1. A Decentralized Workflow Model and its Implementation in a Digital Government Environment Pietro Mazzoleni CIMIC - Rutgers University, Newark (NJ) USA DSI – Universita’ Statale di Milano, ITALY

2. 2 Outline Problem Introduction Problem Introduction Decentralized Vs Centralized Workflow Decentralized Vs Centralized Workflow Contributions Contributions 1. Traditional WFMS Join-limitation 1. Traditional WFMS Join-limitation 2. DWFMS 2. DWFMS Self Describing Workflow Self Describing Workflow Workflow Stub Workflow Stub 3. DWFMS Chinese Wall security Policy 3. DWFMS Chinese Wall security Policy 4. E-government project 4. E-government project Customized Workflow Customized Workflow Future Work and Conclusion Future Work and Conclusion

3. 3 Problem Introduction

4. 4 What is a workflow? The automation of a business process, in whole or part, during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules. Task: an e-mail message, a transaction, a program, meeting, etc. Task: an e-mail message, a transaction, a program, meeting, etc. Processing agent: a person, a role, a DBMS, an application program, etc. Processing agent: a person, a role, a DBMS, an application program, etc. Coordinated execution: control-flow, value and external dependencies. Coordinated execution: control-flow, value and external dependencies. Ex: Travel Planning Workflow : DELTAAVISMARRIOT Enter Input Reserve airline Rent a Car Rent a car bs bs HERTZ Bs and p<=$400 Notify bs Reserve a hotel Reserve Airline bs bf or p>$400 CONTINENTAL Bs and Date <3/21/01 WFMC

5. 5 Centralized Workflow Management Performance Bottleneck Do not if systems are inherently autonomous and distributed DELTAAVISMARRIOT Centralized WFMS WF Execution CONTINENTAL WF specification DELTAAVIS MARRIOT Enter Input Date/destination Reserve airline Rent a Car Rent a car bs HERTZ Bs and p<=$400 Notify bs Reserve a hotel Reserve Airline bs bf or p>$400 CONTINENTAL Bs and Date <3/21/01

6. 6 Inter-organizational Workflow Inter-organizational Workflow Business Processes in EC, Virtual Enterprise and supply chain environments A dynamic consortium/partnership of autonomous, diverse, and geographically dispersed organizations that pool their services to offer a more complex, value-added product Business processes (Workflows) that go beyond the organization boundaries Unrealistic to assume that there will be a centralized controller which manages the whole business process

7. 7 Decentralized WF Management 3567 DELTA 567 AVIS 67 MARIOTTE Centralized WFMS 3 46 7 5 2 CONTINENTAL enter input WF specification DELTAAVIS MARRIOT Enter Input Date/destination Reserve airline Rent a Car Rent a car bs HERTZ Bs and p<=$400 Notify bs Reserve a hotel Reserve Airline bs bf or p>$400 CONTINENTAL Bs and Date <3/21/01 1 2 3 4 6 5 Notify

8. 8 Workflow Patterns and Traditional WFMS join-limitation Contribution:

9. 9 Workflow Patterns Abstraction from the concrete form which keeps recurring in specific non-arbitrary contexts Abstraction from the concrete form which keeps recurring in specific non-arbitrary contexts SEQUENCE SEQUENCE SPLIT SPLIT JOIN JOIN RIehdle and Zullinger

10. 10 Workflow Patterns: Join Reserve continenta l Reserve Delta Book the trip Explicit Representation Explicit Representation Constructors AND-JOIN and OR-JOIN A point in the workflow where two or more parallel executing activities converge into a single common thread of control WFMC

11. 11 Workflow Patterns: Join Reserve Flight AND JOIN Book Hotel Confirm Vacation Reserve Hilton ORJOIN Reserve County Confirm Vacation bs bs bs bs AND JOIN OR JOIN

