Best Online Examples of Workflow Patterns?

g8orade writes "In his bestselling book, The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman lists workflow management software in the top 5 Flatteners. During my work for a shipping startup, I have analyzed our software's many UI weaknesses, particularly related to workflow management, and am currently searching for the best online examples of various UI application patterns / widgets that address managing transaction flows. What are the best examples you know of that are commonly viewable on the web?" "Our software UI is Oracle (9i) Forms compiled to run with Java, through the web. We're using RT for our internal ticket tracking and it has many of the features listed. Also, we're evaluating several commercial document management systems as bolt-ons or companions to our in-house application. Here are some patterns we'd like to improve:

• Queue with count beside it. Example: 'Unshipped orders (5)'
• Screen for UI building of a search and ability to save the search as a queue
• List of queues showing all transaction counts and their various states
• Transaction list / table screen (should have an many possible features as a standard spreadsheet: pick your columns, column order, sort order, clickable column headings, export to various formats, print view, etc.)
• Detail view screen (one transaction, may include too many fields to display at once, requiring tabs, scrolling up and down, left to right, etc., should have a good printable view)
• Contact database built-in or connection to one from another system
• Auto messaging of various statuses to contacts and lists of contacts, above
• Full web accessibility and security model to allow our suppliers and clients access to their own queues for 'pull queries', in addition to what we email them.
• Ability to create a list of values for a field, then incorporate that into the query for a queue.
• Journal of a transaction
• Screen showing progression of a transaction
• Screen showing Parent / child parts of a transaction"

Comments

Link for Pattern Language

[mmThe1]

... in the article (just posted) is incorrect.

The correct link is http://www.patternlanguage.com/

YAWL

[asphinx]

Have a look at the YAWL project of the Business Process Modelling Group at the Queensland University of Technology. YAWL stands for Yet Another Workflow Language and is based on petri nets. The BPM group claims it can model any workflow pattern. Link: http://www.yawl.fit.qut.edu.au/.

Open Source Solution

[mudwump]

I have looked fairly extensively for a nice open source version of a workflow type program. One that I am currently watching is http://pentaho.org/. This is a very impressive package of not only workflow but business intellegence and reporting.

OfBiz

[Felonius Thunk]

It has a worfklow engine that may be too abstract as a starting place for you, but the OfBiz app itself may already be doing pretty much everything you want anyway. It's java, open source, and been around for years, though not easy to tweak or get stably up and running.

Agreeing with afformentioned posts...

[Chabil Ha']

Here's a link you might follow to get you onto the right foot. It seems to me that all of your 'needs' only *need* some research. Jakob Nielsen's usibility guidlines are a good headstart. My own suggestion would be KISS.

Friedman? Are you a PHB?

[BorgCopyeditor]

No mention of Friedman's steaming pile of content-free platitudes would be complete without a link to this very funny review thereof:

Predictably, Friedman spends the rest of his huge book piling one insane image on top of the other, so that by the end--and I'm not joking here--we are meant to understand that the flat world is a giant ice-cream sundae that is more beef than sizzle, in which everyone can fit his hose into his fire hydrant, and in which most but not all of us are covered with a mostly good special sauce.

Re:Anyone out there read The World is Flat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone who intends to quote Friedman should be required to read this critique of his book first: http://nypress.com/18/16/news&columns/taibbi.cfm. It is one of the funniest articles I have read in a long time and it explains what is particularly annoying about Friedman.

Workflow Patterns Site

[Tom Davies]

I've found this useful: http://is.tm.tue.nl/research/patterns/