Directorate of distance education

Practically, a Workflow may Describe
➢ The validation circuit,
➢ The tasks to be accomplished among the different parties of a 
process,
➢ The deadlines to be met,
➢ The validation modes
Additionally, it provides each player with the information that is 
necessary to complete his or her task. For an online publication process, 
for example, it involves modeling the tasks of the entire editing chain, from 
the editor’s proposal to validation by the person in charge of publication.
The example above is a very schematic representation of how the 
workflow could look like for the publication of a document on an Intranet 
with the help of a publication interface:
1. The editor proposes an article to the section head
2. The section head takes a look at the document and validates it
3. The editor-in-chief believes that the document contains elements 
that are non-current and returns the document to the editor
4. The editor revises the copy and submits it to the section head
5. The section head corrects some typos and forwards the article to 
the editor-in-chief
6. The editor-in-chief validates the document for online publication
Workflow Typologies
Generally, we distinguish two types of Workflow:
➢ Procedural workflow (also called production workflow or managing 
workflow), which corresponds to known business processes of the 
enterprise and which is subject to pre established procedures: The 
direction of the workflow is more or less fixed;
➢ Ad hoc workflow based on a groupwork model where the players 
are involved in the decision of where to direct the workflow: The 
direction of the workflow is dynamic.

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Notes
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Workflow Engine
The workflow engine is a tool which makes it possible to model 
and automate the business processes of the enterprise. This type of tool 
makes it possible to formalize the business rules of the enterprise in order 
to automate the decision-making process, i.e. the branch of the workflow 
to chose, depending on a given context.
BPM
The term “BPM” (Business Process Management) refers to an 
approach in terms of creating a computer-model of the business processes 
of the enterprise, both in terms of their application-related and human 
aspects.
The purpose of this measure is to achieve an improved overview of 
all business processes of the enterprise and their interactions in order to 
be able to optimize them and, as much as this is possible, maximize their 
automation with the help of business applications.