Terry Heath

Declarative business artifact centric modeling of decision and knowledge intensive business processes

In this paper we address the problem of modeling collaborative decision and knowledge intensive business processes (sometimes referred to as Decision Intensive Processes, or DIP processes). DIP processes assist users in performing decision intensive tasks, and provide users with a guidance relevant to process execution context. DIP processes are by nature collaborative, data-driven, need to support various kinds of flexibility at design and run time, and need to integrate with external services and information sources. Such a combination presents significant challenges for contemporary business processes technologies. We present a solution based on a business artifacts paradigm (a.k.a. business entities with lifecycles) using a Guard-Stage-Milestone (GSM) model for declarative lifecycles specification. We introduce a CoreControl -- MicroProcess process design pattern, which allows a natural blending of a business functional process structure (usual for most business processes), with a decision & knowledge driven structure providing domain specific decision guidance to users. The proposed design pattern along with the declarative GSM BA approach provide suitable design primitives for DIP process, as demonstrated on a real problem from the supply chain solutions enablement domain.

A RESTful Architecture for Service-Oriented Business Process Execution

This paper presents a new approach to designing business process management solutions leveraging the principles of service-oriented computing and representational state transfer. We discuss the IT artifacts that underpin this new design, illustrate the design using a real world example, and present an evaluation highlighting several desirable features of our approach.

An e-business integration and collaboration platform for B2B e-commerce

The B2B e-commerce area is poised for tremendous growth. While this is a great opportunity for the system designers, the challenges are abundant as well. We list the requirements on an application platform for B2B e-commerce. We describe a framework-based approach to designing such a platform. We use design patterns to describe the frameworks on which the platform is based. These patterns illustrate how the platform supports collaborative business processes that integrate enterprise applications and trading partner systems. We present a programming model that enables the assembly of complex e-business applications on the platform.

Agile development of workflow applications with interpreted task models

We demonstrate that the development of interactive workflow applications can be made easier by providing developers with custom user interface components that interpret a workflow task model. This enables occasional developers to create workflow applications by adapting template data objects, template user interface pages, and a template workflow task definition. The resulting interactive workflow system is open to agile adaptation by experienced developers. This is an improvement over existing workflow systems which use workflow task models to create workflow application user interfaces that are difficult to extend.

Data-centric Web Services Based on Business Artifacts

Existing Web services standards consider data primarily on the level of inputs and outputs specifications, with the major focus on functional aspects of interactions. Majority of applications rely on data sources, but such data sources are not part of the Web service specifications and cannot be accessed directly by clients. The fact that data are treated independently or as second-class citizens severely limits re-use, flexibility, customization and integration options of current Web services. In this paper we suggest to extend the WS specifications by introducing a data-centric Web services model that integrates functional and data perspectives in one coherent framework. The approach is based on Business Artifacts and in particular on the declarative modular Guard-Stage-Milestone (GSM) model. We introduce a Web Data- and Artifact- centric Service (W-DAS) model using GSM in its core which in addition to usual application specific WS operations defines a set of data access interfaces including CRUD operations, artifacts retrieval interface for querying, filtering and sorting data, and operations for arbitrary custom defined ad hoc run-time queries. We discuss W-DAS publish-subscribe mechanisms and implementation.

Contextual collaboration: platform and applications

Contextual collaboration refers to people-to-people collaboration from within IT-enabled business operations. We have designed and implemented a middleware platform for enabling contextual collaboration, and built collaborative applications on top of the platform. The platform embodies three main themes: on-demand, adaptive, and integrated. It is on-demand in that it allows collaboration data and services to be accessed from within business applications as the business need arises. It is adaptive in that it brings the right set of collaboration elements to the user, in a manner sensitive to business context. It integrates collaboration elements across multiple sources, multiple modalities, and multiple vendor technologies. In addition, it integrates structured collaborative activities with ad hoc peer collaboration tools, and with the business processes at large. To validate and leverage the contextual collaboration platform, we have developed an eclipse-based collaborative development environment and a browser that enables collaborative Web applications. Our contextual collaboration platform and applications promise to yield a more productive and more satisfying business practice.

Supporting Collaborative Decision Processes

Collaborative Decision Processes focus on long-running, multi-faceted decisions (e.g., the planning and approval process for a municipal development project) made by teams of people. Such decisions can draw on the crowd in a variety of ways, by enabling large-scale on-line brainstorming, crowd-sourced queries, and text mining to determine public sentiments and derive new insights. Such decision processes consist of a combination of structured and highly unconstrained, human-drive activities. This paper describes a framework and a prototype system for support of collaborative decision processes based on declarative, data-centric dynamic artifacts and Advanced Case Management.

Pushing the envelope of pervasive access

This paper presents the design and implementation of the Puma middleware system. Puma enables pervasive access to Web applications from a wide range of clients. In addition to traditional, browser-equipped client devices such as laptops and PDAs, Puma supports the use of peer collaboration tools such as instant messengers, SMS devices, email clients and telephones. While those collaboration tools were initially intended for free-form interaction between people, Puma leverages them for structured interaction between people and computers in order to offer more flexibility, convenience and intimacy to end users. In addition to user-initiated, or pull-based, interactions, Puma allows an application to proactively push an interaction to a user, in a manner sensitive to the applications needs and the users current context. Architecturally, Puma employs various Modality Bots to mediate between application servers and heterogeneous clients. The Modality Bots also serve as the initial point of contact for application-initiated interactions. As an experiment, Puma has been used to mobilize the human tasks application, which supports the creation, processing, and management of the manual steps in business processes.