openflow-dev

[Openflow-dev] Re: Workflow Standards vs PROforma

[Wayne W. <ww...@um...>]

Andrew po-jung Ho wrote:


>  Even if it is not based on an OMG standard, it _may_ still be a good o=
pen standard.
> (Whether or not it is "open" remains unknown.)
>=20
Pardon me for jumping in here.  But I think Bud has already=20
discovered that the workflow standards space has moved to=20
XML.  I think that is an excellent place to start with an=20
open source implementation.  The critical bits are the=20
inter-system inter operability that are referred to as=20
Interface 4.  The recently completed document is here:

http://www.aiim.org/wfmc/standards/docs/Wf-XML-1.0.pdf

Here is the purpose of this spec:

At a high level, these are the goals of this specification:=20
=B7 Support chained and nested workflows
=B7 Provide for both synchronous and asynchronous interactions=20
=B7 Remain implementation independent
=B7 Define a light, easy-to-implement protocol

  In order to achieve these goals, it is necessary to focus=20
only on the common aspects of workflow implementations,=20
which implies a specification based on data interchange. It=20
is further necessary to describe this data interchange in an=20
open, standards-based fashion that allows for the definition=20
of a structured, robust and customizable communications=20
format. For these reasons, this specification will utilize=20
the Extensible Markup Language (XML) [6] to define the=20
language with which workflow systems will interoperate.

[Openflow-dev] Re: Workflow Standards vs PROforma

[Andrew po-j. H. <and...@eu...>]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 14:41:10   Wayne Wilson wrote:
>Bud P. Bruegger wrote
...
>> Proforma is totally unrelated to workflow 
>> standards 
... 
>>it is mostly concerned with 
>> decision support and much less with actual workflow.
>> 
>Unrelated technically perhaps, but as someone else pointed out, clinical
>decision making can be thought of as a node in a workflow.

I think that was me :-). I would go a step further and point out that any decision making process is a workflow, just like any task.

...
>Exactly the situation, either you can't find any code, or you find really old and
>obsolete systems and standards.

The promise of merging openflow and OIO, it seems to me, is to give extensible data objects to openflow and give time and criteria dependent task management to OIO. As I have been designing the "studies" metadata for OIO, I repeatedly come up with solutions that look exactly like workflow systems. I am sure this is the case in all business and heath information systems. Hopefully, we will be able to come up with a solution that will be sufficiently extensible and interoperable with other "plug-and-play" workflow systems. That is what "open" means in "Open Infrastructure for Outcomes".

What I like about the PROforma system is that it has been designed and applied to the same problem space that OIO seeks to address (medical treatment/research). The big question, however, is whether it is extensible enough to support other applications of workflow (e.g. Bud's Laborary system). Even if it is not based on an OMG standard, it _may_ still be a good open standard. (Whether or not it is "open" remains unknown.)

Bud, do you think it is reasonable to start with PROforma and extend it to serve as a more gereric workflow engine?

How different are PROforma and OpenFlow in terms of the range of workflow that they can model?

How hard would it be to make PROforma interoperate with one of the generic workflow standards?

Thanks,

Andrew
---
Andrew P. Ho, M.D.
OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes
www.TxOutcome.Org
Assistant Clinical Professor
Department of Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
University of California, Los Angeles



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[Openflow-dev] Re: Workflow Standards vs PROforma

[Wayne W. <ww...@um...>]

Bud P. Bruegger wrote


> 
>  From what I've seen, Proforma is totally unrelated to workflow 
> standards by WfMG, OMG, and IETF.  IMHO, it is mostly concerned with 
> decision support and much less with actual workflow.
> 
Unrelated technically perhaps, but as someone else pointed out, clinical
decision making can be thought of as a node in a workflow.  So many of the
pre-conditions to making  a decision can be the result of workflow.
>
> WfMC's Workflow Handbook 2001 
>
Thanks for the history summary, it will save others from trying to prise
apart things and spending too much time looking at things like SWAP, which
have since transformed into XML.
>

> (magi.endeavors.org) 
>
Been there in the past, they are building some kind of peer to peer web enabled
stuff, the primary technology being WEBDAV.  
> 
> The U.S. Army's Joint Computer-aided Acquisition and Logistics Support 
> (JCALS) has is implementing Wf-XML (see 
> http://www.aiim.org/wfmc/pr/army20000615workflowpressrelease.html).  Not 
> open source, though...
> 
Exactly the situation, either you can't find any code, or you find really old and
obsolete systems and standards.