12. 12 Workflow Patterns: Join Problem: Reserve a Trip if the Price of the Hotel plus the price of the Flight is less than 400$ Reserv e Hitlon Reserv e Delta Book the trip (Delta.price + Hilton.price < $400) (Delta.price + Hilton.price < $400) AND JOIN bs bs

13. 13 Workflow Patterns: Join Workflow Patterns: Join Problem: Reserve rooms for 10 people in the only two hotels available…It is possible to reserve 4 single rooms in one Hotel and 3 double rooms in the other Reserve rooms for 10 people in the only two hotels available…It is possible to reserve 4 single rooms in one Hotel and 3 double rooms in the other (Hiton.double>= 3 OR Country.double>=3) AND (Hiton.single>= 4 OR Country.single>=4) Hotel Hilton Hotel Country Book Trip ???

14. 14 Workflow Patterns: Join Workflow Patterns: Join (Hiton.double>= 3 OR Country.double>=3) AND (Hiton.single>= 4 OR Country.single>=4) Solution: Implicit Representation Hotel Hilton Hotel Country Book Trip Bs Bs Embed the JOIN in the Dependencies Definition Keep consistency with the other Patterns

15. 15 Our Contribution We have proposed and Extension to the traditional workflow model to represent the join relationship.

16. 16 Decentralized Workflow Management System Contribution:

17. 17 Our Approach to Decentralized Workflow Management Self-describing Workflow Workflow Stub WFMS server t1 t2 t3 t4 bs WFMS Stub A(t1) t1, A1, Input (t1) t1 t2 t3 t4 bs self describing workflow (t2, A2, Input (t2), t2 WFMS Stub A(t3) A(t2) (t3, A3, Input (t3), t3 t4 bs (t4, A4, Input (t4), (t4, A4, Input (t4), t4 WFMS Stub A(t4)

18. 18 Self Describing Workflow Partitions of a workflow that carry sufficient information such that they can be managed by a local task execution agent rather than the central WFMS Partitions of a workflow that carry sufficient information such that they can be managed by a local task execution agent rather than the central WFMS Task Name Task Name Task Execution Agent Task Execution Agent Pre Condition Pre Condition Outstate Outstate Workflow Partition Workflow Partition SELF(t i ) = SELF(t i ) =

19. 19 Dependency/Preconditions Dependency/Preconditions Evaluate dependencies only if needed Reduce amount of information sending between tasks Reveal only need-to-know information Keep minimal the number of tasks activated from a Workflow instance (t 1.price<=$400 AND t 1.availability=YES) Reserv e Hotel Rent a Car T1T2 Reserv e Hotel Reserv e Flight Book the trip t 1.price+t 2.price<=$400 T1 T2

20. 20Dependency/Preconditions Dependencies Splitting: (t 1.double>=3 OR t 1.double>=3) AND (t 2.single>=4 OR t 2.single>=4) ANDOR OR t 1.double>=3t 2.double>=3t 1.single>=4t 2.single>=4 ANDOROR t 1.double>=3 Dt 1.single>=3D Immediate(t 1 ) AND OROR t 1.signal#0 t 1.double>=3 t 1.signal#1 t 1.single>=3 Deferred(t 1 )

21. 21 WFMS Stub Activities Activities Receives the self-describing workflow, Receives the self-describing workflow, extract task to be executed at that site extract task to be executed at that site Partition the remaining workflow Partition the remaining workflow Evaluate the PRE condition Evaluate the PRE condition Execute the task Execute the task Evaluate the dependency Evaluate the dependency Construct self-describing workflows Construct self-describing workflows forwards each self-describing workflow to the relevant task agents forwards each self-describing workflow to the relevant task agentsObjectives execute the workflow in parallel as much as possible execute the workflow in parallel as much as possible minimize the communication minimize the communication

22. 22 Our Contribution We have proposed a decentralized workflow management model (DWFMS) that is suitable for heterogeneous, autonomous, and distributed environments We have proposed a decentralized workflow management model (DWFMS) that is suitable for heterogeneous, autonomous, and distributed environments

