Abstract
We proposed, in previous works, a business process execution language for data-driven workflow modeling, verification, and execution; the proposed model can present both control flow and shared data in workflow processes. It can be analyzed to verify its correctness before its deployment. In this paper, we are going to improve the semantics of our approach to allow better integration between data and control flow, and between the workflow and its external environment (such as relational databases and XML documents). We are also going to extend our approach to generate multidimensional data models, namely OLAP hypercubes, from data handled by the workflow, in order to provide synthetic view of data for decision makers.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The classical soundness property grants that a process has always the possibility to terminate (i.e. it is deadlocks and livelocks free) with a single token in its single final state and all the other state are empty, and that all its tasks are coverable (i.e. can potentially be executed) [1].
A detailed presentation of Opus system with a demo version and examples are provided in https://sites.google.com/site/wfmsopus/.
References
Aalst WVD (1998) The application of petri nets to workflow management. Circ Syst Comput 8(1):21–66
Aalst WVD (2000) Workflow verification: finding control-flow errors using petri-net-based techniques. In: BPMMTES. Springer, London, pp 161–183
Aalst WVD (2013) Business process management: a comprehensive survey. ISRN Softw Eng 2013:1–37, article ID 507984
Aalst WVD, ter Hofstede AHM (2005) Yawl: yet another workflow language. Inform Syst 30(4):245–275
Aalst WVD, Hofstede AT, Kiepuszewski B, Barros A (2003) Workflow patterns. Distrib Parallel Databases 14(1):5–51
Aalst WVD, Weske M, Grünbauer D (2005) Case handling: a new paradigm for business process support. Data Knowl Eng 53(2):129–162
Bhattacharya K, Hull R, Su J (2009) A data-centric design methodology for business processes. HRBPM 23:503–531
BPS-Solutions and COSA BV (2009) Cosa bpm 5.7 product description
Cabibbo L, Torlone R (1998) A logical approach to multidimensional databases. In: ICEDT, LCNS, vol 1377. Springer, New York, pp 253–269
Cerezo N, Montagnat J, Blay-Fornarino M (2013) Computer-assisted scientific workflow design. Grid Comput 11(3):585–612
Chiao CM, Künzle V, Reichert M (2013) Integrated modeling of process- and data-centric software systems with philharmonicflows. In: CPSM@ICSM, pp 1–10
Choo Y (1982) A structural petri net approach to concurrency. Technical report, California Institute of Technology
Ciferri C, Ciferri R, Gmez L, Schneider M, Vaisman A, Zimnyi E (2013) Cube algebra: a generic user-centric model and query language for olap cubes. Data Warehous Min 9(2):39–65
Damaggio E, Hull R, Vaculin R (2013) On the equivalence of incremental and fixpoint semantics for business artifacts with guard-stage-milestone lifecycles. Inform Syst 38(4):561–584
del-Río-Ortega A, de Reyna MRA, Toro AD, Cortés AR (2012) Defining process performance indicators by using templates and patterns. In: BPM, pp 223–228
Deutsch A, Hull R, Patrizi F, Vianu V (2009) Automatic verification of data-centric business processes. In: ICDT, pp 252–267
Fan W, Ma L (2006) Selectively storing xml data in relations. In: DEXA, pp 22–32
Fong J, Pang F, Bloor C (2001) Converting relational database into xml document. In: DEXA, IEEE
Fong J, Wong H, Cheng Z (2003) Converting relational database into xml documents with dom. Inform Softw Technol 45(6):335–355
Gonzalez P, Griesmayer A, Lomuscio A (2012) Verifying gsm-based business artifacts. In: ICWS, pp 25–32
Gyssens M, Lakshmanan L (1997) A foundation for multidimensional databases. In: VLDB, Athens, pp 106–115
Haddar N, Tmar M, Gargouri F (2012) A data-driven workflow based on structured tokens petri net. In: ICSEA, pp 154–160
Haddar N, Tmar M, Gargouri F (2012) Implementation of a data-driven workflow management system. In: CSE. IEEE Computer Society, pp 111–118
Haddar N, Tmar M, Gargouri F (2013) A framework for data-driven workflow management: modeling, verification and execution. In: DEXA, LNCS, vol 8055. Springer, pp 239–253
Hollingsworth D (1999) The workflow management coalition terminology and glossary. Tech Rep TC00-1011, Workflow Management Coalition
ISA RGoASE (2014) Ppinot. http://www.isa.us.es/ppinot/
Jensen K (1986) Coloured petri nets. LNCS 254:248–299
Kamble A (2008) A conceptual model for multidimensional data. In: APCCM, pp 29–38
Keller G, Teufel T (1998) Sap R/3 process oriented implementation, premiFre, Tdition edn. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc, Boston
Kimball R (1996) Data warehouse toolkit: practical techniques for building dimensional data warehouses. John Wiley & Sons Inc, New York
Kindler E (2006) On the semantics of epcs: resolving the vicious circle. Data Knowl Eng 56(1):23–40
Künzle V, Reichert M (2011) Philharmonicflows: towards a framework for object-aware process management. Softw Maintenance Evol Res Pract 23(4):205–244
