Defining Instance Spanning Constraint Patterns for Business Processes Based on Proclets

Instance Spanning Constraints (ISC) establish controls across multiple instances of one or several business process types. Consider, e.g., medical treatments during which drug-drug interactions might occur. Different treatments are likely to be modeled in separate processes, but yet have to be coordinated in order to avoid harm for patients. ISC typically stem from regulatory documents and must be integrated into business processes. In order to facilitate ISC integration, we provide six ISC patterns which are based on a real-world ISC collection as well as a categorization of ISC. The presented ISC patterns are formalized using Proclets based on timed colored workflow nets. This formalization choice results from an elaborated requirements analysis and enables the synchronization of instances of one or several process types while employing well-known process modeling approaches. The ISC patterns are evaluated through their application to i) selected business processes and ii) existing approaches for batching and security in business processes.