Untangling Unstructured Cyclic Flows – A Solution Based on Continuations

Koehler, Jana; Hauser, Rainer

doi:10.1007/978-3-540-30468-5_10

Cited by 32 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Different transformation strategies were also illustrated in [18] and an alternative classification of (unstructured) process models was proposed in [9]. A method specifically tailored to untangling unstructured cyclic models and transforming them into structured BPEL models is presented in [10,12]. Finally, Polyvyanyy et al [25] provide a complete characterization of unstructured acyclic process models that are inherently unstructured, based on the RPST decomposition developed by Vanhatalo et al [33].…”

Section: Structuring Process Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Business Process Models: The Costs and Benefits of Structuredness

Dumas

Rosa

Mendling

et al. 2012

Notes on Numerical Fluid Mechanics and Multidisciplinary Design

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Abstract. Previous research has put forward various metrics of business process models that are correlated with understandability. Two such metrics are size and degree of (block-)structuredness. What has not been sufficiently appreciated at this point is that these desirable properties may be at odds with one another. This paper presents the results of a twopronged study aimed at exploring the trade-off between size and structuredness of process models. The first prong of the study is a comparative analysis of the complexity of a set of unstructured process models from industrial practice and of their corresponding structured versions. The second prong is an experiment wherein a cohort of students was exposed to semantically equivalent unstructured and structured process models. The key finding is that structuredness is not an absolute desideratum vis-a-vis for process model understandability. Instead, subtle trade-offs between structuredness and other model properties are at play.

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Section: Structuring Process Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Business Process Models: The Costs and Benefits of Structuredness

Dumas

Rosa

Mendling

et al. 2012

Notes on Numerical Fluid Mechanics and Multidisciplinary Design

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“…This implies that users have to think in terms of BPEL constructs (e.g., blocks, syntactical restrictions on links, etc.). More related is the work of Steven White that discusses the mapping of BPMN onto BPEL [43] and the work by Jana Koehler and Rainer Hauser on removing loops in the context of BPEL [25]. Note that none of these publications provides a mapping of some (graphical) process modeling language onto BPEL: [43] merely presents the problem and discusses some issues using examples and [25] focusses on only one piece of the puzzle.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More related is the work of Steven White that discusses the mapping of BPMN onto BPEL [43] and the work by Jana Koehler and Rainer Hauser on removing loops in the context of BPEL [25]. Note that none of these publications provides a mapping of some (graphical) process modeling language onto BPEL: [43] merely presents the problem and discusses some issues using examples and [25] focusses on only one piece of the puzzle. Also related is the mapping presented in [34] where a subclass of BPMN is mapped onto BPEL using ECA rules as an intermediate format.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

WorkflowNet2BPEL4WS: A Tool for Translating Unstructured Workflow Processes to Readable BPEL

Lassen

Aalst

2006

On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2006: CoopIS, DOA, GADA, and ODBASE

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Abstract. This paper presents WorkflowNet2BPEL4WS a tool to automatically map a graphical workflow model expressed in terms of Workflow Nets (WF-nets) onto BPEL. The Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL) has emerged as the de-facto standard for implementing processes and is supported by an increasing number of systems (cf. the IBM WebSphere Choreographer and the Oracle BPEL Process Manager). While being a powerful language, BPEL is difficult to use. Its XML representation is very verbose and only readable for the trained eye. It offers many constructs and typically things can be implemented in many ways, e.g., using links and the flow construct or using sequences and switches. As a result only experienced users are able to select the right construct. Some vendors offer a graphical interface that generates BPEL code. However, the graphical representations are a direct reflection of the BPEL code and not easy to use by end-users. Therefore, we provide a mapping from WF-nets to BPEL. This mapping builds on the rich theory of Petri nets and can also be used to map other languages (e.g., UML, EPC, BPMN, etc.) onto BPEL. To evaluate WorkflowNet2BPEL4WS we used more than 100 processes modeled using Protos (the most widely used business process modeling tool in the Netherlands), automatically converted these into CPN Tools, and applied our mapping. The results of these evaluation are very encouraging and show the applicability of our approach.

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“…In a pick-pattern (Figure 2(d)), an event-based XOR decision gateway must be followed by receive tasks or intermediate message or timer events. 9 Note that out(ic) ⊆ T R ∪ E I is the set of receive tasks and intermediate events following the event-based XOR decision gateway ic. Between the merge gateway oc and each of the objects in out(ic) there is at most one task or event object.…”

Section: Well-structured Pattern-based Translationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, these techniques are no longer applicable when AND-splits and AND-joins are introduced. An identification of situations where unstructured process diagrams cannot be translated into equivalent structured ones (under weak bisimulation equivalence) can be found in [7,11], while an approach to overcome some of these limitations for processes without parallelism is sketched in [9]. However, these related work only address a piece of the puzzle of translating from graph-oriented process modelling languages to BPEL.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pattern-Based Translation of BPMN Process Models to BPEL Web Services

Ouyang

Dumas

Hofstede

et al.

Advances in Web Services Research

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Abstract. The Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) is a graph-oriented language in which control and action nodes can be connected almost arbitrarily. It is primarily targeted at domain analysts and is supported by many modelling tools, but in its current form, it lacks the semantic precision required to capture fully executable business processes. The Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL) on the other hand is a mainly block-structured language, targeted at software developers and supported by several execution platforms. In the current setting, translating BPMN models into BPEL code is a necessary step towards standards-based business process development environments. This translation is challenging since BPMN and BPEL represent two fundamentally different classes of languages. Existing BPMN-to-BPEL translations rely on the identification of block-structured patterns in BPMN models that are mapped into block-structured BPEL constructs. This paper advances the state of the art in BPMN-to-BPEL translation by defining methods for identifying not only perfectly block-structured fragments in BPMN models, but also quasi-structured fragments that can be turned into perfectly structured ones and flow-based acyclic fragments that can be mapped into a combination of block-structured constructs and control links. Beyond its direct relevance in the context of BPMN and BPEL, this paper addresses issues that arise generally when translating between graph-oriented and block-structured flow definition languages.

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Untangling Unstructured Cyclic Flows – A Solution Based on Continuations

Cited by 32 publications

References 7 publications

Understanding Business Process Models: The Costs and Benefits of Structuredness

Understanding Business Process Models: The Costs and Benefits of Structuredness

WorkflowNet2BPEL4WS: A Tool for Translating Unstructured Workflow Processes to Readable BPEL

Pattern-Based Translation of BPMN Process Models to BPEL Web Services

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