Building Virtual Warehouses using Workflows and the Web

Whereas the Web has been growing at a rapid rate to become a global information source, Workflow management systems (WFMSs) are gaining popularity as a tool to automate business processes. The number of companies adopting the Web as a platform for conducting their daily business activities and for electronic commerce is expected to sharply increase. Hence, there is a need for developing WFMSs that address the requirements of conducting business over the Web and making efficient use of Web technology. In this paper, we discuss how the technology developed for workflows can be applied to meet the needs of electronic commerce applications over the Web. We also show how the same technology can be used to build virtual warehouses from information sources available on the Web. As an example of this we show how the various types of information needed for intelligent decision making by an investor in stocks can be automatically gathered and presented to a user using workflow techniques.