Abstract
Enacting business processes in process engines requires the coverage of control flow, resource assignments, and process data. While the first two aspects are well supported in current process engines, data dependencies need to be added and maintained manually by a process engineer. Thus, this task is error-prone and time-consuming. In this paper, we address the problem of modeling processes with complex data dependencies, e.g., m:n relationships, and their automatic enactment from process models. First, we extend BPMN data objects with few annotations to allow data dependency handling as well as data instance differentiation. Second, we introduce a pattern-based approach to derive SQL queries from process models utilizing the above mentioned extensions. Therewith, we allow automatic enactment of data-aware BPMN process models. We implemented our approach for the Activiti process engine to show applicability.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M.: YAWL: Yet Another Workflow Language. Information Systems 30(4), 245–275 (2005)
van der Aalst, W.M.P., Weske, M., Grünbauer, D.: Case Handling: A New Paradigm for Business Process Support. Data & Knowledge Engineering 53(2), 129–162 (2005)
van der Aalst, W., Barthelmess, P., Ellis, C., Wainer, J.: Proclets: A Framework for Lightweight Interacting Workflow Processes. Int. J. Cooperative Inf. Syst. 10(4), 443–481 (2001)
Activiti: Activiti BPM Platform, https://www.activiti.org/
Bonitasoft: Bonita Process Engine, https://www.bonitasoft.com/
Cohn, D., Hull, R.: Business artifacts: A data-centric approach to modeling business operations and processes. IEEE Data Eng. Bull. 32(3), 3–9 (2009)
Damaggio, E., Hull, R., VaculÃn, R.: On the equivalence of incremental and fixpoint semantics for business artifacts with guard-stage-milestone lifecycles. Inf. Syst. 38(4), 561–584 (2013)
Dori, D.: Object-Process Methodology. Springer (2002)
Eshuis, R., Van Gorp, P.: Synthesizing Object Life Cycles from Business Process Models. In: Atzeni, P., Cheung, D., Ram, S. (eds.) ER 2012 Main Conference 2012. LNCS, vol. 7532, pp. 307–320. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)
Künzle, V., Reichert, M.: PHILharmonicFlows: Towards a Framework for Object-aware Process Management. J. Softw. Maint. Evol.R 23(4), 205–244 (2011)
Küster, J., Ryndina, K., Gall, H.: Generation of Business Process Models for Object Life Cycle Compliance. In: Alonso, G., Dadam, P., Rosemann, M. (eds.) BPM 2007. LNCS, vol. 4714, pp. 165–181. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Lanz, A., Reichert, M., Dadam, P.: Robust and flexible error handling in the aristaflow bpm suite. In: Soffer, P., Proper, E. (eds.) CAiSE Forum 2010. LNBIP, vol. 72, pp. 174–189. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Liu, R., Wu, F.Y., Kumaran, S.: Transforming activity-centric business process models into information-centric models for soa solutions. J. Database Manag. 21(4), 14–34 (2010)
Meyer, A., Pufahl, L., Fahland, D., Weske, M.: Modeling and Enacting Complex Data Dependencies in Business Processes. Tech. Rep. 74, HPI at the University of Potsdam (2013)
Müller, D., Reichert, M., Herbst, J.: Data-driven modeling and coordination of large process structures. In: Meersman, R., Tari, Z. (eds.) OTM 2007, Part I. LNCS, vol. 4803, pp. 131–149. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Nigam, A., Caswell, N.: Business artifacts: An Approach to Operational Specification. IBM Systems Journal 42(3), 428–445 (2003)
OMG: Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), Version 2.0 (2011)
OMG: Unified Modeling Language (UML), Version 2.4.1 (2011)
Redding, G., Dumas, M., ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Iordachescu, A.: A flexible, object-centric approach for business process modelling. In: SOCA 2010, vol. 4(3), pp. 191–201 (2010)
Reichert, M., Rinderle-Ma, S., Dadam, P.: Flexibility in process-aware information systems. In: Jensen, K., van der Aalst, W.M.P. (eds.) ToPNoC II. LNCS, vol. 5460, pp. 115–135. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
Silberschatz, A., Korth, H.F., Sudarshan, S.: Database System Concepts, 4th edn. McGraw-Hill Book Company (2001)
Vanderfeesten, I.T.P., Reijers, H.A., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Product-based workflow support. Inf. Syst. 36(2), 517–535 (2011)
Wang, J., Kumar, A.: A Framework for Document-Driven Workflow Systems. In: van der Aalst, W.M.P., Benatallah, B., Casati, F., Curbera, F. (eds.) BPM 2005. LNCS, vol. 3649, pp. 285–301. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Wang, Z., ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Ouyang, C., Wynn, M., Wang, J., Zhu, X.: How to Guarantee Compliance between Workflows and Product Lifecycles? Tech. rep., BPM Center Report BPM-11-10 (2011)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Meyer, A., Pufahl, L., Fahland, D., Weske, M. (2013). Modeling and Enacting Complex Data Dependencies in Business Processes. In: Daniel, F., Wang, J., Weber, B. (eds) Business Process Management. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8094. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40176-3_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40176-3_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-40175-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-40176-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)