US20050256818A1 - Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows - Google Patents

Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows Download PDF

Info

Publication number
US20050256818A1
US20050256818A1 US10/836,298 US83629804A US2005256818A1 US 20050256818 A1 US20050256818 A1 US 20050256818A1 US 83629804 A US83629804 A US 83629804A US 2005256818 A1 US2005256818 A1 US 2005256818A1
Authority
US
United States
Prior art keywords
workflow
hdg
representation
definition
service
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Abandoned
Application number
US10/836,298
Other languages
English (en)
Inventor
Tong Sun
John Walker
Shriram Revankar
Narasimha Gottumukkala
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Xerox Corp
Original Assignee
Xerox Corp
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Xerox Corp filed Critical Xerox Corp
Priority to US10/836,298 priority Critical patent/US20050256818A1/en
Assigned to XEROX CORPORATION reassignment XEROX CORPORATION ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: GOTTUMUKKALA, NARASIMHA RAJU, REVANKAR, SHRIRAM V., SUN, TONG, WALKER, JOHN O.
Priority to EP05252261A priority patent/EP1591942A3/en
Priority to JP2005125837A priority patent/JP2005317007A/ja
Publication of US20050256818A1 publication Critical patent/US20050256818A1/en
Priority to US11/499,816 priority patent/US7580911B2/en
Priority to US11/939,924 priority patent/US8442852B2/en
Abandoned legal-status Critical Current

Links

Images

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/10—Office automation; Time management
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/06—Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
    • G06Q10/063—Operations research, analysis or management
    • G06Q10/0631—Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
    • G06Q10/06316—Sequencing of tasks or work
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/06—Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
    • G06Q10/063—Operations research, analysis or management
    • G06Q10/0633—Workflow analysis
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/10—Office automation; Time management
    • G06Q10/103—Workflow collaboration or project management
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00—Commerce
    • G06Q30/02—Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
    • G06Q30/0201—Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
    • G06Q30/0203—Market surveys; Market polls

