Book Chapter: Virtual environment visualisation of executable business process models

I have just uploaded a Book Chapter draft reference to QUT eprints that will be part of a book being published - Virtual Technologies for Business and Industrial Applications: Innovative and Synergistic Approaches.

This details our work regarding the linking of YAWL and Second Life, as per this video.

Contact me for further information about the paper.

Ross

Video: SSCRC Project Preliminary Video

This video shows an example of the latest version of our middleware linking the YAWL workflow engine to Open Simulator. We have created a simple example of an accident victim being brought into a Hospital to be processed.

The preliminary interface to the YAWL accident treatment workflow is shown as a worklist on the left of the image. The tasks are presented to the avatar via this interface, in a similar manner as done in web based workflow systems. Objects in the simulator are instrumented with a complex knowledge base, that enables the validation of actions within the world, to make sure that tasks are carried out correctly. This is particularly useful for process training.

NB: this movie is quite long in length - ~7 mins.

This project is supported by the Smart Services CRC. Publications will proceed from this preliminary work, and will be duly reported on in due course.

Ross

BPM Book: Modern Business Process Automation

My colleagues in the YAWL project at QUT have released a new book entitled, "Modern Business Process Automation: YAWL and its Support Environment" via Springer Verlag. YAWL is the workflow tool I have been using in my research in Open Simulator. The book web site information now follows.

This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the field of Business Process Management (BPM) with a focus on Business Process Automation. It achieves this by covering a wide range of topics, both introductory and advanced, illustrated through and grounded in the YAWL (Yet Another Workflow Language) language and corresponding open-source support environment. In doing so it provides the reader with a deep, timeless, and vendor-independent understanding of the essential ingredients of business process automation.

The BPM field is in a continual state of flux and is subject to both the ongoing proposal of new standards and the introduction of new tools and technology. Its fundamentals however are relatively stable and this book aims to equip the reader with both a thorough understanding of them and the ability to apply them to better understand, assess and utilize new developments in the BPM field.

As a consequence of its topic-based format and the inclusion of a broad range of exercises, the book is eminently suitable for use in tertiary education, both at the undergraduate and the postgraduate level, for students of computer science and information systems. BPM researchers and practitioners will also find it a valuable resource. The book serves as a unique reference to a varied and comprehensive collection of topics that are relevant to the business process life-cycle.

Ross

TechTip: CutyCapt for Rendering Web Pages in OpenSim

Our projects are about visualising the operation of Information Systems within a 3D virtual model of a business. Part of this is integrating workflow systems, like YAWL, into the virtual environment.

YAWL runs using web services to render its custom workflow forms, which means if we wish to display the data perspective in-world, then we need a webpage rendering tool, to be able to generate a texture to be placed on a prim.

One currently used method is to use a web service like pici.picidae.net to render the page, and then retrieve it for placing on a primitive. Unfortunately, this is prohibitively slow. Erik Poppe, our research assistant, has come across a command line web rendering tool called CutyCapt. A related Internet Explorer version is available as well.

It uses webkit to render the pages, and looks like being a useful solution for efficiently making web page snapshots available on OpenSim primitives for our purposes - ie. PC Terminals in world with web apps. shown on the screen.

Ross

BPMVE at BPTrends.com

Our work at QUT in using Second Life and YAWL to visualise business processes has made its way to the popular website www.bptrends.com, run by Paul Harmon.

The link to the article is here.

Ross

Name droppings

Yep, we have been written up in the news again at Metaverse Online Journal.

Ross

BPMVE In the News

It has been a while since I have blogged here - due to a double teaching load this semester. So I will start proceedings off with a bang. My work, as blogged here, has made it to the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and the Courier Mail - Brisbane. All the papers are owned by the same people of course.

Apparently I am the creator of YAWL now...not sure Arthur ter Hofstede will be that impressed.

Ross

YAWL and Second Life Linked

My intern student from France has been very busy, and has completed his project with me at QUT. We now have YAWL and Second Life talking to each other, in a similar way to my earlier work with Half Life Two in previous posts.



I have embedded a video from Youtube of the system in action, titled Clik Goes to Hollywood. What we have done in effect is to facilitate the 3D collaborative visualisation of dynamic business process models. The visualisation has been developed from the 2D YAWL control flow model illustrated at the top of this post, into a 3D animation in Second Life, embedded below as a video. The process model illustrated is drawn from the YAWL4Film project being undertaken by the BPM Research Group at QUT. Clik, the avatar in the animation, is not controlled by a human, but is controlled by the YAWL workflow engine.



More will be revealed as I duly publish some papers...

Ross

YAWL Game Control Work

I've had this paper and demo floating around for a while now, and have just got around to posting it. This is a video of some work a student of mine performed linking a game mod to the YAWL workflow engine developed by QUT.

The grey user interface, spawning of enemies and registration of killings is coordinated by the YAWL workflow tool, developed at QUT, Brisbane, Australia - http://www.yawlfoundation.org/

This shows how easy it is to give a 3D interface to workflow systems, and shows a very simple example of how to control the "Narrative" of a virtual environment by using workflow systems. In the end, a game quest is just a form of goal directed workflow, so I decided to test it out, and the video is the result.

Has been written up as a conference paper at: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00012712/

Ross