The Imixs WorkflowManager

The WorkflowManager is the uppermost layer of each workflow system based on the Imixs Workflow API. A WorkflwoManager provides basic methods to process a workitem, find a workitem or remove a workitem. A workitem is the process instance inside a Workflow Management System which is controlled by the WorkflowManager. The WorkflowManager acts as a controller to manage a process instance. An implementation of this interface typical provides also functionality to persist workitems into a database. See the WorkflowManager section for more detailed information.

The Imixs Workflow Model

A workflow model describes the process flow of a business process. The model interface provides methods to access a workflow model and navigate through the entities inside a model. Each model consists of a set of process entities and activity entities. A process entity defines the status of a process instance. In a graphical workflow model a process entity is typical represented by a node. An activity entity defines an action which can be performed on a workitem and also the next status of a Workitem after processing is finished by the WorkflowManager. In a graphical workflow model an activity entity is typical represented by an edge.

Each process entity and activity entity can store a set of informations to provide the WorkflowManager with additional processing introductions. These informations are not predefined by the Imixs Workflow API and can diversify depending on the implementation of a workflow management system. There are different ways a Model can be implemented by a Workflow Management System. The Imixs Workflow provides an eclipse based graphical editor to define workflow models.

The Imixs Workflow Plugins

Plugins are workflow components which are implementing a concrete behavior of a workflow management system. A Plugin is called by the WorkflowManager to process a workitem. A plugin can implement application specific functionality. They are reusable components in a Workflow Management System and typical used by the application developer to design the behavior of a business application. See the Plugin API section for more detailed information.

The Imixs WorkflowKernel

The WorkflowKernel implements the core functionality of the Imixs Workflow API. The WorkflowKernel can start a new process instance and control the status of a workitem processed by a workflow system. When a WorkItem is processed by the WorkflowManager, the WorkflowKernel control the status defined by the workflow model. The WorkflowKernel is a kind of statemachine inside the workflow management system. But the WorkflowKernel is also responsible to initialize and run the workflow plugins provided by a workflow system. The WorkflowKernel provides the execution environment for plugins. As an application developer you did not interact with the WorkflowKernel as this component is typical encapsulated by the Implementaion of a WorkflowManager. See the WorkflowKernel section for more detailed information.

The Imixs ItemCollection

The ItemCollection is the general Data Object used by the Imixs Workflow API. Each workitem processed by the Imixs Workflow is represented as an ItemCollection. But also all other entities like a process entity or an activity entity are represented as ItemCollections. An ItemColleciton is a kind of document with a set of attributes (Items). Each Item of an ItemCollectio has a name and a value. The value of an Item can be any java based data object which is serializeable. So the ItemCollection is a very flexible and easy to use generic value object. The ItemCollection provides methods which makes it easy to work with an ItemCollection creating or modify item values. See the Example page for more information about how to work with a ItemCollection.