Towards a homogeneous framework for integrating process, actor, dialogue, and data models

• Verena Geist
• Atif Mashkoor
• Felix Kossak
• Christine Natschläger
• Christa Illibauer
• Thomas Ziebermayr

Due to different aspects, such as data, functionality, communication, and interaction, modelling information systems is a complex and challenging task. Each aspect in general calls for its own model, which has to be integrated in the overall system model. In this paper, we present the Hagenberg Business Process Modelling (H-BPM) method as a novel approach for designing business process management systems, which – in addition to process modelling – integrates several other important aspects for workflow specification like organisational, user interaction, and data modelling. On top of these aspects, we propose the enhanced Process Platform (eP 2) architecture to illustrate the static view on formal model integration. We apply the notion of Abstract State Machines (ASMs) to formalise the components, their interfaces and behaviour, and to specify the collaboration of the components in a rigorous and reliable way. Formal semantics for executing the integrated models in a business process management system is provided using ASM ground modelling and refinement. We finally demonstrate the suggested method using the example of processing user tasks and show its usability by a model for ordering supplies.