Deputy Mechanism for Workflow Views

Adapted from the concept of views in databases, workflow views are derived from workflows as a fundamental support for workflow inter-operability and visibility by external parties in a e-service environment. However, until now there are few works focusing on its realization mechanism, i.e. the communication between views and their source entities. In this paper, we extend the object deputy model to the workflow deputy model supporting the interaction of workflow views in a systematic way. In this workflow deputy model, we formally specify the deputy class and the deputy algebra for workflow classes. According to the process meta-model of XPDL, deputy operations are defined for each kind of workflow component class specifically. Based on this deputy mechanism, workflow views are presented in forms of deputy classes. Lastly, several modeling issues are discussed.