Freeflow: Mediating Between Representation and Action in Workflow Systems

In order to understand some problems associated with workflow, we set out an analysis of workflow systems, identifying a number of basic issues in the underlying technology. This points to the conflation of temporal and dependency information as the source of a number of these problems. We describe Freeflow, a prototype which addresses these problems using a variety of technical innovations, including a rich constraint-based process modelling formalism, and the use of declarative dependency relationships. Its focus is on mediation between process and action, rather than the enactment of a process. We outline the system and its design principles, and illustrate the features of our approach with examples from ongoing work.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1996
• Where: CSCW
• Authors: Paul Dourish, Jim Holmes, Allan MacLean, Pernille Marqvardsen, Alex Zbyslaw
• Keywords: CSCW 1996, Declarative Dependency Relationships, Rich Constraint-based Process, Social Sciences, Workflow Systems