[Zope-CMF] workflows what are they and how to use them

Ulrich Eck lists@net-labs.de
Thu, 26 Jul 2001 11:06:50 +0200


Hi Shane,

> > 
> > we are thinking about, how the concept of OpenFlow (wich has some very
> > interesting features in it -- or at least will ..) could fit into the CMF-Workflow
> > of today. OpenFlow is a Workflow-engine that doesn't depend on object's
> > states but it uses tokens to store the workflow-data and therefore it could
> > be used for workflows where more than one Object is involved .. doing such
> > a thing with DC-Workflow would be possible but imho not clean and
> > maintainable ..
> 
> Sometime I'm going to take the time to figure out OpenFlow, because the
> above statement seems completely backward to me.  Maintaining tokens as
> opposed to states seems unmaintainable.  We shall see. :-)
> 

I still cannot really figure out how to let one object be part of different workflows.
The only way I could figure out would be, to create new objects with new work-
flows that control/depend on other's object workflows .. but that would mean, that
I need to create content-like objects that are only there to enable another workflow
.. this is basically the same than using a token .. but a token would'nt be stored
in the Content-tree but in a tool which is more preferreable I think.

I still have now idea how to integrate, but like i suggested several times it might
be possible to build another tool (e.g. portal_tasks or activities .. or groupwork)
that reflects the companies processes not the one's that are bound to one object.
the tokens wil be stored in a container-tab for each process that is a btree so 
they're maintainable.
the actions tool needs to be extended to have actions for the processes as well.

the main problem i have is, that the CMF-Workflow is tightly integrated in the 
PortalContent-Objects .. the activity-based workflow cannot .. there must
be another way to offer the activities to the user .. but how :-)
another problem is .. how to define activities that use portal-content-objects 
and howto specify that .. 

looking forward for your comments

Ulrich Eck