[Openflow-dev] Workflow Standards vs PROforma

[Bud P. B. <bu...@si...>]

>  > I was hoping to find an open standard workflow model, which
>  > seems to be emerging via WfMC and XML.
>  >
>What about the Workflow model within the OMG?  Does this fit?
>How does it fit with Proforma?  Anyone?

 From what I've seen, Proforma is totally unrelated to workflow standards 
by WfMG, OMG, and IETF.  IMHO, it is mostly concerned with decision support 
and much less with actual workflow.

WfMC's Workflow Handbook 2001 
(http://www.aiim.org/wfmc/information/handbook.htm, I just got it today) 
has an article "Workflow Interoperability Standards for the Internet" that 
nicely describes the evolution of standards.   Here a summary:

"WfMC's Workflow Interoparability Standard (Reference Model defined in 
1994) defines an abstract protocol for peer-topeer interaction of workflow 
enatment services, potentially across business domain boundaries."  ... 
"The Coalition has defined a binding of the standard, which uses 
asynchronous interaction via e-mail as the transport, with MIME encoding of 
the information to be exchanged."

"The OMG Workflow Management Facility standard (aka as the jointFlow 
speicification) is based on the WfMC standards." ...  "The OMG workflow 
standard defines a unified object model covering the various WfMG standards 
(except process definition).  This object model provides the base for 
future evolution of the WfMC standards.  The simple workflow access 
protocol (SWAP) initiative [of the IETF,  discontinued before releasing a 
standard] and the Wf-XML message set are examples of this evolution."

[An interesting critique of the two mentioned standards can be found in a 
SWAP paper (6/1/1999 at http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ietfswap/xmlone.html, 
particularly http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ietfswap/xmlone/sld009.htm, 
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ietfswap/xmlone/sld011.htm, and
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ietfswap/xmlone/sld012.htm]

"The SWAP proposal [December 98]attempts to define an Internet-based 
workflow access protocol to instantiate, control, and monitor workflow 
process instances.  SWAP was envisioned as a binding of the jointFlow 
object model and related WfMC standards to an HTTP-based interaction 
protocol [as XML-encoded messages]."  ... "The proposal builds on the 
WebDAV extensions to HTTP to communicate workflow operation 
requests."  SWAP was implemented by several systems (incl. by U.S. Dept. of 
Defense.., IBM, Netscape, Fujitsu).

"The lessons learned from early SWAP implementations led to the initial 
submission of the Wf-XML specification to the WfMC in April 1999.  The 
specification represents the next step in the evolution of the workflow 
interoperability standards."  .. "The WfMC's Wf-XML focuses on a simple 
subset of SWAP for a first version of a standard, with the aim of future 
extension."  ... "...the method of transport for these messages (for 
example, HTTP, e-mail, CORBA, or IIOP) is left to the solution 
providers."  .. "Because of the ubiquitous nature of HTTP, the WfMC has 
specified HTTP as a core transport mechanism for Wf-XML messages." ... ".. 
version 1.0 was [of the Wf-XML standard] was released as an official WfMC 
stanard in May 2000".

There is an e-mail message mentioning an open source implementation of 
Wf-XML  (but nothing visible on the project site):

 From http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-swap/2000Jun/0004.html

<quote>
The Apache-derived Magi Project (magi.endeavors.org) is actively working
on realeasing an installable server, a Wf-XML derived implementation &
parser, a SWAP implementation that leverages our close ties to HTTP and 
WebDAV,
and an embeddable workflow engine--all open source.  Currently you
can download the server and the open MagiDAV implementation.
</quote>

The U.S. Army's Joint Computer-aided Acquisition and Logistics Support 
(JCALS) has is implementing Wf-XML (see 
http://www.aiim.org/wfmc/pr/army20000615workflowpressrelease.html).  Not 
open source, though...

cheers
--bud
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| 58100 Grosseto, Italy
| +39-0564-418667 (voice)
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Re: [Openflow-dev] Re: PROforma papers...