Definitions

  • This disclosure relates to Workflow Auto Generation and Workflow Analysis. It finds particular application in conjunction with workflow as related to printing jobs, and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it is to be appreciated that the embodiments illustrated herein are also amenable to other like applications.
  • JDF is a Job Definition Format proposed by an industry consortium body CIP4, which affects every aspect involved in the creation and production of printing from pre-press, press to post-press.
  • JDF provides a common language for describing a print job across enterprises, department, software and systems. It also provides a basis for workflow automation that incorporates human, machine and computer. But JDF itself is not an explicit workflow specification language. Instead, the JDF workflow is implicitly described as a job description that contains a collection of process nodes. The execution sequence of process nodes of a job description is implicitly defined as resource dependences across process nodes.
  • JDF leaves the issues of how to drive the sequence of process flow unspecified and completely up to the implementation of MIS or Controller components in JDF-based system.
  • a JDF workflow is hard-coded within the implementation, or a limited set of static JDF workflows are supported.
  • the dependences among process nodes and resources should be expressed and tracked explicitly, and also should be decoupled completely from the implementations.
  • the Hierarchical Dependence Graph (HDG) of this disclosure extends the theory of directed acyclic graph (DAG) by allowing hierarchical representation of workflows. It can be used to explicitly express the dependences across JDF (process) nodes and resources derived from any JDF job description. It defines a flexible and semantic-rich model to represent JDF workflow as a set of DAGs at different abstractions: intent level, process group levels and process execution level. By explicitly representing JDF workflows in the HDG, it not only enables the separation of the workflow itself from MIS/or Controller implementations to support fully dynamic JDF workflows, but also it provides a theoretic basis for formal analysis of JDF workflows.
  • DAG directed acyclic graph
  • this disclosure introduces the concept of Connectivity Matrixs and their transformations to allow two views derived from a single model: process-centric view and resource-centric view.
  • the key innovations are primarily two-fold: (1) extending DAG (directed acyclic graph) with a hierarchical structure which results in a novel graph structure HDG (hierarchical dependence graph); and (2) using multiple orthogonal HDGs to explicitly describe the dependencies between workflow components, which eventually enables dynamic workflows, such as JDF.
  • a workflow auto generation system comprising a knowledge database containing service descriptions; a workflow modeling inference engine that generates valid workflow models by matching connectivity between various services in the knowledge base; a simulator performing a simulation of each workflow; and a Graphical User Interface to obtain customer requirements and display views of the workflows.
  • a method of auto generating workflow comprising accessing a knowledge database containing service descriptions; generating a workflow model using a workflow modeling simulation engine to match connectivity between various services in the knowledge base; simulating each workflow; obtaining customer requirements through a Graphical User Interface; and displaying views of the workflow through said Graphical User Interface.
  • a workflow auto generation system comprising means for accessing a knowledge database containing service descriptions; means for generating a workflow model using a workflow modeling simulation engine to match connectivity between various services in the knowledge base; means for simulating each workflow; means for obtaining customer requirements through a Graphical User Interface; and means for displaying views of the workflow through the graphical user interface.
  • a workflow analysis and control system comprising a workflow client service, providing a description of various print jobs to be executed; a workflow analysis service, performing a Hierarchical Dependence Graph representation and analysis of a workflow, including process and resource dependences; and a workflow orchestrator, controlling the execution of said print jobs, wherein the workflow client service provides input to the workflow analysis service and the workflow analysis service provides input to the workflow orchestrator.
  • FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of workflow auto generation.
  • FIG. 2 is a block diagram of another embodiment of workflow auto generation.
  • FIG. 3A is a block diagram of a Workflow Modeling Inference Engine.
  • FIG. 3B is a representation of a valid work flow.
  • FIG. 4 is representation of a generic service structure.
  • FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an Automatic Question Generator for gathering customer requirements.
  • FIGS. 6A , B and C are list representations of workflow.
  • FIG. 7 is a list representation of workflow.
  • FIG. 8 is a block diagram of an embodiment of workflow auto generation.
  • FIG. 9 is a service view of workflow auto generation.
  • FIG. 10 is a product view of workflow auto generation.
  • FIG. 11 is a Petri Net view of workflow auto generation
  • FIG. 12 is a block diagram of HDG for Workflow, including Input and Output.
  • FIG. 13 is a block diagram of HDG for Workflow.
  • FIG. 14 is an example of a JDF Job Tree.
  • FIG. 15 is an example of a Process Sequence Chain.
  • FIGS. 16A , B, and C are an example of a JDF Workflow and associated J-HDG Representations.
  • FIGS. 17A , B and C are an example of a JDF Workflow; Hierarchical Resource Structure; and J-HDG and R-HDG representations.
  • FIG. 18 is an Incidence Matrix
  • FIG. 19 is a Connectivity Matrix.
  • FIG. 20 is a Connectivity Matrix transformed
  • FIG. 21 illustrates the Connectivity Matrices of R-HDG.
  • FIGS. 22A and B are transformed HDG's.
  • FIG. 23 is a transformed HDG.
  • FIG. 24 is a block diagram of a recovered J-HDG.
  • the present disclosure provides a formal way of modeling and evaluating workflows, which obviates the current intuitive, trial-and-error approach. It is a technique for dynamically auto-generating all valid workflow models from a given set of functional requirements and determining optimal workflows based upon varying sets of user-specified parameters. It replaces a cumbersome manual effort of trial and error.
  • Workflow service descriptions containing functional attributes, which describe control and data interfaces, and non-functional attributes which describe service features and performance metrics, are stored in a logical database.
  • Logically valid workflows are then generated by using a formal mechanism called Petri Nets.
  • the valid workflows are evaluated against user-defined metrics to determine optimal workflows.
  • the user-defined metrics are obtained by a questions-generation mechanism.
  • Possible-workflows are visualized in various views using auto-graph layout techniques to bridge the gap between user functional requirements and vendor product offerings.
  • the detailed service or process descriptions specifying their capability, recognition and interfaces are stored in the logical database. This information is used to create valid connectivity between various services. These descriptions are obtained from XML-based service interface descriptions such as the Job Definition Format (JDF). They contain information such as service control and data interactions and device associations.
  • JDF Job Definition Format
  • the control interaction describes the communication mechanism used by a service for control.
  • the data interaction describes the communication mechanism essential for data exchange, such as the type of data structures, data types and data sizes.
  • the control, data and other parameters that specify functionality can be categorized as functional attributes. Parameters specifying the device metrics, such as cost, QOS, availability and throughput can be categorized as non-functional attributes.
  • the valid workflows generated contain all the services, which meet both the user's functional and non-functional requirements.
  • Petri Nets are used in this disclosure to represent distributed asynchronous systems operating concurrently.
  • certain properties dealing with the correctness of workflows such as deadlocks, liveliness, and bounded-ness, can be verified using graph analysis.
  • the performance of workflows can also be simulated by colored and timed Petri Nets. Colored Petri Nets enable consideration of various job types and resource availability.
  • Timed Petri Nets can be used to model workflows in which various services are dependent on time.
  • hierarchical Petri Nets can also be used for modular and top-down representations of systems.
  • Generated workflows are in the form of a formal edge vertex notation, and they require some graph auto-layout techniques to visualize the workflows.
  • the generated workflows must have no edge crossings and must be symmetrical and evenly spread across a given area.
  • a workflow modeling pre sales tool is used to auto-generate valid workflow models based on customer requirements and available services.
  • the tool has four basic components: (1) A knowledge base 2 containing the service descriptions, (2) a workflow modeling inference engine 4 that generates all the valid workflow models by matching connectivity between various services in the knowledge base, and meeting user constraints, (3) a Petri Net simulator 6 that performs a simulation of each workflow by mapping it to a Petri Net, and (4) a GUI 8 to (a) obtain customer requirements through a series of questions 10 which narrow down the workflow options meeting those requirements, and (b) visualize service, product and Petri Net views of workflows.
  • FIG. 2 illustrates the architectural diagram of an embodiment of the sales tool described with reference to FIG. 1 .
  • the knowledge base 2 contains descriptions of the available services, with detailed descriptions of the service parameters.
  • the service parameters are obtained from XML-based JDF and other capability description formats.
  • the service structure is shown below.
  • Service (refID, devId, Service_Details ,[Constraints(InboundConstraints)] ,[Constraints(OutputConstraints)] ,[Attributes(Attributes)] ,[Constraints(DataInputConstraints)] ,[Constraints(DataOutputConstraints)])
  • Product prodID, prod_Details).
  • the refID is a unique ID representing a service.
  • the list of input and output constraints consists of the control inputs and outputs that a service accepts or could connect to.
  • control_port,tcp_ip,2 for InboundConstraints implies that a service accepts two TCP ⁇ IP connections at a time.
  • the number 2 is the cardinality specifying the number of services that the service can handle.
  • (data_format,pdf,1) for DataInputConstraints implies that a service can accept one pdf document at a time.
  • the attributes contain a list of service-centric parameters, such as service delay, or may include additional service-specific constraints.
  • Service_Details contains additional service-specific information such as name, version etc.
  • the prodID refers to the product the service maps to.
  • the product contains a unique prodID and device-centric parameters such as the manufacturer, version, cost, etc.
  • the service has an n-to-n relationship with products.
  • the inference engine generates all the possible workflows by checking valid connections between various services. There is a valid connection between two services if all the control and data output parameters of one service match the input parameters of the other service.
  • the workflow options are narrowed down as the user selects more specific options.
  • the inference engine initially generates a permutation of valid paths by matching valid service and user requirements, and then generates all the combinations of all the valid paths which would generate possible workflow structures.
  • a valid workflow generated with the inference engine follows:
  • the above structure specifies that there are five services, namely A, B, C, D, E.
  • the initial list in each tuple specifies the input services and the second one specifies the list of output services. This can be visually depicted as illustrated in FIG. 3B .
  • A has an output cardinality of 2, indicating that A can connect to two services-B and C.
  • D(j,b,i) could represent the joining condition, branching condition and the number of iterations.
  • D(OR,AND,0) would mean that D has an OR join, an AND branch and no loops allowed.
  • Petri Nets enable the modeling of various branching conditions such as AND, OR, XOR splits and joins.
  • the tool currently supports simple split and join workflows and does not support analysis for branching conditions.
  • a service has a generic structure consisting of two transitions and a place. Places hold tokens, and transitions are the active components which fire when there are sufficient tokens available in the proceeding places.
  • a service is represented with two transitions and a place in between. The first transition fires when all the preconditions are met, and the second transition fires when the processing is complete. This allows us to have a state denoting that the service is still processing the job, which is when the token is in the center place.
  • Token/Job Representation in Prolog Token (job_id, time_spent, (pending_transition, delay_time)).
  • job_id job number time_spent the time the job spent in the workflow since it was ready and in the queue.
  • pending_transition the transition where the token is waiting delay_time the delay or waiting time at the transition
  • Marking gives the state of the current Petri Net; it is a vector of all the places in the Petri Net.
  • transitions are associated with a certain delay, and there is a global clock through which the delays of active various transitions get updated and know when to fire.
  • the transition fires when the tokens are available, and the tokens wait for a certain time in their previous place (which is equal to the delay of the transition).
  • the transition which gets ready to fire, after elapsing a certain time, fires first.
  • the delay of two transitions is equal, then both transitions fire simultaneously.
  • the sum of delay of the two transitions is equal to the service delay.
  • Each job contains the global time, time spent in the net and time spent at each transition to fire. Based on the number of jobs in the initial place and the total and average times taken by the Petri Net-based workflow, the total throughput is obtained.
  • the cost function is a summation of the cost of each product. The cost could be extended to be a function of the resource utilization.
  • Petri Net simulation could also do Petri Net simulation by generating a Petri Net Markup Language (PNML), which is a Work Flow Management Coalition Standard adopted by many analysis and simulation engines.
  • PNML Petri Net Markup Language
  • required attributes of services are selected directly on the GUI, or the user can respond to questions generated by an automated question-generation module.
  • the questions eventually narrow down the set of workflows.
  • the automated question-generation module represented in FIG. 5 , was developed for a person with less technical knowledge. The user might not be aware of the various interfaces that are necessary to meet his or her requirements. The questions are developed to be easily understood and mapped to the service constraints in the knowledge base. This question-generation module also minimizes the user trial-and-error effort in searching for valid workflows and also manages to reduce the workflows to a minimum feasible set to choose from.
  • the service constraints are grouped into categories, such as service type and output constraints.
