MQ Series Workflow

MQ Series Workflow

MQSeries Workflow is an IBM solution for the business worlds increasing requirement for the automation of their complex business processes. As the processes become more complicated and time intensive to manage business has discovered that by implementing new workflow technologies that it is possible to reduce the time required for a process to take place while also increasing the robustness of the organisations audit system.

Workflow and messaging are key to corporate responsiveness. In a workflow system, business activities instantly share status information through an event-driven model triggered from the content of individual business transactions. These events are reliably automated to trigger further activities or may pass to staff through work lists and personal activity. MQSeries Workflow provides a process automation system for managing people, data, applications, and business processes throughout an organisation, including external partners via the Internet or intranets and extranets.

With this approach to workflow, IBM provides a robust infrastructure of messaging (MQSeries Messaging) and application integration (MQSeries Integrator) upon which to build production-level workflow applications. MQSeries Workflow helps both business and IT users effectively leverage their existing infrastructure for process automation and management.

If this process is automated using MQSeries Workflow, the "close of relationship" process is ready for automatic execution whenever a customer calls in with the request. The employee who receives the call starts a new instance of the process, and all the steps of this process are made available to the right people at the right time automatically or executed automatically if people are not involved. All the data necessary to complete the individual activity is provided automatically as well. If anyone needs to check the progress of a specific claim, they can see graphically in a process diagram what activity is next and the route that the claim has followed determined by the control conditions set up in the process model.

MQSeries Workflow Runtime Client

With an MQSeries Workflow Runtime Client you can start the execution of processes and use work lists to manage work items. MQSeries Workflow offers a standard MQSeries Workflow Runtime Client that is based on APIs and implemented with the ActiveX toolset on Windows 32 platforms. If you want to design your own interface to perform work list tasks with a custom client, you can use a wide range of APIs.

The MQSeries Workflow Runtime Clients provide a variety of different functions, for example:

• Start process instances of your modelled workflows
• Manipulate running process instances (interrupt, resume, restart processes)
• Change the work list view by filtering or sorting the work items
• Transfer work items to work lists of other users (change work assignments)
• Monitor the running process instances.

• e-business eg/ starting a workflow process (eg request) from a web page.
• Workflow access from thin clients (eg network computers).
• Supply chain integration ie/ integration of companies outside the local intranet into the workflow.
• Workflow access for travelling employees via the world-wide-web.

• Allow your customers to initiate workflow processes from the Internet
• Create platform independent applications that interact with MQSeries Workflow
• Allow your suppliers to participate in specific parts of the overall process
• Use Java to develop applications as workflow solutions for the Internet/intranet
• Imbed workflow within a CORBA infrastructure.

• Execute Java applets in a Web browser
• Invoke Java servlets through a Web browser via HTTP/HTML
• Provide an ultra-thin client that renders HTML using servlet technology.

• An Agent that connects a MQSeries Workflow domain to the Java world. The Agent approach eliminates the need to install MQSeries on a client workstation.
• A set of API Beans that provide MQSeries Workflow API functionality to Java based applications. The API beans layer makes the whole Java API implementation pure Java, so it's possible to run applications developed with the MQSeries Workflow Java API on any machine that provides a Java VM. The API bean hides the implementation details of the communication layer and allows programming with the same classes that are available on the MQSeries Workflow product API.

• Represents the Runtime Client on a Notes desktop users have access to all MQSeries Workflow functions within their Lotus Notes desktop
• Provides a transparent runtime user interface with functions and APIs that allow you to incorporate Lotus Notes functionality like forms and documents processing within your workflow solution.

A Microsoft Exchange/Outlook Runtime Client is available. MQSeries Scalability

IBM MQSeries Workflow provides comprehensive scaleability both vertically (within a department for example) and horizontally (within an enterprise). The size and volume of transactions of automated workflow executed through MQSeries Workflow is significantly dependent on many external factors such as application complexity, network configuration, communication speeds, etc. e-ASL can provide pre-installation analysis to help you determine how your applications may work with MQSeries Workflow. Server to server and process-to-process support is included with MQSeries Workflow. Remote users have a number of options available when communication to applications managed by MQSeries Workflow, including the ability to work in an Internet environment. { This system will support 40+ direct users with access made available to thousands through the Internet. { We will deliver the Internet Connection to MQSeries Workflow that will allow our customers to integrate their workflow applications to the Internet and the Intranet.

