JP2003162613A - Work-flow management method and its implementation apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a technology capable of reducing in number of man-hours for development of a screen to process all at once a plurality of operations corresponding to life events. <P>SOLUTION: A work-flow management method performing a series of operations by transferring electronic documents composed of a plurality of information items according to predetermined order of transmission, wherein the method comprises a step of accepting selections of the life events performing operation applications from applicants and accepting a plurality of application operations corresponding to the life events, a step of extracting data items to be displayed on a screen by operating at the time of issuing slips of applications for accepted each operation and creating screens to be displayed at the time for each operation and a step of accepting application data input to the created screens and managing issues corresponding to the life events in association with the accepted plurality of application operations and application data. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a workflow system for sequentially transferring an electronic document composed of a plurality of information items to a next person in charge in accordance with a predetermined transfer order to perform a series of operations, and particularly to a plurality of different workflow systems. The present invention relates to a technique effectively applied to a workflow system that efficiently displays screens of work.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A workflow system is one of the information technologies for improving the productivity of business of a company. In this workflow system, a plurality of people who belong to a certain organization digitize a document and perform electronic communication on the digitized document in a work in which they collaborate while circulating the document. It is a tool that has the function of improving the efficiency of work by circulating it with, and the progress management function that can obtain in real time the information on which work phase of the whole work that constitutes the work of electronic documents. , This workflow system has a function to automatically send a document to the next work according to the defined circulation route when each work of the work is completed by predefining the circulation route of the electronic document in the work. There is.

[0003] In addition, in many cases of employees submitting application forms in indirect business operations of companies, they are occasions for corporate life such as personnel changes, marriage, and moving (hereinafter referred to as life events).
Although it is necessary to submit as a trigger, in the conventional workflow system, since it manages as a separate project for each work corresponding to the submitted application form, in developing it,
Develop screens for input and reference for each work such as application for company house use, application for changing family name, etc., and each work constituting work such as confirmation of affiliation supervisor, examination of welfare staff, etc.

[0004] A workflow processing method and a workflow processing apparatus capable of presenting only necessary information to a workflow user and improving workability of the workflow user are described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-265916.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The above-mentioned conventional methods include
There are the following problems. That is, it is necessary to develop the screen of the workflow system for the number of operations x the number of operations, and the development cost is very high for operations with many types of application forms such as in-house common operations (general affairs / HR application applications). Also, in reality, multiple applications are submitted at the same time triggered by one life event such as "marriage" and "moving", so it takes time and effort to input the same information into multiple different business screens, and approval. Sometimes it is necessary to switch between multiple screens to operate in order to refer to the application information of related work, which is very complicated.

In order to solve these problems, there is a method of preparing a screen in which a plurality of application tasks are integrated for each life event, but actually, the arrangement of tasks for one life event differs depending on the circumstances of the applicant. Therefore, it is very difficult to prepare corresponding integrated screens for all combinations. Also, a method of preparing a general-purpose screen that includes tasks that do not require application is conceivable, but since the unrelated items are mixed in the general-purpose screen, the user may be confused.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above problems and to provide a technique capable of reducing the man-hours for developing a screen for collectively processing a plurality of jobs corresponding to a life event. Another object of the present invention is to provide a technique capable of improving the screen operability of the user.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, in a workflow system for sequentially transferring an electronic document consisting of a plurality of information items in a predetermined transfer order to perform a series of jobs, a plurality of jobs corresponding to life events. Is to generate a screen in which data items to be displayed on the screen are integrated.

In the workflow system of the present invention, first, a list of life events that can be applied from the life event-business correspondence table is displayed on the display screen of the terminal device of the person in charge of the applicant, and the life event to be applied for business is selected. Is accepted from the applicant, and multiple application tasks corresponding to the life event are accepted.

[0010] Here, the addition or deletion of the work in consideration of the situation and the convenience of the applicant is accepted, and the final collection of the work added or deleted with respect to the work corresponding to the life event is the applicant. It may be accepted as an application work corresponding to the life event of.

[0011] Next, based on the final application work arrangement information, the workflow definition of the corresponding work ID is searched to extract the work at the time of the application draft, and the application work arrangement information and the extracted work are extracted. The business-use data correspondence table is searched based on the information, and the data items to be displayed on the screen are extracted. Here, if there is a duplicate item in the extracted data items, the duplicate item is deleted and unified. Then, for the obtained data item, the business-use data correspondence table is searched to extract the item attribute in the work, and a text box for input or reference is set on the screen according to the item attribute. Generate a screen in which data items to be displayed on the screen at that time are set in all operations.

