Event-driven tracking of important sections of business processes

Abstract

Business processes are crucial in today's companies. They define for the different departments of a company the execution order of tasks as well as their interaction. Typically specific sections within a business process are essential for its successful completion and therefore deserve special attention. Such a section is typically associated with a completion constraint, e.g., a credit application has to be processed within 24 hours in order to meet SLAs agreed with the customer. The business user is highly interested in a real-time monitoring of those sections and constraints as it allows him to immediately tackle potential problems during process execution. We present a novel approach for tracking important sections of a business process using Complex Event Processing coupled with an Event-Driven Architecture. While the business process is executed, we continuously monitor its processing status to determine whether such a section is completed and its associated constraints have been fulfilled or violated. To allow for a more proactive reaction of the business user, we also present an early warning system which raises an alert if a not yet completed section runs the risk of violating a constraint.