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process are instantiated multiple times, all descendants are removed).
Synonyms Withdraw case.
Examples
- In the process for hiring new employees, an applicant withdraws his/her application.
- A customer withdraws an insurance claim before the nal decision is made.
Problem Workow management systems typically do not support the withdrawal of an entire
case using the (graphical) workow language.
Implementation
- Pattern 19 (Cancel Activity) can be repeated for every activity in the workow process
denition. There is one activity triggering the withdrawal of each activity in the workow.
Note that this solution is not very elegant since the \normal control-ow" is intertwined
with all kinds of connections solely introduced for removing the workow instance.
- Similar to Pattern 19 (Cancel Activity), many workow management systems support
the withdrawal of cases using an API which simply removes the corresponding entries
from the database.
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3 Comparing Workow Management Systems
3.1
Introduction
The workow patterns described in this paper correspond to routing constructs encountered
when modeling and analyzing workows. Many of the patterns are supported by workow
management systems. However, several patterns are diÆcult, if not impossible, to realize using
many of the workow management systems available today. As indicated in the introduction,
the routing functionality is hardly taken into account when comparing/evaluating workow
management systems. The system is checked for the presence of sequential, parallel, conditional, and iterative routing without considering the ability to handle the more subtle workow patterns described in this paper. The evaluation reports provided by prestigious consulting
companies such as the \Big Six" (Andersen Worldwide, Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche,
Coopers & Lybrand, KPMG, and Price Waterhouse) typically focus on purely technical issues
(Which database management systems are supported?), the prole of the software supplier
(Will the vendor be taken over in the near future?), and the marketing strategy (Does the
product specically target the telecommunications industry?). As a result, many enterprises
select a workow management system that does not t their needs.
In this section, we provide a comparison of the functionality of 15 workow management
systems (COSA, Visual Workow, Forte Conductor, Lotus Domino Workow, Meteor, Mobile,
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