Deriving process models for workflow management systems from audit trails

摘要

The present invention relates to the area of workflow management systems (WFMS). More particularly the invention is related to a methodology of automatically deriving and steadily improving a process model executed by the WFMS.;Current methodologies of defining process models are a priori in nature, i.e. it is assumed that the correct process model of a business process to be supported must be specified before workflow technology can be used to execute and control the underlying activities making up the business process.;The current invention dramatically simplifies and automates the process of modeling a business model of a business process. The invention allows to start just with the set of unrelated activities and discover the real world relations between them at a later point in time; data mining and OLAP technologies are exploited for this discovery. The current invention thus proposes a posteriori methodology. For that purpose the precise underlying process model is derived at a later point in time based on audit data collected by the WFMS during the early deployment of a process model.