[news.eclipse.technology.ecomm] Re: Workflow Automation

["Michail Heinmann" <mheinman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi team, Hi Scott,



thank you a lot for the comments!



The workflow is a very important part of the software development process. 
It is not only important that i.e. a developer communicates with a solution 
architect, it is important to know, why they communicate. The workflow 
automation provides a possibility to plan, to manage, to control and to 
document the communication process.



I think, each of you has already some experience in the large projects, and 
form my own experience as a developer and as a project manager - the biggest 
challenge is the good communication in the project. But if there are more 
then 12 members in the project team, then it is important to define some 
scope of the formal procedures in communication area.  It is even more 
important for the open source or community development projects, because of 
the virtual nature of the organisation.



There are no any really good stand alone workflow systems (there are some 
good wf systems are part of large ERP System). There are some standards like 
WFMC' Reference Model etc.



The large question is how to design/implement a workflow system over a P2P 
landscape. How to propagate the updates etc.? You see, there more question 
then answers.



It is my own opinion, it will be huge feature to provide the really workflow 
functionalities in addition to the communication functionalities.



I try to formulate some example:



i.e. there are some roles in the project:

- manager

- designer

- developer A

- developer B



And there is a process: Manager defines the requirements; designer and 
developers create a model and provide a feedback about the time effort to 
fulfil the requirements; manger defines the project plan.



Here we have 3 different communication situations:

Manager<->Team

Designer<->Developers A and B

Team<->Manager



It is very simple to define the workflow structure for such process. It is 
also possible to describe the objectives of the communication situations and 
also it is possible to protocol the communication and estimate the 
objectives fulfilment level.



It is only a proposal to add such functionalities to the project.



If you want I can provide some high-level of the API for this functionality 
and will be very glad to discuss it with the project team.



Best regards,

M.H.





"Scott Lewis" <slewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:4157804C.7000400@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi Michail,
>
> Michail Heinmann wrote:
>> Hi ,
>>
>>
>>
>> it sounds pretty good.
>>
>>
>>
>> If you would like to add a really workflow automation functionality, then 
>> it make sense to call it not a communication, but a collaboration project 
>> (the software development collaboration is trendyJ)
>
> We would like to be able to provide a framework that was useful for both 
> communications and collaboration/workflow applications.
>
> This team will be able to some of the application-level work to support 
> workflow, but will be looking for other plugin developers/teams to assist 
> with this specifically.
>
>>
>>
>>
>> 1) Do you have an idea about the concrete approaches in the project? Are 
>> there any drafts?
>
> Several of the project team members have work that they've done (building 
> Eclipse plugins) that they can/will be able to contribute.  If you are 
> interested in my own work in this area, feel free to check out: 
> http://www.composent.com/plugins
>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2) How would you like to design the workflows?
>>
>> -         High Level Petri Networks?
>>
>> -         eEPK a la ARIS?
>>
>> -         other methods?
>
> We haven't yet looked closely at high-level models for 
> designing/describing workflows.  We could probably use some assistance 
> with making such selections...if you and/or others are willing to provide 
> input.
>
>>
>>
>>
>> 3) Can you please provide me an example of the workflow functionality?
>
> Ecomm will initially look to provide communications infrastructure for 
> basic workflow...e.g. file transfer, IM/chat, etc.  In the longer term, we 
> hope to integrate some of the communications capabilities with things like 
> EMF (Eclipse Modeling Framework) to allow the creation and sharing of 
> models.  So, for example, in a software development scenario, a system 
> architect might create a UML model of a system and (using ecomm and a 
> defined workflow) have this model transmitted automatically to other team 
> members.  The model could be transformed (using EMF) to present 'views' 
> and capabilities for editing the model appropriate to a given role...e.g. 
> to developers, managers, testers, etc.  Further, as 
> comments/changes/approval/etc were accumulated they could automatically be 
> communicated back to the other interested/relevant team members (again 
> through ecomm-provided communications services).
>
> You asked for an example of supporting workflow...the above isn't a great 
> one, but it's meant to show the value of combining the various pieces 
> which Eclipse provides:  tools integration, user interface integration, 
> ecomm-provided communications services, EMF-provided model creation and 
> transformation.
>
>>
>>
>>
>> After I will get an example, I would like to provide you the information 
>> about the interesting actual topics in the workflow area (adoptive 
>> aspects, ad hoc changes, structure and behaviour analysis). I hope, I can 
>> provide some constructive contribution to the discussion.
>
> Yes, I suspect you can.  Please do provide thoughts/comments.  This area 
> (defining workflows, etc) is a little way off for this project (we've got 
> a number of 'framework' level things to get out and there is some thinking 
> to do about available standards in the area of workflow specifications), 
> but we would certainly welcome ideas about compelling/valuable 'app' level 
> work, existing approaches, relevant technologies, etc.
>
> Scott
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> Good luck,
>>
>> M.H.
>>
>>
>>