Research Of Workflow System Process's Modeling And Automation Generation Of Application Environment

Workflow technology as a new research field is being widely applied in the fields of manufacturing, office automation, concurrent engineering, electronic government and so on. It will be the key technology to the realization of enterprise business process modeling, business process optimization, the management and integration of business process and ultimately to realize the automation of business process. It is important to improve the progress of the enterprise's technology and to the development of the information industry. Nowadays, the workflow product market is underway. One of the most important reasons is that workflow system is hard to popularize in the enterprises for its complexity to carry out. Enterprise end users want to customize the business process and application interface according to their own need, but it is hard to realize because of the lack of application tools.This work is imbursed by Beijing Natural Science Foundation and Beijing Education Committee. We focus on the realization method and key techniques for process modeling and the generation of the application environment. By the research in the relevant fields, we propose corresponding solutions. The following is our acquirement:First, a process model named "direct-graph-with-condition" is proposed. The model can describe "state" which improves the ability to express the model. Message node is explicitly shown in the model to enhance the description of message transfer. Furthermore, we developed a tool for process modeling named WFDesigner, with which end users can model process visually.Second, a method to develop the application environment of workflow system based on Web with "page template" is put forward. According to this method, one or several Web pages for each activity is created by page template binded with the information of process definition, which has been defined in the process of modeling. It enables end users to develop workflow applications quickly and standardly. According to this idea, we designed and developed a visual tool named PageDesigner to generate application environment.Then, a workflow system based on Web with new message mechanism is put forward. We also give the prototype system in this paper. The information of task process is passed by E_Mail, for the task is handled on time and the workflowsystem runs smoothly. The system is based on Browser/Server architecture. It needn't pre-install any special software at client side. Users can enter the workflow system with IE browser.Last, according to the lack of synchronous collaboration in the workflow products, we propose to integrate synchronous collaboration with asynchronous collaboration to provide a nice and convenient work environment for end users and to build up collaboration ability among them. Based on this idea, we designed a real time message transfer tool named OnlineMessage, with which users can discuss problems and communicate with each other. The presentation at client side is web page imbedded with Java Applet. So it can be integrated with user interface in workflow enactment system easily.In the end, we achieve a relatively completive solution method of workflow system's generation and an applied prototype system. With this method, the end enterprise users can develop workflow application quickly and easily to satisfy their own need. In the process of system development, we use Object-Oriented technology, software reuse method and advanced CASE tools. The process tries to accord to the standard of modern software engineering development.