Parameterizable Views for Process Visualization

In large organizations different users or user groups usually have distinguished perspectives over business processes and related data. Personalized views on the managed processes are therefore needed. Existing BPM tools, however, do not provide adequate mechanisms for building and visualizing such views. Very often processes are displayed to users in the same way as drawn by the process designer. To tackle this inflexibility this paper presents an advanced approach for creating personalized process views based on well-defined, parameterizable view operations. Respective operations can be flexibly composed in order to reduce or aggregate process information in the desired way. Depending on the chosen parameterization of the applied view operations, in addition, different "quality levels" with more or less relaxed properties can be obtained for the resulting process views (e.g., regarding the correctness of the created process view scheme). This allows us to consider the specific needs of the different applications utilizing process views (e.g., process monitoring tools or process editors). Altogether, the realized view concept contributes to better deal with complex, long-running business processes with hundreds up to thousands of activities

Enabling Personalized Visualization of Large Business Processes through Parameterizable Views

Process-aware information systems (PAISs) need to support personalized views on business processes since different user groups have distinguished perspectives on these processes and related data. Existing PAISs, however, do not provide mechanisms for creating and visualizing such process views. Typically, processes are displayed to users in exactly the same way as originally modeled. This paper presents a flexible approach for creating personalized process views based on parameterizable operations. Respective view-building operations can be flexibly composed in order to hide process information or abstract from it in the desired way. Depending on the chosen parameterization of the operations applied, we obtain process views with more or less relaxed properties (e.g., regarding the degree of information loss or soundness). Altogether, the realized view concept enables a more flexible visualization of large business processes satisfying the needs of different user groups

A Flexible Approach for Abstracting and Personalizing Large Business Process Models

In process-aware information systems (PAISs), usually, different user groups have distinguished perspectives on the business processes supported and on related business data. Hence, personalized views and proper abstractions on these business processes are needed. However, existing PAISs do not provide adequate mechanisms for creating and visualizing process views and process model abstractions. Usually, process models are displayed to users in exactly the same way as originally modeled. This paper presents a flexible approach for creating personalized views based on parameterizable operations. Respective view creation operations can be flexibly composed to either hide non-relevant process information or to abstract it. Depending on the parameterization of the selected view creation operations, one obtains process views with more or less relaxed properties, e.g., regarding the degree of information loss or the soundness of the resulting model abstractions. Altogether, the realized view concept allows for a more flexible abstraction and visualization of large business process models satisfying the needs of different user groups

View-Unterstützung in Prozess-Management-Systemen

Sichten (englisch Views) spielen in Datenbanksystemen seit langem eine wichtige Rolle, wenn es um die Daten-unabhängigkeit von Anwendungssystemen oder Sicherheits-aspekte geht. Im Blickpunkt dieser Arbeit ist die Fragestellung, inwieweit sich Views auch auf Schemata und Instanzen in Prozess-Management-Systemen anwenden lassen. Zu diesem Zweck werden zunächst für Prozess-Views verschiedene Anwendungsfälle (z.B. Kapselung, Komplexitäts-verminderung, Effizienz und Verbergung von Informationen) identifiziert. Je nach Anwendungsfall sind verschiedene Operationen auf Views nötig. Diese lassen sich in Operationen für reine Lesezugriffe sowie Operationen für Schema und Instanzänderungen unterteilen. Zur View-Bildung können insbesondere zwei grundlegende Methoden zur Anwendung kommen: Die Zusammenfassung mehrerer Aktivitäten zu einem neuen virtuellen Schritt (Graphaggregation) oder das Verbergen von einzelnen Aktivitäten bzw. Prozesselementen (Graphreduktion). Aufbauend auf diesen Methoden und den für Views definierten Operationen werden Algorithmen für die Viewerzeugung sowie verschiedene mögliche Methoden für die Verwaltung und Speicherung von Views vorgestellt und diskutiert. Schließlich wird auf die Problematik der Aktualisierung von Views bei Prozess-Änderungen und die Möglichkeit von Schemaänderungen über eine View im Detail eingegangen. Beide Aspekte sind für die Realisierung adaptiver Prozess-Management-Systeme fundamental