Best Online Examples of Workflow Patterns? 82
g8orade writes "In his bestselling book, The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman lists workflow management software in the top 5 Flatteners. During my work for a shipping startup, I have analyzed our software's many UI weaknesses, particularly related to workflow management, and am currently searching for the best online examples of various UI application patterns / widgets that address managing transaction flows. What are the best examples you know of that are commonly viewable on the web?"
"Our software UI is Oracle (9i) Forms compiled to run with Java, through the web. We're using RT for our internal ticket tracking and it has many of the features listed. Also, we're evaluating several commercial document management systems as bolt-ons or companions to our in-house application. Here are some patterns we'd like to improve:
- Queue with count beside it. Example: 'Unshipped orders (5)'
- Screen for UI building of a search and ability to save the search as a queue
- List of queues showing all transaction counts and their various states
- Transaction list / table screen (should have an many possible features as a standard spreadsheet: pick your columns, column order, sort order, clickable column headings, export to various formats, print view, etc.)
- Detail view screen (one transaction, may include too many fields to display at once, requiring tabs, scrolling up and down, left to right, etc., should have a good printable view)
- Contact database built-in or connection to one from another system
- Auto messaging of various statuses to contacts and lists of contacts, above
- Full web accessibility and security model to allow our suppliers and clients access to their own queues for 'pull queries', in addition to what we email them.
- Ability to create a list of values for a field, then incorporate that into the query for a queue.
- Journal of a transaction
- Screen showing progression of a transaction
- Screen showing Parent / child parts of a transaction"
Link for Pattern Language (Score:4, Informative)
The correct link is http://www.patternlanguage.com/ [patternlanguage.com]
Re:Link for Pattern Language (Score:1)
Re:Link for Pattern Language (Score:2)
http://www.patternlanguage.com.nyud.net:8090/ [nyud.net]
Re:Why don't you DO YOUR JOB? (Score:1)
Re:Why don't you DO YOUR JOB? (Score:4, Insightful)
I, for one, do not welcome our lazy, buck-passing overlords.
Re:Why don't you DO YOUR JOB? (Score:1, Flamebait)
But Boo-osssss, I asked really smart people and they didn't have the answer...
Re:Why don't you DO YOUR JOB? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why don't you DO YOUR JOB? (Score:4, Insightful)
It happens to be (about to be) my job too, so you can accuse me of self interest too. But hey - interesting discussion. Better than some halfarsed regurgitated press release, eh?
Dave
Re:Friedman and followers don't get it ... (Score:2)
But, even if it was cheap energy, rising prices would only slow down globalization, not stop it. Rising oil prices in a market-driven global economy would only result in more dollars available for R&D into energy alter
Why patterns? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why patterns? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why patterns? (Score:4, Funny)
Nixon's Law states that:
Any discussion of resonable length on the Internet will eventually devolve into a discussion about Google.
C'mon man. It's just a search engine. They've managed to index a whole lot of content and it *is* quite useful, but it's still a search engine - I'm not quite convinced that Google is the second coming, or even the cure for cancer.
It's amazing how the flavour of the moment is always the solution to all our problems - but if history serves, Google will be an important and perhaps integral part of our future society and economy - but it will not be the universal solution that we seem to think it will be.
Re:Why patterns? (Score:1)
Re:Why patterns? (Score:1)
Re:Why patterns? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why patterns? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find them useful for communication. If my design is similar to a pattern (most patterns are only part of any solution) then I can use the name of the pattern to describe my design more quickly. Often, because a pattern will include several distinct elements, I am able to convey several nuances of a particular design with only one or two words.
Explaining a design in terms of patterns is also a cool way of mentoring junior developers. You can back them out of the details of "this problem" and take a look at the more general situation, what the pattern suggests, and then go back to "this problem" and see how it fits in. Often you'll be able to elicit multiple "a-ha!'s" from the junior.
Back to your point, I find that the best pattern authors understand that they must strike a useful balance between generality and specificity. You still have to design the solution, but the top-level "how the heck do I get started here" is what's described by the pattern. Fowler tends to be better than the GoF at this particular skill.
Of course, getting the most utility out of patterns absolutely requires that you are an experienced designer (or are working with one). This means applying all of the classic design skills, including patterns, as appropriate to solve the problem (and that may mean no use of patterns for a particular problem).
Regards,
Ross
Re:Why patterns? (Score:1)
There is a huge body of knowledge in HCI / UI Design gained from research as well as practical experience of innumerable designers, but this is only effective if novice (and oth
YAWL (Score:5, Informative)
Re:YAWL (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
I get the weird feeling that you're trying to solve your problems by throwing more processes, tools, and abstract concepts to the mix.
Just learn about use cases, flow charts, and screen mock-ups and your world will be simple and happy.
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Open Source Solution (Score:4, Informative)
OfBiz (Score:4, Informative)
A Beowulf Cluster... (Score:1, Redundant)
Impressive.
Agreeing with afformentioned posts... (Score:4, Informative)
Examples (Score:5, Funny)
Classic MVC with Observer (Score:1)
Best Practice (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone out there read The World is Flat? (Score:1)
Re:Anyone out there read The World is Flat? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Anyone out there read The World is Flat? (Score:2)
That's a review ? So Friedman might mix his metaphors, but he's not writing poetry. Nowhere in the review does the critic get to grips with the rights and worngs of the ideas being presented. For example, I have problems with the unending optimism of the book - According to Friedman, globalisation is goodness. Not some of the time, not most of the time, but ALL of the time (I'll
Re:Anyone out there read The World is Flat? (Score:2)
Re:Anyone out there read The World is Flat? (Score:1)
Friedman Says "workflow" But Means "Web Apps" (Score:1, Insightful)
Read the book, AssHat! Friedman is NOT a developer and not even software savvy, so when he titles something "workflow", you have to read what he says, and what he says is "web apps".
Bad news is that every "Web 2.0" marketer is going to interpret Friedman's words in the most convenient way. Like the Far Side cartoon with two bears at the cave door fighting off humans: "Seems like there's more and more of these each year!"
If you want to get the best (Score:4, Interesting)
http://jef.raskincenter.org/home/ [raskincenter.org]
Including his work on the Humane Interface.
Re:If you want to get the best (Score:2)
Simple, clean, intuitive, easy to find stuff, and it actually looks nice
A far cry from the suckass website of that imposter Jakob Nielsen
I know useability and UI design aren't exactly the same thing (a great UI might not be easily useable by the disabled), but seriously, a website need not use the same layout and color scheme as those crazy mofo websites about alien abduction and the apocalypse
Re:If you want to get the best (Score:2)
Friedman? Are you a PHB? (Score:3, Informative)
Workflow Patterns Site (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Workflow Patterns Site (Score:2)
Of course, it does look like a "homework" assignment that any CS graduate can solve - especially with the first point in particular, which involves a simple database query (it is possible to cache the result, which is also considered trivial.)
It's not as lame as "Journal of a Transaction". That can be set up by the simplest of textbooks or manuals.
Workflow depends on ... (Score:1, Funny)
give me outside the contract.
One bottle
Two bottles
them out to dinner.
A bottle a day
week workflow
5 bottles of Sake and dinner each day
a regular 72 hr workflow in 5 days.
The key to a Samurai's heart is through the stomach.
Cheers!
BizFlow (Score:2)
From there, we (the users) can initiate a number of processes. An engineering "Test Order", for example, will require management/supervisor approval, finally requiring that an engineer submit a "Test Report", which also goes through an approval process, and so forth. If someone is on vacation, it gets re-routed to the responsible person. If an engineer bounces the
online workflows: thomas Malone (Score:1)