23. 23 DWFMS Chinese Wall Policy Contribution:

24. 24 Conflict of Interest Problem Execution agents may have conflict of interest Execution agents may have conflict of interest one agent can manipulate control or value dependencies in Workflow for its advantage one agent can manipulate control or value dependencies in Workflow for its advantage Problem: Continental may offer the ticket at a price which such that Delta is always at a disadvantage DELTAAVIS MARRIOT Enter Input Reserve airline Rent a Car Rent a car bs bs HERTZ Bs and p<=$400 Notify bs Reserve a hotel Reserve Airline bs Bf or p>$400 CONTINENTAL Bs and Date <3/21/01

25. 25 The Chinese Wall Policy Brewer and Nash Model Objective: prevent information flows that cause conflict of interest for individual consultants Read Rule: S can read O only if Read Rule: S can read O only if O is within the wall or O belong to another COI class O is within the wall or O belong to another COI class Bank A consultant Bank B Insurance Oil B R RRR XR

26. 26 The Chinese wall policy Write Rule: S can write O only if S can read O by BN Read rule S can read O by BN Read rule no object can be read which is in the different company set to the one for which write access is requested no object can be read which is in the different company set to the one for which write access is requested Oil B Oil A Brewer and Nash Model Consultant A Consultant B Bank A W W R R X X

27. 27 Our Chinese Wall Security Model for Decentralized Workflow Systems Subject, S: task execution agent Object, O: input/output objects of tasks, dependencies Sensitive versus non-Sensitive objects Non-sensitive Non-sensitive The objects that are not involved in any dependency The objects that are not involved in any dependency Sensitive wrt a subject S Sensitive wrt a subject S objects involved in a value dependency and therefore can change the execution flow objects involved in a value dependency and therefore can change the execution flow

28. 28 Our Chinese Wall Security Model for Decentralized WFMS Read/Evaluate Rule: S can read O if S can read O if O is not sensitive, or O is not sensitive, or There is no S’ in W such that COI(S) = COI(S’) There is no S’ in W such that COI(S) = COI(S’) Subject can read and evaluate sensitive dependency object of its own company iff O does not belong to the same COI group as S’s company in the Workflow Subject can read and evaluate sensitive dependency object of its own company iff O does not belong to the same COI group as S’s company in the Workflow Write/Partition Rule: S can write O if S can read O S can write O if S can read O Subject is not allowed to construct SELF with sensitive objects that belong to the same COI class

29. 29 Restrictive Partition of a task agent A partition where there exist no sensitive objects belonging to COI(A(t j )) OR there exist no an agent A(t k ) in P j such that COI(A(t j ))=COI(A(t k )) Critical Partition: 12345 t 2.price<300$ OR t 2.bf adjacent tasks adjacent tasks Task that makes the partition not adjacent tasks not adjacent tasks

30. 30 Critical Partition: non-adjacent tasks 12345 t 2.price<300$ OR t 2.bf P2 2 3 t 2.bf 345 t 2.signal#0 OR t 2.price<300$ P23 P24 Task that makes the partition

31. 31 Critical Partition: adjacent tasks 12345 t 2.price<300$ OR t 2.bf P2 21 t 2.bf 145 t 2.signal#0 OR t 2.price<300$ P23 P24 Task that makes the partition

32. 32 Our Contribution We have proposed an extension of the Chinese Wall Policy to address the Conflict of Interest in a Decentralized Workflow Execution We have proposed an extension of the Chinese Wall Policy to address the Conflict of Interest in a Decentralized Workflow Execution

33. 33 E-government for State Business Services Open a New Business in the State of New Jersey? Contribution:

34. 34 Steps to Do Determine Your Type of Business Register Your Business's Name and File Original Business Certificate Obtain the Licenses and Permits You Will Need Obtain Information about Environmental, Health, and Safety Issues Learn about Unclaimed Property Reporting Requirements Register Your Business for Tax and Employer Purposes www.state.nj.us Determine Your Type of Business Register Your Business's Name and File Original Business Certificate Obtain the Licenses and Permits You Will Need Obtain Information about Environmental, Health, and Safety Issues Learn about Unclaimed Property Reporting Requirements Register Your Business for Tax and Employer Purposes

35. 35 Agencies Regulation Applicants who are registering as Sole Proprietors or Partnerships must file pages 15-17 of the NJ-REG. If a business requires spray painting more than 1/2 gallon in an hour, it requires air quality permit and DMV permit. Please note that the Public Records Filing (pages 21 and 22)may be submitted prior to the completion of pages 15-17 of the NJ-REG to establish the Business Entity,but the remainder of NJ-REG (pages 15- 17)must be submitted within 60 days of filing the new business entity. Hide in WebPages, forms, instructions, manuals, etc If location is in HMDC jurisdiction require permit to develop from HMDC

36. 36 Business Registration Process file for certificate of incorp Secretary of State file for FEIN enter new business entity Register business for taxes open bank accnt apply for Employer reg number apply for Employer Insurance not incorp Local IRS Div. Of Revenue Dept of labor Cert of authority for sales tax Annual payroll >=1000 hire >= 1 Input application Payroll<1000 incorporation process state permits identify permits needed submit application form/fee DEP Geographically and functionally dispersed agencies Individual clients interact with each agency duplicate information is submitted for each agency complex process

37. 37 Our Work Customized Workflow Generation PDF Interactive and Pre-filled Visualization and monitoring process Decentralized Execution

38. 38 Customized Workflow generation Direct the user to the correct agencies forms and existing online services Customization on each specific business Transparent for the user Find the correct order of tasks Easy to understand and works by steps Advantages: Routine to automatically identify the agencies and the forms to open a particular business.

39. 39 Customized Workflow generation Customized Workflow generation

40. 40 FDF Forms and E-services Help the user dealing with existing online service forms and pdf forms Save time Error-checking Built on the existing systems Allow to automatically extract data from forms Pre-fill forms and online services with data coming from tasks already completed. Creation of an interactive form Advantages:

41. 41 Interactive Pdf Form =Template Don’t need to print Easy to use Real-time Error checking INTERACTIVE FORM FORM PDF

42. 42 Interactive PDF And Workflow Monitoring

43. 43 Workflow Execution Integrate the different systems, while preserving existing online services and autonomous systems Customize solutions to fit agency’s service environment Monitoring the complete process Scalable Prototype Create a prototype to automatically execute the workflow with the ability to customize the collaboration coming from each agency. Advantages:

44. 44 “Business Application” Workflow Execution Model AGENCY 1AGENCY 2AGENCY 4 Workflow SYSTEM STUB AGENCY 3 STUB Start Wf End Wf Interview Session Generate Wf Fill in forms

45. 45 Flexible level of participation By Email Connection and Storage Application interaction Allow interaction with other services in agencies

46. 46 Our Contribution We’ve realized the proposed decentralized workflow model in a digital government environment in such a way that it can customize the workflow system based on the level autonomy of the participating government agencies. We’ve realized the proposed decentralized workflow model in a digital government environment in such a way that it can customize the workflow system based on the level autonomy of the participating government agencies.

47. 47 Future Work - Conclusion Dynamic Changes Dynamic Changes Exception handler Exception handler Complete the prototype for helping State agencies to identify useful tools and methods coming out of our research work Complete the prototype for helping State agencies to identify useful tools and methods coming out of our research work

48. A Decentralized Workflow Model and its implementation in a Digital Government Environment Pietro Mazzoleni mazzolen@cimic.rutgers.edu mazzolen@cimic.rutgers.edu Prototype: http://cimic.rutgers.edu/dgov/demos1.html END