Componentized and extensible workflow model

• US 20060074732A1
• Filed: 01/31/2005
• Published: 04/06/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sagar, Akash J., Mehta, Mayank, Schmidt, Robert B., Bhandarkar, Aditya G., Shukla, Dharma K., Parasnis, Abhay Vinayak, Valegerepura, Kumarswamy P.
• Granted Patent: US 7,451,432 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/36 Software reuse
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/067 Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Building a componentized workflow model. Each step of the workflow is modeled as an activity that has metadata to describe design time aspects, compile time aspects, and runtime aspects of the workflow step. A user selects and arranges the activities to create the workflow via user interfaces or application programming interfaces. The metadata associated with each of the activities in the workflow is collected to create a persistent representation of the workflow. Users extend the workflow model by authoring custom activities. The workflow may be compiled and executed.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for modeling a workflow, said workflow including activities, said workflow modeling a business process, said method comprising:

presenting a plurality of activities;

receiving a selection of the presented activities by a user; and

serializing the received activities to create a persistent representation of the workflow.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving software code representing business logic from a user for association with one of the plurality of activities;

compiling the software code to create one or more binary files; and

executing the created binary files to perform the workflow.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the software code conforms to a common language runtime (CLR) schema.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprising compiling the serialized workflow representation and software code into a single assembly containing an executable representation of the workflow.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a user-defined activity from the user, said user-defined activity having one or more semantics associated therewith;

evaluating the semantics for conformance to a predefined interface requirement;

presenting the user-defined activity as one of the plurality of activities as function of said evaluating.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein presenting the plurality of activities comprises presenting a plurality of activities each having one or more properties associated therewith specifying design time, compile time, and run time behavior.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein presenting the plurality of activities comprises visually presenting the plurality of activities.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising translating the serialized workflow representation to another workflow language.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a hierarchical organization of the selected activities from the user, and wherein the received hierarchical organization comprises one or more of the following:

an event-condition-action workflow, a structured workflow, and a constraint-driven workflow.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein one or more computer-readable media have computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 1.

11. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable components for modeling a workflow, said workflow including activities, said workflow modeling a business process, said components comprising:

a palette component for presenting a plurality of activities;

an interface component for receiving, from a user, a selection and hierarchical organization of the activities presented by the palette component; and

a declarative component for serializing the activities received by the interface component to create a persistent representation of the workflow.

12. The computer-readable media of claim 11, wherein the interface component further receives software code representing business logic from a user for association with one of the plurality of activities, and further comprising a runtime component for compiling the workflow representation serialized by the declarative component and the software code received by the interface component into a single assembly containing an executable representation of the workflow.

13. The computer-readable media of claim 11, wherein the declarative component further maps the serialized activities to an extensible schema definition namespace for validation.

14. The computer-readable media of claim 11, further comprising hosting the palette component, interface component, and declarative component in an application program.

15. A computer-implemented system for modeling a workflow, said workflow including activities, said workflow modeling a business process, said computer-implemented system comprising:

a package identifying a plurality of activities;

an interface for selecting and interrelating one or more of the activities from the package to create a workflow; and

a serializer for serializing the received activities to create a persistent representation of the workflow.

16. The computer-implemented system of claim 15, wherein the interface receives software code that implements business logic associated with the selected activities, further comprising a compiler for compiling the serialized workflow representation and the software code into an executable representation of the workflow, and further comprising a runtime engine for executing the executable representation of the workflow created by the compiler.

17. The computer-implemented system of claim 16, wherein the package, interface, serializer, compiler, and runtime engine are hosted in an application program.

18. The computer-implemented system of claim 15, wherein the plurality of activities includes a user-defined activity, said user-defined activity having one or more properties, and further comprising a semantic checker for verifying a format associated with each of the properties.

19. The computer-implemented system of claim 15, wherein the interface component comprises one or more of the following:

a user interface component and an application programming component.

20. The computer-implemented system of claim 15, further comprising a data structure representing a component model associated with each of the activities in the workflow, said data structure comprising:

an image field storing data for visually representing the activity;

one or more author time fields storing metadata defining properties, methods, and events associated with the activity;

a serializer field storing data for transferring the metadata stored in the author time fields to a declarative representation of the activity;

a business logic field storing software code associated with the metadata stored in the author time fields;

an executor field storing data for executing the software code stored in the business logic field; and

a semantic checker for validating the software code stored in the business logic field.