[Zope] cmf's suitability for complex, customised workflows

[Dieter Maurer]

Raja Subramanian wrote at 2004-8-18 06:57 +1000:
>I've had a look at CMF and from what I can tell, it seems to be very
>useful in designing workflows for web portal sites like in Plone.
>But I fear that I'm looking for something more than web publishing.

"DCWorkflow" (the advanced Workflow engine for CMF/Plone)
has as essential restriction: it is good only for document centric
workflows:
 
   If all operations are on a single document, then DCWorkflow
   will probably be a good base.

   If the operations affect many documents, then your workflow
   is rather task based (than document based).
   Then "OpenFlow" is a better alternative.

>My workflow involves -
>  1. receiving input articles (MS Word docs, text, etc) through ftp

This is not directly handled by DCWorkflow -- but CMF can do it
(and hook into the workflow).

>  2. some 14 stages of processing using various Win32/Mac apps

could be implemented by "workflow scripts"

>  3. each processing stage done by dedicated well defined teams

possible

>  4. extensive report generation and activity logs

DCWorkflow provides a history.
You can customize what the history contains (all "variables
stored in 'status'")


>  5. hold associated meta information (emails, other tidbits) with
>     every article

possible via "variables stored in 'status'".

>The output of one stage has to flow into the next.  Task queueing,
>prioritising, etc are essential for intelligent workflow scheduling.

You will probably need to work here a bit...
The DCWorkflow "Worklists" are simple catalog queries: no sorting
(aka prioritizing). But, you can instead use your own catalog queries
and sort as needed.

>I don't find these features in Openflow/DCWorkflow/etc so I think I'm
>better off developing a customised zope product to suit my requirements.

If you like....

But you can build on top of the existing infrastructure...

>Is it easy to customise CMF to suit arbitrary workflows such as mine?

I have the feeling that DCWorkflow covers almost all of your
requirements...

>Will I have any advantages if I build my Zope product using CMF over
>vanilla Zope?

The CMF contains many tools that facilitate applications development
considerably (once you have understood them).
We especially like the SkinsTool, the ActionTool and the WorkflowTool
(with "DCWorkflow" workflow definitions).

-- 
Dieter