Workflow

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Common Knowledge includes the Workflow Rule Extender which enables business rules designers to architect powerful combinations of declarative rules together with considerations of time, sequence and rule dependencies. The Workflow Rule Extender provides a graphical environment for defining process flows which can incorporate other rules representations as well as external actions.

   

Workflows can be used to describe processes that range from very low-level to very high-level. Common Knowledge Workflow Rule Extender provides a feature-rich graphical environment for creating workflow process definitions, including a large palette of tools that can be readily assembled into models that cover a great range of process types. Four useful categorisations of process types that can be represented in Common Knowledge are: Flowcharts, Workflows, Statemaps and Ruleflows.

It is important to recognise that Common Knowledge Workflow is not intended to act as an enterprise workflow management system. Rather, it is designed to fulfil the role of an embedded workflow engine within a host system that has a complex set of business rules requirements.

Like all Common Knowledge Rule Extenders, Common Knowledge Workflow seamlessly integrates with Common Knowledge Studio and the Common Knowledge Rules Engine and can be easily combined with other business rule formats to create powerful solutions to complex business rule problems.

Overview of Capabilities
The Common Knowledge Workflow Rule Extender provides capabilities in a number of areas to enable you to design process-oriented business rules:

• Advanced Editor - Graphical diagramming tool for designing nodes and connections within a flow diagram.
• Powerful Architecture - Built on a common "token flow" architecture allowing you to build Workflows, Flow Charts, Statemaps and Ruleflows, or any hybrid of these.
• Node Types - Over 35 workflow node types across several categories including Workflow, Expressions, Operators and Realtime.
• Interactive Execution - Standalone execution of Workflows entirely within Common Knowledge Studio
• Documentation - Ability to attach custom information to your rules which will be included in generated documentation

   
Feature List
Common Knowledge Workflows incorporate an ever-growing list of features that assist you during the design, authoring, execution and testing of your process-oriented business rules. Features include:

• Node Types - Many workflow node types, in the following categories:
  1. Workflow - including Start, Task, Task List, Task Choice, Action, Action List, Split, Merge Choices, Choice, Switch and End
  2. Expressions - including Constant, Expression, Sum, Counter, Average, Accumulator, Moving Average, Derivative and Integral 
  3. Operators - including nodes for Binary and Unary Arithmetic, Comparison and Bitwise operations
  4. Realtime - including nodes such as Signal Generator, State, Analogue Alarm and Digital Alarm 
• Interactive Execution - Interactive task completion during execution of workflows within Common Knowledge Studio
• Interactive Debugging - Interactive debugger can step through Workflows and allows breakpoints to be set on workflow nodes
• Nested Rules - Ability to embed execution of any other Rule Extender within a workflow
• Nested Workflows - Ability to execute sub-workflows from a workflow
• Workflow Layout - Full control over layout of nodes and connections in workflow diagrams
• Zoom and Pan - Zoom the workflow diagram for better readability
• Connection Styles - Choice of different styles of node connections: straight, rectilinear, arc or bezier
• Entry and Exit Actions - Can set pre-execution and post-execution actions on any workflow node or on an entire workflow
• Captions - Toggle between viewing workflows by natural language description or by executable rule expressions

What's New in Version 3.1
The following features are new to version 3.1 of Common Knowledge and augment the existing capabilities of Workflows in their ability to represent your business rules:

• Undo/Redo - Full undo/redo on any Workflow edits
• Connection Roles - All connections now allow the role of their endpoints to be specified (e.g. default, cancel, reset)
• Node Colours - Choose customised workflow node colours to enhance worflow diagram understandability
• Print and Preview - Print and Print Preview of Workflow diagrams
• Search and Replace - Full Search/Replace throughout all elements of a Workflow