Research And Implementation Of The Workflow Management System Oriented Web Services

Workflow is a computer model which describes the business process, this business model is constructed for implementing the automation of business integration and business process and it can be executed by workflow management system. Workflow management system is a software system, it is used to define and manage workflow, prompt process instance to run according to the predefined workflow logic;it provides three function: 1) modeling the business process;2) monitoring the running of the process;3) the human-computer interaction during runtime.Most of the traditional workflow management systems are management of business process in an enterprise(based on intranet), they can't satisfy the need of cross-enterprise, cross-organization, there are many problems such as they can't run on different platform, can't integrate with the existed information system or integrate with business process, etc.Web services technology is an effective complementary means to integrate with existed business function and systems of the business partners. The Workflow management oriented Web services (WSWF) cited in this paper is a workflow management system which can be integrated easily, based internet, orienting B2B. Web services were introduced into business process, web services and workflow technology were combined together, providing the support to workflow during the modeling and executing phase. BPEL was used to describe the process model of cross-enterprise, the workflow engine oriented web services parses and executes the BPEL document and interrelated WSDL document, all of the tasks are executed manually or by invoking other web services;the exterior applications can be integrated into workflow system by encapsulating them to web services. The process described in BPEL is still regarded as Web service, so it can also be invoked by other application or business process. So business process management based on internet was implemented, the existed information system can be reserved and integrated, anew solution for the business cooperation of cross enterprise was provided in this paper.According to the above idea, a workflow management system oriented web services was designed and developed, workflow engine and client for human-computer interaction were implemented mainly, implementing the latter two function of workflow system.