality can be provided by the system while requiring little or no user input. The ambitious end goal of the work presented in this paper is that of laying the foundation for a framework and tool that is capable of providing analysts with key intelligence information about process execution, affecting crucial IT and business decisions, almost literally at the click of a button.     

Authorization and Access Control of Application Data in Workflow Systems

Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) are used to support the modeling and coordinated execution of business processes within an organization or across organizational boundaries. Although some research efforts have addressed requirements for authorization and access control for workflow systems, little attention has been paid to the requirements as they apply to application data accessed or managed by WfMSs. In this paper, we discuss key access control requirements for application data in workflow applications using examples from the healthcare domain, introduce a classification of application data used in workflow systems by analyzing their sources, and then propose a comprehensive data authorization and access control mechanism for WfMSs. This involves four aspects: role, task, process instance-based user group, and data content. For implementation, a predicate-based access control method is used. We believe that the proposed model is applicable to workflow applications and WfMSs with diverse access control requirements.     

Agent-based workflow management systems (WfMSs)

Workflow management systems (WfMSs) based on agent technology can cope with the rapidly evolving business environment better than most other systems as they are more flexible and open. In this paper we describe a possible architecture of such a system by means of our prototype WfMS called JBees. The combination of collaborating agents and the Coloured Petri Net (CPN)-formalism in JBees enables a flexible and adaptive system with the possibility of simulation, analysis, and monitoring of the process execution in order to identify potential inconsistencies and to provide appropriate information to the workflow administrator for the purpose of the process improvement.     

Discovering colored Petri nets from event logs

Process-aware information systems typically log events (e.g., in transaction logs or audit trails) related to the actual execution of business processes. Analysis of these execution logs may reveal important knowledge that can help organizations to improve the quality of their services. Starting from a process model, which can be discovered by conventional process mining algorithms, we analyze how data attributes influence the choices made in the process based on past process executions using decision mining, also referred to as decision point analysis. In this paper we describe how the resulting model (including the discovered data dependencies) can be represented as a Colored Petri Net (CPN), and how further perspectives, such as the performance and organizational perspective, can be incorporated. We also present a CPN Tools Export plug-in implemented within the ProM framework. Using this plug-in, simulation models in ProM obtained via a combination of various process mining techniques can be exported to CPN Tools. We believe that the combination of automatic discovery of process models using ProM and the simulation capabilities of CPN Tools offers an innovative way to improve business processes. The discovered process model describes reality better than most hand-crafted simulation models. Moreover, the simulation models are constructed in such a way that it is easy to explore various redesigns. A. Rozinat’s research was supported by the IOP program of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. M. Song’s research was supported by the Technology Foundation STW.     

Modeling and Managing Interactions among Business Processes

Most workflow management systems (WfMSs) only support the separate andindependent execution of business processes. However, processes often needto interact with each other, in order to synchronize the execution of theiractivities, to exchange process data, to request execution of services, orto notify progresses in process execution. Recent market trends also raisethe need for cooperation and interaction between processes executed in differentorganizations, posing additional challenges. In fact, in order to reduce costsand provide better services, companies are pushed to increase cooperation and toform virtual enterprises, where business processes span across organizationalboundaries and are composed of cooperating workflows executed in differentorganizations. Workflow interaction in a cross-organizational environment iscomplicated by the heterogeneity of workflow management platforms on top ofwhich workflows are defined and executed and by the different and possiblycompeting business policies and business goals that drive process executionin each organization.In this paper we propose a model and system that enable interactionbetween workflows executed in the same or in different organizations. Weextend traditional workflow models by allowing workflows to publish andsubscribe to events, and by enabling the definition of points in the processexecution where events should be sent or received. Event notifications aremanaged by a suitable event service that is capable of filtering andcorrelating events, and of dispatching them to the appropriate targetworkflow instances. The extended model can be easily mapped onto anyworkflow model, since event specific constructs can be specified by means ofordinary workflow activities, for which we provide the implementation. Inaddition, the event service is easily portable to different platforms, anddoes not require integration with the WfMS that supports the cooperatingworkflows. Therefore, the proposed approach is applicable in virtually anyenvironment and is independent on the specific platform adopted     

Conformance checking of processes based on monitoring real behavior

Many companies have adopted Process-aware Information Systems (PAIS) to support their business processes in some form. On the one hand these systems typically log events (e.g., in transaction logs or audit trails) related to the actual business process executions. On the other hand explicit process models describing how the business process should (or is expected to) be executed are frequently available. Together with the data recorded in the log, this situation raises the interesting question “Do the model and the log conform to each other?”. Conformance checking, also referred to as conformance analysis, aims at the detection of inconsistencies between a process model and its corresponding execution log, and their quantification by the formation of metrics. This paper proposes an incremental approach to check the conformance of a process model and an event log. First of all, the fitness between the log and the model is measured (i.e., “Does the observed process comply with the control flow specified by the process model?”). Second, the appropriateness of the model can be analyzed with respect to the log (i.e., “Does the model describe the observed process in a suitable way?”). Appropriateness can be evaluated from both a structural and a behavioral perspective. To operationalize the ideas presented in this paper a Conformance Checker has been implemented within the ProM framework, and it has been evaluated using artificial and real-life event logs.     

基于时间Petri网的工作流模型分析

工作流管理的最终目的是实现适当的人在适当的时间执行适当的活动.企业要获得竞争力,需要在工作流模型中考虑与业务过程相关的时间约束.一个考虑时间因素的工作流模型,需要在投入运行前进行时间规范与验证,以保证工作流执行的时间协调.通过为工作流网元素扩展时间属性,得到集成业务过程时间约束的工作流模型??时间约束工作流网(TCWF-nets).基于对业务活动的可调度性分析,提出了时序一致性验证方法,确保工作流执行中活动之间时间交互的安全性.在所附加的时间约束下,该可调度分析方法不仅能够检测某一给定工作流调度的时间可行性,还能对特定的实例给出一个最优调度,使工作流执行延迟最小.研究结果表明,该方法支持业务过程的时间建模与分析,对于丰富现有工作流系统的时间管理功能以及增强现存工作流软件对动态业务环境的适应性具有重要意义.     

业务活动驱动系统体系结构执行研究

针对可执行体系结构研究中难以将业务体系结构的执行对应到系统体系结构的执行,并最终形成内在一致的执行体,提出了业务活动驱动系统体系结构执行的方法。该方法根据DoDAF中业务活动与系统功能多对多的关系,将业务活动用更详细的业务过程模型进行描述,并将过程模型中的行为单元对应到系统功能并触发该功能的执行。系统功能的执行将相应地触发一系列系统功能的执行,系统功能之间的系统数据交换将通过系统通信描述（SV-2）中的连接来实现,这样就建立起业务体系结构与系统体系结构之间的联系,并最终形成整个体系结构内在一致的执行体。该方法有效地解决了业务活动与系统功能之间多对多,无法形成内在一致的执行体问题,为体系结构的执行提供了一个明确、具体的可实施方案。