Systems and Methods for a Real-Time Workflow Platform

• US 20100280865A1
• Filed: 04/30/2009
• Published: 11/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: United Parcel Service Of America Incorporated (United Parcel Service Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: United Parcel Service Of America Incorporated (United Parcel Service Incorporated)
• Inventors: Goja, Asheesh
• Granted Patent: US 8,751,284 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/30 Creation or generation of source code
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06316 Sequencing of tasks or work
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow analysis

Abstract

Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for enabling design, generation, and execution of real-time workflows. Such embodiments provide a graphical designer including a plurality of shapes representing the various objects of a workflow that are used to model the workflow. In addition, various embodiments of the graphical designer provide shapes to model aspects of the workflow not found in previous graphical designers. Various embodiments also provide a code generator that converts the representation of the workflow into executable code for multiple target languages. Various embodiments also provide a workflow engine based on a Petri net model responsible for executing the workflow and for delegating tasks to be performed for the workflow to an operating system. In various embodiments, the workflow engine further includes a platform abstraction layer that provides a transition layer from the Petri net language to the operating system language.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium containing code executable by a processor to generate a workflow engine comprising:

a Petri net domain model comprising a set of objects, wherein each object represents a particular type of element of a Petri net model; and

one or more runtime components adapted for;

reading source code representing a particular workflow, wherein the source code indicates elements of the particular workflow and connectors between elements of the particular workflow to sequence the elements of the particular workflow;

loading the particular workflow into memory by mapping each element of the particular workflow to one or more objects of the set of objects and by mapping each connector of the particular workflow to one or more objects of the set of objects based on rules governing the Petri net model; and

executing the particular workflow loaded into the memory.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the set of objects of the Petri net domain model comprises a token object, a place object, an arc object, and a transition object.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 2 wherein the set of objects of the Petri net domain model further comprises one or more trigger objects to represent triggering a transition object based on stimuli external to the workflow engine.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 2 wherein the set of objects of the Petri net domain model further comprises one or more guard objects to represent conditional logic placed on one or more objects representing one or more connectors of the particular workflow.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein each object of the set of objects is a class in a computer programming language.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 5 wherein the computer programming language is C++.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the Petri net model is a single token, non-color Petri net.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the workflow engine further comprises one or more abstraction layer components adapted for delegating one or more tasks associated with one or more elements of the particular workflow to an operating system to be performed by the operating system.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein the one or more abstraction layer components comprise one or more delegate components comprising one or more pointers to source code for the one or more tasks.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 wherein the one or more runtime components are further adapted to pass the one or more delegate components to the operating system so that the operating system can used the one or more pointers to access the source code to execute the source code to perform the one or more tasks.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the particular workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.

12. A system for executing a workflow comprising:

memory adapted to store a workflow engine module; and

a processor in communication with the memory and adapted to execute the workflow engine module stored in memory, wherein;

the workflow engine module comprises a Petri net domain model comprising a set of objects wherein each object represents a particular type of element of a Petri net model; and

is adapted for execution by the processor to;

read source code representing a particular workflow wherein the source code indicates elements of the particular workflow and connectors between elements of the particular workflow to sequence the elements of the particular workflow;

load the particular workflow into the memory by mapping each element of the particular workflow to one or more objects of the set of objects and by mapping each connector of the particular workflow to one or more objects of the set of objects based on rules governing the Petri net model; and

execute the particular workflow loaded into the memory.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the set of objects of the Petri net domain model comprises a token object, a place object, an arc object, and a transition object.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the set of objects of the Petri net domain model further comprises one or more trigger objects to represent triggering a transition object based on stimuli external to the workflow engine.

15. The system of claim 13 wherein the set of objects of the Petri net domain model further comprises one or more guard objects to represent conditional logic placed on one or more objects representing one or more connectors of the particular workflow.

16. The system of claim 12 wherein each object of the set of objects is a class in a computer programming language.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the computer programming language is C++.

18. The system of claim 12 wherein the Petri net model is a single token, non-color Petri net.

19. The system of claim 12 wherein the workflow engine module further comprises one or more abstraction layer components adapted for delegating one or more tasks associated with one or more elements of the particular workflow to an operating system to be performed by the operating system.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein the one or more abstraction layer components comprise one or more delegate components comprising one or more pointers to source code for the one or more tasks.

