YAWL: yet another workflow language

By Wil M.P. van der Aalst, A. T. Hofstede. Information Systems, 2005

1,613 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Based on a rigorous analysis of existing workflow management systems and workflow languages, a new workflow language is proposed: yet another workflow language (YAWL). To identify the differences between the various languages, we have collected a fairly complete set of workflow patterns. Based on these patterns we have evaluated several workflow products and detected considerable differences in their ability to capture control flows for non-trivial workflow processes. Languages based on Petri nets perform better when it comes to state-based workflow patterns. However, some patterns (e.g. involving multiple instances, complex synchronisations or non-local withdrawals) are not easy to map onto (high-level) Petri nets. This inspired us to develop a new language by taking Petri nets as a starting point and adding mechanisms to allow for a more direct and intuitive support of the workflow patterns identified. This paper motivates the need for such a language, specifies the semantics of the language, and shows that soundness can be verified in a compositional way. Although YAWL is intended as a complete workflow language, the focus of this paper is limited to the control-flow perspective.

Subfields: Computational Theory and Mathematics, Information Systems, Management Information Systems

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/28d4f8deb2db7a1d8b95584854b4234b89c2277c

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Citations in the corpus

Opportunities and constraints: the current struggle with BPMN (2010, methodology): “These Page 4/23 techniques are typically used for process analysis (Verbeek et al., 2007) or process execution (van der Aalst and ter Hofstede, 2005), and can also facilitate simulation or experimentation with process scenarios (Hansen, 1996).”
A Taxonomy of Workflow Management Systems for Grid Computing (2005, methodology): “Within ICENI, the workflow model is similar to that of the YAWL (Yet Another Workflow Language) [4], although simplified in certain respects.”
Change patterns and change support features - Enhancing flexibility in process-aware information systems (2008, methodology): “In terms of academic approaches our evaluation includes (in alphabetical order) ADEPT2 [11,39], CAKE2 [30,40], CBRFlow [41,42], HOON [17], MOVE [18], Pockets of Flexibility (PoF) [16,43,44], WASA2 [13], WIDE [45,46], Worklets/Exlets [12,47,48], and YAWL [49].”
Design and Implementation of the YAWL System (2004, methodology): “We consider the current version of YAWL as a proof of concept for the language introduced in [8].”
Business Process Management: A Survey (2003, methodology): “This observation has led to the development of YAWL [8] (Yet Another Workflow Language) of which the formal semantics is specified as a transition system.”
Mining process models with non-free-choice constructs (2007, methodology): “toolset [51] or YAWL models that can be enacted by the YAWL workflow engine [6].”
Enabling Flexibility in Process-Aware Information Systems (2012, background): “, Workflow Nets [2], YAWL [22], or FunSoft Nets [73]) are based on token flows known from Petri Nets, other approaches like WSM Nets [272] or Activity Nets [178] explicitly mark skipped branches and preserve markings of completed or skipped activities when progressing with the flow of control.”
Process Flexibility: A Survey of Contemporary Approaches (2008, neutral): “2b) [1, 5, 4], FLOWer (version 3.”