Providing workflow services using a programmable hypermedia environment

This paper presents a methodology for designing and implementing workflow within a programmable hypermedia environment, based on a colored petri-net model. We discuss and demonstrate that a collaborative, programmable hypermedia system provides a powerful environment for supporting workflow and document management. Nodes of the workflow manifest as nodes in the hypermedia environment. Transitions manifest as software components. Nodes and transitions are associated with workflow activities through hyperlinks. Hyperlinks relate nodes to transitions, transitions to nodes, users to nodes, and documents to documents. The benefits of this approach are: an environment that integrates workflow and document management activities within a common interface; the ability to support distributed document management and collaboration; and a workflow system that utilizes services within the underlying hypermedia environment, to structure documents and access information by navigation. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.