The present report introduces the reader to the workflow topic and illustrates the process of building a workflow management system with Java based technologies. The workflow and business process management systems take a formal description of business processes (process definition) as an input. This formal description is usually written in a process definition language and maintains the state of instances of the mentioned process.
Workflow Management System in Java Environment
The business problem that the system in this degree project solves is the management of
claims in an insurance company. Each claim is an instance of the process definition. The
claims are submitted by the costumers and every claim follows a process depending on its attributes. The process has states and in every state there is a user with a task to carry out. When the user finishes his task, the system makes the instance to flow to the next state and generates the task for the next user.
The solution chosen for the system is the development of a sever side application embedding a middleware workflow framework. The server side application will follow the model-view-controller paradigm using Java Server Pages (JSP) and Java Server Faces technologies for the view and Java Beans for the logic in the model.
The data in the model is provided by the workflow framework which uses a database for storing the information. The framework that will be used is the JBoss jBPM. jBPM is an open source framework which provides support and documentation and a graphical process designer for Eclipse and also a starter’s kit with a pre-configured JBoss server ready to use.
The application will be used via the browser. It provides an identification login page and
when the user involved in the claim process is logged in it will show a list with the
outstanding tasks of this user. The user can click on one task and the form of this task will be open letting the user complete it.
When a task is completed it disappears from the list. The costumers can register themselves in the system. When a costumer logs in he will see the different claim forms and he can choose one for filling in. When the costumer submits the claim a new instance of the process is created and a task for the user in the first state is generated. The system has an administrator that can manage the users and also the claim instances and tasks.
This project has as a goal to transfer the theoretical benefits of the use of workflows and business process management into a real problem. At the end of the project with this system the insurance claim process will be automated. The project can also be used to guide in the process of construction a Java based workflow management system.
Source: Kristianstad University
Author: Ángel Rodríguez García