The application data input to the generated screen is accepted, and the case corresponding to the life event is stored and managed in the case DB in association with the received plurality of application tasks and application data. . That is, the case ID, which is the key of the case corresponding to the life event, is numbered, the business ID group for identifying the received plurality of application business is stored in the selected business ID field, and the received application data is further stored. The data value group is stored in the data value field in the order of the data ID.

As described above, according to the workflow system of the present invention, a screen in which data items to be displayed on a screen are integrated in a plurality of jobs corresponding to a life event is generated.
It is possible to reduce the man-hours for developing a screen for collectively processing a plurality of jobs corresponding to a life event.

[0014]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION A workflow system according to an embodiment for carrying out a series of tasks by sequentially transferring an electronic document consisting of a plurality of information items in a predetermined transfer order will be described below.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the system configuration of the workflow system of this embodiment. As shown in FIG. 1, the workflow management device 2 according to the present exemplary embodiment includes an application job reception processing unit 10, a case selection reception processing unit 11, and a screen generation processing unit 1.
2 and an item management processing unit 13.

The application work reception processing unit 10 is a processing unit that receives a selection of a life event for which a business application is made from an applicant and receives a plurality of application works corresponding to the life event. The case selection reception processing unit 11 is a processing unit that displays a list of cases that have arrived at the person in charge on the display device of the person-in-charge terminal device 1 and receives selection input of the case from the person in charge.

The screen generation processing unit 12 operates at the time when the application issuance of each job accepted by the application job acceptance processing unit 10 and at each time of each job corresponding to the case accepted by the case selection acceptance processing unit 11. Is a processing unit that extracts the data items to be displayed on the screen in the above work and generates a screen in which the data items to be displayed on the screen at that time are set in all the tasks.

The case management processing unit 13 receives the application data input to the generated screen, and manages the case corresponding to the life event in association with the received plurality of application tasks and application data. It is a processing unit that does.

The workflow management apparatus 2 includes an application work acceptance processing unit 10, a matter selection acceptance processing unit 11, and a screen generation processing unit 1.
2 and the program for functioning as the matter management processing unit 13 are recorded in a recording medium such as a CD-ROM and stored in a magnetic disk or the like, and then loaded into a memory and executed. The recording medium for recording the program may be a recording medium other than the CD-ROM. The program may be installed in the information processing apparatus from the recording medium and used, or the recording medium may be accessed through the network to use the program.

As shown in FIG. 1, the workflow system of the present embodiment is connected to a plurality of person-in-charge terminal devices 1a to 1n for inputting necessary information for each item of an electronic document via a network 3 to transfer an electronic document. It is composed of a workflow management device 2 for controlling.

The workflow management device 2 includes a workflow definition 4 which is a database for storing the circulation order of electronic documents, a life event-business correspondence table 5 for storing work arrangement information necessary for each life event, each business and each. Work-use data correspondence table 6 that stores the arrangement information of the data used on the screen for each work, and the arrangement information of the entities (group of items grouped by similar items) used on the screen for each work and each work An entity that stores format information on the screen display for each use entity of the business-use entity correspondence table 7 and the business-use entity correspondence table 7
A screen parts correspondence table 8 and a case DB 9 for storing input information of electronic documents are provided.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration example of the workflow definition 4 of this embodiment. In the workflow definition 4 of FIG. 2, the company home use application business definition information 410 and the family name change application business definition information 420 are described as an example.

In the company home use application work, first an application drafting work 411 for the applicant to create an application form, then a superior check work 412 for checking the contents of the created application form, and then welfare, which is the department in charge of the work. The work is executed in the order of the employee welfare examination 413, in which the person in charge carries out the acceptance examination, and finally the employee welfare section manager's approval 414 in which the employee welfare section manager makes a final decision regarding the use of company housing. The change of family name application operation is performed in the order of an application drafting work 421 in which the applicant creates an application form, and a superior confirmation work 422 in which the content of the created application form is confirmed and received.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of the life event / business correspondence table 5 of this embodiment. As shown in FIG. 3, the life event-business correspondence table 5 includes a life event name 501, a life event ID 502 for uniquely identifying a life event, a business name 511, and a business ID 512 for uniquely identifying a business. It is provided, and whether or not to correspond to each combination is identified by "○". As a result, it is possible to extract what business corresponds to an arbitrary life event.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of the business-use data correspondence table 6 of this embodiment. As shown in FIG. 4, the business-usage data correspondence table 6 includes business information 601 indicating which business the table corresponds to, data name 611 of the data item displayed on the screen, and data for uniquely identifying the data item. ID 612, work name 621 of each work constituting the work, work ID for uniquely identifying the work
622 is provided, and for each combination, the item attribute is identified by “W” for an input (update) item and “R” for a reference item.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a configuration example of the business-use entity correspondence table 7 of this embodiment. The business-use entity correspondence table 7 shown in FIG. 5 represents the business-use data correspondence table 6 of FIG. 4 as a use entity.

