Systems and methods for a real-time workflow platform

• US 9,911,092 B2
• Filed: 03/04/2014
• Issued: 03/06/2018
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): Koneru, Sujay
• Application Number:
  US14/196,482
• Publication Number:
  US 20140188546A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,463 Days
• Field of Search: 705 726, 705 727, 717106
• 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 non-transitory computer-readable medium containing code executable by a processor to generate a graphical designer module comprising:

a desktop workspace;

a plurality of shapes, adapted to be selectively dragged and dropped, by a designer, onto the workspace, presented via a graphical user interface of a display device for user interaction, 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 the one or more shapes are further adapted to represent two or more processes of a particular workflow performed concurrently; and

a workflow engine module comprising a platform abstraction layer that provides a transition layer from a Petri net language of a microkernel to an operating system language is adapted to execute code generated to represent the particular workflow designed using the graphical designer module and comprising 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, the platform abstraction layer configured to delegate tasks associated with the workflow process in the Petri net language to be performed by an operating system associated with the operating system language, which is different from the Petri net language.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the one or more shapes of the graphical designer module expressing the role of concurrency comprise a parallel fork and a parallel merge adapted to represent the two or more processes of the workflow performing concurrently and all of the processes completing before the workflow continues.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the one or more shapes of the graphical designer module expressing the role of concurrency comprise a conditional fork and a conditional merge adapted to represent the two or more processes of the workflow performing concurrently and the workflow continues when any one of the processes completes.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the code comprises multi-threaded code.

6. The non-statutory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein:

the platform abstraction layer comprises one or more delegate components comprising pointers to source code for the operating system to access and execute the source code to perform the delegated tasks.

7. 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 having concurrency comprising;

a desktop workspace; and

a plurality of shapes adapted to be selectively dragged and dropped, by a designer, onto the workspace, presented via a graphical user interface of a display device for user interaction, 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, the one or more shapes are further adapted to represent two or more processes of the workflow performed concurrently; and

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

the workflow engine module comprises a platform abstraction layer that provides a transition layer from a Petri net language of a microkernel to an operating system language and 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, the platform abstraction layer configured to delegate tasks associated with the workflow in the Petri net language to be performed by an operating system associated with the operating system language, which is different from the Petri net language.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the workflow engine module is adapted to manage the concurrency of the particular workflow by managing threads.

9. The system of claim 8 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.

10. The system of claim 8 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.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein the workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the executable code comprises multi-threaded code.

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

generating, via one or more processors, a graphical representation of the workflow containing concurrency by dragging and dropping a plurality of shapes presented via a graphical user interface of a display device for user interaction, 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, the one or more shapes are further adapted to represent two or more processes of the workflow performed concurrently;

generating, via the one or more processors, executable code based on the graphical representation of the workflow having concurrency; and

executing, via the one or more processors, the code using a workflow engine module residing on the at least one computing device, the workflow engine module comprises a platform abstraction layer that provides a transition layer from a Petri net language of a microkernel to an operating system language and is adapted to perform the workflow and to manage the concurrency of the workflow, the platform abstraction layer configured to delegate tasks associated with the workflow in the Petri net language to be performed by an operating system associated with the operating system language, which is different from the Petri net language.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the step of executing the code using the workflow engine module to manage the concurrency of the particular workflow is performed by managing threads.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the step of generating executable code does not entail generating code to manage the threads.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein the step of executing the code using the workflow engine module 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.

17. The method of claim 13 wherein the workflow represents a progression of physical work to perform.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the executable code comprises multi-threaded code.