System and method for pervasive enablement of business processes

Abstract

A system and method for pervasive enablement of business processes that effectively integrates workflow technology and ad-hoc collaboration tools. Collaboration tools comprise a plurality of native communication devices capable of interacting with the user either using text or voice mechanism. A modality adapter associated with each collaboration tool (or modality) performs the function of translating staff activities to device-specific messages and receiving replies from the users and sending them back to the engine. A Workflow Engine executes the business process and sends out staff activities meant for human users to the Interaction Controller and other activities meant for software agents to Web Services. An Interaction Controller entity utilizes the Context Service and the Address Book to determine the appropriate modality or collaboration tool for a user and sends the staff activity to the appropriate modality adapter. A Context Service that provides context information, user preferences to the Interaction Controller. The Address Book contains a repository of device addresses specific to each modality a user might use. The system enables users to collaborate with each other anytime and anywhere using an appropriate collaboration modality and participate in backend business processes by performing staff activities using their preferred collaboration device.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates generally to computers that facilitate business processes, and more particularly to context-aware implementability of people whenever and wherever they participate in business processes. Using the present invention, a user is able to participate and perform tasks in a business process; collaborate with other users, and even allow the system to control the flow of information and the steps required to complete his tasks. Background technique [0002] A business process is "a process in which documents, information, or tasks are passed among participants according to a defined set of rules to achieve or contribute to an overall business purpose." Participants of a business process can be people, web services, or other software agents. In particular, people form a very important part of many business processes. Numerous large-scale as well as small-scale business processes such as product planning, software design, after-sa...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0004] Workspace-based user interfaces have a number of disadvantages: (1) users are bound to the desktop computing environment, i.e. they cannot access business processes when they are away from the desktop; check his workspace to check for undecided human behavior; and (3) among human actors, WFMS only allows indirect and asynchronous human-to-human communication, not direct and synchronous exchange

However, current collaboration tools have their own limitations: (1) they only support specifically unstructured collaboration, i.e., there is no built-in mechanism for enforcing arbitrary policies or structures in the collaboration process; and (2) collaboration tools Not tied to business process, i.e., people have to switch explicitly between business process and collaboration, and manually move data between the two

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