Workflows

The workflow is the study of the operational aspects of a work activity: how the tasks are structured, how they are carried out, what is their correlative order, how they are synchronized, how the information that supports the tasks flows and how the fulfillment of tasks is monitored.

Generally workflow problems are modeled with Petri nets.

Although the concept of workflow is not specific to information technology, an essential part of software for collaborative work (groupware) is precisely the workflow.

A workflow application automates the sequence of actions, activities or tasks used to execute the process, including monitoring the status of each of its stages and providing the necessary tools to manage it.

Three types of activity can be distinguished:

• Collaborative activities: A group of users work on the same data repository to obtain a common result. The work of each of them has an entity in itself.
• Cooperative activities: A set of users work on their own particular set, establishing the mechanisms of cooperation between them. The work of any of them does not have an entity if it is not seen from the global point of view of the final result.
• Coordination activities.

Objectives of a workflow system

• Reflect, mechanize and automate the methods and organization in the information system.
• Establish the control and monitoring mechanisms of the organizational procedures.
• Independent the method and workflow of the people who execute it.
• Facilitate staff mobility.
• Support business reengineering processes.
• Streamline the information exchange process and streamline decision-making in an organization, company or institution.
• Additionally optimize the service
• Improve knowledge management

How to create a workflow

When we want to create an automated workflow, we must answer three big questions:

1. Who is it? Answering this question allows us to identify the participants, whether they are humans or systems, who complete the different tasks of a workflow.
2. What do they do? This question forces us to identify all the tasks that are relevant to the achievement of the business objective.
3. About what information? This last question helps us define the relevant data that participants need to complete their tasks.