A time management method in workflow management system

Time management is an important function of workflow management systems. The corresponding issues include calculating the execution time of a process, identifying the critical path of a workflow process, scheduling the execution of workflow process and avoiding the violation of time constraints such as deadline violations, time distance violations, fixed date constraints violations and time difference constraints violations. This paper presents six time constraints that can be captured in the workflow definition. The method for identifying the critical path of a workflow process with the six time constraints is proposed accordingly. With the time management the workflow designers, executors and managers can work more efficiently during the workflow modeling or running. The workflow model with six time constraints and the time management method have been implemented in our prototype workflow management system named Cimflow.