Information flow control for workflow management systems

2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bauereiß ◽  
Dieter Hutter

AbstractWorkflow management plays an important role in analyzing and automating business processes. Security requirements in workflow management systems are typically mapped to (role-based) access control configurations. This paper focuses on information flow control, taking into account implicit information leaks. The presented approach operates on a specification level in which no executable program is available yet. We illustrate the modeling of a workflow management system as a composition of state-event systems, each representing one of the activities of the workflow. This facilitates distributed deployment and eases verification by splitting up the verification of the overall system into verification of the individual components. Confidentiality requirements are modeled in terms of information flow predicates using the MAKS framework and verified following existing decomposition methodologies, which are adapted for open systems with ongoing user interaction. We discuss the interaction with other security requirements, notably separation of duty.

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-20
Author(s):  
John Ndeta ◽  
Stamatia A. Katriou ◽  
Kerstin V. Siakas

Abstract In today’s highly competitive and rapidly changing environment, e-businesses constantly have to modify their business processes, i.e. the flow of documents and tasks in a business also known as workflow. More flexible Workflow Management Systems are required to support these constantly changing processes. In this research a platform independent architecture for the design of e-workflow systems is illustrated. The architecture includes an information pool, namely a Workflow Pattern Repository, which contains patterns, which are repeatable solutions to reoccurring problems, in order to make the system more apt to change and assist the workflow designer/user in defining workflows faster and more accurately. The patterns in the repository are in the form of UML activity diagram templates. A straightforward input format for storing patterns in the repository is provided along with an example of its practical application.


2012 ◽  
Vol 601 ◽  
pp. 401-405
Author(s):  
Wen Bo Zhou ◽  
Shu Zhen Yao

The degree of flexibility of workflow management systems heavily influences the way business processes are executed. Constraint-based models are considered to be more flexible than traditional models because of their semantics: everything that does not violate constraints is allowed. More and more people use declarative languages to define workflow, such as linear temporal logic. But how to guarantee the correctness of the model based on the linear temporal logic is still a problem. This article proposes a way to verify the model based on Büchi automaton and gives the corresponding algorithms. Thus the verification of declarative workflow based on the linear temporal logic is solved.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Gordana Milosavljevic ◽  
Goran Sladic ◽  
Branko Milosavljevic ◽  
Miroslav Zaric ◽  
Stevan Gostojic ◽  
...  

Workflow management systems (WfMS) are used to automate and facilitate business processes of an enterprise. To simplify the administration, it is a common practice in many WfMS solutions to allocate a role to perform each activity of the process and then assign one or more users to each role. Typically, access control for WfMS is role-based with a support of constraints on users and roles. However, merely using role and constraints concepts can hardly satisfy modern access control requirements of a contemporary enterprise. Permissions should not solely depend on common static and dynamic principles, but they must be influenced by the context in which the access is requested. In this paper, we focus on the definition and enforcement of the context-sensitive constraints for workflow systems. We extended the common role-based constraints listed in literature with context-sensitive information and workflow specific components. Also, we propose a mechanism for enforcing such constraints within WfMS.


2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (03n04) ◽  
pp. 481-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
WEIGANG WANG ◽  
KEVIN FINCH ◽  
JESSICA RUBART ◽  
JOERG M. HAAKE

Due to the separation of project management systems and workflow management systems, there is a gap between project plans and process support used to implement them. Often, managers could not see what was going on in their businesses until it was too late to react. In this paper, a cooperative hypermedia approach and an integration framework are developed to provide an integrated support for project planning, workflow management, information management and teamwork. The cooperative hypermedia-based process model has many desirable computational properties. The cooperative hypermedia tools built on this model can support distributed project teams to create, analyze, execute, monitor and adapt a project plan cooperatively. Case studies and user experiences of the cooperative hypermedia system demonstrate that the cooperative hypermedia approach can facilitate team members to identify emerging problems, to discuss and adapt the plan cooperatively. It is a promising approach to bridge the gap between project management and workflow management systems so as to support flexible business processes of real-time project teams.


2010 ◽  
Vol 426-427 ◽  
pp. 343-347
Author(s):  
Rui Wang

Workflow management systems (WFMS) are complex distributed systems, which are geared for the orchestration of business processes across multiple organizations. In order to adapt to the heterogeneous, distributed and dynamic environment, we propose a goal-oriented active service model. The model is designed to support organizational coevolution for providing workflow services. This paper reviews the introduction and motivation for active service approach, discusses the technologies used in active service, which represents steps towards the end goal of building virtual service group and organizational coevolutionary(COE) algorithm.


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dragan Misic ◽  
Dragan Domazet ◽  
Miroslav Trajanovic ◽  
Miodrag Manic ◽  
Milan Zdravkovic

Business processes managed by information systems rarely operate according to the pre defined scenario. Exceptions to the pre defined workflows occur frequently. This especially applies to the production processes, which are very complex and require a constant human involvement. Workflow management systems should be capable of responding adequately to the exceptions caused by the process environment. Moreover, the response should be automatic, if possible, i.e. the workflow should automatically adapt to the new situation, or otherwise, the system administrator should be informed, so that he could take appropriate actions. This paper presents workflow management system MD, which is capable of offering a satisfying solution to the detected exceptions.


Author(s):  
ROSSELLA AIELLO ◽  
ANTONIO ESPOSITO ◽  
GIANCARLO NOTA

The problem of performance evaluation of business processes supported by Workflow Management Systems is a recent research issue. In this paper we propose a measurement framework in which several aspects concerning the timing and working of a business process, either as a whole or in terms of its components, can be precisely quantified. Our approach is based on the workflow model introduced by the Workflow Management Coalition and introduces some fundamental measures from which a number of derived measures can be hierarchically obtained. The paper describes the basic structures and the primitive operators of the framework as well as the fundamental and derived measures. Techniques for the evaluation of complex processes are also discussed. The proposed framework is quite general and can be applied to research and commercial workflow management systems with relatively little implementation effort.


Author(s):  
John Ndeta ◽  
Stamatia-Ann Katriou ◽  
Kerstin Siakas

In today’s highly competitive and rapidly changing environment, e-businesses constantly have to modify their business processes, i.e. the flow of documents and tasks in a business also known as workflow. More flexible Workflow Management Systems are required to support these constantly changing processes. In this research a platform independent architecture for the design of e-workflow systems is illustrated. The architecture includes an information pool, namely a Workflow Pattern Repository, which contains patterns, which are repeatable solutions to reoccurring problems, in order to make the system more apt to change and assist the workflow designer/user in defining workflows faster and more accurately. The patterns in the repository are in the form of UML activity diagram templates. A straightforward input format for storing patterns in the repository is provided along with an example of its practical application.  


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