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Verifying the manipulation of data objects according to business process and data models

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Abstract

Business processes read and write data objects, usually stored in databases. Although data models and activity-oriented business process models originate from different paradigms, they need to work together properly. The data object states are transformed during each process instance by the activities of the process model. It is therefore necessary to verify whether the states of the data objects are correct according to the process model, and to discover the states of the stored data objects. This implies determining the relation between the data objects stored in the database, the data objects involved in the process, and the activities that within the business process that create the data objects and modify their states. In order to verify the business process annotated with data states and to reduce the existing gap between data model and business process model, we propose a methodology that includes enlarging the capability to describe data states in business processes; verifying the completeness and consistency of the data states described in accordance with their relation to the business process model; and discovering the states of the data objects stored in the database according to the business process model where they are managed. The methodology is supported by a framework that enables a natural-like language to be employed to describe the states, to apply the necessary algorithms to verify the consistency and completeness of the model, and to determine the states of the stored data objects according to the model described. To validate our proposal, an extension of Activiti\(^{TM}\) has been implemented and applied to a real example as an illustration of its applicability.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been partially funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Spain (ECLIPSE project), the European Regional Development Fund (METAMORFOSIS project), and the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (through the CRC projects KENDO and REKAP).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain

    José Miguel Pérez-Álvarez, María Teresa Gómez-López & Rafael M. Gasca

  2. School of Industrial Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Rik Eshuis

  3. Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy

    Marco Montali

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  1. José Miguel Pérez-Álvarez
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  2. María Teresa Gómez-López
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  3. Rik Eshuis
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Correspondence to José Miguel Pérez-Álvarez.

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Pérez-Álvarez, J.M., Gómez-López, M.T., Eshuis, R. et al. Verifying the manipulation of data objects according to business process and data models. Knowl Inf Syst 62, 2653–2683 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10115-019-01431-5

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