Modeling of business process data

• US 20070226038A1
• Filed: 05/05/2005
• Published: 09/27/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Siebel Systems Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Yaseen, Rahim, Lim, Peter, Smith, Doug, Liang, John, Das, Manoj, Noik, Emanuel
• Granted Patent: US 7,831,453 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/10 Requirements analysis; Specification techniques
• 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

Abstract

In one embodiment, a business process meta-model is defined that represents a business process. The business process meta-model includes control flow elements pertaining to a control flow of the business process, and annotation elements providing details for the control flow elements.

Claims

1. A computerized method comprising:

defining a business process meta-model representing a business process, the business process meta-model comprising control flow elements pertaining to a control flow of the business process, and annotation elements providing details for the control flow elements.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the control flow elements identify activities within the business process and transitions between the activities.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the business process meta-model is presented as a graph having vertexes representing the activities and arcs representing the transitions.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the annotation elements comprise operation elements identifying operations associated with the control flow elements, event elements identifying events associated with the control flow elements, actor elements identifying actors responsible for the control flow elements, and data object elements identifying data objects associated with the control flow elements.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the meta-model further comprises associations identifying relationships between the control flow elements and the annotation elements.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein each of the associations is characterized by a usage type code, a source element type and a target element type.

7. The method of claim 5 further comprising:

formulating a usage pattern from a subset of meta-model elements and corresponding associations.

8. The method of claim 5 wherein each of the associations is classified by a business process definition mode.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising:

formulating different usage patterns from a single subset of meta-model elements based on different business process definition modes of corresponding associations.

10. A computerized method comprising:

receiving business process data;

creating business process objects for the business process data based on a business process meta-model composed of a set of meta-model elements, the set of meta-model elements comprising control flow elements pertaining to a business process control flow and annotation elements providing details for the control flow elements; and

creating a model of a business process from the business process objects.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the control flow elements identify activities within the business process and transitions between the activities.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the annotation elements comprise operation elements identifying operations associated with the control flow elements, event elements identifying events associated with the control flow elements, actor elements identifying actors responsible for the control flow elements, and data object elements identifying data objects associated with the control flow elements.

13. The method of claim 10 wherein:

the meta-model further comprises associations identifying relationships between the meta-model elements from the set.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the model of the business process is created using usage patterns formulated from subsets of meta-model elements and corresponding associations.

15. A machine-readable medium having executable instructions to cause a machine to perform a method comprising:

defining a business process meta-model representing a business process, the business process meta-model comprising control flow elements pertaining to a control flow of the business process, and annotation elements providing details for the control flow elements.

16. A machine-readable medium having executable instructions to cause a machine to perform a method comprising:

receiving business process data;

creating business process objects for the business process data based on a business process meta-model composed of a set of meta-model elements, the set of meta-model elements comprising control flow elements pertaining to a business process control flow and annotation elements providing details for the control flow elements; and

creating a model of a business process from the business process objects.

17. A system comprising:

a memory; and

at least on processor coupled to the memory, the processor executing a set of instructions which cause the processor to define a business process meta-model representing a business process, the business process meta-model comprising control flow elements pertaining to a control flow of the business process, and annotation elements providing details for the control flow elements.

18. A system comprising:

a memory; and

at least on processor coupled to the memory, the processor executing a set of instructions which cause the processor to

receive business process data,

create business process objects for the business process data based on a business process meta-model composed of a set of meta-model elements, the set of meta-model elements comprising control flow elements pertaining to a business process control flow and annotation elements providing details for the control flow elements, and

create a model of a business process from the business process objects.

19. A computer-implemented apparatus comprising:

means for defining a business process meta-model representing a business process, the business process meta-model comprising control flow elements pertaining to a control flow of the business process, and annotation elements providing details for the control flow elements.

20. A computer-implemented apparatus comprising:

means for receiving business process data;

means for creating business process objects for the business process data based on a business process meta-model composed of a set of meta-model elements, the set of meta-model elements comprising control flow elements pertaining to a business process control flow and annotation elements providing details for the control flow elements; and

means for creating a model of a business process from the business process objects.