[Bud P. B. <bu...@si...>]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the pointer to the overview paper on PROforma--definitely the 
best of all I've seen.

At 01:24 PM 14-03-01 -0800, Andrew po-jung Ho wrote:
>In summary, PROforma looks promising and not overly complex. It could be a 
>good standard for Openflow and OIO to consider adopting. Since I don't 
>have much experience with workflow systems, I look forward to you, Paolo, 
>and other list member's guidance.


In the following are some thoughts on PROforma and workflow models in 
general.  They are based on a still incomplete understanding of the 
situation, but maybe it can help bring the discussion further.

It seems to me that PROforma is highly specialized and far from a general 
purpose workflow model.  Also, apart from workflow, it deals a lot with 
decision support.  Something that general purpose workflow systems usually 
have but that I didn't find in PROforma (did I miss it?) is a description 
of how work flows withing a group of people.  A typical example in an 
administrative organization would be a document/application/etc. to flow 
between people of different roles, each of whom add their contribution...

PROforma seems so specialized to clinical decision support that I wonder 
whether it would be applicable as a workflow component in a LIMS.

So what workflow model/component to use???  A difficult question.  I looked 
around quite a bit so far and haven't found a single thing that convinces 
me all the way (obviously for my purposes).

On the standard side, I'm not convinced that the WfMC or OMG standards are 
really the way to go  (look at the critique by the former IETF SWAP leader 
that I sent you earlier--I don't think these things have really been 
addressed by WfMG's new wf-XML that does not seem to break with the 
problematic reference model).

I spent quite some time reading agent-technology workflow papers and non of 
these people seems to even look at the WfMG standards.  It seems they use 
petri-nets and similar as models and some use some other process 
description standards (that probably are mostly relevant to manufacturing).

So unless there is a strong need for interoperation with a WfMG standard 
complient external workflow system, I'm not sure wether it's worth the 
effort of adding the effort and complexity that comes with the standard.

Other features that are not standardized seem much more important to 
me.  For example, the possibility to negotiate as it is typical for 
agent-based approaches. (As mentioned in section 8.2 of 
http://www.acl.icnet.uk/PUBLICATIONS/ms364.pdf that you pointed 
out).  Also, a peer-to-peer architecture that allows collaboration and 
scalability way beyond the boundaries of a singe administrative 
control.  Such features seems to be almost incompatible with the current 
standards.

Going to actually available systems, my impression is that there are 
roughly three categories of systems that call themselves "workflow" systems:

1. Task-Management systems such as those used in Ticket tracking and 
help-desk systems.  Their basic entity is a task.  The notion of "flow" 
comes in through the possibility of defining task dependencies.  But this 
is very cumbersome and way too limited for many kinds of workflow needs.

Typically, these systems assign human resources to tasks (who is 
responsible for execution, who created the task), but lack any notion of 
other resources, such as for example documents that "flow" around in the 
work process.  (To be fair, some deal with descriptions of the task coming 
via e-mail etc.--but that's very specialized and not general at all).

2. Workflow systems that model an actual flow of tasks by connecting tasks 
in some kind of a graph.  Most serious workflow systems and the WfMG model 
fall into this category.

There is probably a major difference of how systems deal with resources 
that are relevant to work processes.  All systems probably model human 
resources.  Most systems (but not all) allow you that tasks reference their 
input and output resources.  IMO, the mechanism of referencing resources 
from task makes it difficult to understand the flow of resources 
(documents, data) in the workflow.  I personally believe that models that 
emphasize tasks at the cost of resources can be rather limited in some 
kinds of workflow applications (such as LIMS) where resources (eg. samples 
and specimen in a LIMS) are first class citizens.

3. There seems to be a few workflow systems that model workflow as complete 
graphs and also treat resources as first class citizens.  This was my naive 
idea (before I looked into workflow systems in more detail) of a workflow 
component for a LIMS (see 
http://www.sistema.it/labinfo/single.html#Relationships between Entities) 
but also seems to be used by systems such as PIPER 
(http://bioinformatics.org/piper/) and Khoros 
(http://www.khoral.com/ideas/technology/cantata.pdf).

