Hitachi, Ltd.

Hiroshi Majima

Tetsuji Toge

Kazuhiro Suga

Shunsuke Akifuji

Kazuyasu Tsuiki

Hisashi Ono

Hiroshi Tsuji

Takashi Horiuchi

Takashi Saito

Yuichi Mori

Kenichi Aoshima

Ariko Kawasaki

Yoshiaki Hattori

Ryoichi Shibuya

An electronic document circulating system utilizing a network, to attain simplification of the operation procedure by a transmitting person and facilitation of the temporary circulation of a document, a circulation control unit circulates the circular document indicated by document management information stored in a document management information store unit based on circulation control information indicative of a circular route of the circular document stored in a circulation control information store unit and role definition information for relating a plurality of users to a role shared among equal users stored in a role definition information store unit. The circular document is transmitted to a user selected based on a predetermined criterion, of users in the role designated by the transmitting person. When the document is transmitted for consultation, temporary circulation control information is set and the exact document is returned.

Electronic document circulating system

A work management method and system which manage a project executed by individuals or groups belonging to an organization. In response to a phase transition request from a task management unit, a workflow management unit performs transition and activation of a business phase included in a process definition, sets a work in work management table, and issues a task addition request. In response to an event addition request or a deletion request, an event management unit adds or deletes events to or from an event queue, monitors an occurrence of the event and, when the event occurs, sends a task status transition request to the task management unit. In response to the task addition request, the task management unit sets a task name and a task status name in the work management table, generates the event associated with the task name, issues the event addition request. In response to the task status transition request described above, the task management unit sets the task status name, such as &ldquo;execute&rdquo; or &ldquo;complete&rdquo;, in a task status column according to the type of the event. When the event type is &ldquo;execute&rdquo;, the task management unit generates the event and issues the event addition request; when the event type is &ldquo;complete&rdquo;, the unit issues a request to delete the generated event. When the task status values of all tasks, including the task that has completed, of the business phase are &ldquo;complete&rdquo;, the task management unit issues the phase transition request.

Project work management method and system

A digitized document circulating system includes a unit provided in a transmission source of a digitized document and for sending the digitized document, a unit for delivering the digitized document to a transmission destination to thereby circulate the digitized document, a unit provided in the transmission destination and for receiving the digitized document, a unit operated by the delivery unit and for obtaining a circulation history containing delivery time, an identifier of the digitized document, the transmission source and the transmission destination, a unit for reading the circulation history and transferring the circulation history to a requester in response to a request for the circulation history issued from the requester, and a unit for displaying the circulation history received.

Digitized document circulating system with circulation history

A work flow management system has circulation control functions for carrying out branching, queuing, dividing, broadcasting, recovering, holding and substitute of a circulation material in the work flow system that carries out at automatic sequential circulation of electronic information. Thus, a work requiring a complex circulation control can be done by an electronic system. The work flow management system includes a circulation material sending and receiving unit which has functions of entering, sending, receiving, referencing and updating a circulation material for the users who are the subscribers of the work flow system, the circulation material defining unit which defines a circulation destination and the circulation control for the users who manage the work flow, and the circulation material control unit which circulates a circulation material in accordance with circulation definitions defined by the circulation material defining unit.

Work flow management system

In an electronic document circulating system utilizing a network, in order to attain simplification of the operation procedure by a transmitting person and facilitation of the temporary circulation of a document, a circulation control unit circulates the circular document indicated by document management information stored in a document management information store unit on the basis of circulation control information indicative of a circular route of the circular document stored in a circulation control information store unit and role definition information for relating a plurality of users to a role shared among equal users stored in a role definition information store unit. In the circulation, the circular document is transmitted to a user selected by the system on the basis of a predetermined criterion, of users in the role designated by the transmitting person. When the document is transmitted temporarily for consultation, temporary circulation control information is set and the document is returned to a consulting user exactly.

A work flow management system has circulation control functions for carrying out branching, queuing, dividing, broadcasting, recovering, holding and substitute of a circulation material in the work flow system that carries out an automatic sequential circulation of electronic information. Thus, a work requiring a complex circulation control can be done by an electronic system. The work flow management system includes a circulation material sending and receiving unit which has functions of entering, sending, receiving, referencing and updating a circulation material for the users who are the subscribers of the work flow system, the circulation material defining unit which defines a circulation destination and the circulation control for the users who manage the work flow, and the circulation material control unit which circulates a circulation material in accordance with circulation definitions defined by the circulation material defining unit.

A workflow system comprising a plurality of workflow subsystems connected to a LAN (Local Area Network), these workflow subsystems being composed of servers and clients, and provides a workflow system which permits an integrated management of the definitions of the business processes placed under decentralized management, through the server managing shipping documents, BPs (Business Processes) describing shipping routes of shipping documents in the subsystem, and business process connection data to connect the BPs.

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Yokohama, Japan

Hiroshi Majima