The MQSeries Workflow architecture is highly scalable in numbers of transactions, users and applications. MQSeries Workflow uses the IBM DB2 UDB database to store the runtime data for production and MQSeries messaging for its client/server messaging. Depending on the size of your organisation, you can set up your installation using more than one MQSeries Workflow system.

MQSeries Workflow is a client/server system with a hierarchical structure. This is an example of the system hierarchy of MQSeries Workflow, with the domain name Citigroup, system group name Accounts Division, and system names London Branch, New York Branch, and Paris Branch. The top level in the hierarchy is called domain, representing all or parts of your organisation. The next lower level in a domain is the system group. For example, this can be a geographical area. Within a system group, there can be several systems accessing the same database. A system contains the client/server components that you need to run your processes. Depending on the size of your installation and the operating system you want to use, the server components can reside on one or more physical machines. The system components that are installed on one physical machine are called a node.

The flexibility to distribute system components on more than one processor is a major advantage of the system structure of MQSeries Workflow. Using message queuing for communication between the various components and distributing the components on clients and servers provides a reliable environment for your workflow.

Reporting Capabilities: Some reporting tools are made available to complement the MQSeries Workflow product. Typically, users will access the MQSeries Workflow Audit Trail logs and create their own reports.

Reporting activities is done by utilising information from the provided audit log. This log is a "flat" file that may be used or moved into any database the customer desires. You may then design any reporting desired utilising any report generation tool available, both graphical and textual.

Alarm/Deadline Priority and Real Time Notification: MQSeries Workflow can examine time duration on each activity in two different ways. The first is evaluated against the time an activity is available but not yet started. The second is against the time (once an activity has started) it takes to complete that activity. Messages and alarms can be sent to administrators, managers, individual users, etc., notifying them of time related issue.

Previously, notification for overdue processes or activities was done at midnight once the defined time interval passed. Now notifications are generated at the moment the duration period is passed. This can allow a user to react more quickly and efficiently to delays in process execution.

Process and Work Tracking: Process tracking for active instances can be done graphically or through reporting capabilities. The graphical view gives you a specific view of a process instance at the time requested. You can see specifically which activities have been completed and by whom, what activities are in process and by whom, and what activities are available for starting and to which users the activity has been sent. This view changes dynamically as instances progress through a process. Additionally, because MQSeries Workflow can log each activity within a process, you have the ability, through user defined programs, to examine that database to determine all aspects of a processes instance, such as who did what, when and with which programs, what was completed successfully, etc.

The MQSeries Workflow Audit Trail contains a range of process-relevant data for purposes of process performance analysis, auditing, and insights for continuous improvement.

The Audit Trail server logs events that occur on an ongoing basis. Events which are recorded include such information as: time stamp, process name, process/activity event description, root process name, parent process name, process model name, user ID, activity name, activity type, command parameters, program name, return code, and other information. The event descriptions include: process started, process suspended, process resumed, notification sent, process terminated, process ended normally, activity ready, activity started, activity transferred, activity finished, activity exited, and related information.

Security: Logon security for access to task lists are provided. All transactions can be logged to create an audit trail of what was done, by whom, when, etc. Process Modelling can define specific types of individuals to great detail that enable activities to only be seen and executed by appropriate individuals. Any other security issues can be addressed through normal user application code and will conform to any security standards defined by the Citigroup. The security and auditability features of IBM MQSeries Workflow are: { Access control by means of a MQSeries Workflow user ID and password. { Audit trail to trace execution of MQSeries Workflow processes.

In addition, security mechanisms provided by the operating system are used. User management is responsible for evaluation, selection, and implementation of security features, administrative procedures, and appropriate controls in application systems and communication facilities.

MQSeries Workflow provides security so that unauthorised staff does not have access to process modification facilities nor to other workflow services to which they are not allowed.

Support for Recovery: Recoverability for process flow is designed and supported in the Object Store database.