Piper actually looks VERY interesting but it seems too early to be used 
(still alpha).  Interesting that Piper does not seem to bother about any 
workflow standard.  I suppose that treating resources as first-class 
citizens may be incompatible with the WfMG approach.  (Interesting for the 
OIO folks is that the upper layers of Piper are written in Python).

Another product that may be able to manage workflows is the Narval software 
agent (http://www.logilab.org/narval/).  <quote>Narval is the acronym of 
"Network Assistant Reasoning with a Validating Agent Language". It is a 
personal network assistant based on artificial intelligence and agent 
technologies. It executes recipes (sequences of actions) to perform tasks. 
It is easy to specify a new action using XML and to implement it using 
Python. Recipes can be built and debugged using a graphical 
interface.  </quote>

It has been used to automate some special workflows (eg the translation of 
Linux Gazette to French 
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue59/chauvat.html).  It is written in Python 
and seems to be quite user-friendly and easy to program  (as compared to 
some Java agent systems).  I think it may be worth while to look into 
Narval (and a different paradigm of thinking) to see how that would be 
applicable to workflow in healthcare applications.  My gutt feeling is 
quite positive...

Hope these thoughts are interesting and trigger some discussion.

[I'm not subscribed to the open-outcomes-general list--would you kindly 
copy replies either to ope...@li... or bu...@si...?]

cheers
--bud
/-----------------------------------------------------------------
| Bud P. Bruegger, Ph.D.
| Sistema (www.sistema.it)
| Via U. Bassi, 54
| 58100 Grosseto, Italy
| +39-0564-418667 (voice)
| +39-0564-426104 (fax)
\-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Openflow-dev] related project: work flow tools

[Bud P. B. <bu...@si...>]

Hello there,

I just noted another open source (GPL) workflow project by the IT Lab of 
the Medical University of South Carolina at 
http://www.itlab.musc.edu/workflow/Documentation.html.

cheers
--bud
/-----------------------------------------------------------------
| Bud P. Bruegger, Ph.D.
| Sistema (www.sistema.it)
| Via U. Bassi, 54
| 58100 Grosseto, Italy
| +39-0564-418667 (voice)
| +39-0564-426104 (fax)
\-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: R: [Openflow-dev] OpenFlow Engine 1.0.2 and OpenFlow Designer 0.1 released

[Paolo B. <p.b...@ic...>]

> Michele
> p.s. I would ask when you think will be possible to link documents to
> flows. In my opinion, I think it is a very important step for begginnig to
> use OF (in Public Administrations).
>
P.S.: why don't you post a feature request on sourceforge ? This will help me 
to keep in mind what I have to do.

Many thanks

PAolo


-- 
Paolo Bizzarri
Icube S.r.l.

Re: R: [Openflow-dev] OpenFlow Engine 1.0.2 and OpenFlow Designer 0.1 released

[Paolo B. <p.b...@ic...>]

On Tuesday 13 March 2001 13:02, you wrote:
> Ciao
> I have installed OpenFlow 1.0.2, but if I go in
> /Control_Panel/Products/OpenFlow -panel distribution, I read version 1.0:
> is it OK?

yes. This is because I have not done a distribution, and Zope is proposing an 
initial number.

I am not sure why you got the error. Have you tried with a new installation ?

Try using both OpenFlow 1.0.2 and the OpenFlow editor. So remove the zclasses 
and the extensions, and then reinstall the whole

> p.s. I would ask when you think will be possible to link documents to
> flows. In my opinion, I think it is a very important step for begginnig to
> use OF (in Public Administrations).
>
I agree. In fact, the token that states where the work is in a certain moment 
is already an object manager, so it can contains data more than simply things 
like other documents....

You will see something about this soon (hopefully).

Ciao

Paolo

-- 
Paolo Bizzarri
Icube S.r.l.

[Openflow-dev] Re: PROforma papers...

[Andrew po-j. H. <and...@eu...>]

On Wed, 14 Mar 2001 11:59:28   Bud P. Bruegger wrote:
>Hi Andrew:
>
>I just came about some PROforma papers at 
>http://www.acl.icnet.uk/lab/rtacl_proforma.html.  Did you find a PROforma 
>standard published somewhere?