The same parts as those in FIG. 4 are designated by the same reference numerals, and the description of the same reference numerals will be omitted. The difference from FIG. 4 is that the entity name 71 of the data to be displayed on the screen is displayed.
1. Entity I for uniquely identifying the entity
It is D712. Here, an entity is a group of data items that are similar to each other.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a configuration example of the entity-screen component correspondence table 8 of this embodiment. As shown in FIG. 6, the entity-screen component correspondence table 8 is provided with form components 811 for performing screen layout, control, etc. for each entity of the business-use entity correspondence table 7.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a configuration example of the case DB 9 which stores the input information of the electronic document of the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 7, in the case DB 9, the case I for identifying the applied case
A D901, a selected job ID 902 indicating a collection of jobs simultaneously applied in the life event of the case, and all input / output data values 903 used in the case are provided.

Next, the operation of the workflow system of FIG. 1 that processes a workflow according to the definition of FIG. 2 will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 8 and 9.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure at the time of application according to this embodiment. As shown in FIG. 8, the application acceptance processing unit 10 of the workflow management device 2 accepts the selection of a life event for which an application is applied from the applicant, accepts a plurality of application tasks corresponding to the life event, and displays the screen. The generation processing unit 12 extracts the data items to be displayed on the screen in the work at the time of the application drafting of each work accepted by the application work reception processing unit 10, and selects the data items to be displayed on the screen at that time in all the works. Perform the process to generate the set screen. Further, the case management processing unit 13 receives the application data input to the generated screen, and manages the case corresponding to the life event in association with the received plurality of application tasks and application data. I do.

First, when the input process by the applicant is performed by the person-in-charge terminal device 1a of the applicant, first, the application work acceptance processing unit 10 of the workflow management device 2 can apply from the life event-work correspondence table 5. The list of life events is read out, transmitted to the applicant terminal device 1a in charge, and displayed on the display screen (step 100).
5).

Then, when the applicant selects and inputs the life event to be applied, the person-in-charge terminal device 1a sends the selection result to the workflow management device 2 through the network 3.
Then, the application work acceptance processing unit 10 of the workflow management device 2 accepts the transmitted selection result of the life event (step 1010).

Next, the workflow management device 2 selects the business name 511 and the business I corresponding to the selected life event.
D512 is searched from the life event-business correspondence table 5, the list of business names is transmitted to the terminal device 1a in charge of the applicant, and the list of business lists is displayed on the screen (step 1015).

The applicant refers to the displayed work list and adds or deletes the work to be applied in consideration of his or her situation or circumstances. This corresponds to, for example, a case where a surname application is generally performed at a marriage event, but the surname may not be changed depending on the person. The person-in-charge terminal device 1a is
The final collection of application jobs that have been added and deleted are sent to the workflow management device 2, and the workflow management device 2
The application acceptance processing unit 10 receives the final transmitted application arrangement (step 1020).

The screen generation processing section 12 of the workflow management device 2 searches the workflow definition 4 of the corresponding work based on the received final application work arrangement information and extracts the first work. For example, when the company house use application work and the family name change application work are selected in the marriage event, the application form work 411 of the company house use application work and the application form work 421 of the family name change application work are extracted.

Next, the work-use data correspondence table 6 is searched based on the application work arrangement information and the first work information, and the data items to be displayed on the screen are extracted. For example,
In the application drafting work 411 of the company home use application business, “name” and “address” are extracted. Do this for all assortment tasks, remove duplicate data items,
A list of data items that should be displayed on the screen at the time of application issuance is obtained for all jobs (step 1025).

Next, for the obtained data item, the work-
The used data correspondence table 6 is searched to extract the item attribute in the work (step 1030). If the item attribute is'W ', that is, it is an input (update) item, a text box for input is set on the screen (step 1).
035). If the item attribute is'R ', that is, the item is a reference item, a reference label is set on the screen (step 1040). This is performed for all the items extracted in step 1025 (step 1045).
If there are more data items after the item setting, the item information is searched (step 1050) and the same processing is performed. As a result, a screen having items required for the work is generated.

