US 6,058,413 AGrant
Method and Apparatus for Utilizing a Standard Transaction Format to Provide Application Platform and a Medium Independent Representation and Transfer of Data for the Management of Business Process and Their Workflows
Issue Date:2000-05-02
•11 Claims
•7 Drawing Sheets
Abstract
The present invention is a method and apparatus which is used to enable application developers to generate workflow enabled applications which request services from the workflow server component of the workflow system, remotely and indirectly using messaging, shared databases or inter-process communications. The present invention provides a standard transaction format (STF) for accessing such a workflow system through STF processors via messaging, updates to the shared databases or inter-process communications. Workflow enabled applications are used by users to act and participate in business processes and enable users and managers to observe and query the status of workflows and business processes.
Metadata
Assignee
- Action Technologies, Inc.
Inventors
- Rodrigo F. Flores
- Pablo A. Flores
- Raul Medina-Mora Icaza
- Thomas E. White
- John A. McAfee
- Manuel Jasso Nunez
- Thomas G. Buchler
- Roy I. Gift
Application Information
Application Number:US 8552142
Filing Date:1997-05-13
Priority Date:1993-02-25
Art Unit:275
Classifications
IPC:
G06F 946
Field of Search:
395705709671;6827;8100-108;300-305
Patent Drawings (7 sheets)
Description
Background of the Invention
1. Field of the Invention
Businesses are demanding new systems that directly support the management of business processes, systems that bring order and coordination to the flow of work. They are seeking to automate that part of office work that has been impervious to conventional data processing and information processing systems, which were not designed for business process management and are not well-suited to help with it.
The present invention is part of a system that, when implemented in software, provides businesses with the tools they need to manage business processes efficiently and cost-effectively.
The invention can be applied to such a system, whether the system is a simple application, such as intelligent forms routing, to sophisticated mission-critical enterprise-wide systems that integrate all marketing, production, and customer fulfillment processes.
The resulting system enables users of the system to take coordinated action quickly and to manage processes painlessly. The results are increased productivity, reduced cycle time and hence, improved customer satisfaction.
Workflow-enabled systems facilitate business processes. To do so, a workflow management system performs eight key functions:
Notifies the user that he or she has a step to begin or to complete.
Provides the user with the proper tools to complete a task.
Provides the user with the proper information to complete a task.
Allows the user to see where a task fits in the overall process.
Manages the proper reminders, alerts, and follow-ups to keep the process moving.
Automates certain standard procedures.
Integrates with the organization's existing business systems.
Provides simple application program interfaces (APIs) that allow developers to develop new custom applications that are workflow-enabled.
The workflow system's architecture is designed to fit within a variety of computer systems, collecting around itself not only specific applications, but also system enhancements and utilities from users and third-party developers. In addition, the architecture is designed to allow for interoperability among different applications and across diverse platforms.
A fundamental concept of a workflow system is that any business process can be interpreted as a sequence of basic transactions called workflows. Every workflow has a customer, a performer, and conditions of satisfaction. The customer and performer are roles that participants can take in workflows. In addition, each workflow can have observers.
In a workflow, the customer is the person for the sake of whom the work is done, either because they made a request or accepted an offer. It is customers who are responsible for evaluating performed work and determining whether this work meets their conditions of satisfaction.
The performer is the person who is responsible for completing the work and for declaring to the customer when the work is done.
Requests and Offers are the two basic types of workflows. There are other workflow types such as Question, Inform and Note that are simplified derivations of Request and Offer. The conditions of satisfaction specify the work to be performed by the performer. In a request, the customer specifies the conditions of satisfaction, and in an offer the performer specifies them. (Then, of course, the two can enter into negotiation about the work to be done.)
For example, given the sentence:
"John asked Frank to prepare the report and deliver it by noon on Friday,"
John is the customer for this workflow, Frank is the performer, and the conditions of satisfaction are "prepare the report and deliver it by noon on Friday." Further, because John asked for the report rather than Frank offering it, this workflow is of the type Request.
Given the sentence:
"John proposed to prepare the report and deliver it by noon on Friday for Frank,"
John is the performer for this workflow, Frank is the customer, and the conditions of satisfaction are still "prepare the report and deliver it by noon on Friday." Further because John proposed the report rather than Frank asking for it, this workflow is of the type Offer.
Observers of workflows take no direct action; they usually observe for management or training purposes.
Business process maps display the workflows as loops, and display the relevant information about each workflow--the customer, the performer, the conditions of satisfaction and the cycle time. FIG. 1 is a business process map having a primary workflow 11, conditional workflows 13 and 15, a conditional link 17, parallel workflows 19 and 21, serial workflows 23 and 25. In a workflow system of the type used in conjunction with the present invention, associated with each workflow are various parameters such as roles, cycle time, conditions of satisfaction or associated semantics to the links that imply automated action or provide the framework for application building, all of which are necessary to create a useful business process representation.
Each workflow has four phases as shown in FIG. 2. The first phase is called the proposal phase during which a request is made of the prospective performer by a customer or an offer to a customer is made by a prospective performer. The second phase is called the agreement phase during which the offer is accepted by the customer or the request is agreed to by the performer and conditions of satisfaction are identified. Of course, during the agreement phase the original conditions of satisfaction can be negotiated by the customer and performer until an agreement is reached. The third phase is called the performance phase during which the performer undertakes to meet the agreed to or accepted conditions of satisfaction. When the performer believes that the conditions of satisfaction have been met, the performer declares completion. The last phase is the satisfaction phase during which the customer determines whether or not the conditions of satisfaction have been met by the performer, and if so, declares satisfaction.
