Modeling workflows with a process-view approach

Diverse requirements of the participants involved in a business process bring forth the need for a flexible process model that is capable of providing appropriate process information for the various participants. However, the current activity-based approach is inadequate for providing the different participants with varied process information. This paper describes a novel process-view model for workflow management. A process view is an abstracted process derived from a base process to provide abstracted process information. The underlying concepts and a formal model of a process view are presented. Moreover, a novel ordering-preserved approach is proposed to derive a process view from a base process. The proposed approach enhances the flexibility and functionality of conventional activity-based workflow management systems.