Lee D, Mani M, Chu WW (2003) Schema conversion methods between xml and relational models. In: Knowledge Transformation for the Semantic Web, pp 1–17
Lenhard J, Wirtz G (2013) Detecting portability issues in model-driven BPEL mappings. In: SEKE, Boston
Malinowski E, Zimnyi E (2008) Advanced data warehouse design: from conventional to spatial and temporal applications (data-centric systems and applications). Springer, New York
Meyer A, Smirnov S, Weske M (2011) Data in business processes. Technifcal report, des Hasso-Plattner-Instituts für Softwaresystemtechnik an der Universität Potsdam, München
Microsoft Corporation (2014) Power bi for office 365 faq. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/power-bi-for-office-365-faq-HA104219793.aspx
Microsoft SQL Server (2013) Sql server in-memory oltp internals overview for ctp1
Murata T (1989) Petri nets: properties, analysis and applications. Proc IEEE 77(4):541–580
Neely A, Richards H, Mills J, Platts K, Bourne M (1997) Designing performance measures: a structured approach. Oper Prod Manage 17:1131–1152
Nigam A, Caswell N (2003) Business artifacts: an approach to operational specification. IBM Syst 42(3):428–445
OMG (2009) Case management process modeling (cmpm) request for proposal. OMG Document: Bmi/2009-09-23
OMG (2011) Business process model and notation (bpmn)(version 2.0). Tech. rep., Object Management Group. http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0/
OMG (2011) Omg unified modeling languagetm (omg uml), superstructure version 2.4.1. Technical Report formal/2011-08-06, Object Management Group
Oracle Corporation (2013) Oracle business intelligence foundation suite. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi/bi-foundation-suite-wp-215243.pdf
Pardillo J, Mazón JN, Trujillo J (2010) Extending ocl for olap querying on conceptual multidimensional models of data warehouses. Inform Sci 180(5):584–601
Petri C (1962) Communications with automata. PhD thesis, Institut für instrumentelle Mathematik, Bonn
Plale B, Withana EC, Herath C, Chandrasekar K, Luo Y (2012) Effectiveness of hybrid workflow systems for computational science. In: ICCS, Procedia Computer Science, vol 9. Elsevier, pp 508–517
Ravat F, Teste O, Tournier R, Zurfluh G (2008) Algebraic and graphic languages for olap manipulations. In: SAUDMWT. IGI Global, pp 60–90
Rizzi S (2007) Conceptual modeling solutions for the data warehouse. In: Database technologies: concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications, pp 86–104
Schwartzberg G (2014) Oracle essbase 11.1.2.3
Sidorova N, Stahl C, Trčka N (2011) Soundness verification for conceptual workflow nets with data: early detection of errors with the most precision possible. Inform Syst 36(7):1026–1043
Silveira P, Rodríguez C, Casati F, Daniel F, Andrea VD, Worledge C, Taheri Z (2009) On the design of compliance governance dashboards for effective compliance and audit management. In: Service-Oriented Computing. ICSOC/ServiceWave 2009 Workshops, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6275, pp 208–217
Solomakhin D, Montali M, Tessaris S, De Masellis R (2013) Verification of artifact-centric systems: decidability and modeling issues. CoRR abs/1304.1697
Stancu M (2012) From relational databases to xml documents: efficient alternatives for publishing. Digit Inform Wireless Commun 2(1):582–590
Sun Y, Hull R, Vaculín R (2012) Parallel processing for business artifacts with declarative lifecycles. OTM Conf 1:433–443
Syriani E, Ergin H (2012) Operational semantics of uml activity diagram: an application in project management. In: MoDRE. IEEE Computer Society, pp 1–8
TIBCO Software Inc (2006) Tibco staffware process suite. http://about.reuters.com/partnerships/tibco/material/Staffware_whitepaper.pdf
Trčka N, Aalst WVD, Sidorova N (2009) Data-flow anti-patterns: discovering data-flow errors in workflows. In: CAiSE. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 425–439
Tsois A, Karayannidis N, Sellis T (2001) Mac: conceptual data modeling for olap. In: DMDW, pp 5–11
Van Gorp P, Dijkman R (2013) A visual token-based formalization of bpmn 2.0 based on in-place transformations. Inform Softw Technol 55(2):365–394
Wynn M (2006) Semantics, verification, and implementation of workflows with cancellation regions and or-joins. Ph.D. thesis, Faculty of Information Technology, Queensland University of Technology
Wynn M, Aalst WVD, Verbeek H, Hofstede AT, Edmond D (2009) Business process verification-finally a reality!. Business Process Manage 15(1):74–92
YAWL Foundation (2014) Yawl editor 3.0 (beta). http://www.yawlfoundation.org/pages/resources/yawl3.html
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Haddar, N., Tmar, M. & Gargouri, F. A data-centric approach to manage business processes. Computing 98, 375–406 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00607-015-0440-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00607-015-0440-2
Keywords
- Data-driven workflow management
- Process analysis
- Business intelligence
- OLAP hypercube
- Multidimensional table