Hi Bud,
  Excellent detective work!
  A non-enabling specification is here:
  http://www.acl.icnet.uk/lab/proformaspec.html
  The best overview paper is:
  http://www.acl.icnet.uk/PUBLICATIONS/ms364.pdf
  In particular, Section 7 of this paper, "Ongoing challenges", describes some of the weaknesses of PROforma. In addition, it mentions a recently developed XML DTD that describes the task object which may allow us to build a compatible workflow system! I am going to ask John Fox for a copy of that.
  Also in section 8, a new PROforma 2000 specification mainly focusing on interoperability and extensibility is described (mentions just the aims, without much details). It is apparent that these issues are the same ones that the OIO project (and GEHR) have been trying to address. 

In summary, PROforma looks promising and not overly complex. It could be a good standard for Openflow and OIO to consider adopting. Since I don't have much experience with workflow systems, I look forward to you, Paolo, and other list member's guidance.
 
Cheers,

Andrew
---
Andrew P. Ho, M.D.
OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes
www.TxOutcome.Org
Assistant Clinical Professor
Department of Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
University of California, Los Angeles


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Re: [Openflow-dev] relation between openflow and other workflow engines

[Bud P. B. <bu...@si...>]

I found some papers about PROforma online at 
http://www.acl.icnet.uk/lab/rtacl_proforma.html.

cheers
--bud

At 05:35 PM 08-03-01 -0800, Andrew po-jung Ho wrote:
>Hi Paolo,
>
>I am wondering if you could help me understand how Openflow differ (or 
>will differ) from other workflow products like PROforma 
>(www.proformacorp.com).
>
>Is there a standard way of describing "workflow" such that data can be 
>interchanged between workflow engines?
>
>Would Openflow build such a standard?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Andrew
>---
>Andrew P. Ho, M.D.
>OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes
>www.TxOutcome.Org
>Assistant Clinical Professor
>Department of Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
>University of California, Los Angeles
>
>
>Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail 
>account at http://www.eudoramail.com
>
>_______________________________________________
>Openflow-dev mailing list
>Ope...@li...
>http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/openflow-dev

/-----------------------------------------------------------------
| Bud P. Bruegger, Ph.D.
| Sistema (www.sistema.it)
| Via U. Bassi, 54
| 58100 Grosseto, Italy
| +39-0564-418667 (voice)
| +39-0564-426104 (fax)
\-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Openflow-dev] Workflow Interface of a commercial LIMS

[Bud P. B. <bu...@si...>]

Paolo,

Maybe you are interested in how a commercial Laboratory Information 
Management System presents the workflow.  It's similar to Zope's DMTL tree 
tag...  Check it out at 
http://www.labsystems.com/products/nautilus/info/#Workflows and 
http://www.labsystems.com/products/nautilus/nautilus-screenshot.asp?image="./images/nautilus-workflow-big.gif"&desc=Nautilus%20Workflow%20Configuration

cheers
--bud
/-----------------------------------------------------------------
| Bud P. Bruegger, Ph.D.
| Sistema (www.sistema.it)
| Via U. Bassi, 54
| 58100 Grosseto, Italy
| +39-0564-418667 (voice)
| +39-0564-426104 (fax)
\-----------------------------------------------------------------

R: [Openflow-dev] OpenFlow Engine 1.0.2 and OpenFlow Designer 0.1 released

[Zanotti M. <Za...@az...>]

Ciao
I have installed OpenFlow 1.0.2, but if I go in
/Control_Panel/Products/OpenFlow -panel distribution, I read version 1.0: is
it OK?
I ask this because when I import OpenFlow designer (WorkFlowEditor.zexp)I
receive the message: 
"The object WorkFlowEditor does not support this operation"
<!--
Traceback (innermost last):
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\ZPublisher\Publish.py, line 222, in
publish_module
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\ZPublisher\Publish.py, line 187, in
publish
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\Zope\__init__.py, line 221, in
zpublisher_exception_hook
    (Object: Traversable)
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\ZPublisher\Publish.py, line 171, in
publish
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\ZPublisher\mapply.py, line 160, in
mapply
    (Object: manage_importObject)
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\ZPublisher\Publish.py, line 112, in
call_object
    (Object: manage_importObject)
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\OFS\ObjectManager.py, line 561, in
manage_importObject
    (Object: Traversable)
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\OFS\CopySupport.py, line 421, in
_verifyObjectPaste
    (Object: Traversable)
Copy Error: (see above)
-->
(I use Zope 2.3 on win2kpro.)
Can you help me? Thanks
Michele
p.s. I would ask when you think will be possible to link documents to flows.
In my opinion, I think it is a very important step for begginnig to use OF
(in Public Administrations).

