TimeAware BPM Systems Manfred Reichert Institute of Databases
Time-Aware BPM Systems Manfred Reichert Institute of Databases and Information Systems Ulm University manfred. reichert@uni-ulm. de June 3, 2019 Challenges, Foundations, Time Patterns Manfred Reichert, Andreas Lanz, Barbara Weber Celebrating 20 yrs BPMDS @ CAi. SE 2019 Image by www. sxc. hu, saavem
v 1. 0 Page 2 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Introduction ent of m t n i o p p A tment a e r t m perfor tivity c a y b d fixe tment n i o p p make a Activity patient e r a p T e im r p e Lag de on cbuete e t w x e e en b p ly can on reparb n e e e p w t a e t i s e y nt a d g a in work nd 4 oprm df nr 8 am pae m treat ment needs to be exact ly one day
v 1. 0 Page 3 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Introduction Activit y prepa re tr e takes at leas atment t 1 hou r Activity prepare treatment can be executed at most 3 hours before perform treatment
v 1. 0 Page 4 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Introduction Analysis & Design Specification of time perspective • High expressiveness • Relation to other process perspectives (Data) • Soundness (Executability)
v 1. 0 Page 5 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Introduction Executing and monitoring time-aware process instances • Monitoring • Predicting execution times • Predicting and detecting critical situations • Ensuring efficiency
v 1. 0 Page 6 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Introduction Dynamic Adaptation and Evolution Dynamic changes of time-aware process instances • Structural and temporal changes • Preserving correctness and executability • Ensuring efficiency
v 1. 0 Page 7 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Introduction Modelling & Design Execution Dynamic Adaptation and Evolution
v 1. 0 Page 8 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Introduction Research Questions 1. What is required to model time-aware processes? 2. How can the executability of a time-aware process model be verified? 3. How to monitor and 4. How can time-aware process instances be re-check executability dynamically during run time? adapted?
v 1. 0 Page 9 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Modeling Time-Aware Processes Question 1: What is required to model time-aware processes? • No common understanding of time constraints in processes • Each approach defines its own set of time constraints • Not validated! • No common semantics!
v 1. 0 Page 10 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Research Method Criteria Requirements: • High coverage of real-world scenarios • Generic and precise • Covering temporal aspects relevant for • All patterns variants must be considered process modeling and control • Interactions with control flow Identification • Impact of process instance data • ~ 400 processes • Independent of any process modeling language analyzed Identification • Derive pattern • Large set of process models and process semantics of each descriptions from different domains • ~ 270 processes analyzed pattern variant. Systematic Literature Review • ~ 10. 000 hits • 73 primary papers - A. Hevner and S. Chatterjee. Design Research in Information Systems, Springer. 2010. - B. Kitchenham and S. Charters. Guidelines for performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering, TR, 2007.
v 1. 0 Page 11 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Process Time Patterns - Andreas Lanz, Barbara Weber, and Manfred Reichert. Workflow time patterns for process-aware information systems. In 11 th International Workshop, BPMDS 2010, pages 94 -107, 2010. - Andreas Lanz, Barbara Weber, and Manfred Reichert. Time patterns for process-aware information systems. Requirements Engineering, 2013.
v 1. 0 Page 12 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Process Time Patterns – Formal Foundations • Temporal execution traces • Event-based process representation Temporal Execution Trace - Andreas Lanz, Barbara Weber, and Manfred Reichert. A Formal Semantics of Time Patterns for Process-aware Information Systems. Technical Report UIB-2013 -02, Ulm University, 2013. - Andreas Lanz, Barbara Weber, and Manfred Reichert. Process Time Patterns: A Formal Foundation. Information Systems, 2016
v 1. 0 Page 13 Process Time Patterns – Practical Relevance
v 1. 0 Page 14 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Process Time Support Features Time Patterns Time Support Features Language Requirements 1) Analysis & Design 2) Configuration LR 1: Temporal Specification F 1. 1: Modeling Support F 2. 1: Parameterization LR 2: Time Constraint Types F 1. 2: Verification LR 3: Time Constraint Configuration Context F 1. 3: Validation LR 4: Time Constraint Configuration Time F 1. 4: Implication Analysis LR 5: Execution Semantics F 1. 5: Simulation LR 6: Specification of Escalation Mechanism LR 7: Specification of Temporal Exception Handling LR 8: Scheduling Advice 3) Instantiation F 3. 1: Configuration F 3. 2: Executability Checking / Validation F 3. 3: Blocking 4) Enactment F 3. 4: Deferred Start F 4. 1: Monitoring 5) Diagnosis F 4. 2: Run Time Validation F 5. 1: Mining F 4. 3: Run Time (Re-) Configuration F 5. 2: Data History F 4. 4: Delayed Execution F 5. 3: Congestion / Bottleneck Detection F 4. 5: Prediction / Look Ahead F 5. 4: Optimizing process schemas F 4. 6: Notification F 5. 5: Risk Analysis F 4. 7: Escalation F 4. 8: Temporal Exception Handling F 4. 9: Run Time Adaptation F 4. 10: Manual Scheduling F 4. 11: Automatic Scheduling Support F 4. 12: Logging Configuration Settings 6) Evolution F 6. 1: Schema Evolution F 6. 2: Refactoring
v 1. 0 Page 15 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Executability of Time-Aware Processes Is it possible to execute a time-aware process model without violating any of its time constraints? Is it possible to execute a time-aware process model for all possible durations of its activities and any possible execution path without violating any of its time constraints or requiring any a priori knowledge about the execution ? à Question 2: How can the executability of a time-aware process model be verified?
