Introduction to Workflow

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Introduction

The Ebase system provides the ability to specify workflow processes. These processes are specified using the Ebase Designer and are then enacted (i.e. executed) by the Ebase Server. The various users of the Ebase Workflow System may view and manage their task lists using separate Ebase applications.

The Ebase documentation includes a number of sections describing the various aspects of the Workflow Management System (WfMS). The sections are as follows:

• Workflow Concepts introduces the general notion of workflow and describes how it is integrated into the rest of the Ebase system.
• Working with Workflow shows in detail how to use the workflow designer tool for creating, testing and enacting workflow processes.
• Workflow Form Integration shows how to add in workflow aspects to a normal Ebase form. Includes a description of all FPL workflow commands.
• Out of the box Tools provides details on the tools included as standard with the WfMS. In particular, this document describes the tasklist application which is the core view of a workflow process available to a user of the WfMS.
• Configuring Workflow shows details on how to configure a particular installation of the WfMS system. This section is targeted at the systems administrator.
• Customising Workflow provides low level details of the mechanisms that are available for customising the operation of the WfMS. For example, this document describes the mechanisms for automating the assignment of activities to particular users of a particular installation of the WfMS. This is a technical section and requires an understanding of Java programming.
• The Workflow API provides programming language details of the external interface to the WfMS. This API allows the creation of specialized tools, if required, in addition to those included with the system. This is also a technical section and requires an understanding of Java programming.
• Workflow Supplied Custom Resources provides details of the supplied custom resources that can be used to access tabular information such as tasks, jobs, audit trail records etc via the workflow API from an Ebase form
• Building your First Workflow Process provides a complete worked example of creating and using a workflow process with the WfMS.