A workflow system incorporates the following components which are shown in FIG. 3, a workflow server and databases, application program interfaces (APIs) and workflow server manager. In addition, a complete workflow system of the type in which the standard transaction format (STF) processors of the present invention may be utilized includes an application builder, analyst, workflow enabled applications and reporter components. The application builder, analyst, workflow enabled applications and reporter components, while useful components of a complete workflow system, do not form part of the present invention and details concerning such components are set forth herein only as needed for an understanding of the invention. The present invention is concerned mainly with STF processors used in combination with a complete workflow system.
A workflow system provides certain services as follows:
transactions services which are those related to initiating and acting in workflows by users and agents;
definition services which are those related to defining the elements of a business process and its workflows and workflow links;
names and routing services which are those related to defining organizational roles and identities;
configuration services which are provided to the system administrator through a specific configuration database;
scheduling services which allow an authorized user to create, modify and delete records of scheduled business processes; and
STF processing services which are provided by the server to STF processors (which are the subject of the present invention as described below) through an STF queue database.
Further details concerning the definition services, names and routing services, configuration services and scheduling services are set forth in co-pending U.S. Ser. No. 08/014,796 filed Feb. 8, 1993. The present invention is directed to the STF processing services provided by a workflow system as well as STF processors.
In addition to the foregoing services provided by a workflow system, external interfaces to the system provide services that are used by end-user applications, the workflow application builder, the workflow reporter and the STF processors.
A workflow system utilizes a workflow server which concentrates workflow operations in the server rather than in the end user applications.
All work done by the server is performed by one of three processes which are referred to as the transaction manager, follow-up manager and date/time schedule manager. Processes are software components or tasks that are architected to run as separate entities from each other. The workflow server controls the three basic processes based upon workflow system server administration data in a configuration database in the following manner. First, it determines when to run the transaction manager and spawns that process. Second, it determines when to run the follow-up manager and spawns that process. Third, it determines when to run the date/time schedule manager and spawns that process.
These processes may be separate executables or simply separate tasks within the body of the workflow system server.
A workflow system also utilizes:
a definitions database which contains records of the definitions of the organizations, business processes, workflows, roles, and acts;
a transactions database which contains records of the enactment of workflows;
a names/routings database which contains records of the roles and identities of the organization where the workflow system is installed;
a schedule database which stores the date and time when a business process must be initiated;
an administration/configuration database which stores information needed by the workflow server to operate; and
a STF queue database which stores the records of notifications to be sent to users that interact with the workflow system through an STF processor interface.
The remaining elements of a workflow system are:
1) Workflow APIs which provide a programming interface to access the services of the workflow server. Workflow enabled applications, STF processors and the application builder are all developed using these APIs. APIs of a workflow system are as follows: transactions API, definitions API, reporter API, names and routings API, schedule API and administration API.
2) Workflow server manager which is a component of the workflow system that provides a user interface for specific maintenance and administration services of the workflow server.
3) Workflow application builder which is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) application that allows a business process designer to specify the business process design with its network of workflows and to automatically generate the definitions needed for a workflow enabled application to work.
4) Workflow analyst which is a GUI application that allows a business process analyst to specify the map of business processes with its network of workflows.
5) Workflow reporter which is a GUI application that provides an interface to the transaction databases through the workflow reporter API of the system.
6) Workflow-enabled applications which interface to the server via the workflow APIs or via direct access to the transactions database of the workflow server, or via the use of an STF processor which can use different interfacing mechanisms such as messaging, database or inter-process communication.
7) STF processors which are a set of mechanisms for developing workflow-enabled applications are provided in a workflow system through the definition of a standard transaction format (STF). Such STF processors are the subject of the present invention.
In U.S. Ser. No. 600,144 filed Oct. 17, 1990 and U.S. Ser. No. 07/368,179 filed Jun. 19, 1989, both owned by Action Technologies, Inc., the assignee of the present application, methods and systems for managing workflows, called conversations in the referenced applications, are described. However, the teachings in the cited references are limited to single workflows with no capability for mapping business processes made up of a number of workflows linked together. In U.S. Ser. No. 08/005,236 filed Jan. 15, 1993 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,069, a method and apparatus are disclosed for creating and modifying business process maps which is a desirable but not necessary component of a workflow system. This component is referred to as the workflow analyst. In U.S. Ser. No. 08/014,796 filed Feb. 8, 1993, a method and apparatus are disclosed for implementing a complete workflow system for managing business processes and their workflows.
Brief Summary of the Invention
The present invention is a method and apparatus which is used to enable application developers to generate workflow enabled applications which request services from the workflow server component of the workflow system, remotely and indirectly using messaging, shared databases or inter-process communications. The present invention provides a standard transaction format (STF) for accessing such a workflow system through STF processors via messaging, updates to the shared databases or inter-process communications. Workflow enabled applications are used by users to act and participate in business processes and enable users and managers to observe and query the status of workflows and business processes.
In describing the invention, the following terms with their indicated definitions are used:
Act
Basic linguistic occurrence by which people intervene in moving a workflow towards completion.
Agreement
The outcome of the negotiation phase, in which two parties come to a common agreement of the conditions of satisfaction.
Business Process
A network of workflows linked together that represent the recurrent process by which an organization performs and completes work, delivers products and services and satisfies customers.
Business Process Map
This is a graphical representation of business process, which shows its workflows and their relationship.
Primary Workflow
This is the first workflow which is initiated when a business process is initiated. Its condition of satisfaction represent the condition of satisfaction of the business process.
Conditional Link
A link that indicates that only one of a group of workflows will be triggered based on some condition.
Conditions of Satisfaction
Conditions declared by or agreed to by a customer. The fulfillment of which is the purpose of a workflow.
Customer
The role in a workflow who makes a request or accepts and offer.
