Integrating information extraction into workflow management systems

Abstract

Workflow management systems (WFMS) provide solutions for office process organization by utilizing corporate databases and coupling them with business processes. However, they are lacking mechanisms for an automatic integration of informal process information. A bridge for this gap may be offered by information extraction systems which find relevant chunks of information nested in large texts. We describe an approach for the textual analysis of informal paper documents and the automatic paper integration into a WFMS. A synergetic effect is achieved because information extraction profits from additional data provided by the WFMS and vice versa.