In the above-described embodiment, the text box is set for the input item and the label is set for the reference item, but of course, other screen form parts may be used. In addition to the input item and the reference item, it is possible to have various item attributes such as a selection item to be selected from certain candidates and a button item according to the characteristics of the work. Furthermore, symbols such as'W 'and'R' are for convenience only,
It goes without saying that the storage format does not matter.

Next, when the applicant inputs application data on the generated screen, the person-in-charge terminal device 1a inputs the input data via the network 3 to the workflow management device 2
To the case management processing unit 1 of the workflow management apparatus 2
3 receives the input data (step 1055).

Next, the case management processing section 13 stores the transmitted data in the case DB 9 (step 1060). When the case DB is stored, the case ID 901, which is the key of the case, is first
Is assigned, the business ID group selected in step 1020 is stored in the selected business ID 902, and the data value group input in step 1055 is stored in the data value 903 in the order of the data ID 612. At this time, by storing the data items not used in the work as NULL values,
The data value 903 of the required data item can be uniquely extracted by searching the matter DB 9 by any work.

By the way, in the above embodiment, FIG.
The item attribute of each data item required for each work is registered in advance in the work-use data correspondence table 6 of FIG. 5. Here, instead of the data item, the work-use entity correspondence table of FIG. 7, it is also possible to manage attributes in entity units in which data items are grouped by similar items. The purpose of this is to improve the convenience of user operation by grouping items such as "address" and "commuting route" that are easier to handle on the screen as the same entity when the number of items is large. It is what makes me.

With respect to the above-mentioned entities, a form component 811 for constructing a screen in consideration of the user interface is prepared for each entity in the entity-screen component correspondence table 8 of FIG. 6 and combined as necessary, Further, it becomes possible to generate a screen that is easy to use.

Next, one mode of processing at the time of examination work and approval work after application will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart showing a processing procedure at the time of examination work and approval work after application according to the present embodiment. Figure 9
As shown in FIG. 5, the case selection reception processing unit 11 of the workflow management apparatus 2 displays a list of cases that have arrived for the person in charge on the display device of the person in charge terminal device, and receives the selection input of the case from the person in charge. Then, the screen generation processing unit 12 extracts the data items to be displayed on the screen in the work at that time of each job corresponding to the job accepted by the job selection reception processing unit 11, and the screen is displayed at that time in all the jobs. Performs a process to generate a screen in which data items to be displayed are set.

First, the case selection acceptance processing unit 11 of the workflow management apparatus 2 extracts the case that has arrived for the logged-in user from the workflow progress information, and displays it via the network 3 on the display device of the user terminal device 1n in charge of the user. In a list as an INBOX screen (step 110)
5).

Next, the user selects from the person-in-charge terminal device 1n,
Select the item you want to operate, and the in-charge terminal device 1n
The selected matter ID is transmitted to the workflow management apparatus 2 via the network 3, and the matter selection acceptance processing unit 11 of the workflow management apparatus 2 accepts the transmitted matter ID (step 1110).

Next, the screen generation processing unit 12 of the workflow management device 2 uses the transmitted case ID to record the case DB.
9 is searched, and the collection of the business IDs applied for the case is extracted from the selected business ID 902. Next, from the workflow progress information, the work status of the item in the workflow definition is searched, and the work ID is acquired.

The work-use data correspondence table 6
For each of the business IDs acquired from the case DB 9, the data item to be displayed on the screen with the work ID 622 is extracted. This is executed for all business IDs to obtain a list of data items to be displayed on the screen for all business (step 1115).

Steps 1120 to 1140 correspond to steps 1030 to 10 in FIG.
Since the processing procedure is similar to that of 50, the description thereof will be omitted. The difference from FIG. 8 is that step 1125 or step 113
When creating a screen field with 0, the data value 903 of the case DB 9 is referred to, and if the data value 903 already exists, it is set as an initial value.

Steps 1145 and 1150 are also similar in processing procedure to steps 1055 and 1060 in FIG.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, by managing the data items required for each work screen of the workflow corresponding to the life event, the screen form of the workflow is automatically generated. There is an effect that can be reduced. Also, when processing multiple jobs at once, a screen in which only the necessary information is created for each job and each job is generated, eliminating the trouble of double input and the complexity of operating multiple screens. be able to. Further, by providing the above-mentioned mechanism in accordance with the most common application form of common work (general affairs / personnel affairs), which is the application for each life event, it is possible to reduce the management cost for internal work.

