Xerox Corporation

Paul Dourish

Richard M Bentley

Rachel Jones

Allan MacLean

Alex Zbyslaw

Allan McLean

James Holmes

Process descriptions are formulated in a process management system to describe the flow of work and organizational responsibility in the performance of organizational processes. The process descriptions, which are formulated, are defined by a plurality of tasks that are interrelated by process dependencies. The tasks are executed and completed in an order specified by the process dependencies. A task is completed when the person responsible for completing the task prepares a task document. To record context to aid others in interpreting the completed task documents resources used to complete the task are recorded either manually or automatically. The recorded resources are identified with links in the metadata of the task document. Using the metadata of the task document, the process description provides an index into the history of the task document. Using process descriptions, the process management system is able to organize task documents created for each completed task in a manner that is convenient for retrieval by others who have yet executed a task in the process description.

Process management system wherein process descriptions provide indices to document histories

A document management system is adapted to operate with a process management system for recording and viewing metadata of a document. The document metadata is used to record resources referenced while the content of the document is developed. The resources are recorded in the document metadata to identify relationships between the resources and the content of the document. The document content includes links that reference the document metadata stored on a remote server. The resources recorded in the document metadata and the content of the document are simultaneously displayed on a user interface of the document management system to provide context for understanding document history. By storing document metadata and document content separately, the metadata of the document remains consistent even when multiple copies of the document are distributed over a network.

Document management system for recording and viewing the history of document use

A method supporting work processes involving activities such as generation, alteration and authentication of documents. For each activity, the relationship between that activity and each other activity is defined in terms of at least one dependency from a plurality of dependencies. Each activity has a plurality of possible independent user and system states, for example three for the user states and three for the system states. The independence of the user and system states improves flexibility by introducing a mechanism to support reasoning over the process flow, so that discrepancies can be used to maintain a record of any mismatch.

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Paul Dourish