21. The system of claim 20 wherein the workflow engine module is further adapted for execution by the processor to pass the one or more delegate components to the operating system so that the operating system can used the one or more pointers to access the source code to execute the source code to perform the one or more tasks.

22. The system of claim 12 wherein the particular workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.

23. A computer-implemented method for executing a workflow, the method comprising the steps of:

developing a Petri net domain model comprising a set of objects wherein each object represents a particular type of element of a Petri net model;

reading source code representing a particular workflow by executing a workflow engine residing on a computing device, wherein the source code indicates elements of the particular workflow and connectors between elements of the particular workflow to sequence the elements of the particular workflow;

loading the particular workflow into memory by mapping each element of the particular workflow to one or more objects of the set of objects and by mapping each connector of the particular workflow to one or more objects of the set of objects based on rules governing the Petri net model; and

executing the particular workflow loaded into the memory by using the workflow engine.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein the set of objects of the Petri net domain model comprises a token object, a place object, an arc object, and a transition object.

25. The method of claim 24 wherein the set of objects of the Petri net domain model further comprises one or more trigger objects to represent triggering a transition object based on stimuli external to the workflow engine.

26. The method of claim 24 wherein the set of objects of the Petri net domain model further comprises one or more guard objects to represent conditional logic placed on one or more objects representing one or more connectors of the particular workflow.

27. The method of claim 23 wherein each object of the set of objects is a class in a computer programming language.

28. The method of claim 27 wherein the computer programming language is C++.

29. The method of claim 23 wherein the Petri net model is a single token, non-color Petri net.

30. The method of claim 23 further comprising the step of delegating one or more tasks associated with one or more elements of the particular workflow via the workflow engine to an operating system residing on the computing device to be performed by the operating system.

31. The method of claim 30 wherein the step of delegating comprises the workflow engine passing one or more delegate components comprising one or more pointers to source code for one or more tasks associated with one or more elements of the particular workflow to the operating system so that the operating system can used the one or more pointers to access the source code to execute the source code to perform the one or more tasks.

32. The method of claim 23 wherein the particular workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.

33. A computer-readable medium containing code executable by a processor to generate a graphical designer comprising:

a desktop workspace; and

a plurality of shapes adapted to be selectively dragged and dropped onto the workspace by a designer, each shape expressing performance of at least one predefined role in a workflow process, wherein one or more shapes of the plurality of shapes are adapted to express a role of concurrency within the workflow process so that a workflow engine adapted to execute code generated to represent a particular workflow designed using the graphical designer and having at least one shape of the one or more shapes expressing the role of concurrency is further adapted to manage the concurrency of the particular workflow.

34. The computer-readable medium of claim 33 wherein the one or more shapes of the graphical designer expressing the role of concurrency comprise a parallel fork and a parallel merge adapted to represent two or more processes of the workflow performing concurrently and all of the processes completing before the workflow continues.

35. The computer-readable medium of claim 33 wherein the one or more shapes of the graphical designer expressing the role of concurrency comprise a conditional fork and a conditional merge adapted to represent two or more processes of the workflow performing concurrently and the workflow continues when any one of the processes completes.

36. The computer-readable medium of claim 33 wherein the workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.

37. A system for executing a workflow containing concurrency within the workflow comprising:

memory adapted to store a graphical designer module and a workflow engine module; and

at least one processor in communication with the memory and adapted to execute the graphical designer module and the workflow engine module stored in memory, wherein;

the graphical designer module is adapted for execution by the at least one processor to;

generate a graphical representation of the workflow containing concurrency comprising;

a desktop workspace; and

a plurality of shapes adapted to be selectively dragged and dropped onto the workspace by a designer, each shape expressing performance of at least one predefined role in the workflow wherein one or more shapes of the plurality of shapes express a role of concurrency within the workflow; and

generate executable code based on the graphical representation of the workflow containing concurrency; and

the workflow engine module is adapted for execution by the at least one processor to execute the code to perform the workflow and to manage the concurrency of the workflow.

