Distributed workflow management systems in electronic tourism marketplace

1
Distributed workflow management systems in
electronic tourism marketplace

• Riina Henriksson
• 9.12.2005

2
Characteristics of E-Tourism

• Tourism product
• Tourism value chain
• Infrastructure of Tourism ICT

3
Service-level interoperability

• Business process compatibility
• interoperability in integrated value chains is
  achieved at the workflow and business process
  level
• Adaptability of business process
• distributed workflow management systems must
  support dynamic changes in the underlying process
  model
• Support for business transactions
• business transactions are based on the business
  agreements

4
Workflow related terminology

• A process, typically a business process, is a
  collection of tasks organized into a graph.
• A task is an atomic work item. 
• A service implements a task and may be
  implemented. 
• An actor is a human or machine that performs a
  task by fulfilling a service. 
• A role abstracts a set of tasks. 
• A workflow is an instance of a process that binds
  and consumes resources in fulfilling the tasks of
  a process

5
Workflow states and state transitions
Suspended
Terminated
Terminate / Abort
Restart
Iterate through all active activities
Suspend/ Resume
Start
Running
Active
Initiated
Restart
(1 or more activity instances)
Completed
6
Interoperation among workflows
7
Limitations of traditional workflow technology

• control and data flows are specified from a
  logically central perspective
• workflows are constructed prior to use and are
  enforced by some central authority
• dynamic requirements are not included into the
  workflow model

8
Distributed workflow systems

• Traditional workflows management systems are
  inefficient for flexible support of
  cross-enterprise relationships
• Next generation workflow systems -
  Inter-Enterprise Workflow Systems
• ability to thread together cross-organizational
  business processes
• focus mainly on interactions at the business
  process layer

9
customer info
Register Customer
Registration process
Need visa, customer ID
customer ID
Passport, period
AND
Get Visa
Local Bureaucracy
room type, period
Discuss travel options
Search hotel
Hotel availability
Passport with visa
list of hotels
Origin, Destination, Date
list of hotels
XOR
Select hotel
User interface
Plan trip by train
Plan trip by plane
Train Time Table Service
selected hotel
fail
hotel room type
Train time
Book hotel
Hotel booking
hotel answer
success
Train time
region, period
Select train
User Interface
Search tour options
Interesting alternatives
selected
list of activities
Origin, Destination, Date
alternatives
Define program
User Interface
Train Time Table Service
Book a train ticket
selected
fail
selected program
confirmation
Book program
Program Booking
success
End process
confirmation
Transition
Activity
Distributed business process in E-tourism
Service (local white, remote grey)
10
Federated European Tourism Information Systems
Harmonisation

• The EC founded IST project FETISH
• Aimed to develop infrastructure for spontaneous
  and seamless integration among tourism online
  applications processes and devices
• FETISH infrastructure includes
• - Repository Administrator, - FETISH
  Repository, - FADA Infrastructure, - Ontology
  system,- Business process modeller and executor
  (PROMAN).