Subscription within workflow management systems

• US 6,122,633 A
• Filed: 04/20/1998
• Issued: 09/19/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Leymann, Frank, Roller, Dieter
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Hosain T.
• Assistant Examiner(s): ALAM, SHAHID AL
• Application Number:
  US09/062,880
• Time in Patent Office: 883 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/10, 707/100, 707/104, 707/202, 705/1, 705/8, 705/9, 705/4, 705/7, 709/101, 709/201, 709/313, 345/329, 345/334
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure

Abstract

The present invention relates to the area of workflow management systems (WFMS). More particularly the inventions extends WFMS by subscription means. The subscription means operate on an audit trail stored within a database. The subscription means may encompass a multitude of subscription monitors. Subscription monitors allow to subscribe to the audit trail, i.e. to formulate certain interests as subscription selectors on information entered into the audit trail. A subscription monitor autonomously checks the audit trail for subscribed audit records. If such audit records have been determined the subscription monitor executes a subscription actuator, i.e. a pre-defined program. The subscription actuator may inform the subscriber on the subscribed audit record or may start any type of program. The current invention teaches to implement the subscription monitors as database triggers of the database storing the audit trail. The subscription selectors are realized as search conditions of the database trigger. Finally the subscription actuator can be implemented according the current teaching as user-defined functions of the database.

Claims

1. A subscription-means as part of or as separate extension to a workflow-management-system (WFMS), said WFMS comprising an audit-trail of said WFMS stored within a database, said audit-trail encompassing a multitude of audit-records representing a protocol of events occurred during the execution of a process-instance of a process model by the WFMS, wherein said subscription-means comprises:

at least one subscription-monitor to autonomously process subscribed-audit-records, said subscription-monitor comprising a subscription-selector and a subscription-actuator, wherein said subscription-monitor is implemented as a database-trigger for said audit-trail and said subscription-selector is a search condition identifying said subscribed-audit-records, and wherein said subscription-actuator is processed if subscribed-audit-records have been identified.

2. The subscription-means according to claim 1,

wherein said subscription-actuator processes each of said subscribed-audit-records generating the subscription-result.

3. The subscription-means according to claim 1,

wherein said subscription-actuator is implemented as a user-defined-function within said database.

4. The subscription-means according to claim 1,

wherein said subscription-actuator sends a message to the subscriber of the subscription-monitor and/or

wherein said subscription-monitor starts a process instance within said WFMS and/or

wherein said subscription-monitor starts a pre-defined program.