[Openflow-dev] OpenFlow Engine 1.0.2 and OpenFlow Designer 0.1 released

[Paolo B. <p.b...@ic...>]

Hi everyone,

as promised, I have released the version 0.1 of the OpenFlow Designer. Even 
if it is largely incomplete, it is useful to specify a simple workflow and to 
try to use the OpenFlow Engine.

The OpenFlow Engine has been upgraded to be used by the designer: this has 
required some modification in the constructor of the ZClasses.

Feedback welcomed.

Ciao

Paolo

-- 
Paolo Bizzarri
Icube S.r.l.

[Openflow-dev] Re: usability of Zopedb for production?

[Paolo B. <p.b...@ic...>]

On Monday 12 March 2001 16:33, you wrote:
> Hi Paolo,
>
> I quickly scanned through Clemente's thesis and it seems that OpenFlow puts
> all data in Zopedb.  I thought Zopedb had the need of requent compacting if
> a lot of data is written (because of the undo support...).  How well is
> ZopeDB suited for a production environment of workflow?
>
> ciao

Good question.

My though is that this could be a minor problem, for three reason:

1) our objective is to put AS LITTE AS POSSIBLE in the workflow itself. We 
should be able to borrow data from our environment. The Zope choice was 
obvious for this.

2) The data itself are the tokens created and moved during the execution of a 
single workflow. This data should be limited.

3) I have really not considered performance/scalability of the whole system. 
My first objective is to have something that can do what we need in terms of 
functionalities. It could be (almost) trivial to implement things using 
something like a SQL db for token/data management. However, first we have to 
understand ho we can maximaze the usage of Zope features insideOpenFlow.

Ciao

Paolo


-- 
Paolo Bizzarri
Icube S.r.l.

[Openflow-dev] Access to the online demo

[Paolo B. <p.b...@ic...>]

Hi everyone,

for accessing the demo, you can use the demo/demo username/password.

It seems to work right for me.

Ciao

Paolo

-- 
Paolo Bizzarri
Icube S.r.l.

Re: [Openflow-dev] Online demo for the OpenFlow Editor (0.1)

[Paolo B. <p.b...@ic...>]

Hi,

> Which are the valid username and password ???

Ok, I see the problem. I have tried to fix it on the fly, but it seems a bit 
tricky.

I will post this evening a first release of the editor, so that each one can 
try by itself. Then I will fix the on-line version.

(P.S.: the online version in ok, but either I give out complete permission to 
the full Zope tree, or I do not know how to make it work.)

Many thanks

Paolo Bizzarri

-- 
Paolo Bizzarri
Icube S.r.l.

Re: [Openflow-dev] Online demo for the OpenFlow Editor (0.1)

[Walter T. <wtr...@ap...>]

Hy Everyone,
thanks to Paolo Bizzarri for your OpenFlow Project.

I try to use "a really incomplete version of the new OpenFlow Editor is
available as a
on-line demo at http://icube.interfree.it/WorkFlowEditor."

But i don't have a valid username and password.

Which are the valid username and password ???

Thanks
Bye  Walter TRABUCCO
Apice s.r.l.
wtr...@ap...

