Business processes exhibit concurrent execution, where differentand sometimes inter-dependent parts, are isolated and run in parallel.In current workflow tools, this requirement is supported through asynchronisation mechanism allowing for the convergence of parallel pathsof execution. In this paper we argue that more sophisticated forms ofinter-process communication are necessary for increased workflowautomation. In particular three extensions which preserve theparallelisation of execution paths are proposed: the adaption ofsynchronous and asynchronous messaging for data/document flow acrossexecution paths, aborts of related execution paths, and exclusive, i.e.atomic, execution of nested processes. Illustrations from an industrialcase study show how these constructs combine with classical workflowconstructs to capture complex but common themes of business processing.To precisely impart the ramifications for workflow execution, we showhow a formal semantics can be assigned for the constructs
展开▼