Robust and Flexible Error Handling in the AristaFlow BPM Suite

Process-aware information systems will be not accepted by users if rigidity or idleness due to failures comes with them. When implementing business processes based on process management technology one fundamental goal is to ensure robustness of the resulting process-aware information system. Meeting this goal becomes extremely complicated if high flexibility demands need to be fullled. This paper shows how the AristaFlow BPM Suite assists process participants in coping with errors and exceptional situations in a flexible and robust way. In particular, we focus on novel error handling procedures and capabilities using the flexibility provided by ad-hoc changes not shown in other context so far

Enabling Flexible and Robust Business Process Automation for the Agile Enterprise

During the last decade process-aware information systems (PAISs) have become increasingly popular to digitize business processes and to effectively support them at the operational level. In many application domains, however, PAISs will not be accepted by users if rigidity comes with them. Ensuring PAIS robustness, in turn, becomes extremely complicated if high flexibility demands need to be fulfilled. To cope with the dynamic nature of business processes, we developed AristaFlow, a next generation process management technology that enables comprehensive process lifecycle support. In addition to standard process management services, AristaFlow can handle exceptions, change the execution of running business cases on the fly, efficiently deal with uncertainty, and support the evolution of business processes over time. This paper discusses how AristaFlow assists the various stakeholders of a PAIS to cope with errors and exceptional situations, while still meeting robustness needs. In particular, we focus on new error handling procedures and capabilities utilizing the flexibility provided by ad-hoc changes

Enabling Process Support for Advanced Applications with the AristaFlow BPM Suite

A process-aware information system (PAIS) will be not accepted by end users if its software clients do not support their native workflows or are too complex for them. When implementing business processes based on process management technology important issues are, therefore, how end-users can participate in the execution of the processes and how this can be accomplished as intuitively as possible. This becomes extremely important if high flexibility demands need to be fullled during process execution, while PAIS robustness and error safety need to be assured. In this software demonstration we show how the AristaFlow BPM Suite - an adaptive process management system developed by us - was applied to challenging applications in domains like healthcare, logistics, disaster management, and software development. The implementation of adaptive software clients in these different applications particularly proves the benefits provided by an open application programming interface (API) as offered by AristaFlow

Enabling Time-Aware Process Support with the ATAPIS Toolset

The proper handling of temporal constraints is crucial for business processes in many application domains. Contemporary process-aware information systems (PAIS), however, lack a sophisticated support of time-aware processes. First of all, at design time it should be possible to specify the temporal constraints of a business process. In turn, this should be accompanied by checking the respective time-aware process schema for inconsistencies that may emerge due to hidden interdependencies among the temporal constraints. The latter is crucial to enable a robust and error-free execution of the time-aware process schema. At run time, corresponding process instances need to be monitored for violations of their temporal constraints. This demo paper presents the ATAPIS Toolset for modeling and enacting time-aware processes. The toolset is based on AristaFlow BPM Suite---an industrial-strength process management system. The ATAPIS Toolset enables process engineers to correctly specify and implement time-aware processes. Further, time-aware process instances can be efficiently executed, whilst monitoring their temporal constraints. Altogether, the ATAPIS Toolset covers the temporal perspective of processes at design as well as run time in a comprehensive way

Enabling Flexibility in Process-Aware Information Systems: Challenges, Methods, Technologies

In today’s dynamic business world, the success of a company increasingly depends on its ability to react to changes in its environment in a quick and flexible way. Companies have therefore identified process agility as a competitive advantage to address business trends like increasing product and service variability or faster time to market, and to ensure business IT alignment. Along this trend, a new generation of information systems has emerged—so-called process-aware information systems (PAIS), like workflow management systems, case handling tools, and service orchestration engines. With this book, Reichert and Weber address these flexibility needs and provide an overview of PAIS with a strong focus on methods and technologies fostering flexibility for all phases of the process lifecycle (i.e., modeling, configuration, execution and evolution). Their presentation is divided into six parts. Part I starts with an introduction of fundamental PAIS concepts and establishes the context of process flexibility in the light of practical scenarios. Part II focuses on flexibility support for pre-specified processes, the currently predominant paradigm in the field of business process management (BPM). Part III details flexibility support for loosely specified processes, which only partially specify the process model at build-time, while decisions regarding the exact specification of certain model parts are deferred to the run-time. Part IV deals with user- and data-driven processes, which aim at a tight integration of processes and data, and hence enable an increased flexibility compared to traditional PAIS. Part V introduces existing technologies and systems for the realization of a flexible PAIS. Finally, Part VI summarizes the main ideas of this book and gives an outlook on advanced flexibility issues. The attached pdf file gives a preview on Chapter 3 of the book which explains the book's overall structure

