Pattern 36 (Commencement on Creation)
FLASH animation of Commencement on Creation pattern
Description
The ability for a resource to commence execution on a work item as soon as it is created.
Example
The End of Month work item is allocated to the Chief Accountant who must commence working on it as soon as it is allocated to his work queue.
Motivation
The ability to commence execution on a work item as soon as it is created offers a means of expediting the overall throughput of a case as it removes the delays associated with allocating the work item to a suitable resource and also the time that the work item remains in the resource's work queue prior to it being started.
Overview
Where a task is specified as being subject to Commencement on Creation, when the task is initiated in a process instance, the associated work item is created, allocated and commenced simultaneously. This pattern is illustrated by the transition S:start_on_create in Figure 7.
Context
There are no specific context conditions associated with this pattern.
Implementation
All offerings which support Automatic work items (i.e. work items that can execute without requiring allocation to a resource) provide limited support for the notion of Commencement on Creation. More complex however is the situation where a work item must be allocated to a human resource as this implies that both creation and allocation must occur simultaneously. COSA can support this method of operation where a work item is initiated via a trigger. It provides for a work item to be created and assigned to a specific resource in the same command. This is the default method of work item initiation in BPMN and UML 2.0 ADs.
Issues
None identified.
Solutions
N/A.
Evaluation Criteria
An offering achieves full support if it satisfies the description for the pattern.
Product Evaluation
To achieve a + rating (direct support) or a +/- rating (partial support) the product should satisfy the corresponding evaluation criterion of the pattern. Otherwise a - rating (no support) is assigned.
Product/Language |
Version |
Score |
Motivation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staffware | 9 | - | Not supported |
| Websphere MQ Workflow | 3.4 | - | Not supported |
| FLOWer | 3.0 | - | Not supported |
| COSA | 4 | + | Supported for tasks initiated via a trigger |
| iPlanet | 3.1 | - | Not supported |
| BPMN | 1.0 | + | An activity is assumed to be live as soon as it receives the specified Start Quantity control flow tokens |
| UML | 2.0 | + | Directly supported. An action is assumed to be live as soon as it receives a control-flow token |
| Oracle BPEL | 10.1.2 | - | Oracle BPEL PM offers no support for this pattern since a resource needs to "accept" or "acquire" a work item from the worklist in order to start the execution |
| jBPM | 3.1.4 | - | jBPM does not support this pattern, as a work item can not be started by the system. A resource alone can initiate the execution of a work item. |
| OpenWFE | 1.7.3 | - | OpenWFE does not support this pattern as a work item can not be started by the system. A resource alone can initiate the execution of a work item. |
| Enhydra Shark | 2 | - | Enhydra Shark does not support this pattern. "Automatic" can be selected as a Start Mode for an activity (the default start mode is "Manual"). However, in runtime the work items of an Automatic activity do not get automatically started. (They need, similarly to the instances for Manual activities, to be manually started by selecting them from the corresponding work list.) |
Summary of Evaluation
+ Rating |
+/- Rating |
|---|---|
|
|