Workflow scheduling system
AssigneeBritish Telecommunications public limited company
InventorYang Li
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A workflow scheduling system arranged to provide a workflow to a user who has requested work to be implemented comprises means to generate a workflow comprising an a set of actions and a logical dependency between the actions; means to allocate a resource capacity to each action; and means to assign of one or more of said resources forming the resource capacity to a task comprising one or more of said actions. The system is arranged to enable a user to add one or more constraints dynamically to the workflow scheduling system without the need for the workflow scheduler to be recompiled to apply a constraint to the resources allocated to one or more tasks.
Claims29
A workflow scheduling system arranged to provide a workflow to a user who has requested work to be implemented, the system comprising:
- means to generate a workflow comprising a set of actions and a logical dependency between the actions;
- means to allocate a resource capacity to each action;
- means to assign of one or more of said resources forming the resource capacity to a task comprising one or more of said actions,
- wherein the system is arranged to enable a user to add one or more constraints dynamically to the workflow scheduling system without the need for the workflow scheduler to be recompiled to apply said one or more constraints to the resources allocated to said one or more tasks.
A method of scheduling a workflow generated in response to a user generating a request for work, the workflow comprising a plurality of tasks each of which must be implemented to fulfil the request for work, the method comprising:
- receiving a user initiated request for work;
- receiving input from the user comprising one or more initial constraints on a schedule for fulfilling the request for work;
- generating a workflow to fulfil said request for work;
- processing said one or more initial constraints inputted by the user;
- generating one or more proposed schedules for the workflow, the schedules complying with said one or more global constraints;
- communicating information relating to said one or more proposed schedules to the user;
- receiving one or more additional constraints from the user for a schedule to implement the proposed workflow;
- processing said additional constraints inputted by the user to generate one or more revised schedules for the proposed workflow which comply with said one or more additional constraints;
- selecting one of said revised proposed workflows according to a set of one or more optimisation rules;
- and
- communicating said selected revised proposed workflow to the user.
A workflow scheduling system arranged to schedule a workflow generated in response to a user generating a request for work, the workflow comprising a plurality of tasks each of which must be implemented to fulfil the request for work, the apparatus comprising:
- means to receive a user initiated request for work;
- means to receive input from the user comprising one or more initial constraints on a schedule for fulfilling the request for work;
- means to generate a workflow to fulfil said request for work;
- means to process said one or more initial constraints inputted by the user;
- means to generate one or more proposed schedules for the workflow, the schedules complying with said one or more global constraints;
- means to communicate information relating to said one or more proposed schedules to the user;
- means to receive one or more additional constraints from the user for a schedule to implement the proposed workflow;
- means to process said additional constraints inputted by the user to generate one or more revised schedules for the proposed workflow which comply with said one or more additional constraints;
- means to select one of said revised proposed workflows according to a set of one or more optimisation rules;
- and
- means to communicate said selected revised proposed workflow to the user.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.