[Zope-PTK] Member Publishing

Shane Hathaway shane@digicool.com
Wed, 13 Dec 2000 10:03:06 -0500


albert boulanger wrote:
> Might be useful to take a look at the WfMC's reference model when
> thinking about workflow design. I put a graphic of it at:
> 
> http://www.zope.org/Members/aboulang/

Thank you for posting this.  I am posting my brief evaluation, perhaps
you see it differently.

As I see it, Zope's infrastructure (ZODB and ZPublisher in particular)
changes the diagram in subtle, important ways.

- The workflow manager is ZPublisher itself.

- Workflow relevant data is implicit to the ZODB objects.

- Work items are persistent.

- The process definition and organizational mode are contained in and
managed by the portal_workflow object.

- Process instances are also persistent.

- The history is stored in the workflow status.

In fact, Zope turns the diagram inside out, making the internal objects
externally visible and much easier to write.  Users (participants) don't
interact with the application, worklist handler, or tool agent.  They
interact with the work items and process instances themselves.  So some
of the concepts on the diagram are unnecessary for Zope.

Shane