  • An optimal question is generated based on the probability of the combination of attributes which generates a minimum number of workflows, and those attributes that have not yet been chosen. This is not a very efficient technique, however, as it performs an exhaustive search on all the available constraints. It would be more appropriate to have heuristics to choose an appropriate question.
  • the user can also directly select the service constraints in the user interface.
  • Service constraints are grouped based on their constraint type. All valid workflows containing the required specifications are obtained.
  • FIG. 9 As illustrated in FIG. 9 , FIG. 10 and FIG. 11 , three different workflow views are generated-namely, a service workflow view, a device workflow view, and a Petri Net-based workflow view, respectively.
  • a service workflow view When a user selects a workflow and a view in the GUI, an XML file is generated which consists of the nodes' location co-ordinates and arcs between the nodes.
  • the workflows considered here are planar and acyclic graphs. The co-ordinates could be generated by calculating the displacement whenever there is a branch.
  • the workflow structure obtained from the workflow modeler in Prolog could be converted to a nested list structure to indicate branching and joining.
  • Any two-dimensional acyclic and planar workflow can be represented as a nesting of lists.
  • a list is an ordered sequence of elements of any length separated by commas altogether enclosed in square brackets.
  • the elements can be a single service or another list of services.
  • a service can connect to a number of services if their functional attributes and cardinality (number of services it can connect to) match.
  • the workflow illustrated in FIG. 6A could be represented as [[A], [B], [C]], [D]].
  • the assumption is that every element in the list represents a workflow and every service is assumed to be a single workflow.
  • L 1 , L 2 contain one element (service/atom)
  • L 1 contains one element and L 2 contains X elements, then L 1 has to connect to X elements.
  • [L 1 , L 2 ] [[S 1 ], [[S 2 ], [S 3 ], [S 4 ]] as illustrated in FIG. 6C .
  • This approach allows easier visualization, easy-to-analyze subnets and hierarchical abstraction at each level as discussed below.
  • the x and y co-ordinates can be generated by parsing the above structure which generates a graph, this representation is unambiguous for planar and acyclic graphs.
  • An auto-layout graph algorithm can visualize the workflow.
  • FIG. 8 illustrates a high level diagram of the system described above.
  • FIG. 9 , FIG. 10 and FIG. 12 illustrate one embodiment of screen views that provide service, product and Petri net configurations, respectively. These configurations are viewable by the user/customer and provide a workflow modeling Sales Tool.
  • this disclosure provides an extended DAG structure: Hierarchical Dependence Graph (HDG), which represents a workflow 120 , for example JDF, through exploring the process and resource dependences.
  • HDGs provide not only an explicit workflow semantics but also a formal foundation for workflow analysis 122 .
  • the dual forms of HDG can be constructed (i.e. J-HDG and R-HDG) which provide orthogonal views of interactions and dependencies between workflow components 124 .
  • HDG-based workflow analysis also provides an analysis technique for failure/exception handling.
  • JDF workflow is specified through a hierarchical job tree structure, which describes all the production processes and material types likely to encounter in XML. It contains two basic elements: JDF nodes and resources, which are strung together through the resource input/output linking to meet the requirements of each workflow job.
  • JDF node can be any of the following types: Product node (intent-level), Process Group node, and Process node (execution-level).
  • MIS/or Controller needs to map any Product node into Process node(s) which then could be ultimately routed to a destination for execution.
  • a process is an operation performed on digital data, such as a PDF file or an imposition design, or on a physical item, such as a lift of paper.
  • a resource is the digital data or physical item itself.
  • the output of one process becomes the input of the following process(es), and a process doesn't begin until its input resources are available.
  • JDF defines details on how to use these building blocks to describe concurrent processes, spawned processes, merged processes and dynamic processes.
  • FIG. 14 and FIG. 15 are simple illustrations of a JDF job tree structure and its corresponding process sequence linked by resources, within which the JDF root node jdf contains three process nodes P 1 , P 2 , and P 3 .
  • Process P 1 has input resource R 1 , output resource R 2 ;
  • Process P 2 has input resource R 3 and output resource R 4 ;
  • Process P 3 has input resource R 2 and R 4 , output resource R 5 .
  • Directed acyclic graph is a directed graph where no path starts and ends at the same vertex [1]. It is very useful graphical structure in representing syntactic structure of arithmetic expressions, representing task graphs and precedence relations in many scheduling applications.
  • the Hierarchical Dependence Graph extends the directed acyclic graph (i.e. DAG) with hierarchical structures.
  • DAG directed acyclic graph
  • One aspect of this disclosure can use two types of HDG, one is job-centric (or process centric) HDG or J-HDG in short, another one is resource-centric or R-HDG in short.
  • the formal definitions of these graphical structures are as follows:
  • 1, . . . ,
  • V] ⁇ is a set of vertices and E ⁇ e
  • e k ⁇ E, k 1, . . .
  • ⁇ is a set of directed edges, within which e k is an ordered pair of vertices with a label. Namely, e k (v i , v j , ⁇ k ) where v i , v j ⁇ V are in-vertex and out-vertex of edge e k respectively; and ⁇ k is a symbolic label of e k .
  • V′ ⁇ V, they may contain DAGs within themselves.
  • JDF nodes are vertices, their incoming edges are labeled with input resources and outgoing edges are output resources.
  • each vertex in J-HDG can be either an atomic element (i.e. JDF Process node) or be further decomposed on to a DAG itself (i.e. JDF Product node or Process Group node).
  • J-HDG not only retains the flexible JDF hierarchical structure, but also explicitly represents the control sequence among JDF nodes. By incorporating J-HDG structure in MIS/or Controller design, it can avoid any hard-coded workflow control sequence in their implementation so that fully dynamic workflows can be supported.
  • J-HDG is also an intermediate step between JDF job structure and emerging explicit workflow description standards (i.e. BPEL, BPML).
  • BPEL emerging explicit workflow description standards
  • BPML emerging explicit workflow description standards
  • v i ⁇ V, 1 1, . . . ,
  • V] ⁇ is a set of vertex and E ⁇ e
  • e k ⁇ E, k 1, . . .
  • N represents a set of JDF nodes and R represents a set of JDF resources (which can be directly linked with JDF nodes, including their partitioned resources).
  • the source and target vertices that are external to any given JDF job description are generally denoted as a and.
  • JDF resources are vertices, their incoming edges are JDF nodes that produced them and outgoing edges are JDF nodes that consumed them. Since all JDF resources are partitionable, for each JDF resource with partitioned resource parts, the precedence relations among partitioned parts can be described in a DAG. Hence, each resource vertex in R-HDG potentially contains a DAG itself.
  • v i ⁇ V, 1 1, . . . ,
  • V] ⁇ is a set of vertex and E ⁇ e
  • e k ⁇ E, k 1, . . .
  • N represents a set of JDF nodes and R represents a set of JDF resources (which can be directly linked with JDF nodes) and ⁇ represents a set of resource precedence relations between partitioned resources.
  • FIGS. 16A , B and C show[s] a simple example of a JDF Job tree (workflow instance), FIG. 16A , and its derived J-HDG representations, FIG. 16B (one at top level, one at bottom process execution level).
  • the JDF nodes at process execution level, FIG. 16C are atomic work units which can be scheduled/orchestrated within a given workflow.
  • FIGS. 17A , B and C show[s] example of a JDF workflow, FIG. 17A , which contains partitioned resources and the derived R-HDG representations at two levels (top level resource, FIG. 17B , and portioned resource level, FIG. 17C ).
  • the top level resource is identified with a unique resourceID
  • the nesting partitioned resource is identified as a sequence of resourceID/partID(key)s and so on.
  • the resource R 2 has two partitioned resources R 21 and R 22′ ; R 21 is a precedent of R 22 .
  • R-HDG can be filtered according to the resource types. For example, if document type JDF resources (i.e. RunList, FileSpec, etc.) are specified, a much simpler and concise R-HDG sub-graph can be formed to provide a document-centric view of workflow.
  • HDG As a linear graph, the structure of HDG can be represented by an incidence matrix and its operations (e.g. addition, multiplication, transposing, etc.).
  • This section provides a definition of a HDG Incidence Matrix to further define a HDG Connectivity Matrix. From the Connectivity Matrix, transformations of J-HDG and R-HDG are produced.
  • each column of matrix M has exactly two non-zeros (one is +1 and the other is ⁇ 1).
  • the +1 denotes a column and is an outgoing edge
  • ⁇ 1 denotes a column is an incoming edge.
  • the Connectivity Matrix of a HDG represents the connectivity between JDF nodes and resources of a given J-HDG or R-HDG, where N of JDF nodes and R of JDF resources.
  • the final connectivity matrix, illustrated in FIG. 19 shows C J-HDG is the same as C int erim only with rows a and removed. Note that in FIG. 19 , each column of matrix C represents a unique JDF resource, where each positive number indicates a producer of that resource and each negative number indicates a consumer of a same resource.
  • FIG. 19 shows a connectivity matrix derived from a JDF workflow (provided in FIGS. 16A , B and C) at process execution level.
  • the matrix can be properly transformed into a connectivity matrix of a higher level workflow (e.g. JDF process group level, intent level) through a matrix roll-up procedure defined as follows.
  • a Matrix Roll-up Procedure is a process to construct a next level up connectivity matrix from a given connectivity matrix. There are two steps involved: (1) removes the columns that represent hidden edges in the next level up HDG (2) merge the rows that collide into one single node in the next level up HDG, by adding all relevant rows together. The resulting connectivity matrix keeps the same semantics as the original one.
  • FIG. 20 shows a connectivity matrix C J-HDG that is transformed from C J-HDG , of FIG. 19 by applying the above matrix roll-up procedure.
  • the roll-up procedure can be applied to the example provided in FIGS. 17A , B and C.
  • the corresponding connectivity Matrix C R-HDG with partitioned resources and C R-HDG is shown in FIG. 21 .
  • J-HDG and R-HDG are intuitively dual forms of HDG, where J-HDG provides a job-centric view and R-HDG provides a resource-centeric view.
  • Construction of a dual HDG e.g. R-HDG
  • C J-HDG transpose (C R-HDG ) or C R-HDG -transpose (C J-HDG ).
  • the J-HDG ⁇ >R-HDG transformation procedure has the following steps: (1) constructs the connectivity matrix of the original J-HDG, and (2) transpose the original connectivity matrix by switching the rows and columns; 3) each row is a node in R-HDG and each column is a label on a directed edge in R-HDG, where a negative number represents an incoming edge and a positive number represents an outgoing edge. The number itself represents the weight of edge and the weight of edge represents the number of resource instances involved.
  • Definition 8 Similar to Definition 7, the R-HDG ⁇ >J-HDG transformation procedure has the following steps: 1) Construct the connectivity matrix of the original R-HDG and (2) transpose the original connectivity matrix by simply switching the rows and columns; 3) each row is a node in J-HDG, and each column is a label on a directed edge in J-HDG, where a negative number represents an incoming edge and a positive number represents an outgoing edge and the number itself represents the weight of an edge; and 4) add external source node a and target node to complete the graph.
  • FIG. 22A and FIG. 22B illustrate R-HDGs transformed from J-HDGs of the example shown in FIGS. 16A , B and C.
  • FIG. 23 illustrates a J-HDG transformed from R-HDG of the example shown in FIG. 17 .
  • all resources are direct resources with no partition resources, but only R 0 , R 1 , R 2 , R 3 , and R 4 are visible at top level (i.e. process group) workflow, while R 1 ′, R 2 ′ and R 4 ′ are resources internal to a specific process group.
  • FIG. 23 there are two levels resource structure but workflow structure is only one level (one topology but with different resource labels). It is possible for one workflow instance to contain both hierarchical job structure and hierarchical resource structure.
  • JDF workflow structure in a formal graphical structure and its corresponding matrix allows a formal workflow analysis by means of rigorous analytical procedures rather than visual inspection and intuition.
  • DAG and its applications in many artificial intelligence fields provide a foundation for such a workflow analysis framework.
  • the value of different abstractions in J-HDG and R-HDG is their visualization benefits and resulting HDG's which can be analyzed in the same way as the original HDG. This is a crucial feature because the operations and transformations used on a HDG, result in another HDG capable of analysis using the same core set of analytical procedures. This enables a variety of related representations of a given workflow.
  • the two HDGs described, J-HDG and R-HDG provide orthogonal views for a given JDF workflow, and allow for an explicit representation of workflow components (i.e. process nodes and resources) and interactions among them.
  • the HDG's are used to validate a given workflow, for example JDF.
  • the validation process determines the following: cycling among components (i.e. deadlock); missing or tangling resource(s), etc.
  • the HDG's provide a set of semantic-rich information with different abstractions for the MIS/Controller to facilitate JDF workflow execution and management. For example, if a process node is disabled, the HDG's enable an efficient determination of other processes unavailable to be executed. For another example, if a resource is not available, HDG's enable an efficient determination of other resources effected. These examples are not an exhaustive list.
  • process node P 1 is disabled, then its J-HDG, P 3 , P 4 and P 5 cannot be executed due to the connectivity between them.
  • resource R 1 ′ is not available as determined from its R-HDG (shown in FIG. 22A and FIG. 22B )
  • the effected resources are R 3 , R 4 ′ and R 4 .
  • the MIS/Controller can properly report a detailed status and adjust the execution accordingly.
  • failure/Exception handling in commercial workflow engines is mostly limited to transaction-based mechanisms that only ensure the recovery of persistent data after system failures (e.g. a system crash). This only permits a very rigid handling of expected failure.
  • This disclosure provides more information about the inter-task (or inter-resources) dependencies (such as the connectivity information in J-HDG/R-HDG). As a result, a flexible failure handling strategy is achieved.
  • process P 3 fails because it needs a document resource (R 1 ′) that is not available.
  • R 1 ′ a document resource
  • process P 1 is determined to be the producer of R 1 ′; therefore, P 1 is the root cause of this failure.
  • the system can determine this situation, it's root cause and construct a new execution path that will achieve the same goal of the workflow.
  • the new execution path could involve the re-execution of process P 1 shown in FIG. 24 .