Customer Satisfaction
The objective of a workflow, the accomplishment of which is declared by the customer when the conditions of satisfaction in the workflow have been fulfilled.
Cycle Time
A measure of the time from initiation to successful completion of a workflow phase, a complete workflow or a business process.
Exception Flow
The path in the business process workflow map which is followed if a customer cancels or a performer revokes or declines.
Link
A defined dependency between two workflows and the mechanism by which dependencies between workflows is established.
Loops (Workflow)
A workflow is represented graphically by an elliptical loop with arrows shown in a clockwise direction wherein each quadrant of the ellipse signifies different phases of the workflow.
Normal Flow
This is the path followed in a business process map when workflows complete with customer satisfaction.
Observer
A role in a workflow who cannot perform acts in the workflow, but is informed of acts in the workflow, and has access to the information and data associated with the workflow.
Offer
The act by which the performer can initiate a workflow, specifying conditions of satisfaction that he is willing to satisfy for a customer.
Organization Roles
Named positions in an organization who are authorized to make certain requests, agreements, take certain actions, set certain policies, and make certain decisions. The kind of roles will be accountant, office manager, etc.
Performer
One of the principal roles in a workflow: the role that commits to complete the conditions of satisfaction.
Phase
A characterization of the status of a workflow based on the acts that have happened and the acts that are permitted. Each workflow has four phases namely, the proposal phase the agreement phase, the performance phase and the satisfaction phase
Request
A customer does this act to initiate a workflow and declare conditions of satisfaction.
Trigger
An action in a workflow which causes an action in some other workflow.
Triggered
Action in a workflow based on certain conditions/status in some other workflow.
Workflow
A structured set of acts between customers and performers organized to satisfy a customers conditions of satisfaction.
Workflow Activation
A triggered action that enables the customer or performer of the workflow to take the initial act of the workflow.
Workflow Initiation
An act of request or offer initiates a workflow.
Workflow Roles
The association of participants in the workflows that take the acts in workflows; three roles are distinguished in workflows: customer, performer, and observer.
Workflow Type
This indicates whether the workflow is of request, offer or note type.
Brief Description of the Drawings
FIG. 1 is pictorial representation of a business process, i.e., a set of linked workflows.
FIG. 2 shows the phases of a workflow.
FIG. 3 is a block overview diagram of a complete workflow system including STF processors.
FIG. 4 is a block overview diagram showing the major components of an STF processor.
FIG. 5 shows the exchange of STF transactions between a workflow enabled application, the STF processor and server.
FIG. 6 is a generic class hierarchy diagram of a STF processor showing how the classes in STF processors are linked.
FIG. 7 shows the interaction of workflow enabled application, STF processor and workflow server for different kinds of transactions.
Detailed Description of the Invention
Overview
The present invention is directed to a Standard Transaction Format (STF) specification to address the requirements of applications, platform and medium independent representation and transfer of data related to business processes of a workflow system. The present invention is also directed to STF processors which are the modules that provide the server-side connection point for client/server interactions using any of several STF specification variants. These STF specification variants are messaging, updates to shared databases and inter-process communications. By accessing STF processors workflow enabled applications, using a standard transaction format, are able to request services from the workflow server component of the workflow system, remotely and indirectly using messaging, shared databases or inter-process communications. In other words, the STF specification defines the semantics for accessing the workflow services.
For each one of these types of interfaces there is a syntactic definition that gives the specific format for the representation of the workflow data and the process specific data in that medium. This syntax definition constitutes an STF specification that a particular workflow enabled application will then use.
The communication and interface between workflow enabled applications and the server is provided by STF processors. These STF processors map and translate between a workflow-enabled application's data format and the data elements of the workflow system APIs.
STF processors provide a layer for integration of many different protocols and technologies. STF processors can be constructed for any message transport database technology, and inter-process communication protocol.
The interface from STF processors to the server is accomplished through the workflow system APIs. From the point of view of workflow services, the STF processors appear to the server as additional applications.
Since an STF processor is an application whose job is to interface external systems to the workflow system, there is one STF processor for each different type of system that interfaces to the workflow system.
Business processes can be managed across platforms in diverse locations with diverse interconnections through the management of a class of transaction called STF transactions. Transactions include taking acts, getting reports of status, and notifications of acts taken by other workflow participants, among others.
Three classes of STF processors are described, which are characterized by the method of connection between client and server, which, as previously noted are: messaging, shared database, and inter-process communication. Within these interfaces, STF processor variants are required to conform to the various syntactic requirements of the communication technology. The particulars of such variants depend upon such syntactic requirements, however, the implementation details of such STF processor variants should be apparent to persons skilled in the art having knowledge of the syntactic requirements and the descriptions contained herein.
The client/server communications medium determines whether a client application can run synchronously with the server--making server requests and receiving server responses during the duration of a connection, or asynchronously--making server requests, disconnecting, and reconnecting later for responses. Inter-process communications media typically allow synchronous connections between client and server, message based media typically allow only asynchronous communication between client and server, and clients and servers which communicate through a shared database can operate either synchronously or asynchronously.
Thus, while STF processors may be provided for several STF specification variants, an STF processor with generic functional requirements is described. Further, this description focuses particular attention to the requirements of an STF processor for a messaging platform known as MHS (message handling system) available from Novell Corporation which will serve as an example case.
FIG. 4 shows the major components of an STF processor, namely, a transporter module, which includes a transaction parser and a transaction formatter, and a transaction processor module. The transaction processor module processes STF transactions received from workflow enabled applications through the transporter module and sent to workflow server via calls to the workflow server APIs. Similarly, it processes transactions queued by the workflow server and passes them to the transporter module to be sent to the WEA. The transaction processor is environment independent. The transporter module is adapted to the STF environment (i.e., messaging, shared database or inter-process communication) and receives incoming transactions from a messaging application, shared database or inter-process communication and sends outgoing transactions to a messaging application, shared database or inter-process communication.
