一個軟體工作流程樣式的分析、建置與整合之研究

Abstract

工作流程管理系統(WfMS)已經廣泛地被應用在協調商用流程(business process)以及企業員工 的工作，而將這些工作流程之中重複出現的部分歸納成工作流程樣式(workflow patterns)是一 個新興的研究項目。目前，有關於工作流程中如控制流(control flow)、資料流(control flow)、 資源(resources, workflow participants)以及例外處理(exception handling)相關的工作流程樣式已 經被初步的建構以及討論；本計畫將以目前的研究為基礎，從角色代理工作樣式開始更進一 步的發掘一些不同領域或進階的工作流程樣式，同時整合商用流程不同面向中的工作流程樣 式進行一致性以及限制的分析，並且探討如何將工作流程樣式使用於工作流程應用(workflow application)的設計(design)、配置(deployment)與運作(operation)之上。此外，我們也將仔細的 評估每一個方法以及樣式的相關效能(率)。

Workflow management system (WfMS) is widely adopted in coordinating business processes and staffs in enterprises. In these two years, there are lots of researches focused on discovering workflow patterns to simplify the construction of a WfMS. Their works were emphasized on the areas of control flow, data flow, resources (workflow participants) and exception handlings. In this project, we plan to construct the workflow patterns of role-based delegation, multiple resources and exception handling, since they are worth of being constructed in general, but not done yet. On the other hand, a workflow system might be composed of one or more workflow pattern, the analysis of consistencies and constraints will be studied to improve their integration and the corresponding methodologies of integration are developed then. Finally, the project will discuss how to use the workflow patterns in designing, deploying and operating the workflow applications. In each step of the project, the related works will be surveyed and our methodologies developed will be evaluated.