Workflow - Definition and Overview

Workflow is the operational aspect of a work procedure: how tasks are structured, who performs them, what their relative order is, how they are synchronized, how information flows to support the tasks and how tasks are being tracked. Workflow problems can be modeled and analyzed using Petri nets.

While the concept of workflow is not specific to information technology, support for workflow is an integral part of groupware software.

External links

• Tools
  • FlowRunner (http://www.brightsoft.com/) Offers BPM, workflow server and embeddable engine. Multiple form technologies are supported. Source code is available. Commercial.
  • W4 (http://www.w4.fr/) sells one of the main workflow core
  • OpenFlow (http://www.openflow.it/) - Zope based opensource Workflow
  • OpenSymphony (http://www.opensymphony.com/) - an Open Source workflow core
  • Workflow Management Coalition (http://www.wfmc.org/) sets standards in areas of terminology, interoperability and connectivity between workflow products
  • VivTek (http://www.vivtek.com/) proposes a free tool-kit for workflow named wftk (http://www.vivtek.com/wftk) (under license GNU General Public License)
  • OpenWFE (http://openwfe.sourceforge.net/) is an Open source WorkFlow Engine. It's written in Java, but it can also be accessed by Python and/or .NET applications
  • Enhydra Shark (http://shark.objectweb.org/)
  • MyControl Workflow Server (http://www.mycontrol.de/workflow/)
  • CoMo-Kit (http://wwwagr.informatik.uni-kl.de/forschung/comokit/)
  • PL/FLOW (http://plflow.sourceforge.net/)
  • jBpm (http://jbpm.org/)
  • IntellaDOC PDF component for workflow systems (http://www.intelladoc.com/)
  • Skelta Workflow.NET -A BPM Workflow Software (http://www.skelta.com/)
  • Agentflow (http://www.flowring.com/flowring/en_page/index.jsp) - A commercial Java-based workflow engine and design tool
  • @enterprise - workflow engine (http://www.groiss.com/) is a webbased workflow engine (100% Java, integrated process monitoring).
  • ils/process (http://www.ilogs.at/) provides a solution for running a business process project

• Articles
  • Workflow patterns (http://tmitwww.tm.tue.nl/research/patterns/patterns.htm)
  • "Knowledge Based Techniques to Increase the Flexibility of Workflow Management (http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/dellen97knowledge.html)" by Barbara Dellen, Frank Maurer, Gerhard Pews