The workflow transactions API provides an interface to the workflow server. The workflow server responds to transactions it finds in the transactions database and updates the workflow and places status information in the STF queue database to be processed by STF processors.
STF Transactions
An STF transaction is a workflow transaction defined in a specific format called Standard Transaction Format (STF). This standard enables any application to interface to the workflow server. An application is said to be a Workflow Enabled Application (WEA) when it is able to send/receive the workflow transactions in STF. STF transactions are passed from the STF processor to the workflow server via calls to the transactions API.
An STF transaction is composed of an envelope and workflow data. The envelope provides connection and addressing information translated by STF processors to formats appropriate for the particular medium supported by the STF processor. Workflow data includes workflow specific data and bound process data. STF transactions are exchanged between client and server as shown in FIG. 5. The figure shows some types of transactions as well as the role of the STF processor.
There are five STF transaction types as follows:
Initiating a workflow
Acting in a workflow
Requesting the status of a workflow
Requesting list of declared business processes
Requesting list of workflows with pending actions
Components of STF Transactions
STF Envelope
The STF envelope is entirely platform and medium dependent. The envelope contains addressing information. In a messaging environment, the STF envelope would typically specify user and STF processor email addresses or equivalent. In an IPC environment (connection oriented), the STF envelope would typically specify a logical unit identifier or equivalent. In a database environment, the STF envelope would typically specify user and STF processor identifications or equivalent.
It contains STF Processor ID for identification of a particular STF processor. Essentially this is the address with which a WEA sends an STF transaction.
For example, to address an STF processor STFPROC1 in work group ATI, a WEA in a messaging environment might specify the STF processor address as follows:
To: STFPROC1@ATI
Workflow Data
As previously noted, workflow data includes workflow specific data and bound process data.
Workflow Specific Data
All workflow transactions include a set of required workflow specific data elements that are defined by the STF specification.
The workflow specific data component of an STF transaction contains workflow attributes required to do each of the five types of transactions. Each type of STF transaction has a different set of workflow information. The STF transaction sent by a WEA must contain a Transaction ID (STFID) keyword. This aids the WEA and STF processor in identifying a transaction uniquely and helps the STF processor in sending status transactions to the WEA. Each STF transaction also has a set of mandatory parameters called minimal transaction parameters. Each STF transaction may also contain other optional parameters which are called extended set parameters.
An example of a minimal set of parameters for the workflow specific data component of an STF transactions is as follows:
STF type (transaction type)
STF transaction identification
An example of an extended set of parameters for the workflow specific data component of an STF transactions is as follows:
workflow participants or users
workflow type
transaction type
expected and/or requested workflow completion dates
workflow status
Bound Process Data
Bound process data are data elements which are managed by the workflow server for purposes of management and as values in assignment, calculation, and flow control statements. Bound data elements are application-specific extensions to the STF specification. Examples include sales price, image data, and quantity ordered. These additional data elements can be used in processing and display definitions of client applications and the processing and control of business process definitions at the workflow server. For example, a time sheet submission workflow includes bound process data in the form of project names and hours worked. The business process definition might specify that the sum of hours worked on a particular day is used to calculate an employee's paycheck amount which is used in a recurrent automated workflow to cut a pay check.
The STF interchanges shown in FIG. 5 are realized via client applications, STF processors, and workflow server interfaces. For example, a workflow enabled application may use MHS messages to send STF transactions to the workflow server. STF transactions are sent as attachments to MHS messages. The STF processor receives these messages, identifies the STF transaction, parses the transaction and passes information as required to the workflow server.
Mapping Between STF Transactions And Workflow Server APIs
The workflow server APIs provide the following functions:
Initiate a workflow
Act in a workflow
Bind process data
Get bound process data
Get field attributes
Get Workflow Status
Get Available acts
Get Available Business Processes
Get Workflows in progress and pending actions
The STF transaction set is designed to facilitate the invocation of workflow server API functions and to return status reports. Workflow server API functions to STF transaction mapping is shown in Table 2. Descriptions of the specified workflow server APIs may be found in co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 08/014,796 filed Feb. 8, 1993.
In the case of a message type of interface, both the STF processor and the Workflow Enabled Application (WEA) read (write) messages from (into) predefined message queues (i.e., directories). Similarly, in a database type of interface they read/write records of a shared database. The STF processor is constantly servicing requests from a WEA. The interface of STF processor with the WEA and the server in both these cases is asynchronous. However, in the case of a IPC based interface, the interaction between WEA and the STF processor is synchronous.
Each type of STF processor is a separate executable (EXE). When installing the STF processor, its ID (name) is registered in the server via the workflow server manager module.
To provide the necessary functionality, an STF processor deals with these different requirements through creation of a base Transporter class. Three subclasses are derived from the Transporter for: Msg, Database, and IPC. From Msg, further subclasses can be derived for the various messaging platforms supported, such as MHS, VIM or MAPI. From Database, a subclass such as for SQL can be derived. From IPC, subclasses can be derived for environments such as APPC. FIG. 3 shows the interrelation of these classes in the cases of incoming and outgoing transactions.
STF Transaction Definitions
InitBP
This transaction is used to initialize a business process and the primary workflow associated with the business process. To initialize a business process, InitBP needs the following parameters:
minimal transaction parameters:
STF Transaction ID
Business Process Name
Identity
extended set parameters:
Customer Name
Performer Name
CompletionDate
Response Date
Initiate Date
Organization Roles to Identity mappings for the business process as well as the primary workflow.
