A workflow management system (WfMS or WFMS) provides an infrastructure for the set-up, performance, and monitoring of a defined sequence of tasks arranged as a

workflow application A workflow application is a software application that automates, to at least some degree, a process or processes. The processes are usually business-related but can be any process that requires a series of steps to be automated via software. Some s ...

International standards

There are several international standards-setting bodies in the field of

workflow management Workflow is a generic term for orchestrated and repeatable patterns of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information. It can be depicted as a sequen ...

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Workflow Management Coalition Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) was a consortium formed to define standards for the interoperability of workflow management systems. The coalition was disbanded in 2019 and no longer exists. History The Coalition was founded in May 1993 wi ...

* World Wide Web Consortium * Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards * WS-BPEL 2.0 (integration-centric) and WS-BPEL4People (human task-centric), published by the OASIS Standards Body. The underlying theoretical basis of workflow management is the mathematical concept of a

Petri net A Petri net, also known as a place/transition net (PT net), is one of several mathematical modeling languages for the description of distributed systems. It is a class of discrete event dynamic system. A Petri net is a directed bipartite graph t ...

. Each of the workflow models has tasks (nodes) and dependencies between the nodes. Tasks are activated when the dependency conditions are fulfilled.

Workflows for people

WfMS allows the user to define different workflows for different types of jobs or processes. For example, in a manufacturing setting, a design document might be automatically routed from a designer to a technical director to the production engineer. At each stage in the workflow, one individual or group is responsible for a specific task. Once the task is complete, WfMS ensures that the individuals responsible for the next task are notified and receive the data they need to execute their stage of the process. Workflows can also have more complex dependencies; for example, if a document is to be translated into several languages, a translation manager could select the languages and each selection would then be activated as a work order form for a different translator. Only when all the translators have completed their respective tasks would the next task in the process be activated. It is process management from the top level to the lower level. WfMS also automates redundant tasks and ensures that uncompleted tasks are followed up. A key standard that deals with human tasks in workflows is the WS-BPEL4People Standard by the OASIS Standards Body.

Automated workflows

WfMS may control automated processes in addition to replacing paperwork order transfers. For example, if the above design documents are now available as AutoCAD but the workflow requires them as Catia, then an automated process would implement the conversion prior to notifying the individual responsible for the next task. This is the concept of enterprise application integration. WfMS also appears in distributed IT environments such as

grid computing Grid computing is the use of widely distributed computer resources to reach a common goal. A computing grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve many files. Grid computing is distinguished fro ...

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

. Such systems aim to manage the execution of various processes that may belong to the same application while in many cases they are used as a means to guarantee the offered

quality of service Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, such as a telephony or computer network, or a cloud computing service, particularly the performance seen by the users of the network. To quantitat ...

(QoS).An innovative workflow mapping mechanism for Grids in the frame of Quality of Service, WfMS may also be enhanced by using existing enterprise infrastructure such as Microsoft Outlook or Office 365.

Functional categorization

Workflow systems can be categorized in the following categories based on their functionalities: * Integration-centric workflow systems * Human task-centric workflow systems * XCFG

List of notable WfMS

* Activiti *

Apache ODE Apache ODE (Apache Orchestration Director Engine) is a software coded in Java (programming language), Java as a workflow engine to manage business processes which have been expressed in the Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL ...

Apache Taverna Apache Taverna was an open source software tool for designing and executing workflows, initially created by the myGrid project under the name ''Taverna Workbench'', then a project under the Apache Software Foundation incubator. Taverna allowed use ...

Apache Airflow Apache Airflow is an open-source workflow management platform for data engineering pipelines. It started at Airbnb in October 2014 as a solution to manage the company's increasingly complex workflows. Creating Airflow allowed Airbnb to programm ...

Appian Appian of Alexandria (; ; ; ) was a Greek historian with Roman citizenship who prospered during the reigns of the Roman Emperors Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. He was born c. 95 in Alexandria. After holding the senior offices in the pr ...

* Bizagi * Bonita BPM *

Camunda Camunda is a process orchestration platform used to control complex business processes for enterprise companies. The software is classified by specialist media as a business process automation tool or digital process automation software and ther ...

CEITON CEITON is a web-based software system for facilitating and automating business processes such as planning, scheduling, and payroll using workflow technologies. The system is used by several media companies such as MDR, Yle, RAI and Red Bull Media ...

* Collective Knowledge *

Cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

* IBM BPM *

Imixs-Workflow Imixs Workflow is an open-source project, providing technologies for building Business Process Management solutions. The project focus on human based workflows used to execute and control workflows in organisations and enterprises. In difference t ...

Kissflow Kissflow is a private software company specializing in providing a low-code and no-code development platform to help enterprises automate internal business processes. The company operates as a platform-as-a-service. History Kissflow was fo ...

QuickBase Quickbase, Inc., is a software company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts spun off from Intuit in March 2016. In January 2019, Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm, acquired a majority stake in Quickbase from Welsh, Carson, Anderson ...

jBPM jBPM (Java Business Process Model) is an open-source workflow engine written in Java that can execute business processes described in BPMN 2.0 (or its own process definition language jPDL in earlier versions). jBPM is a toolkit for building bus ...

* PRPC *

ProActive Proactivity or proactive behavior refers to self-initiated behavior that endeavours to solve a problem before it has occurred. Proactive behavior involves acting in advance of a future situation, rather than reacting. It refers to taking control ...

Pyrus Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in late summer into mid-autumn. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the family Rosaceae, bearing the pomaceous fruit of the sa ...

* Qntrl *

RedBooth Redbooth (formerly Teambox) is a web-based workplace collaboration tool and communication platform. History Redbooth was previously known as Teambox Technologies S.L., which was founded in 2008 and continued to serve commercial and free hostin ...

Workflow Management *

Salesforce.com Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, and appl ...

Process Workflow *

ServiceNow ServiceNow, Inc. is an American software company based in Santa Clara, California, that supplies a cloud computing platform for the creation and management of automated business workflows. It is used predominantly for the automation of informati ...

Platform *

SAP Sap is a fluid transported in the xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a s ...

Business Workflow *

Windows Workflow Foundation Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is a Microsoft technology that provides an API, an in-process workflow engine, and a rehostable designer to implement long-running processes as workflows within .NET applications. The latest version of WF was re ...

YAWL A yawl is a type of boat. The term has several meanings. It can apply to the rig (or sailplan), to the hull type or to the use which the vessel is put. As a rig, a yawl is a two masted, fore and aft rigged sailing vessel with the mizzen mast ...

ActivityBuilt-in WfMS as part of the function

References

{{Authority control Workflow technology