Research In Conversion Method Of Workflow Model

Workflow modeling technique is always one of important research tasks of workflow, including workflow model definition and sematic formalized expression method and so on.At present,different manufacturers provide different modelings and workflow definitions,which can not interchange between workflow products.For providing a common way to access and describe workflow process definitions, Workflow Management Coalition(WfMC) established workflow process definition standard, XML Process Definition Language(XPDL).It can realize transform of workflow process definitions between different workflow management systems(WFMS) if they follow the standard.Thus, XPDL has already become the interchange standard of workflow model data.But now, some WFMS based on relation database (RDB) are broadly being used,enterprises do not want to give up the former investment and the RDB has got fully recongnized and sustained in the market.As a dominant data management means ,RDB will exist for a long time.But RDB is not advantageous to data exchange between systems and has no interoperability with other workflow products.So it is necessary to make bidirectional data conversion between RDB and XPDL.Therefore,the author develops a workflow model conversion tool ( Convert-RDBXPDL) using XML> JSP^ JAVA> JDBC, DOM and so on ,which realizes data conversion between relation-based workflow model and that based on XPDL ,and achieves interoperability between the system and other workflow products.This dissertation introduces basic concepts of workflow model and relational techniques;analyses workflow model data based on RDB and sorts out Researches into XPDL criterias;finds out mapping relations and ascertains conversion arithmetic between RDB and XPDL;fmally explains realizing steps of model conversion tool and gives the testing and running results.