Table Of ContentProgramming
Workflow Application s
with Domin o
Daniel Giblin and Richard Lam
First published 2000 by CMP Books
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To Chris & Claire.
DTG
For my father.
RBL
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Peter Fairweather for his encouragement, support,
and mentorship. Special thanks to Lei Kuang and Keith Grueneberg for
their exceptional Notes knowledge, and to Sherman Alpert, Cindy Conway,
and Dan Oblinger for sharing their Java experiences, and to Diane Melley
for her guidance and support. We would also like to thank Marsha Haug
for her valued contributions. Last, but not least, we recognize those people
who sacrificed the most during the preparation of this book: Chris and
Kathy.
V
vi Acknowledgments
Preface
Today's business climate is evolving at a rapid pace. The Internet has created
new channels for advertising and commerce. It has spawned new paradigms
for pricing and delivering products and services. Customers have access to
unprecedented amounts of information, and their content expectation levels
continue to rise. The result is that businesses must frequently reevaluate
their strategies, effect rapid changes in their business processes, and provide
timely knowledge and support to an increasingly savvy customer base.
To address these problems, many corporations and organizations have
turned to the Web for answers. Connectivity among businesses, suppliers,
and customers provides unique opportunities for cooperation and integra
tion. Unfortunately, much web development concentrates on disseminating
information through static web pages. Thus, the application of the web for
e-commerce, e-support, and e-workflow has been limited. However, the
concept of groupware has emerged as a powerful tool for reshaping busi
ness processes and customer interactions.
Lotus Notes/Domino™ is the industry leader in groupware technology.
Notes Designer, in conjunction with Notes/Domino server, allows develop
ment of web applications, not simply web pages. These applications not
only provide access to static web pages of information, they also handle
dynamic content, including email, calendaring, document sharing, etc.
When the workflow features for submission, routing, approval, and review
of Notes forms and documents are combined with the built-in access con
trol functionality of Notes databases, new models of web-based workflow
VÜ
viü Prefac e
applications become possible. Kathy Lam, senior IT strategy consultant for
IBM Global Services, uses the term "webflow" to describe this class of
applications.
This book provides an introduction to workflow application develop
ment using the Notes/Domino environment. Following an introduction to
the concepts of workflow, we discuss Notes features important to workflow
applications. This leads to the design and implementation of a framework
for a general workflow management system that can be reused in both exist
ing and new Domino applications. A case study follows the steps involved
in designing a workflow application, where the use of the workflow man
agement system is shown in action.
The book is accessible to all Notes developers with at least some practi
cal Notes design experience. A working knowledge of LotusScript or Java is
also essential to understand the Notes agent examples on which the work
flow engine components are based. We hope the discussions and examples
in this book better enable you to harness the power of Notes to create your
own sophisticated workflow applications.
This book serves two purposes. First, we describe the basic concepts of
workflow as it relates to business processes. We discuss the features and
benefits of Lotus Notes as an integrated development environment particu
larly suited for groupware and workflow application development. We also
define a notification scheme for use in simple scenarios in which a full-
fledged workflow process would be inappropriate.
Second, we present a complete workflow management system developed
within the Notes framework. The framework can be modified, extended,
and reused in a variety of workflow applications. We supply and annotate
the complete source code for the framework, and we illustrate its use
through an example case study.
After reading this book, you should understand the concepts necessary
for implementing workflow applications to handle various business pro
cesses. Also, you should be able to author your own significant Notes and
web-based workflow applications using this book's notification and work
flow management schemes.
Table of Content s
Acknowledgments v
Preface vii
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Chapter Contents 2
1.2 Workflow Diagrams 3
1.2.1 Deployment Diagrams 3
1.2.2 Activity Diagrams 4
1.2.3 State Diagrams 6
1.2.4 Class Diagrams 9
1.3 Environments, Languages, and Code 14
1.4 Summary 15
1.5 References 15
Chapter 2 Workflo w 1 7
2.1 Workflow — What is it? 19
2.1.1 Process 19
2.1.2 Why Should I Model? 21
2.1.3 How Do I Model a Process? 22
2.2 UML Models 26
ix