Paolo Bizzarri wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> a really incomplete version of the new OpenFlow Editor is available as a
> on-line demo at http://icube.interfree.it/WorkFlowEditor.
>
> The demo allows the creation of workflows, processes, activities and roles
> inside the processes. The demo do contain many dangling references, so expect
> some strange thing happening now and then.
>
> The interface is brutally copied from the Worfklow Toolkit (wftk) project by
> Michael Roberts, expressely from the mockup. You can find more information on
> the Workflow Toolkit at the homepage http://www.vivtek.com/wftk.html
>
> I will make a release of the package really soon (probabily this afternoon)
> after fixing some more problems.
>
> Ciao
>
> Paolo
>
> --
> Paolo Bizzarri
> Icube S.r.l.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Openflow-dev mailing list
> Ope...@li...
> http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/openflow-dev

Re: [Openflow-dev] Online demo for the OpenFlow Editor (0.1)

[Andrew po-j. H. <and...@eu...>]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2001 12:55:07   Paolo Bizzarri wrote:
>Hi Everyone,
>
>a really incomplete version of the new OpenFlow Editor is available as a 
>on-line demo at http://icube.interfree.it/WorkFlowEditor.
>
>The demo allows the creation of workflows, processes, activities and roles 
>inside the processes. The demo do contain many dangling references, so expect 
>some strange thing happening now and then.

O.K. this one does not work:

http://icube.interfree.it/WorkFlowEditor/processes/roles/data/actions

Also, cannot create new workflow (need password).

Keep going - I think this is a very important step. I could not figure out Openflow before because I was looking for the workflow editor. Now - I see that this may work yet.

Andrew
---
Andrew P. Ho, M.D.
OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes
www.TxOutcome.Org
Assistant Clinical Professor
Department of Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
University of California, Los Angeles


Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com

[Openflow-dev] Online demo for the OpenFlow Editor (0.1)

[Paolo B. <p.b...@ic...>]

Hi Everyone,

a really incomplete version of the new OpenFlow Editor is available as a 
on-line demo at http://icube.interfree.it/WorkFlowEditor.

The demo allows the creation of workflows, processes, activities and roles 
inside the processes. The demo do contain many dangling references, so expect 
some strange thing happening now and then.

The interface is brutally copied from the Worfklow Toolkit (wftk) project by 
Michael Roberts, expressely from the mockup. You can find more information on 
the Workflow Toolkit at the homepage http://www.vivtek.com/wftk.html

I will make a release of the package really soon (probabily this afternoon) 
after fixing some more problems.

Ciao

Paolo

-- 
Paolo Bizzarri
Icube S.r.l.

[Openflow-dev] A first editor for OpenFlow...

[Paolo B. <p.b...@ic...>]

Hi everyone,,

I am currently developing a simple editor for workflow and processes in 
OpenFlow. Hopefully, by the end of the week I will have another component of 
the OpenFlow suite (after the Engine, the Editor).

Ciao

Paolo

-- 
Paolo Bizzarri
Icube S.r.l.

Re: [Openflow-dev] relation between openflow and other workflow engines

[Paolo B. <p.b...@ic...>]

Hi Andrew,

> I am wondering if you could help me understand how Openflow differ (or will
> differ) from other workflow products like PROforma (www.proformacorp.com).
>

I do not not PROforma. I will have to see their site.

> Is there a standard way of describing "workflow" such that data can be
> interchanged between workflow engines?
>

Ok, here is what I know about workflows standard.

There is basically one large standard body on workflows, which is the 
Workflow Management Coalition (www.wfmc.org). They have published numerous 
standard on the workflows, including:

- process description, both in a descriptive language and in XML;

- access to workflow engines;

- access to external applications by workflow engines;

- interoperability standards.

> Would Openflow build such a standard?

The answer is yes. OpenFlow has to provide compliance with existing standards 
like wfmc.

Ciao

Paolo


-- 
Paolo Bizzarri
Icube S.r.l.

[Openflow-dev] relation between openflow and other workflow engines

[Andrew po-j. H. <and...@eu...>]

Hi Paolo,

I am wondering if you could help me understand how Openflow differ (or will differ) from other workflow products like PROforma (www.proformacorp.com). 

Is there a standard way of describing "workflow" such that data can be interchanged between workflow engines?

Would Openflow build such a standard?

Thanks,

Andrew
---
Andrew P. Ho, M.D.
OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes
www.TxOutcome.Org
Assistant Clinical Professor
Department of Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
University of California, Los Angeles


Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com

Re: [Openflow-dev] Prime prove con openflow

[Paolo B. <p.b...@ic...>]

Hi everyone,

Michele Zanotti has posted some questions, unfortunately they are in Ital=
ian.=20
I have translated them for the benefits of everyone.

I hope I have preserved the meaning of the questions.

