Extending Service-Oriented Workflow Engines with Role-Based Access Models
1 Motivation
Business processes can be viewed from three perspectives: The control-flow, data, and resource perspectives [RAH16]. Historically, Workflow Process Management Systems (WFMS) have aimed for process automation and therefore focused on the control-flow perspective.
Some authors make the distinction that Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) have evolved from the classical WFMS to support a more holistic view of organizational business processes by incorpo- rating, among other things, the resource perspective (cf. [Kar95]). However, research in the Business Process Management (BPM) research community has strongly emphasized the control-flow perspective. Therefore, future research on the “resource perspective is promising” [RM16].
Recently, a few resource modeling tools such as Sphinx [Ihd+19] or Rembrandt [Ihd+22] have been developed. While these tools can be used for resource allocation or scheduling, obtaining a graphical overview of resources is hard. Role-based access control (RBAC) models allow to specify access privileges [RAH16]. They allow, i.a., role hierarchies or constraints (cf. [San+96]).
Extending a state-of-the-art service-oriented workflow execution engine, such as the CPEE1, with a graphical resource view could leverage the capabilities of such an engine to a “truly” BPMS.
2 Problem Statement
Currently, no web-based RBAC modeling tool for service-oriented workflow execution engines exists. This thesis aims first to develop a modeling tool and second to work up a method that leverages a service- 1https://cpee.org oriented workflow engine to consider an RBAC model in the workflow execution.
3 Requirements
- Strong interest in software engineering and the development of web-based tools
- Interest in business process management
Contact
bachelor.i17 [at] in.tum.de
References
[Ihd+19] Sven Ihde et al. “Optimized Resource Al- locations in Business Process Models”. In: Business Process Management Forum. Ed. by Thomas Hildebrandt et al. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2019, pp. 55–71. isbn: 978-3-030-26643- 1. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-26643-1_4
[Ihd+22] Sven Ihde et al. “A framework for modeling and executing task-Specific resource allocations in business processes”. In: Computing 104.11 (Nov. 1, 2022), pp. 2405–2429. issn: 1436-5057. doi: 10. 1007/s00607-022-01093-2.
[Kar95] Dimitris Karagiannis. “BPMS: business process management systems”. In: ACM SIGOIS Bulletin 16.1 (Aug. 1995), pp. 10– 13. issn: 0894-0819. doi: 10 . 1145 / 209891.209894.
[RAH16] Nick Russell, Wil M. P. van der Aalst, and Arthur H. M. ter Hofstede. Workflow Patterns: The Definitive Guide. Feb. 12, 2016. doi: 10.7551/mitpress/8085.001.0001.
[RM16] Jan Recker and Jan Mendling. “The State of the Art of Business Process Management Research as Published in the BPM Conference”. In: Business & Information Systems Engineering 58.1 (Feb. 1, 2016), pp. 55–72. issn: 1867-0202. doi: 10.1007/ s12599-015-0411-3.
[San+96] R.S. Sandhu et al. “Role-based access control models”. In: Computer 29.2 (Feb. 1996). Conference Name: Com- puter, pp. 38–47. issn: 1558-0814. doi: 10.1109/2.485845.