WebRatio BPM: A Tool for Designing and Deploying Business Processes on the Web

This paper presents WebRatio BPM, an Eclipse-based tool that supports the design and deployment of business processes as Web applications. The tool applies Model Driven Engineering techniques to complex, multi-actor business processes, mixing tasks executed by humans and by machines, and produces a Web application running prototype that implements the specified process. Business processes are described through the standard BPMN notation, extended with information on task assignment, escalation policies, activity semantics, and typed dataflows, to enable a two-step generative approach: first the Process Model is automatically transformed into a Web Application Model in the WebML notation, which seamlessly expresses both human- and machine-executable tasks; secondly, the Application Model is fed to an automatic transformation capable of producing the running code. The tool provides various features that increase the productivity and the quality of the resulting application: one-click generation of a running prototype of the process from the BPMN model; fine-grained refinement of the resulting application; support of continuous evolution of the application design after requirements changes (both at business process and at application levels).