Questionnaire-based variability modeling for system configuration

Rosa, Marcello La; Aalst, Wil M. P. van der; Dumas, Marlon; Hofstede, Arthur H. M. ter

doi:10.1007/s10270-008-0090-3

Cited by 121 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…However, more research is needed to understand how to best present the configuration guidelines to end-users (see e.g. our earlier work on questionnairebased variability modeling [25]). Second, one could consider configuration at run-time, that is, while instances are running, configurations can be set or modified.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In [24,25,27] it is shown how domain constraints can be transformed into such formulae. The anti-patterns and formalization of WFD-nets in [34] also indicate how CRUD-like constraints can be incorporated, i.e., data-flow dependencies can be extracted from a configurable model also covering create, read, update, and delete operations.…”

Section: Dealing With Domain Knowledge and Data Dependenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Ensuring correctness during process configuration via partner synthesis

Aalst

Lohmann

Rosa

2012

Information Systems

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Variants of the same process can be encountered within one organization or across different organizations. For example, different municipalities, courts, and rental agencies all need to support highly similar processes. In fact, procurement and sales processes can be found in almost any organization. However, despite these similarities, there is also the need to allow for local variations in a controlled manner. Therefore, many academics and practitioners have advocated the use of configurable process models (sometimes referred to as reference models). A configurable process model describes a family of similar process models in a given domain. Such a model can be configured to obtain a specific process model that is subsequently used to handle individual cases, for instance, to process customer orders. Process configuration is notoriously difficult as there may be all kinds of interdependencies between configuration decisions. In fact, an incorrect configuration may lead to behavioral issues such as deadlocks and livelocks. To address this problem, we present a novel verification approach inspired by the "operating guidelines" used for partner synthesis. We view the configuration process as an external service, and compute a characterization of all such services which meet particular requirements via the notion of configuration guideline. As a result, we can characterize all feasible configurations (i. e., configurations without behavioral problems) at design time, instead of repeatedly checking each individual configuration while configuring a process model.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Dealing With Domain Knowledge and Data Dependenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ensuring correctness during process configuration via partner synthesis

Aalst

Lohmann

Rosa

2012

Information Systems

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While the usage of questionnaires is not new [12,13], existing works require that analysts manually create the questionnaires, unlike the current proposal. In addition, such a configuration is done at configuration time (i.e., before process execution starts), and hence, unlike the current proposal and other proposals as aspect-oriented approaches [6], premature decisions may unnecessarily be taken.…”

Section: Fig 1 Current Contribution Vs Existing Proposalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Answer Questionnaire Models: Questionnaire models [13] are typically created by the analysts to support the user during the configuration (i.e., individualization) of the CBP models. The main benefits of using them are: (1) they guide the user in such a way that choices are presented in a proper order and (2) they avoid invalid configurations which may lead to errors.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main benefits of using them are: (1) they guide the user in such a way that choices are presented in a proper order and (2) they avoid invalid configurations which may lead to errors. Typically, questionnaires are manually created by an analyst whereby each question is related to boolean facts which are associated to configuration actions [13]. Each time a question is answered, an action which configures a part of the CBP model is fired.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Automatic Generation of Questionnaires for Supporting Users during the Execution of Declarative Business Process Models

Ramirez

Barba

Weber

et al. 2014

Business Information Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. When designing an imperative business process (BP) model, analysts have to face many design requirements (e.g., managing uncertainty, optimizing conflicting objective functions). To facilitate such design, declarative BP models are increasingly used. However, how to execute a given declarative model can be quite challenging since there are typically several variants related to such model, each one presenting different degree of goodness. To support users working on declarative models while a high flexibility is maintained, we propose removing the worst variants from the source declarative model at design time while keeping the best variants. This way, the variants which are kept are narrowed down incrementally during run-time. For managing these variants during run-time we suggest to build upon configurable BP models. To configure such models, we additionally propose to automatically generate questionnaires. The results over a real case study are promising.

show abstract

Configuring Process Variants Through Semantic Reasoning in Systems Engineering

Detro¹,

Portela²,

Rocha³

et al. 2017

INSIGHT

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When dealing with processes, engineering systems need to be able to deal with the existence of many versions of the same process, known as variants. Each process variant aims to represent a specific business context but, due to some differences in the activities, resources, and control flow, they may differ in their logic. As result, the concept of a customizable process model has emerged. A process model can be customized by representing the process family in one single model deriving a variant through transformations in this single model. However, the process customization is not a trivial‐task. It must be ensured that the variant is correct. Besides, the resulting variant must respect all requirements related to the application context and internal and external regulations, among others. In addition, recommendations and guidance should be provided during the customization. In this context, this research aims to propose a framework for customizing variants according to the user's requirements. The customization is achieved by reasoning in an ontology based on the rules for selecting a variant, in the internal/external regulations, and on expert knowledge.

show abstract

Questionnaire-based variability modeling for system configuration

Cited by 121 publications

References 25 publications

Ensuring correctness during process configuration via partner synthesis

Ensuring correctness during process configuration via partner synthesis

Automatic Generation of Questionnaires for Supporting Users during the Execution of Declarative Business Process Models

Configuring Process Variants Through Semantic Reasoning in Systems Engineering

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About