Delegation Pattern in Workflow System

Abstract

The best practices in workflow techniques might be constructed as workflow patterns. Van der Aalst and Russel categorized and discussed workflow patterns about several perspectives such as control flow, data, resources and exception handling. Delegation behavior is an important issue in modern workflow system. Although Russel described “resource delegation pattern” in his work, more patterns about delegation need be studied. In this paper, we present eleven basic and seven advanced delegation patterns extracted from current delegation mechanisms in RBAC and workflow systems. All the patterns are clarified with examples; on the other hand, the issues along with the patterns such as restrictions, the delegation operation adopted, etc. are also discussed.