Workflow Engine Product
The workflow engine provides a cost-effective, plug-and-play process component for application software solutions across industries. It powers application systems with workflow services, shortens delivery cycles, and improves delivery quality. It can also serve as a unified workflow service in a private cloud technical platform, providing workflow services to multiple applications to integrate, optimize, and digitally operate business processes.
1. Comprehensive Workflow Engine Capabilities
The workflow engine is a highly flexible, open, stable, and reliable enterprise-grade business process middleware that meets workflow requirements across industries. It includes the following components:
- Workflow Engine: Drives and supports workflow execution; the core of the workflow system
- Rules Engine: Edits and parses rule scripts; integrates with the workflow engine via the JSR94 specification for flexible business rule definition
- Management Tools: Provide process management, statistics, and monitoring for centralized business process control
- Design Tools: Provide workflow design tools for modeling, defining, and debugging business processes
- Application Tools: Provide task lists, delegation settings, and other features for end users
2. Mature Process Business Model
Supports 42 process execution modes, with 4 start node types, 6 task node types, 5 event node types, 2 gateway node types, 2 end node types, and 4 special nodes — 23 node types in total — meeting 99% of industry workflow requirements.
3. Architecture Design Features
The workflow engine follows a layered architecture and component-based product design with the following characteristics:
| No. | Category | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Continuous Service | Business (process and rule) designs can be dynamically loaded and upgraded without restarting the system |
| 2. | Data Consistency | Transaction processing ensures consistency between business data and process data |
| 3. | External Services | RESTful service interfaces for integrating process execution and results with external systems |
| 4. | Rules Engine | Loosely coupled with the rules engine; supports third-party rules engines |
| 5. | Component Adaptation | Supports integration with third-party organization and permission components via sync or async calls |
| 6. | Form Integration | Loosely coupled with form systems; can integrate business forms from other systems |
| 7. | Extensibility | Core engine extension mechanism for custom development based on special requirements |
| 8. | Adaptability | Adapts to process changes; separates business logic from process logic for zero-code process adjustments |
4. Flexible Process Business Support
Supports starting and testing processes at any time during process customization.
Supports operations on process instances including version restore, pause, resume, terminate, replace assignee, delete instance, update process, and print list.
Supports visual modification of instance process diagrams: open a process instance with the graphical editor, modify allowed properties, and apply changes only to the current instance.
Supports version updates for running process instances: after a process definition is updated, matching instances can be upgraded promptly.
5. Embedded and Service Deployment Modes
- Embedded Deployment: Embed the workflow engine as a component in business systems to provide customized workflow capabilities to the host system.
- Microservice Deployment: Deploy as an independent microservice on a PaaS platform to build a unified workflow service center, enabling multi-tenant isolation and centralized workflow services for multiple business systems.
6. Multi-Tenant Management
Centrally deployed unified workflow services are divided into tenant spaces for management, providing workflow application services to multiple business systems or subsystems. Each subsystem's management and applications are virtually independent within its tenant space.
Each tenant space uses an independent data source. Data sources can point to different users in the same database for logical isolation, or to databases in different locations for physical isolation, avoiding cross-access of business data. Each tenant space can use the unified workflow service's design and management tools.
7. Rich API Interfaces
The workflow platform provides REST and Dubbo service interfaces, supporting cross-platform and cross-language calls. Available interfaces include:
Instance Operations
- Create instance
- Open instance
- Close instance
- Get instance history
- Restore instance data
- Instance creation permission check
- Open instance permission check
- Get maximum instance version
- Delete and restore instance business data
- Delete instance
- Update instance
- Pause/resume instance
- End instance
Flow Operations
- Submit
- Co-submit
- Internal submit
- Joint sign-off
- Joint sign-off submit
- Return
- Return to any node
- Recall
- Save draft
- Withdraw
- Jump
- Add sign-off
- Re-send
- Branch re-send
- Transfer
- Pause
- Replace assignee
- Terminate
- Notify for review
- Mark as read
- Remind
- Start sub-process
- Claim
- Route rule evaluation
- Node entry rules
- Node exit rules
- Rule script execution
User Operations
- Work handover
- Accept work handover
- Activate process
- Get participant selection types for nodes
- Replace assignee
- Query user pending tasks
- Query user pending task count
- Query user completed tasks
- Query user completed task count
- Query user pending reviews
- Query user pending review count
- Query user completed reviews
- Query user completed review count
- Query user claims
- Query user claim count
- Query user readable documents
- Query user readable document count
- Query processes started by user
- Query process count started by user
- Query records eligible for reminders
- Get organization information
- Send messages other than pending tasks and reviews
- Permission validation
- Get message title for sending
System Operations
- Process information output format
- Log tracing
- Associate business data with process data storage
- Get current language type for multi-language support
- Memory management
- JMS message handling
- Scheduled task handling
- Date validation
- Persistence implementation
- Get overdue nodes
8. Easy Extension
1. Product Feature Level
- Extend process events such as node entry, node exit, and node activation
- Extend assignee relationship configuration
- Extend process time limits and reminders
- Extend global process variables and node variables
- Extend customized process operations
2. API Level
- Open organization, permission, operation, and event APIs related to processes
- Open APIs for pending tasks, email, SMS, instant messaging, and mobile access
- Open standard source code for intelligent mobile access apps
3. System Configuration Level
- Extend system loading items via web.xml
- Configure global process settings via hzwf_config.properties
- Configure application-level logging, workflow sessions, and more
4. Database Level
- Configure CRUD operations on business data via SQL
- Extend business capabilities under multi-data-source management