Landscapes

  • Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Human Resources & Organizations (AREA)
  • Strategic Management (AREA)
  • Entrepreneurship & Innovation (AREA)
  • Economics (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Development Economics (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Marketing (AREA)
  • General Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Operations Research (AREA)
  • Tourism & Hospitality (AREA)
  • Quality & Reliability (AREA)
  • Game Theory and Decision Science (AREA)
  • Accounting & Taxation (AREA)
  • Data Mining & Analysis (AREA)
  • Finance (AREA)
  • Educational Administration (AREA)
  • Management, Administration, Business Operations System, And Electronic Commerce (AREA)
  • Stored Programmes (AREA)
US10/836,298 2004-04-30 2004-04-30 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows Abandoned US20050256818A1 (en)

Priority Applications (5)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US10/836,298 US20050256818A1 (en) 2004-04-30 2004-04-30 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows
EP05252261A EP1591942A3 (en) 2004-04-30 2005-04-11 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows
JP2005125837A JP2005317007A (ja) 2004-04-30 2005-04-25 ワークフロー自動生成システム、および、ワークフロー分析および制御システム
US11/499,816 US7580911B2 (en) 2004-04-30 2006-08-07 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows
US11/939,924 US8442852B2 (en) 2004-04-30 2007-11-14 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US10/836,298 US20050256818A1 (en) 2004-04-30 2004-04-30 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows

Related Child Applications (2)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US11/499,816 Continuation US7580911B2 (en) 2004-04-30 2006-08-07 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows
US11/939,924 Division US8442852B2 (en) 2004-04-30 2007-11-14 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
US20050256818A1 true US20050256818A1 (en) 2005-11-17

Family

ID=34940772

Family Applications (3)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US10/836,298 Abandoned US20050256818A1 (en) 2004-04-30 2004-04-30 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows
US11/499,816 Expired - Fee Related US7580911B2 (en) 2004-04-30 2006-08-07 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows
US11/939,924 Active 2026-05-27 US8442852B2 (en) 2004-04-30 2007-11-14 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows

Family Applications After (2)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US11/499,816 Expired - Fee Related US7580911B2 (en) 2004-04-30 2006-08-07 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows
US11/939,924 Active 2026-05-27 US8442852B2 (en) 2004-04-30 2007-11-14 Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows

Country Status (3)

Country Link
US (3) US20050256818A1 (ja)
EP (1) EP1591942A3 (ja)
JP (1) JP2005317007A (ja)

