Integrating Stored Data in Business Process Models

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Description

Business processes tend to read and write information stored in databases. Frequently, these databases exist before the business process model is designed and deployed in a commercial Business Process Management System (BPMS), being a challenger how to incorporate the legacy information in the new processes. For this reason, why the companies keep out the business process adaptation, is focused on the complexity to adequate their business objects stored in databases to a model supported by a BPMS.

To ascertain if the data model and the stored data are consistent to the business process model, it is necessary a systematic analysis about what activity modifies the data state, and which is the state of the stored data. It implies to determine the relation between the data objects stored in the database, and the activities that compose the business process that modify the states of them.

In order to verify the data model and the stored data correctness, it is necessary:

  • (a) Enlarge the capacity of description of the data states, being possible to include the constraints that satisfy an object to be in a state.
  • (b) Verify the completeness and consistency of the Data States described in accordance to their relation with the business process model that manages them.
  • (c) Verify the correctness of the business objects stored in the database according to the description of the data states included in the business process model.

To achieve these objectives, we propose a methodology and a set of implemented mechanism to support the data adaptation, from a legacy database to a BPMS based on activity-centric business models. This methodology lets the description of the data object states, and their equivalences with the relational database by means of an Object-Relational Mapping and a Domain Specific Language that facilitate the description of the states. Different algorithms have been developed to verify automatically, the correctness and completeness of the data model. Every steps of the methodology have been implemented as an extension of Activiti™, where the enriched data model and the automatic verification have been included.