Proclets: A Framework for Lightweight Interacting Workflow Processes

Abstract

The focus of traditional workflow management systems is on control flow within one process definition. The process definition describes how a single case (i.e. workflow instance) in isolation is handled. For many applications this paradigm is inadequate. Interaction between cases to support communication and collaboration is at least as important. This paper introduces and advocates the use of interacting proclets, i.e. lightweight workflow processes. By promoting interactions to first-class citizens it is possible to model complex workflows in a more natural manner. In addition, the expressive power and flexibility are improved compared to the more traditional workflow modeling languages.

Guided Interaction Exploration and Performance Analysis in Artifact-Centric Process Models

“…These produce models in various process model notations. Several approaches have also been developed to take an object-oriented or artifact-centric view of process mining (van der Aalst et al 2001;Popova et al 2015). However, the number of techniques that can automatically discover the interactions between artifact models is limited (Lu et al 2015;van Eck et al 2016b).…”

“…One of the sources of complexity of discovered process models is that many process discovery approaches produce models that provide a monolithic view on the real process (van der Aalst 2016;van Eck et al 2016b). Such monolithic models explain the behaviour of a process in terms of the life-cycle of a single process instance.…”

“…Such monolithic models explain the behaviour of a process in terms of the life-cycle of a single process instance. However, in reality a process instance may involve several interacting process objects or artifacts, each with their own life-cycle (van der Aalst et al 2001;Popova et al 2015;Cohn and Hull 2009). Examples include a procurement process with order and invoice objects, the usage process of a smart product with sensors measuring different physical aspects like movement or temperature, and the status of a single resource in terms of its status in the different processes it is involved in.…”

Extracting Event Data from Databases to Unleash Process Mining

“…Hence, all mainstream notations require the choice of a single process instance (i.e., case) notion. Notable exceptions are proclets [7] and artifacts [26], but these are rarely used and difficult to understand by end-users. Therefore, we need to relate raw event data to process instances using a single well-defined view on the process.…”

From Petri Nets to Guard-Stage-Milestone Models

“…Proclets are suitable for describing multi-artifact systems due to the annotations 1, ?, + in the ports [12]. The first annotation, called cardinality, specifies how many messages one proclet instance sends to (receives from) other instances when the attached transition occurs.…”