An architecture for a blended workflow engine: Integrating an activity-based perspective with a goal-based perspective

Abstract

Semi-structured workflow approaches are essential to support collaboration whenever unanticipated events occur in dynamic environments. These approaches promote ad-hoc work. However, semi-structured workflows need to balance the support of unexpected situations with guidance for the situations where a standard behaviour is wanted. The blended workflow approach proposes an integration of two different workflow perspectives, the activity-based perspective, which precisely defines how to coordinate work for expected situations, and a goal-based perspective, which allows people to accomplish the business process goals without constraining their behaviour. The existing workflow engines do not provide support for an approach that fuse activity-based and goal-based perspectives. Therefore, this paper goal is to describe how both perspectives can be integrated. We describe an architecture for a blended workflow engine which combines activity and goal-based perspectives and supports the integrated execution of both specifications while keeping them consistent. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.