Detecting and Repairing Data-Flow Errors in WFD-net Systems

Abstract

Workflow system has become a standard solution for managing a complex business process. How to guarantee its correctness is a key requirement. Many methods only focus on the control-flow verification, while they neglect the modeling and checking of data-flows. Although some studies are presented to repair the data-flow errors, they do not consider the effect of delete operations or weak circulation relations on the repairing results. What's more, repairing some data-flow errors may bring in new errors. In order to solve these problems, we use workflow net with data (WFD-net) systems to model and analyze a workflow system. Based on weak behavioral relations and order relations in a WFD-net system, we formalize four kinds of data-flow errors. After then, we reveal the relations between these errors and organize them into a hierarchy. Furthermore, we propose some new methods to repair data-flow errors in a WFD-net system based on system requirements and repair strategies. Finally, a case study of campus-card recharging shows the applicability of our methods, and a group of experiments show their advantages and effectiveness.