0003358: BPM engine (workflow) - Openbravo Issue Tracking System

Openbravo Issue Tracking System - Openbravo ERP

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0003358

Openbravo ERP

C. Security

public

2007-07-03 10:34

2022-02-01 08:08

Reporter

user71

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Triage Platform Base

Priority

normal

Severity

minor

Reproducibility

always

Status

acknowledged

Resolution

open

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Fixed in Version

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OBNetwork customer

Web browser

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Core

Support ticket

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Regression introduced in release

Regression introduced by commit

Triggers an Emergency Pack

Summary

0003358: BPM engine (workflow)

Description

==== Workflow rational =========

It seems that adding workflow capabilities to any ERP is a MUST in todays enterprise applications.

A workflow allows to include tracking and cooperating features to any task that an ERP has to fulfill. Workflow is a well known technology/design artifact that allows the following:

1) Legal (SOX, LISI, ...)
2) Enterprise (who is doing what?, what needs to be done, how many thing are still left, who did that?, ...)
3) Cooperation (how to partition tasks that are to be done by a team of distributed people?)
4) Allow to implement and support Business Process Re-engineering
5) A workflow is understood by both business and technical people and, therefore, is a good comunication mechanism
6) Implementation: Allows a very precise and fast configuration of an ERP to cope with the operational needs of any company. Just identify/design and configure the business processes of the company.

====== Workflow types =========

There are different workflow types:

1) Document centered: set of activities that need to be done around a document to reach an objective (e.g. invoice approval processing). It involves a SINGLE document.

2) Task centered: set of activities needed to achieve a goal. E.g. a purchase. It involves a purchase order, approved and issued, an invoice, approved, registered, accounted and paid. It involves a set of documents.

In both cases, the workflow has states, transitions, roles/permissions, history... The difference is that the base element is either a document or a "task" definition. What we need in OB is a "Task centered" approach.

Some other people also points to task to be performed by people or by the system (i.e. batch processing). I think this is not so relevant and just means that there are different actors involved in a task. Some humans (e.g. approve an invoice) some machine (e.g. send a notification).

It would be better to have a generalised workflow where the actors could be both human and machine (as is normally the case).

Steps To Reproduce

Proposed Solution

Additional Information

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ReleaseCandidate

Relationships

depends on	feature request	0004376	pi	acknowledged	rmorley	Approval System in Openbravo
depends on	feature request	0003203		acknowledged	rmorley	Improve Workflows
has duplicate	feature request	0003316		closed	alostale	Workflow visualization and edition
related to	feature request	0000586	pi	acknowledged	iciordia	State transitions for documents and buttons
related to	feature request	0004524		acknowledged	rmorley	Expenses approval system
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