Cited By (45)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US20040205376A1 (en) * 2003-03-24 2004-10-14 Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. Service processing system, processing result management device and processing result checking method of service processing system
US20060005140A1 (en) * 2004-06-18 2006-01-05 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha User interface for workflow system
US20060048093A1 (en) * 2004-08-25 2006-03-02 Prashant Jain Mapping software code to business logic
US20060167923A1 (en) * 2005-01-24 2006-07-27 Fabio Casati Method and a system for process discovery
US20060225032A1 (en) * 2004-10-29 2006-10-05 Klerk Adrian D Business application development and execution environment
US20060271506A1 (en) * 2005-05-31 2006-11-30 Bohannon Philip L Methods and apparatus for mapping source schemas to a target schema using schema embedding
US20070112816A1 (en) * 2005-11-11 2007-05-17 Fujitsu Limited Information processing apparatus, information processing method and program
US20070179807A1 (en) * 2006-02-01 2007-08-02 Cerner Innovation, Inc. Order profile safeguarding mechanism
US20070233543A1 (en) * 2006-03-29 2007-10-04 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha Information processing apparatus, workflow generating method, and workflow generating program
US20080005155A1 (en) * 2006-04-11 2008-01-03 University Of Southern California System and Method for Generating a Service Oriented Data Composition Architecture for Integrated Asset Management
US20080084574A1 (en) * 2006-10-05 2008-04-10 Eastman Kodak Company Automated printing
US20080109270A1 (en) * 2006-11-07 2008-05-08 Michael David Shepherd Selection of performance indicators for workflow monitoring
US20080192284A1 (en) * 2005-05-24 2008-08-14 Hiflex Software Gesmbh Method For Transmitting a Color Extraction and a Management Information System
US20080255892A1 (en) * 2007-04-11 2008-10-16 The University Of Southern California System and Method for Oil Production Forecasting and Optimization in a Model-Based Framework
US20080300837A1 (en) * 2007-05-31 2008-12-04 Melissa Jane Buco Methods, Computer Program Products and Apparatus Providing Improved Selection of Agreements Between Entities
US20090007122A1 (en) * 2004-06-25 2009-01-01 Apple Inc. Automatic relevance filtering
US20090138686A1 (en) * 2007-01-16 2009-05-28 International Business Machines Corporation Method for processing a graph containing a set of nodes
US20090185216A1 (en) * 2006-06-13 2009-07-23 Hiflex Software Gesmbh Method for controlling the production of a print product
US20090198548A1 (en) * 2008-02-05 2009-08-06 Mathias Kohler System to avoid policy-based deadlocks in workflow execution
US20090222817A1 (en) * 2008-02-29 2009-09-03 Andreas Faatz Navigation in Simulated Workflows
US20100281462A1 (en) * 2009-04-30 2010-11-04 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Systems and methods for generating source code for workflow platform
US20100280865A1 (en) * 2009-04-30 2010-11-04 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Systems and Methods for a Real-Time Workflow Platform
US7881535B1 (en) 2006-06-29 2011-02-01 Capital One Financial Corporation System and method for managing statistical models
US7966346B1 (en) * 2006-01-23 2011-06-21 Coverity, Inc. Updating groups of items
US7971186B1 (en) * 2004-06-25 2011-06-28 Apple Inc. Automatic execution flow ordering
US8244668B1 (en) * 2005-12-29 2012-08-14 United Services Automobile Association (Usaa) Workflow administration tools and user interfaces
US20140282199A1 (en) * 2013-03-14 2014-09-18 Microsoft Corporation Process modeling and interface
US20140310053A1 (en) * 2013-04-10 2014-10-16 Xerox Corporation Method and systems for providing business process suggestions and recommendations utilizing a business process modeler
US20140343982A1 (en) * 2013-05-14 2014-11-20 Landmark Graphics Corporation Methods and systems related to workflow mentoring
WO2015066043A1 (en) * 2013-10-31 2015-05-07 Ebay Inc. Determining paths through a workflow
US20160092818A1 (en) * 2014-09-25 2016-03-31 Oracle International Corporation Method and system for implementing an adaptive data governance system
US20170076246A1 (en) * 2015-09-11 2017-03-16 Crowd Computing Systems, Inc. Recommendations for Workflow alteration
CN106547696A (zh) * 2016-10-28 2017-03-29 中国人民解放军理工大学 一种面向工作流系统的测试用例生成方法及装置
US20170255886A1 (en) * 2016-03-03 2017-09-07 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Workflow execution
US10101995B2 (en) 2016-07-15 2018-10-16 Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc Transforming data manipulation code into data workflow
US10152349B1 (en) * 2016-09-27 2018-12-11 Juniper Networks, Inc. Kernel scheduling based on precedence constraints and/or artificial intelligence techniques
US10366361B1 (en) * 2018-05-10 2019-07-30 Definitive Business Solutions, Inc. Systems and methods for performing multi-tier data transfer in a group assessment processing environment
US20190279126A1 (en) * 2018-03-07 2019-09-12 Optessa Inc. Generating a global workflow sequence for multiple workflow stages
CN113190186A (zh) * 2020-01-29 2021-07-30 海德堡印刷机械股份公司 通过兼容的材料来改善地执行印刷任务
US20210303635A1 (en) * 2020-03-31 2021-09-30 International Business Machines Corporation Dynamic natural question generation via semantic knowledge representation
US20220342700A1 (en) * 2021-04-21 2022-10-27 EMC IP Holding Company LLC Method and system for provisioning workflows based on locality
US20230011806A1 (en) * 2021-07-09 2023-01-12 Verify, Inc. Workflow generation and processing
CN115865706A (zh) * 2022-11-28 2023-03-28 国网重庆市电力公司电力科学研究院 一种基于5g网络能力开放的电力自动化业务编排方法
CN116934344A (zh) * 2023-09-18 2023-10-24 广东工业大学 一种基于区块链的微电网交易方法及系统
US12032993B2 (en) 2021-04-21 2024-07-09 EMC IP Holding Company LLC Generating and managing workflow fingerprints based on provisioning of devices in a device ecosystem