BoundData
The STF processor makes the workflow server API call to initiate the business process and primary workflow. The workflow name of the primary workflow need not be provided by the WEA. Both the Business Process Transaction ID and the workflow name (of the primary workflow) are returned to the WEA by the STF processor. If there was an error, it is returned to the WEA.
InitWF
This transaction is used to initialize a workflow (other than the primary workflow). InitWF needs the following parameters:
minimal transaction parameters:
STF Transaction ID
Business Process Transaction ID
Workflow name
Identity
extended set parameters:
Customer Name
Performer Name
Completion Date
Reply Date
Organization Roles to Identity mapping for the workflow
BoundData
Act
This transaction specifies an Act to take in a workflow in a business process. In the case of the Act Transaction, the following parameters need to be passed:
minimal transaction parameters:
STF Transaction ID
Business Process Transaction ID
Workflow Name
Act to take
Identity
extended set parameters:
Completion Date
Reply Date
BoundData
If the Completion and Reply dates are not specified then the default values for that workflow are assumed by the server. If there is any process data that the WEA needs to bind to the business process or workflow instance then the name, type and value of the bound data can also be passed along with the Act transaction. The Act Transaction returns whether the Act transaction has been logged successfully in the Transaction database or not.
Bind Data
This transaction is to bind data to a workflow or a business process. In the case of the Bind data Transaction the following parameters need to be passed:
minimal transaction parameters:
STF Transaction ID
Business Process Transaction ID
Identity
Data to be bound to the business process or workflow instance.
extended set parameters:
Workflow Name
The Bind Data Transaction returns status as to whether the application data has been bound to the business process or workflow instance successfully or not.
Get Workflow Status
This transaction is used to retrieve information related to a workflow instance. This information includes:
WEA data bound to the workflow instance.
List of bound data field names and attributes, when requested.
The status of the workflow instance.
The acts available in the workflow for the role of the specified identity.
The Get Workflow Status Transaction needs the following parameters to be passed:
minimal transaction parameters:
STF Transaction ID
Business Process Transaction ID
Workflow Name
Identity
Workflow Role of the Identity
extended set parameters:
Act or State Flag(Act or State) for bound data
Act or State value for bound data
Return Bound Data Flag(YES or NO)
If the extended parameter, Bound Data (Boolean) is not specified then its default value is YES and bound data fields and attributes are returned to WEA.
The Get Workflow Status Transaction returns the following:
Bound Data
Status String
Completion and Reply dates
List of available acts for the Identity
WF status for Act or State
Get Pending Actions
This transaction is used to retrieve information about workflows for an Identity having an Organization Role from the set of instantiated business processes with the specified business process name, which fall into the specified time slot between the start date and end date. This information includes, for each workflow, BP Name and ID, Workflow Name and ID, Customer ID, Performer ID, Completion and Reply Dates, Status and form name. Essentially, it is the list of workflows where an action is pending.
The Get Pending Actions Transaction needs the following parameters to be passed:
minimal transaction parameters:
STF Transaction ID
Identity
Workflow Role of the Identity
extended set parameters:
Organization Role
Business Process Name
Start Date
End Date
If Organization Role is absent, then information about workflows for the Identity in all valid Organization Roles from the set of instantiated business processes with the specified business process name is returned. If Business Process name is absent, then information about workflows for the Identity in all valid Organization Roles from the complete set of instantiated business processes is returned. If the Start Date and End Date are absent then the time slot for the required information will span the entire database.
This transaction returns a list of workflows which includes:
Business Process Name
Business Process ID
Workflow Name
Customer Name
Performer Name
Completion Date
Reply Dates
Status string
Get Available Business Processes
This transaction is used to get the list of business processes that the specified Identity with a specific Organization role can initiate. The Get Available Business Processes Transaction needs the following parameters to be passed:
minimal transaction parameters:
STF Transaction ID
Identity
extended set parameters:
Business Process Status(Active or Inactive)
This transaction returns a list of business processes available for the Identity.
ReturnWFStatus
This transaction is generated by the workflow processor whenever workflow participants need to be informed about the workflow status. The STF processor polls the workflow processor continuously for any of the Notification events. If it finds one, it calls the Server APIs to get the workflow status (exactly similar to the GetWFStatus Transaction) and send all the workflow information to the participant.
This transaction is generated by the workflow processor and hence requires no parameters from the WEA.
The ReturnWFStatus Transaction returns the following:
Notification string
Notification Event
Status String
Completion and Reply dates
List of available acts for the participant
Bound Data
STF Transaction Representation in a Messaging Environment
The following describes the STF transaction representation in a messaging environment. The STF transaction travels as an attachment to the message. In a messaging environment, an STF transaction has the following format.
SIGNATURE
WORKFLOW DATA
The signature and addressing information, together constitute the STF Transaction Envelope.
Signature
Each STF Transaction starts with the Signature. It could be a line containing the following:
STFMHS-01
Workflow Data
This includes the STF type, STF instance, workflow participants, workflow type, transaction type, start date, expected and/or requested dates and completion dates, workflow status etc.
STF Keyword Format
The STF keyword format in a messaging environment consists of four fields in the following format.
<Keyword (field name)><delimiter><Field value><terminator>
Keyword (field name)
See Table 3 below.
Delimiter
The delimiter is a character such as a ":" used to separate the field name and the field value.
Field value
The syntax and semantics of the field value varies and will depend on the field. The following fields have a specific format in which data is to be sent.
Sent by WEA to STF Processor
Date
OrgRole to Identity
BoundData
Sent by STF Processor to WEA
Acts
Status
BoundData
Business Process List
Workflow List
Terminator
The terminator consists of the carriage return--line feed pair <CR><LF>.
A sample STF transaction in a messaging environment would be as follows:
STF Transaction Keyword Data Formats
The following describes the STF transaction keyword data formats which are medium independent.