v 1. 0 Page 16 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Executability of Time-Aware Processes Question 2: How can the executability of a time-aware process model be verified? • Challenges: • Complex interdependencies between time constraints
v 1. 0 Page 17 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Executability of Time-Aware Processes Question 2: How can the executability of a time-aware process model be verified? • Challenges: • Complex interdependencies between time constraints • Alternative execution paths lead to different temporal properties
v 1. 0 Page 18 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Executability of Time-Aware Processes Question 2: How can the executability of a time-aware process model be verified? • Challenges: • Complex interdependencies between time constraints • Alternative execution paths lead to different temporal properties • Activity durations are bound but uncontrollable Actual Duration Activity atment e r t m perfor and 4 1 n e e w t takes be 1 h hours Time Actual Duration 4 h Cannot be influenced by the system!
v 1. 0 Page 19 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Executability of Time-Aware Processes Question 2: How can the executability of a time-aware process model be verified? • Challenges: • • Complex interdependencies between time constraints Alternative execution paths lead to different temporal properties Activity durations are contingent Durations are often specified with a reasonable margin for delays Normal case Actual Duration 1 h Time “Worst case” Actual Duration"Flexible" Duration 4 h May be “influenced” Cannot be influenced by the system!
v 1. 0 Page 20 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Executability of Time-Aware Processes Question 2: How can the executability of a time-aware process model be verified? • Challenges: • • Complex interdependencies between time constraints Alternative execution paths lead to different temporal properties Activity durations are contingent Durations are often specified with a reasonable margin for delays Conditional Simple Temporal Network with Uncertainty (CSTNU)* * [Hunsberger et al. , 12]
v 1. 0 Page 21 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Conditional Simple Temporal Network with Uncertainty (CSTNU)* timepoint variables requirement constraint contingent constraint * [Hunsberger et al. , 12]
v 1. 0 Page 23 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Process Time Model Process Model Mapping: Process Model CSTNU [Hunsberger et al. ] Activity Time Lags Process Time Model • • Fixed Date Restricted constraints Derived interdependencies XOR Split XOR Join - Andreas Lanz, Roberto Posenato, Carlo Combi, and Manfred Reichert. Controllability of time-aware processes at run time. In 21 st International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems, Coop. IS'13, pages 39 --56. Springer, 2013.
v 1. 0 Page 24 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Enactment of Time-aware Processes Question 3: How to monitor and re-check executability during run time? Executing and monitoring time-aware process instances • Monitoring • Predicting execution times • Predicting and detecting critical situations • Ensuring efficiency
v 1. 0 Page 25 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Dynamic Changes Question 4: How can time-aware process instances be dynamically adapted? The p ati hypert ent has e to do a nsion, we n exami addition ed al natio n. Dynamic changes of time-aware process instances • Structural and temporal changes • Ensuring correctness and executability • Ensuring efficiency Andreas Lanz and Manfred Reichert. Dealing with changes of time-aware processes. In Proc BPM'14, pages 217 -233. Springer, 2014. .
v 1. 0 Page 26 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Dynamic Changes
v 1. 0 Page 27 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Proof of Concept Implementation Modeling Time-Aware Processes Verifying Executability Analyzing the Time Model Executing Time-Aware Processes - Andreas Lanz and Manfred Reichert. Enabling time-aware process support with the ATAPIS toolset. In Proc. BPM'14 Demo Track, 2014.
v 1. 0 Page 28 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Summary • Dynamic Changes • Approximation of Effects • Time Patterns & Formal Semantics • Executability • Run Time Model • Execution Strategy
v 1. 0 Page 29 Time-Aware BPM Systems | BPMDS 2019 | Manfred Reichert Thanks to Andreas Lanz!
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