Families Citing this family (86)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US7734492B2 (en) * 2005-04-26 2010-06-08 Xerox Corporation Validation and analysis of JDF workflows using colored petri nets
US20060271929A1 (en) * 2005-05-27 2006-11-30 Computer Associates Think, Inc. Method and system for providing job forecasting in a computer system
US7877350B2 (en) * 2005-06-27 2011-01-25 Ab Initio Technology Llc Managing metadata for graph-based computations
JP2007018406A (ja) * 2005-07-11 2007-01-25 Fujitsu Ltd ワークフローシステム、ワークフロー管理方法及びプログラム
US8396736B2 (en) * 2006-04-21 2013-03-12 Process Assets, Llc Systems and methods for providing documentation having succinct communication with scalability
US20070299705A1 (en) * 2006-04-27 2007-12-27 Shyh-Kwei Chen Method and apparatus for observation model validation
JP4908073B2 (ja) 2006-06-15 2012-04-04 株式会社日立製作所 サービスベースソフトウェア設計支援方法及びそのための装置
CN103729330B (zh) 2006-08-10 2017-04-19 起元科技有限公司 在基于图的计算中分配服务
EP2174222A4 (en) 2007-07-26 2010-10-27 Ab Initio Technology Llc TRANSACTIONAL GRAPH-BASED CALCULATION WITH ERROR HANDLING
US8484611B2 (en) * 2007-10-15 2013-07-09 International Business Machines Corporation Method and system for simplified assembly of information processing applications
US8660905B2 (en) * 2007-10-31 2014-02-25 Sap Ag Method and system for validating process models
EP2215777A2 (en) * 2007-11-21 2010-08-11 Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc. Role-based network service management
US8312426B2 (en) * 2008-01-07 2012-11-13 International Business Machines Corporation Method and system for simplified service composition in web environment
US8239828B2 (en) 2008-01-08 2012-08-07 International Business Machines Corporation Method of recovering from software failures using replanning
US8321841B2 (en) * 2008-01-08 2012-11-27 International Business Machines Corporation Validation framework for service oriented architecture (SOA) application adoption
US8245122B2 (en) * 2008-01-08 2012-08-14 International Business Machines Corporation Method and system for modeling user requests, applications and components used in dynamic application assembly
US8954550B2 (en) * 2008-02-13 2015-02-10 Microsoft Corporation Service dependency discovery in enterprise networks
US8640149B2 (en) 2008-03-26 2014-01-28 International Business Machines Corporation Method and apparatus for dynamic web service composition and invocation
US9612890B2 (en) * 2008-04-04 2017-04-04 International Business Machines Corporation Method and apparatus for workflow based high availability analysis
US8949140B2 (en) 2008-04-21 2015-02-03 International Business Machines Corporation Method and system for dynamic software reconfiguration triggered by component- or system- initiated events
US8898624B2 (en) * 2008-05-05 2014-11-25 International Business Machines Corporation Method and apparatus for simplified assembly of parametric information processing applications
US8793306B2 (en) * 2008-10-03 2014-07-29 Infosys Limited System, wireless communication device and method for combining compatible services
US8762215B2 (en) * 2008-10-31 2014-06-24 Sap Ag Brokered service delivery
US9459764B1 (en) 2008-11-11 2016-10-04 Amdocs Software Systems Limited System, method, and computer program for selecting at least one predefined workflow based on an interaction with a user
AU2010213618B9 (en) 2009-02-13 2015-07-30 Ab Initio Technology Llc Managing task execution
JP5084760B2 (ja) * 2009-02-20 2012-11-28 日本電信電話株式会社 シナリオ開発支援装置、およびシナリオ開発支援方法
US20100228951A1 (en) * 2009-03-05 2010-09-09 Xerox Corporation Parallel processing management framework
JP5412905B2 (ja) * 2009-03-18 2014-02-12 日本電気株式会社 ライフサイクル情報処理装置、ライフサイクル情報処理方法及びライフサイクル情報処理プログラム
JP5494660B2 (ja) * 2009-06-04 2014-05-21 富士通株式会社 プロセス設計プログラム、プロセス設計装置およびプロセス設計方法
US8249735B2 (en) * 2009-07-22 2012-08-21 Xerox Corporation Method and system for automatically identifying an existing workflow to manufacture a given product type
US8667329B2 (en) * 2009-09-25 2014-03-04 Ab Initio Technology Llc Processing transactions in graph-based applications
US8887124B2 (en) * 2009-09-30 2014-11-11 Sap Se Validation of process models
US20110106713A1 (en) * 2009-10-30 2011-05-05 Realization Technologies, Inc. Post facto identification and prioritization of causes of buffer consumption
US8285576B2 (en) 2009-10-30 2012-10-09 International Business Machines Corporation Automated derivation, design and execution of industry-specific information environment
WO2011159759A1 (en) 2010-06-15 2011-12-22 Ab Initio Technology Llc Dynamically loading graph-based computations
US8554645B1 (en) * 2011-01-04 2013-10-08 Intuit Inc. Method and system for identifying business expenditures with vendors and automatically generating and submitting required forms
US20120216105A1 (en) * 2011-02-18 2012-08-23 Bank Of America Corporation System and method for creating non-functional requirements for implemented technology
US8457996B2 (en) 2011-05-27 2013-06-04 Sap Ag Model-based business continuity management
US20130103441A1 (en) * 2011-10-21 2013-04-25 International Business Machines Corporation Generating Predictions for Business Processes Whose Execution is Driven by Data
US8973012B2 (en) * 2011-10-25 2015-03-03 International Business Machines Corporation Composing analytic solutions
US8798403B2 (en) 2012-01-31 2014-08-05 Xerox Corporation System and method for capturing production workflow information
US20130226670A1 (en) * 2012-02-23 2013-08-29 Xerox Corporation Method and system for automatically partitioning and processing a business process
US9996209B2 (en) * 2012-05-02 2018-06-12 Autodesk, Inc. Techniques for representing and comparing workflows
US9507682B2 (en) 2012-11-16 2016-11-29 Ab Initio Technology Llc Dynamic graph performance monitoring
US10108521B2 (en) 2012-11-16 2018-10-23 Ab Initio Technology Llc Dynamic component performance monitoring
US9274926B2 (en) 2013-01-03 2016-03-01 Ab Initio Technology Llc Configurable testing of computer programs
US20140278723A1 (en) * 2013-03-13 2014-09-18 Xerox Corporation Methods and systems for predicting workflow preferences
US9286032B2 (en) 2013-03-15 2016-03-15 International Business Machines Corporation Automated software composition
US20160110662A1 (en) * 2013-05-22 2016-04-21 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Production Simulation
US9483307B2 (en) * 2013-09-04 2016-11-01 Swiftpage Act! Llc Asynchronous, interactive task workflows
CN105723335A (zh) * 2013-09-16 2016-06-29 麦塔奈迪克斯有限公司 数据流探索
US9437021B2 (en) 2013-11-27 2016-09-06 Globalfoundries Inc. Dynamic visualization for optimization processes
CA3114544A1 (en) 2013-12-05 2015-06-11 Ab Initio Technology Llc Managing interfaces for dataflow composed of sub-graphs
US10169433B2 (en) 2014-07-29 2019-01-01 Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc Systems and methods for an SQL-driven distributed operating system
US10176236B2 (en) 2014-07-29 2019-01-08 Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc Systems and methods for a distributed query execution engine
US10437843B2 (en) 2014-07-29 2019-10-08 Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc Optimization of database queries via transformations of computation graph
US10007757B2 (en) * 2014-09-17 2018-06-26 PokitDok, Inc. System and method for dynamic schedule aggregation
US20160232470A1 (en) * 2015-02-05 2016-08-11 Keguo Zhou Automated Generation of Process Flow Charts
US20170024653A1 (en) * 2015-03-30 2017-01-26 Edgeverve Systems Limited Method and system to optimize customer service processes
US10657134B2 (en) 2015-08-05 2020-05-19 Ab Initio Technology Llc Selecting queries for execution on a stream of real-time data
US10528327B2 (en) * 2015-11-23 2020-01-07 Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc Workflow development system with ease-of-use features
EP3394739B1 (en) 2015-12-21 2020-11-11 AB Initio Technology LLC Sub-graph interface generation
US9495137B1 (en) * 2015-12-28 2016-11-15 International Business Machines Corporation Methods and systems for improving responsiveness of analytical workflow runtimes
JP6690389B2 (ja) * 2016-04-28 2020-04-28 富士通株式会社 フロー生成プログラム、フロー生成方法およびフロー生成装置
US10901701B2 (en) * 2016-09-15 2021-01-26 Oracle International Corporation Orthogonal path renderer for natural looking sequence flows
US10902019B2 (en) 2016-10-13 2021-01-26 Adobe Inc. Extensible file synchronization
CN106600110A (zh) * 2016-11-18 2017-04-26 中国电力科学研究院 大电网多周期一体化停电计划精益管理提升方法及系统
US10635789B1 (en) * 2017-06-21 2020-04-28 Amazon Technologies, Inc. Request authorization using recipe-based service coordination
US10713084B2 (en) 2017-10-27 2020-07-14 International Business Machines Corporation Cognitive learning workflow execution
US10474977B2 (en) 2017-10-27 2019-11-12 International Business Machines Corporation Cognitive learning workflow execution
US10552779B2 (en) 2017-10-27 2020-02-04 International Business Machines Corporation Cognitive learning workflow execution
US10719365B2 (en) 2017-10-27 2020-07-21 International Business Machines Corporation Cognitive learning workflow execution
US10719795B2 (en) 2017-10-27 2020-07-21 International Business Machines Corporation Cognitive learning workflow execution
CN107943569B (zh) * 2017-10-31 2021-07-06 北京航空航天大学 基于特征模型的实时系统中早期决策的时间分析方法
EP3614254B1 (en) * 2018-08-24 2024-03-06 Canon Production Printing Holding B.V. Document processing system for processing a print job
KR102142205B1 (ko) * 2019-01-04 2020-08-06 에스케이 주식회사 설명 가능한 인공지능 모델링 및 시뮬레이션 시스템 및 방법
US10684966B1 (en) 2019-02-21 2020-06-16 Amazon Technologies, Inc. Orchestrating dataflows with inferred data store interactions
WO2020230154A1 (en) * 2019-05-13 2020-11-19 Kunal Ravi Rao Systems, methods, and a computer program product for generating project workflow
WO2021102024A1 (en) * 2019-11-18 2021-05-27 Sidewalk Labs LLC Methods, systems, and media for initiating and monitoring instances of workflows
US11113081B2 (en) 2019-11-25 2021-09-07 International Business Machines Corporation Generating a video for an interactive session on a user interface
US11941413B2 (en) 2020-06-29 2024-03-26 Amazon Technologies, Inc. Managed control plane service
US11948005B2 (en) 2020-06-29 2024-04-02 Amazon Technologies, Inc. Managed integration of constituent services of multi-service applications
US11348019B2 (en) 2020-08-06 2022-05-31 Cisco Technology, Inc. Advanced workflow based self-serve automation system
US11429351B2 (en) * 2021-01-21 2022-08-30 Intuit Inc. Methods and systems for building custom automation workflows to integrate multiple applications
US12086141B1 (en) 2021-12-10 2024-09-10 Amazon Technologies, Inc. Coordination of services using PartiQL queries
US20240220898A1 (en) * 2022-12-29 2024-07-04 International Business Machines Corporation Automated generation of workflows

Citations (13)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5140537A (en) * 1990-05-21 1992-08-18 Hewlett-Packard Company Modeling a factory with human operators and validating the model
US5630069A (en) * 1993-01-15 1997-05-13 Action Technologies, Inc. Method and apparatus for creating workflow maps of business processes
US5819270A (en) * 1993-02-25 1998-10-06 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology Computer system for displaying representations of processes
US5940816A (en) * 1997-01-29 1999-08-17 International Business Machines Corporation Multi-objective decision-support methodology
US6060101A (en) * 1994-09-02 2000-05-09 Designing Health, Inc. Dietary food supplement
US6070163A (en) * 1993-02-25 2000-05-30 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology Computerized handbook of processes
US6278901B1 (en) * 1998-12-18 2001-08-21 Impresse Corporation Methods for creating aggregate plans useful in manufacturing environments
US6279009B1 (en) * 1998-12-04 2001-08-21 Impresse Corporation Dynamic creation of workflows from deterministic models of real world processes
US6299063B1 (en) * 1998-12-04 2001-10-09 Impresse Corporation Method and apparatus for automated data entry
US6321133B1 (en) * 1998-12-04 2001-11-20 Impresse Corporation Method and apparatus for order promising
US20030033182A1 (en) * 2001-04-23 2003-02-13 Stok Cornelis Johannes Knowledge-based system and a method of business modelling and of business process redesign
US6546364B1 (en) * 1998-12-18 2003-04-08 Impresse Corporation Method and apparatus for creating adaptive workflows
US6725428B1 (en) * 1996-11-15 2004-04-20 Xerox Corporation Systems and methods providing flexible representations of work