The STF transaction is placed in an attachment file. This file needs to be specified in the attachment IPM Header. An STF processor makes use of the following SMF headers from the MHS Message to retrieve addressing information for the STF Transaction. Other header information is ignored by the STF Processor.
From
To
Attachment
The following are the complete STF transactions as received by a STF processor from a WEA via MHS. It also illustrates the STF Transaction sent by STF Processor in reply to the WEA via MHS.
Example of MHS message header file received (from WEA) by STF Processor through MHS
Example of MHS message header created by the STF Processor in response to the above header file (To WEA)
The corresponding workflow server API Calls would be:
AWSTBeginTransaction()
AWSTInitBP();
AWSTBindAppData();
AWSTEndTransaction()
The values returned by the workflow server APIs will be sent to the WEA as Return Status transaction (if WEA had set RTNSTATUS to YES. By default, STF Processor assumes RTNSTATUS as YES). ERROR keyword is set to 0 if there was no error processing the Transaction. Otherwise ERROR will be set to a value and the error message corresponding to the ERROR will be sent in ERRORMSG.
Suppose that an error occurred in the InitBP Transaction that BPNAME keyword was not found, then the values returned by the workflow server APIs will be sent to the WEA as Return Status transaction (if WEA had set RTNSTATUS to YES. By default, STF Processor assumes RTNSTATUS as YES).
The corresponding workflow server API calls would be:
AWSTBeginTransaction()
AWSTInitWF();
AWSTBindAppData();
AWSTEndTransaction()
The values returned by the workflow server APIs will be sent to the WEA as Return Status transaction (if WEA had set RTNSTATUS to YES. By default, STF Processor assumes RTNSTATUS as YES).
The corresponding workflow server API calls would be:
AWSTBeginTransaction()
AWSTActInWF();
AWSTActStatusQuery();
AWSTBindAppData();
AWSTEndTransaction()
The values returned by the workflow server APIs will be sent to the WEA as Return Status transaction (if WEA had set RTNSTATUS to YES. By default, STF Processor assumes RTNSTATUS as YES).
The corresponding workflow server API call for the Bind Data Transaction would be:
AWSTBeginTransaction()
AWSTBindAppData();
AWSTEndTransaction()
The values returned by the workflow server APIs will be sent to the WEA as Return Status transaction (if WEA had set RTNSTATUS to YES. By default, STF Processor assumes RTNSTATUS as YES).
Since this transaction is used to retrieve all information related to a workflow instance, it maps to several workflow server APIs
The corresponding workflow server API Calls would be:
AWSTStatus();
AWSTAvailableActs();
AWSTGetAppData();
The values returned by the workflow server APIs will be sent to the WEA as Return Status transaction (if WEA had set RTNSTATUS to YES. By default, STF Processor assumes RTNSTATUS as YES). If RTNBOUNDDATA is set to YES, then BoundData is returned to the WEA. The Bound Data attribute sent by workflow server is the "moment" attribute flag of a workflow if the Bound data is required for a state.
The Get Available Business Processes returns the list of Business Processes that the identity (in the specific role) can initiate. The BPSTATUS is an optional parameter which specifies whether active or inactive (all) BPs are required by the WEA.
The corresponding workflow server API Call would be:
AWSTAvailableBP();
The values returned by the workflow server APIs will be sent to the WEA as Return Status transaction (if WEA had set RTNSTATUS to YES. By default, STF Processor assumes RTNSTATUS as YES)
The Get Pending Actions returns information about the workflows for the specified identity (having the specific Organization role) from the set of instantiated business processes with the specified Business Process name.
The corresponding workflow server API Call would be:
AWSTQueryWF();
The values returned by the workflow server APIs will be sent to the WEA as Return Status transaction (if WEA had set RTNSTATUS to YES. By default, STF Processor assumes RTNSTATUS as YES)
This Transaction is generated by the Workflow Processor whenever the Workflow participants are needed to be informed about the Workflow status. The STF Processor will poll the Workflow Processor continuously for any of the Notification events. If it finds one, it calls the Server APIs to get the Workflow Status (exactly similar to the GetWFStatus Transaction) and send all the workflow information to the participant.
The corresponding workflow server API Calls would be:
AWSTBeginTransaction()
AWSPollSTFQueue()
AWSTStatus();
AWSTAvailableActs();
AWSTGetAppData();
AWSTEndTransaction()
The values returned by the workflow server APIs will be sent to the WEA as Notification transaction.
STF Transaction Representation in a Database Environment
In the case of a shared database environment, the STF transaction format is a set of tables.
Each table has a record structure as follows:
Each table consists of a set of columns in a relational table. The first field in the table is the Transaction ID which is the primary key for the table--its value can never be void. Other fields may contain void values depending upon whether those fields are of the minimal set or the extended set of parameters of the respective STF transaction.
An alternative implementation of the STF transaction representation in a database environment would consist of three tables as follows:
where the STF Trans ID column contains STF transaction identification, the keyword column contains a keyword index corresponding to the keyword index table; and the value column contains one of the valid values from the STF Transaction Keyword Data Formats table.
STF Transaction Representation in an Inter-Process Communication Environment
The STF transaction in an IPC environment is represented by a set of parameters in a remote procedure call, in a manner similar to the parameters of a workflow API call as described in U.S application Ser. No. 08/014,796 filed Feb. 8, 1993.
STF Processors
The following is a description of the three types of STF processors needed for messaging, shared database and inter-process communication. Details for the messaging type are explained by way of an example using MHS and VIM. Details needed for the shared database type by way of examples using SQL. Details for the inter-process communication type should be apparent to persons skilled in the art from this description.
