NavigationPlanTool (NPTool)

The NavigationPlanTool (NPTool) is a library that offers mechanisms for the representation and execution control of business processes supported by a process algebra formalism.
NPTool uses the Navigation Plan Definition Language (NPDL) and a relational database to specify business processes and to control their instantiations and executions. NPTool implements NPDL as an extension of SQL; this implementation allows an easy integration with traditional information systems, which generally already have mechanisms that facilitate the access to RDBMSs.
The storage of the processes data in a relational database adds scalability to the execution control provided by NPTool. Moreover, the processes definitions can be reused in different applications.

NPTool provides methods for storing actions and processes in a relational database and for controlling the instantiation and execution of these processes. The tool offers operations like creation/removal of instances and services for monitoring the navigation plan execution. These services are also responsible for storing logs of the execution of navigation plans in the database and for recovering executions that have been interrupted before completion.
NPTool is composed of three services:

• NPDL Interpreter : receives an input command and makes the lexical, syntactic and semantical analysis.
  There are two possible situations:
  (1) the command is a NPDL valid command, and
  (2) the command is not a NPDL valid command.
  In the former case, the interpreter will translate the command to pure SQL commands before the submission to the RDBMS. In the latter case, the command will be directly passed to the RDBMS.
  The translated SQL commands will be executed over a relational database environment whose tables are created by the interpreter to store processes, actions and instances data;
• Process Instantiation Service : provides functions for creating process instances.
  A process instance represents a request to a specific process. All the instance data, as well as process definition data associated with the instance, are stored in a database;
• Process Instance Execution Monitor : is responsible for linking a process instance to its execution data (navigation plan). This service contains the functions that control the execution of the navigation plan of a process instance.

For instructions to use the tool, please see the NPTool User's Guide.

Binary Files

• October, 2008 - nptool_09_10_2008.jar (NPTool)
  

Documents

• NPTool User's Guide (in portuguese)
• The Navigation Plan Definition Language (NPDL) Syntax

Publications about NPDL and NPTool:

• NPTool: Towards Scalability and Reliability of Business Process Management.
  BRAGHETTO, K. R., FERREIRA, J. E., PU, C.
  e-Business and Telecommunications, Communications in Computer and Information Science, Volume 48, 2009, pages 99 - 112. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
• Business Processes Management Using Process Algebra and Relational Database Model.
  BRAGHETTO, K. R., FERREIRA, J. E., PU, C.
  In Proceedings of the International Conference in e-Business (ICE-B), Porto, Portugal, July, 2008, pages 223 - 233. INSTICC Press.
• Using Process Algebra to Control the Execution of Business Processes.
  BRAGHETTO, K. R., FERREIRA, J. E., PU, C.
  In Proceedings of 23rd Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, Fortaleza, Brazil, March, 2008, pages 128 - 129. ACM.
• Using Control-Flow Patterns for Specifying Business Processes in Cooperative Environments.
  BRAGHETTO, K. R., FERREIRA, J. E., and PU, C.
  In Proceedings of 22rd Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, Seoul, Korea, March, 2007, pages 1234 - 1241.ACM.
• NavigationPlanTool: Uma Ferramenta para o Controle de Processos no Modelo de Dados Relacional.
  BRAGHETTO, K. R., TAKAI, O. K., FERREIRA, J. E., and PU, C.
  In 2ª Sessão de Demos do 20º Simpósio Brasileiro de Banco de Dados (SBBD 2005), Uberlândia, Brazil, October, 2005, pages 43 - 48.