Family Cites Families (15)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5844842A (en) 1989-02-06 1998-12-01 Hitachi, Ltd. Nonvolatile semiconductor memory device
JPH09259188A (ja) * 1996-03-22 1997-10-03 Ricoh Co Ltd 業務実績情報収集装置及び業務実績情報収集システム
JPH10207939A (ja) * 1997-01-17 1998-08-07 Nec Corp ワークフローシステム
US7064848B2 (en) * 2000-12-12 2006-06-20 Xerox Corporation System and method for converting print jobs stored in printshop job description language files into printshop workflow
EP1253524A1 (en) * 2001-04-23 2002-10-30 Koninklijke KPN N.V. A knowledge based system and a method of business modeling and of business process redesign
SG121719A1 (en) * 2001-07-19 2006-05-26 Oce Tech Bv Method for creating a workflow
US7698427B2 (en) * 2001-07-30 2010-04-13 International Business Machines Corporation Method, system, and program for transferring data from an application engine
JP2003058677A (ja) * 2001-08-10 2003-02-28 Incs Inc ワークフロー作成方法及びその装置
US6895573B2 (en) * 2001-10-26 2005-05-17 Resultmaker A/S Method for generating a workflow on a computer, and a computer system adapted for performing the method
US7408658B2 (en) * 2001-12-04 2008-08-05 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Generation and usage of workflows for processing data on a printing device
JP2003331043A (ja) * 2002-05-13 2003-11-21 Fujitsu Ltd サービス提供システム、サービス提供方法及びソフトウェアプログラム
US7653562B2 (en) * 2002-07-31 2010-01-26 Sap Aktiengesellschaft Workflow management architecture
US7885840B2 (en) * 2003-01-07 2011-02-08 Sap Aktiengesellschaft System and method of flexible workflow management
US20050050466A1 (en) * 2003-08-29 2005-03-03 Sangroniz James M. Distributed automated workflow assignment for print fulfillment of print jobs
JP4630595B2 (ja) * 2003-09-29 2011-02-09 キヤノン株式会社 印刷工程処理装置および印刷工程処理方法およびプログラムおよび記憶媒体

Patent Citations (15)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5140537A (en) * 1990-05-21 1992-08-18 Hewlett-Packard Company Modeling a factory with human operators and validating the model
US5630069A (en) * 1993-01-15 1997-05-13 Action Technologies, Inc. Method and apparatus for creating workflow maps of business processes
US5819270A (en) * 1993-02-25 1998-10-06 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology Computer system for displaying representations of processes
US6070163A (en) * 1993-02-25 2000-05-30 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology Computerized handbook of processes
US20020156765A1 (en) * 1993-02-25 2002-10-24 Malone Thomas W. Computerized handbook of processes
US6349298B1 (en) * 1993-02-25 2002-02-19 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology Computerized handbook of processes
US6060101A (en) * 1994-09-02 2000-05-09 Designing Health, Inc. Dietary food supplement
US6725428B1 (en) * 1996-11-15 2004-04-20 Xerox Corporation Systems and methods providing flexible representations of work
US5940816A (en) * 1997-01-29 1999-08-17 International Business Machines Corporation Multi-objective decision-support methodology
US6321133B1 (en) * 1998-12-04 2001-11-20 Impresse Corporation Method and apparatus for order promising
US6299063B1 (en) * 1998-12-04 2001-10-09 Impresse Corporation Method and apparatus for automated data entry
US6279009B1 (en) * 1998-12-04 2001-08-21 Impresse Corporation Dynamic creation of workflows from deterministic models of real world processes
US6546364B1 (en) * 1998-12-18 2003-04-08 Impresse Corporation Method and apparatus for creating adaptive workflows
US6278901B1 (en) * 1998-12-18 2001-08-21 Impresse Corporation Methods for creating aggregate plans useful in manufacturing environments
US20030033182A1 (en) * 2001-04-23 2003-02-13 Stok Cornelis Johannes Knowledge-based system and a method of business modelling and of business process redesign