In the preferred embodiment as set forth below, the invented system is implemented using the Model, View, Class (MVC) paradigm of object oriented programming.
Transporter Module
The transporter module of an STF processor handles the reception of inputs arriving via messaging, shared database or IPC and the preparation of outputs via messaging, shared database or IPC. The transporter recognizes, reads and writes entire transactions. The transporter accesses all items of bound data or transaction data via keyword entries. Client input/output content is required to be formatted as keyword, value(s), flags for each item of a transaction or bound data.
The transporter class provides basic interaction with the WEA software. In the case of MHS, for example, the transporter class provides the messaging interface. It gets and puts messages and passes them to the TxParser, which is a class that understands and reads the MHS message and extracts from it the STF transaction. The transporter also receives the message from the TxFormatter which is a class that constructs the message in MHS format. When a developer creates a new STF processor, it is necessary to derive from the subclasses of the transporter class an interface to the required transport medium to the STF processor.
The TxProcessor and STF.sub.-- Transaction (STF.sub.-- Tx) classes form the core of the STF processor. The TxProcessor is the controlling class that keeps track of transactions queued up to be done. The STF.sub.-- Tx creates all the objects which between them contain all the methods necessary to interface to the workflow server.
Since the STF processor converts a WEA-formatted transaction into a workflow server-formatted transaction, the transaction classes center the conversion process and provide methods to both sides of the conversion.
Transaction Processor
The TxProcessor is the central controller class in STF Processor. It has pointers to Error, INIFile, Transporter, TxParser, TxFormatter and STF.sub.-- Tx base classes in the STF Processor. FIG. 6 illustrates the generic class hierarchy diagram of a STF processor and how the classes in STF processors are linked.
TxProcessor has methods to process input and output transactions. The TxProcessor constructor instantiates TransMsgMHS (for a messaging environment based on MHS), TxParser and TxFormatter.
Within the TxProcessor method, to process input Transactions, a parser method to get input from Transporter is called which loads the input transaction.
Next, STF.sub.-- Tx is instantiated in inbound or outbound mode depending upon TXProcessor method for processing input or output Transactions.
Pointers to Transporter, TxParser and TxFormatter are passed on to STF.sub.-- Tx private data members through the constructor. The STF.sub.-- Tx constructor then gets the Transaction Type by calling parser method for processing inbound Transactions or calls a method for polling STFQ for processing outbound Transactions.
Depending upon the Transaction Type appropriate transaction objects are instantiated which in turn process the Bound data, Envelope data and call appropriate workflow server APIs.
The return status of the workflow server API's is handled by creating a return Transaction which is internally passed over to TxFormatter for onward delivery to Transporter. Cleanup operation is done by calling TxProcessor's methods to do the same. This completes one inbound or outbound transaction processing
All the output transactions are processed. If there are no output transactions pending, a message is posted to process input transactions.
STF Processor Class Descriptions
Class Name: INIFile
Class Description
This is the INI file base class that handles STF Processor INI file loading. The INI file is created during STF Processor installation. STF Processor will assume a default STF.INI in the current directory. If the STF.INI is not found in the current directory, it will be searched in PATH environment variable. The INI file is similar to OS/2 INI files. The INI file will have keywords and values. Following is the content of the INI file in STF Processor Ver1.0.
Class name: STFTransporter
Class description
This is an abstract base class which is responsible for getting WEA inputs and returning responses to the WEA. It contains methods to interface with the external environment as well as provides methods for TxParser, TxFormatter and Envelope objects for reading and writing transactions and user information. The STFTransporter class contains a set of virtual methods which are overloaded by the methods of the appropriate derived classes(STFTransMsg, STFTransDb or the STFTransIPC class). In the case of messaging environment like MHS, the STFTransporter virtual methods are replaced by the methods of the STFTransMsgMHS class. STFTransporter accepts and passes an array of strings containing Transaction items, values, and flags to the TxParser.
Class Name: STFTransMsg
Class Description
STFTransMsg derived class consists of a set of public methods which overload the appropriate methods of the STFTransporter class to incorporate message specific features. The STFTransMsg derived class also contains a set of protected virtual methods which are used in defining the set of the STFTransMsg public methods, i.e. in writing the code of these public methods. This set of protected virtual methods in turn is overloaded by the methods of the derived class STFTransMsgMHS in case of messaging environment based on MHS and by methods of STFTransMsgVIM derived class in the case of a messaging environment based on VIM.
Class Name: STFTransMsgMHS
Class Description
The STFTransMsg MHS derived class consists of a set of public methods which overload the methods of the STFTransMsg derived class. This set of public methods are specific to MHS messaging environment.
Class Name: STFTransMsgVIM
Class Description
The STFTransMsg VIM derived class consists of a set of public methods which overload the methods of the STFTransMsg derived class. This set of public methods are specific to VIM messaging environment.
Class Name: STFTransDB
Class Description
STFTransDB derived class consists of a set of public methods which overload the appropriate methods of the STFTransporter class to incorporate Database specific features. The STFTransDB derived class also contains a set of protected virtual methods which are used in defining the set of the STFTransDB public methods, i.e. in writing the code of these public methods. This set of protected virtual methods in turn is overloaded by the methods of the derived class STFTransDBSQL in case of Database environment based on SQL.
Class Name: STFTransDBSOL
Class Description
The STFTransDBSQL derived class from STFTransDB consists of a set of public methods which overload the methods of the STFTransDB derived class. This set of public methods are specific to SQL Database Server environment.
Class Name: TxParser
Class Description
This class parses the WEA input which is stored as an array of strings stored in the attributes. It has methods for parsing and returning keyword values from input STF Transactions. Please refer to Appendix-B for a list of keywords and their explanations. The TxParser object is created by the TxProcessor for getting Input Transaction from STFTransporter.
