Workflow control-flow patterns : a revised view

Abstract

The Workflow Patterns Initiative was established with the aim of delineating\nthe fundamental requirements that arise during business process modelling on a\nrecurring basis and describe them in an imperative way. The first deliverable of\nthis research project was a set of twenty patterns describing the control-flow perspective of workflow systems. Since their release, these patterns have been widely\nused by practitioners, vendors and academics alike in the selection, design and\ndevelopment of workflow systems [vdAtHKB03]. This paper presents the first\nsystematic review of the original twenty control-flow patterns and provides a\nformal description of each of them in the form of a Coloured Petri-Net (CPN)\nmodel. It also identifies twenty three new patterns relevant to the control-flow\nperspective. Detailed context conditions and evaluation criteria are presented for\neach pattern and their implementation is assessed in fourteen commercial offerings including workflow and case handling systems, business process modelling\nformalisms and business process execution languages.