> 1) Non mi =E8 chiaro se =E8 possibile allegare ad un flusso un document=
o ed il
> senso del link documents presente nella pagina activities.

Question: which is the meaning of the link documents in the activites pag=
e ?

Answer: The document link is a placeholder for the management of document=
s=20
inside OpenFlow. Currently it is not implemented.

> 2) Nelle activities di tipo xor-split =E8 possibile introdurre campi, m=
i =E8
> sembrato che per=F2 il farlo non serva a molto

Question: in the xor-splits it is possible to put some fields, but it is =
not=20
clear their meaning.

Answer: I will check this.

> 3) Una volta che una attivit=E0 arriva al capolinea viene cancellata o
> archiviata?

Question: when a process is completed, the process instance is removed or=
 not=20
?

Answer: OpenFlow currently works with a token concept. When a token passe=
s=20
the last activity of the process, it is placed in an archives folder in t=
he=20
process folder itself.

> 4) Pi=F9 in generale =E8 possibile associare azioni alle azioni? Ad ese=
mpio,
> quando John fa una richiesta a Paul, potrebbe voler tener nota che ha f=
atto
> la richiesta chiamando un metodo di Zope che la registra in un DB.

Question: is it possible to associate a specific action to an activity ? =
like=20
inserting a data inside the DB ?

Answer: no. Currently there is no support for automatic actions. It is in=
 the=20
TODO list.

> 5) E' in qualche modo possibile differenziare commenti e campi inseriti=
 a
> seconda del passo in cui vengono inseriti?

Question: Is it possible to distinguish fields and comments based on the=20
activity during which they are inserted ?

Answer: Currently no, but this shoul be really simple.

>
> Osservo infine che la pressione del bottone suspend mi d=E0 dei problem=
i

The suspend button causes a problem.=20

I will search the problem.

Ciao

Paolo

--=20
Paolo Bizzarri
Icube S.r.l.

[Openflow-dev] Prime prove con openflow

[Zanotti M. <Za...@az...>]

Buongiorno a tutti,
spero che i miei problemi da utente non stonino in una *-dev lista! Mi =
scuso
anche se nell'esporli pecco di superficialit=E0.
Ho provato velocemente l'esempio allegato ad openflow e questo mi =
sembra
abbastanza intuitivo, ho per=F2 dei dubbi.
1) Non mi =E8 chiaro se =E8 possibile allegare ad un flusso un =
documento ed il
senso del link documents presente nella pagina activities.
2) Nelle activities di tipo xor-split =E8 possibile introdurre campi, =
mi =E8
sembrato che per=F2 il farlo non serva a molto se =E8 vero che tali =
activities
servono solo a direzionare il flusso.
3) Una volta che una attivit=E0 arriva al capolinea viene cancellata o
archiviata?
4) Pi=F9 in generale =E8 possibile associare azioni alle azioni? Ad =
esempio,
quando John fa una richiesta a Paul, potrebbe voler tener nota che ha =
fatto
la richiesta chiamando un metodo di Zope che la registra in un DB.
5) E' in qualche modo possibile differenziare commenti e campi inseriti =
a
seconda del passo in cui vengono inseriti?
=20
Osservo infine che la pressione del bottone suspend mi d=E0 dei =
problemi

<!--
Traceback (innermost last):
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\ZPublisher\Publish.py, line 222, =
in
publish_module
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\ZPublisher\Publish.py, line 187, =
in
publish
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\Zope\__init__.py, line 221, in
zpublisher_exception_hook
    (Object: Traversable)
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\ZPublisher\Publish.py, line 162, =
in
publish
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\ZPublisher\BaseRequest.py, line =
370,
in traverse
  File F:\PROGRA~1\ZOPHELE\lib\python\ZPublisher\HTTPResponse.py, line =
548,
in notFoundError
NotFound: (see above)
-->

Grazie a tutti.
Michele

[Openflow-dev] Correction: OpenFlow works with 2.3.0

[Paolo B. <p.b...@ic...>]

Hi everyone,

I have verifyend that OpenFlow works correctly under 2.3.0. I simply had not 
installed the Extensions required.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Ciao

Paolo
-- 
Paolo Bizzarri
Icube S.r.l.