One crucial function of a workflow management system (WFMS) is to assign tasks to users who are eligible to carry them out. Except in simple workflow scenarios, roles such as secretary and manager are not a sufficient basis for determining eligibility. Additionally, WFMSs are deployed not only in group settings by small companies but also worldwide by large enterprises. Since local laws and business policies have to be followed, task assignment policies for the same task generally differ from country to country and, therefore, must be specified locally. The Policy Resolution Architecture (PRA) model provides more generality and expressiveness than role models do and at the same time supports the independent specification of task assignment policies in different parts of an enterprise. PRA can be used to model arbitrary organization structures and to define realistic task assignment (eligibility) rules by means of precisely defined organizational policies. Thus, PRA provides real-world organizations with a precise, simple means of expressing their complex task assignment policies.
The spectrum of an organization's business processes ranges from routine processes with a well-defined flow to agile processes with a degree of uncertainty. The Process Navigation platform aims at supporting both types of processes as well as combinations of them. It offers execution support for traditional flow-oriented notations like BPMN as they are well-suited for the routine type of processes. Rule-based notations for agile processes like CMMN are on the way of getting established but still have a number of weaknesses. As a consequence, the platform's agile part does not target one single notation but relies on a rule-based crossperspective and modal intermediate language. CMMN models are then translated to the intermediate language for execution. The contribution of this paper is built up in three parts: first of all, the overall architecture of the execution platform is explained. In a second step, the intermediate language is evaluated on the basis of a comprehensive and acknowledged framework of business process requirements. And finally, the translation of CMMN to the intermediate language is described by means of an example.
Flexibility has recently grown to be one of the major research topics in the area of workflow management. In this paper we focus on flexibility of workflow management applications, in contrast to flexibility of the implementation of workflow management systems. In a case study we show the necessity of flexibility in workflow management applications. This flexibility can roughly be classified into flexibility, which is provided by the workflow type, and flexibility, which goes beyond the scope of the workflow type and has additionally to be provided by a workflow management system. We call this flexibility by selection and flexibility by adaption, respectively. We point out that the modeling process as a main aspect of flexibility by adaption has to be treated as a CSCW scenario. The classification leads to a structured overall concept for flexibility in workflow management applications. Keywords Workflow management system, flexibility 1 MOTIVATION
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