Formal Foundation of Workflow Hyperpaths and a Graph Search Algorithm for Workflow Hyperpath Generation

While executing a process, many decisions are taken at its various decision points for selecting paths. There is a need for understanding and analyzing on various paths that emanate from various decision points to ensure that right decision is taken at these moments. For this purpose, this paper presents the notion of hyperpaths in the context of workflows, its properties, and an algorithm to generate various hyperpaths from a node of a workflow graph. The algorithm is presented with detailed workouts using examples. The paper also details various similarities between hyperpaths and related concepts like instance subgraphs, instance flows, etc., and briefs on various algorithms available in literature for such concepts. Finally, the paper presents various applications of hyperpaths such as process mining, business process re-engineering, etc. Hyperpaths can be used in service-oriented computing model for resource management, business activity monitoring (BAM), dynamic orchestration, and mission-critical service oriented systems.