Introduction

Hi, this blog will be dedicated to the 'NGinn' workflow engine. Here I will document its functionality and the development process. You can find nginn at http://code.google.com/p/nginn.

You can wonder why someone would create a workflow engine for .Net if there is one freely available from Microsoft and built in .Net - Windows Workflow Foundation. My opinion is that WF does not provide the functionality expected from a business process engine. First of all, WF is low level, that is provides basic constructs that could be used to build workflow engine but are not very useful for modelling business processes. WF looks like a set of components useful for programmers (actually it looks like a graphical representation of some procedural code) and developers probably are happy with it. However, business process analysts would find it difficult to program directly in WF. Secondly, WF does not provide process description standard - programmers are free to model process logic and process data as they want, there is no standard process representation. This limits the portability of process definitions and makes it difficult to integrate different applications and processes.

NGinn will focus on providing more standard and restrictive process description language in order to enhance portability, and at the same time it will offer higher-level process building blocks that can be understood and used by business analysts. NGinn will also include additional components needed for running business processes:

• Resource management - so the information about people and organizational structure can be accessed and used in process definitions
• Embeddable and standalone process execution engine
• GUI for end users (a 'proof of concept' worklist application)
• Integration and communication components (email notifications, web service calls, etc)

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