Valmont: a language for workflow programming

The workflow paradigm is advancing the scope of process modelling by supporting complex control flows, rich process structures, and the integration of heterogeneous and legacy systems. However, studies of the paradigm have been seriously hindered by the lack of a concrete framework. In order to improve understanding of the paradigm, enable studying of interaction between different features, and facilitate the development of more advanced features, the paper presents a framework in the form of a workflow language called Valmont. Unlike many other proposals, Valmont captures all the fundamental elements of the workflow paradigm at an abstraction level that is suitable for workflow application designers. More specifically, it provides a rich organisation model that can capture distribution using domains, an information model that also records presentation details, as well as a sophisticated process model that supports active rules and workflow transactions. The paper presents an overview of Valmont by providing a solution to the ISPW-6 Software Process Example. It also serves to provide an insight into the needs of novel application domains some of which remain to be addressed by the next generation of workflow management systems