The emergence of workflow ideas and technologies

Before we tell the workflow, let's start by talking about the emergence of process management ideas and process technologies.

1. Why is the process thought

The emergence of a new technology is certainly not accidental but a lot of factors to make it inevitable, so what makes process technology appear? The main problem is the enterprise operation, there are two main problems:

The first problem: the market competition, from "Feeding frenzy" transition to "fast fish eat slow fish." (Nokia-Android)

How to say that, before we know that the bigger the enterprise can develop, and the faster the development, but from the acquisition of Nokia instance, we can not be difficult to see, the competition is not the previous competition mechanism, has been from the previous scale to survive into the current rely on advanced management technology and advanced business technology (mobile phone business flexibility and user experience), that is, whose business can give users the best choice, then who can win the market.

The second problem: with the rapid expansion of enterprises, the traditional rough management makes enterprises become bloated and gradually lose competitiveness.

What does that say? Traditional rugged management For example, if we want to fill in the application for the scholarship, then we must fill in the application form to the teacher, when we have all the things completed after we have to go to the teacher so audit, the teacher must be handed over to the upper level after the audit, may eventually be finalized by the headmaster final opinion, So we have to run every step of the way (it may be possible for more than one application to be dismissed); we can see that this efficiency is very low, if some things we need to deal with, can imagine this process is how complex and time-consuming?

On the basis of the above problems, the idea of process management emerges to address the rapidly changing market environment. And combing the business process, from the rough management to the refinement of management change. (Divide and conquer).

2. Process technology--to implement the idea on the ground

The production of technology is not from a thin air, but in a variety of ideas generated under the collision, tells the process of the emergence of ideas so to introduce what is the process, and what technology, and in practice, and how to quote?

? Definition of the process

The first popular definition: The process of doing things in a methodical and sequential way is the process.

For example, we set up the following process as an example of a new function in our existing system.

　　　　

The second is our definition: a process is a sequence of activities in a sequence of events (3 control structures).

　　　　

We granular our business nodes, each node in the process is equivalent to the particle pool, there is no necessary practice, through the configuration of the workflow to make the various business related, of course, the Order of the association is not certain, according to their own needs to see. The operation of an enterprise or an organization is essentially a process in which many of its business processes run.

? So what's the workflow?

Definition: Workflow (Workflow), which refers to "automation of part or whole of a business process in a computer environment". is an abstract, generalized description of the business rules between the workflow and its various operational steps. In a computer, a workflow is part of a computer-supported collaborative effort (CSCW). The latter is a general study of how a group can work together with the help of a computer.

The main problem for a workflow is to implement a business goal by using a computer to automatically pass documents, information, or tasks between multiple participants according to a predetermined rule.

? Two common process models

The first type of business flow

　　　　

Follow the business to perform the configuration and display of the next page

Second approval flow

　　　　

? The core of the process engine

The core lies in two aspects: event-driven (process automation), control business logic.

In layman's terms, there is no need for people to remember what to do, as long as the process switch once opened, the rest of the event triggers do not need human processing, are the process engine to do.

? Benefits

　　　　The first aspect: decoupling: Business implementation-business logic;

Because the workflow is open is two threads, the implementation of the business and business execution logic can be hung on the above two threads, the workflow if the thread than do a pipe, then when the water flow from inside the pipe flow, we one by one of the business implementation of a small funnel will be hanging on the pipeline, only after the funnel is filled, At this point the thread of the workflow must stop, that is, into the sleep phase, and then when our small funnel executes, the thread is woken up and executed, so that our business logic for the implementation and execution of our operations is separated and made easy for us to implement.

　　　　

This will not affect anything even if we modify the execution logic.

　　　　The second aspect: reuse (process, forms);

How do you say that? When we do the approval, we know that we can actually think of it as a page, but different display according to different permissions, so that the form is reused, the same leave and application process is basically consistent, so if we establish a process definition, then we can execute different process instances.

The process definition and process examples are mentioned here, so how do we explain this?

Process definition: Modeling and describing a process, that is, creating a process template.

Process example: The execution instance of a process definition, that is, one execution of a complete process.

　　　　A third aspect: more object-oriented;

　　　　

Each node in the process is equivalent to a particle pool, there is no necessary connection, through the configuration of the workflow to make the various business related, of course, the Order of the association is not certain, according to their own needs.

　　　　The fourth aspect: more flexible business

　　　　

The order of execution of logic is arbitrarily configured, not fixed, it is said that the workflow is not related to the business, as long as the corresponding configuration in order to configure, there is no business association.

3. Summary

An abstraction of the development of information technology, which solves the problem of automation of the process. From the close (process-oriented) to the sub (encapsulation) to the close (purposeful association) "from decoupling---to----> higher, purposeful coupling".

The emergence of workflow ideas and technologies