38. The system of claim 37 wherein the workflow engine module is adapted to manage the concurrency of the particular workflow by managing threads.

39. The system of claim 38 wherein the graphical designer module is adapted to generate code to indicate concurrency within the workflow and is not adapted to generate code to manage the threads.

40. The system of claim 38 wherein the workflow engine module manages the threads by performing one or more of managing an internal thread pool, spinning off a thread, managing thread creation, and managing thread synchronization.

41. The system of claim 37 wherein the workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.

42. A computer-implemented method for executing a workflow containing concurrency within the workflow, the method comprising the steps of:

generating a graphical representation of the workflow containing concurrency by dragging and dropping a plurality of shapes onto a desktop workspace provided by a graphical designer module residing on at least one computing device, each shape expressing performance of at least one predefined role in the workflow wherein one or more shapes of the plurality of shapes express a role of concurrency within the workflow;

generating executable code based on the graphical representation of the workflow containing concurrency; and

executing the code using a workflow engine residing on the at least one computing device to perform the workflow and to manage the concurrency of the workflow.

43. The method of claim 42 wherein the step of executing the code using the workflow engine to manage the concurrency of the particular workflow is performed by managing threads.

44. The method of claim 43 wherein the step of generating executable code does not entail generating code to manage the threads.

45. The method of claim 43 wherein the step of executing the code using the workflow engine to manage the concurrency of the particular workflow is performed by executing code to manage one or more of an internal thread pool, spinning off a thread, thread creation, and thread synchronization.

46. The method of claim 42 wherein the workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.

47. A computer-readable medium containing code executable by a processor to generate a graphical designer comprising:

a desktop workspace; and

a plurality of shapes adapted to be selectively dragged and dropped onto the workspace by a designer, each shape expressing performance of at least one predefined role in a workflow process, wherein one or more shapes of the plurality of shapes express a role of communicating with a resource external to the workflow process so that a workflow engine adapted for executing code generated to represent a particular workflow designed using the graphical designer and having at least one shape of the one or more shapes expressing the role of communicating with the external resource is further adapted to manage communicating with the process external to the particular workflow.

48. The computer-readable medium of claim 47 wherein the one or more shapes of the graphical designer expressing the role of communicating with the resource external to the workflow process comprise one or more gateways.

49. The computer-readable medium of claim 47 wherein the workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.

50. A system for executing a workflow communicating with a resource external to the workflow comprising:

memory adapted to store a graphical designer module and a workflow engine module; and

at least one processor in communication with the memory and adapted to execute the graphical designer module and the workflow engine module stored in memory, wherein;

the graphical designer module is adapted for execution by the at least one processor to;

generate a graphical representation of the workflow communicating with the resource external to the workflow comprising;

a desktop workspace; and

a plurality of shapes adapted to be selectively dragged and dropped onto the workspace by a designer, each shape expressing performance of at least one predefined role in the workflow wherein one or more shapes of the plurality of shapes express a role of communicating with the resource external to the workflow; and

generate executable code based on the graphical representation of the workflow; and

the workflow engine module is adapted for execution by the at least one processor to execute the code to perform the workflow and to manage communication with the resource external to the workflow.

51. The system of claim 50 wherein the graphical designer is adapted to generate code to indicate communicating with the resource external to the workflow and is adapted not to generate code to perform communicating with the resource external to the workflow.

52. The system of claim 50 wherein the workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.

53. A computer-implemented method for executing a workflow communicating with a resource external to the workflow, the method comprising the steps of:

generating a graphical representation of the workflow communicating with the resource external to the workflow by dragging and dropping a plurality of shapes onto a workspace provided by a graphical designer residing one at least one computing device, each shape expressing performance of at least one predefined role in the workflow wherein one or more shapes of the plurality of shapes express a role of communicating with the resource external to the workflow;

generating executable code based on the graphical representation of the workflow; and

executing the code using a workflow engine residing on the at least one computing device to perform the workflow and to manage communication with the resource external to the workflow.

54. The method of claim 53 wherein the step of generating executable code does not entail generating code to perform communicating with the resource external to the workflow.

55. The method of claim 53 wherein the workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.