Cited By (76)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US7418632B2 (en) * 2003-03-24 2008-08-26 Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. Service processing system, processing result management device and processing result checking method of service processing system
US20040205376A1 (en) * 2003-03-24 2004-10-14 Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. Service processing system, processing result management device and processing result checking method of service processing system
US20060005140A1 (en) * 2004-06-18 2006-01-05 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha User interface for workflow system
US8082169B2 (en) * 2004-06-18 2011-12-20 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha User interface for workflow builder
US8255389B2 (en) * 2004-06-25 2012-08-28 Apple Inc. Automatic relevance filtering
US20090007122A1 (en) * 2004-06-25 2009-01-01 Apple Inc. Automatic relevance filtering
US7971186B1 (en) * 2004-06-25 2011-06-28 Apple Inc. Automatic execution flow ordering
US7640532B2 (en) * 2004-08-25 2009-12-29 International Business Machines Corporation Mapping software code to business logic
US20060048093A1 (en) * 2004-08-25 2006-03-02 Prashant Jain Mapping software code to business logic
US20060225032A1 (en) * 2004-10-29 2006-10-05 Klerk Adrian D Business application development and execution environment
US8478616B2 (en) * 2004-10-29 2013-07-02 FrontRange Solutions USA Inc. Business application development and execution environment
US20060167923A1 (en) * 2005-01-24 2006-07-27 Fabio Casati Method and a system for process discovery
US8631391B2 (en) * 2005-01-24 2014-01-14 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Method and a system for process discovery
US8130397B2 (en) * 2005-05-24 2012-03-06 Hiflex Software Gesmbh Method for transmitting a color extraction and a management information system
US20080192284A1 (en) * 2005-05-24 2008-08-14 Hiflex Software Gesmbh Method For Transmitting a Color Extraction and a Management Information System
US7921072B2 (en) * 2005-05-31 2011-04-05 Alcatel-Lucent Usa Inc. Methods and apparatus for mapping source schemas to a target schema using schema embedding
US20060271506A1 (en) * 2005-05-31 2006-11-30 Bohannon Philip L Methods and apparatus for mapping source schemas to a target schema using schema embedding
US20070112816A1 (en) * 2005-11-11 2007-05-17 Fujitsu Limited Information processing apparatus, information processing method and program
US8244668B1 (en) * 2005-12-29 2012-08-14 United Services Automobile Association (Usaa) Workflow administration tools and user interfaces
US20110270838A1 (en) * 2006-01-23 2011-11-03 Coverity, Inc. Updating groups of items
US7966346B1 (en) * 2006-01-23 2011-06-21 Coverity, Inc. Updating groups of items
US10339617B2 (en) * 2006-02-01 2019-07-02 Cerner Innovations, Inc. Order profile safeguarding mechanism
US20070179807A1 (en) * 2006-02-01 2007-08-02 Cerner Innovation, Inc. Order profile safeguarding mechanism
US20070233543A1 (en) * 2006-03-29 2007-10-04 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha Information processing apparatus, workflow generating method, and workflow generating program
US20080005155A1 (en) * 2006-04-11 2008-01-03 University Of Southern California System and Method for Generating a Service Oriented Data Composition Architecture for Integrated Asset Management
US20090185216A1 (en) * 2006-06-13 2009-07-23 Hiflex Software Gesmbh Method for controlling the production of a print product
US8319996B2 (en) * 2006-06-13 2012-11-27 Hewlett-Packard Gesellschaft M.B.H. Method for controlling the production of a print product
US7881535B1 (en) 2006-06-29 2011-02-01 Capital One Financial Corporation System and method for managing statistical models
WO2008045206A3 (en) * 2006-10-05 2009-01-22 Eastman Kodak Co Automated printing
US20080084574A1 (en) * 2006-10-05 2008-04-10 Eastman Kodak Company Automated printing
US8612280B2 (en) * 2006-11-07 2013-12-17 Xerox Corporation Selection of performance indicators for workflow monitoring
US20080109270A1 (en) * 2006-11-07 2008-05-08 Michael David Shepherd Selection of performance indicators for workflow monitoring
US20090138686A1 (en) * 2007-01-16 2009-05-28 International Business Machines Corporation Method for processing a graph containing a set of nodes
US20080255892A1 (en) * 2007-04-11 2008-10-16 The University Of Southern California System and Method for Oil Production Forecasting and Optimization in a Model-Based Framework
US20080300837A1 (en) * 2007-05-31 2008-12-04 Melissa Jane Buco Methods, Computer Program Products and Apparatus Providing Improved Selection of Agreements Between Entities
US9558296B2 (en) * 2008-01-16 2017-01-31 International Business Machines Corporation Method for processing a graph containing a set of nodes
US20090198548A1 (en) * 2008-02-05 2009-08-06 Mathias Kohler System to avoid policy-based deadlocks in workflow execution
US8868386B2 (en) * 2008-02-29 2014-10-21 Sap Se Navigation in simulated workflows
US20090222817A1 (en) * 2008-02-29 2009-09-03 Andreas Faatz Navigation in Simulated Workflows
US9911092B2 (en) * 2009-04-30 2018-03-06 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Systems and methods for a real-time workflow platform
US20100280865A1 (en) * 2009-04-30 2010-11-04 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Systems and Methods for a Real-Time Workflow Platform
US8751284B2 (en) * 2009-04-30 2014-06-10 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Systems and methods for a real-time workflow platform using Petri net model mappings
US10713608B2 (en) 2009-04-30 2020-07-14 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Systems and methods for a real-time workflow platform
US8332811B2 (en) 2009-04-30 2012-12-11 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Systems and methods for generating source code for workflow platform
US20140188546A1 (en) * 2009-04-30 2014-07-03 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Systems and methods for a real-time workflow platform
US20100281462A1 (en) * 2009-04-30 2010-11-04 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Systems and methods for generating source code for workflow platform
US20140282199A1 (en) * 2013-03-14 2014-09-18 Microsoft Corporation Process modeling and interface
US9342220B2 (en) * 2013-03-14 2016-05-17 Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc Process modeling and interface
US20140310053A1 (en) * 2013-04-10 2014-10-16 Xerox Corporation Method and systems for providing business process suggestions and recommendations utilizing a business process modeler
US20140343982A1 (en) * 2013-05-14 2014-11-20 Landmark Graphics Corporation Methods and systems related to workflow mentoring
WO2015066043A1 (en) * 2013-10-31 2015-05-07 Ebay Inc. Determining paths through a workflow
US9530111B2 (en) 2013-10-31 2016-12-27 Ebay Inc. Methods, systems, and apparatus for personalizing a web experience using ant routing theory
US20160092818A1 (en) * 2014-09-25 2016-03-31 Oracle International Corporation Method and system for implementing an adaptive data governance system
US10636005B2 (en) * 2014-09-25 2020-04-28 Oracle International Corporation Method and system for implementing an adaptive data governance system
US20200234213A1 (en) * 2014-09-25 2020-07-23 Oracle International Corporation Method and system for implementing an adaptive data governance system
US11783254B2 (en) * 2014-09-25 2023-10-10 Oracle International Corporation Method and system for implementing an adaptive data governance system
US11853935B2 (en) * 2015-09-11 2023-12-26 Workfusion, Inc. Automated recommendations for task automation
US20170076246A1 (en) * 2015-09-11 2017-03-16 Crowd Computing Systems, Inc. Recommendations for Workflow alteration
US10664777B2 (en) * 2015-09-11 2020-05-26 Workfusion, Inc. Automated recommendations for task automation
US20220253790A1 (en) * 2015-09-11 2022-08-11 Workfusion, Inc. Automated recommendations for task automation
US20170255886A1 (en) * 2016-03-03 2017-09-07 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Workflow execution
US10101995B2 (en) 2016-07-15 2018-10-16 Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc Transforming data manipulation code into data workflow
US10152349B1 (en) * 2016-09-27 2018-12-11 Juniper Networks, Inc. Kernel scheduling based on precedence constraints and/or artificial intelligence techniques
US10748067B2 (en) * 2016-09-27 2020-08-18 Juniper Networks, Inc. Kernel scheduling based on precedence constraints and/or artificial intelligence techniques
CN106547696A (zh) * 2016-10-28 2017-03-29 中国人民解放军理工大学 一种面向工作流系统的测试用例生成方法及装置
US20190279126A1 (en) * 2018-03-07 2019-09-12 Optessa Inc. Generating a global workflow sequence for multiple workflow stages
US10366361B1 (en) * 2018-05-10 2019-07-30 Definitive Business Solutions, Inc. Systems and methods for performing multi-tier data transfer in a group assessment processing environment
CN113190186A (zh) * 2020-01-29 2021-07-30 海德堡印刷机械股份公司 通过兼容的材料来改善地执行印刷任务
US20210303635A1 (en) * 2020-03-31 2021-09-30 International Business Machines Corporation Dynamic natural question generation via semantic knowledge representation
US11487820B2 (en) * 2020-03-31 2022-11-01 International Business Machines Corporation Dynamic natural question generation via semantic knowledge representation
US20220342700A1 (en) * 2021-04-21 2022-10-27 EMC IP Holding Company LLC Method and system for provisioning workflows based on locality
US11972289B2 (en) * 2021-04-21 2024-04-30 EMC IP Holding Company LLC Method and system for provisioning workflows based on locality
US12032993B2 (en) 2021-04-21 2024-07-09 EMC IP Holding Company LLC Generating and managing workflow fingerprints based on provisioning of devices in a device ecosystem
US20230011806A1 (en) * 2021-07-09 2023-01-12 Verify, Inc. Workflow generation and processing
CN115865706A (zh) * 2022-11-28 2023-03-28 国网重庆市电力公司电力科学研究院 一种基于5g网络能力开放的电力自动化业务编排方法
CN116934344A (zh) * 2023-09-18 2023-10-24 广东工业大学 一种基于区块链的微电网交易方法及系统

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
EP1591942A2 (en) 2005-11-02
US20070094211A1 (en) 2007-04-26
EP1591942A3 (en) 2006-03-01
US8442852B2 (en) 2013-05-14
US7580911B2 (en) 2009-08-25
JP2005317007A (ja) 2005-11-10
US20080065455A1 (en) 2008-03-13

Similar Documents

Publication Publication Date Title
US7580911B2 (en) Workflow auto generation from user constraints and hierarchical dependence graphs for workflows
US7734492B2 (en) Validation and analysis of JDF workflows using colored petri nets
Durmuşoğlu et al. The use of information technology tools in new product development phases: Analysis of effects on new product innovativeness, quality, and market performance
Debbabi et al. Verification and validation in systems engineering: assessing UML/SysML design models
US20070021995A1 (en) Discovering patterns of executions in business processes
Roy et al. Methods for evaluating software architecture: A survey
US20100095269A1 (en) Faceted, tag-based approach for the design and composition of components and applications in component-based systems
Kalnins et al. Use of UML and model transformations for workflow process definitions
Campos et al. A survey of formalization approaches to service composition
Chen et al. Model-based system engineering supporting production scheduling based on satisfiability modulo theory
Delen et al. Towards a truly integrated enterprise modeling and analysis environment
Petersen et al. Reasons for bottlenecks in very large-scale system of systems development
Kharwat Computer simulation: an important tool in the fast-food industry
Huang et al. Enhancing conflict detecting mechanism for web services composition: A business process flow model transformation approach
Waller et al. L-SIM: Simulating BPMN diagrams with a purpose built engine
Yang et al. A novel framework of using petri net to timed service business process modeling
Szewc et al. The documentation in the project of software creation
Kamath et al. A review of enterprise process modelling techniques
Dridi et al. Towards a Multi-Viewpoints Approach for the SoS Engineering
Soleimani Malekan et al. Overview of business process modeling languages supporting enterprise collaboration
Cortes-Cornax et al. Intentional fragments: bridging the gap between organizational and intentional levels in business processes
Han et al. Control-flow pattern based transformation from uml activity diagram to yawl
Kao Design for logistics in set-based concurrent engineering environment
Moldt et al. Improving a workflow management system with an agent flavour
Yu et al. Qos-based scheduling of workflows on global grids

Legal Events

Date Code Title Description
AS Assignment

Owner name: XEROX CORPORATION, CONNECTICUT

Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:SUN, TONG;WALKER, JOHN O.;REVANKAR, SHRIRAM V.;AND OTHERS;REEL/FRAME:015291/0748;SIGNING DATES FROM 20040429 TO 20040430

STCB Information on status: application discontinuation

Free format text: ABANDONED -- FAILURE TO RESPOND TO AN OFFICE ACTION