As described above, according to the workflow system of the present embodiment, since a screen in which data items to be displayed on the screen are integrated in a plurality of jobs corresponding to a life event is generated, a plurality of jobs corresponding to a life event are generated. It is possible to reduce the number of man-hours for developing a screen for collectively processing.

Further, according to the workflow system of the present embodiment, a screen in which all necessary work information is integrated is dynamically generated, so that the screen operability of the user can be improved.

[0055]

According to the present invention, since a screen in which data items to be displayed on a screen are integrated in a plurality of jobs corresponding to a life event is generated, a screen for collectively processing a plurality of jobs corresponding to a life event is generated. It is possible to reduce the development man-hours.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a system configuration of a workflow system of this embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a workflow definition 4 of this embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a life event / business correspondence table 5 of the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a business-use data correspondence table 6 of the present embodiment.
It is a figure which shows the structural example.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a business-use entity correspondence table 7 of the present embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a configuration example of an entity-screen component correspondence table 8 of this embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a case DB 9 that stores input information of an electronic document according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure at the time of application according to this embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure at the time of examination work and approval work after application according to the present embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1a to 1n ... Terminal device in charge, 2 ... Workflow management device, 3 ... Network, 4 ... Workflow definition, 5 ... Life event-business correspondence table, 6 ... Business-use data correspondence table, 7 ... Business-use entity correspondence table , 8 ... Entity-screen component correspondence table, 9 ...
Matter DB, 10 ... Application work reception processing unit, 11 ... Matter selection reception processing unit, 12 ... Screen generation processing unit, 13 ... Matter management processing unit, 410 ... Definition information of company housing application work, 411 ...
Application drafting work, 412 ... Supervisor check work, 413 ... Health examination, 414 ... Health section manager approval, 420 ... Replacement application work definition information, 421 ... Application draft work, 422 ... Supervisor confirmation work, 501 ... Life Event name, 502 ... Life event ID, 511 ... Business name, 512 ... Business I
D, 601 ... Business information, 611 ... Data name, 612 ...
Data ID, 621 ... Work name, 622 ... Work ID, 7
11 ... Entity name, 712 ... Entity ID,
811 ... Form parts, 901 ... Matter ID, 902 ... Selected work ID, 903 ... Data value.

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (72) Inventor Takashi Kobayashi             890 Kashimada, Sachi-ku, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Stock             Hitachi, Ltd. Business Solutions             Within the department

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A workflow management method for performing a series of jobs by sequentially transferring electronic documents consisting of a plurality of information items in accordance with a predetermined transfer order, and accepting a selection of a life event to which a job application is applied from an applicant. The step of receiving a plurality of application tasks corresponding to the life event, and extracting the data items to be displayed on the screen during the work at the time of the application draft of each accepted operation,
A step of generating a screen in which data items to be displayed on the screen at that point in time in all the operations, accepting application data input to the generated screen, and accepting a matter corresponding to the life event And a plurality of application tasks and a step of managing the application data in association with the application data. 2. A final assortment of jobs that have been added to or deleted from jobs corresponding to life events,
The workflow management method according to claim 1, wherein the workflow management method is accepted as application work corresponding to a life event of the applicant. 3. The workflow management method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a screen in which data items are set in entity units in which similar items are grouped is generated. 4. A step of displaying a list of cases that have arrived at the person in charge on a display device of a person in charge of the person in charge, and accepting the selection input of the case from the person in charge, and the point in time of each task of the received case. Extracting a data item to be displayed on the screen in the work of, and generating a screen in which the data item to be displayed on the screen at that time is generated in all the jobs of the case. Any one of item 3
Workflow management method described in section. 5. A workflow management apparatus for sequentially transferring an electronic document consisting of a plurality of information items in accordance with a predetermined transfer order to perform a series of jobs, and accepts a selection of a life event for which a job application is made from an applicant. Application application reception processing section that receives multiple application operations corresponding to the life event, and data items that should be displayed on the screen during the work at the time of application for each of the received operations are extracted, A screen generation processing unit that generates a screen in which data items to be displayed on the screen at the time point are accepted, application data input to the generated screen is accepted, and a matter corresponding to the life event is accepted by the plurality of accepted items. A workflow management device, comprising: a case management processing unit that manages the application business and application data associated with.