Class Name: TxFormatter
Class Description
This class contains methods to produce STF Transaction from keyword values for the STFTransporter. This class will hide the Transaction from knowing about the external interface to WEA. It will essentially format the data required by the STFTransporter to output an STF Transaction. This class is used by Transaction class. The TxFormatter will call STFTransporter method and pass array of STF keyword strings stored by the TxFormatter. The TxFormatter keeps on accumulating STF keyword strings till it gets bFmtEnd() message. The bFmtEnd() will call STFTransporter method to write the STF Transaction to the WEA.
The following methods are used to format STF Transaction keyword and value are overloaded for different keyword types.
Class Name: Envelope
Class Description
This class handles addressing information of WEA. It is used by STF.sub.-- Tx, BoundData and Transaction classes.
Class Name: BoundData
Class Description
This class stores and handles all bound data associated with a transaction.
Class Name: STF TX
Class Description
This class is used to process the inbound as well as the outbound transactions. It has methods to get the transaction type. It initiates the Transaction class based on the transaction type.
Class Name: TxProcessor
Class Description
This is the main controlling class of STF processor. It has pointers to STFTransporter TxParser, TxFormatter and STF.sub.-- Tx and INIFile classes in the STF Processor. TxProcessor will be instantiated once during an STF Session (in the main program).
Class Name: Transaction
Class Description
This class is the base class for the various types of WEA transaction classes It has virtual method to process the required Transactions.
Class Name: STFTxKwd
Class Description
This class defines STF Transaction keywords. This is used by the Transaction class to get keyword string and values for calling workflow server APIs and to send return values of workflow server APIs to TxFormatter. The constructor of this class gets the keyword string from Resource.
The following methods are overloaded for different keyword data types.
Class Name: InitBP
Class Description
This class is derived from Transaction class and it has methods to call workflow server API and the TxFormatter.
Class Name: InitWF
Class Description
This class is derived from Transaction class and it has methods to call workflow server API and the TxFormatter.
Class Name: Act
Class Description
This class is derived from Transaction class and it has methods to call workflow server API and the TxFormatter.
Class Name: BindData
Class Description
This class is derived from Transaction class and it has methods to call workflow server API and the TxFormatter.
Class Name: GetWFStatus
Class Description
This class is derived from Transaction class and has methods to call workflow server API and the TxFormatter.
Class Name: GetPendingActions
Class Description
This class is derived from Transaction class and it has methods to call workflow server API and the TxFormatter.
Class Name: GetAvailableBPs
Class Description
This class is derived from Transaction class and it has methods to call workflow server API and the TxFormatter.
Class Name: ReturnWFStatus
Class Description
This class is derived from Transaction class and has methods to Poll for workflow processor generated Notifications and call workflow server API for getting Workflow status and Bound Data. It also calls the TxFormatter to send the WF status data to the WEA.
Class Name: Error
Class Description
This class is used for error handling. It records the errors during an STF Processor session. The error object is updated with error information by other objects in the STF Processor whenever an error occurs. The error messages are stored in a Resource file (RC) and is loaded as and when required. Whenever a non-fatal error occurs, it will be logged in an ASCII error log file whose path is specified in the STF Processor initialization file (INI file). All fatal errors will be logged and displayed on the STF Processor display as pop-up dialog boxes and after user intervention, the STF Processor will shut down. Please Refer to Sec. 10 for details of error handling in STF Processor. The Error object is Global which is used by all the classes in STF Processor when error logging is required. The format of error logged in the error log file is:
Claims
We claim:
1. A computer program for interfacing a workflow enabled application to a workflow system comprising: a) transporter means for i) receiving from said workflow enabled application incoming data and parsing said received data to extract from said received data workflow transaction information in a predetermined standard transaction format, said predetermined standard transaction format being adapted to address requirements of applications, platforms and medium independent representations and transfers of data related to business processes of said workflow system, and ii) sending to said workflow enabled application outgoing workflow transaction information which has been formatted in said predetermined standard transaction format; b) transaction processor means for i) processing said workflow transaction information which has been received and parsed by said transporter means to prepare said workflow transaction information for sending to and use by an application program interface of said workflow system, and ii) processing workflow transaction information received from said application program interface of said workflow system for sending to said transporter means to prepare said received workflow transaction information for formatting into said predetermined standard transaction format, sending to and use by said workflow enabled application.
2. The system defined by claim 1 wherein said standard transaction format workflow transaction information received from said workflow enabled application is at least one of an action based transaction and a query based transaction.
3. The system defined by claim 1 wherein said standard transaction format workflow transaction information sent to said workflow enabled application is at least one of requested workflow status, returned bound data, returned available business processes, returned pending actions and notification.
4. The system defined by claim 1 wherein said predetermined standard transaction format comprises an envelope and workflow data.
5. The system defined by claim 2 wherein said action based transaction is one of initiate business process, initiate workflow, act in a workflow and bind data.
6. The system defined by claim 2 wherein said query based transaction is one of request workflow status, get available business processes and get pending actions.
7. The system defined by claim 4 wherein said envelope contains address information which is platform and environment dependent.
8. The system defined by claim 4 wherein said workflow data contains workflow specific data and bound process data.
9. The system defined by claim 8 wherein said workflow specific data includes standard transaction format transaction type and standard transaction format identification.
10. The system defined by claim 8 wherein said bound process data are data elements used by a workflow server for management purposes.
11. The system defined by claim 9 wherein said workflow specific data further comprises at least one of workflow participants, workflow type, transaction type, expected workflow completion date, requested workflow completion date and workflow status.
Patent Citations (1)
| Patent | Date | Inventor | Cited By |
|---|---|---|---|
| US5630069 | 1997-05-01 | Flores et al. |