Adaptive Time- and Process-Aware Information Systems

For the digitized enterprise the proper handling of the temporal aspects of its business processes is vital. Delivery times, appointments and deadlines must be met, processing times and durations be monitored, and optimization objectives shall be pursued. However, contemporary Process-Aware Information Systems (PAISs)--the go-to solution for the computer-aided support of business processes—still lack a sophisticated support of the time perspective. Hence, there is a high demand for a more profound support of temporal aspects in PAISs. Accordingly, both the specification and the operational support of temporal aspects constitute fundamental challenges for the further development and dissemination of PAISs. The aim of this thesis is to propose a framework for supporting the time perspective of business processes in PAISs. As PAISs enable the design, execution and evolution of business processes, the designated framework must support these three fundamental phases of the process life cycle. The ATAPIS framework proposed by this thesis essentially comprises three major com-ponents. First, a universal and comprehensive set of time patterns is provided. Respective time patterns represent temporal concepts commonly found in business processes and are based on empirical evidence. In particular, they provide a universal and comprehensive set of notions for describing temporal aspects in business processes. Moreover, a precise formal semantics for each of the time patterns is provided based on an in-depth analysis of a large set of real-world use cases. Respective formal semantics enable the proper integration of the time patterns into PAISs. In turn, the latter will allow for the specification of time-aware process schemas. Second, a generic framework for implementing the time patterns based on their formal semantics is developed. The framework and its techniques enable the verification of time-aware process schemas regarding their temporal consistency, i. e., their ability to be successfully executed without violating any of their temporal constraints. Subsequently, the framework is extended to consider advanced aspects like the contingent nature of activity durations and alternative execution paths as well. Moreover, an algorithm as well as techniques for executing and monitoring time-aware process instances in PAISs is provided. Based on the presented concepts, it becomes possible to ensure that a time-aware process instance may be executed without violating any of its temporal constraints. Third, a set of change operations for dynamically modifying time-aware process instances during run time is suggested. Respective change operations ensure that a modified time-aware process instance remains temporally consistent after the respective modification. Moreover, to reduce the complexity involved when applying multiple change operations a sophisticated approximation-based technique is presented. Overall, the developed change operations allow providing the flexibility required by business processes in practice. Altogether, the ATAPIS framework provides fundamental concepts, techniques and algorithms for integrating the time perspective into PAISs. As beauty of this framework the specification, execution and evolution of business processes is supported by an integrated approach

Lightweight Process Support with Spreadsheet-Driven Processes: A Case Study in the Finance Domain

The use of process management technology constitutes a salient factor for a multitude of business domains as it particularly addresses the flexibility demands of the digital enterprise. Still, spreadsheet applications are more likely to be used in many scenarios in which process management technology appears to be a more appropriate solution. Especially in the context of human-centric and knowledge-intensive processes, spreadsheets are widely used, even if more business-tailored applications exist. For example, financial service providers, like banks or insurers, prefer spreadsheet applications for accomplishing their daily business. However, this kind of usage reveals drawbacks when working collaboratively based on the same spreadsheet document. To remedy these drawbacks, we suggest the use of spreadsheet-driven processes, which shall combine the advantages of traditional process management technology with the ones of spreadsheets. Using a sophisticated scenario from the financial domain, this paper shows how spreadsheet-driven processes improve collaborative work, as required in the context of business processes, significantly. Moreover, a proof-of-concept prototype is presented to evaluate the approach in practice. Altogether, first results indicate that spreadsheet-driven processes may be a promising technical solution for everyday business involving human resources

Integrating Mobile Tasks with Business Processes: A Self-Healing Approach

Process management technology constitutes a fundamental component of any service-driven computing environment. Process management facilitates both the composition of services at design time and their orchestration at run time. In particular, when applying the service paradigm to enterprise integration management, high flexibility is required. In this context, atomic as well as composite services representing the business functions should be quickly adaptable to cope with dynamic business changes. Furthermore, they should enable mobile and quick access to enterprise information. The growing maturity of smart mobile devices has fostered their prevalence in knowledge-intensive areas in the enterprise as well. As a consequence, process management technology needs to be enhanced with mobile task support. However, tasks hitherto executed stationarily, cannot be simply transferred in order to run on smart mobile devices. Many research groups focus on the partitioning of processes and the distributed execution of the resulting fragments on smart mobile devices. Opposed to this fragmentation concept, this chapter proposes an approach to enable the robust and flexible execution of single process tasks on smart mobile devices by provisioning self-healing techniques to address the smooth integration of mobile tasks with business processes