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Abstract. Workflow systems utilize a process model for managing business processes. The model is typically a directed graph annotated with activity names. We view the execution of an activity as a time interval, and present two new algorithms for synthesizing process models from sets of systems' executions (audit log). A model graph generated by each of the algorithms for a process captures all its executions and dependencies that are present in the log, and preserves existing parallelism. We compare the model graphs synthesized by our algorithms to those of [1] by running them on simulated data. We observe that our graphs are more faithful in the sense that the number of excess and missing edges is consistently smaller and it depends on the size and quality of the log. In other words, we show that our time interval approach permits reconstruction of more accurate workflow model graphs from a log.

The abilty to continuously revise business practices is essential to organizations aiming at reducing their costs and increasing their revenues. Rapid and continuous changes to business processes result in less control over the executed activities. As a result, the ability of process designers to produce solid, well-validated work ‡ow models is limited. Work ‡ow management systems (WfMSs), serving as the main vehicle of business process execution, should recognize these risks and become more dynamic to allow the required business ‡exibility. In this paper, we propose a dynamic mechanism that allows backtracking and forward stepping at an instance level. This mechanism analyzes the feasibility of applying certain modi…cations to running instances and provides an e¢ cient algorithm that avoids redundant operation activation. We believe that this mechanism can bolster the ability of a business process management system to deal with unexpected situations and to resolve, in runtime, scenarios in which such resolution both is called for and does not violate any business process constraints. Throughout this paper, we use the paradigm of Web services to demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed mechanism.